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Oh yes, I have this problem too! Especially in dialogue and action heavy scenes, way too many paragraphs starting with names or pronouns.

Totally meant to get some work done on my own writing tonight. Ended up reading two stories, and am jumping into a third. Whoops.

In a sense - always catch myself starting paragraphs, including for scenes, with a character name and hate myself for it. I change ‘em up when I can think of something better.

It’s alll about that hook.

Okay, as usual, I'm late to the party... lol. As you're my beta, you kind of know how I write... But… For me, my writing is usually as a scene plays in the head. The movie plays upstairs and the fingers type it out. Sometime not for the better. As for what actually occurs, that depends largely on what I want to convey in the chapter ahead (YAY 1 for kind of but not really planning ahead!!!) Even in that opening, it's different all round. One can be all about the atmosphere, dark or otherwise, and thus starting with a depressive news or something similar that I try to permeate the rest. Others just the city surroundings to lay the groundwork. (Shamelessly, I do love the beginning of CHHW...)... Did I just ramble? I'm good at rambling random rambles randomly.

That is an issue with me as well. The safe and easy method. Sometimes I need to force myself against my own grain to get doing what I want done. But yeah, give the expression one a try. I think the simplest one of that type I’ve used was: Just a simple thing to get the scene flowing. I do use frowns far far far too often though.

Oh the action one is oh so fun. But I like my build up too much to rely on it overly much. I use the expression one too often methinks. Or, another one I use a bit two much. A couple sentences explaining what happened just before the scene started. I do this for finishing walks and such. Or, more recently to give a couple paragraphs description of a car ride through New York full of a bunch of pissed off protesters.

Absolutely. I tend to fall into patterns more easily when I've been in a slump for awhile. Maybe it's the wanting things to work and playing it safe that does it. Of the start techniques you mentioned, the action one is my favorite. If I could start every scene with action I would, but then it would lose it's impact and not be as awesome.

Sometimes I think about it in terms of a movie shot. What’s the first thing I want the reader to see, and why? Sometimes I’ll start with the environment and slowly pull in to the characters. I might do this because it’s an interesting set piece. Something odd, or helps ground the reader where they are. If I want things to get going really quick, I describe an action. Like a punch being thrown, or a moan as someone thrusts inside my hero… or perhaps she’s on top… Then of course the close up of a character. Show an expression, kind bring up that “why they frowning?” question into the mix. Hopefully it works as a hook. Or just open with dialogue. I do try to change things up for myself, but like many, I can fall into patterns pretty easily.

