A while back I made a post about the thought process behind some writing decisions and someone said I should write more about it. I've been thinking a bit about it since then and I think I've decided on the form it'll take; some of it's about me and some of it's about writing, and most of it will be about how to improve at all skill levels of writing. Let's get right into it.
Learning to write
Starting
This comes up less than you'd think but I think it's really important. I'm not going to bullshit you: the best way to learn how to write is to read. A bunch of people consider me a good writer. Wanna know how I got good at this?
Was it classes? Afterschool learning? My own projects? University?
No.
It was reading and in my case, almost nothing but reading.
During my childhood I read an absolute shitton of books. My mum would drop me off at the library on a fairly regular basis so she could go do whatever adults do, and I chewed through the entire children's section and began moving to stuff older kids were reading. By the time I was 10 I was reading Lord of the Rings front-to-back in 3 days, by the time I was 11 or so I was reading at the level of college students and by the time I was 13 I was writing those college students papers for them (ok that last bit is totally untrue, I just wanted to say that. What actually happened is that a first-year college student I knew on IRC asked me to proofread his papers because I was very good at picking errors out).
Obviously, if you're reading this, it's too late to replicate a childhood spent reading books. But what you can do is start now. Go read some David Eddings or something. Buy some fucking books off Amazon, they don't even have to be niche. Read the Dark Tower series, read Game of Thrones, read the Kingkiller Chronicles, read Wheel of Time.
In fact they don't even have to be fantasy. Read some classics. You probably got these shoved down your throat in highschool but Catcher in the Rye, 1984, Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World, Oryx and Crake. You don't even need to read them with a critical eye looking at sentence structure or some goofy shit, you just need to read. Expand your vocabulary, it is your primary weapon.
Technique
I imagine -- and I use the word imagine very literally here because I have NO fucking idea -- that most people who want to "become a writer" do things like take English classes and major in it in university. I did not do these things and I cannot advise you as to whether they are useful. As is often the case with native speakers/writers of English, 95% of my writing was pure "instinct" while the remaining 5% was Savin bopping me over the head with grammatical rules (more on the important ones later).
So, paradoxically, I'm going to tell you here: emulating me might suck, if you want to Become A Writer. I'm not going to pretend I have taken the best, the most efficient, or even a good pathway to becoming what I am. All I can tell you is that it is a pathway to becoming a writer and nothing more.
About me
I'll keep this really short in the hopes it doesn't look like I wrote all of this just to talk about myself. At the time of writing this I am 32. I never really thought much of writing as a kid, and about the extent of my writing prior to the age of 27 is as follows:
So yeah, jackshit really. The moment of truth came for me when I was 27 years old, having freshly failed out of university a second time (biology, then computer science). I sat there thinking "Jesus christ, is there anything I'm good at? Do I have one marketable skill?"
Then I thought about writing. It started very ignobly, with a tumblr account I published some writing porn on. I then emailed it directly to Fen like "hey, is this any good? Can I write for your game?" and he said yes. Skipping details and jumping ahead, I made my very first project in TiTS: Edan, the leithan. The rest… is history (I think you're meant to say that after you're an accomplished figure in your field, or when people know your name or something. But I'm going to say it because I think it's funny).
Actually writing
Thanks Wsan, but when do I learn how to actually fucking write instead of listening to you waffle on about your mediocre beginnings and how to read?
Right now, dear reader!
Picking a project
Alright. I'm going to skip all the boring shit like writing a transformative or something to get your feet wet and just assume you are at the point where you want to write something sexy (if you think transformation is sexy allow me to assure you that writing one is not). Where do you begin?
It's actually really easy -- write whatever makes you hot. You were probably going to do that anyway but I'm going to expand upon it: it's important to do this because chances are, you are going to give up on this. That is not because you are shit, it is because that is normal. It is the people who continue to write that are abnormal. What drives them? One word: lust.
It's a really simple and effective motivator. It's obvious but it bears thinking about -- a project you think is sexy is going to be more finishable than one you think is not sexy. Writing a sex scene you're not interested in is the equivalent of scraping your nails across a very long chalkboard. It's unpleasant and you hope it's over soon but it never seems to end, and whenever you check the wordcount it seems like you've written less than you did the preceding hour. The simile fell apart at the end there but you get my point: it sucks.
So if your first project is some hyper-specific shit like "a dickgirl that has three different deepthroat scenes" or "a taur only interested in other taurs" or "a furry wolf only interested in being rimmed" then yeah, fucking go for it. Will anyone like it? Idk, we'll think about that later. For now, just fucking write it. Strike while the iron's hot. Just don't strike too many times or you'll have seven different unfinished projects and I can JUST about guarantee you won't finish a single one, let alone all of them.
Doing the work
Yes, this part is decidedly unsexy… it is very, very easy to sit there and marinate in whatever fantasy you envision. Sometimes you may even start writing. I have docs that are little more than sentence clusters -- some not even that, merely singular words outlining some scenario that was ten times sexier in my head.
Unfortunately, jotting some ideas down and going "I'll come back to this later" is not a good idea and in fact, I don't think I have EVER successfully returned to an 'idea' document to fill it out. In every case of successful writing, I have started with the intention to create something I can jam into the game.
You will, at some point, have to sit down and stare at google docs for hours at a time. Maybe only one or two if you're really fucking fast. My peak output rate is over 1000 words an hour when I know exactly what I'm going to write. Most days I will hover around half that and some days much less.
Project burnout & scope creep
This SHOULD go without saying but pick an appropriate project size for your stuff. If you're creating a whole new NPC, restrict yourself to 2-3 sex scenes at most. You will very quickly find that scope creep is absolutely insidious and can destroy your idea completely. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Pick an idea and fucking stick with it. I cannot emphasize this enough, and I'm talking partially to myself here. If you want to make it bigger, WRITE A FUCKING EXPANSION LATER. Don't decide you need to all-in now, actually, and suddenly your draft goes from <5k words to >15k words. Keep It Simple, Stupid!
Have you ever heard of the Pareto Principle? It states that "for many outcomes roughly 80% of consequences come from 20% of the causes". Perhaps more relevantly, Wikipedia has this to say about it in relation to computer science: "It was also discovered that in general the 80% of a certain piece of software can be written in 20% of the total allocated time. Conversely, the hardest 20% of the code takes 80% of the time."
How is that related to us? Well, this might not be universal but it's definitely true for me: finishing a project is so, so much fucking harder than starting it. Those last 300, 500, 1000 words -- a final scene -- the last NPC in a set of three -- this is the hill you will likely die trying to take. Where it once seemed so easy, now it's beginning to grow dark; you will have to power through this.
