New Story- "Freshman Adventures: Mattress Flop"-- feedback requested

Hi Ladies and Germs,

Here is my most recent story in the Freshman Adventures Series. This is a series of stories following Dennis, a caddish, depraved college student, and his various sexual adventures.

It is the first one written in the 3rd person and not fully centered on Dennis

https://www.literotica.com/s/freshman-adventures-mattress-flop

Have away. Thank you,

T.

This needs a lot of work.

You, as a storyteller, do not seem to understand the point of backstory. It is not something one fills in just because. Backstory should serve a purpose. All the time you spent filling us in on how Dennis has been a shitty human being his entire life is redundant when Dennis is clearly being a shitty human being in the present.

I can't even begin to imagine why you included Georgia's backstory.

Or why you narrated walking through a party.

Or why the party narration happened in the second person.

Storytelling should have purpose. You should be picking and choosing the tools you use with discretion and care instead of regurgitating a gimmick from a show you watched last night without understanding why the show did it in the first place.

The female body has many sensitive areas. There are a dozen places, that vary from woman to woman, where you can apply pressure and stimulation and get a pleasurable reaction from her. That does not mean she will like it if you stick your dick in her armpit and start humping.

2nd person narration is an armpit. Flashbacks are the back of the knee. Backstory is the inner thigh. Employ these things in concert, and with careful intention, and you will see vast improvement in your writing.

Well Awkward MD, I sure do sense a bit of (caffeine-deprived?) projection going on here. Your obsession over "why" the entirety of the story happened, period, says more to me about your own taste/mood at this particular point in time than it does about why I'm so clueless and careless and cliched as a writer. I believe it was Henry James (know who he was? Wouldn't be surprised if you don't) who said "give the writer his place." Will you give me my place? Or will you go into any story assuming that the writer is such an inferior neanderthal that any literary device used must have been a "regurgitation of a gimmick from a show they watched last night" rather than an earnest attempt or deliberate effort? Your criticism that the story contains backstory "just because" (granted, the bold emphasis was rather cute), might have more weight if the majority of the story was not comprised of backstory, which would logically mean--if you were giving me my place--that the inclusion of backstory has to be a very deliberate choice on my part and not something I did just because. All I can infer from the fanaticism of your post is that you personally prefer not to read a lot of backstory. You could have just been honest and said this; although then I wouldn't have had such a fun time ripping you to shreds like this.

But you only truly lost credibility when after clicking 'post' you sat, limp-dicked in your recliner, and continued to stew over my story for a full 31 minutes (I sincerely hope you weren't at work; I shudder to think what the intern reading your resume feels right now) before deciding the best course of action was to make sure I knew you had the female body and pleasure index all taken care of. Why does it matter if the female body has many sensitive areas other than the 30-degrees that phrase caused your dick to rise just now? When in the story does the narrator ever hump anybody's armpit? How is that possible description of your first sexual experience a valid analogy if I have nothing concrete to attach it to?

There are places on 4Chan and, at best, Reddit, that will put up with and even praise your snarkiness, but I for one will you call you on your bullshit until your wireless router keels over in your parent's attic, and not just on my own post. There are other commentators who have already posted thoughtful criticisms of this same story suggesting that I need an editor for various structural and grammatical issues; and they have good points! Your criticisms, on the other hand, don't rank as criticism; they rank as sub-Twitter nihilism; bad marksmanship. Believe me when I say that I will keep tabs on your presence on this site; I will defend any well-meaning writer against your drivel; I will leave comments on your own (I'm sure WONDERFUL) stories that will leave you sobbing in to your twinkies; I will make sure your anti-intellectualism is scoured to death.

Happy May,

T.

P.S-- Though you don't say, your profile indicates that you may be a woman. This matters to me less than the popular vote mattered to the electoral college in November. All my words, including those about your prowess of the female body, stand.

First off, good for you, putting yourself out there. Your story needs a lot of work, but in the immortal words of Jake, "Sucking at something is the first step to being sorta good at something." Your story has potential.

