All Comments on 'Creative Construction of Character'

just found my love for writing...and learning so much thanks to essays like yours!

Thanks for all of the great advice. Your essay helped me to put the finishing touches on my first submission. I think I may have added about 200 more words to the first draft! Again, thanks

meow,

Dk

Enjoyed your essay. The advice is pertinent and effecivly presented. Listen to it all you Gonzo scribblers and you too may achieve some literary quality in your work. I'm a writer-wannabe and I need all the help I can get. Thanks.

You do give very good advice now all I have to do is fallow it.Oh and some of us wear skirts and dresses,and not pants thank you.*S*

tessia

Artfully succinct.

I think I FINALLY understand what my editor has been trying to POUND into my head! *giving Quint a big, sloppy kiss*

I can think of so many stories that would have been a HELL of a lot better, had the author followed the advice in this guide. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I just read an essay on the same subject as this one, that was of a far lesser quality, with surprisingly bad grammar and logical non-sequiturs. It also happened to be submitted over a year after this well-crafted piece(yeah, a little on the nose, but still deserving). I think someone simply ripped off this in the most inept way possible. A shame really, because this is the most effective take on the subject I've seen so far.

Feel I must do something I don’t usually do, write a comment to your essay – so I do. I agree with what you state, having to read something along the lines “she was 5”4” with 48CC breast” is boring. Ill even take it further; it is downright bad. This is totally gender based (guess who male or female?).

Luckily, lines like those almost always appear at the beginning of a story – to me a distinct stop sign - stop reading.

I don’t want to know how big her breasts are, or how tall she was. What I do want to read is about people, what they do and why do they what they do – SHOW don’t TELL. Which brings me to my last “objection”. Suppose Lilah is extremely shy, some people are. If she enters a bar a gets fucked by a dozen men, while is not likely it is still possible – possible in the sense that it is not totally illogical. Sure, it takes a damn good writer to make this be anything else than … silly/stupid/repulsive.

However, if the writer’s good I'll buy

Said what needed to be said without too much beating about the bush. Makes a point that I can remember without using a notebook. Thanks.

I am a long haired blonde with a 36C also i'm 5'4 so hmm i am flatter that my look helps guys to get off easier

This totally makes sense, and you should be proud for putting it out there, against the masses who just may oppose is. This is something I know already, showing character works far better than simply describing everything right off the bat, but it doesn't hurt to be reminded of it. Nice job with this.

Awesome advice. Now if people would just follow it!! :) Thank you thank you!

Thanks. I made some, uhh, error in my stories (which you mentioned) and will remedy it with your advice. I'm sure this will help make my writing a little better.

Thank you for this, I'm in the process of writing my first story and these are important points to remember.

...there were some way to link essays like this to stories in which the writers actually took your advice. I've come across maybe five memorable characters on this site since I started reading more than a year ago. It's not mandatory; an interesting premise or a good sense of humor go a long way with me, but it's disheartening that there are so few stories I've found that feature characters that are more than walking cliches.

I'm glad i decided to check out the how to section before sending my first story to be edited, i now want to go back over it all (a painfully slow task, why did i make it so long!?) & make sure I've 'shown' my readers everything. I too 'pour', so thank you for all of you witty wise words, fingers crossed this will stem some of the flaming & will make my story more enjoyable.

"Lilah was an extremely shy woman," and then have Lilah go out to a bar and fuck 20 guys and their Dobermans (Dobermen?) in one night?... that was too funny, true but funny.

like you said, its A LOT harder to show than tell and its takes a long time to master(at least for me it does). i recently started writing a couple of months ago and im still taking baby steps... baby steps? try crawling, but instead of doing it with 2 arms & legs i'm dragging myself across the floor with one arm and leg. :)

I constantly have to remind myself details, details, details! great essay and you certainly hit it on the money.

I read wayyyyyyy too many chaptered stories which have the almost the exact phrasing you describe. Gotta admit, I'm guilty, but try to hold it to a bare minimum. In most cases, I use the, "generic fuck slut," as a throwaway, never to be seen nor heard from again.

Great job!

I'm sitting here and cringing with embarrassment thinking about how many mistakes I've made with writing The Paragraph in my work, and in telling rather than showing what my characters do!

Eeeeek!!!!

Lolz -- the breast sizes kept increasing.

Secondly:

God, I hope I never make a mistake like this, but I can say honestly that 9/10 of the stories I read on here are NOTHING like that -- because as soon as I see something along those lines, I stop reading. (And also because I prefer sci-fi & nonhuman categories; I like unpredictability.)

On the other hand, by sheer volume, those types of stories likely far outweigh the ones I like, which would explain why it seems so damned hard to find more authors I like every time I look.

Another brilliant post. I wish this body of work was still...burgeoning.

5/5, would bang.

I have sometimes had a paragraph near the beginning that describes the person on some detail so that we get to know what that character looks like period. I’m not going to go all out and give every detail. That can come later in the story. I find that if I don’t get any description of the character at the beginning then I kind of feel like I’m reading a story about empty characters for a while.

Remember way back when you were a bratty booger nosed crumb cruncher throwing a fit and she gently admonished once again, USE YOUR WORDS, DEAR. Numbers should only be used to tell the automated voice how many widgets you want from the shopping channel at three in the morning. Adjectives are everyone's friend. It's also nice when they bring their buddy, the adverb, to the party.

If you tell me BambiSue is a perky 32KK, I will 1.) Want to vomit 2.) Want to toss darts at them to win a stuffed bear 3.) Yell you lie! Because that ain't perky 4.) Rub MY aching back from just reading that. What I won't be is rubbing my throbbing anything.