The last 10-20% of a project often fucks me over, leading to me saying things like "I'll have this finished tomorrow" and I actually hand a finished product in 3-5 days later. The only possible way you will get through a project is by persevering. Sit there and tap at your keyboard like a fucking pigeon until it is done.
Making cuts
Might seem weird to give this an entire section but yeah, this is actually really important. The causes are numerous. Sometimes a project has grown too large (see scope creep), sometimes you realize you've bitten off more than you can chew, sometimes you realize that a 20k word npc is inappropriate for a bit part -- in the end what matters is that you're left with a decision.
Do I keep going, or do I cut this entire bit out?
I am ruthless and selfish here, the one luxury afforded to a writer writing to a crowd. When it comes to committing a project, I do not think about the audience and how much happier they'll be with a full set of scenes. I think "can I get this done without burning myself out" and if the answer is no then fuck you, cut it.
How often do I make cuts? Literally all the time. I'll cut variants, scenes, NPCs, whatever. If I can't do it, I won't do it.
There are two reasons I do this: one is that I do not have an editor. There is nobody policing my efforts and this is a double-edged sword; if I am particularly stupid I can find myself mired in a situation I created with no help (see also the dryad situation). It also means I have complete creative control with nobody looking over my shoulder, which is literally the best. So I roll with the punches (stop hitting yourself).
The second reason is that my job is to write, and that's a complicated thing. If I burn out, that does not mean that I get off the computer and do something else. That means I am now at risk of having to do something I actively don't want to in order to get money, day in day out (so like everyone else on the fucking planet, I hear you say).
Ideally, I don't want that to happen -- and the thing is, my boss doesn't either. He would rather I was happy and writing what I enjoy, because why would you burn one of your writers out if you have the choice not to. Chances are if you're reading this it's not your job to write and that's good, you can step away. But there is something to be learned in the process of persevering even through that.
I'd like to emphasize that, actually: a lot of writing is simply learned by repetition. You cannot be a good writer without writing.
Appealing to an audience
This one is really going to draw on another part of your knowledge entirely. I'm going to be honest here, I think I'm good at this profession because I have read so much fucking porn. I have read what is likely THOUSANDS of hentai doujins, looked at porn in my spare time, read western smut comics, and I continue to do so even now.
Now, that is unique to me and it's a consequence of the fact I literally cannot fucking stop reading. This will sound like a joke but I am addicted to reading. I follow a shitton of ongoing non-pornographic manga and webtoons for no reason other than that they exist and I can read them for free. Then on any number of porn sites I can do the same with hentai and all the other shit. Don't even get me started on Discord or any kind of social media, which is like reading+ with relation to distraction.
So why is that important? Because the vast amount of experience helps me identify "market segments". This is crucial if you want your audience to actually enjoy your writing, and I'm going to assume that you do if you're reading this. Let's work through this using an example.
You want to write a dominant dickgirl.
Okay, you and every other writer. What kind of dominant dickgirl? Think about this carefully because while submissive players are a dime a dozen, there are many, many different types.
Some want to be slowly and gently guided to their own in-game demise, their resistance gradually growing weaker with ever more exposure until they at last give in, freeing themselves of the burden of purpose beyond planting their lips around this dickgirl's throbbing cock.
Others want to be slammed against a fucking wall the moment they meet this dickgirl and have her jam her cock down their throat, using them as a living cumdump and not relenting until she's ejaculated every last drop into their stomach and throws them aside, their purpose served -- maybe even literally.
Others still want a casual, fun experience that could range anywhere in between those two extremes, or they even possibly want one of those two extremes without it being quite so basic. There's literally infinite things you can do with this character, so where do you start?
The first thing you will have to do is envision how this character acts. This does NOT need to be complicated. Literally something like picturing them with an arrogant sneer on their face as they cum down some slut's throat is all you need -- this character thinks she's better than her partners, she's unsubtle about it, and a lot of submissives fucking love that. Great.
Now, why does this character act like that? It doesn't need to be complex. Maybe she's an important person. Maybe nobody's ever told her no and she just assumes that she's the shit. Maybe she's confident in her ability to leave you a gaping wreck because she has a thirty inch cock. Whatever it is, give her some kind of reason. It DOESN'T need to be special, it's a porn game.
Okay, now the million dollar question. How does the audience want this woman to treat them? This is a question with trillions of different answers and it is up to you to pick one. Let's recap real quick.
You have a dominant dickgirl who treats her partners like cumdumps and she does it because she believes she's better than them.
Okay, now here's the trick: at this point, you've filtered out a lot of people.
People who don't like dominance.
People who don't like dickgirls.
People who wanted something gentler.
People who don't like being subject to an arrogant bitch's whims.
And the list goes on.
So at this point, you can stop caring about any of these people. They're a lost cause, and you don't need to cater to them. Now you are left with enthusiasts of the subject matter, and writing what they want is a great deal easier. They want what this girl is selling, and they want a fucking lot of it. They will come back to this girl repeatedly because she treats them like shit, and they get off on her getting off on it. People who play porn games are often looking for "that one character" or "that one scene". Your niche dickgirl could be their love.
So think about how she could cement the relationship between the two of them. Maybe a public setting where she utterly destroys the player character's pussy in full view of their friends, or writing "Vashka's #1 slut" across their forehead with a marker. Maybe it's kept between the two of them but she's privately blowing loads down their throat whenever they cross paths, letting them preserve the facade of superiority in public but smugly putting them in their rightful place in the bedroom.Congratulations you've written dominance 10 Ardia
These people that you are writing for are your "market segment", and you are trying to deliver unto them an experience they will enjoy. You will go through this experience with any character you want to write. Sometimes it can be EXTREMELY simple. For instance:
You want to write a generic male minotaur.
Okay. So right off the bat there are a lot of people who aren't going to like this. Male characters aren't ever going to be as popular as female ones -- more on this in a moment -- and he's a minotaur, which has a few ramifications. The people who are going to like this are, however, simple enough:
Wow, that was easy. I wish we could be that non-specific every time. Okay, but let's dig a little deeper. Why is this the case?
Well, minotaurs are pretty well-established in both CoC and just in general fantasy. Everyone knows what they are -- beast-headed men, muscular, covered in fur, hooved legs, with a whopping fucking cock if it's a porn universe. The likelihood that any given minotaur you meet is going to fuck the absolute shit out of you if he can? Close to 100%.
