Writing things you think a budding vore writer should avoid

Keep our community informed! This forum is for discussing and sharing vore-related information. Post any relevant material and/or links here, and engage in conversations!
Forum rules
This is for general discussion, if you found something you want to post, please use one of the upload forum, if you made something and want to share them, please use the work to be shared forum!

Writing things you think a budding vore writer should avoid

Postby TestAccountPleaseIgnore » Wed Jan 12, 2022 2:36 am

First off - first post here! Whee!

Second off - not sure if this is the right forum to put this on, specifically; my next best bet would have been https://aryion.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=65, so, if need be, I'll delete this and put it there instead.

Third off - this is not a post for people to go "me no like this fetish hurr durr" - let me get that out of the way right off the bat. No complaining about what other people like, please.

With all of that baggage checked at the door, here's the question: what are some things that are specifically relevant to vore writing that you think a beginning writer would want to avoid for the sake of better writing - tropes, grammar, etc. - you name it? I mean, sure, I know everyone makes mistakes, but I'd rather learn ahead of time rather than after the fact, and tapping the forums seems like the best way to do that - it's much easier to hear people's opinions than to try to divine them from the comments sections of work on here.
User avatar
TestAccountPleaseIgnore
New to the forum
 
Posts: 15
Joined: Sun Dec 12, 2021 4:56 am

Re: Writing things you think a budding vore writer should av

Postby Ghrelin » Wed Jan 12, 2022 6:04 pm

Anything vore-specific is a matter of taste (pun intended). A lot of people will say things like "Don't use 'vore' as a verb", "Avoid overused tropes", and "Don't go too long without including or alluding to vore", which are OK to follow, but ultimately are all just preferences that will vary from reader to reader. The best advice for vore writing is gonna be the same as for writing in general. Write what you enjoy and someone out there will probably appreciate it. Things like grammar, spelling, pacing, and appropriate use of detail are foundations that apply to all stories. How you like to see vore written or depicted is going to be unique to you, as it is for your potential readers. Basically, any "things to avoid" that aren't just universal writing tips (and even those can be ignored if you please!) are gonna boil down to someone saying "Don't do things I don't personally enjoy", which isn't very helpful for you as a writer.

What you want to avoid will depend on what you're trying to achieve. Do you just want mass appeal and don't care what or how you have to write to generate the most views? Do you want to specialize in a certain subgenre, setting, or trope? Do you want your vore scenes to be as realistic as possible in one or more areas? Are you looking to make short stories, novels, poems? Generalized "vore writing advice" won't get you much further than people listing their own preferences, but if there's a more specific idea of what/how you want to write, describe what you'd like to do and you will probably get more fine-tuned answers. What kind of vore writer do you want to be?
User avatar
Ghrelin
Intermediate Vorarephile
 
Posts: 522
Joined: Fri Dec 25, 2015 6:56 pm

Re: Writing things you think a budding vore writer should av

Postby AeriaGloris » Wed Jan 12, 2022 7:43 pm

There are no right and wrong answers here. However, I'd certainly encourage you to use correct grammar and punctuation.

There are a large range of writers and readers on this website. Given that we're writing smut/lewd content, some traditional writing faux pas can be glossed over. Want to describe a character in great detail without progressing plot? Go for it. Want to describe a character's breasts without a thesaurus of descriptors? State she's a 34C. Your writing can be as sloppy or as tight as you wish.

As for plot, some readers care about the characters, their personalities, and their motivations. Other readers want to see how many vacant, big-breasted prey can fit into a Lamia.

Just start writing if your goal is to improve. Look at my first piece and my latest piece. Vastly different in just 5 months.
My writing outline for 2022 is out. Let me know your thoughts on my latest Blog Post. ˚✧₊⁎( ˘▽˘ )⁎⁺˳✧༚
User avatar
AeriaGloris
Somewhat familiar
 
Posts: 93
Joined: Thu Jul 29, 2021 9:12 pm

Re: Writing things you think a budding vore writer should av

Postby Tassie » Wed Jan 12, 2022 11:48 pm

I know I'm not a very good writer, but I know a few things which can help.

First and foremost, spellcheck and proofread everything, and if you possibly can, get a friend whom is reasonably literate to check and proof your writing as well. Grammar and wording problems can kill a story faster than almost anything else.
(Exaggerated bad example)
Teh halpelss pray venturs into a the the swamp. The hungry and waitedmonster and DEVUORED then!

