How We (WillDevo) Write.

(Update submitted 1/12/2022)

Devo and I wrote this to offer insight into our own experience here on Lit, in case other future writers might want to publish their own ideas. There's tons of similar threads on the Lit forums, but we wanted to submit this to the main site in case other writers are interested and might, like us, not be active on the forum.

Comments are both important and completely irrelevant at the same time. We don't delete readers' comments just because they're negative. We will for specific reasons, such as those with spoilers, or those that have questions or suggestions that we took into account in a later revision where they'd no longer make sense.

We will also delete comments that convey either misandry or misogyny because we despise both concepts.

There are a few "mechanical" items to be aware of as to how the Literotica ecosystem seems to function.

When a story is published by an author, it sits in a queue until a moderator approves it for publication. A submission might be returned to the author if a problem needs to be addressed. For us, that's been a very rare occurrence. The process can take from a day to a week, or (rarely) even more.

It appears to us that different categories might have different moderators because we've had one of our submissions sit in "Pending" status in the "Non-Erotic" category for two weeks, while a story entered into the "Romance" category was published after a day. We're not complaining, we're just advising.

Second, if you "Favorite" an author, you'll receive a notification on your "My Home" page when they publish something new. You won't get a notification, though, if an edited version has been published. You do receive a notification, though, if an author you favorite makes an update to their biography page. We make notes in our bio when an edited submission is published so readers can decide if they want to check it out, and often suggest at the end of a story that the reader favorite us for just those reasons.

When people send us feedback about issues, errors, or whatever, if they're significant enough, we'll make immediate corrections and submit a revision. The problem, though, is that edited submissions often take substantially longer than original submissions to be published. It's a bit frustrating that it can take more than a week to fix mistakes. We both wish Lit made it easier to edit works in place instead of having to go through the longer re-submission workflow, but we also understand they have this process in place because it'd be easy for authors to duck the system of checks and balances.

Given the above, here's how we prepare and submit our contributions. Our process may be a little convoluted, but it works for us.

We write in LibreOffice Writer. We stay with its native file format initially, and generally write in plain text without formatting or styles except as described below. Literotica also double-spaces paragraphs, even if you don't.

Lately, we've been including enhanced "manual" formatting. If we want text to be bold, italicized, underlined, or whatever, we don't use the word processor's formatting or style buttons to do it, we use HTML tags. Same with the horizontal lines. One can even add emojis! '👍'

You can bold text with < b > before the text and follow the bold text with a < / b >.

Same thing for underlines with < u > and < / u > and italics using < i > and < / i >.

Those tags are depicted above with spaces so that they're not interpreted literally when this guide is published. Just remove the spaces between the < and > symbols.

There's other formatting you can employ, too, in a similar manner.

You can

with < center > and < / center >

...or add a horizontal line (officially known as a "horizontal rule") such as this:

with < hr >.

An author can even write the emdash:— and endash:– with the code & mdash ; or & ndash ; without spaces between the ampersand and semicolon in both cases.

In long-hand, emojis such as this: 💩 can be embedded in the text as & # 128169 ; (again without any spaces between the ampersand and semicolon). There are a number of online references which list the code points (a/k/a Unicode). Do note, though, that the display of emojis depends on the reader's browser or device. A thumbs-up will always be a thumbs-up, but the styling of it will vary between operating systems. And, though they are widely adopted by now, there's no guarantee they'll be displayed at all.

If your word processor faithfully exports to UTF-8 (which supports almost twice the over one-million points currently defined), you can embed any UTF element directly instead of the long-hand HTML form. Simply test your options to see which works best for you.

You might be asking why we don't use a feature-rich word processor like Word, which Lit accepts as an import document type.

For us, it's simple. It's because, as far as we know, one can't preview the contents when importing a document type of any sort other than text. That means one can't see what it'll look like before it's published for the world to see. We don't like that, because we catch a number of errors and issues during a preview. If we're wrong about this, please let us know via feedback or a comment.

After as much editing and proofreading as we can stand, we "Save As..." to UTF-8 text (.txt), and import that file to Lit. We then carefully read the preview, looking specifically for formatting errors and also the other typos and goofs.

That's the basic mechanics of our workflow, and the end of the uber-nerd part of our TEDx Talk.

(See? There's a horizontal rule right there.)

We'll continue with our advice.

First, write what you want to write. Write what you'd like to read. Don't try to write what you think others want to read, because that's a futile chase. If you write what you like, you will find similarly-minded readers that will be loyal to you. Large group or small, it doesn't matter. Your goal should be providing for people that want you to provide for them.

Second, if you're not a native English speaker (European, North American, Australian, whatever), and plan to publish in the English language, our suggestion is that you state it in your foreword. You'll be given mercy if you simply note, "English isn't my native tongue. Please give me/us latitude." or something like that. We've read some incredibly good stories by authors for whom English isn't their native language, and simply being aware made it easier to overlook mistakes... to a point.