So, armed with that knowledge, let's talk about audience expectations. When they approach this sexable minotaur, the player will probably have a few assumptions.
These expectations have actually done your work for you. You can now write your generic minotaur. If you want to subvert the trope, that's cool too -- but look out that you don't either do it for the sake of it (wow, a classy minotaur! How novel. Does he do anything?) or disappoint your aforementioned audience. There will be people who just wanted to get absolutely piledrived by this minotaur you've now turned into something else, and they'll be sad you didn't let them.
Who are you writing to?
This is really high level meta shit that you can safely ignore unless it is your actual job to sell these games.
So, the next step of "know your audience" is to actually go beyond the game. Who is this character REALLY aimed at, the person behind the computer screen?
It's straight males. Straight up. By volume, the vast majority of the people who play porn games are males who identify as straight. Their deeds in-game do not matter -- they could blow three dozen minotaurs one after the other and they will still be straight males in real life, subject to a straight male's desires.
What does this mean?
It means that writing a male character is an order of magnitude more difficult than a female one. There will be people who write him off simply for being male because they don't have any interest in men, and this is normal. This can be easily prevented -- make him an effeminate, non-threatening, boyish, and cutesy.
Now you've actually gone all the way around, funnily enough, and straight males love him again. By pounding the fuck out of his bubbly butt, they are asserting their manhood over his -- and it's reinforced by the fact he loves it. Does this make him less of a good character? No. You can even invert the trope (as Berwyn does) and have him be a bratty dominant if you prefer.
It also means that "male writing" is omnipresent. This is not simply just men writing the way men write, but also men writing what men enjoy (not necessarily to the exclusion of what everyone else enjoys, but they are not the focus).
It means that when you write a lesbian character, you are probably not even writing it for lesbians (which are a vanishingly small percentage of the porn game population). You are probably writing it for a straight male who wants the lesbian experience.
This may be disheartening to read but I suspect that most of the writers who write gay stuff already knew. The reason they were writing in the first place is likely because they felt the other content wasn't catering to them… because it wasn't.
This may make no difference to you whatsoever, or you might find yourself wondering why this matters. If that's the case, good -- it probably doesn't.
Wsan's Quick and Dirty Tips! You won't believe number 8!
Here are some really quick tips to instantly improve your writing. Some of them are really basic but if there's one thing I've learned from Hemingway it's that the basics really fucking matter. In fact I'd say the basics matter more than pretty much everything else.
Using commas and fullstops correctly in dialogue
Alright, listen closely because this is FUCKING CRUCIAL. I am not going to teach this to you like a teacher, just how I know it. Unless you are me or Nonesuch you need to fucking read this. Yes, you, dear community writer. I see this in EVERYONE's writing. EVERYONE.gif
Here's a correct example sentence:
"Snrk," Brienne coughs, trying not to giggle. "That's n-not funny."
Notice the COMMA after the "snrk". If your character hasn't finished the sentence or the text hasn't mentioned the actual action of speaking ("Brienne coughs"), use a comma for the first set of speech marks. The exceptions are when the character does the "action" first:
Brienne coughs, trying not to giggle. "Snrk."
Or the character talks, DOES AN ACTION, and then finishes the sentence:
"Snrk," Brienne coughs, trying not to giggle. "That's n-not funny." She tips her head back, ruffling her hair with a hand. "You joker."
And I really hope I didn't have to tell you this but a fullstop also goes at the very end of the speech, eg. the part where she said "That's n-not funny." and nothing came after it.
If you can't figure out which one it is just use a fucking comma. I told you these would be quick and dirty. Also put line breaks in between separate instances of dialogue (eg. two characters speaking to each other).
Stop using You/You/You
This one shows up in a lot of writing all the way from beginner level to expert level. Let's be clear: the game is about You. Do NOT fall into the trap of interpreting that to mean your every action should be narrated in a paragraph. This can be very innocuous to a writer so let me give you an example.
"You run your hand down the soft, rosy skin of her face, cupping her cheek as she smiles up at you. You lean in to kiss her and she stands up on her shaky tiptoes to help you out, her hands clasped at her chest. You can feel her shivering in anticipation as you draw closer, pulling her in a little with your other hand."
There are actually two problems with this writing. One is that every sentence started with "You" and the other is that every sentence took the form of "something something COMMA something something". Let's talk about the first problem here and the second problem later.
Now, is this bad writing? Truth be told, your audience probably won't even notice. Standards are not high in the porn community and the readers usually have something else on their mind. But if you want to actually improve, take heed and make some differences. Instead of prefacing everything with "you", you can just change it to the actual action and put the You later.
"You run your hand down the soft, rosy skin of her face, cupping her cheek as she smiles up at you. Leaning in you go to kiss her and she stands up on her shaky tiptoes to help you out, her hands clasped at her chest. You can feel her shivering in anticipation as you draw closer, pulling her in a little with your other hand."
That was such a simple, basic change that it is almost completely meaningless and yet it reads and flows so much better. I changed all of three words there and I didn't even bother with the start of the last sentence, which I probably would if I wasn't doing this to illustrate a point -- but I don't have to. It's fine as it is.
Additionally, stop doing She/She/She or He/He/He. Break it up with actions or the player's own response. Even She/You/She is better. Don't go thinking you have to write a descriptive novel instead, you don't.
Use paragraph breaks
Real plain, this one. If you've written 3-4 sentences -- paragraph break. That's pressing enter TWICE, for those of you who don't know. Leave an empty space between the paragraphs. Also applies if you write two really long sentences. It might not look like much in google docs but slam it ingame and your 5-6 sentences is just a fucking block of impenetrable text. And it's ugly too.
In a game with a scrollbar for text it can get real shit real fast to have to wind your mousewheel up and down to find where stuff begins. Dialogue can also make this really messy if you don't put a break in between the lines of two characters. Basic stuff here.
Vary sentence structure
Yes, perhaps THE most basic instruction there is. You might have been told this by a teacher when you were 10 years old. Let's take another look at that example from above.
"You run your hand down the soft, rosy skin of her face, cupping her cheek as she smiles up at you. Leaning in you go to kiss her and she stands up on her shaky tiptoes to help you out, her hands clasped at her chest. You can feel her shivering in anticipation as you draw closer, pulling her in a little with your other hand."
Like I mentioned earlier, every single sentence here takes the same form of "something something COMMA something something". Is that necessarily bad? No. And again, your audience probably won't even notice or care. But if you really knew how little the audience cared you wouldn't be reading this, you'd be writing your own game. Let's reword the paragraph a bit.
