I’m still writing chapter 2 for Marina but I’ve had this idea in my head for a while.
•Ex feral soon mummah is waiting for her babbehs and is constantly talking about how she needs to have the best stuff to make pretty babbehs.
•big day comes, babbehs come out and, oops! All poopie babbehs
•mummah is absolutely distraught about it and owner asks why she’s so sad
•mummah cries because she thinks that because they’re all poopies they’ll never be loved by anyone and that they’ll be alone forever and forced to eat poopies
•mummah asks what she did wrong and begs her owner to be kind and love the babbehs
•confusion followed by hugbox stuff
Let me know what you think and hopefully once I’ve finished chapter 2 of Marina, I’ll be able to write this
Okay, one, it’s an idea and two, what do you expect I have literally never written anything longer than a text before Marina, of course it’ll sound bland to someone who has been in this fandom for who knows how long.
You asked what I thought of the idea, and I told you. It’s not an attack, it’s feedback. You should read some more stories and practice your writing, not pitch a fit over a mild criticism like a baby lol
Characters, above all. Well developed personalities. Abuse can coast by on fairly generic characterizations because they’re just stage dressing to demonstrate whatever horror the writer has cooked up. Your idea is fairly standard. It is kind of boring. If you want it to work properly, you need to emphasize and develop the personalities themselves. The reader needs to care and emphasize with the fluffy. This is easier said than done.
Secondly, you need to identity exactly what feelings you’re trying to convey. Hugbox isn’t just ‘happy things happening for happy reasons’, it should be an expression of a range of things. Hope, love, triumph, security, discovery. Identifying what you want express is important otherwise it comes off as saccharine and lifeless.
Third, know how/when to use humans in your stories. It’s a bad crutch a lot of hugbox stories rely on. Most of the narrative goes to the human perspective. There are times when this is fine, though usually it muddies what could make a work pop off.
Fourth, realize that even though it’s hugbox, bad things can happen. Fluffies can and should have problems to overcome in these stories. Now they’ll often have to be scaled back in terms of other stories but it is absolutely an imperative to have some form of conflict needing to overcome. I often put it like this: A lost toy is a challenge easily overcome by us humans but is a herculean task for a fluffy.
My last piece of advice is…don’t be a prick. If people here are taking time out of their day to not only read your idea but also offer suggestions/criticism, take it. Don’t make excuses, don’t try to explain it away. Say ‘Thank you, I’ll try better’ and then do so. @toofymunstah wouldn’t have said it was bland if it wasn’t.
This is excellent advice, honestly worth bookmarking for anyone starting out with hugbox
@FluffySiren : I’ll apologize for probably coming off as snappy. I’m blunt; a lot of people around here are, too. It will help to take a breath before taking offense around here.
You’re new and criticism can suck to hear, but I don’t provide it out of malice. You’ll do fine if you put in the work.