BronxWench

I can’t speak to the forum account, but I can delete the new archive account for you.

[MC] looked around the tavern, assessing his coworkers. They were a diverse bunch, but he had grown fond of them. Janina, a young elf with blond hair that was always tied up into a folded ponytail bun, stood at just over six feet tall and had blue eyes that has had a slight glow to them. Her green top gently hugged her athletic body, her fair sized breasts pressing against the fabric were the envy of many women, as were her strong toned legs hidden by a pair of grey pants that held on to her round shapely buttocks. Only once did anyone ever try to force her to do something she didn't want to do. She had the man pinned to the wall with a spell in one hand (What was the spell? You describe the fire ball in her other hand, so is this spell visible? If so, describe it!) and a blue fire ball in her other, ready to kill the poor drunk. After he had pissed his pants, she smiled at him and told him it was time to go home before he gets got into any more trouble. He quickly paid his tab and ran home. Janina simply returned to work while the entire tavern was dead silent, not one person taking their eyes off her, until she asked if anyone needed another drink in one of the sweetest voices that challenged anyone to try something like that again. So, to explain my edits… Give us some context in the form of a sentence that lets us know whose point of view this is. If this is from MC’s point of view, he doesn’t know what other women envy about Janina, unless they’ve all decided to drop by and tell him. If her legs are hidden by the pants, he can’t tell that they’re strong and toned, unless he makes a habit of peeking when she’s changing. Also, his absorption with the way her clothes fit makes him sound like a pervert, or a fashionista. You need to watch verb tense. You keep popping off into present tense when the sentence starts out in the past tense. Pick a tense and stick with it, please. The gods of grammar will thank you. Avoid endlessly complicated sentences. It’s confusing for a reader to keep track of what’s happening when they have to unravel all those clauses. It’s as bad as all those endless (and breathless) sentences that begin with “Then… And then...” Most of the time, unless it’s in the form of a scroll, you don’t see a spell. You see the effect of the spell. You got it with the blue fire ball, but the other spell? We readers have no clue what it is, or what she’s doing with it. Help out a poor reader and either describe it, or just have her hand around his throat as she pins him to the wall.

I think you’re missing the point @Thundercloud is trying to make. You need some more backstory to explain the women—why they’re there and what their purpose is to the story--especially since they’re not the MC. If they’re just there to be eye candy, it makes for an awkward start to a story. You’re not going to hook a broad swath of readers by giving them a porno teaser before cutting to the MC and his story. Even if the women will appear again, and work with the MC, you’ve already set them up as being halfway in the blond, big-breasted bimbo box because all you’re showing of them is how they are taken for that very thing. Here’s a thought. Take a piece of paper for each character. Write down the name, general description, and list their strong points and weaknesses. THEN explain each strong point and weakness. So, the blond elf has deadly aim. Why? Because she had to hunt for her supper—her family didn’t have a lot, and if they wanted to eat, someone needed to hunt. She has a quick temper. Why? Because she’s sick and tired of stupid human males with a mommy complex lusting after her breasts, and if she had her way, she’d reduce them all to ash and take up sleeping with women. (This is all very simplistic, but I’m trying to give examples.) Once YOU get to know who she is, you can write her properly, and not just make a cardboard character with no real appeal to the reader (other than those overdeveloped mammaries). Postscript (because my brain is working that way today): When you’re writing for a fandom, it’s easy. Everyone knows the characters, and the setting. But you are writing an original work here, and we know NOTHING about your characters or setting. You need to clue us in, preferably without a boring infodump, and definitely before we decide the story is just about a bunch of tavern wenches who don’t want to be mistaken for bimbos despite working in the tavern equivalent of a chainmail bikini and having to fend off male customers in droves as a consequence. OH! And here’s the MC, who has nothing to do with anything yet, but will do, once he figures out how to put his pants on and shows up in front of the readers.

Thank you! I’ve processed the deletion, so you should be all set. Wishing you all the best, and stay safe!

You have quite a few stories published under the account. Deleting the account will also remove all the stories, along with their reviews, and the deletion is permanent. Do you need to retain copies of anything before I process this?

