CloverReef

Aww bubeleh! How dare these fucks make fun of my clovey! Fuck em!
Maybe you should try working on that if you feel unsatisfied? Experiment with putting more of yourself into your writing? Have you ever heard of “dangerous writing”? Its great stuff. You can try it as an exercise, it might help you. If you're looking for help that is…
There are definitely differences between more objective and subjective lines. Like yours is minors, mine is scat (and other things too), thats subjective. But if you’re harming someone like slandering another person in your story with their real name without their consent or the example you used that yeah that is hurting someone and Id say that's objectively wrong and a line not to be crossed.

Hi! I saw this thread on Gay Authors .org in the forums and I found it really interesting so I wanted to bring it to AFF!
I'm not sure If I did this properly cause I couldn't wait for the admins to answer me! So sorry if I fucked up! Clovey said to blame her so...blame her!
Anyway these are the questions asked in the thread:
 
“When you write, do you ever feel self conscious about it?
Do you feel like maybe you are giving away too much?
People go through all sorts of changes in their life. If you are the same person at 20,30 and 40, you are doing it wrong.
Do you feel like there are lines that shouldn't be crossed?
Can you go too far?
Maybe you should.”
 
Let me know what you think and how you would answer these questions.
Link to the original:
https://www.gayauthors.org/forums/topic/42868-exposing-yourself-in-text/#comment-696825

My answers (also in the original):
When you write, do you ever feel self conscious about it?
 
Sometimes. There is a certain feeling of vulnerability in sharing your art with others. I used to feel really self conscious about my writing when I was younger and I often censored myself because I didn't want ppl to see my sick twisted little mind. But I think I kinda surpassed that, at least somewhat. Being anonymous on the internet helps. I try and remind myself that it’s not really worth dwelling too much on what other people think.
 
Do you feel like maybe you are giving away too much?
 
Again sometimes. It is quite easy to learn something about a person from their writing if you only look for it. Of course it depends on what type of a story it is and it varies from person to person.
But usually I think that it’s worth it. In order to receive you must give. Writing from emotion and being vulnerable can create amassing art. It creates a connection on a deeper level between the reader and a writer. And it gives the story a certain uniqueness. Like when you learn something about lives of famous authors you see their stories in a new light and you can see the personal connections with their art. I felt way more emotional about reading Kafka after I learned about his life and his abusive father. It put a lot of things in context and made his stories even more tragic in a certain sense because you could see the real man behind all the weird and abstract.
I believe that art is just another form of communication. Some people use writing as therapy, which is really fascinating to me. It’s kinda like dreaming. Our brain creates scenarios in which we can test our reactions and practice for real life. I think a lot of writers do this too, whether or not they're aware of it. It is also an exercise in empathy. You can write a character that you would find disgusting in real life and relate to them on a very deep level. It makes you question people around you, makes you wonder what their internal monologue looks like and why they say and do certain things.
idk where I was going with this...next!
 
People go through all sorts of changes in their life. If you are the same person at 20,30 and 40, you are doing it wrong.
 
Is that a question? This is really subjective. What is a right and a wrong way to live. Sometimes change isn't always for the better. Sometimes ppl change for the worse and destroy their lives and cause harm to others. Would that be more right than staying the same? Change for changes sake is not really what life is all about. But yeah it’s usually a good thing when ppl grow and mature and all that shit. Though you're not always in the right just because you're older. This really annoys me (from real life), ppl thinking they know better just because they're older than me. I'm all for hearing ppl out and all of that, but when somebody starts lecturing you about something they clearly know nothing about and think you're an idiot just because you're young I wanna choke a bitch!
Sorry...rambling again...I do that a lot
 
Do you feel like there are lines that shouldn't be crossed? Can you go too far?
 
Hmm idk... Well I guess. But as long as you're not hurting anyone I think you're good. Doesn't mean ppl are gonna like it, they might hate it. But that doesn't mean you should pander to them. If you don't like it, don't read it. I don't think it’s right to censor ppl. Somebody above already talked about this and I think they said it way better than me so I’ll just leave it at that.
But let’s get more personal. I do have lines I don't wanna cross, because I don't want too. But that being said I already crossed a lot of lines...  My mind is a fucked up place and sometimes you gotta let em demons loose! A crazy idea pops into my head every now and again (and by that I mean all the time) but I'm not impulsive (or fast enough) to do all of them. So I sift through and way them and pick what I like and what fits. And sometimes my mind comes up with something so fucked up that I just have to do it! Like in one of my stories (that I haven't written yet and even if I did I couldn't post it here) the main character (underage, around 14) gets raped by his father, he's married to his sister who tries to murder one of her children (that is a product of rape by some other guy) and his mother made him disembowel a dog when he was a little kid in some weird ritual.
I often wonder wtfs wrong with me too...
Like what does this say about me? What would ppl think? Would they think I'm crazy? Would they think I'm a sadistic pedophile? Would they think I have daddy issues? I mean I am not even sure what that says about me! Shit just happens! The story just gets outta hand!
 
