Well, Kimmi, where do I start!
Two questions:
Present or past tense? I prefer past as the reader knows your are not on your iPad writing the story as you get fucked so it makes more sense in the past.
First person or narrator? I'm happy with either! First person is better to get across the feelings of the person involved in the situation - I love the build-up of tension that this offers where you can get into the mind of the individual who went through the amazing experience. Third person has a more voyeuristic feel and that's good too as the reader can imagine what they saw - hot stuff!
So ... past tense and either first or third person!
I think Literot raises a very important point? Surely it is the height of bad manners to look at your phone or iPad while you are being fucked or fucking? The same goes for your watch (younger readers, this is a device that your parents wear on their wrists to tell the time) Like you I had no training in writing and am entirely self taught. My scores at school were abysmal. I write mainly in the first person because my lead character is usually based on me and what I would like to do or be doing, I feel it gives an immediacy to the tale. Writing in the third person allows me to be more voyeuristic but is much harder. So my contribution is that I think it depends on the strength of your story. Sometimes I start with a sexual fantasy in the form of a sex scene and expand from there. Sometimes the stories are character driven and I just let my imagination see where it takes me.
Kimmi, I disagree - it is very possible to write beautiful, poetic, erotic material in the first person. Sadly, I can't do it, and even more sadly, the person I am thinking of who did it so well has now left Lush, which means all her stories have gone too.
I write in the third person, mainly just because first person is so limiting - you can't describe how anyone else is feeling, or even any actions that are out of view.
I use the past tense, partly because that's what most novels do. In your last story you switch (or should that be switched, haha) to the past tense for the final part of the 'resolution'.
On the general question of "I want to improve my writing", one useful way to do this is to send out a draft to a couple of friends for a read-through before submitting it to Lush. I usually do this with my stories and I've done it for other people. It's so much easier to spot little mistakes and weak points in someone else's story than in your own. Do other people do this? I have noticed that there seems to be an unwritten Lush rule that nobody ever criticises a published story in the comments.
I pretty much always write in past tense. I've toyed with present, and might have a story or two in that tense, but past is the tense of most fiction and present is a bloody minefield, as others have already discussed.
As for POV, erotica is the ONLY genre where I routinely use first person. Sex is a very intensely personal thing so seeing it from inside a participant's head actually works fairly well and makes a lot of sense. It also helps with the fantasy aspect in that the reader can project themselves into being that "I" in the story, kind of like POV porn videos. That said, as others have pointed out, you surrender the ability to look into the heads of other participants or show scenes that the narrator is not involved in (though the latter can be overcome by having another character recount the scene to them) so I am quite likely to use less of it going forward. I am at a point where I would rather be writing stories than strokable fantasies (though ideally, my stories manage to be both). I am also not always comfortable being in the head of someone whose experiences are not really in my realm of experience, so women, non-binary, transgender, etc. I have done some female POV, but not a lot. I often switch to third when a woman is my principle protagonist. And my only story with a major transgender character is told from the POV of their male lover.
Trust people to be themselves...
Not a trained writer either, but from reading articles and watching videos, past tense is always favoured.
First person is easier because you can speak in the protagonist's voice for the narrative, which I love. Gives it way more personality than third person where you can't be as witty. Also, it's easier to avoid repetitive sentence structure with first.
I've written both 1st and 3rd person - tried 2nd person once, maybe twice, and probably won't go there again.
As others have said, 1st person gives you that wonderful ability to dive right into a character's head and deliver some amazing thoughts and reactions. I prefer fiction in 3rd person, but for erotica, 1st is my go-to these days. Especially if I'm telling something from the female perspective, it lets my imagination run amok at what might be going through her head.
The downside I find is that I really - really - struggle to give my characters a distinctive voice. They mostly end up sounding like 'me' which is incredibly frustrating. I envy writers who can drop a 1st person piece and immerse you in that person's world through their inner dialogue, mannerisms and so forth, without having to say: It was a sweltering day in the south by using something like That ol' faded mercury by the screen door hit ninety-eight this mornin' (okay, crap example, as I suck at this, but you hopefully see what I mean).
As far as tense goes, I flip flop. Sometimes even while writing a story, I'll go back and switch from past to present. I adore the immediacy of present tense, but in terms of reader reaction, it's hard to get right. I base this evidence on the last handful of competitions here (excluding microfiction) where only about 5 out of 21 podium places went to pieces in the present tense (only one of those was mine, lol).
So past tense clearly has its place and if you're telling a linear story or following a single character's actions, or even doing that beastly-hard 3rd person omniscient, it's usually a pretty good bet unless you want to throw readers right into the thick of the action as it unfolds. But as my stories tend to jump around in time and rely on flashbacks (can't leave 'em alone!) I like to keep those in the past tense and render the here-and-now in present.
This division makes it super easy (imo) to let readers delineate between a character reminiscing about an event and what is going on in their vicinity while they're thinking this stuff. I find it relies on fewer clunky narrative/exposition pointers and 'he thought/she thought/I thought' stuff. But it can be tricky to make the transitions seamless and requires a little skulduggery to guide the reader from flashback to now without making it jarring. I'm gradually refining this technique and have a looong way to go, but I'm learning with each piece where I try it.
