Extended Author Notes for "My Cousin Shows Me Around Campus"

These are extended Author’s Notes for a story that is here.

The story behind the story
I was corresponding with a woman that has beta-read for me in the past when she asked me, “Not that I have read everything you have written, but have you had cousins or half-siblings in your stories?” She had read “My European Summer Vacation”, which is my only story with half-siblings and I had no story with cousins.

About a week later, the idea for the story came to me. It’s pretty common for me to get story ideas after corresponding with someone, though normally right away. I thought about the story for a whole weekend. The two scenes after the party when they’re driving to the dorms and when they’re at the dorms really stuck in my head. Everything sort of flowed out from there.

I posted a synopsis of the story to my blog. A beta-reader told me that he had read the synopsis and had loved it. He strongly encouraged me to work on the story. I did, sending him the latest version of the story after I wrote another major section.

The story adheres pretty closely to my original synopsis. I changed the names from Greg, Jill and Angie to Skipper, Megan and Allie. In the synopsis, Megan convinces Skipper to make love with her first and then to live together second, whereas in the story it is the other way around.

I didn’t know what I wanted to do for the final sex scene. I was going to have it start with Megan showing Skipper her tits and then move quickly to fucking. I was watching videos for inspiration and I came across a stepbrother-stepsister video that had more foreplay and kissing then most porn videos. I thought it was hot so I decided to use it as inspiration. The premise of the video is that there’s a hotel mix up and the stepbrother and stepsister have to share a bed for the night. While he thinks she’s asleep, he decides to feel her tits. She’s awake and lets him do it. Things proceed from there. When I started thinking of how to translate the video to my story, I came up with the idea of them acting out Megan’s fantasy of Skipper slipping into her bed and taking her quietly. I decided to describe every little step. As I wrote it, I decided that after a while, Skipper plays into the fantasy so Megan doesn’t have to tell him what to do anymore. It was a long, detailed sex scene that I think comes across as hot. The video is over forty minutes and has two separate sex scenes. I decided to describe the foreplay from the first sex scene and the fuck from the second scene.

When I describe people, hair color is the biggest part of that description. I try to rotate hair colors and I decided to give Skipper black hair. Given that, I decided to model his looks after Clark Gable. Megan doesn’t describe her looks much, so no model there. Initially, I was going to have Allie be a generic blonde. Then I decided to make her look like Amy Noonan of Karmin from the video Heartbroken.

My goal was to create a sweet love story, where the two main characters already care very much for each other. They spend the weekend getting acquainted as adults, strengthening the feelings they have for each other, and finally accepting that they’re the right ones for each other. I wanted the reader to know right away that Megan and Skipper are going to wind up making love and committing to each other, but to have no idea how I’m going to get them together. In most of my stories, there’s a small amount of sexual activity that builds the sexual tension, then a little more, then a little more and eventually they’re fucking. In this one, the build up is all emotional.

What happens next?
Realistically, I’d have Megan’s parents say “No” to going to summer school at the university. Megan and Skipper will have to be creative about getting together. Then things would happen as Megan predicted - they’d fall deeply in love while living together, they’d tell their parents at Thanksgiving or Christmas, then they’d move together where ever Skipper goes to grad school. There, they’d never tell anyone that they’re cousins.

What do I particularly like about this story?
It’s hard for me to create interesting male characters. Skipper is hopefully interesting, unique but still realistic

What do I think I might get grief about?
* I’ve gotten several angry comments on “My Sister Set Me Up on a Blind Date” for the positive consent and the main male character being critical of small town patriarchy. I’m sure I’ll get several angry comments about Skipper’s plan for blocking access to the university for certain groups. Originally, I didn’t mention any groups but than made his plan too vague. The fear of angry comments about that part of the story made me think about re-writing it several times, but I couldn’t think of anything else that worked.
* This is the second story in a row where I made a big deal about a family name. Before, it was “Christopher” for “Chris”. Bad to repeat an idea.

What were the inspirations for the sex scenes?
This video. To get some ideas for how to describe sex from a woman’s point of view, I read September Blue. The author AwkwardMD was a huge help in getting the sex scene physiologically correct (she was a huge help in general).

What of note got cut from this story?
Nothing. When I’ve written other stories, I have scenes/dialog I think about but don’t actually write down because they don’t do enough for the story. I didn’t even have much of that on this story. The one scene I thought about but didn’t write down was Skipper telling Megan that microeconomics is complete bullshit.

Major editing changes for the story as it was written?
The two biggest changes once the story was complete were to change Allie’s looks and to explicitly make Megan an introvert.

Any other notes?
None

I’m looking for beta-readers
Tell me what you think of my stories before I publish them. I lose beta-readers regularly so I’m always looking for new ones.

I posted the feedback in the comments, but it would probably be better here since it's easier to discuss that way:

I liked the story overall, there were some minor issues though:

- For my taste the arguments were a tad too many in numbers, lacking in quality. And some of these were not really arguments but more like "gotcha" fact bombs (like the research he did on that chinese food).
I think it would've helped if one of these arguments would've gone down a sexier route, perhaps some innuendos to hint at the sexual tension between the two main characters.

- Speaking of sex: There was a bit too few of that in this story. Like enough to get me excited at the end, but not more.
I don't mean that the actual sex should be much longer. I would've preferred a bit more sexual tension in the build-up though. I liked the way the ex wanted them to fuck, but all these arguments in between felt shoved in, especially towards the end. Perhaps a secret masturbation or shower scene would've helped further this cause.

