All Comments on 'A Note from a Reader Ch. 02'

Thanx for the mention, although some shining lights around the name would of been nice ;)lol.. I will now take a look at the author you mentioned (Whispersecret) and hopefully put myself on the right track... The thing is also, in these days of texting and instant messaging we are starting to forget how to spell correctly, who is to blame for that? A Very good 'How to...' but do I sense a little annoyance this time round lol!

I basically agree with anonymous. Both of these submissions read like gripe sessions, especially the current one. If your stories are too long, break them up into smaller sections rather than defend your position. My own stories are probably too short, but since most people have very short attention spans, this makes more sense to me. Sure, the Literotica spell check can't catch everything, but give people the benefit of the doubt..maybe it was 3 o'clock in the morning and they really meant to write "too" instead of "to". If these picayune mistakes stand out so much, the actual content of the story isn't grabbing you, and that concerns me. Are you reading just to find those inevitable flubs we all make or truly interested in what the author has to say? I think these "stories" say much more about you than any Literotica author, and have limited usefulness for that reason!

Wonderful and much-needed! While some of these errors can be unintentionally hilarious, most are irritating and off-putting, especially when they leave one wondering quite what the author meant. Incidentally, the wandering apostrophe has many more ways to annoy than its and it's...there's a great book - Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynn Truss - which I would recommend to all would-be authors.

Your comments are spot on "irregardless" of how others "mangel" the language at the Literotica "sight." What a "waist" to spoil a potentially good story with "speling" and "grammer" so atrocious that it stops a "nolidgible" reader in his tracks. When I encounter such a story, I just quit. Thanks

I also find the attempt to write in say a southern accent is often unnecessary and makes the story not flow and is less readable. Write in a simple dialect without too much embelishments. Make it easy to read without too many gimmicks.

Thanks again, Bhob. Very useful comments for those authors who are genuinely interested in improving themselves. A nice job of constructive criticism. The only thing I would add is the need to pay more attention to what person the story is being told in. It's quite distracting to be reading along about "her hand", and "their arousal and suddenly read about "my hand" and "our arousal". If the story is switched from first person to third person (or vice versa) all the pronouns need to change. Which is one more reason to read, re-read and read again your stories before submitting them.

While a bit ascerbic, your remarks are totally on target. Too often a wonderful story line is so butchered by grammar and spelling errors that the only thing remaining is to quit reading and explain to the author why you quit.

Thanks again,

Gypsyred

You may not agree with Bhob's somments or concerns, you may not need his advice, you may not care about the topic, but then again YOU DON'T HAVE TO READ IT!!

Many of us will indeed get our jollies reading even error-ridden material, because we enjoy the subject matter regardless. Some people couldn't care less about grammer, style, usage, or composition. But other people are here to learn about "How To" write in this sympathetic and "forgiving" forum--one that's forgiving precisely because many of the readers will plow through "hot" material and provide a new author with an audience and with feedback DESPITE the errors and mistakes made by the aspiring author.

That doesn't make this a less-valid "How To" topic; it makes it a MORE valuable one. Many writers make these same errors. It's much more effective to address them in a single widely-read submission like this, than to try to point them out one author at a time. Some authors may not care or appreciate the help, but others will benefit greatly from it.

So good on ya, Bhob!

As a new reader/writer to this site i found this article to be extremely enlightening. I believe myself to be quite the writer and although im new to this particular type of venue, i found this article to be extremely helpful.

It is one thing to be schooled on writing by a professional. It's totally different when it comes from someone who, like myself, enjoys the reading of stories just as much as writing them.

Kudos to you Bhob and may i retain all that i have read from your article.

So far, this is the best thing I've read on this site. As for any negative feedback you may have received... if expecting a writer to have a basic understanding of the language is really too much to ask, I weep for our future.

If someone's new to English or dyslexic or something, let them say it. But if they've been reading and writing in English all their lives, they should be at *least* as good at it as those who are new to English but *try* to get it right.

(I'm with what you said in Ch. 2, as well. Let a piece *tell a story* instead of the "let's skip over all that making-it-make-sense crap; I wanna write the word "cock" a buncha times already!" ethic I've seen in enough stories to remind me why I rarely touch porn. If you ever do a Chapter 3, *please* go farther into why it's kinda nice if stories were believable and spent some time in the characters' heads as well as pants. Most descriptions of thought and feeling pretty much amount to "yes, s/he is *still* horny" and "x hoped y didn't notice s/he was horny." Characters seem to notice nothing of each other except for certain body parts that are more often than not unrealistically oversized. Maybe I'm missing the point of the whole porn thing, but more story and less of the same words to describe the same parts doing the same things after two people realize that they feel all-consuming lust {and typically little else, as far as the reader ever gets to see} for each other. I'm a romantic, and if two characters are nothing to each other but one big crotch... boring. But maybe that's just me.)