Also, Ariel is right: look for ways to improve and never stop growing. Getting useful, constructive criticism, even if it does maybe hurt, it will help you to see problems in your writing and learn to fix or avoid them.
(Good example of some critique I received)
Your sentences are much too long. You should break different thoughts into their own sentences to keep them from being cluttered and confusing. Avoid mixing tenses. Make viewpoint shifts more obvious. Say who is talking.

I developed a bad habit of falling in love with my characters, I guess, and by the end of the story, I felt horrible to have them get eaten, so maybe keep a little emotional distance from your subjects? I don't know. Maybe this last part is just me. Sorry.
Tassie
Participator
 
Posts: 246
Joined: Thu Mar 13, 2014 12:05 am

Re: Writing things you think a budding vore writer should av

Postby RedNastyFox » Thu Jan 13, 2022 7:14 am

Folks, this is a fetish site, not an English college class. People mostly come here to cum, not enjoy sophisticated literature with a monocle on their eye. Grammar, tropes etc don't matter as much as you may think, to a certain degree, of course, but most native speakers already have reasonable language knowledge and writing skills. The main things that matter are the plot, the characters, how they behave, what motivation they have, the overall idea and the details you put in describing sexual and vorish scenes. Don't overthink it, just write, the understanding of what works for you will come later in process.
User avatar
RedNastyFox
Been posting for a bit
 
Posts: 55
Joined: Mon Feb 16, 2015 11:50 am

Re: Writing things you think a budding vore writer should av

Postby Abyssal » Thu Jan 13, 2022 2:36 pm

Listening to people telling them how they can and can't write, mostly.
Abyssal
Been posting for a bit
 
Posts: 27
Joined: Thu Dec 09, 2021 11:25 pm

Re: Writing things you think a budding vore writer should av

Postby the_Wolf » Thu Jan 13, 2022 3:05 pm

Folks have posted some good things. A few things off the top of my head upon seeing this thread

* The impulse to post immediately. Seriously, give yourself some time to edit, that is a big difference between seasoned writing and beginning writing. Sleeping on your story/item after it's "complete" then taking the time to do edits and proofreading and polish it up. It's exciting when you feel like you've finished the story and want to share it with the world, but a large portion of good writing is taking time to fix the blunders we all make during composition.

* Comparing yourself too harshly to people that have been doing this longer. Seriously, don't spend time doing that. People that have more XP in any skill are going to be doing that particular thing better than you are right now. Read their work, learn from it, help develop your own style from it, but avoid falling into the "I suck!" pit when someone else seems more advanced than you. Keep up on your own creative journey, keep improving from the writer you were a month ago, and that'll be a good thing.

*Over-repetition. This is a trap I have to watch for all the time. In this fetish, we are going to repeat things like "belly", "gulp", and so on. Avoid using the same word all the time as it can become a droning thing in the reader's head. Expand vocabulary and options, practice with alternate words, find that balance between words that sound too much like a medical textbook and words that sound like a picture book. It takes plenty of practice, and definitely use thesauri, dictionaries, and any other tools at your disposal.
User avatar
the_Wolf
Accept no substitutes.
 
Posts: 180
Joined: Tue Oct 25, 2005 11:00 pm
Location: Seattle, WA

Re: Writing things you think a budding vore writer should av

Postby Matteo42 » Thu Jan 13, 2022 6:44 pm

First of all, this is basically just me telling you how it works in my head, so maybe you can figure something out of it and come up with your way of going about writing stuff. Take from it what you want, that's up to you.

1) Fyi, I write short stories, and I always start off with one image. Something I think about, doesn't even have to be vore-related. This idea can be anything, a starting point, a meeting between two characters, a specific vore situation. Essentially, I take this image and try to twist and turn everything surrounding it, in the hopes of getting a coherent story.

2) Another thing I really enjoy doing (or at least trying) is to come up with original scenarios. I KNOW the classic babysitter-eats-kids is great, and everybody loves them, but... try to be a little more diverse with it, yknow? Call them tropes, call them unoriginal, call them what you want, we all know what they are, and... a surprising amount of people still make them xD

3) Be careful with non-OCs. I've done this before, and am not all too proud of it. Is it logical from this person to act this way towards this other one? Are the feelings I'm making for this person actually in the series/movie/comic? Can the readers follow along with this, if they never heard of this particular story before? AM I SPOILING THE ENDING?????
Say you're writing Harry Potter stuff, and you really want... I don't know, Hermione to be in complete love with Drago Malefoy, to the point of eating him to keep him safe. That... does not fit with the base story, and will really throw people off. (Of course, write it if you want, that's perfectly fine, but fans of the series will probably not enjoy it.)

