Leaderboard

As long as it's clear the story is in English, so readers don't get scared off, I think chapter titles are the one place you can go absolutely crazy without detracting from the story. Esperanto, klingon, complete gibberish. Might make the writer pause and wtf about it but it won't rip them out of scenes or mess with the pacing. Might even pique curiosity and make some party more attention for hidden meanings.

I saved a spider from the bathtub twice today. He gets in there and runs frantically at the slippery walls trying to get out. 10 seconds ago i watched him run back in and fall like a kid closing his eyes and running across a busy street.

How do you think your writing has changed over time? What lead to those changes? Do you remember every story you write? I am not much of a writer, but I get and itch of an idea and must scratch it down once in a while. I have a smattering of stories written over the last 20 years, and I have forgotten about most of them. I stated that I never wrote erotica before, but apparently that isn’t true because I found one that I wrote 5 years ago - for an obscure home-brew video game of all things - and it was awful. I have no memory of writing it at all, so everything in it was a surprise. I realize how much I have changed even over 5 years – a better sense of reality, or depth, perhaps. Yet, I found another fanfic written even earlier, and I was on the edge of my seat and mad that I left it on a cliffhanger. I might even go back and try to finish and clean it up. So, it isn’t linear. How do other writers reflect on their past stories?

Can confirm. My latin lessons at school were hellish.

A question that offers a slight variation of the topic. What of different language in chapter titles? While I personally try to stay with English in the actual content of the story, I’ve been using Latin in the chapter titles of my latest tale. Mostly because I think it fits the Hellish themes somewhat. But I’m curious to think what folks might think of that.

I wasn’t that delusional in the beginning, still not. I know writing/english/literature weren’t my best subjects in school, typicallythe worst. It took an anonymous pen name before I had the courage to even post that first one.

There was a profound difference between fanfic #1 and fanfic #2, and I think the writing’s gotten generally better since then (even if there’s been a detour or two through terrible ideas).

My writing has absolutely evolved. A few things factor into it. I very much credit my years in fanfiction as a powerful foundation. Though my writing sucked back then, it was an excellent training ground for character development and crafting interesting stories using elements everyone involved was already familiar with. Also formal education played a part. I'm a high school drop out but I went out of my way to teach myself as well as seek out others who could teach me: take classes, read writing books, write essays and long discussions with my english professor mother. Plus there's the natural improvement that happens just online from writing a lot and communicating with other writers that I 100% believe has the biggest impact out of all the things I just mentioned.

I’m glad the idea isn’t entirely out to lunch then. I’ve pondered that before, but it’s a good suggestion. I suppose I just need to think of how exactly I want to present it so it looks good.

I might suggest an (*) somewhere and state what the English equivalent is, or “Latin (English)”, especially where it’s not guessable.

We’ve got other forum threads on “is it rape” and when to tag. I absolutely agree that nobody shouldn’t come across it without a warning, but sensitivity does vary from reader to reader, which is why I try to provide more information with that tag, as a reader may or may not be able to handle a character merely stating “He raped me X years ago” vs a rape scene. Ditto for abortion, making the distinction between on-screen and off-screen, but still listing it. Intensity of the tag matters too, a single short scene with the tagged content, as an aside to the plot vs it being the center of the plot; both get listed, just a distinction made so the reader can decide, “do I proceed?” Most of the time, they do.

