BronxWench

Like*, back in 2005 or 2006 I had a story based on the TV show Angel on AFF. It was an incest story 'bout Officer Kate and her Dad, and nobody died though, being incest and all, it was kind've messed up. I deleted it from my AFF account and didn't keep a copy, though I couldn't say now if that was intentional or not.
So, stories you wrote, even posted, but that are utterly lost to you.
Go!
*Sorry, saw some old Scooby Doo.

If you're using Word, the easy way to deal with this problem is to use Find/Replace to replace every paragraph break with a manual line break before you paste the text into the box to upload. For some reason, AFF's text editor always puts a space after a paragraph that ends with a paragraph break, but it won't do that with a manual line break.

Snow? We need more snow here all the driveways got clear so fast! Congrats!

I was easily lost in the fantastical world of Ghost and Gerry once more. The fierce devotion the two lovers show to each other, the depth of the care that Ghost feels towards his charges, and the lengths, challenges and obstacles he confronts in their defense were spell-binding. His dilemma was my delight.

How about just a little human sacrifice? To set the scene?
A smidge? A teeny tiny bit of ruthless satanic slaughter in exchange for Earthly power, wealth and oversized girl dick? Ahh well.
"...terrible what happened to Madam Pomfrey. Still, this new Japanese nurse seems very good at her job. Hey, Ron, why are you walking funny?"
"She... she took my temperature. She didn't use her hands...."
"?"
...maybe not.

I've read it for you, Bronx, and to be honest, you kept the same rugged flavor that caught my imagination in the first short novel in tact. Second novels rarely live up to the first novel's potential. The fact that you maintained the ancient cultural hints and capitalized on them made the story. Seeing the undertones of prejudice and fear of knowledge was very believable. SO yeah, it was a great reading story due to those nuances.

Thank you! You're wonderful for my confidence!

Indeed - context is key. The list reminds me a little of a meme floating around that gives "X number of tips for writers" wherein each of the tips uses a grammatical or rhetorical construction ironically/hypocritically. Ex: "Passive voice should be avoided." "Always avoid alliteration."

I'll just point out here that everyone should buy this book. It's got everything you want. It has all the best bits of sci-fi, fantasy, magic, m/m romance, and it's a great story!
Oh - and there's witches!
And snow!
It's a wonderful read, and if you haven't read the first one - where have you been? You really should do that right now.

More shameless self promotion...

***New M/M Fantasy Romance*** Ghost's Dilemma by Morwen Navarre February 4, 2015
"I'm leaving my village in a crisis and walking out on my alpha and mate. I won't be forgiven."
A fierce male witch is torn from his protective lover's bed to face down a deadly threat. A spellbinding tale of devotion and love.
Goodreads http://goo.gl/aaXfkB
***Now available for pre-order on Torquere Books http://goo.gl/Ngn2xU***
You're Invited to the Launch Party Feb 5 http://goo.gl/UzyNkn
Ghost's Sight Book #1 is on sale for $0.99 for a limited time on Torque Books. http://goo.gl/w1WDRL but Book #2 Ghost's Dilemma can be read as a stand alone.
Pinterest http://goo.gl/z10TuP
Win an ecopy or a $25 Gift Card
Raffle#1 http://goo.gl/0LubX9
Raffle#2 http://goo.gl/3ZXAZC
Ghost's Dilemma (Ghost's Sight #2) Ghost is content to spend all his time in bed with his new mate. Being claimed by Gerry, his virile and possessive alpha, has brought Gho... Save GOODREADS.COM

Good luck on getting masses of sales!

More shameless self promotion...

***New M/M Fantasy Romance*** Ghost's Dilemma by Morwen Navarre February 4, 2015
"I'm leaving my village in a crisis and walking out on my alpha and mate. I won't be forgiven."
A fierce male witch is torn from his protective lover's bed to face down a deadly threat. A spellbinding tale of devotion and love.
Goodreads http://goo.gl/aaXfkB
***Now available for pre-order on Torquere Books http://goo.gl/Ngn2xU***
You're Invited to the Launch Party Feb 5 http://goo.gl/UzyNkn
Ghost's Sight Book #1 is on sale for $0.99 for a limited time on Torque Books. http://goo.gl/w1WDRL but Book #2 Ghost's Dilemma can be read as a stand alone.
Pinterest http://goo.gl/z10TuP
Win an ecopy or a $25 Gift Card
Raffle#1 http://goo.gl/0LubX9
Raffle#2 http://goo.gl/3ZXAZC
Ghost's Dilemma (Ghost's Sight #2) Ghost is content to spend all his time in bed with his new mate. Being claimed by Gerry, his virile and possessive alpha, has brought Gho... Save GOODREADS.COM

More shameless self promotion...