(1) Semicolons are not colons. They are two different forms of punctuation. You use semicolons to separate two independent clauses that are related and, thus, should be connected. A colon is used to lead into an explanation or a list or, sometimes, a quote. Too many semicolons, improperly used, destroy the flow of your opening paragraph. If you're gonna do the whole "snapshot" approach, just use straight up periods to separate different images (e.g. A dark room. A ratty old couch. A shy young couple kissing. The girl turns her head. Pukes.).

(2) Half your story is an info dump and, as a reader, info dumps are as annoying as they are unnatural. It's better to weave backstory into the plot as certain aspects become relevant. That's how you develop characters and it's also how you create conflict. We don't need to know your character's life story as soon as you've introduced him. Give us a little taste and then, maybe later, another and then, even later, another. Insert us into the story. Show, don't tell.

(3) Your narrative voice is...weird. I feel as if god is telling me a story about this dude Dennis that he knows everything about (because he's god) and some other chick (who he also knows everything about because he's god) and for some reason, he's telling me all about their respective backstories and then describing them fucking. All-knowing narrators are hard to pull off in general and should always be intentional. Unless you have a good reason for an all-knowing narrator, I'd pick one perspective--with limited knowledge--like Dennis' to narrate the story and that's it. We can learn about Georgia when Dennis does, the info dump is unnecessary.

(4) Your sex scene has a lot of visuals, but you don't describe any of the sensations and emotions that make amazing sex so amazing. One of the advantages erotica has over porn is that you can delve into these areas; you aren't limited to visuals and sounds.

(5) Rarely, if ever, should you describe what someone said. Actually use dialogue. Flesh out the conversation. That last paragraph made a tension-filled encounter sound flat and boring.

1) You invited feedback. Grow some thicker skin, or don't ask. Or go find yourself a nice canyon to shout "I THINK YOUR STUFF IS PRETTY OK" in and wait for the echo.

2) Don't infer. You're not good at it.

3) I welcome criticism. I've asked for feedback on at least a few occasions, and generally not gotten much of a response. Whether that means you find the threads where I asked for it and deliver said shredding or reply directly to my stories doesn't matter.

4) I am shockingly less well read than anyone might imagine. I don't know who Henry James is (and thus, namedropping him wins you no points). I've barely read anyone. Whenever an author comes up in conversation ("Hey, have you ever read-"), I invariably have never read them and rarely even heard of them. I had bad asthma when I was little, and I had thirty minute sessions three times a day with a machine called a nebulizer. All I could do was sit still and breathe, and I tore through books. Too quickly. Even ones above my reading level (the closest library was not close). Instead, I read magazines.

Time, Newsweek, National Geographic, as well as our weekly and daily newspapers. As a result of that, I tend to be a very blunt writer. It shows in my work. I lack the florid prose of many other authors. It is by far my greatest weakness, and I am extremely envious of writers like DeathAndTaxes, Etaski, and ASchermer who can work purple and do it well.

Most Lit Forum feedback responders will answer a thread like this with "It was good but you had some grammatical mistakes. You had some its vs it's. Overall, I liked it." Look around. That's literally 80% of the responses. I'm not going to give you that. My greatest strengths are in storytelling mechanics, and that's what I'm going to give you advice on. If you don't want to listen, or if you want to dismiss me because you feel butthurt, that's your choice.

5) A google search of "Give the writer his place" does not match any documents. It feels like what you're asking for is the basic respect due any creator of content, and if you feel like I didn't give you that, then I'm sorry. Your participation award is in the mail.

As a rule, I try not to assume anything. I don't assume you had a reason for including backstory if I can't find one just like I don't assume you're a neanderthal, but the balance of probability is that you are aping literary techniques you've seen others employ without giving thought to the pros and cons of including them at all.

6) I understand and accept that your inclusion of backstory was intentional. You spent half the story on it. Nobody spends half of a Lit page writing something they didn't intend. You misunderstood. My point is that backstory should serve a purpose within the context of the story.

The actual story, the thrust of it if you will, was about Dennis and Georgia at a party. Dennis fucks her while she's drunk, records it on his phone, then goes home and gets hard thinking about it in the shower. That is the story. The entirety of the present tense actions.