Rape is a trigger tag, one that can gain you a good deal of readers due to the fact that fiction is the only way fans of this fetish can legally experience it. However, I feel that it is also a tag one absolutely must include in any circumstance which is even borderline (i.e. Coercion, Blackmail, DubCon (which to me is just a bullshit way of trying to make rape sound less rapey...) and even NC/Con (where a non-consenting individual becomes consenting) should most likely include the rape tag. Because rape is such a traumatic event, something that can leave a survivor of it scarred for the rest of their life, the tag can and should be used when there is any dubious content around consent. To me, as a writer of such fiction, i know I don’t want someone, especially someone who has experienced it, accidentally stumbling into a story with rape content. That, to me, is one of my greatest fears as a writer. I might bring that subject to life and fantasize about it, in a fictional sense, but to people who have experienced it, it is not a subject to handle lightly it is something we must respect at the utmost level and do everything in our power to warn away those who have an aversion to such things. In my stories, there is usually very little doubt about when the rape tag is needed, but its my philosophy is that its better to include it and warn away someone who might be reminded of a traumatic experience than to not have it and gain a few dragon prints. I’m not sure how a Christian student could save Luzurial from her fate at the hands of Eparlegna…. unless he also happened to be some badass Witcher or an archmage or something...but I have a feeling both of those are against the rules of being Christian anyway… lol… I think its hilarious picturing some IT tech at a Christian University scanning browser histories, especially in this day and age, when you know every 18 and 19 year old boy in every dorm is streaming Pornhub like 24/7 lol…. You can picture them bent over their computer screens, brows dripping in sweat and thinking what the hell has this world come to… I’ve read a several of your stories…. come to think of it, I think I’ve been a bit hypocritical since I never left you a review <ducks> but I’ve thoroughly enjoyed everything I’ve read so I really don’t think you’re giving yourself enough credit. As to going back and looking over past work, that to me is always cringe worthy. I’ve on occasion re-read some of my earliest chapters of Billion Dollar Harem, my first serious attempt at fan-fiction, and I think “oh god, why did I do this… or what the hell was I thinking...” So I completely understand that. I feel like I should go back and re-work them but then I also think well how different would the story be if I went back and changed something that happened 30 chapters ago. In then end I feel its better to just move on to the next thing and try not to think about it. I can’t say I completely understand people’s aversion to celeb fiction (or any fiction which has had a character portrayed by an actor), since to me it isn’t real. As our disclaimer’s loudly announce, it is fiction. Part of writing and reading is parsing what is real from what isn’t and I just don’t understand not being able to separate those things. But I do really appreciate the offer the offer. I have been considering what I might do after Billion Dollar Harem is over. My two options at this point are 1) a Hogwarts Harem story set in an alternate version of the Harry Potter universe, and 2) doing some originals, which I’d practice on first by posting some stories here, before I then move on to writing stories that I’d try to market on Amazon. The problem with 1 is simply the proliferation of HP fiction and the propensity for such work to get lost in the veritable hurricane of such works. The problem with 2 is I’d have to write much tamer work if I ever hoped to make money with writing it.

I have no problem with titles in Latin, actually. I sort of like it, to be honest, and might have to brush up on my Latin.

I think confidence helps too. I think at the start a lot of writers think their writing is awesome enough to push on people, yet won't read it themselves and get super insecure about critical feedback so they won't go to betas. Getting over that phase was a bit of a milestone for me. Like getting to a point where I can take reasonable critiques and enjoy reading my own writing and edit the hell out of it and still think the shit I'm spinning is gold. Edit: I'm in a hotel recovering from a biopsy so if I Fuck up my grammar or spelling y'all just gotta deal. <3

Recently, I had a conversation with a friend regarding the use of other languages within a written work (ostensibly written in English in this case, although it could be expanded to include English in any other language novels). In this case, I was discussing the entire language created by myself for Blood Prize (Straxian). The discussion turned to how much of a different language is too much. I have nigh an English-Straxi Dictionary going on in my files specifically for the use of this. Not to mention the creation of gender nominative words and sentence structures. (Does this make me insane? Probably...) To me, if the language is used correctly, it can add to a background and cultural aspect of a character and race. The use of a different language from English (in this case) allows me the immersion into said culture and the novel. Admittedly, I don’t want sixteen chapters of a language I don’t understand, but the occasional touch or even exchange in (and I’ll just use mine) Straxi is a reminder that this isn’t human and that the other people do have their own history. But… How much is too much for you? How far do you go in order to create a language for your tale? Have you or would you create one? I’d like to hear your thoughts.

Oh, the story itself is in English, as is the story’s title itself, and the summary. It’s only the chapter titles.

Have you ever tried translating something into a language you know, just to see what Google will do to it? It’s hilarious! But to be serious ever so briefly, certain languages use syntax that Google and most other AI linguistics programs can’t readily mimic. Japanese, for example, rarely uses pronouns, or even subjects. It’s implied in the context of the rest of the sentence. Google mangles those translations horribly. Same thing with French, when some adjective precede the noun being modified, and others come after the noun. Google tends to substitute an entirely wrong noun and/or adjective because it’s not ready for post-noun adjectives. AI linguistics has a long way to go yet, but for translating a simple phrase in Latin into English, it’s good enough.

What Clover said! But really, fan fiction is a terrific way to hone writing skills. The world building and basic character development is done, and you just get to put your own slant on things. Sharing that online brings valuable feedback and yes, the chance to talk to other writers.