***New M/M Fantasy Romance*** Ghost's Dilemma by Morwen Navarre February 4, 2015
"I'm leaving my village in a crisis and walking out on my alpha and mate. I won't be forgiven."
A fierce male witch is torn from his protective lover's bed to face down a deadly threat. A spellbinding tale of devotion and love.
Goodreads http://goo.gl/aaXfkB
***Now available for pre-order on Torquere Books http://goo.gl/Ngn2xU***
You're Invited to the Launch Party Feb 5 http://goo.gl/UzyNkn
Ghost's Sight Book #1 is on sale for $0.99 for a limited time on Torque Books. http://goo.gl/w1WDRL but Book #2 Ghost's Dilemma can be read as a stand alone.
Pinterest http://goo.gl/z10TuP
Win an ecopy or a $25 Gift Card
Raffle#1 http://goo.gl/0LubX9
Raffle#2 http://goo.gl/3ZXAZC
Ghost's Dilemma (Ghost's Sight #2) Ghost is content to spend all his time in bed with his new mate. Being claimed by Gerry, his virile and possessive alpha, has brought Gho... Save GOODREADS.COM

Congrats on the next book coming out so soon. You've got a great storyline with this tale.

More shameless self promotion...

***New M/M Fantasy Romance*** Ghost's Dilemma by Morwen Navarre February 4, 2015
"I'm leaving my village in a crisis and walking out on my alpha and mate. I won't be forgiven."
A fierce male witch is torn from his protective lover's bed to face down a deadly threat. A spellbinding tale of devotion and love.
Goodreads http://goo.gl/aaXfkB
***Now available for pre-order on Torquere Books http://goo.gl/Ngn2xU***
You're Invited to the Launch Party Feb 5 http://goo.gl/UzyNkn
Ghost's Sight Book #1 is on sale for $0.99 for a limited time on Torque Books. http://goo.gl/w1WDRL but Book #2 Ghost's Dilemma can be read as a stand alone.
Pinterest http://goo.gl/z10TuP
Win an ecopy or a $25 Gift Card
Raffle#1 http://goo.gl/0LubX9
Raffle#2 http://goo.gl/3ZXAZC
Ghost's Dilemma (Ghost's Sight #2) Ghost is content to spend all his time in bed with his new mate. Being claimed by Gerry, his virile and possessive alpha, has brought Gho... Save GOODREADS.COM

Looking at the article, the writing points brought up pertain more to technical writing. I wouldn't read fiction with that phrasing. It would be boring. In technical writing, less is more. Conciseness in technical writing helps to make it easier for one to reach the desired end result.

I somewhat figured that. I knew that the article was more geared towards professional writing, especially when I was going over some of the phrases, thinking "if I take that out then the story wouldn't be my own". There were a few things that I felt the author was being a bit too picky on, even for technical writing!

I've been M.I.A. for a while... and we'll just leave it at that! A lot has been on my mind and one of those things has been editing/revising stories. I've been a chicken wuss as far as asking for help but someone was nice enough to leave me a concrit on another site that prompted me to further research the "how to's" of writing.
Anyway; I came across this article that actually pertains to blogging but I figured that it could be applied to story writing as well. The author lists 297 words/phrases that can be either omitted altogether or revised in order to make your writing stand out. Was just wondering how many of you agree with this list and if there are any other flabby words/phrases that he left out in your opinion.
http://boostblogtraffic.com/weak-writing/
I applied this to one of my stories and it cut a little over 700 words in a 15000 word story. There's about seven phrases that I have yet to comb through because they were frequent in the document. A lot of the sentences made more sense once I did this edit but there were a couple of phrases that I couldn't see cutting out or revising, particularly in dialogue.
What do you think? Do you think that this author is mostly being a nit-picker or is he pretty dead on?

it may sound strange but when writing fiction you want a little flab, its the way we talk. Mr Shane is correct if all you are concerned with is either technical or informative writing, less is more in these types. But flab in recreational writing is good, it softens the story and makes it more conversational which actually holds peoples attention; don't believe me? Use this list on your favorite book, just one page, then on something like a math textbook. See which one has more flab and then ask yourself which one you'd want to read on a rainy saturday. I know, some of us would rather read the math book - but we're weird!
Just remember that no rule works everywhere - generalizations are bad!