Not sure if that helps at all, as I'm neither 1st or 3rd, past or present, and like to mix them. I find the decision is largely based on the story type and the effect I'm trying to create, if that's of any use.
Over one million views on my stories can't be wrong, so please dive in and browse my 160 stories:
* 33 Editor's Picks, 85 Recommended Reads.
* 17 competition podium places, 12 other times in the top ten.
* 26 collaborations.
* A whole heap of often filthy, tense, hot sex.
Kimmi, with one of my first stories here I was told "There is a reason virtually all best (and not so best) sellers are written in past, third person. It gives the most latitude to the writer and makes it much easier on the reader."
So I did for a little while, but right from my first competition story (I have only published competition stories and flash and micro in the last two years, which says a lot about my perfectionism and procrastination as I have around 200,000 words of uncompleted stories on my hard drive) two years ago, almost all of my stories have been first person as I find it easier to inhabit the main character. But as WW says the trade off is that it leaves me wondering if I am giving each version of Annie a distinct voice in each story.
But I do like to play around with language form and style; my Myths and Legends story (We Women will Ride) was me asking myself the question as to whether 2nd person was a style best suited to telling the reader what message they should take from a past act of heroism. Noone has said to me they didn't like it and the story finished 10th. I don't know if it would have done better in 1st person, but there again in 1st person it would have been a different story. I have only written one 3rd person (non-flash and micro) competition story - Ice and Icing - which has the highest score of any of my stories. But it didn't make the top 10, so, rightly or wrongly, I have not gone near 3rd person again, thinking 1st person is more successful for me.
As for tense, I love present tense but am sparing with it. The first time I changed tense in a story was Oxford Street where the ending is present tense, the past tense having set that ending. As the story was so successful I have been totally comfortable sometimes changing tense in my stories, my latest, The Temptation of Coffee, is mostly present tense but the opening section is past tense.
But for most of my stories the narrative arc is fantasy over a longer time period - bonking the devil and getting pregnant with the anti-christ in The End Begins, restarting the universe using time travel dildos in Starting Over, the steps to winning an Olympic equestrian medal in Yellow, blue etc., the ecosexual language in Zucchini with a two week gap between 'scenes' - and past tense seems like the only way I can get these to work inside the word limits. Because the latest competition is over 24 hours and I chose a more slice of life plot, I felt for the first time in a while that I could get present tense to work effectively. Lol, though had I realized what WW mentioned, that "only about 5 out of 21 podium places went to pieces in the present tense," I might have reconsidered. Who am I kidding, I still would have written it in the present just to see if I could do it successfully.
I know exactly what you mean when you say, "I would like to improve my writing." I am not trained beyond my final school year advanced English course, so I don't know the extent to which the magic formula is the one I was told at the beginning, namely, "There is a reason virtually all best (and not so best) sellers are written in past, third person." But part of the fun for me is experimenting; maybe I should be embarrassed by this but I even published a poem here which is written inside the constraints of a Shakespearian sonnet, (each line is 10 syllables long written in iambic pentameter. Three four-line stanzas plus a final rhyming two-line stanza that is a counterpoint.) God knows whether anyone noticed or indeed whether I got the iambic pentameter right, but I enjoyed the process.
I once read about a French novel La Disparition ("The Disappearance"), a 300-page lipogrammatic novel, written in 1969 by Georges Perec, entirely without the letter e. I am sorely tempted, lol, just think of the words I couldn't use.
Wannabewordsmith and curiousannie, thank you so much for your detailed responses. I struggle mightily with giving my main character a different voice than mine in 1st person. I am playing with a debauched piece in 3rd person ... not entering comp ... just playing. Also trying past tense, which is a bitch since my habit was present.
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Seeker4, 2nd is tricky. I agree with you. I did write an exhibition piece though "Watch Me", where the stripper was talking to her audience while performing, and it seemed to really pull the readers into the scene.
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I never did any creative writing before coming here, though I wrote a lot of essays while home-schooled and in college. I almost always write 1st person, present. I did one story -- Last Night -- that begins and ends 1st/present, book-ending the main body of memory in 3rd/past. I thought it worked well and it got a few nice comments, but not enough to draw any real conclusion of its effectiveness.
One thing that I did notice is that writing a she said/she said in 3rd takes more dancing than a he said/she said, but that may just be my lack of experience and cleverness.
I'm currently writing first person, present tense, but my character is *spoiler* unstable so you're inside his head. I'd use past tense for anyone else.
Delicate writing is possible, but I save it for the most loving, awe-struck moments. It isn't a natural way to think, but if you're outside, admiring a stunning view, you would have many thoughts running through your head. Same with seeing someone for the first time, that moment when a groom sees his bride for the first time, or someone holds their newborn child. Invoking the senses is also a good idea.
I deeply appreciate all your comments! Very enlightening. I think I have overused adverbs and I see lots of ways to improve my writing based on your comments. Thank you!
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