"You run your hand down the soft, rosy skin of her face, cupping her cheek as she smiles up at you. Leaning in you go to kiss her and she stands up on her shaky tiptoes to help you out -- hands clasped at her chest and shivering in anticipation. She's entirely receptive when you pull her closer, her eyes fluttering closed."
Does that read better? I don't know, does it? We're getting pretty close to jerking ourselves off here with relation to literary achievement but I think this kind of shit is important. At the risk of pretentiousness, the basics are an art and art is open to interpretation. I could rewrite this paragraph 50 times and the result's going to be different every time but I maintain that varying a sentence's length and structure is important.
Don't use adverbs
You may have heard this one before because a famous person said it and because it's drummed into every writer's head -- and for good reason. Adverbs usually weaken your writing. There is a lot of fucking good writing you can do without an adverb.
Here's an exercise for you: cut as many adverbs out of your writing as you possibly can. You're allowed to start using them again when you think you've improved to the point you can wield them properly. When is that? Idk, you're going to get as much out of this as you put in.
What will you actually learn from this? Well, two things in particular: how to make your writing better without trying to prop it up with adverbs, and the process of replacing a word or a sentence with another. Learning "permutations" of a sentence is a valuable skill, and though a lot of learning this kind of thing is instinctual you can force the issue by making yourself amend your writing.
Don't listen to feature requests unless you've got a good reason
If you're a community writer chances are you're going to post your project(s) on the forum whereupon they will be beset by us: the forum users. There's good odds that at least one of them is going to say something like:
"Does she do [thing]?"
"This is awesome and I don't mean to be rude but will there be pregnancy content?"
"Will he cater to males?"
"Is a submissive path planned?"
In these cases it can be your solemn duty to inform them "no, but I'll make it in an expansion!" and then rely on their 3-day memory to make your proverbial escape, your promise falling by the wayside in pursuit of greener pastures. Seriously though go reread the bit I wrote about project burnout and scope creep. This is HANDS DOWN the easiest way to kill your fun of writing: doing what other people want instead of what you want.
Read this fucking book
Go read the actual book, "On Writing", by Steven King. I don't care what you think about him as an author or whether you like his material, this is possibly the best book ever written about the art of writing. The next best thing you're going to get is attending a fucking lecture taught by Brandon Sanderson at Brigham Young University. Actually, there's an idea -- look up "Brandon Sanderson lecture" on youtube. The 2020 ones are up there.
"Are you sending me to youtube university to learn how to write?!"
Yes.
03/29/2021 update: You should also read "Self-Editing for Fiction Writers" by Renni Browne & Dave King. Some of the early material isn't 100% applicable to this style of writing but there are truly excellent chapters on dialogue, speaker attributions, and interior monologue that I think make it worth the purchase. Very sexy-sounding, I know. I haven't finished the book yet but it's already been useful -- you have probably heard the "cut all adverbs" thing but it might never have been explained to you in-depth. Now's your chance to learn!
How does Wsan write?
To be absolutely clear -- and it is tempting to preface this with "in this community" but that is actually too restrictive -- every single writer is a fucking anomaly. There is no assembly line churning out writers with good habits. You're stuck with me, instead, and I'm going to tell you right now my writing habits are absolute shit and not to replicate them. Find what works for you.
So anyway, how I write goes like this:
I go through all of the character design shit I laid out earlier. Who am I writing, why am I writing them, where am I putting them (this part usually comes last). When I wrote for TiTS this was usually very easy because planets tend to be extremely diverse and transformation is so canon that putting almost any kind of character in there will happen without a hitch. In CoC2 it is less so, and I have to put actual thought into where this character is going to come from because the universe is a little tighter. There can only be so many "wandering mercenaries" from completely different continents chilling on Hawkethorne's doorstep.
Once I've decided who my character is I think about how they meet the PC. Are they an enemy, is it a fight? Is it a friendly NPC, are they hanging out in a bar or on a town tile? Then the nature of the meeting. If they're friendly, is the character horny enough to come right out and say "hey I wanna fuck you"? Is it going to take some cajoling? What is their primary interest upon meeting the PC?
Upon deciding these I will immediately start thinking what sex scenes the character will offer. If they're really horny and pent up and have a penis, offering something like a passionate blowjob or rough vaginal is appropriate. If they lack a penis then doggystyling them might be good. This then leads through to later content.
Let's say the PC re-meets this character somewhere else later (or just on repeat visits). Now what do they do? Are they still horny, or are they a little more relaxed now -- has there been progression? Maybe this time you can offer more scenes now that the characters know each other a little better. There's more room in the creative space now.
From there it's the hard bit -- actually writing it. Meeting, talks if applicable, sex scenes, leaving scenes. If the character is meant to give some detail about a quest or something it should beat you over the fucking head with it, no joke. Readers WILL miss important things and then get fucked over if you don't spell it out for them by saying something like "You can find [character] at the wild stallion bar to begin the quest" in bold font.
After I've written it I submit it. You probably didn't notice that my "Actually writing" section has nothing about editing. That is because I do not edit. I don't do passes over my work to check things beyond the absolute basics like "did this scene get written" (and sometimes I miss that entirely anyway). In case you're wondering, yes, this very often results in a coder going "Hey there's no no-cock variant in this scene?" and then I have to make one on the spot.
The actual way I write is completely and utterly disjointed. In an ideal world I would do everything from top to bottom in one even flow but often the case is that I think up some idea like "oh I want to make a dickgirl that slowly breaks you in" and I write the fucking breaking-in scenes FIRST because that's the hot part, then go back and go "hmm I need to write the beginning in a way that it'll link up with the middle" and in the worst case I have to cut or adjust what I've written because I'm an idiot that hates planning. In my defense that happens very rarely.
I know for a fact other community writers take a more structured approach, laying out a skeleton of scenes/dialogue/etc so they can take a good look at the entire thing in an organized fashion. This sounds smart to me and I have never done it. I told you not to emulate me and hopefully you've listened. It works for me, maybe not for you.
Again, every writer is individual. Do what you like and make sure you enjoy it, otherwise there's no point in the first place. It's like going to the gym -- yeah it makes me more muscular but I do it because it's fun. If it wasn't a person as lazy as me would never even bother in the first place.
Learning to write
Starting
This comes up less than you'd think but I think it's really important. I'm not going to bullshit you: the best way to learn how to write is to read. A bunch of people consider me a good writer. Wanna know how I got good at this?
Was it classes? Afterschool learning? My own projects? University?
No.
It was reading and in my case, almost nothing but reading.