4) Always, full capitals, bold, underlined, max font sized, ALWAYS double check your story the day after it's finished. Someone else talked about this before, and I fully support that. Have someone read it to get some opinions on some of the fine work you didn't realize sounds like garbage, get them to find the smallest nitpicks possible, or the big "bruh that plot twist was disappointing" you're waiting for: THAT is what will make you evolve and learn from your mistakes.

5) Write and/or think about it on the bus (if you take the bus). A friend told some other friend to try drawing people on the bus. Nothing sexual or the like; you'll get stares if you do, just portraits and body proportions. Ever since that moment, I've not been drawing, but writing stuff, keeping notes of the thoughts that fly through my mind, putting words in front of the images I visualize. Doesn't even have to be the story you're working on; just getting a grip on what your go-to words are in every context or description is vital, so you can avoid using them over and over.

So yeah, that's it for me :D

are these even proper tips?..
User avatar
Matteo42
Somewhat familiar
 
Posts: 66
Joined: Sat Aug 08, 2020 9:38 pm

Re: Writing things you think a budding vore writer should av

Postby LucifersChef » Thu Jan 13, 2022 9:58 pm

I've been writing erotica for 6 years, and have a degree in writing. So I feel like I might be able to answer this.

I recommend anyone interested in the basics of erotica writing read this essay by Felix Lance Falkon. M/M erotica ahead, but all used to give examples on writing it. Felix was the pseudonym of a very accomplished sci-fi editor and friend of Isaac Asimov's, who dabbled in gay & vore erotica.

I will add to Felix's essay some basic advice

(1) Erotica can be great. Don't think otherwise or try to dismiss it as 'just erotica'. There is a lot of cultural stigma against praising erotica (but when its bad people are happy to make fun of it). You are allowed to take pride in your writing and treat it as a serious craft - and enjoy writing it.

(2) Be willing to take feedback, but also accept that what people want is not always to going to match what you want to write. You're allowed to say "Thank you for your feedback but I disagree". Ignore all the people who comment "It would've been better if [insert my hyper specific kink]". They don't get a say.

(3) If you are feeling bad about your writing, check out the winners of the Bad Sex in Fiction award for a good laugh and so you can feel better than best selling authors who don't know how sex works.

(4) Make sure your work has paragraph breaks. This is the number one mistake I see new people make. Walls of text are extremely hard to read. In your writing editor of choice, you may need to select "add paragraph break" before saving and uploading to Ekas. Word usually adds them by default. Google Docs does not.

5) Not really writing specific but - please tag your work. Eka's has a fairly good tagging system. People want to read your work, so make it easier for them to find it.
]
User avatar
LucifersChef
Participator
 
Posts: 195
Joined: Fri Jan 29, 2016 10:12 pm

Re: Writing things you think a budding vore writer should av

Postby Assimilation » Thu Jan 13, 2022 11:50 pm

My main tip, with a targeted angle towards presenting vore writing to this website: submit and let your ego take the hit. Every single piece of writing, in the history of all writing, has the scope to be edited into a finer work, full stop. Critique is given by people who care enough about your work to offer their help, so while it can be regrettable when unsolicited and it's valid to not want to read it shortly after every submission you post, try your best to remember their intentions are unlikely to be an attack and that writing something that satisfies most of your audience is very, very hard.
User avatar
Assimilation
Advanced Vorarephile
 
Posts: 692
Joined: Mon May 07, 2007 11:00 pm

Re: Writing things you think a budding vore writer should av

Postby NightRoller » Fri Jan 14, 2022 9:56 am

1. All of the above is good, solid advice (highlighting what the_Wolf and Matteo42 said especially), and

2. Try lots of different kinds of things. What kind of stories do you want to write? Realistically, you can only know when you've tried. I've found that the stories I want to tell have some non-overlap with the stories I want to read, and it was because of experimentation that 1. writing skill improved and 2. my favorite writing topics were uncovered, and my dislikes also appeared (for instance, I found I don't enjoy writing Unbirth or Giantess stuff).

