All Comments on 'Bad Hobbit's Erotic Writing 101'

As someone who has been helping some other people edit lately, I feel this :) luckily most of the work I’ve read has been better at the start than some of the examples given.

Thank you. As an aspiring amateur author, I've spent many hours developing a story, only to realize that the idea is such a small part of the process. When I read some of the truly well-written stories on Lit, I'm always grateful to the authors for freely sharing their hard work and talent. This How To is bluntly helpful.

This is of good help for us english-as-a-second-language writers for many types of text.

Thanks for your time spent!!

I don't mean to nitpick, but you made a few goofs of your own. Notice that there was an error in the HTML and the bottom portion of page 2 is all part of the link to the punctuation rules in GrammarBook.com. (Or did you ask the moderator to do the HTML for you?) Maybe you already have submitted a corrected version. I know that takes time for approval, but it's been that way since November 4.

Also, all that extra white space - especially around the subtitles - seems unnecessary, Maybe that is a matter of taste. I still gave it a 4 for the content.

It's so noble of you to respond to all your contacts. That's extremely rare these days. I appreciate that gesture.

I didn't realize most Literotica editors do not respond to initial requests. I have only communicated with one. He took in my story for an editing session acknowledging he was an amateur editor. My work, he said, was not his usual 'fuck and suck' storyline editing. I took that to mean it was more 'refined' than most of his edits.

Kenjisato is his Literotica author's name. [A Canadian, it appears.] He seems quite good at editing - he told me he has not branched out to content and other writing aspects, as yet.

There is a lot to digest in your article. I have some visual acuity issues, so it's difficult to deal with those extremely long paragraphs. I thought a goodly number of those contained multiple ideas. If you do a re-edit, might I suggest you address breaking them into 'one paragraph' for each topic contained within them?

I try to remember my grammar from some sixty plus years ago in high school (USA). I am skipping some of your paragraphs for now and shall return for further inspection on another run at this. Computer screen reading is most difficult on my eyes these days.

I detected a more mellow tone toward the end of your missive. It started as a rant. I nearly left you; but out of politeness I finished. Perhaps it was the English sherry kicking in as you wrote this? :-)

Hi. Thanks for the well-considered feedback, and apologies for the very slow response. My partner and I have both had a few health issues that have focused my attention elsewhere over the past year.

Yes, I realise that a lot of my sentences are too long. I do try to control this - usually on subsequent edits - but a few slip through the net. And yes, it probably DID start as a rant, because of a few things.

Firstly, I've still so far found only 1 person who has EVER responded to my request for editing, and she did a pathetic job, trashing my story (which is now on Literotica with a 4.25) after reading one page. Secondly, I DO respond to EVERY request for editing, though I get quite 'arsey' as we say over here, if it's clear that the author is lazy or functionally illiterate - or, often, both.

When I started writing this document, I'd really had enough of people with no talent trying to write erotic fiction, and expecting an editor to compensate for their complete lack of skill. I edited one story where a woman was apparently sending long text messages whilst riding her husband in cowgirl position. OK, if it was meant to be a comedy, I could handle this, but the author thought it was realistic. I pointed this out, as well as quite a few other plot, grammatical & punctuation errors. The author did just enough to get it past the Literotica moderators and posted it. It was utter shite, but hey, he'd got PUBLISHED! And you saw the examples of some of the other utter crap I've had to deal with. So the document was really a plea to would-be writers not to trouble me until they at least understood the basics.

Thanks for writing such constructive feedback. If I return to this document, I'll try to address some of the issues you've raised. I also teach MS Office, with a major focus on Word, so if you're having problems reading stuff on Literotica (it's often hard to read on screen, though slightly better now that they've changed the layout), then have you tried copying the text into Word? You could then use the in-built reader (text to speech) and/or the various tools in Windows & Office to improve legibility. If you'd like some help with these, message me through the site and I'll provide some support.

Pedantic. Your stories are bad. Silly to take advice from someone so unskilled.

Oh, it's you again. Is it possible that I used an quote taken from your 'story' as an example of how not to write? As I said in my previous comment - I get quite 'arsey' as we say over here, if it's clear that the author is lazy or functionally illiterate - or, often, both. Which if these did I tell you you were?

I enjoyed your guide very much and share many of your objections (and your country and age range I suspect). I would like to suggest one addition to all stories that you haven't mentioned; the double space after a full stop (period point). I learned that published books were always printed like this on a school trip in the 1970s and I still think it makes a small, but significant enough, addition to the ease of reading the printed word (on paper or screen).

If you are using Word I often use the Replace feature to add an extra space - pick a Nonbreaking space from the special characters list. Just try it and see what you think. The double space has declined in use rapidly over the last 2 decades and may disappear forever. But I still like it.

Thanks for listening. Now time to check out that Captain Whatsits story you liked so much ...

Hi 'Anonymous'.

I was taught by my secretary, back in the last century, that double-spacing was good practice. I used it until about 5 years ago, when I discovered it had very much fallen out of favour. Jacob Rees-Mogg apparently insists on it, so I find that another good reason not to do it! If you look at some of my earlier stories (eg 'There Is Another Way' or 'Carcassonne'), you'll see I consistently use double-spacing, but now I go through my stories before publication and globally remove multiple spaces. I've always separated my paragraphs with white space and I left-justify all the text. Other writers I know still indent the first line and leave no blank space between paragraphs. Styles change, I guess.

But thanks for the feedback. All comments are always welcome.