During my childhood I read an absolute shitton of books. My mum would drop me off at the library on a fairly regular basis so she could go do whatever adults do, and I chewed through the entire children's section and began moving to stuff older kids were reading. By the time I was 10 I was reading Lord of the Rings front-to-back in 3 days, by the time I was 11 or so I was reading at the level of college students and by the time I was 13 I was writing those college students papers for them (ok that last bit is totally untrue, I just wanted to say that. What actually happened is that a first-year college student I knew on IRC asked me to proofread his papers because I was very good at picking errors out).
Obviously, if you're reading this, it's too late to replicate a childhood spent reading books. But what you can do is start now. Go read some David Eddings or something. Buy some fucking books off Amazon, they don't even have to be niche. Read the Dark Tower series, read Game of Thrones, read the Kingkiller Chronicles, read Wheel of Time.
In fact they don't even have to be fantasy. Read some classics. You probably got these shoved down your throat in highschool but Catcher in the Rye, 1984, Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World, Oryx and Crake. You don't even need to read them with a critical eye looking at sentence structure or some goofy shit, you just need to read. Expand your vocabulary, it is your primary weapon.
Technique
I imagine -- and I use the word imagine very literally here because I have NO fucking idea -- that most people who want to "become a writer" do things like take English classes and major in it in university. I did not do these things and I cannot advise you as to whether they are useful. As is often the case with native speakers/writers of English, 95% of my writing was pure "instinct" while the remaining 5% was Savin bopping me over the head with grammatical rules (more on the important ones later).
So, paradoxically, I'm going to tell you here: emulating me might suck, if you want to Become A Writer. I'm not going to pretend I have taken the best, the most efficient, or even a good pathway to becoming what I am. All I can tell you is that it is a pathway to becoming a writer and nothing more.
About me
I'll keep this really short in the hopes it doesn't look like I wrote all of this just to talk about myself. At the time of writing this I am 32. I never really thought much of writing as a kid, and about the extent of my writing prior to the age of 27 is as follows:
- I wrote for the compulsory creative writing days in intermediate/highschool
- I once submitted a (terrible) story in the setting of Diablo II to a diablo 2 site. Shoutout to the guy who gave me feedback on it, I don't remember any of it but the fact anyone even responded to some 11 year old kid's shitty writing is really a testament to his faith. I literally started it with "It was a dark and stormy night"
- I roleplayed racing (poorly) on a forum about arcade racing when I was like 12
- I wrote a story for my "you dropped outta highschool and didn't get your university entrance qualifications" year-long university course. This one was a bit more important to me than the others because we had to read them out in front of the class and I hammed it up a bit and everyone loved it. I think this was the first time it had ever occurred to me "oh, writing is fun and I guess I'm okay at it"
- That's it, that's everything I'd ever written.
So yeah, jackshit really. The moment of truth came for me when I was 27 years old, having freshly failed out of university a second time (biology, then computer science). I sat there thinking "Jesus christ, is there anything I'm good at? Do I have one marketable skill?"
Then I thought about writing. It started very ignobly, with a tumblr account I published some writing porn on. I then emailed it directly to Fen like "hey, is this any good? Can I write for your game?" and he said yes. Skipping details and jumping ahead, I made my very first project in TiTS: Edan, the leithan. The rest… is history (I think you're meant to say that after you're an accomplished figure in your field, or when people know your name or something. But I'm going to say it because I think it's funny).
Actually writing
Thanks Wsan, but when do I learn how to actually fucking write instead of listening to you waffle on about your mediocre beginnings and how to read?
Right now, dear reader!
Picking a project
Alright. I'm going to skip all the boring shit like writing a transformative or something to get your feet wet and just assume you are at the point where you want to write something sexy (if you think transformation is sexy allow me to assure you that writing one is not). Where do you begin?
It's actually really easy -- write whatever makes you hot. You were probably going to do that anyway but I'm going to expand upon it: it's important to do this because chances are, you are going to give up on this. That is not because you are shit, it is because that is normal. It is the people who continue to write that are abnormal. What drives them? One word: lust.
It's a really simple and effective motivator. It's obvious but it bears thinking about -- a project you think is sexy is going to be more finishable than one you think is not sexy. Writing a sex scene you're not interested in is the equivalent of scraping your nails across a very long chalkboard. It's unpleasant and you hope it's over soon but it never seems to end, and whenever you check the wordcount it seems like you've written less than you did the preceding hour. The simile fell apart at the end there but you get my point: it sucks.
So if your first project is some hyper-specific shit like "a dickgirl that has three different deepthroat scenes" or "a taur only interested in other taurs" or "a furry wolf only interested in being rimmed" then yeah, fucking go for it. Will anyone like it? Idk, we'll think about that later. For now, just fucking write it. Strike while the iron's hot. Just don't strike too many times or you'll have seven different unfinished projects and I can JUST about guarantee you won't finish a single one, let alone all of them.
Doing the work
Yes, this part is decidedly unsexy… it is very, very easy to sit there and marinate in whatever fantasy you envision. Sometimes you may even start writing. I have docs that are little more than sentence clusters -- some not even that, merely singular words outlining some scenario that was ten times sexier in my head.
Unfortunately, jotting some ideas down and going "I'll come back to this later" is not a good idea and in fact, I don't think I have EVER successfully returned to an 'idea' document to fill it out. In every case of successful writing, I have started with the intention to create something I can jam into the game.
You will, at some point, have to sit down and stare at google docs for hours at a time. Maybe only one or two if you're really fucking fast. My peak output rate is over 1000 words an hour when I know exactly what I'm going to write. Most days I will hover around half that and some days much less.
Project burnout & scope creep
This SHOULD go without saying but pick an appropriate project size for your stuff. If you're creating a whole new NPC, restrict yourself to 2-3 sex scenes at most. You will very quickly find that scope creep is absolutely insidious and can destroy your idea completely. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Pick an idea and fucking stick with it. I cannot emphasize this enough, and I'm talking partially to myself here. If you want to make it bigger, WRITE A FUCKING EXPANSION LATER. Don't decide you need to all-in now, actually, and suddenly your draft goes from <5k words to >15k words. Keep It Simple, Stupid!
Have you ever heard of the Pareto Principle? It states that "for many outcomes roughly 80% of consequences come from 20% of the causes". Perhaps more relevantly, Wikipedia has this to say about it in relation to computer science: "It was also discovered that in general the 80% of a certain piece of software can be written in 20% of the total allocated time. Conversely, the hardest 20% of the code takes 80% of the time."