Well, been a while since having to crack fingers here… A two-fer from SinfulWolf (which, btw, thank you so much for), both on Hunted: From SinfulWolf on July 30, 2018 I'll be doing another review later when I finish everything, but wanted to leave something for the first chapter to partially let you know you have a new reader. First off I'd like to mention that I rather enjoyed this as an opening. Set a bit of the state with bits of information, but not large info dumps that would have been boring. Small ones sure, and they might have been able to be trimmed down a touch... but it still worked here as establishing the setting. I think my only real complaint for this chapter was the fight. It was so one sided and quick that I wasn't entirely sure why she was running and hiding in the first place. Perhaps because she tapped into that blood rage? If so I think it needs to be made just a bit more clear. Still, greatly looking forward to reading the rest of this. Quite excited for it, gore and all. I owe a vast majority of those ‘small’ info dumps (and this is a compliment, because I have a tendency to include massive info dumps...) to my beta there. She’s constantly been getting me to cut back on some of the information I throw down and intercut it with the rest of the novel instead of in one eighty-line paragraph (...exaggeration, yes, but I’m sure it feels like that sometimes). Admittedly, as you’ve said, the fight was one sided and that was intentional on my part, but perhaps too one sided. It was intended to introduce the concept of the bloodrage in there, not to mention the Guard and Idun and Cheyenne, but also to show that a lack of cohesion within the group does lead to a rather quick and bloody end. Although, as you said, probably would have been good to expand on that. AND: From SinfulWolf on July 30, 2018 Well... now I need to wait it seems. I'll be patient, I'm slow enough with my own work to pester others. But I rather enjoy this story. I like the growing relationship between the three. I love that you didn't go for a typical love triangle and that you're exploring a polyamourous relationship. There's so very few of those I find (Granted I am new to this site). I love the touch of history and using the Varangian Guard as the vampire hunters in the setting. It's also quite a switch, especially to vampire fans, to have the hunters being the 'villains'. And they are downright villainous. Some readers might not like this, but this is definately a "mileage may vary" kind of moment on how to portray the antagonists. So things I've noticed though. Careful with the use of Gods' names. Later on you were using proper Roman Gods (Juno, Venus, etc.), but earlier you were using Greek Gods (Zeus being the first one to pop out at me). I really like that you're being very graphic with the violence. Love it. Vampires should be brutal, bloody, killing machines. And you've captured that with the arm rippings, decapitations, and disembowelments. It's fuckin awesome. My only real recomendation for the action scenes would be to perhaps slow down a touch. Sometimes there's so much happening, and your offering sometimes rather similar descriptions, that it can be difficult to see exactly what's happening. Put a little weight into the fights and kills, cause I'd really like to see what you come up with. Another small thing I've noticed is that most characters who are straight in this story seem to be completely and utterly bigoted. Again, its your story, so I don't want you to change stuff there if that is your intention, but it is certainly something I've noticed and became somewhat glaring later on. Especially with the introduction of Shy's ex. It's a bit over the top, and I think some inclusion of more subtle bigotry can also really help sell the story of these three leading ladies as well. All in all, quite enjoying your three characters. The different kinds of strengths and vulnerabilities they show, how they interact with one another. And I do quite enjoy the sex when it does show up. But story is queen here, and I'm in for the long haul. Looking forward to the next installment! Well, I’m glad to hear that you’re enjoying it, firstly. And I’m glad you like the interactions and growing relationship between the three. I was absolutely worried that I would have botched it drastically. It’s a first venture into the polyamorous relationship dynamic, so it’s been one of those worrying things ;). I do have a tendency to write in a more flipped expectations idea (ie: everyone’s heroes are the villains, et cetera), and I certainly love putting that spin on things. I admit, I did come across the alternating Greek/Roman mythological names and corrected them in the master file. As for the fights and violence, I’ve been told that the graphic natures of them are among some of my better work (and I have to agree). And I certainly love the unabated violence that can be portrayed within them; I tried to use the violent tendencies of the Varangian Guard as a foil to the attempted gentler (well, when not provoked) nature of Lucretia and the rest. For the hetero characters, I admit, I wasn’t too sure about what you meant, so I went back through and read over it again. You do have a point here, though I never actually thought about it. Indeed, I had almost forgotten about the Twobears until I read it again. Rita was always written to be bigoted (and kind of based off someone I formerly worked with… The ‘I accept everyone until I’m alone with people, then I’m a phobe, racist, et cetera). Although, that didn’t quite come off as much as I had hoped, so you have a point with the subtlety (which, I admit, I’m not great at writing...). Cheyenne’s ex was just a written jab at someone else I know, BUT we won’t go into that. But yes, definitely have to work on the subtlety aspect… And thank you, again, for your review. It was definitely a refreshing and much appreciated (and unexpected) sight to wake to. TCR On a side note and completely shameless plug of my beta’s writing, if you’re looking for a good polyamorous relationship told in writing (not to mention just good writing, too), you should checkout PlagueClover (formerly CloverReef)’s story Cold Snap.

Ugh. Do you ever get the feeling you're starting too many scenes the same way? Or like the scene structures feel ruttish (2 points for neologisms!) I'm not asking for advice. I know I just need to reconstruct and shake things up, but let's talk about your habits and tricks for keeping the rythm of your story dynamic. (I'm on my phone so blame any typos on auto correct.)

Start every scene off with a little bit of

Yeah, I really work to start a story with a question/problem/cliffhanger so the reader wants to know what’s next. Needs to know. Chapters either start with the problem the last ended with, or if I’m feeling mean change characters for a different plot thread. I really want to hook the immediate issues in the first couple hundred words. I’m selling curiousity or attachment to the POV to justify the time spent reading. Not always as well as I want, but it’s a work in progress. Some I remember working on more: Good person being sent to life inprisonment despite saving a passel of children in the crime. New mine-slave escaping night of arrival after a brutal march. Meditation on the enemy interrupted by a jealous student. Ghost vision of a murdered child makes lead flee from their duties despite the danger. Some great tragedy is hidden by amnesia and uncovered by symbols in divination cards. Exploring dark tunnels is broken by sliding down steep slope into darkness and noise will bring enemy attackers. Some took far longer to get rolling and I wish I’d done better. (and now I am forcibly trying to resist rewriting all my start!)