Thank you. i am sick of reading stories on here with the PARAGRAPH a compulsory beginning. Its so bad that i automatically stop reading, even those stories where the score shows it to be popular. if more people read advice like yours some of those stories i have dismissed would do much better. Ive got a few stories on here and off hand im not sure if im guilty or not, please god i hope not.

I love how in your essay the breast sizes get bigger...lol....so true and one of my all time pet hates. the same goes for the size of a mans cock/ man hood/ penis whatever you want to call it.

Thanks again for this utter gem.xox

i liked your article very much except for one thing: the bra sizing. the number which precedes the letter represents the woman's <b> underbust </b> measurement, or the length around the underside of their breasts and around their back. increasing this number does not make the breasts larger, it makes the woman fatter. thus, a woman with 48D or 88N cup breasts would be quite fat. not to say that this is unappealing, but it is not conventionally appealing to most men.

How I wish more of the writers here would read this essay and take it to heart. And then to their sticky keyboards.

I am in agreement that the immediate sizing of breasts in a story is one sign of a poorly written piece and one that I wilI click out of. I enjoy pieces with good character development where the physical attributes and the personality are both nurtured into a good story.

Some of my pet peeves on Literotica pieces:

Instant sizing - 38DD, 5'8" with 3.5 inch heels fitting a 127 pound frame - really!

Too much gratuitous sex - yes, I know this is an erotic site but just as I like to have a few of my favorite cookies when I visit a bakery, I tend to puke if I'm fed entire trays of goodies.

Stupid dialogue - the dialogue should fit the character. I clicked out of a piece recently where the characters were high level corporate and government yet the dialogue was high school freshman level.

Slapping, spanking and hitting - unless it is a category where this is the norm, these items should be eliminated or doled out in measured doses. I just clicked out of another story where slaps, hits and spankings replaced humor.

Verbal abuse - what's romantic with partners regularly referring to each other in endearing terms as cunt, bitch, asshole, prick or any number of like terms?

Too much banter - a little banter does wonders for a story. Too much gets tiresome. Way too much is a story killer.

Poor grammar - this has already been stressed on numerous postings, yet the carnage continues.

Thanks exactly what I am looking for as I experiment with erotic writing.

This a really good how to. I appreciate reading stories that properly develop characters, and I am trying to master it in my own writing.

Your article should be transtaled to the spanish community writters.

They use exactly all the clises, that you recommend not to use, trying to impress the readers.

All the stories are so predictable at the first paragraph, that are boring to read. Including their tittles, announce what should be expected, as the readers where so stupid that needs those tricks.

I feel really sad for them. For that reason I preferr to to read in Englih and translate them to my my couple.

I like your suggestions and I'll try to use them when I writte my own histories.

Thanks

Many times I've read a story and the guy looks at the girl and immediately knows her bra and cups size, as well as, waist and hips measurements. I always thought that's ridiculous, unless the guy is a closet fashion designer. As a guy, the only sizes I know flat, small, medium, large, and Oh My God. The paragraph to me seems a daunting task to write.

I'm so glad I decided to start reading the resources that Literotica provides. Actually, I'm so glad I finally decided to attempt writing so I was compelled to. I've read many books on writing and could practically publish a book full of the notes I've taken (not collated, mind you). It's all a little overwhelming though. I don't feel like I have developed my imagination enough to create a plot that would carry a novel (not even close), but erotica can be short enough that I can handle it. The reviews and essays I've found on this site such as yours are incredibly helpful in putting one aspect of writing into perspective and this article was wonderfully clear and concise as well as including very astute examples that I can easily follow. I will probably eventually go back and edit my first two, maybe three stories as a result of reading this and will take this advice into the future with me. Thank you so much for your time.

Thanks for the great tips!!! Glad I found your suggestions.

I would Prefer it if the Author Left Out the Specifics, but that's just me. For Example I would Prefer it be "Sue had Very Large Breasts and a Nice Size Ass...." Rather then "Sue Had a Nice Pair of 39V Sized Breasts with a Fuckable Round Ass......" to me Deferent Readers have Deferent Ideas of Large, In Fact if it could be Helped just Leave out the Descriptions all together. I say Lit the Reader Decide what the Characters in your Story looks like. I say At Best you should just Give an out Line of your Characters don't Give Specifics, Let's just say Sue has Red Hair Say She Has Red Hair don't tell the reader that her Hair is Red and is of a Certain Length and is Styled n A Certain way. Ectara. Anyways Your Advice was So Great I Really Wished that All of the Authors on this Site did that instead of Cramming the Entire Description of a Character in to one Huge Paragraph. I know this Last Point sort of Clashes with my First, I'm Not Saying I Don't like Description No That's Not What I'm Say, what I'm saying is that If you Must Do Description Spread them out. Just Like with a Movie with a Movie You don't get everything at once, you along with the Characters of the Said Movie Discover things as the Movie goes on, they don't Learn Everything Right Out of the Gate from the First Scene of the Said Movie No They Have to Learn as they go along it's the same with the Audience. And I would like to Propose another Exercise, take your Favorite Movie and Imagine what it would be like if your Favorite Character of your Favorite Movie All Of Sudden Knows Everything Right From Their Introduction in the Movie, in Terms of Your Personal Enjoyment. And Apply that to your Next Story or even Current Story.

"... too tight for her 60F bosom..." I laughed out loud! 60F? She'd fall over and have to push herself along the ground like the Rod Resiss Titan. Show don't tell is essential to good writing, and yes, time consuming but worth it. The effort concurs with one's love of writing. One good exercise related to show don't tell is writing in E-Prime, which is writing without the use of the verb 'to be' in any way, shape or form. Challenging and worth it.

Thanks for the hilarious article!