How is that related to us? Well, this might not be universal but it's definitely true for me: finishing a project is so, so much fucking harder than starting it. Those last 300, 500, 1000 words -- a final scene -- the last NPC in a set of three -- this is the hill you will likely die trying to take. Where it once seemed so easy, now it's beginning to grow dark; you will have to power through this.
The last 10-20% of a project often fucks me over, leading to me saying things like "I'll have this finished tomorrow" and I actually hand a finished product in 3-5 days later. The only possible way you will get through a project is by persevering. Sit there and tap at your keyboard like a fucking pigeon until it is done.
Making cuts
Might seem weird to give this an entire section but yeah, this is actually really important. The causes are numerous. Sometimes a project has grown too large (see scope creep), sometimes you realize you've bitten off more than you can chew, sometimes you realize that a 20k word npc is inappropriate for a bit part -- in the end what matters is that you're left with a decision.
Do I keep going, or do I cut this entire bit out?
I am ruthless and selfish here, the one luxury afforded to a writer writing to a crowd. When it comes to committing a project, I do not think about the audience and how much happier they'll be with a full set of scenes. I think "can I get this done without burning myself out" and if the answer is no then fuck you, cut it.
How often do I make cuts? Literally all the time. I'll cut variants, scenes, NPCs, whatever. If I can't do it, I won't do it.
There are two reasons I do this: one is that I do not have an editor. There is nobody policing my efforts and this is a double-edged sword; if I am particularly stupid I can find myself mired in a situation I created with no help (see also the dryad situation). It also means I have complete creative control with nobody looking over my shoulder, which is literally the best. So I roll with the punches (stop hitting yourself).
The second reason is that my job is to write, and that's a complicated thing. If I burn out, that does not mean that I get off the computer and do something else. That means I am now at risk of having to do something I actively don't want to in order to get money, day in day out (so like everyone else on the fucking planet, I hear you say).
Ideally, I don't want that to happen -- and the thing is, my boss doesn't either. He would rather I was happy and writing what I enjoy, because why would you burn one of your writers out if you have the choice not to. Chances are if you're reading this it's not your job to write and that's good, you can step away. But there is something to be learned in the process of persevering even through that.
I'd like to emphasize that, actually: a lot of writing is simply learned by repetition. You cannot be a good writer without writing.
Appealing to an audience
This one is really going to draw on another part of your knowledge entirely. I'm going to be honest here, I think I'm good at this profession because I have read so much fucking porn. I have read what is likely THOUSANDS of hentai doujins, looked at porn in my spare time, read western smut comics, and I continue to do so even now.
Now, that is unique to me and it's a consequence of the fact I literally cannot fucking stop reading. This will sound like a joke but I am addicted to reading. I follow a shitton of ongoing non-pornographic manga and webtoons for no reason other than that they exist and I can read them for free. Then on any number of porn sites I can do the same with hentai and all the other shit. Don't even get me started on Discord or any kind of social media, which is like reading+ with relation to distraction.
So why is that important? Because the vast amount of experience helps me identify "market segments". This is crucial if you want your audience to actually enjoy your writing, and I'm going to assume that you do if you're reading this. Let's work through this using an example.
You want to write a dominant dickgirl.
Okay, you and every other writer. What kind of dominant dickgirl? Think about this carefully because while submissive players are a dime a dozen, there are many, many different types.
Some want to be slowly and gently guided to their own in-game demise, their resistance gradually growing weaker with ever more exposure until they at last give in, freeing themselves of the burden of purpose beyond planting their lips around this dickgirl's throbbing cock.
Others want to be slammed against a fucking wall the moment they meet this dickgirl and have her jam her cock down their throat, using them as a living cumdump and not relenting until she's ejaculated every last drop into their stomach and throws them aside, their purpose served -- maybe even literally.
Others still want a casual, fun experience that could range anywhere in between those two extremes, or they even possibly want one of those two extremes without it being quite so basic. There's literally infinite things you can do with this character, so where do you start?
The first thing you will have to do is envision how this character acts. This does NOT need to be complicated. Literally something like picturing them with an arrogant sneer on their face as they cum down some slut's throat is all you need -- this character thinks she's better than her partners, she's unsubtle about it, and a lot of submissives fucking love that. Great.
Now, why does this character act like that? It doesn't need to be complex. Maybe she's an important person. Maybe nobody's ever told her no and she just assumes that she's the shit. Maybe she's confident in her ability to leave you a gaping wreck because she has a thirty inch cock. Whatever it is, give her some kind of reason. It DOESN'T need to be special, it's a porn game.
Okay, now the million dollar question. How does the audience want this woman to treat them? This is a question with trillions of different answers and it is up to you to pick one. Let's recap real quick.
You have a dominant dickgirl who treats her partners like cumdumps and she does it because she believes she's better than them.
Okay, now here's the trick: at this point, you've filtered out a lot of people.
People who don't like dominance.
People who don't like dickgirls.
People who wanted something gentler.
People who don't like being subject to an arrogant bitch's whims.
And the list goes on.
So at this point, you can stop caring about any of these people. They're a lost cause, and you don't need to cater to them. Now you are left with enthusiasts of the subject matter, and writing what they want is a great deal easier. They want what this girl is selling, and they want a fucking lot of it. They will come back to this girl repeatedly because she treats them like shit, and they get off on her getting off on it. People who play porn games are often looking for "that one character" or "that one scene". Your niche dickgirl could be their love.
So think about how she could cement the relationship between the two of them. Maybe a public setting where she utterly destroys the player character's pussy in full view of their friends, or writing "Vashka's #1 slut" across their forehead with a marker. Maybe it's kept between the two of them but she's privately blowing loads down their throat whenever they cross paths, letting them preserve the facade of superiority in public but smugly putting them in their rightful place in the bedroom.
These people that you are writing for are your "market segment", and you are trying to deliver unto them an experience they will enjoy. You will go through this experience with any character you want to write. Sometimes it can be EXTREMELY simple. For instance:
You want to write a generic male minotaur.
Okay. So right off the bat there are a lot of people who aren't going to like this. Male characters aren't ever going to be as popular as female ones -- more on this in a moment -- and he's a minotaur, which has a few ramifications. The people who are going to like this are, however, simple enough:
- People who want to get fucked by a minotaur
Wow, that was easy. I wish we could be that non-specific every time. Okay, but let's dig a little deeper. Why is this the case?