So when I write Moosecock everybody remember it was GeorgeGlass who egged me on! And also, for those of you who like pregnancy and horsecock check out George’s story Pony Dearest. So, I recently reviewed SinfulWolf’s Closing Time and heartily recommend it if you want some decent femslash – there’s only the one review so far, so get in there and give some more feedback! As is sometimes the way of these things, SinfulWolf has reviewed a couple of mine too! For Fucking Halloween Party Thank you for this review! I didn’t remember the real bands, scrolled down and, wow, yeah that One Direction poster got dated fast, the rest are probably worse, eeesh. I shoulda stuck with a fictional act like Dani Murphy. The offscreen villain spends much of her time on adult fanfiction sites like AFF sharing Mary Sue fics. She’s really evil. the AFF references were mostly because of it being for an AFF story jam, and with it having the same villain as another story I did, but stripped of that context I can see the issue there. I don’t always think about these things, thanks for the pointer! Thank you for the feedback on this also! With such strong exortations from y’all I think I might need to go back and strip out some of the extra characters (and stick in a change of view line!) my aim of getting it firmly into the new setting seems to have gone a little bit overboard. Taking out the bit in the middle would be a pretty easy snip but I’ll have to be a little more careful at the start. Shouldn’t be impossible though – generally I hate going back and changing stories* when I’ve finished them even with a really good reason, but since this is already a re-write of an old story already it’s not such a thing. Plus, most of the change suggestions I used to get were “This story would be improved if you killed yourself.” I hope your wife likes it also, thanks again for both of your kind reviews and the feedback on the characters and POV switch. *Edit: Excepting changes for spelling/grammar/capitals/homophones and other accidentally misused words, the technical minutae in other words I usually try and change quickly

@Tcr I’ve noticed that these parties tend to happen when I’m asleep… I hadn’t really thought about my scenes being repetitive, but given it’s the same author, likely. I kinda treat them the same as a story, a sort of micro-plot, introduce the relevant character, usually the same one or two, and go for an early hook; usually setting it up in the first sentence.

Yeah can't say I've used that expression one much. I'm gonna try it. The one I've been leaning on the most in my current project is the thoughts via narration. Setting up the emotional atmosphere via exposition, And I am not a fan of exposition. So it's far from my preferred method, hence the frustration. For me it's the safe method, so it happens automatically, but it's clearly not the best option, so often gets the axe.

If you write it, I’ll read it.

Well, Twinpregnation is at 1213 hits and the next time a story gets a new chapter or a new story is posted it gets knocked off the front page. And a review! Thank you very much for the review, I really appreciate it. With it being my first attempt at making an old fanfiction into an original rather than a different fandom I wasn’t quite sure how it would come out. The original was basically a pure PWP with nothing but fucking, very little romance and I wanted to expand it and make it it’s own story. ‘deeply sexual and very romantic’ is just a wonderful summary and I appreciate it. I can see how that is. This whole section is all new from the original version and I had a few aims with putting it in. I was super nervous about really differentiating the new version from the original version, so adding in a kind’ve populated background seemed a good way to do it. The other two reasons were shout outs for people who read my orignal stories (most of them appear in one or more other stories I’ve written eg Chad goes on to be a top salesman and Uncle Declan had a couple people killed) and I also wrote it because I wanted to try and explain why nobody but the twins were there that summer and also why Conor thought he was home alone. I definitely over convoluted it. I guess anybody who hasn’t been reading my shit for over 10 years won’t have read the original story, or get the shout outs, so it won’t matter to them and clearly can lead to the confusion for a reader who just wants to masturbate to twins fucking. It’s definitely something to look out for for more re-writes I do as originals. Thanks for the feedback on it. She’s a girl of many talents! The annoying thing is, I had it correctly capitalised in the previous sentence and then got it wrong there. Thanks for pointing it out, now corrected. Although, it is a JD fic, so a large antlered mammal wandering the halls is probably gonna fuck a student or teacher. That bit was from my original That wasn’t – the ‘character’ was brunette in the original. Same issue as before really – I was wanting to try and drive home it being unrelated to the original fandom which had a more limited reaction in the original setting, and stick in the cameos. Sounds definitely something to take on board with the next re-write as an original. At least when I tell that story I can put a note at the bottom for folks to go check out Twinpregnation for something happening at the same time. I also hope to write the ideas I have for the Twin daughters’ adventure “What the fuck was that prophecy? Two born of incest? *Gets out phone* “Yeah, Mom? Got a question here...” The original version had the impregnation and a couple of lines about it, but when I came up with the title I decided to emphasise it a little more. At least the incest isn’t going to continue for another generation and get into webbed toes and too-close eyes and voting Trump territory. Thank you again for the review. I really appreciate the feedback and will try to take it on board, and I’m happy it works as an original.

Thank you for the plug! Though to really fit the AFF template it probably should have been the boy twin getting knocked up. And thank you kindly for the review also, I’ll reply over in my thread!

Just found myself reading a graphic handjob scene with a 15 year old with zero warning or tags. This is what I get for getting a book from the literary section of the library rather than reading AFF.