Third, do your homework. Dawn and I do tons of research when we're stepping into territory with which we're not familiar.

By the way, the grammatical phrasing of the previous sentence was chosen to highlight the difference between familiar and formal writing. You should feel free to use both. We've received scathing commentary criticizing one or the other as improper.

That sentence could have been more familiarly written as, "Dawn and I do tons of research when we're stepping into territory we're not familiar with." Subtle change, subtle difference. The first is formal, the second is familiar by letting the sentence end with a preposition. Though there's no hard and fast rule, there is a "sense" to how various sentence structures are subconsciously perceived and interpreted.

If English is your first language, do your absolute best to avoid punctuation and grammar issues. Proper punctuation is critical, especially in dialogue. There are numerous style guides in the public domain, and quite a few on the Literotica forums. Hell. Devo and I now own a copy of The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th edition. It's a $30 book of 1,100-plus pages and an incredibly helpful resource.

Fourth, if your story is fantastic, the three items above won't matter so much. The "meat" comes first and foremost (easy, vegans, it's only an analogy). Focus on that first.

Subject: Editors.

If item two above is elusive to you, sure, employ a volunteer editor.

We'd never done so before I published A Butterscotch Sky. (Dawn wasn't involved in that particular one because she's not a fan of Sci-Fi.)

Why? Because we are methodical and very, very tedious reviewing our work before submission.

So why do our works still have errors? Because we are human. I'm sure there are errors in this very Howw-To.

A good editor absolutely cannot read your story. They must only look at it and its words, dots, crosses, and style.

The worst editor in the world is one that enjoys what you've written, because they began to read and enjoy instead of doing their job. The best editor in the world is one that doesn't give a crap about your plot unless holes are noticed, has only a vague memory of your story after they've done their job, and corrects tons of mistakes along the way.

We've read quite a few stories where the author (rightfully and correctly) gave credit to his or her proofreader and editor, yet we still see errors.

I'll say it again. We're all human, we all make mistakes, and we all sometimes fail to see them. Do your absolute best, cut yourself some slack, correct the errors you see when your work is published (because you will see more), and submit occasional revisions.

There's also a bit of a paradox. The better your grammar and spelling, the more obvious the infrequent errors become to the readers.

"Okay, well, how much sexy-sex stuff?"

That is entirely up to you as the author. Again, point number one. Write what you'd like to read.

We have high marks with "gonzo" stuff, like a good chunk of It Only Took Twenty Years, and equally high marks for stories that contain very little explicit content, such as A Walk Changed Everything.

The story comes first, "between the sheets" stuff comes last, unless the explicit stuff is your choice of focus.

Next up: Names. Proper names.

A number of our characters are named after people we know, but they're never both their given name and surname. One or the other, but never both for reason of privacy. Naming characters can be a challenge, and an author should give such choices careful deliberation.

With a minor character, we'll employ a random name generator such as the one at behindthename dot com. We'll may need to sort through multiple iterations until we find a name which "fits" the character. It's a matter of preference, and don't be afraid to rename a character if it becomes more-developed and the name you previously chose no longer seems fitting.

We keep a list of all of our story's characters' names so we don't reuse one. Sure, there are a few cases where that "rule" was violated and two characters shared first or last, but only when the characters are so completely different we didn't feel a need to change things. Or (potential spoiler alert), we intend to cross the character over into another story arc at some point in the future.

Dawn (a/k/a Devo) is certainly my better half. Of course, our names are pseudonyms. They were the names given to the two protagonists of our first published story, It Only Took Twenty Years. Though that story suggested we didn't marry until we were in our forties, that's part of the delicious fiction. She and I have been married as of 2021 for more than twenty-five years. She's my partner in every sense of the word. Every ounce of the devotion, attraction, and adoration we write about is absolutely real.

Forget the fact that Twenty Years appears third by publishing date. That happened because we condensed it into fewer sections at a later date which required a deletion and re-submission. It was first published in September of 2019.

It was our first attempt at writing, spurred by a fit of boredom. I (Will) sat down with my iPad and just started writing. And writing. And writing. Some of it was even written while relaxing on a beach in the Caribbean. It took me about two or three months to get it all on "paper" and another month or so of editing. Dawn revised and added to it.

We were astonished that the first chapter scored the "Hot" marker its very first day, as did each following chapter. We believed the story was entertaining, but, quite frankly, I didn't think of ourselves as a good "technical" writers. Now, mind you, the first time we submitted it, it was over twenty chapters posted separately. It was our first contribution, and we didn't know any better. It was deleted then re-submitted as six "Parts," which made it a more-manageable read.

My wife and I typically write in short paragraphs, which lands about 3000 words on one Literotica page. Keep that in mind, because very high page counts might discourage some readers from even beginning to read your story. If you're going to write an epic, try to create your first part with the pure intent of grabbing the reader's attention, leaving them wanting more, so they'll continue reading your additional chapters.