Wow these questions could be applied to my answers too... Do you feel self conscious? Yes! Do you feel like maybe you are giving away too much? Yes!
 
Maybe you should.
 
Maybe...maybe not...
I'm not doing scat, damn it!

I like getting credit for encouraging people. Blame counts as credit! 

As for the questions, I definitely always feel self-conscious about my writing, though not necessarily for the same reasons as the topic on the original post. Personally, I think the last time I actually felt like I was exposing myself, was the first time I ever wrote smut. People made fun of my story on the forum I posted it on (it was god awful, but thanks to their mocking I avoided posting smut for another year after that.) But other than that one time, I can’t say I’ve ever actually felt like I was exposing myself… But I have felt like I’ve been at the reader’s mercy. They sound like one in the same, but for some reason they’re entirely different issues in my head. Like, I’m afraid people won’t like what I wrote or they’ll ridicule it, but I’m never worried about what they’ll think the content says about me as a person?

I don’t feel like I’m giving too much. Sometimes I worry I’m not giving enough of myself. Those are usually the times I’ll delete the entirety of a chapter a dozen times and rewrite. That’s part of the reason I don’t post things often. Spend too much time agonizing over every little word, wondering how I can thrust more personality into it, and I never post until I’m sure. Sometimes I don’t even write until I’m sure. Definitely something I personally need to overcome. 
Not going to touch the changes topic. I think you already addressed it perfectly. 
Can lines be crossed? Fuck yes. Some lines need to be crossed. Some lines shouldn’t be crossed. My personal lines, content-wise, are with stories with minors. That’s something I won’t likely cross, but don’t fault others for crossing it. And there are lines I don’t think -anyone- should cross. Like using a story as a platform to advocate or support the oppression/abuse or the removal of basic human rights from individuals or whole groups of people. If your story makes a whole group of people in general feel attacked, or unsafe, or fearing for their lives, I’d definitely say that’s crossing a line that should not be crossed. 

@sweetmamajama yeah crawling within is the one with which I got the most criticism. Much of it was valid criticism, of course. But that is easily my favorite story that I've written. 
@mastershakeme I'm glad you came back. Whenever you start to doubt your writing talk to me and I'll remind you how fucking awesome you are. It takes mad confidence of proportions I have never witnessed to be a happy writer without a support system of other writers going through similar trials. I have always had that support, and I still have had my fair share of melt downs where I took down stories and debated deleting my account. We got your back hun.
 

well I do have a neck beard...

Hey don't shit on PWP! Its porn! I need my spank material!
Oh s not that hard, you just do your research and you’re covered! Well I hope so…
I mean you see it all the time, men writing lesbians, female whiting gay guys and in het writing from another persons POV. Thats what writers do, we put ourselves in other ppls shoes.
 

That’s extremely interesting… your POV… I was just thinking recently that I need some serious help with my sex scenes… and HOW EMBARRASSING! I’m a female who sleeps with males! Why and how do I think I can write M/M no problem? Well, the only reason I thought I could is because I’ve seen other females in the past BLOW me away with their M/M sex scenes (at least I think they were female ) I’m interested in males, i like their parts, but weirdly enough, if I’m just looking to get off, I head to asstr.org and read either M/F or F/F. But romance? idk, i think it’s cuter to watch a M/M couple try to figure it out. I too want to get my readers off, and honestly, I don’t think I am. They like the characters, they mention them. The plot? Its keeping them interested. But no mentions to the sex! Lol! THAT’S BECAUSE IT SUUUUCKS!

In my case its mostly about fantasy vs reality. For example in real life I am very squeamish about things I put near my mouth and face and butthole but I read and write m/m and find it pretty hot. I also find rimming very hot in fantasy but in reality I wouldn't wanna have my tongue anywhere near an asshole.
I have a lot of underage shit going on in my stories too (both written and still in my head) even though I don't find teenagers sexually attractive. I think that maybe that's because I find ‘sexual awakening’ interesting to write about. Also there are stories of mine that kinda demand it because of the marriage customs and the ideas of consent and sexual maturity are different in the story’s universe than in our own. And of course, since a lot of my characters have terrible childhoods, there are the backstories and flashbacks that are usually very... unpleasant to write. Hmm...when I look back I wrote a lot of things that were unpleasant to write…
But I think I got a bit off topic, sorry my brain is just not working properly today...idk did I answer the question? I forgot what I was gonna say! Whaa am I so broken?!