3. Avoid not reading others' works. Read a lot. See what kinds of stories you like, analyze (not too deeply >u<) why you enjoy them, and try emulating it. (That very same idea led me to writing the hornypost of "Eaten in the Everglades", my most popular work (and one of my personal favorites).)

4. Don't be lazy. Goes in line with not posting right away, but if you're too lazy to read through what you wrote, your readers won't be happy to be doing the grunt work of interpreting your (unintentional) grammar mistakes into something understandable (ironically, I'm guilty of this on the Neko Surprise story just released, forgot to check it... but I can maybe get a pass because I'm too perfectionist with spelling as I'm writing the first draft anyway. My sincere apologies to all my readers, regardless).
We live in a culture of addictions. What's yours?
User avatar
NightRoller
Somewhat familiar
 
Posts: 151
Joined: Sun Sep 30, 2018 9:31 pm
Location: A cute lamia's belly

Re: Writing things you think a budding vore writer should av

Postby Brpdchainsaw » Fri Jan 14, 2022 2:02 pm

One of the most important things I've found is to simply write every day, it doesn't have to be a lot but it will all add up over time and eventually lead to your finished story.
For the text adventures I write, I try to do at least one page a day, sometimes I'm in the mood to write more.
If I let myself not write when I simply didn't feel like it then I'd probably never get anywhere, sometimes I don't feel like writing until I start and then I can't bring myself to stop!

Good grammar is an absolute necessity as it shows the amount of care and effort that went into your work, it doesn't have to perfect of course, we're talking about writing porn for the internet here, but there shouldn't be anything glaringly wrong that will distract the reader (one text adventure I read repeatedly misspelled swallow as sallow).
Cracking open a dictionary or a thesaurus every now and then is a good idea as it can teach you new words or phrases to help create some variety in your sentences, just don't go overboard or it can make everything sounds stilted and awkward.

Finally, you have to enjoy what you're writing. There's no point writing say, a cock vore scene, if cock vore isn't your thing. It might be tempting to try and put one in for the cock vore fans out there but if you don't have fun writing the scene then it probably won't be any good. It's fine to branch out and try new things but don't force yourself to write things you don't like.
The Great Chaos Demon and Author of this Madness.
User avatar
Brpdchainsaw
Somewhat familiar
 
Posts: 152
Joined: Wed Nov 25, 2020 9:27 am

Re: Writing things you think a budding vore writer should av

Postby fixated1 » Fri Jan 14, 2022 4:05 pm

People have covered some good writing advice. I'll take it more from a promise/delivery approach. Whether you want to write simple smut or a good story, tell your growing audience what you are going to do and then give them that. If you promise people hot smutty action and give them chapters and chapters of characters sitting around talking about trade treaties people will hate it. If you promise deep characters and complex plots before delivering porno level writing people will hate it. Lay out a plan so people know what to expect from you.
User avatar
fixated1
Advanced Vorarephile
 
Posts: 913
Joined: Sun Nov 22, 2015 1:38 pm

Re: Writing things you think a budding vore writer should av

Postby NightRoller » Sat Jan 15, 2022 10:52 am

If there's one thing that I love about these sorts of topics (beyond helping new writers), it's that there's always at least a couple points of advice that are new to me which I can learn and start applying!

So a meta-recommendation I'd give is to chime in on topics like these whenever they come up and read what others suggest
We live in a culture of addictions. What's yours?
User avatar
NightRoller
Somewhat familiar
 
Posts: 151
Joined: Sun Sep 30, 2018 9:31 pm
Location: A cute lamia's belly

Re: Writing things you think a budding vore writer should av

Postby gullvy » Mon Jan 17, 2022 6:06 pm

As others have mentioned, most of what is applicable for vore is applicable for writing in general. Aside from using proper grammar and spelling, there are some style guidelines that I think are good to keep in mind:

* Use adverbs sparingly. In English, adverbs typically end in -ly. E.g. "swallowed quickly" has quickly as the adverb. "Swallowed with terrifying swiftness" does not use an adverb.
* Intensifiers like 'very' should be avoided. Use different words instead. "Very hungry" can be replaced with "ravenous" or "famished".
* Use similes and metaphors! They really help spice writing up.
* Strike a balance on description. Drawing needless attention to every little detail is called 'purple prose' and should be avoided - but too little detail and descriptiveness will also make your writing feel less engaging.
* Alliteration can be good if you want to give a certain sentence a bit more oomph to make it stand out. But use it very sparingly!
* Avoid using the same word too often. The thesaurus is your friend.
* Break sentences up. Don't let them get too long. Of course, there are exceptions where run-on sentences can be used to good effect, but in general it's good to limit their length.