As a proponent of a well-rounded classical education, I say make ‘em work for it! I mean, Google Translame, folks!

Me? With fear, loathing and the occasional chuckle at a forgotten joke that came out quite well when I look at it again. Also trying to work out what the hell kind of obscure reference a name was likely referring to or punning on. Sometimes I think “hey this wasn’t so bad” and sometimes I think “Eh, s’ok.” With my re-writes of some of my old stories there are bits I’ve felt should have been expanded on more than in the original, so expanded ‘em, and also bits I’ve felt were needlessly mean spirited (in rape/snuff fics! It took some doing!) almost as if I 2007/2008 me was trying to provoke non-perverts who probably were not even reading rather than entertain peverts who were. Long time ago now. If you do go back you can certainly make something worthwhile out of the half-finished, or take scraps and turn them into something new. Good luck if you do! I really don’t remember everything I wrote at all. Sometimes someone says something to me about something I wrote or an old story and I’m like “Really? Ok!” When I had a review on an old original oneshot recently I had literally forgotten everything about it except that I had thought it was terrible at the time, and why I wrote it, and I finally re-read it after the review. Sympathy for the reviewer there. Another thing, reminded by your home-brew experience, a few weeks back I was looking at an old file full of bios and scenery descriptions I wrote for a non-erotic play by email type RPG game in like 2000-2001. Some of those characters were pretty engaging! At least one is like a proto-Kizurial with an alcohol problem.

Ahh, well to be fair in 2007 or whenever I originally uploaded it streaming was still in its infancy even for porn and broadband still not as widespread. A lot better than downloading 30 second clips on dial up though I guess! He just said it would be through the power of love, as I recall. Probably something like the kid from Captain Planet with the power of Heart, backed up by Hughie Lewis. Anyway Eparlegna got bested by a human champion at the end so no doubt someone could write a story where his magic got overruled too – my policy whenever anyone asked to write something based on my stuff was “Sure!” I remember getting one review about six-seven years later along the lines of “I’ve been enjoying this story for years and I only just got Eparlegna’s name.” It’s never too late! I absolutely understand the difference between fantasy and reality. Lotta weirdo stalkers out there don’t though and some of the feedback I got on my celebrity stories was pretty worrying. I’ve said it before but for me I guess the overriding factor today is pretty much that it is so so easy on the modern internet for someone to show the celebrity of their family/friends the story featuring them as a person. It’s nowhere near as bad if, say, it’s “This is the story about me holding hands with X!” but I find thinking about how they might react to “This is my story about raping the shit out of X.” when it’s something I wrote unpleasant, and feel for them too. I think there’s a degree removed with portrayed characters – I’d even argue a number of, say pro-wrestling stories could easily go in TV rather than celeb because shockingly Papa Shango had no magical powers so any story about him with magic is based on the character rather than the wrassler. Another factor is that there was an obscenity trial in my jurisdiction that only happened because the writer wrote celebrity fanfic – they weren’t convicted or anything, but it still fucked their life up. Plus, you know, I am a big ol’ hypocrite myself. That helps with decisions on content I read and write and while I don't read or write celeb fics now, I don’t critise folks for writing it or go around leaving flames or whatevers. While there is an absolute shitload of Harry Potter works, there’s also a load of fans, many of whom seem eager to read anything in the setting. I literally have an unfinished one chapter scat fic with near 20K hits and 3 reviews. I did a necro story with a rampaging sex dwarf in one part and got 31K hits and 16 reviews.16! Big numbers for me. These are niche topics. You get into something popular like harems and you’ll be beating off the fans with a broomstick. You might even hear some readers beating themselves off with a broomstick. Swinging back round onto topic, you’re pretty much guaranteed they won’t go unreviewed! I don’t know much about the Amazon market so cannot comment there – there’s a few users who have followed the road of AFF originals to Amazon or other epublishers and do make a bit of a go on it though, that could be a topic for another thread if it isn’t one already! I know there’s some pretty extreme stuff on there (Black Melt by Indy McDaniel comes to mind) but I dunno how much money it makes tbh compared to the tamer stuff. Good luck with whichever path you take and if I am around and on here I’ll absolutely take a look!

