What are some things I could do better in my writing?

[AbolethLasher]

I've been posting stories here since July of 2021, but I'm curious if people have any input into how I could improve my stories?

Are there particular traps you noticing me falling into, or different touches you think my stories could benefit from?

I'd really appreciate any input people have to offer!

[krovaknoy]

Your writing is fantastic. The main point of criticism I've thought about your recent works is that the beats tend to get repeated so the ending builds to be more of what's already happened in the story. He’ll Never Cheat Again is a good example of this, where James, is stripped of his sexuality, and then stripped again, and then stripped again, until finally now Linda wins. A story should have a back and forth, with rising and falling tension or action. You do get close to this with the Rebecca scene, where despite Linda's attempts to get revenge against James it's clear that there's more going on and rather than building on that theme or having more conflicts like the story moves past it. Thematically the story is building up in some way for Linda to lose and that doesn't happen. The stories are well written, but it's chocolate on chocolate - too much without points to release or pause.

Compare this with your other work Natasha's Nadir is a much more cohesive attempt at building on a theme. First it's not immediately obvious what is happening (outside a savvy reader with genre knowledge). This makes the discovery that Jeremy is purposefully causing Natasha's fall so wonderful. Natasha is so far ahead at the start that she is initially able to cope with her changes, each step down can be enjoyed as she struggles to bounce back. Jeremy first moves are small and the reader is left to wonder, did he always intend this outcome, or did he become more brazen as he stole more and more? Her final descent feels earned.

Same thing with Family Mix up, Kurt has initial success, makes a critical error at the top of his success, realizes he must now live with a role swap and comes to prefer it. It's great because the story has a rise and fall - characters have an arc.

The other issue I have noticed is that you avoid or minimize paragraphs in your writing. There are sentences that describe what someone is doing, what he or she is thinking, how the world reacts to them or how they react to the world.
Where is the description of the world or events outside of the characters? It is entirely dialogue, internal monologue, and screen action.
This makes the works readable, like a play, but also doesn't give much opportunity for description or character or explanation or context or reaction. It also means there's no narrative thread or world outside of the characters.

This style of writing is common among many of the genre's writers as the stories are often just mechanisms for the transformations, the reader is intended to follow along voyeuristically and quietly. It reminds me of other works on the EMCSA, Pan for example, but it's most common among authors here near the start of their writing career. As these authors wrote more, this is something that sees improvement.

For instance you've written some downgrade works around teachers and IQ loss. The stories are great, but look at this paragraph from one of Tainted Sin's last works, The Horror at Northridge High:

"What the fuck is going on?" The word sounded strange coming from a woman Chris knew would never say it. In a weird way, for the first time, it really did sound like a bad word. The rest of the class was more silent than it had ever been. No whispers, no passing of notes. For the first time in her life, Mrs. Henderson had their full attention.

It's wonderful, we get to really see how Chris realizes the horror of what he's done and the larger implications, and the contrast her new behavior has earned compared to her previous role. It's a paragraph that takes an idea from one sentence of dialogue and explores how it affects the world.

Compare this with a similar scene of descent into libidinous for your teacher.

Hailey moaned as memories came flooding into her mind. She bit her lips as she remembered fucking a good portion of the football team, and a not insignificant part of the rest of the male population of the school.

Notice how the two sentences are action happens to a character we are following, and we see her reaction (biting her lips). It's like reading a play.

The ideas are good, the dialogue and themes are obviously building towards something, and the scenes have a logic to them but it could be written better.
This is the climax of your story - Hailey has crossed a final line into her sexy transformation, her error should have a weight to it. What does it feel like? What is the horror or joy Becky is experiencing as she herself becomes a prude? What does it mean to gain sexual memories? Hailey then goes and has a great time with Brad, but that feels a little rushed. There's an opportunity to further revel in her mistake, say to compare Brad to all the men she's now had sex with, or even her previous husband (I realize she's traded that away by this point but that could have been rewritten).

I do like part 3, your Denouement. It is is great because rather than continue the teen experience indefinitely, Hailey returns to "normal", changed, but not in the way she hoped, and it's Steven, the one she first tricked or punished into the experiment who comes out ahead. The characters have an arc.

There are far worse authors than you who write less prolifically on Smashwords and Amazon Kindle selling 13 page short stories for $2.99. Your skills as a writer are sufficient that someone would pay to read it, but you still have room to improve in terms of overall story structure and descriptions. You've got some fresh takes on a variety of genre, and I look forward to reading your works for years to come.
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You've said previously you were using GPT+3 to assist with writing, are you still using it? How is it helping your writing? What was that like? Are you feeding it copies of stories you like, or coming up with prompts for ideas and having the AI interact for dialogue?

[AbolethLasher]

Wow!

Thank you for the detailed and specific advice. There's a lot here for me to chew on.

The main point of criticism I've thought about your recent works is that the beats tend to get repeated so the ending builds to be more of what's already happened in the story. [...] The stories are well written, but it's chocolate on chocolate - too much without points to release or pause.

That's a really good point! Now that you've pointed it out, I do think my more recent stories sort of hit the same beat over and over again.

I'll have to be more conscious of how to build on themes during a story, and make sure character arcs play out more.

The other issue I have noticed is that you avoid or minimize paragraphs in your writing. There are sentences that describe what someone is doing, what he or she is thinking, how the world reacts to them or how they react to the world.
Where is the description of the world or events outside of the characters? It is entirely dialogue, internal monologue, and screen action.
This makes the works readable, like a play, but also doesn't give much opportunity for description or character or explanation or context or reaction. It also means there's no narrative thread or world outside of the characters.

This is such a useful, and actionable piece of advice.

I see exactly what you mean, and I'll definitely try to work to expand my descriptions from here on out.

Do you know of any writing exercises that might help me?

There are far worse authors than you who write less prolifically on Smashwords and Amazon Kindle selling 13 page short stories for $2.99. Your skills as a writer are sufficient that someone would pay to read it, but you still have room to improve in terms of overall story structure and descriptions. You've got some fresh takes on a variety of genre, and I look forward to reading your works for years to come.

That's very kind of you to say! Thank you.

You've said previously you were using GPT+3 to assist with writing, are you still using it? How is it helping your writing? What was that like? Are you feeding it copies of stories you like, or coming up with prompts for ideas and having the AI interact for dialogue?

I've only used GPT-3 on the stories where I mention it in the by-line on here. I'm not really actively using it at the moment, but I wouldn't rule it out for future stories.

I have tried feeding GPT-2 my stories to see what would happen, but none of those results have ever been published. Mostly, I think the sample set of my stories was too small and I overtrained the AI on that limited sample set.

For GPT-3, I've mostly just used AI Dungeon, and I think the primary benefit it provides is similar to the benefit that random tables can provide in tabletop role-playing games. It's very useful for inspiration, though I do end up "retrying" quite a bit for results that make sense or are easier to work with. I like that at its best it can take stories in directions that make sense but which I wouldn't have naturally if I was just writing without the tool, but sadly it's too limited to do much more than that.

Having worked with it a bit, I am quite impressed with it. It is fun to sometimes just feed it a few lines, and a starting quotation mark and seeing what it spits out, and it can sometimes make writing a story "faster" in parts, just because there's never a moment where you lose momentum and can't think of what should happen next or how it should happen next. There's always a few more sentences being spit out, even if you ultimately don't like them and end up trying for a different result.