Clearly I have a problem... · 9:38am Dec 17th, 2022
I know I said I wouldn't touch chapter 1 of Royal Brat's Reality Check anymore after the big QA pass... but I've already gone back on that several times.
Sometimes I just re-read what I've already written, searching for motivation or perhaps pacing guidance for what I'm writing next and nearly every time I do this I find something tiny somewhere in chapter 1 that I just don't like. And I mean really, obsessively tiny at times.
In part 2, I changed
"He wished so badly that ebony reptile would step aside just a little bit and give Cotton the view of a lifetime"
to
"Cotton wished so badly that ebony reptile would step aside just a little bit and give him the view of a lifetime"
because I didn't like that "he" was used before a namedrop was when both are for the same character reference.
Do any other writers do this? Does it have a term? Where you just can't leave something you wrote alone and have an obsessive compulsion to improve it by 0.001% each time you read through and start finding flaws in your previous work?
I don't think I'll be able to stop, either. In fact, part 1 might get further improvements in the future because I like the pacing/wording of that portion of the story the least.
Anyway, for anyone who actually cares to read this, I'm still at about 35% through writing chapter 2 and have every intention to release it eventually, but from what I've seen of my own patterns of behavior with chapter 1, I'm worried I'll end up releasing it, then reading through it a couple dozen times and routinely decide it needs tiny improvements again and again. I suppose it doesn't really matter if I do this so long as I'm positive every change is an improvement on the readability of the story (which I always am before committing to changing it).
Believe it or not, any feedback that focuses on criticism or highlighting what somebody liked the least or disliked the most about the story is the kind of feedback I appreciate the most because it's the most useful to me. While praise and compliment is flattering and nice, criticism gives me a clear path toward improving which hopefully would make my obsessive need to fiddle with previous work for sake of "making it a bit better to read" simmer down a bit, as I'd be more confident in my work overall if I knew from third-party opinions where its biggest weaknesses laid.
Thanks for reading, I guess. Any thoughts or opinions on where Royal Brat's Reality Check will go as a (smut-oriented) story? My plans for coming chapters are pretty locked in already but seeing what potential directions the story has according to readers with different tastes/interpretations sounds like a fun way to help inspire my creativity as well as boost my motivation to write for it more often.
Imagine if after the dragons had their way with her, she managed to escape, only to find herself fleeing right into in the Griffons' clutches, or maybe the Yaks'.
5703802
Interesting idea, but if anything were to go that route I'd probably make it changelings just because of the fun excuse that rogue changelings can still feed off love which can be twisted into a classic excuse for poontang.
As far as reviewing forever, YES. I still sometimes go back and "fix" old stories when I notice something glaring. I used to release stuff as I wrote it, and now I write it and try to finish it before I post it. I have several stories in review hell where I re-read the beginning of the story every time I go to write. Then I edit the beginning over and over again. So the first chapter gets like 20 editing sessions, the second chapter 18, the third chapter 15, the fourth chapter 12, etc. The problem is that I spend more and more time editing every time and less and less time writing. It's a trap. Don't do it. Just write the whole damn thing, let it suck, then go back and edit it. Give every chapter 10 passes after it's done instead of heavily weighting the early chapters.
As far as constructive criticisms go, I don't have too much. I still don't much like Cotton's parts, and I usually love weird "cuck" stuff where a dummy longs for some gal who is getting wrecked by some other person. See most of concordian's works for the kind of messed up stuff that I like. But for whatever reason, Cotton in this story makes me... frustrated? Bored? Any time it focuses on him I'm more concerned about what's going on with Flurry. It honestly could be because Flurry's bits are just so engaging. So maybe there's nothing "wrong" with Cotton's bits, it's just not as exciting as Flurry's. But that's all I got. I honestly think your writing is great. As long as you post it "reasonably" I think it'll be recieved well.
I'd also recommend posting the rest as a sequel and using the previous story block to link to the old one. You'll get fresh readers, and people that passed because of the one 40k word chapter will give it another shot. This is still one of my favorite stories on the site. I have a short list.
In no particular order:
Breaking Twilight (coxswain)
Xenophilia (AnonponyDASHIE)
How To (concordian) (The entire series. In order.)
Your story
Background Pony (Shortskirtsandexplosions)
Walking through fire (SParK)
5717713
yeah I did struggle making Cotton's scenes engaging, mostly because of just how long the story was and the fact he technically plays a role in the story so I didn't want him to be totally forgotten but I also didn't want his scenes to have zero smut in them either.
