Show me your unusual stylistic or structural choices

[Kumquatqueen]

I've not been that experimental in structure. There's Submissives of Catan, which is just a bit of plot and a blow job to build up to over 50 gaming-related puns...

I spent a lot time figuring out how to structure what became the first five chapters of Educating Laura (there's two extra chapters which just add to that story arc; the rest of the story may get written one day). I had A and B have a threesome with C, who then told his love interest D about it, and eventually they all get together. Two beta readers gave helpful feedback but both were adamant that describing the same sex from different points of view was just repetitive. So I edited most of the retelling out. Sometime I'd like to try that, but I guess you'd need more contrast in the viewpoints to make it interesting.

I have struggled with time points. Like A is retelling a story now, from 20 years ago, fine. Then A tells us what happened a year after that, and how he got from the events of the first story via the events of the second, to get to that viewpoint. A likes telling stories in the present tense, which just made it all a bit clunky, but I decided I couldn't be arsed trying to rewrite the story in the past tense which might have been easier. (First page of Undergraduate Experiments: Sober, in particular)

 

[yowser]

A 750 word, three sentence riff off an 11th Century curse from a highly agitated bishop that I'd just encountered (if he could write an impassioned, breathless, multi-paragraph rant of indignant invective, so could I): A Curse to Craven Creators

​

 

[Whanmore]

Second person narration? In medias res? A frame story? Every chapter 750 words?

My chapters arent really summarized. I just gave them Titles that are just random quotes. I'm sure its negatively affecting my views. lol

 

[joy_of_cooking]

I think the most unusual thing I ever wrote involved an elf narrator breaking the fourth wall several times during the story to address and insult the readers in my Christmas tale Elves Gone Wild.

Thanks for the laugh. 5 stars

 

[Djmac1031]

Thanks for the laugh. 5 stars

Thank you. I think you're the first person to actually read that in over a year lol.

 

[Rustyoznail]

And @joy_of_cooking, thanks for the comment. The concept was from an English comedy, "Keeping up appearances." This clip will help fill in the gaps.

 

[Omenainen]

I think mine are all fairly straightforward. One I wrote in past tense and then switched to present in the end, with the idea that the story “catches up” to where the main character is “now”, but I don’t know if anyone noticed. Can’t remember if I’ve done it more than once.

@AwkwardMD has a bunch of cool stuff. Like the text messages in Orchid Ch. 01.
And The Perfect Storm, which I don’t want to describe to not spoil it, but is well worth checking out. And probably others, but those two came to mind first.

(Oh, and Dream Girl!)

 

[AwkwardMD]

An excerpt from The Perfect Storm that doesn't spoil but sets the table.

Hannah turned slowly, reached back into her bag, and pulled out a polaroid. The world skewed, like a Dutch angle, as the little brown-haired girl handed her the picture. Ashley knew it well. It was a picture of a single flower in a thin glass vase with the sun setting in the background, but in the foreground, framing the entire left side, were the hips and ribs of a woman arching away. There was even just a tiny hint of the side of her breast, though it was blurry.

It was not her body. Though pale, like herself, this woman had a scar on her hip, and she would have remembered posing for a shot like that. Ashley stared at it, and blinked hard.

“That’s not right,” she said, stepping back. “This isn’t how it happens.”

Hannah merely looked at her.

“You didn’t… I found this.” She stood up straight, holding the picture like a knife. “You didn’t give me this. I found this. Why did you give me this?”

Hannah did not respond.

“I found this! After you…” She turned and looked at the door. “After you left." When she continued, her voice was a whisper. "I found it in your other bag.”

“Does that change anything?” Hannah asked. Her voice sounded different. Calm. Even, perhaps, a bit angry. “This is the end, no matter what. No going back from here, right?”

Ashley spun, taking in the third apartment they’d lived together in. They’d lived there for two years, the two hardest years of their relationship, and just the sight of it was enough to make her stomach turn.

“Oh, it wasn’t that bad.”

“Yes it was,” Ashley said, turning angrily. Then her jaw dropped. “Wait.”

Hannah rolled her eyes, and made a cyclical motion with her hand to imply she wanted Ashley to hurry up. “Yes, yes.”

“Who are you?”

“Do you not remember?”

“Of course I remember you,” Ashley snarled, “but you’re not… What is this?”

“You don’t remember the tree?”

For a moment, all Ashley could see was a black outline, barely differentiated from the thunderous night sky behind it, as it crashed down upon her. She shivered, and her knees nearly buckled.

“You got hit on the head.”

“What happened? What is this?”

“This is when we broke up. Obviously.”

Ashley squinted. “Hannah wouldn’t say obviously. She loved to say ob-vee.”

“Yeah, well obviously I’m not Hannah,” Hannah said.

 

[joy_of_cooking]

And The Perfect Storm, which I don’t want to describe to not spoil it, but is well worth checking out.

wow, that was cinematic.

The turning point for me was that line at the dinner party about taking care of her father. My opinion of the two characters flipped in the space of a single sentence. So effective.

 

[alohadave]

Anything I can add to make that story less popular?

Change it from 1st person to 2nd person.

 

[Mogrem]

Second person narration? In medias res? A frame story? Every chapter 750 words?

In the first part proper of my Voyages of Sinbad series I'm adopting a fairly contrived structure.

The First Voyage of Sinbad is obviously named after a tale with a frame story, but I've not given this one a frame story. Instead I'm giving it vaguely appropriate mythic "translated in the 18th century" chapter headings, but accompanying a very 21st century story. As it goes into Act II and Act III its going to get more divergent: 'The Voyage Begins', 'Trial by Fire', 'Sinbad Vanquishes the Sea Monster' etc. Maybe it will work, maybe it will piss everyone off.

 

[Mogrem]

Anything I can add to make that story less popular?

Change it from 1st person to 2nd person.

Write a comment under it thanking everyone for their feedback, saying you're hoping to release a follow up story next week. Then spend the next three years ignoring it and writing different stories.

 

[joy_of_cooking]

A 750 word, three sentence riff off an 11th Century curse from a highly agitated bishop that I'd just encountered (if he could write an impassioned, breathless, multi-paragraph rant of indignant invective, so could I): A Curse to Craven Creators

Hmm

May this curse be countered and lifted with the production of a single substance-worthy story.

Write a stroker, got it.