How We (WillDevo) Write.

Devo and I are writing this to offer insight as to our own experience here on Lit, in case other future writers might want to publish their own ideas. There's tons of similar threads on the Lit forums, but we wanted to submit this to the main site in case other writers are interested.


First, it's probably important to state that we don't delete readers' comments just because they're negative. We might delete one if it's pointless, and we have not, except once, deleted a "named" comment. The only one we deleted carried a spoiler, and we didn't want it to be read by readers that hadn't completed the story. We even said as much in our own comment to that chapter.


We'll begin with our advice.


First, write what you want to write. Write what you'd like to read. Don't try to write what you think others want to read, because that's a futile chase. If you write what you like, you will find similarly-minded readers that will be loyal to you. Large group or small, it doesn't matter. Your goal should be providing for people that want you to provide for them.


Second, if you're not a native English speaker (European, North American, Australian, whatever), and plan to publish in the English language, our suggestion is that you state it in your foreword. You'll be given mercy if you simply say, "English isn't my native tongue. Please give me/us latitude." or something like that. We've read some INCREDIBLY good stories by non-native English speakers, and simply knowing the limitation made it easier to overlook mistakes in language . . . to a point.


Third, do your homework. Dawn and I do tons of research when we're stepping into territory with which we're not familiar.


The words (and the grammatical phrasing) of the previous sentence were chosen carefully, because there's a difference between 'familiar' and 'formal' writing. Be free to use both in proper context. We've received scathing commentary [usually deleted] dictating one or the other as improper.


I might have confused you. That sentence could have been more "familiarly" written as, "Dawn and I do tons of research when we're stepping into territory we're not familiar with." Subtle change, subtle difference. First is formal. Second is familiar.


If English is your first language, do your absolute level best to avoid punctuation and grammar issues. There are numerous style guides in the public domain, and quite a few on the Literotica forums.


Fourth, if your story is fantastic, the three items above won't matter so much. The "meat" comes first and foremost (easy, vegans, it's only an analogy). Focus on that first.


So now comes the subject of editors.


If item two above is elusive to you, sure, employ an editor.


Dawn and I have done that exactly zero times.


Why? Because we are methodical and very, very tedious reviewing our work before submission.


So why do our works still have errors? Because we are human. I'm damned sure there are errors in this very Howw-To. (See? Just playing, but there are probably others that weren't intentional.)


A true editor absolutely cannot "read" your story. They can only look at the words, dots, crosses, and hyphens.


The worst editor in the world is one that enjoys what you've written, because they began to read and enjoy instead of editing. The best editor in the world is one that has no clue what you've written when they've done their job.


We've read quite a few stories where the author (rightfully and correctly) gives credit to his or her proofreader and editor, yet we still see errors.


I'll say it again. We're all human, and we all make mistakes, and we all sometimes fail to see them. Do your absolute best, cut yourself some slack, correct the errors you see when your work is published (because you will see more then), and submit occasional revisions.


"Okay, well, how much sexy-sex stuff?"


That is entirely up to you as the author. Again, point #1. Write what you'd like to read.


We have high marks with "gonzo" stuff, like a good chunk of "It Only Took Twenty Years," and equally high marks for stories that contain very little explicit content, such as "A Walk Changed Everything."


The story comes first, "between the sheets" stuff comes last, unless, that is, the explicit stuff is your choice of focus.


So, after all of that, we are sitting here staring at our "Works" listing on our dashboard, after almost eighteen months, pondering how what we're seeing is possible.


As I begin to write this little essay, it is January 19, 2021, and we're going to describe below various facets of our writing. Stop here if that doesn't interest you.


I, by the way, am Will, the pseudonym I adopted, and half of WillDevo. Dawn, also known as Devo, is my wife of a long time, and certainly my better half. Of course, both of those names are pseudonyms, and they were the names given to the two protagonists of our first published story, "It Only Took Twenty Years."


Forget the fact that "Twenty Years" appears later by publishing date. That happened because we condensed it into fewer sections than when it was first issued. That required a deletion and re-submission which changed the date. I think "Twenty Years" was published around August or September of 2019, but neither of us can remember.