Following the flow of the scenes is always fun when it uncomplicates things for you. I kinda hate it and kinda love it when the scenes force me out of my wordcount limits. Hate it because of some minor obsessive tendencies, and love it because it’s always nice when things flow at their most natural. It’s not too common that the scenes force a shorter or longer wordcount, though. Most of the time my control-freakiness gets nicely sated.

Depends on the original. Male Male with a vampire, werewolf or real estate agent you’re probably good to go.

Do that. My best story is nearing 10k… fingers crossed, should be there before the end of the month. As mine are in originals, that’s a double whammy because originals are under-read compared to some of the other genres.

The mods definitely appreciate you fixing it before they notice it. I’ve been mulling over the best way to balance disclosure vs advertising vs not-spoiling the story for ages on this, because the reader must be warned before they encounter (say [xeno]). If, for instance, a small section, one scene for a 500+kword story, well that [xeno] tag might be disappointing to a reader expecting it, and it’s a bit of a spoiler if you weren’t wanting to disclose that there were indeed aliens showing up in the story. But the good rule of thumb, around here, is when in doubt, tag it in, because they are first and foremost, a warning. At the top of my stories, I will qualify if the tag is an incidental or questionable (ie, I’ll list minor1 if an underage kid is merely naked, regardless of whether he/she is sexual or not, it’s enough of a trigger).

Ha, I was trying to figure out how the tags worked since it is the first time I have posted anything. I found this forum very helpful and I had to go back and fix the archive submission after I understood it better. I honestly don’t want higher views because people think there is rape in it. I tried to be as accurate as possible with the tags given. There is a thread about this, I saw, so I might ask more questions over there.

Hmmm… sounds like a challenge, might do that if I get a chance to look at the site code… Though I’d probably conclude that there is no real correlation. And sometimes, it’s a round robin halloween/holiday stories, and I will try to review each one of those. Rape is one of those trigger tags, stands out like Minor1. Having a shit ton of tags can be a detractor, so I’ve been shifting most of my tags into the top of the story, keeping the major/advertising types (+other) in the summary. The distinction helps those searching for tags they want to read vs those they just need to know are incidentals (ie isolated handjobs), I’ll even qualify those incidentals if warranted (ie, why a tag is being applied if its kinda iffy or even “maybe/anticipated”).

I think GeorgeGlass’s reply makes sense, there really is huge variation between authors, even within a specific author’s stories. I have a short five part story in originals finished this year which currently has 2080 prints to 19 reviews (many of them repeats from same reviewers on new chapters) but I also have a Harry Potter oneshot story from 2008 with 104777 dragon prints and only 18 reviews, another from 2007 with 75989 dragon prints and 3 reviews. I would hate to be the statistician to try to make sense of this lot! Rape is gonna be one of those tags people search specifically for, I suspect. You take it off, you lose those searches. Incidently, you’ve probably just gained a few more readers as I think that sort of thing is going to lead to an Archive Mod reviewing the tags shortly

Why do I keep envisioning the topic title to be “How long do you prefer c***s?” In the end, it just comes down to preference, I think. Shorter for a faster pace, longer to get more into it, and sometimes, the material calls out the length when a scene makes you feel the chapter’s “just right.” For Jefferey, this means ep. 15 will be just over 1kwords, because though I wanted it longer, the scene was such that any longer would detract from the point of the episode. I could go back, embellish that scene, but it’d be overdoing it.

The ratio of dragon prints to reviews varies massively by author. At one extreme is BronxWench; for most of her stories, the number of dragon prints is in the hundreds or the low thousands, yet virtually all of them have multiple reviews. Just eyeballing it, I would guess that her average ratio of reviews to prints could be as high as 1 to 100. I’m at the other extreme. Most of my stories have print counts in the thousands or tens of thousands. But the absolute number of reviews is relatively low. Again just eyeballing it, I’d say that my average ratio of reviews is probably lower than 1 to 1000. I would also add that for those stories that I post on other sites as well as AFF, they tend get more reviews on sites with smaller readerships. So I have come to conclude that there is actually an inverse correlation between readership size and reviews. My theory is that when readers feel that they are just one of a great many, they are less inclined to leave a review because (1) they don’t feel that it will have much impact on the author and (2) they figure there are plenty of other readers who can leave reviews, so why should they bother? In contrast, readers who feel that they are part of a smaller readership may feel more of a connection with the author, or at least that they are not shouting into the void when they leave a review.

I like the 3.5 to 4k length. It’s long enough to get in some action, and not too long to make readers wonder if they’re going to have time to finish.