Here you are: Language, Miss Granger by Illuminare We have a great FAQ that explains how to search the archive: http://www2.adult-fanfiction.org/forum/topic/63121-how-to-use-search/

And that’s a great start. Why am I in jail? What the hell just happened here? Why won’t anyone answer my questions? Give the reader a little emotional hook into the character and they’ll want to find out, too. Most of my favorite authors are voracious readers. You can’t write if you don’t also read, in my ever-so-humble opinion.

Here’s a thought. Pick a book that you loved to read, something that caught your attention from the first paragraph. Look at how that author opened the story. Was it action, like @Desiderius Price uses? Was it an epigraph? Was it a flashback? These are all ways to catch the reader’s attention, and make them want to keep reading. There’s nothing wrong with the “It was a dark and stormy night” opening. It worked for Snoopy every time. But what, past that sentence, will hook the reader? (Hint: Snoopy would follow up by saying something like, “The Red Baron’s plane roared through the sky.” Action, and where was the Red baron going? Read on, dear reader!)

@Desiderius Price linked to the list of tags. Unfortunately, once you’ve added the story, additional tags have to be added manually. If you go to your Control Panel, and open the story manager for the desired subdomain, you’ll see a box link marked Edit Story Info. Click that, and you’ll be back on the [page where you had input your story’s info. You can then type in the additional tags in the proper field. Just remember to scroll to the bottom and click the Edit button to save the changes.

I’m still not getting any feel whatsoever for the character as a person. The girls can take care of themselves, but the dwarven tavern owner will also defend them. So, are they strong women who stand on their own, or damsels in distress? I like strong characters, male or female, and I like to feel like I have gotten to know them, what motivates them, and why they react the way they do. I want to know what they hope for, and what they’re most afraid of. I’d really like it if one f the things they dislike or fear could NOT be sexual harassment because that’s so overdone as to be ridiculous. Let me put it this way. I played a computer RPG, based on D&D lore. My player character was doing her thing, and collecting a party of fellow adventurers to help her complete her quest to save the world. One character was a male paladin, who was (thanks to some exceedingly lazy writing) the only legitimate love interest for the female player character. He announces his interest by telling her, in bumbling virginal paladin fashion, “I just want to protect you.” I was dumbfounded. He was a decent fighter, but my PC was kicking ass on a much higher level than he was, and had just rescued him several times over when he came out with this. I was LIVID at the writers. These guys got PAID to write what amounted to an adolescent wank-fantasy of the paladin riding to the rescue and the PC immediately falling head over heels for him. NOT this PC. She informed him that she was not interested, and I finished the game without a romance arc. So, please, don’t write another infuriating, over the top, no-your-voice-hasn’t-quite-changed-yet-but-it’s-okay wet dream fantasy where everyone has all the charisma of a biscuit that got dipped in the tea too often. Write REAL people, with heartbeats, with mundane concerns we can understand, with flaws but also with decent intentions. People who can be strong when they need to be, but who know they can’t go it totally alone. People without god-like skills, or extraordinary luck. The plot can be a bit thin as long as you have great characters. That way, when they screw up, which most people do in real life, we readers can shake our heads, and mutter, “Well, that was stupid,” all the while rooting for the character anyway because we really like them. If you can pull that off, you won’t need the sexual harassment fantasies, and the focus on bouncy asses and tits.

Now, if she were a member of a mercenary mage guild, and was sent to infiltrate the tavern to gather information on perhaps a smuggling ring, or some such thing, I could possibly understand it. But if she was acting as a spy, she’d be more likely to want to blend into the background, rather than be the focus of attention. And then she’d really be reluctant to tip her hand and fireball the gormless molester, because the one drunk in the very back of the room who hasn’t pickled his last brain cell might actually ask the same question I did: Hey, mage, why are you tending bar instead of using your mighty spells to defend the realm, or at least earn some gold?