The six chapters average a weighted score of 4.81 which quite simply continues to amaze us. It was my first attempt at writing, spurred by a fit of boredom. I sat down with my iPad and just started writing. And writing. And writing. It took me about two or three months to get it all on "paper" and another month or so of editing. I was astonished that the first chapter scored the "Hot" marker its very first day, as did each following chapter.


I thought the story was good, but, quite frankly, didn't think I was a good "technical" writer. Now, mind you, the first time we submitted it, it was 20+ chapters posted separately. The comments and feedback were lost after I deleted then re-submitted the whole tale as six "Parts," which was a good decision.


The way my wife and I write (typically short paragraphs), lands about 3000 words on one Literotica page. Keep that in mind, because very high page counts might discourage some readers from even beginning to read your story. Why? Just human nature, short attention spans, or whatever. Create your first story with the effort to grab readers' attention. Write a grasping "introductory" chapter, and leave them wanting more so they'll continue reading your additional chapters.


Try to end your first (and every) chapter leaving the reader anxious for the next. Even if you submit your entire submission in a single day, the moderators will space the publication dates between them by a day (usually). Use that to your advantage.


If you've read our works, you'll see we're big fans of cliffhangers. It's suited us well, as evidenced by quite a few funny comments.


We "violated" this rule with our 24,000 word story, "A Walk Changed Everything," which we submitted as a single long entry. We already had quite a few readers following us.


The ratings of the chapters of our second tale, "The Perils of Love," range from 4.62 to 4.84. The lowest score is the first chapter.


Guess what? We expected that.


We intentionally began the story a little "dry," a little "obscure," a little "weak," and a little "thoughtful." It was all about setting the stage and building the characters.


Then we laid an egg in chapter six. The ratings for that chapter are the next lowest. It was an experiment, and it taught us what readers' reactions were compared to the prior chapters. It was difficult to write that chapter. We wanted to bump our shoulders into the fine line of infidelity in the romance category (as opposed to 'Loving Wives' where it's a total trope), the loss of connection with a spouse (the whole point of the story), and the temptation that can arise as a result.


The final chapter was published the next day. It was the "Happily Ever After," plus some uncomfortable masculine weakness and holds a tie for the second highest score of the chapters. The highest scored chapter related how the central characters dealt with an unspeakable shared tragedy together.


I also leaned into "older male" issues, too. It's okay to write about fear, uncertainty, and doubt, also known as "FUD." It is certainly okay to include those real facts of life. It's also fun to do it humorously; at least, that's what I tried for.


Our next story, "The Card Game," has been our wildest ride in terms of its wildly-oscillating rating. That tale came purely from the "fun" of writing. Dawn and I didn't give a crap, we just played together.


The indication of the "rating wave" was that it is one of the few "Love it" or "Hate it" stories we've written, because only extremes in scores can make it vary so much. It was a fantasy I dreamed up when my wife was called out of town to speak at a charity event. I stitched the idea into the "Twenty Years" arc.


Next up is "When Ordinary Isn't."


That tale was my wife's creation. I encouraged her to "go nuts." Funnily enough, the filename in LibreOffice Writer (which is the word processor we use) is "Bizzare.odt" because the premise was based on the male protagonist observing the female protagonist . . . well, it . . . Okay, read it, then you'll know.


Six of those seven chapters are in the all-time top-rated 250 stories in the Romance category, along with chapters from several of our other stories.


Next came "It Only Took a Second."


This was the first tale we wrote when COVID struck, and we made a mistake.


We first submitted it into the "Loving Wives" category, completely misunderstanding the intent of the genre. We thought it meant, "Wives that love their men," or "Men loving their wives."


No. It means "men who love OTHER men's wives."


Definitely not our cup of tea, but we're not judging those who like that . . . uh . . . Never mind.


Anyway, a crazy thing happened.


It was read ten times more on the day it went active than any other story we'd written, and also received ten times more ratings and comments. It quickly hit the top of that category's rankings. Dawn's pretty sure it was at the of the top 10 of the "30 day" list within a week.