I’ve been hmm-hawing about chapter lengths for what feels like every moment of my 32 years on this planet. When I was a beginner, I thought longer was better. I also thought long-winded was better. I was not very good at this shit. Then I decided shorter was better. Little bitsized 3kperchappie pieces packed with action and maybe smut. That was better. I do best with fast-paced stuff, I think. Then I thought even that wasn’t bite sized enough because I assumed all readers had gnat-sized attention spans like me. So I cut my average chapter down by 500ish words. It still worked with my style. My latest finished product was all of 50k, with 20ish chapters, and I think it turned out pretty good. But lately I’ve been thinking short isn’t always best, even in this post-vine internet age. Like, I feel like if people are taking the time to read my story, maybe they actually wouldn’t mind a little more story in each bite. It’ll be harder on my betas, sure. I find betas tend to get less excited when chapters get more than 2.5k and backlogs start to happen. But I’ve been trying to decide on a larger number anyway. Like maybe 3.5 to 4k. It’s still short by the standards of some writers on here, but I don’t think longer than that would work with my particular style. Or maybe it would. Obviously, I’m still not sure what to do.

If I’m writing chaptered based, then yeah, I’m all for the cliffhanger, but if I’m doing it as an episodic serial, essentially as a series of oneshots around the same set of characters, I tend to wrap up at the end of the episode (though I still like to toss in that cliffhanger when I can ) This is one reason I try to push for shorter chapters, the “chunking” it up forthe reader. If I hit 10k, I look to split, but that’s my rule of thumb. Of course, it’s not a hard rule, if there’s reason for it to go a bit higher, I’ll let it, but it will most definitely be split if it goes much higher (I’ll find a spot to break it). Have I mentioned my story database for details? The other reason for shorter chapters is the author side. For the Repair Guy I experimented with shorter chapters (~2k), and I was pumping out chapters every day or two, which was most definitely fun. With Jefferey and it’s 7kword (average) episodes, it’s more like once every two weeks for new material. Another thing is that if I find that it takes 10kwords “just to get started” on an episode/chapter, it likely means I’m trying to do too much with the chapter/episode, so it’s better to break it up and focus on the different elements one at a time. It’s better for the readers, better for me.

It’s not just the not getting another chapter factor – and to be fair a few of my oneshots with a clear ending and everybody dead have had a sole review of “Can you do X in a second part?” – it’s more the way the site works with oneshots being less likely to be seen once they’re off the latest page unless someone goes looking in the specific sub folder or searches for a specific tag. Less people seeing them mean less opportunities for reviews. Now, older stories still get seen, sometimes quite a lot, but the other factor is that readers do seem less likely to review older oneshots than newer ones. Hence one of my HP oneshots with 10s of thousands of hits but most of the reviews are much older. I’m just theorising here, but it does feel like a factor with alla my unreviewed being oneshots There’s definitely some of that, I guess, and it’s going to be a case of depending on the writer, but for me a lot of the time the character is more fun than the actor/actress because all I know about the actor/actress is what the PR people say, or they put on twitter or something, but the character can have amazing powers and with books/comics and that which also have movie/tv equivilent you can even feel right in their head. At the end of the day Hermione could kill you with a flick of her wrist, while Emma Watson (or the stage actress for wossname child) can’t. I realised as I was writing this there’s a joke in there somewhere, but what the hell. I think maybe I didn’t communicate clearly (“What we have here is… failure to communicate.”) – by saying they don’t necessarily equal quality I was getting at the fact that there’s some heavily viewed and even reviewed stories that are still really shit. No disrespect to the writ… fuck it, they don’t know I’m talking about them. I usually see more hits as a sign of a more active fandom or more popular tag than necessarily quality is what I was going for I guess. Thank you! I appreciate it! That was always one of my more popular original stories it seemed. Someone once requested to write a sequel, I think where a student saved her from her imprisonment at the end by the power of love. Sent the request from a college email. I never heard from them again, but suspect the IT team asked questions about the stories they’d been reading. I just have a mental block against rating most things I’ve written very highly, I guess. Some authors I like have said they like my stuff and I’m half sure they aren’t just returning a compliment, and one character and story I did went on to appear in a bunch more by another writer (who asked!) so I’m sure there’s something in it, but when I look at most of it I just think it’s bad. I’m reading through a story I did in May 2008 at the moment, haven’t looked at it since then and my every other thought is WTF? Ahh well, for my part I just tend to avoid celeb stuff these days for personal fears and reasons but if you ever do anything with original or fictional characters let me know and I’ll have a read! Yes. Yes we do. There was someone on HF had a policy they would only do fan art for characters that had a game/cartoon/comic version not of actors/actresses portrayed version and I think it might well have been the same mentality behind it. Although, sometimes the thing that sells a cartoon character is a sexy voice in your mind… well, to me anyway.