Also, writer voice is not speaking voice. If you try to follow the rules of grammar while writing your dialogue, you're more likely to end up with something that sounds stilted or forced.

One of the things lists like that don't take into account is author voice. For creative writing, as opposed to blogging or writing textbooks/technical manuals, every author has a voice, a personal style. Stephen King abhors adverbs. George RR Martin takes delight in killing off as many characters as possible in as short a span as can be managed. Ray Bradbury strings together words until they become music. But all of those differences are why readers love them. It's their voice.
I think a writer needs to care about good grammar in the narrative portions of a story, while dialogue can be looser. I think worrying about repetitive use of certain phrases is fine, and looking for alternatives to the more common action phrases (he looked, she smiled) is wonderful. But I also think that worrying too much about conforming to a checklist runs the risk of ruining that voice. If you've ever done that little test to see who you write like, it's our quirks that make us sound like one of the "name" authors, not how well we pare out the forbidden words of the moment.

One of the things lists like that don't take into account is author voice. For creative writing, as opposed to blogging or writing textbooks/technical manuals, every author has a voice, a personal style. Stephen King abhors adverbs. George RR Martin takes delight in killing off as many characters as possible in as short a span as can be managed. Ray Bradbury strings together words until they become music. But all of those differences are why readers love them. It's their voice.
I think a writer needs to care about good grammar in the narrative portions of a story, while dialogue can be looser. I think worrying about repetitive use of certain phrases is fine, and looking for alternatives to the more common action phrases (he looked, she smiled) is wonderful. But I also think that worrying too much about conforming to a checklist runs the risk of ruining that voice. If you've ever done that little test to see who you write like, it's our quirks that make us sound like one of the "name" authors, not how well we pare out the forbidden words of the moment.

One of the things lists like that don't take into account is author voice. For creative writing, as opposed to blogging or writing textbooks/technical manuals, every author has a voice, a personal style. Stephen King abhors adverbs. George RR Martin takes delight in killing off as many characters as possible in as short a span as can be managed. Ray Bradbury strings together words until they become music. But all of those differences are why readers love them. It's their voice.
I think a writer needs to care about good grammar in the narrative portions of a story, while dialogue can be looser. I think worrying about repetitive use of certain phrases is fine, and looking for alternatives to the more common action phrases (he looked, she smiled) is wonderful. But I also think that worrying too much about conforming to a checklist runs the risk of ruining that voice. If you've ever done that little test to see who you write like, it's our quirks that make us sound like one of the "name" authors, not how well we pare out the forbidden words of the moment.

I agree with Foe there.
I have a Naruto fic, as it stands i have 47897 hits/views on it, but only 31 reviews.
why do I have so many people reading the story when its my first one? because of the fandom and probably because of the tags on it too.
lost of people like preg, lesbians, threesums + and countless other things.
let me put it this way, if there was a story in the ......... Zelda universe, you're going to get a lot of people looking at it, but if you have one in the ..... Care Bear universe, maybe not so much.
if you are set on this story, thats 100% fine, dont just drop it because we are saying things that you dont want to hear, finish your story the way you want it to go, just remember people will generally follow with the idea of canon, so anything you change has to be explained or you could confuse people and that would hurt your story too.

The largest chunk of the problem with any fanfic is that it is ever only going to appeal to those who have an interest in the fandom. That's because its assumed that a lot of the work is being pre-established for the author; we know the characters, the setting, etc. In this case, you're not only limited by the smaller fandom, but by the fact that you're writing what is essentially a fix-fic: a story where one aspect of the story is changed to achieve a better outcome desired by the fan author. So you're not only limiting yourself to the fandom you are writing in, but the pool of readers who also want to see that particular aspect changed.
In truth, there are only two ways to attract readers, and one greatly assists in the other:
1) Write in a fandom with a such a large pool of readers that even a small chunk represents a substantial population
AND/OR
2) Become such a well known author that people are looking for your stories because they are written by you, no matter what the content might be. This is much easier if you start by following the guideline above this one.