Try to end your first (and every) chapter with the readers anxious for the next. Even if you submit your entire multi-chapter opus in a single day, the moderators will space the publication dates between chapters by a day (usually). Use that to your advantage.

If you've read our works, you'll see we're big fans of cliffhangers. It's suited us well, as evidenced by quite a few entertaining comments.

We violated this rule with our 24,000 word story, A Walk Changed Everything, which we submitted as a single long entry. We already had quite a few readers following us, and figured they'd not be put off by a relatively large single-chapter tale.

The ratings of the chapters of our second tale, The Perils of Love, ranged from 4.62 to 4.84. The lowest score is the first chapter.

We expected that.

We intentionally began the story a little "dry," a little "obscure," a little "weak," and a little "thoughtful." It was all about setting the stage and building the characters.

The ratings for chapter six is the next lowest. It was an experiment. It was difficult to write. We wanted to bump our shoulders into the fine line of infidelity in the Romance category (as opposed to 'Loving Wives' where it's a total trope), the loss of connection with a spouse (the whole point of the story), and the temptation that can arise as a result.

The final chapter was published the next day. It was the "Happily Ever After," plus some uncomfortable masculine weakness and holds a tie for the second highest score of the chapters. The highest scored chapter related how the central characters dealt with an unspeakable shared tragedy together.

We also leaned into "old man" issues, too. It's okay to write about fear, uncertainty, and doubt, also known as "FUD." It is certainly okay to include real facts of life. It's also fun to do it humorously; at least, that's what we aimed for.

Our next story, The Card Game, has been our wildest ride in terms of its wildly-oscillating rating. That tale came purely from the fun of writing. Dawn and I didn't give a crap, we just played together.

The indication of the "rating wave" was that it is one of the few "Love it" or "Hate it" stories we've written, because only extremes in scores can make the average vary so much. It's settled down, though, as the number of votes makes the average more stable. It was a fantasy I dreamed up when Devo was called out of town to speak at a charitable event. I stitched the idea into the "Twenty Years" arc.

Next up is When Ordinary Isn't.

That tale was my wife's creation. I encouraged her to "go nuts." Funnily enough, the filename in LibreOffice Writer (which is the word processor we use) began as "Bizzare.odt" because the premise was based on the male protagonist observing the female protagonist... well, it... Okay, read it, then you'll know.

Six of the seven chapters were in the all-time top-rated 250 stories in the Romance category for months, and two still are as of 7/24/2021. Chapters from several of our other stories are there, too.

Next was It Only Took a Second.

This was the first tale we wrote when the COVID thing began.

The date for When Ordinary Isn't contradicts that, but that date was when it was published. Devo had completed it already, and I was editing, then it took a few days for it all to come online.

With this story, we made a mistake.

We submitted it into the "Loving Wives" category, completely misunderstanding the intent of the genre. We thought it described stories where "Wives love their husbands," or "Men loving their wives."

No. It means "Men loving other men's wives," which is definitely not our cup of tea.

Anyway, a crazy thing happened.

It was read ten times more on the day it went active than any other story we'd written, and also received ten times more ratings and comments. It quickly rose into the hit lists for that category's rankings. Dawn's pretty sure it was at the of the top 10 of the "30 day" list within a week.

What that suggested to us is that there are far, far more readers (or, at least, reviewers and raters) of that category than the Romance genre. The comments we received were simply awesome, but we resubmitted it into the Romance category.

We thank the LW readers, but we pulled the rug out, even after tens of thousands of reads and thousands of high ratings. Dawn and I are certain many readers of that genre agree the category is misnamed, or the deliberate readers actually do appreciate the "mis"-categorized romance story with a Happily Ever After ending between truly faithful spouses.

We named it similarly to It Only Took Twenty Years for two reasons.

"Twenty Years" comes in at a little over 85,000 words. That's close to the size of a typical mass-market 300-page paperback.

"A Second" comes in at just shy of 14,000 words.

So, yeah. Its name was a hint to its size as well as its plot. The premise of that story came when I read an article in the news as I prepared to start my workday at home. I finished the draft in less than eight hours. By contrast, it took probably a hundred hours to write "Twenty Years".

That's how quick the idea poured out into words. Sometimes it happens like that.

I spent the day in Zoom meetings where, during a particularly boring one, I conceived the backgrounds of the characters, structured the plot, and jotted an outline on the home PC. When the workday was over, I started writing. I didn't stop until almost 2:00am.

When Dawn read the draft and began tearing up at the point where Steven was in his hotel room by himself after seeing his wife in the hospital, I knew I had written something imaginable and somewhat powerful. If you've read the story, you certainly understand the true meaning behind the title.

Of everything I've written, I think that story is the one I take pride in the most because it forced me to delve into dark spaces to consider what my feelings would be if I had to live the fiction I was writing.

Quarantined After Twenty-six Years? came next.

It continued the lives of the characters of The Perils. It was a contest entry, and it was just too rushed in an effort to meet the deadline. It was fun to write, but we didn't spend the time we usually do to polish it and keep it "fresh."