(I usually write a rotating first person POV, I still have to work much harder for 3rd person) Nope, I’m caught between Mandolorean and Huttese these days. Tho Mando has some lyricisn to it, especially for military&marriage oaths. I guess the trick is to show subtitles without slowing those who don’t need them. Maybe I’ll use subscript for less common fandom languages. That seems to be a decent platform independent way to make a translation close to the source but less obtrusive...

Definitely! If the author wants to show off, or wants to indulge in a fantasy language they created, or they’re just obsessed with languages and enjoy playing with them, all the more power to them. I respect that kinda passion and creativity. I probably won’t enjoy that part of their stories, but I grudgingly accept that not everyone and everything needs to cater to me.

Oh my goodness!! I love it!! While I personally have difficulty with using a ‘created language’ in my writings, I most definitely and absolutely spend an enormous amount of time researching and developing the various aspects of culture for my original works. Just like in ‘real life’ there are so many different cultures, I want that same ‘richness’ in my stories, complete with social customs, beliefs, politics, etc. I think this ‘setting of mixed cultures’ helps to build and expand the possibilities for creating tension, intrigue, and other things that can pull the reader into the story. It gives them ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys’ to both love and/or hate as they root for whichever one ‘does it’ for them LOL I also brought this topic up in a discussion with a few other writer friends of mine and their feelings were pretty similar to mine, as well as something you said about ‘slang’ terms. I brought up in that discussion one of my favorite authors, Mercedes Lackey and her Heralds of Valdemar Series. There is a group of people in her story that most definitely have their own entire language, but she didn’t use it a lot in the story, just dropped a word here and there when a character from that particular group of people could not think of how to express something to someone outside of their group. But she would have that character go right into an explanation of what that word meant in their language. That worked out really well in my opinion.

This is AFF, we love stories around here, especially if there’s stripping involved In the Potter fanfics that I did write, I’d switch a bit too often, IMO, between 1st and 3rd. Since then, I’ve kinda formed my own rules. I’ll avoid 1st because there’s a lot of “I’s” not to mention it’s tougher to remember the main character’s name. When I started SR, I did a utterly detached, third person, no-mind-reading, but I’ve come to let a bit slip in if it saves a lot of awkward exposition/dialogue, or as a hint to the reader (ie, “lied” or “changed subject”) so they know there’s something off. I think it came down to .. I want the narrator to be truthful, always truthful, but the characters can lie and get it wrong So, which dialect of Klingon are you’re looking for? A google search claims there’s at least eighty. If the author is really wanting to show their bilinguistic skills, there’s no reason they can’t have English subtitles when it’s meant to be understood.

I’m pretty sure everyone who writes has a story like that. I, personally, love the 3rd Omniscient as it allows me to explore a wild, wide variety of both the characters and events as they unfold without having the worry about keeping Joe Blow from Idaho in the middle of everything. I read a book where this author wanted to keep his character involved in every major point in that universe (reference point, Star Wars). It came off really jumbled and confuzzled (yes, I’m using that word, it’s going to be the next Quiz!); especially when the events were like: He has no reason to be there… But this kind of got off the rails here… Yes, the balance of the Non-English to Reader Patience is always a tricky subject. I do provide a translation in the main text, usually from one of the other characters or just after they say it, in order to not have people running throughout a book trying to find out what it means. (ie. ”Jin se kahlo.” I love you.) But I do understand what you’re saying. Obviously, I’m in the minority here in loving to see alien languages that show a rich culture and not just someone who wants an alien without having to background anything (… I’m looking at you TOS...)… In my somewhat outnumbered opinion, the development of a language shows a culture and, especially if the MC is an alien interacting with humans, would not, necessarily, use English (as an example) in every day conversation, either. Am I just rambling? I feel like I’m rambling... I’m probably not making sense either… Working nights really does a number on brain cells...