Now. What good does it do me, within the context of non-consensual drunk sex, to know that Dennis didn't get along with his parents or sister? What flavor does it add to the story to know that he was a drug dealer? How does this backstory influence my perception of Dennis as a person, or his motives within the scene? This is basic Chekhov's Gun. If it doesn't matter to the story, don't include it.

Dennis is the anti-hero of this story. Anti-heroes often have backstories that justify or try to explain how they came to be like they are, but your backstory really just tells the story of a guy who was always an asshole. We can see that for ourselves. His deeds are doing fine on their own conveying that. Include a backstory to surprise the reader, and change our perception of him.

Georgia, the victim, has a backstory that seemed to boil down to "She makes terrible choices." We can see that for ourselves. Her actions are doing just fine on their own conveying that she makes terrible choices.

7) I didn't ask why the story happened. I asked why you included needless wingdings and fluff.

8) Context always makes a story better. I love backstory. It can add layers and layers of depth to a character, inform the reader on the motivations behind character growth, and fill in gaps.

I don't love info dumps, and I don't love redundancy.

9) The armpit was a metaphor. You not catching that says a lot about your understanding of literary techniques.

10) No feedback anyone gives you will teach you more than reading the work of others. 'Me giving you feedback' is practicing what I preach, and I encourage you to do the same. Whether that means you scour every last page of my posted writings in a valiant attempt to pwn me or turn around and give the next writer who asks for help an alternative to my criticism doesn't matter. Follow through with your threat. Learn. Be critical.

Sorry, after the reviews I didn't read your story. However, I have come away enriched by embracing the words from Jake, "Sucking at something is the first step to being sorta good at something."
Thanks...

plesmore said:

Sorry, after the reviews I didn't read your story. However, I have come away enriched by embracing the words from Jake, "Sucking at something is the first step to being sorta good at something."
Thanks...

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You should. Don't trust the word of strangers. Go and see for yourself.

Firing off a response to AwkwardMD like that almost ensures nobody else is going to bother giving you the feedback you requested. You may not like what (s)he said, and maybe it could have been worded more nicely, but you requested feedback.

Believe it or not, the harsher the critique, the more you stand to gain as a writer. Awkward's been doing this for a few years now, and has a plenthora of H-sporting stories across enough different categories to indicate the good doc isn't spouting random nonsense.

If you won't take her word for it, maybe you'll take someone else's. The volunteer editor program is a godsend for writers like yourself, and I'll explain why.

Clearly you have a latent talent. You've been developing your author's voice, and you're pounding out words at a furious rate. Four and a half months into the year and you've already got six stories and one poem published. Keep that work ethic and eventually you'll start to sand the edges off the problem areas. The volunteer editors are there to help you do that faster, and looking at your overall scores and this latest piece tells me you'll benefit greatly from any help you receive.

* * * * *

Having read your story I offer the following feedback/advice:

- Semicolons don't work the way it seems you think they do. You use them either to indicate a brief pause (longer than a comma, shorter than a period) between two independent clauses that are related to one another, or to separate items in a list when doing so with a comma would be confusing. If neither of these situations applies, the semicolon is not the right tool.

Example 1: He looked at her, cocked an eyebrow, and nodded towards the bedroom, silently asking if she was interested; she was.

Example 2: I applied to colleges in Portland, Oregon; Memphis, Tennessee; and Ogunquit, Maine.

Editing your first few sentences to correct for grammar, it should look like so:

Through a screen door: a keg. Nobody is doing a keg stand at the moment, but someone just was, as evidenced by the beer on the floor. Through the kitchen: college students hanging out, eating junk food. Also, more alcohol. In the kitchen: music plays low. Young men and women grope each other, kiss. One guy has his hand dancing along the waist of his girl's jeans, not committed not certain. Through the living room: a hall.

