Blueeyesrenee
Literotica Guru
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- Dec 3, 2018
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- 3,015
Posted my first story... please let me know what you think.
- Thread starter Blueeyesrenee
- Start date
Bramblethorn
Sleep-deprived
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- Feb 16, 2012
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- 16,743
Some quick thoughts.
The story has some grammar/spelling issues, enough to be distracting for me. Typos like "our eyes meet as he is severed the drink" and so on. You have a few accidental tense shifts:
I make eye contact with him and I smile at him.
"Thank you for the drink," he said to me.
First sentence is present tense, second is past tense. Pick one and stick with it, unless there's a solid reason to change tenses. If you can find one, a beta reader or editor can be great for catching this stuff.
Repetition:
I take another drink of my wine and look over, our eyes meet as he is severed the drink, and he softly smiles at me. Music starts playing and I turn around in my seat to watch the band and enjoy the music. I see someone walk past me and sit down next to me; I turn and see him sitting there. I make eye contact with him and I smile at him.
This paragraph gets repetitive both in grammar (highlighted above) and in word choice (drink, music, smile, eyes meet/eye contact, see). Not the end of the world, but it wouldn't hurt to vary it a bit more. It's also hard to tell what the narrator is thinking - at first her focus is on this guy, but then she abruptly switches to the music, and then quickly back again.
You also have some deadwood that's not really contributing to the story. She's already seen him sitting down next to her; you don't need to tell us that she turns and sees him sitting there. They've already made eye contact and he's smiled at her; it doesn't add much to say that they do it again and she smiles at him.
Just as an example of how it might be handled differently:
Sipping at my wine, I watch the waitress bring him his pina colada. He seems surprised for a moment, then he looks over at me and meets my gaze with a smile. Then the band starts up, and so as not to seem too eager, I turn and watch them. It's his move, and I wonder whether he'll take it.
I don't have to wonder for long. By the time the band is eight bars into a twelve-bar blues riff, he's settling into the seat next to me.
You might notice that I've also put a little more detail into the scene by specifying his drink and the style of music. I'm fairly minimalist as description goes, but a little bit helps establish character and atmosphere - there would be a very different vibe if I'd written that the guy is drinking absinthe and the band are playing Bauhaus covers.
Speaking of description - until you mentioned the band, it came across as if he, she, and the waitress were the only three people in the bar. That's probably something worth describing early on, since interaction feels different when there's a potential audience.
His hand was very nice and soft. Also rather large and firm I noticed as his hand warmly shook mine. I took a drink from my glass feeling the wine starting to go to my head. I feel myself loosen up, I scoot a tad closer to him, my hand brushing over his arm. He doesn't back away from me, I notice. I look up at the band and I feel his hand brush down my side and rest on my chair just centimeters away from me. My heart flutters in my chest. I place my leg on the rung of his chair, brushing against his. I feel like we are doing some sort of little dance as I'm trying to figure him out. I excuse myself to head to the lady's room, feeling the wine going through me. He looks up at me and smiles; as he smiles I notice something in his eyes. As I walk to the bathroom, I think about his eyes and what was he thinking. I finish up and start to walk out of the ladies room as I do, I feel arms wrapping around me and pulling me into a room, a closet I think. His lips are now on me and we are kissing, his hands are on my ass, squeezing it. I feel the cold concrete wall pressing into my back, his body pressing into mine. We break from the kiss and I look up into his eyes, see what I saw before but much stronger, some sort of wicked passion. He turns me around and tells me to stand there with my hands pressed against the wall above my head. It makes me think that he's going to frisk me.
This is a big paragraph, not just in word count. At the beginning, they've only just exchanged names. At the end, they're well on their way to fucking, and not just vanilla but grab-her-wrists BDSM.
Different readers have different tastes, but for me, a lot of the magic in a story is in how people get to "we're going to fuck". The game is as interesting as the physical stuff people do when they get into bed, so I would've liked to see this part developed a bit more. But that's just my preference.
I have to go now, but hopefully some of that's useful.
The story has some grammar/spelling issues, enough to be distracting for me. Typos like "our eyes meet as he is severed the drink" and so on. You have a few accidental tense shifts:
I make eye contact with him and I smile at him.
"Thank you for the drink," he said to me.
First sentence is present tense, second is past tense. Pick one and stick with it, unless there's a solid reason to change tenses. If you can find one, a beta reader or editor can be great for catching this stuff.
Repetition:
I take another drink of my wine and look over, our eyes meet as he is severed the drink, and he softly smiles at me. Music starts playing and I turn around in my seat to watch the band and enjoy the music. I see someone walk past me and sit down next to me; I turn and see him sitting there. I make eye contact with him and I smile at him.
This paragraph gets repetitive both in grammar (highlighted above) and in word choice (drink, music, smile, eyes meet/eye contact, see). Not the end of the world, but it wouldn't hurt to vary it a bit more. It's also hard to tell what the narrator is thinking - at first her focus is on this guy, but then she abruptly switches to the music, and then quickly back again.
You also have some deadwood that's not really contributing to the story. She's already seen him sitting down next to her; you don't need to tell us that she turns and sees him sitting there. They've already made eye contact and he's smiled at her; it doesn't add much to say that they do it again and she smiles at him.
