Advice for Author I
Added 2021-02-28 19:19:03 +0000 UTCAsking for advice on moving forwards!
All advice is taken with a grain of salt while drinking a strawberry smoothie!
Comments
Smut stories are smut stories and non smut stories pretty much need to avoid smut entirely or else they become a smut story. After the transformation into a smut story there is no going back and first you lose the smut averse then you lose the smut seekers because nobody likes a smut story without enough smut... Probably best to avoid smut entirely. Maybe go with the "military briefing about a strip club" approach, keep it clinical and analytical and avoid anything graphic or feeling-y. Military opperations do involve such places from time to time so there is no need to avoid the topic of smut entirely, just avoid the actual smut. That is the best approach in my humble oppinion.
Adam Roundfield
2021-03-01 05:54:58 +0000 UTCI do not like that on mobile I cannot break it into paragraphs because the enter key posts the comment and I never noticed any other key I can use to break the wall.
Adam Roundfield
2021-03-01 05:38:09 +0000 UTCIn the interest of resisting the urge to write a big chunky wall here... Things I like include: Worldbuilding with a focus on functional things. OP MC who is genuinely OP but the source of said OP has been found by others. OP others are functional in the sense that being OP is its own cage, nobody wants the new guy to burn all their shit down but OPENLY fighting the new OP also means shit burning down, and Old Monsters being old, they have lots of shit to lose. I like the focus on institutional/military stuff and that reinforces the functionality of OP others wiith their own inevitable gilded cage secretish society. Psychology always leads in certain directions, the only exceptions would be those who modify their own minds and those are the ones that nobody with anything to lose will want around... OK that got a bit too tangential,keeping it simple reengaged... I like dark and twisted but in interesting ways, evil for the sake of evil is just Meh. I like the darknes to have excursions into the bright to remind us why we are motivated to continue fighting the dark but pacing those excursions to avoid cute fatigue is always tricky. I like gore and violence with the dark and twisted but again worldbuilding is key because violence for the sake of violence is also Meh. I like things that surprise me and that is increasing difficult because I read many stories and have a superb memory. I like that I felt motivated to write this much and had to actively restrain it from becoming even more of a wall...
Adam Roundfield
2021-03-01 05:29:20 +0000 UTCMakes sense.
Mr. Bigglesworth
2021-03-01 01:15:43 +0000 UTCAs a general rule when writing the tone you hit early on is what folks will come to expect from you. The tricky part is how to pre-chew your final tone and figure out a way to infuse it into your first half-dozen chapters or so. That is the promise you are laying out for your readers. Brandon Sanderson has a course on writing he teaches which talks a bit about the perils of subverting those expectations. Subversions of that promise can work: satire is a powerful tool after all, and works best if your audience doesn't at first realize that you are slowly subverting the genre to burn it down, but none of parody, pastiche or satire is served by going from zero to sexy succubus in one chapter flat. There was already a pretty sharp tonal difference between the initial "I'm going to make my way in another world and kill everything using my brother's advice" where it seemed this was going to head pretty grimdark to "I'm now going to make my way with fuzzy floofs and my brother's advice is fading and yeah that was totally intended all along and isn't just a nerf for an OP MC who now needs some challenges". Adding a second such total genre shift was a bit much.
Monadologist
2021-03-01 01:08:08 +0000 UTCIndeed. From the poll's current spread, I think the main story will stick with 0% smut and vague references only. I'll make side chapters smutty with proper anti-spoiler text, but they will be few and far between. Also, for those voting Time Skip, you have been heard!
Mr. Bigglesworth
2021-03-01 00:18:31 +0000 UTCWell there are so many other stories that delve into smutland and never seem to be the same afterwards. I'm hoping the author keeps away from that mess and just continues to write a solid xianxia progression story from the angle they started with. Which is pretty good BTW. For anyone else who wants smut its not like its hard to find on the internet. Good stories that keep going are though.
tibbish
2021-02-28 23:46:31 +0000 UTCBruh you can’t tease us with so much referenced sexuality and then NOT write at least a lemon or two
WalkingPark
2021-02-28 20:58:59 +0000 UTC