Additionally, I know that onomatopoeia is frowned upon by some, but I tend to find it really hot in smutty writing. So as always, even the 'style guide' things can be up to interpretation personal preference.
User avatar
gullvy
Somewhat familiar
 
Posts: 124
Joined: Tue Jan 03, 2017 2:37 pm

Re: Writing things you think a budding vore writer should av

Postby LucifersChef » Tue Jan 18, 2022 10:12 am

gullvy wrote:* Strike a balance on description. Drawing needless attention to every little detail is called 'purple prose' and should be avoided - but too little detail and descriptiveness will also make your writing feel less engaging.


I like the rest of your advice - I will just note that purple prose isn't just being over detailed. Purple prose is more specifically text which has uses unnecessarily long sentences or words to describe the same thing a shorter passage could.

It isn't always a bad thing. To quote the author Paul West
A writer who can't do purple is missing a trick. A writer who does purple all the time ought to have more tricks.


I personally tend to use purple prose to convey moments when emotion or feeling overwhelm the character. They can't describe what they're feeling or thinking except in abstracts.

Purple prose is bad when you describe everything too much *all the time*. Purple prose can be a useful tool to express the grandeur of something, or the awe a character feels, or the depth of their sadness or despair. Or many other things.
]
User avatar
LucifersChef
Participator
 
Posts: 195
Joined: Fri Jan 29, 2016 10:12 pm

Re: Writing things you think a budding vore writer should av

Postby Borealis » Tue Jan 18, 2022 11:15 am

Purple prose can be great in erotica but it definitely needs to be done sparingly.

The vast majority of vore stories are going to be shorter than [half of a] Goosebumps book (if you discount chopping up longer arcs and narrative until multiple parts) and frankly you really don't have the room if you want to write something which has erotic, emotional and dramatic gravitas and multiple beats if you're getting all flowery with the description constantly.

Purple prose is a bad habit of mine and believe me I've learned the hard way you can get 10k words down where barely anything of note has happened in a draft...
Voyager of canine interiors...

In my story gallery, macro feral and anthro fun awaits you...
Borealis
---
 
Posts: 1280
Joined: Tue Aug 10, 2010 1:20 pm
Location: United Kingdom

Re: Writing things you think a budding vore writer should av

Postby TootLunch » Tue Jan 18, 2022 12:41 pm

Big thing for me is learning to spot good faith vs bad faith criticism, because you will get both.

Example of Good faith: Hey, great story but in the paragraph where the protagonist was eaten it’s a bit hard to follow what’s going on.

Example of bad faith: You need to write more about how sticky and slippery the saliva is, this isn’t nearly enough.

Basically bad faith will often boil down to “you didn’t include enough of my specific tastes and you should change that for me.” Where good faith will address things that could impact how everyone reads the story like confusing wording or unclear descriptions.
User avatar
TootLunch
Been posting for a bit
 
Posts: 45
Joined: Sat May 29, 2021 11:21 pm

Re: Writing things you think a budding vore writer should av

Postby Shugoki » Tue Jan 18, 2022 1:52 pm

Just write something. Anything. Even if you have no ideas, even if you've got writer's block, jot down whatever comes to mind, even if it blows. Your job is to make sure the final draft is good, and you can't do that until you have a first draft, however bad it may be (read: absolutely will be, because first drafts always suck). Just start by writing whatever you can think of, and then refine that. Sure, give it your all on your first pass, but don't be afraid to accept that there are points you'll have to sharpen down the road.
Fuck are you reading this for? Keep scrolling, fool!
User avatar
Shugoki
Somewhat familiar
 
Posts: 156
Joined: Fri Aug 23, 2019 10:25 pm

Re: Writing things you think a budding vore writer should av

Postby Omnomplus » Fri Jan 21, 2022 7:15 pm

I think it's important to make the theme and gist of the plot clear to the reader in the first paragraph.
If that means you have to give up on a source of mystery and/or have to wait until the middle of the story to introduce something that happened chronologically first, then so be it.
User avatar
Omnomplus
Been posting for a bit
 
Posts: 25
Joined: Tue Jun 23, 2009 5:05 pm

Next

Return to General Vore Discussion

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: arcbound5, SmellyStomachSlut