All Comments on 'Promises, Progress and Payoff...'

Thoughtful essay, thanks for this. (You must have worn out the capital 'P' on your keyboard. Insert 'Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled penises' joke here.)

A good story should get the reader asking questions right off the bat, and I certainly agree that the writer's responsibility (an Obligation) is to answer at least a few of them. None, and you have a major pratfall of a story.

Your 'progress' point is well taken, the number of stories here on Lit that don't work like a ratchet - move one notch, wait, move another bit closer, then tease out the interval to the next notch - is astonishing, and a disservice to the precious readership.

Only thing missing from this marvelous essay is reference to 'Checkov's Penis.' Well done.

Th as no’s for taking the time to offer helpful hints. 5*

Five stars! Thank you so much for this very detailed and very helpful essay. I'm new to writing and to LitErotica. Your advice will be very useful to me as I develop my writing skills.

Best regards,

Geoff

I’m glad TRC highlighted the writing erotic piece of the story. My biggest issue is with writers who think they are creating an erotic passage when in fact it’s boringly repetitive. I have news for you, most readers skip that shit unless it’s really good. Which means it paints an erotic picture in the reader’s mind. Frankly, most of it sounds like a bored hooker trying to get their client off quicker so she can move on to the next John or Jane?

This is one of the better advice articles I've read on this site. Thanks!

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Still, I would note that you didn't mention tags.

"Literotica stories tend to have a lot less of this surrounding information. You get a category, a title, and a few words of description. Regardless, these often make big promises to your readers."

Granted, you can't see the tags until after you click on the story, but having a reader immediately hit the back button after viewing the tags is better than having them start to read the story, only to jump to the end and give it 1* for wasting their time.

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I guess I'll add a bonus suggestion as well. When tagging your story, don't just put "threesome" in the tags. Add either MFF or MMF (or both, if appropriate) as well. Also, no matter how many the one-to-many encounter is, still include the base MFF or MMF tags so your story is picked up in more tag searches to help expand your reader base.

this is a thought provoking and insightful article. Thanks for writing.

Hopefully this helps many authors (including myself) on this site.

As an amateur writer with no formal training in the field, this was a lovely essay: a relevant concept explained clearly, with worked examples. Thank you!