So, let me ask this. If she were more typically elven, to wit slender and small-breasted, how would that affect her magical abilities? And why, if she’s so proficient a magic user, is she serving drinks at a tavern? If I’d gone through the training inherent in mastering arcane abilities, I certainly wouldn’t head out and get a job serving ale to a group of potential rapists unless I was secretly a serial killer with a passion for murdering rapists (which is not at all a bad thing, mind you). I’m not sure having the other two women also viewed as mobile pieces of meat available for the first lust-addled male in their vicinity improves anything. It just shows that the males are seriously developmentally challenged, having been unable to muster even the slightest pretext of self control in the presence of females of any race who have curves. This is the antithesis of good writing, because it relies on the tired old trope of “I couldn’t help myself because her tits bounced so nicely in that corset, and besides, she was asking for it because she was female and in a bar and not wearing armor covered in spikes which might possibly have made me think twice about pursuing her.” The characters become caricatures, and the reader is not going to make any sort of connection with them unless the sole purpose for reading your story is to give them something to picture while they wank. Look, I get it. You’re writing for male readers, and you’re writing what you find stimulating. But if you’re confused by why your wife and I aren’t squeeing and begging to beta read for you, it’s because you’re objectifying the female characters, and treating the males as spineless cum-fountains looking for the nearest onahole.

It wasn’t you, @Desiderius Price. This has been an ongoing discussion with SGS about breasts, size, and descriptors over the years. The kneejerk assumption that curvy women are all potential bimbos is just outdated and utterly irritating because it perpetuates the whole “she was asking for it” culture. We should be better than that.

We just have the one, plus DG. Honestly, this site operates exceedingly well, considering the fact that we are a volunteer operation. Probably The Rise of the Drakens, (Dragon Prints : 752724) but honestly, there might be one or two with more hits.

I find the idea of people associating larger breasts with some woman being a bimbo to be truly offensive, actually. It’s not a matter of choice. We are all the sum of our genetic inheritance, and whether or not you have generous physical attributes, or fall below some generic notion of what’s considered attractive at the moment is not something that should EVER influence how we see people. Frankly, if I was your poor elf lass, I’d fireball the lot of them, get some breast reduction magic, and move on with my life far away from humans.

Our coder isn’t quite mythical, but like everyone else, she has a RL job that pays the bills. We can’t afford to pay the going rate for a coder, so she works for us for a pittance, but it means we can’t demand a lot of her time.

We actually have never tracked hit count data on individual stories, but I think you are correct in thinking it would get ruined by manipulation if we did.

I absolutely dislike the way female characteristics have to be described in great detail, as if that’s the most important thing about the character. It’s about as endearing to me as the chainmail bikini trope. I’m equally put off by the need to describe male measurements, especially when the poor bastard is being saddled with a cock that would split a horse in half, never mind a human woman. Why can’t anyone be average in fiction anymore?

I’m glad you got the story posted, and as long as you’ve tagged for content, you should be fine.

It does take a bit of tinkering sometimes, but we’ll figure it out. If trimming the summary doesn’t work, let me know, and we’ll brainstorm some more.

Characters are letters and punctuation. The summary itself should be fine, but the author’s note makes it exceed the field’s limits. Moving the author’s note to the top of the first chapter should resolve it, I believe.

The summary is definitely too long. I’d suggest moving the Author’s Note portion to the first chapter, which would leave a short enough entry for the summary field, and your note at the top of the first chapter will alert readers to your format.

Two questions: How long is the summary for the story? Are you using the dropdown to add the tags or inputting them manually?

The recaptcha is no longer being used. I’m not sure why the post is failing and resetting itself, other than perhaps too long a summary? The disclaimer field maxs at 240 characters, which should be adequate spece. The summary field is, I believe, capped at 660 characters.

You actually need to go to your Control Panel under your archive profile. In the menu bar at the top of the archive homepage, click your name, and then select Control Panel. You will see a new list appear, with a complete selection of the Story Managers for each subdomain. Select the Cartoons Story Manager. You should see a blue link reading “Post New Story.” Click that, and then you can populate the various fields that appear. We have a robust FAQ section here in the Forum. You might want to look at this AFQ on how to add a story: http://www2.adult-fanfiction.org/forum/topic/63417-how-to-upload-a-story/ I’d also recommend the FAQ on Disclaimers: http://www2.adult-fanfiction.org/forum/topic/3560-what-is-needed-in-a-disclaimer/