The trouble with made up languages is that it’s very hard to guess how much your audience will tolerate or enjoy. I was having fun making up language/culture for my original story, but realized much later that it was going to force readers to keep referring to a glossary or they miss important emotional context of the story. I hate that myself, and it takes a really special story to make me put up with it for long. When a published romance opens with a eight page phrase book, I put it down. Few there avoid pretentious overuse, instead of a spice. Yeah, there’s some geek subcultures where there is an existing language or two. (I would not like to get caught between some klingons and elves) but I want to remember that I want to appeal to more than the ubergeeks. (so next time I tackle revisions of that novel, I’m going to gut the language) I use an occasional existing slang or invective from my current fandom, but even now I’m considering using a longer quote because using that other language has an extra emotional weight for the one character that literally cannot be said by that character otherwise. I’ve been testing it in snippets for my own use, and expect to put translations in a chapter afterward… for that chapter. But how common does a slang, or how clear the context have to be, before I’m a sleemo if I don’t offer a translation?

I admire that: that you’re putting so much effort into what you feel you need to improve. I could tell a story about how I discovered and grew to love 3rd limited POV, but I won’t because I don’t wanna annoy the mods. Yes. I have a story. I’m that much of a writing nerd. I’m not so sure my personal rules for languages would apply to fandoms like Star Trek or anything Tolkien, just because of what you mentioned. In fandoms where there are complex languages, the fans have already developed their love for something that you’d need to ease them into if it were an original. I don’t read or write high fantasy or deep sci fi, but I’m not sure my rules would apply there either. Obviously, since it worked for Tolkien, some original writers are able to do things other writers would balk at, and do them successfully. Though, in my not-so-humble opinion, plenty do them unsuccessfully too. You know your audience, and you should absolutely give them what they love.

Absolutely. Showing over telling is my preference with most things too, but I usually write in a character’s perspectives. (Limited 3rd or even 1st) so I try to write true to their experiences, if that makes any sense. If you’re sitting there listening to someone speaking a language you don’t understand, it’s unlikely you’ll catch every word they’re saying. It’ll sound like a string of vaguely familiar or completely unfamiliar syllables. It’ll usually get written out in my story, (hopefully) as an active descriptive sentence, rather than dialogue. Unless the perspective character would understand it, in which case, I’ll write it out in English in italics. Honestly, I’m not sure what I’d do in omniscient 3rd. I haven’t written in that POV in like 10 years lol. Rules might be a bit different I imagine.

I’ll use it on that rare occasion (noting it to be translated by “google/babelfish/etc”), generally if I want to make it clear that a message/conversation isn’t being understood due to language differences, as I prefer to showing over telling.

Using other languages in a story is a real iffy situation for the most part. I personally only use it in my Tolkien related fanfiction, even then it’s primarily limited to greetings, acknowledgments, or other short (2-3 word) phrases. But I do not use another language in any of my original works. I think a lot of that depends on the ‘audience’ as well, such as with the Star Trek fans, I had a few friends years ago who enjoyed bothering the crap out of everyone around them by talking to each other mostly in Klingon (shaking my head). Similarly, with Tolkien, there are a lot of people who take the courses to learn it and use it excessively. Which isn’t a problem as long as it’s not entire sentences or a full conversation. I have a large Sindarin vocabulary and understand what they are saying, with a few exceptions. Regardless, it’s a personal choice if the author wants to do that, but it’s something that can be viewed as a huge distraction to some readers.

Ohhh yes. I love endearments in other languages. Dragon Age Inquisition; what was it Iron Bull calls the MC? Kadan? I love that. If timed right, it can be sooo powerful. If timed wrong, it can be super cheesy lol.

Let me start by saying I am fairly decent in Elvish, have a working knowledge of draconic and Ilythiiri, and have a few phrases in Klingon under my belt, just to establish my seriously geeky credentials. I use endearments in other languages. I might throw in a sentence or two, if my character is in a situation where the person with them has no clue what they’re saying. In that case, I want the reader to be as confused as the listener. Currently, I’m abusing Welsh, because I can, but I’ve mangled Irish Gaelic for my own purposes, too. And in fandoms, I do use the conlangs from those fandoms, because I expect my readers to understand the words and phrases, too. I guess that puts me on the fence, so to speak. I do use other languages, I don’t always translate or include a glossary, but I don’t do entire paragraphs or even frequent full sentences in those languages.