The short answer in my case is that in one story in particular (Hermione’s Furry Little Problem) i wrote far more (detailed) smut scenes than I would have simply to keep up with audience demand. Frankly, it can get a bit boring and repetitive to read and write non-stop sex scenes in an epic length novel—some of the scenes were a bit perfunctory. I was far less excited for some of them and it shows. My preference is to only focus in detail on a few key sex scenes which advance the plot or advance the romance, and to present something new each time—leaving the other sex scenes implied or off-screen (which is mostly the way I handle my other major fics).
But that’s not really what the question is about, is it!? The question is really about content. And to that, I have to say that I have yet to publish anything online outside of my comfort zone or which doesn’t excite me, which isn’t to say that I wouldn’t at some point write something that doesn’t generally float my boat.
I’m actually entertained by quite a variety of fetishes and I’m pretty much open to writing anything, even outside of my comfort zone as long as it doesn’t feature prepubescent minors (taking into consideration that puberty can hit anywhere between 11 and 13—at eleven for me in any case  ), older adults (anything over mid twenties) with minors, or snuff/necro, and I doubt I’ll ever publish anything which features non-con, nor Stockholm Syndrome style rape/slave fics (I have written some horribly filthy smut off-line which features hardcore non-con/slavery and bestiality, but it’ll never see the light of day).
And for myself, I don’t really have any issues writing scenes featuring Minor 1 characters (pubescent ones anyway), because it’s always from the pov of the teen characters themselves and consensual, and it’s more about fond reminiscences of my own experiences and fantasies at that age (what can I say? I and my girlfriend were very precocious) than from the pov of a “middle-aged-perv.”  
There is some generally “non-exciting” content (to me) which I have planned on writing, but never got around to for one reason or another. At some point, I’m fairly certain that I will write some male slash scenes as out-takes from one of my stories which has male couples as secondary characters. Being of “ambiguous” gender identity myself (it varies depending on the day of the week) with a preference for women, I tend to mostly write scenes which reflect that: Het, Femslash, Bi, and sort-of-Trans gender-bending sex scenes.  
Going to JayDee’s point regarding writing stuff that loses regular readers, in my fics that tends to happen right around the part of my stories in which metamorphmagus!sort-of-Trans!Harry gender-bends and is ploughed by a girl (usually Hermione) with a strap-on dildo. Despite a lot of obvious foreshadowing, some are still surprised and it’s too “squick” for them.  
I’m also considering writing a metamorphmagus!futa!Tonks screws metamorphmagus!fem!Harry out-take scene. Futa isn’t generally my thing in a big way, but I enjoy it from time to time and I think it would be fun to have a go at writing a futa fic. 

I wish i would have talked to you about this in more depth… I solely blamed myself and ran off site crying, deleting everything in my wake! I’m just playing it off like it’s cool, but it wasn’t  lol!!! it’s only cuz you and @Tcr and @sweetmamajama held my hand and rubbed my back and told me it was going to be ok that I’m back trying again!!! We can’t let people affect us this negatively (or at least I shouldn’t, jesus) Anyways, as always, it’s good to know I’m not alone. 

If you write original fiction then that tends to get less reviews than fan fiction, but if you’re like me and also write original but non m/m stuff then it gets even less reviews.  And god forbid if you include no sex of any kind in it! lol

@Tcr My problem is plotting things out… I don’t like to plot too far ahead because honestly it runs the fun for me. I’m SUPER nervous of using deus ex and guess what! You just taught me something new! I didn’t know what that meant until today! I just thought it was labeled CHEATING! lol I’m sorry, I’m going to go now 

The point is, it’s there if they want to look for it. Then there’s people like me who enjoy a good mystery so we can passively watch the MC go through the hints and solve it without us having to do any braining. 

Personally, I like the deus ex as a tool. But as with any tool, it has to be used consciously and carefully to avoid that eye roll, 1 second left moment DP mentioned. Sometimes it’s fun to straddle the line between miraculous and realistic. Sometimes miraculous can be made believable, and sometimes shit that’s unbelievable can be gripping and suspenseful. It’s just when it’s used in excess or, you know, cliche-y, or very clearly just stuck in because the writer didn’t have any better ideas, then it feels too silly/lazy to enjoy. Sometimes it feels like a wasted opportunity for growth because the authors afraid to hurt their characters.