Well, minotaurs are pretty well-established in both CoC and just in general fantasy. Everyone knows what they are -- beast-headed men, muscular, covered in fur, hooved legs, with a whopping fucking cock if it's a porn universe. The likelihood that any given minotaur you meet is going to fuck the absolute shit out of you if he can? Close to 100%.
So, armed with that knowledge, let's talk about audience expectations. When they approach this sexable minotaur, the player will probably have a few assumptions.
- The minotaur will have an enormous penis
- He will likely want to fuck them rather than the other way around
- The sex is likely to be rough and primal
These expectations have actually done your work for you. You can now write your generic minotaur. If you want to subvert the trope, that's cool too -- but look out that you don't either do it for the sake of it (wow, a classy minotaur! How novel. Does he do anything?) or disappoint your aforementioned audience. There will be people who just wanted to get absolutely piledrived by this minotaur you've now turned into something else, and they'll be sad you didn't let them.
Who are you writing to?
This is really high level meta shit that you can safely ignore unless it is your actual job to sell these games.
So, the next step of "know your audience" is to actually go beyond the game. Who is this character REALLY aimed at, the person behind the computer screen?
It's straight males. Straight up. By volume, the vast majority of the people who play porn games are males who identify as straight. Their deeds in-game do not matter -- they could blow three dozen minotaurs one after the other and they will still be straight males in real life, subject to a straight male's desires.
What does this mean?
It means that writing a male character is an order of magnitude more difficult than a female one. There will be people who write him off simply for being male because they don't have any interest in men, and this is normal. This can be easily prevented -- make him an effeminate, non-threatening, boyish, and cutesy.
Now you've actually gone all the way around, funnily enough, and straight males love him again. By pounding the fuck out of his bubbly butt, they are asserting their manhood over his -- and it's reinforced by the fact he loves it. Does this make him less of a good character? No. You can even invert the trope (as Berwyn does) and have him be a bratty dominant if you prefer.
It also means that "male writing" is omnipresent. This is not simply just men writing the way men write, but also men writing what men enjoy (not necessarily to the exclusion of what everyone else enjoys, but they are not the focus).
It means that when you write a lesbian character, you are probably not even writing it for lesbians (which are a vanishingly small percentage of the porn game population). You are probably writing it for a straight male who wants the lesbian experience.
This may be disheartening to read but I suspect that most of the writers who write gay stuff already knew. The reason they were writing in the first place is likely because they felt the other content wasn't catering to them… because it wasn't.
This may make no difference to you whatsoever, or you might find yourself wondering why this matters. If that's the case, good -- it probably doesn't.
Wsan's Quick and Dirty Tips! You won't believe number 8!
Here are some really quick tips to instantly improve your writing. Some of them are really basic but if there's one thing I've learned from Hemingway it's that the basics really fucking matter. In fact I'd say the basics matter more than pretty much everything else.
Using commas and fullstops correctly in dialogue
Alright, listen closely because this is FUCKING CRUCIAL. I am not going to teach this to you like a teacher, just how I know it. Unless you are me or Nonesuch you need to fucking read this. Yes, you, dear community writer. I see this in EVERYONE's writing. EVERYONE.gif
Here's a correct example sentence:
"Snrk," Brienne coughs, trying not to giggle. "That's n-not funny."
Notice the COMMA after the "snrk". If your character hasn't finished the sentence or the text hasn't mentioned the actual action of speaking ("Brienne coughs"), use a comma for the first set of speech marks. The exceptions are when the character does the "action" first:
Brienne coughs, trying not to giggle. "Snrk."
Or the character talks, DOES AN ACTION, and then finishes the sentence:
"Snrk," Brienne coughs, trying not to giggle. "That's n-not funny." She tips her head back, ruffling her hair with a hand. "You joker."
And I really hope I didn't have to tell you this but a fullstop also goes at the very end of the speech, eg. the part where she said "That's n-not funny." and nothing came after it.
If you can't figure out which one it is just use a fucking comma. I told you these would be quick and dirty. Also put line breaks in between separate instances of dialogue (eg. two characters speaking to each other).
Stop using You/You/You
This one shows up in a lot of writing all the way from beginner level to expert level. Let's be clear: the game is about You. Do NOT fall into the trap of interpreting that to mean your every action should be narrated in a paragraph. This can be very innocuous to a writer so let me give you an example.
"You run your hand down the soft, rosy skin of her face, cupping her cheek as she smiles up at you. You lean in to kiss her and she stands up on her shaky tiptoes to help you out, her hands clasped at her chest. You can feel her shivering in anticipation as you draw closer, pulling her in a little with your other hand."
There are actually two problems with this writing. One is that every sentence started with "You" and the other is that every sentence took the form of "something something COMMA something something". Let's talk about the first problem here and the second problem later.
Now, is this bad writing? Truth be told, your audience probably won't even notice. Standards are not high in the porn community and the readers usually have something else on their mind. But if you want to actually improve, take heed and make some differences. Instead of prefacing everything with "you", you can just change it to the actual action and put the You later.
"You run your hand down the soft, rosy skin of her face, cupping her cheek as she smiles up at you. Leaning in you go to kiss her and she stands up on her shaky tiptoes to help you out, her hands clasped at her chest. You can feel her shivering in anticipation as you draw closer, pulling her in a little with your other hand."
That was such a simple, basic change that it is almost completely meaningless and yet it reads and flows so much better. I changed all of three words there and I didn't even bother with the start of the last sentence, which I probably would if I wasn't doing this to illustrate a point -- but I don't have to. It's fine as it is.
Additionally, stop doing She/She/She or He/He/He. Break it up with actions or the player's own response. Even She/You/She is better. Don't go thinking you have to write a descriptive novel instead, you don't.
Use paragraph breaks
Real plain, this one. If you've written 3-4 sentences -- paragraph break. That's pressing enter TWICE, for those of you who don't know. Leave an empty space between the paragraphs. Also applies if you write two really long sentences. It might not look like much in google docs but slam it ingame and your 5-6 sentences is just a fucking block of impenetrable text. And it's ugly too.
In a game with a scrollbar for text it can get real shit real fast to have to wind your mousewheel up and down to find where stuff begins. Dialogue can also make this really messy if you don't put a break in between the lines of two characters. Basic stuff here.
Vary sentence structure
Yes, perhaps THE most basic instruction there is. You might have been told this by a teacher when you were 10 years old. Let's take another look at that example from above.
"You run your hand down the soft, rosy skin of her face, cupping her cheek as she smiles up at you. Leaning in you go to kiss her and she stands up on her shaky tiptoes to help you out, her hands clasped at her chest. You can feel her shivering in anticipation as you draw closer, pulling her in a little with your other hand."