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A handful of spelling or grammar errors in a story isn't generally a problem, especially with longer works where they're bound to crop up no matter how many times you edit the thing. But that's six errors already and we're not even through the first paragraph. I was an English major and it took all my strength not to hit the back button. As it was, I scrolled to the bottom of the page to see how much of this I'd have to wade through. Your story's only one Lit page, so I forced myself. Any more than that and I'd have let out a resounding "NOPE!" and closed it. I'm forgiving when it comes to reading amateur works, but the grammar errors alone here are the psychological equivalent of nails on a chalkboard to anyone who takes writing seriously. Your style and voice tells me you're better than this, so make this your number one area of focus and I guarantee higher returns on your story numbers.

- Outside of the grammar problems, the other chief problem with this story is that it's dull. Info dumps are marginally OK in fantasy/sci-fi stories where the reader needs to know about the rules of the universe one has created, but we're sixteen paragraphs into this piece before anything happens.

I'm sure you've heard the old adage, "show, don't tell" before. It doesn't always apply (sometimes telling is the only correct option for the writer), but if it applies anywhere it applies right at the beginning of your story. You don't need to begin with action necessarily, but you need to begin with something exciting. Sex is all well and good (this is Literotica, after all), but all we've got is a guy on top of a girl, pumping away. Readers can get that from well over one hundred thousand other stories here, so you need to give them a reason to stick with this one. Fifteen paragraphs of backstory isn't going to cut it. You can tell me all that stuff about Georgia and Dennis, and the problem is: I still don't care.

What makes people interesting isn't what's happened to them in the past, but how they reacted to it and how it's changed them into the people they are today. Doled out over time, the information in their backstories has potential. Dumped on the reader the way it is right at the beginning, before a reader has a chance to get caught up in your tale, it's just boring. Again, knowing your story was only one Lit page long, I kept going. Other readers aren't likely to be as forgiving: someone looking for a wank is going to see there are too many paragraphs between the start and the 'good stuff' and either ignore the infodump to get to the money shot or close the tab and open the next one on their list; someone looking for emotions, romance, or an engaging story will likewise click 'Back' and make a new choice. You can ignore one to cater to the other, but you cannot ignore them both, and unfortunately this story does just that. I'm sure this wasn't intentional on your part, but it is the way it turned out for this submission.

- You don't really have a 'story' here. You do in the technical sense: it has a beginning, a middle, and an end, but that's like putting four wheels and a steering column on a basic frame and saying you have a car. This piece lacks punch. It lacks engagement. It lacks the little details, and the details it doesn't lack are in the wrong places, so they wind up doing more harm than good. Dennis has some potentially interesting bits about him: he lifts weights, he's been in a gang, he's done a stint in jail, and he's a sociopath who likes to record his exploits without his partner's knowledge or consent. There are details in there to be sure, but in keeping with the car analogy, the way they're presented has the same written effect as if you swapped the gas and brake pedals, put the automatic door lock switch up on the dashboard, and made the button to pop the hood only accessible from inside the trunk.

Right now, you don't have a story. What you have is a scene from a story. Extended out, with many more scenes to provide you the opportunity to dribble out the infodumps in dribs and drabs, you have the potential to create something enjoyable. Not to everyone, but you'll at least meet the sort of basic standard to which all writing should aspire. My guess is, that's what inspired AwkwardMD to open up with both barrels.

I hope this helps. Remember: you have talent. I wouldn't have taken the time to type all this if I didn't see potential. You're just not there yet. Keep working, keep writing. Best-selling author Barry Lyga is of the opinion it takes a million bad words before the good ones start showing up regularly. The only way to get through them is to practice, practice, practice. Taking the advice of those who offer it can be a shortcut if you choose to use it, but in the end, it's all up to you.

I wish you success.

AwkwardMD said:

You should. Don't trust the word of strangers. Go and see for yourself.

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I have read your Violet offerings and trust your judgment.

TJones28 said:

Well Awkward MD, I sure do sense a bit of (caffeine-deprived?) projection going on here. Your obsession over "why" the entirety of the story happened, period, says more to me ....

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Asking for feedback and then lashing out at someone who takes the time to give it to you, and attacking Awkward MD the way you did, is possibly not the best approach around here, just saying....

When the rant is longer than the original comment, that sorta kinda tells me something too.

Poor punctuation and info-dumps, that's two easy points on feedback bingo, right there. Oh dear, what a pity, never mind