Moral of the story: Tools are fun if you use them right. (I feel like that’s a wink wink moment… Do Deus Ex Machinas vibrate?)

 

I'm on my phone so I'll keep this short so as not to anger the auto correct gods. 
Definitely the story I loved the most failed to get the reception I expected. It didn't get silence so much as by far the most criticism out of any of my stories, and I've posted some real stinkers that received heaps of nothing but praise. So yeah it was baffling to me that something I thought of as my best work was so negatively received. 
I've also had ones I was so excited about posting. Thought they were so well written and I was convinced they played perfectly to the audience. Then i posted and... crickets. So that was fun lol. You'd think it would be humbling, but I'm quite good at blaming everyone but me. (Okay, so I didn't really keep it short.)

I can read other peoples stories and get excited, some times even if the story is “bad” but the image they placed in my mind is all thats needed, sometimes i do get myself too in my own story, but thats never the “goal” until editing is done.

My god, this is hard to answer, yet I feel compelled. 
Been writing smut 14ish years. For the first four I didn't even know I could get turned on, to be perfectly honest. I wrote out of morbid curiosity. Then I was writing m/m specifically because it was so far removed from my own sexuality that it was non threatening. It was about abandoning the expectations of gender roles to me, so the sex I was writing had meaning, but by no means did it get my engine revving. 
It's just recently, within the last 2 years that I really began to get into the smut I was writing on that level. Maybe I evolved, maybe I devolved, but either way it definitely changed the way I write those scenes. 

I'm on my phone so I'll keep this short so as not to anger the auto correct gods. 
Definitely the story I loved the most failed to get the reception I expected. It didn't get silence so much as by far the most criticism out of any of my stories, and I've posted some real stinkers that received heaps of nothing but praise. So yeah it was baffling to me that something I thought of as my best work was so negatively received. 
I've also had ones I was so excited about posting. Thought they were so well written and I was convinced they played perfectly to the audience. Then i posted and... crickets. So that was fun lol. You'd think it would be humbling, but I'm quite good at blaming everyone but me. (Okay, so I didn't really keep it short.)

I'm on my phone so I'll keep this short so as not to anger the auto correct gods. 
Definitely the story I loved the most failed to get the reception I expected. It didn't get silence so much as by far the most criticism out of any of my stories, and I've posted some real stinkers that received heaps of nothing but praise. So yeah it was baffling to me that something I thought of as my best work was so negatively received. 
I've also had ones I was so excited about posting. Thought they were so well written and I was convinced they played perfectly to the audience. Then i posted and... crickets. So that was fun lol. You'd think it would be humbling, but I'm quite good at blaming everyone but me. (Okay, so I didn't really keep it short.)

My god, this is hard to answer, yet I feel compelled. 
Been writing smut 14ish years. For the first four I didn't even know I could get turned on, to be perfectly honest. I wrote out of morbid curiosity. Then I was writing m/m specifically because it was so far removed from my own sexuality that it was non threatening. It was about abandoning the expectations of gender roles to me, so the sex I was writing had meaning, but by no means did it get my engine revving. 
It's just recently, within the last 2 years that I really began to get into the smut I was writing on that level. Maybe I evolved, maybe I devolved, but either way it definitely changed the way I write those scenes. 

Elijah did some the voice about 10-12 years ago. I don’t know if he’s done newer, or indeed if there’s been any newer since then! It certainly wasn’t him on the original playstation game
I’ve written scat! Like rimming, I guess it is a matter of taste. Sticking your tongue up an ass isn’t that terrible. Especially if you’ve bought food from a late night burger van. One thing I did write about outside of my usual tastes that lost me a lot of long time readers and generated a lot of both anger and concern was a story with  loving consensual sex within marriage. To this day the only review is of a “What the fuck did I just read” nature. I doubt I’ll make that mistake again.
I can’t see me ever writing a Minor1 story. I doubt I’d even feel comfortable writing minor2 characters under 16 (that being the all-genders age of consent in my locality and, for some reason, Rhode Island, USA.) I had a request once that made me feel pretty ill. And found out that “Toddlercon” isn’t a gathering of parents of young children in the same way that “ComicCon” is often a gathering of portly gentlemen with unshaven necks and well-tipped fedoras comics fans. 

I don’t know... I think it could totally work as a go-to response for most online interactions. At least that’s what happened in my head when I read it not knowing what it was in response to! That was fun. 

It’s true! While cocks, fingers, tongues and toys in assholes are appreciated the most, assholes on their own doing what assholes do are also popular.

I don’t know... I think it could totally work as a go-to response for most online interactions. At least that’s what happened in my head when I read it not knowing what it was in response to! That was fun.