Agree with you 100% Loved the "multiple organisms". Made me laugh out loud. Thanks!!!

Thanks, Bhob. I read your first submission in this cat and immediately wanted to read the rest. I have a pet peeve of my own in this area; I think it's the Brits that usually make that mistake because of accent - would have becomes 'would of'...for some reason, it turns me off completely.

English is not my first language (some times language isn't my first language ;-)) but I tend to see these errors a lot and I agree with you that it makes one click off the story.

At the risk of ruining my Brit credentials: dude!

:)

For what it's worth, the Brits generally speak good English. We also generally write good English, in at least as much as it's technically correct - I'm not about to judge the content, merely the means. However, there's a general tendency to dumb down the language(s) we speak, and Bhob neatly catches a few. "Would've" is not nearly the same as "Would of" - the former is a contraction of 'would have' and is acceptable in most instances, the latter never is - but we know that in speech.

Granted, it's our first (and in most cases only) language, but we're not alone in bastardising it. It's not a nationality thing, it's just plain lazy and that's far from our sole remit. To label one country as the "worst" is to slight those of us who take a pride in what we speak and write, but also (and more seriously) to forgive those who could do better and do not.

To Bhob, I thank you for your feedback. I guess from a couple of your spellings (neighborhood instead of neighbourhood, for example) that you're a cousin from across the pond, but you could still teach the majority of people over here a thing or two about the language we still profess to own.

Next time your in the UK, let me know and Ill buy you a few beers and see if we can add to your wasteline.

Kev

(PS - for those who weren't sure, the last paragraph *was* irony!)

It took me a moment to work this one out - I'm still giggling now!

Great article, you should be writing FAQs for this site :)~

Awesome article! I think my favorite misused word is "crouch" - as in "He put his hand on his crouch" or "She felt her crouch get wet." I had no idea so many abstract things could be done to a verb!

This is the first comment I have left on this site, (after being directed here by my boyfriend a few days ago) and I just wanted to flick you a thank you. I write erotic fiction, and I "beta" or second read (copy edit) for several people. I am also majoring in creative writing.

I want to direct everybody to your articles because you highlight the most well used and unforgivable of writing mistakes. One I came across today which took me right out of the story and was a complete turn off was a muddling between the words "cue" (waiting for a signal to enter a room) and queue (waiting in line).

So, thank you.

as they say in Brum. Seriously, you're exactly right again. Why does a character do whatever she/he does? As for writing the play-by-play of a fuck, that's just great, but why are these people there? Why should I care? I'm just as glad as the next person for a good stroke, or some good ideas for the next bonk, but I won't remember your story if I don't care about the people in it.

I don't know about you - but when I write in the first person I get younger, thinner and better looking. I agree with you on the skinny and good looking thing. Everything becomes kind of generic if you don't watch out. I had fun with "Wild Things Have No Names" about a guy that's five foot four and a girl who has some minor peculiarities. What can I say. I felt they were more believable than the six foot lawyer with the ten incher suddenly discovering he can't live without the gorgeous blonde who used to be a supermodel.

I mean, come on. I prefer, even if the person is tall and good looking to find issues. Maybe they're insecure. Maybe they were teased and can't present themselves well. I mean, I'm relatively good looking and over average height, but did anyone make it out of high school unscathed?. One dimensional characters SUCK! Fiction, or even fantasy, demands some reality."

another favorite on my list.

Those of us with a better grasp of the English language will catch mistakes while reading. I can't believe that anybody actually thinks Bhob (or anybody else, save editors obviously) read just to look for mistakes. If you don't catch them, then I'm happy for you; your enjoyment of a potentially good story won't be affected because of them. However, some people are going to be more attuned to those things. It may not bother you, but it bothers a lot of readers. If you are a writer or editor, you should read these to improve your writing or editing ability. Obviously not all of the advice will be for you, but that doesn't mean it's bad advice or that he is being overly demanding.

I'd like to address one thing in particular: length. Obviously it'll vary for authors, depending on how much they want in the story (character development, arousal then backing off, multiple encounters, etc), and the reader will be looking for a certain length depending on what type of story they want. Sometimes those needs won't sync up. Find stories that do a better job of meeting your needs.

