Desiderius Price

I’m less of a reader these days, so that’s not always guaranteed, I came to AFF because I wanted to post what I was writing, explored the TOS carefully before I signed up. However, when I do read a story, I try to make a point of dropping a review on it. I use the “promote a story” to make people aware of my stories. And I also made a conscious decision a while ago to become more active on the forums so people know I exist around here. This all also helps with some social anxieties that I have, which included getting over the hesitation to talk about my own stories when it seems germane and relevant to the topic at hand (I still fight that hesitation, but the bar is now lower than it used to be).

This is where I really appreciate the first amendment in the US, and it’s one the supreme court holds pretty dear to its heart. It may not be perfectly upheld, corporations try to sway it, but, AFAICT, the strongest protection to free speech on the planet. And, the whole concept of ruling a law as unconstitutional *isn’t* explicitly stated in the constitution either, that has a history too (Mauberry vs Madison is the case that established the court’s authority to rule as such). I just hope the current prez’s attempt to demonize free press doesn’t bear fruit. That said, a little tinkering for the purposes of tackling “anchor babies” in the US (ie, the birthright citizenship), or to allow prayer in school (religious right), to the fourteenth amendment (that’s what carries the first amendment protections down to the other levels of government AND grants birthright citizenship), and a nasty war or two with some Muslim countries and/or Russia and/or China (all very real possibilities), and we could have the universe that *my* stories are portraying, where a resurgence in the religious right means that the government now has a duty to see that promote every person’s spiritual well being, and we get… Yep, and it starts off with an eight year old boy “Jeff” who goes from taking a bath to finding himself in a nudist camp, which lets me explore a group who doesn’t appreciate the government trying to promote their spiritual well being and the implications of that. My universe here is hard-sci-fi, which means any tech has to be plausible/buildable with today’s general understanding of the world; and with the general setup, there’s an implied suppression of the creative talent who’d be advancing the state ofthe art as “promoting the devil”. True, future doesn’t have to be “sci-fi”, though it generally is. I’ve been listing some of mine under Originals/Misc because its sufficiently non-tech enough that sci-fi may or may not be appropriate, despite being in the future and having some elements of tech. Heck, a recent episode I wrote involved Amish, and while they had a tablet computer at their market for scanning/adding prices, that was the only real tech they had. I do make the tablet a ubiquitous item in my worlds, because I figure that’s the form factor that today’s laptops will go to for the general user; iPads for normal work (editing documents, watching shows), and smart phones; but even that line is blurring today. Wireless keyboards might still be a thing for a power user. With how I’ve setup my universe, as the religious right resurges in the US, and across the globe, with the US government’s “Department of Homeland Morality”, people who disagree with this, people who wish to value their freedom to think independently, tend not to have to worry about it for too long as they get weeded out. Thus, to show the interesting stories are with the young adults, the teenagers, so that’s where I tend to pick up those minor1/minor2 tags. When in doubt, keep it in. Now, you do have flexibility to where you put the warnings tags, your options are 1) summary, 2) top of the story, and/or 3) top of the relevant chapter. I tend to avoid #3, because that’s too much of a spoiler, I prefer “somewhere in the story” vs “in this chapter”, unless it’s a series of oneshots at which point, top of the chapter is better. So more recently, I’ve been putting major/significant tags to the summary, and ALL tags at the top of the story; this warns the reader without cluttering up the summary. So, if the story is ten chapters describing a lick by lick on a blowjob, then [oral] would be advertised in the summary, but if its a half line of “sucked his cock”, one of a handful throughout a M/M or M/F story, and none really significant to the plot other than “built a little bit onto the relationship”, it’d be at the top of the story. Now, [rape] is more of a general trigger tag, like Minor1 or Minor2, and I tend to suggest keeping those in the summary. Lots of shades here.

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Whereas, I’m doing sci-fi… well, in the near future, close enough that I don’t always categorize it in sci-fi. And I’ve got that pesky minor1 tag, keeps creeping in, which I realized was unavoidable once I go “nudist camp/colony” with families.

I need to mention the other reason for tags, it can be illegal to access certain materials on this website from other countries. Minor1/2 are such tags, JayDee could elaborate on this.

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).

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”).

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.

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Episode #13 is posted.

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.

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I track mine via a spreadsheet. Normally, I do it daily unless I just posted, at which point, I’ll do it a bit more often. (And refresh a lot in between to see how it changes.) I also try to avoid clicking *into* my own story because I know it’ll disturb the counts. I do put a lot of time into my stories as I don’t have that natural talent to sit at the computer and have a new story done over the weekend. I like my stories to be consistent, well reasoned, and plausible; that takes effort, I’ll even burn some vacation time to write, because I do enjoy it. So it’s nice to know that it’s appreciated by the readers, because I’m definitely not doing this to get rich (that’d be nice, have movie made of one of my stories, or something, but that’s a lottery type payoff). And we do like to drone on in the forums

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It comes down to those self-doubts one can have about their own stories. Are they any good? Do people like reading them? Is it worth my effort to take these from an outline/rough to a more polished form for posting? Is this suitable to actually be published (for originals)? In the absence of reviews, I can’t answer these, not really. So, having the dragon prints going up consistency after posting/promoting at least hints that some people are reading it, and coming back to read with each installment – it’s not guaranteed, it could be a different group of suckers each time, or, it could be some habitual readers; my assumption is that it’s a bit of both.

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