Just as an example of how it might be handled differently:
Sipping at my wine, I watch the waitress bring him his pina colada. He seems surprised for a moment, then he looks over at me and meets my gaze with a smile. Then the band starts up, and so as not to seem too eager, I turn and watch them. It's his move, and I wonder whether he'll take it.
I don't have to wonder for long. By the time the band is eight bars into a twelve-bar blues riff, he's settling into the seat next to me.
You might notice that I've also put a little more detail into the scene by specifying his drink and the style of music. I'm fairly minimalist as description goes, but a little bit helps establish character and atmosphere - there would be a very different vibe if I'd written that the guy is drinking absinthe and the band are playing Bauhaus covers.
Speaking of description - until you mentioned the band, it came across as if he, she, and the waitress were the only three people in the bar. That's probably something worth describing early on, since interaction feels different when there's a potential audience.
His hand was very nice and soft. Also rather large and firm I noticed as his hand warmly shook mine. I took a drink from my glass feeling the wine starting to go to my head. I feel myself loosen up, I scoot a tad closer to him, my hand brushing over his arm. He doesn't back away from me, I notice. I look up at the band and I feel his hand brush down my side and rest on my chair just centimeters away from me. My heart flutters in my chest. I place my leg on the rung of his chair, brushing against his. I feel like we are doing some sort of little dance as I'm trying to figure him out. I excuse myself to head to the lady's room, feeling the wine going through me. He looks up at me and smiles; as he smiles I notice something in his eyes. As I walk to the bathroom, I think about his eyes and what was he thinking. I finish up and start to walk out of the ladies room as I do, I feel arms wrapping around me and pulling me into a room, a closet I think. His lips are now on me and we are kissing, his hands are on my ass, squeezing it. I feel the cold concrete wall pressing into my back, his body pressing into mine. We break from the kiss and I look up into his eyes, see what I saw before but much stronger, some sort of wicked passion. He turns me around and tells me to stand there with my hands pressed against the wall above my head. It makes me think that he's going to frisk me.
This is a big paragraph, not just in word count. At the beginning, they've only just exchanged names. At the end, they're well on their way to fucking, and not just vanilla but grab-her-wrists BDSM.
Different readers have different tastes, but for me, a lot of the magic in a story is in how people get to "we're going to fuck". The game is as interesting as the physical stuff people do when they get into bed, so I would've liked to see this part developed a bit more. But that's just my preference.
I have to go now, but hopefully some of that's useful.
Maeven_quinn
Really Really Experienced
- Joined
- Nov 29, 2018
- Posts
- 398
I noticed some tense issues. The story begins in present tense, first person:
Then it shifts to first person past tense
Then in a later paragraph, there is a mixture of both...
Most readers have a preferred tense and narration that they read it. The most common for erotica seems to be past tense, first person. Sometimes, there are books that use present tense narration. I personally find that difficult to both write and to read, and strongly prefer past tense first person or past tense third person.
e.g. "I undid the buttons in his shirt, one by one." or "Julia undid the buttons in his shirt, one by one."
Mixing tenses in the story doesn't work at all.
Then it shifts to first person past tense
Then in a later paragraph, there is a mixture of both...
Most readers have a preferred tense and narration that they read it. The most common for erotica seems to be past tense, first person. Sometimes, there are books that use present tense narration. I personally find that difficult to both write and to read, and strongly prefer past tense first person or past tense third person.
e.g. "I undid the buttons in his shirt, one by one." or "Julia undid the buttons in his shirt, one by one."
Mixing tenses in the story doesn't work at all.
You did jump tenses; I personally don't think it matters if you choose present tense (I walk towards the bar) or past tense (I walked towards the bar). As a whole, I think a majority of people who read fiction prefer past tense, while a lot of those who do some sort of online role playing often gravitate towards present tense.
Writing is an art and as with all other forms of art it takes a lot of practice--not everyone can do it because it takes a lot effort and dedication. I would suggest reading some more erotic fiction to see the mechanics of how they deal with dialogue, paragraph breaks, etc. Aside from going through a course, this is probably the easiest way to learn.
You did move rather quickly through the story but I think that is fine--not everything needs to be a multipart tale. This could work simply as a short story but I think that it could do with some heavy editing to get it up to par; before you publish another, I would suggest getting an editor to go through it to help point out the mechanical errors.
Writing is an art and as with all other forms of art it takes a lot of practice--not everyone can do it because it takes a lot effort and dedication. I would suggest reading some more erotic fiction to see the mechanics of how they deal with dialogue, paragraph breaks, etc. Aside from going through a course, this is probably the easiest way to learn.
You did move rather quickly through the story but I think that is fine--not everything needs to be a multipart tale. This could work simply as a short story but I think that it could do with some heavy editing to get it up to par; before you publish another, I would suggest getting an editor to go through it to help point out the mechanical errors.
Bramblethorn
Sleep-deprived
- Joined
- Feb 16, 2012
- Posts
- 16,743
Thanks, you reminded me of something I meant to say in my feedback but forgot on my way out the door. The present tense wasn't the only part here that gave me the feeling this might be a RP session turned into a story.
Nothing wrong with basing a story on an RP session, but they're different media and RP tends to dictate a step-by-step structure that isn't always the best fit for a prose story.