Making chapter 2 its own story? I mean... I could but, if it's chronologically connected, wouldn't that annoy some people that the follow-up chapters the previous ones were directly eluding to with cliff hangers are now located on an entirely different page instead of just in the chapters roster? Do writers do that often here? Make a new chapter its own story just to game the algorithm a bit and get more eyes on it? I suppose I could if it's a smart practice and readers don't mind, but it seems sort of cheaty, are you sure people wouldn't just get annoyed that they now have to check story descriptions and click links just to navigate to the chronological beginning?
I have been worrying about just how ridiculously large the story description would get due to all the additional content warning tags I would add for each chapter, and breaking it into separate stories where I get a fresh new description box to fill does sound like one solution to that problem.
5717730
I really don't think anyone would mind. As long as you're not making super small chapter updates as stories and spamming the list then I don't see an issue. Honestly, you update so infrequently and with so much content that it's probably more appropriate to section it that way anyways. Assuming it's another 40k word update, then it's more than enough content to warrant it. If you stick to a standard 3 (or even 5) act storyline, having a series of 2-5 books is absolutely fine. I'd just make sure that each "end" is self contained enough for what it is. If it's more than 5 planned chunks, then I'd reconsider this advice. I can't stand when stories have an ancestry of 20 prequels I have to dig through.
It is incredibly helpful for updating warning tags and blurbs and whatnot, as well.
5717731
If I did go the sequel route to try and get more eyes on it... what of the other chapters after 2? Would I make 3, 4, and 5 their own stories too? I dunno if I like that.
5717762
If each of the "chapters" is about 40k, and split into appropriate sub-chapters of about or less than 10k words, then I'd say that's fine. Having one 200k word story is great, but all the good ones do that with frequent updates. You'll likely only lose readers as time goes on by doing that, no matter what, and it's incredibly hard to make that work with slow updates. It's taken about a year to get "chapter 2" out, and you're only 30% of the way done with it. Many of the accounts that followed your original chapter probably won't be around when you update, and many new accounts that would be interested may miss it. I think it's very appropriate to make a new story for it when you do post it.
As far as chapter 5 and beyond, honestly it depends on how often you update and what the content is. I don't like digging through more than about 5 sequels (also about the max size IRL book series I'll buy at once) to read a story. If it makes sense for each chapter to be contained in a story container, then do that. Harry Potter and the sorcerers stone is 76k words. Two of your chapters would be about 80k words. Maybe chunk them up in twos if that's more convenient (but do make sure you have smaller sub chapters!).
5717770
Hmmm, I suppose, but then every single description will have a link to a separate story, or 2 in some cases for the next story and the one before it. I guess that's probably fine given the way people read smut is not exactly trilogy-friendly or anything. They wanna read one dirty something-or-other, then move on and will only come back once in the mood again.
I guess I just sort of liked the idea of the entire series of events being in one place even if the contents of the chapters would be quite large and written in a perfectly self-contained way (as far as porn fics go, anyway). That does mean I run into some naming problems though. The next chapter will be titled "Trapped In The Storm", but if it's its own story, that chapter name just becomes the story name, when originally Royal Brat's Reality Check was the title that weaved the themes of all the chapters into one, because basically every single chapter is depicting the 'Royal Brat' receiving a 'Reality Check', lol.
How would you solve this problem? I mean, I've already set a precedent for the story being called one thing, but then its chapters being called another (chapter 1 being titled Only the Finest of Hues). You think I'm over-thinking it and it doesn't matter that much, and all I need to do is just call each new chapter its own story title, then make up a new title for the sub-chapters?
5717776
Naming can be easy. "Royal Brat's Reality Check 2: Trapped in the storm" is the lazy but efficient way of doing it. Honestly, you can do it however makes sense. I'm just of the opinion that you'll lose out on potential readers by updating directly to the story. I know for a fact that there were folks who would have liked your story that when I asked them about it said, "That 40k word chapter? No, I didn't read it." and they never looked back. I just think that since it has a better presentation now, giving it another shot when you post the update wouldn't hurt.
5717813
Hmmm... well okay, if people really wouldn't mind me making 5 separate stories all titled "Royal Brat's Reality Check 1/2/3/4/whatever" and you say it's a smart move, then I guess I'll go ahead and do that when chapter 2 is finally done. Thanks for the advice.
Would you be interested to proofread chapter 2 when it's done and give me feedback before I publish it? I'll wanna give it several QA passes anyway, and if you already enjoy the subject matter, maybe you can help by giving a third-party perspective on it before it's live.
5717859
I will happily do a pre-reading and let you know what I think (Probably in too great of detail), but it's unlikely I'll do a real proof-reading. I spend what little editing time I have on my own stuff lately, and I prefer to do that sort of thing from a computer. I can do a pre-read from a phone, so it's usually less of an impact to my day.
5717860
awesome possum, I'll pm you whenever chapter 2 is finally wrapping up (probably won't be until mid to late 2023, just because I work so stupidly slow on it)