Like I mentioned earlier, every single sentence here takes the same form of "something something COMMA something something". Is that necessarily bad? No. And again, your audience probably won't even notice or care. But if you really knew how little the audience cared you wouldn't be reading this, you'd be writing your own game. Let's reword the paragraph a bit.
"You run your hand down the soft, rosy skin of her face, cupping her cheek as she smiles up at you. Leaning in you go to kiss her and she stands up on her shaky tiptoes to help you out -- hands clasped at her chest and shivering in anticipation. She's entirely receptive when you pull her closer, her eyes fluttering closed."
Does that read better? I don't know, does it? We're getting pretty close to jerking ourselves off here with relation to literary achievement but I think this kind of shit is important. At the risk of pretentiousness, the basics are an art and art is open to interpretation. I could rewrite this paragraph 50 times and the result's going to be different every time but I maintain that varying a sentence's length and structure is important.
Don't use adverbs
You may have heard this one before because a famous person said it and because it's drummed into every writer's head -- and for good reason. Adverbs usually weaken your writing. There is a lot of fucking good writing you can do without an adverb.
Here's an exercise for you: cut as many adverbs out of your writing as you possibly can. You're allowed to start using them again when you think you've improved to the point you can wield them properly. When is that? Idk, you're going to get as much out of this as you put in.
What will you actually learn from this? Well, two things in particular: how to make your writing better without trying to prop it up with adverbs, and the process of replacing a word or a sentence with another. Learning "permutations" of a sentence is a valuable skill, and though a lot of learning this kind of thing is instinctual you can force the issue by making yourself amend your writing.
Don't listen to feature requests unless you've got a good reason
If you're a community writer chances are you're going to post your project(s) on the forum whereupon they will be beset by us: the forum users. There's good odds that at least one of them is going to say something like:
"Does she do [thing]?"
"This is awesome and I don't mean to be rude but will there be pregnancy content?"
"Will he cater to males?"
"Is a submissive path planned?"
In these cases it can be your solemn duty to inform them "no, but I'll make it in an expansion!" and then rely on their 3-day memory to make your proverbial escape, your promise falling by the wayside in pursuit of greener pastures. Seriously though go reread the bit I wrote about project burnout and scope creep. This is HANDS DOWN the easiest way to kill your fun of writing: doing what other people want instead of what you want.
Read this fucking book
Go read the actual book, "On Writing", by Steven King. I don't care what you think about him as an author or whether you like his material, this is possibly the best book ever written about the art of writing. The next best thing you're going to get is attending a fucking lecture taught by Brandon Sanderson at Brigham Young University. Actually, there's an idea -- look up "Brandon Sanderson lecture" on youtube. The 2020 ones are up there.
"Are you sending me to youtube university to learn how to write?!"
Yes.
03/29/2021 update: You should also read "Self-Editing for Fiction Writers" by Renni Browne & Dave King. Some of the early material isn't 100% applicable to this style of writing but there are truly excellent chapters on dialogue, speaker attributions, and interior monologue that I think make it worth the purchase. Very sexy-sounding, I know. I haven't finished the book yet but it's already been useful -- you have probably heard the "cut all adverbs" thing but it might never have been explained to you in-depth. Now's your chance to learn!
How does Wsan write?
To be absolutely clear -- and it is tempting to preface this with "in this community" but that is actually too restrictive -- every single writer is a fucking anomaly. There is no assembly line churning out writers with good habits. You're stuck with me, instead, and I'm going to tell you right now my writing habits are absolute shit and not to replicate them. Find what works for you.
So anyway, how I write goes like this:
I go through all of the character design shit I laid out earlier. Who am I writing, why am I writing them, where am I putting them (this part usually comes last). When I wrote for TiTS this was usually very easy because planets tend to be extremely diverse and transformation is so canon that putting almost any kind of character in there will happen without a hitch. In CoC2 it is less so, and I have to put actual thought into where this character is going to come from because the universe is a little tighter. There can only be so many "wandering mercenaries" from completely different continents chilling on Hawkethorne's doorstep.
Once I've decided who my character is I think about how they meet the PC. Are they an enemy, is it a fight? Is it a friendly NPC, are they hanging out in a bar or on a town tile? Then the nature of the meeting. If they're friendly, is the character horny enough to come right out and say "hey I wanna fuck you"? Is it going to take some cajoling? What is their primary interest upon meeting the PC?
Upon deciding these I will immediately start thinking what sex scenes the character will offer. If they're really horny and pent up and have a penis, offering something like a passionate blowjob or rough vaginal is appropriate. If they lack a penis then doggystyling them might be good. This then leads through to later content.
Let's say the PC re-meets this character somewhere else later (or just on repeat visits). Now what do they do? Are they still horny, or are they a little more relaxed now -- has there been progression? Maybe this time you can offer more scenes now that the characters know each other a little better. There's more room in the creative space now.
From there it's the hard bit -- actually writing it. Meeting, talks if applicable, sex scenes, leaving scenes. If the character is meant to give some detail about a quest or something it should beat you over the fucking head with it, no joke. Readers WILL miss important things and then get fucked over if you don't spell it out for them by saying something like "You can find [character] at the wild stallion bar to begin the quest" in bold font.
After I've written it I submit it. You probably didn't notice that my "Actually writing" section has nothing about editing. That is because I do not edit. I don't do passes over my work to check things beyond the absolute basics like "did this scene get written" (and sometimes I miss that entirely anyway). In case you're wondering, yes, this very often results in a coder going "Hey there's no no-cock variant in this scene?" and then I have to make one on the spot.
The actual way I write is completely and utterly disjointed. In an ideal world I would do everything from top to bottom in one even flow but often the case is that I think up some idea like "oh I want to make a dickgirl that slowly breaks you in" and I write the fucking breaking-in scenes FIRST because that's the hot part, then go back and go "hmm I need to write the beginning in a way that it'll link up with the middle" and in the worst case I have to cut or adjust what I've written because I'm an idiot that hates planning. In my defense that happens very rarely.
I know for a fact other community writers take a more structured approach, laying out a skeleton of scenes/dialogue/etc so they can take a good look at the entire thing in an organized fashion. This sounds smart to me and I have never done it. I told you not to emulate me and hopefully you've listened. It works for me, maybe not for you.
Again, every writer is individual. Do what you like and make sure you enjoy it, otherwise there's no point in the first place. It's like going to the gym -- yeah it makes me more muscular but I do it because it's fun. If it wasn't a person as lazy as me would never even bother in the first place.
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