What that implied to us is that there are far, FAR more readers (or, at least, reviewers and raters) of that category than the Romance genre. The comments we received were simply awesome, but we resubmitted it into the Romance category to prevent it from obscuring that particular genre.


We thank the LW readers, but . . . sorry, we pulled the rug out, even after more than fifty thousand high reviews. Dawn and I are certain many readers of that genre agree the category is misnamed, or the deliberate readers actually do appreciate the "mis"-categorized romance story with a Happily Ever After ending between truly faithful spouses.


We named it similarly to "It Only Took Twenty Years" for two reasons.


"Twenty Years" comes in at a little over 85,000 words. That's the size of a typical mass-market paperback.


"It Only Took a Second" comes in at just shy of 14,000.


So, yeah. Its name was meant to hint at its size. The premise of that story came when I read an article in the news as I prepared to start my workday at home. I finished the draft in less than eight hours. By contrast, it took probably two hundred hours to write "Twenty Years".


I spent the day in Zoom meetings where, during a particularly boring one, I conceived the backgrounds of the characters, structured the plot, and jotted an outline on the home PC. When the workday was over, I started writing.


When Dawn read the draft and began tearing up at the point where Steven was in his hotel room by himself after seeing his wife in the hospital, I knew I had writen something imaginable and somewhat powerful. If you've read the story, you certainly understand the true meaning behind the title.


Of everything we've done, I think that story is the one I take pride in the most because it forced me to delve into dark spaces to consider what my feelings would be if I had to live the fiction I was writing.


"Quarantined After Twenty-six Years" was next.


It continued the characters of "The Perils." It was a contest entry, and it was just too rushed in an effort to meet the deadline. It was fun to write, I just think we didn't spend the time we usually do to polish it and keep it "fresh."


The "Romance" entrant from Bebop3, "Unseen Love" absolutely and positively deserved the trophy. It's an incredibly good story, far better than ours.


We began writing "The Flight Before Christmas" before the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. We intended to submit it as the winter holiday contest entry, but decided against it as we wrote a larger tale which would be unwieldy (at almost 11,000 words) for a contest story.


As its intro indicates, it was the product of a disturbing dream. As a side note, go online and search about how dreams patterns during this COVID pandemic have emerged within months of its onset.


This tale has been remarkably well-received with a weighted score of 4.85 (as of this writing), a tie with "When Ordinary Isn't."


Just . . . thanks for everyone that enjoyed it!


We later decided to stitch the story together with "A Walk Changed Everything," but as of 1/24/2021, the minor edits to this story still haven't been brought online.


"A Walk Changed Everything."


This was a tale we wrote together.


We gave specific information at the beginning warning readers that it might be a difficult journey, because we wrote the story non-linearly.


It was an experiment in thinking outside of the box, and we're proud of it.


To the people that criticized it because of its non-chronological presentation, didn't you read the foreword? That's all I'll say about that. We might re-publish it as a parallel (chronological) separate entry, but are still debating it. We think it (and its ratings and the majority of comments) stands well as it is.


"A Rose Can Be Too Sweet"


Yeah. Just like every human on the planet, we're completely exhausted with the pandemic, and wanted to write a "forward-looking" story, aiming into an not-yet realized future where things turn out well for a pair of young loves whose lives had been disrupted, but for reasons unlike what most readers might find unexpected. We also injected a touch more of the unexpected at the very end after, like what we described at the top, very careful research. "Unmet expectations," is all I'll say.


"The Future is in the Air"


Dawn started writing this story way, WAY before "The Flight Before Christmas," but then suffered "writer's block." She put it on the back burner, and it stayed there until after "A Walk Changed Everything."


Its weighted score of 4.81 is tied for our second highest. She finished the story when I asked her a question. "What if she died?"


Yeah, if you've read the story, you know what happened at the end of Chapter Three.


This story should only be read after:


"The Flight Before Christmas" and "A Walk Changed Everything"


"Look the other Way"


I spent the least amount of time writing this one. The idea came from a comment in "The Card Game."


It's not rating well, which doesn't bother me. I had fun writing it.


We might continue to update this write-up if readers express interest. We hope this helps other writers!