Writing Style

[Velvet D Coolette]

Hi all,

I've been looking around aff.net and a few other places lately reading other authors' stories and found some good, some bad and some decidedly ugly.

What I'm worried about is that there does seem to be a fair number of authors who resort to cliche's, and I wondered if perhaps I'm doing the same. I can't quite tell as it's my stuff, you see. So if one or two of you could take a read of the following stories and give me some feedback to this effect I'd be much obliged.

Also, I want to know if you consider my writing one-dimensional. And more to the point, how to stop it being so. I've taken a look at it but can't quite see the way forward.

The first one is called Bunnie's Angst and is a short story of Bunnie Rabbot (a half-robot rabbit) who decides to lose her virginity to a long-time friend, but it doesn't quite work out. It's typical of how I write sex scenes.

The second one is The Mission, which works well enough as a standalone despite it being the final chapter of a longer story, so I've included it here. This one is the story of a mission by Sonic the Hedgehog and his gang and includes a lot of tension (I hope!)

So please, if you can offer me any pointers as to how I can make the writing any more multi-dimentional then I'd be very grateful.

Thank you,

Satine

[The Black Shirt]

Well, the first one about the bunny definitely SOUNDS cliché... and that is usually a bad thing. What is the... Rabbot's (that is very cliché, the whole half-robot thing... it usually doesn't work out unless it's for practical reasons) emotions as it's doing the dirty deed with it's friend?

[haruha_raharu]

Well, the first one about the bunny definitely SOUNDS cliché... and that is usually a bad thing. What is the... Rabbot's (that is very cliché, the whole half-robot thing... it usually doesn't work out unless it's for practical reasons) emotions as it's doing the dirty deed with it's friend?

Well, Bunnie Rabbot IS a half-robot half-rabbit in the Sonic comic and Sonic SatAM canon. Cliche or not, that's who the character IS.

[Velvet D Coolette]

Yep.

See?

[kokiden]

I don't know if you ever got a proper answer on this, but I read about half of "Bunnie's Angst," and I only found a couple of cliches. The first was "butterflies wheeling in her stomach," and the other was when Bunnie draws a circle on the floor of the tent, which came across as a kind of canned gesture. Other than that, your writing appears to be cliche-free to me.

It's great you're aware of the need to keep your writing fresh by steering away from cliches, and I think you succeed better than many!

[Maiafay]

Hmm.

I don't see a problem with the cliches, but I'm not liking the POV switch without some sort of divider. Your POV's are middle third person, which isn't bad, but you are keeping the reader from getting too close. Are you certain you wish for that distance? Also, I see no motivation for Bunnie's feelings, nor for Rotor. They seem to be thrown into the story a little haphazardly and expected to play the scene out. You also "tell" instead of "show", like here:

Bunnie was a highly desirable woman. Most of the Knothole males would give 10 years of their lives to be in this situation with her. Rotor fancied her too, but something in him just couldn't level this. As she sighed with pleasure and lowered herself down as if to prompt him to make a move, he broke off the kiss.

This isn't wrong per se, but instead of "highly desirable woman" consider:

Rotor looked at Bunnie, his gaze roaming over her large blue eyes and delicate face; what Knothole male wouldn't want her? There was something about her though, something in the earnest way she pressed against him that made him think twice about pushing this to the next level. It felt wrong.

As she sighed with pleasure and nuzzled closer, he broke the kiss. (no need for "off")

Try to stay away from telling us how they feel or what they appear as...find a way of "showing" us this information.

Oh, a nitpick over a misplaced modifier:

She took a deep breath, tossed one of her ears back over her head, winked at herself in her reflection and headed over to the tent, butterflies wheeling in her stomach, where she crawled inside

Are the butterflies wheeling where she crawled inside? You should tweak and say something like this:

"She took a deep breath, tossed one of her ears back over her head and winked at herself in her reflection. Butterflies wheeled in her stomach as she neared the tent, but she steeled herself and crawled inside."

...but these come with practice. What you do have is a good flow, though some words you repeat here and there. It was clear and easy to read, however, and that's a good base to build on.