I don't get some comments on this site; people will criticize things that they have no right to. I don't like incest, for instance, but I wouldn't read an incest story and write how that took away from my enjoyment. Of course it did, but you wouldn't read a romance and go, "Man, that was well written, I just really wanted to read some Science Fiction. Not this author's best work." The length of a story is at least tangentially related to that, is it not? If the story is great, then aren't I happy that it's so long? And if I don't like it, then what difference does it make?

(I will sometimes include what things I like in comments, either because I'm saying, "I don't normally like this, but you wrote it so well... that I did," or at least putting my criticisms into context for the author, so they know I'm not their target audience, and so they know that I know that.)

Also, I hate when people read something like this and get mad because the author thinks he or she is so superior. Obviously he's just writing about his pet peeves, and hoping that authors read it and clean up their work. Doesn't it make more sense to assume he reads "How To" articles from others in an attempt to clean up his own work, rather than just assuming he's an arrogant prick and getting mad?

Loose and lose.

Clothes and cloths

Compliment and complement

Reign and rein (and rain!)

But my favourite has to be the author whose protagonist was busy massaging his girl's prostate... at that point I threw the whole story out.

xxx

Thank you for this.

If the "b" in "bhob" is silent as is the "p" in "bath" ?

m222rjr.

Don't worry, the first article's fine and the second's a solid addendum in its own right. I'm fine with giving leeway to non-native English writers from Bangladesh than ones from Baltimore, as long as the writing shows they've made some effort. If they break out "Bob" and "Vegene" though, I'm straight outta interest. Many foreign countries share a similar attitude, so this isn't strictly a U.S. thing.

It's insane how many writers honestly believe that size doesn't matter; they've never had the questionable honor of punching their partner's cervix with at least an inch more to go. As for breasts, I've never seen a pair of any size, shape or heft that wasn't perfect.

One of my biggest pet peeves is when a character's pronoun starts switching mid-story; nothing screams "coitus interruptus" like Bob suddenly getting "her" groove on with Vegene. Or when a character's relation jumps from one branch to another, and Bob's now "her" own uncle.

Vegene's got enough to worry about; let's not add "sloppy writing" to the list, folks.

I would like to add one more to your list of misused words. This is very pervasive.

"Lose" and "loose"

When you lose something, you can't find it. If something is loose, it is not tight enough. One doesn't loose something, one loses it.

Curiously, I have never seen 'lose' being used in place of 'loose', only the other way about. It drives me nuts.

Gamut, Gauntlet and Gambit. One is a range of things, one is a (usually) metal glove, or a (usually) physical trial, the last is a risk or a bet. Where, we're, wear, were, and ware. They all sound similar and in some parts of the country they are all pronounced the same. They are also spelled similarly. Similar to 'there' 'where' has 'here' in it and denotes a place. We're is we are, You wear clothes and by wares at the store. Were is a past tense of to be. They were together. Cannot is one word although can not implies the same meaning many have had it drilled into them through school that it's one word.

Another pet peeve of mine is a break in consistency. Not unlike sacralsamadhi's gender swapping pronouns or relationships. I may go a bit farther though. If in chapter one Jane had red hair and in chapter 2 its now suddenly blonde, I have to reread that to make sure we're talking about the same Character still. Or if Jane did thing A in one chapter in a later chapter in a similar situation she's unlikely to start doing thing B which is the opposite of A.

I agree with the article that these small things are often far more jarring than the big ridiculous things. Mary was abducted by aliens taken to another world and slept with alien ghosts? Totally with you. 'Their going to the store' though and suddenly there is a small pile of hair accumulating next to me. Even writing the example incorrectly made me cringe.

Thank you for both posts!

Okay, I guess I've got to go back to part 1 and change 4 stars to 5 because I still can't forget prurient. And I laughed out loud about going to a doctor for screaming from multiple orgasms. I know this is an old article (who buys dictionaries or thesauruses anymore when they're on the net?) but it was fun reading it anyway. Thanks

I feel the same way, along with Continuity Issues but that's another story all together. Anyways I Find it that if you Pay Attention to the Color Coding on Microsoft Words they would tell you if you have used the right mean to the word such as if I where to Write. "They Arrived Their and Hour Later." if this was on Microsoft Word the Words 'Their' and 'And' would be Highlighted In Blue instead of Red, Since the Spilling is Correct but just the Wrong use of those Words.

I scream, you scream, we all scream for orgasmic scream!