- The sex itself was a tad too unexciting for my taste. I mean, it was probably as realistic as it gets when two people have sex for the first time, but that's not necessarily the point of an erotic story, right?
An example: What if at some point Megan had roleplayed that they have to stop because there's knocking on the door: It's the family that wants to go to the beach and asks the two to join.
They of course deny, but while doing so you could describe Skipper's confusion, his throbbing cock that probably aches, but has to pause as he plays along. Madison leaning towards the door to answer, twisting his cock, dearing him to utter a moan.
But soon after the family leaves the house and the two can now fuck really hard, letting out all the bottled-up feelings.
To me good sex in these stories often times is like music. You only get to appreciate the really loud parts if there are also silent parts. Vice versa in this story there was a too much silence in this scene for my taste.

- I feel a cliff-hanger would've worked better at the end compared to all important issues being already resolved.
E.g. how about after having finished Skipper can think clearly again and is all "wtf have I done?!" ?
As it is right now I feel no real urge to stay tuned for a sequel, it all seems clear to me already.
I mean it's erotic fiction, we all know how it's gonna end. You fall into a trap though if you try to satisfy your readers too quickly: It's their job to wish for a good ending and root for characters, not yours. You're the "bad guy" that's responsible for the conflict, otherwise this read is just a circle-jerk.

Hope this helps, I still enjoyed the read!

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crimson_hellion said:

I liked the story overall, there were some minor issues though:

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Before I get into the issues you raise, I'd like to thank you for taking the time to write them down and share them with me. It's hard to improve as a writer without getting feedback and so few people take the time to even say, "Liked the story."

My style of writing is romantic incest. I come up with story arcs where I think it is plausible for the two family members to fall in love and end up at least Happy For Now if not Happy Ever After. Getting the two of them to be right for each other takes precedence over everything else.

crimson_hellion said:

- For my taste the arguments were a tad too many in numbers, lacking in quality. And some of these were not really arguments but more like "gotcha" fact bombs (like the research he did on that chinese food).
I think it would've helped if one of these arguments would've gone down a sexier route, perhaps some innuendos to hint at the sexual tension between the two main characters.

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Sorry you didn't like the arguments. I thought they were interesting topics, but that's me. Having the arguments go down a sexier route is an interesting idea, but no such topics come to mind.

crimson_hellion said:

- Speaking of sex: There was a bit too few of that in this story. Like enough to get me excited at the end, but not more.
I don't mean that the actual sex should be much longer. I would've preferred a bit more sexual tension in the build-up though. I liked the way the ex wanted them to fuck, but all these arguments in between felt shoved in, especially towards the end. Perhaps a secret masturbation or shower scene would've helped further this cause.

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In general, I agree with you. My other stories have a rising sexual tension between the main characters as they get more emotionally involved. The time frame was too short to pull that off for this story. A secret masturbation or a shower scene would have been boring.

crimson_hellion said:

- The sex itself was a tad too unexciting for my taste. I mean, it was probably as realistic as it gets when two people have sex for the first time, but that's not necessarily the point of an erotic story, right?
An example: What if at some point Megan had roleplayed that they have to stop because there's knocking on the door: It's the family that wants to go to the beach and asks the two to join.
They of course deny, but while doing so you could describe Skipper's confusion, his throbbing cock that probably aches, but has to pause as he plays along. Madison leaning towards the door to answer, twisting his cock, dearing him to utter a moan.
But soon after the family leaves the house and the two can now fuck really hard, letting out all the bottled-up feelings.
To me good sex in these stories often times is like music. You only get to appreciate the really loud parts if there are also silent parts. Vice versa in this story there was a too much silence in this scene for my taste.

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I liked the silence in the sex scene. Something different.

crimson_hellion said:

- I feel a cliff-hanger would've worked better at the end compared to all important issues being already resolved.
E.g. how about after having finished Skipper can think clearly again and is all "wtf have I done?!" ?
As it is right now I feel no real urge to stay tuned for a sequel, it all seems clear to me already.
I mean it's erotic fiction, we all know how it's gonna end. You fall into a trap though if you try to satisfy your readers too quickly: It's their job to wish for a good ending and root for characters, not yours. You're the "bad guy" that's responsible for the conflict, otherwise this read is just a circle-jerk.

Click to expand...

I don't want my readers to stay tuned for a sequel. There will be no sequel. Sequels suck. I have plenty of story ideas so I don't need to write a sequel. The one sequel I started, I regret starting.

There are a number of weaknesses with the story and I think you hit on the biggest - that there's no sexual tension built up in the story. I would say that other big weaknesses are:
* Megan has very little personality
* There's not a lot of banter between Skipper and Megan. There's more banter between Skipper and Allie
* There isn't any conflict between Skipper and Megan. She's in love with him, quickly sets her sights on him and in the end convinces him to be his lover
* The story is from the female point of view and I did a poor job of telling an erotic story from that point of view

Not every story is going to be a home run. I liked the idea of Skipper and Megan's relationship and I liked the idea of Megan essentially winning the argument for love. But there were weaknesses to the story arc that were going to keep it from being more than a solid single. And I'm happy with that.

Writing what you love is the most important thing you can do. If you are content with certain aspects of your story it doesn't really matter that there are those that aren't.

Somehow I thought there would be a sequel, perhaps from one of the comments, my bad. A happy ending for a closed story is more appropriate then, of course.