Help! Critique needed, lukewarm reception

I published a few stories and the general consensus is stop torturing my muse. I would be grateful for any feedback or suggestions as I obviously need to improve my writing skills. My first submission, with many grammatical errors was moderately well received. My last submission, not so much. Thanks in advance to anyone willing to peruse it and comment.
https://www.literotica.com/s/party-favour-ch-02

I'll have something for you today

Thank you!

I read part of chapter 2 last night. I'll finish it soon and give you some actual constructive criticism, but first a couple points.

Never give up on the muse. Everyone in the world should write. We should all be so lucky as to have a hobby as intellectually stimulating and emotionally cathartic as writing. Never give up. Keep improving.

You postes this second chapter in BDSM. I'm telling you right now, from personal experience, that the BDSM readership of Literotica is punishing you. They are a vindictive readership that wants to see a very specific subset of BDSM, they want to see you follow all the rules, and they won't tell you ehat those rules are. They'll just downvote you and be passive/aggressive babies about it. It can be tough to put a lot of value in a story score to gauge how well a story is being received, but that is a fools errand in most cases and double-y so in BDSM.

(This is just my opinion)

So just to reinforce, I think the BDSM readership is definitely punishing you. Kitty is not their type of sub. The BDSM readership likes their subs to be pristine in bondage, and they like their BDSM to be considerably more consensual than what you are writing here. Kitty is not a willing sub. Regardless of whether that's a good or bad wrinkle for a character, the BDSM readership will (and likely did) ding you for it.

Now, I only read chapter 2. I didn't read the opener, but I can make educated guesses on what occurred.

This is a stroke piece, not a think piece. You have a good sense of pacing because this whole chapter gets in and out before it overstays its welcome. It's brief, brutal, and intense. From a conceptual standpoint, it's excellent.

It's also very easy. Jake has no depth, is violent, and has a huge cock. Kitty has no depth, is timid, and does whatever anyone tells her to. There's nothing wrong with those choices, but they also don't leave a lot for me to judge or discuss.

Whether on a subconscious level or not Kitty knew she was inferior to men and she was made solely to serve and entertain their every perverted desire, unquestioningly.

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Be careful writing like this. It's one thing for you to think or believe this, or for Kitty to believe it, or for Jake to believe it. It's another thing for the narrative to state it, because that makes it reality. That establishes, for the reader, what to expect from your world.

Compare:

John walked out and looked up at the green sky.
John looked up and said, "Is the sky green today?"

In the former, we are being told unequivocably by the author that 'everything we know about the earth's atmosphere does not apply to the world this story takes place in'. In the second, we are likely left questioning whether or not John is sane, or if his senses are lying to him. Those are very different conclusions for the reader to draw, even though the two sentences say essentially the same thing. HOW YOU TELL THE READER INFORMATION IS IMPORTANT.

Based on a few brief comments I saw on your other stories, it looks like humiliation is a big theme for you, and you capture it very well. Be aware that humiliation will not be received well by the BDSM readership. They don't like it. Humiliation is a POWERFUL kink, and that really dominates this story. It's the most recognizable flavor among the many tastes (dominant male, submissive female, slapping, public, fingering, etc) you put in this brief chapter.

Own that. Live with that. You could be a Queen of Humiliation on this site if you continue to hone your skills.

One more thing.

The least important skillset for an author is being able to write 'correctly'. It is much harder to learn how to envision a story, envision characters, envision the blocking for a scene, etc than it is to write a series of grammatically correct sentences.

It's still important. The nuts and bolts of writing is like the delivery car that brings you delicious, sexy pizza. The story needs to be hot to be good, but it is possible for a clunky delivery car to either be too slow (so the pizza is cold when it gets there) or be in bad repair (and ruin the flavor).

You have grammatical mistakes. Not a ton, but also not none. It would be worth your time, as you continue to grow as an author, to find yourself an editor or a second pair of eyes to help you execute the ideas you have. Learn why every time they say "get rid of that comma" or point out where you accidentally changed from present tense to past tense. The more you learn to recognize these mistakes, the better you'll get at catching them on your own.

Outstanding and insightful feedback! Although choosing the correct category is now troublesome. BDSM with a disclaimer, Fetish with disclaimer or just straight up Non-Con????? I did check out the Fetish category but it seems to be a fairly specific category with a lot of stories that prolly belong in BDSM e.g. Sissy Boys, surely a distinct subset of BDSM. I've only had one Sissy friend and domination and humiliation were his main kink. His penchant for drinking tea with me in matching lingerie is perhaps fetish???? Apparently the Sissy Boy subset is not a fave topic for the general BDSM readership so they get delegated to Fetish. Any advice on which category to publish in?
I did read your Pony stories and imho they are straight up Bondage stories, Pony Bondage is a very distinct and creative form of bondage/discipline, similar to Shibari but essentially more artistic as anyone can learn to tie knots but it takes pure villainous artistry to not only bind the body but the mind and to be able to dehumanize that mind is ingenious as illustrated in The Story of O. I do believe the Marquis de Sade would be pained if he knew how vanilla BDSM has become lol.
You're technical critique is priceless, spot on! Some of my characters appear two dimensional, perhaps stereotypical so characterization is something I definitely need to work on, wasn't sure how pertinent it was to a wank story but I realize my mistake, plot and character development are the bread and butter of any story.
Grammatically you are correct, I have made a few glaring errors and after publishing my first story I did have an ex Litster edit my second publication but the second story has been the least well received so I can only assume it's the bones of the story that are at fault. Spelling is one of my strong suits and I can only assume autocorrect is many an author's nemesis, not mine alone and Canadian spelling is quite different from American but, again, my assumption is that majority of readers are aware of this so any spelling mistakes not along cultural lines I will own. I suppose that is the main reason I reached out as my third story seemed to be more polished but just as weakly received.
As noted earlier your insight is invaluable.
I was hesitant to touch on the whole male supremacy/CDD kink, but I now see you are correct, through your comparative example, that a character's reality should remain that and NOT be stated as an audience's reality.
Wow, again I must reiterate how generous you are and how priceless your input is. In the spirit of the whole BDSM genre I will sign off accordingly.
Devotedly bowing at your feet xoxo

The kicker here is that I don’t think you categorized your story wrong. Party Favour falls into one of those black holes where it’s not rapey enough for the Non-Con crowd and too rapey for the BDSM crowd. Fetish will think this is too vanilla.

Realistically, this is a BDSM story. It belongs in BDSM. The readership there is very sensitive about how their kink is portrayed and they’ll use their 1* button to try to condition you to keep anything they disapprove of out of their playground, but that doesn’t change the nature of your story. It’s a BDSM story. If you were going to do anything, I might consider adding a disclaimer. That being said, I hate disclaimers. It ruins the journey and taints the experience of reading.

Thank you for your kind words about Dark Horse. It’s a project that I am still extremely proud of. At one time, 7 of the 8 chapters of Dark Horse had ratings below 4.0, so bear in mind that score can rehab over time. I still maintain that Dark Horse is a BDSM story, but the BDSM readership and Laurel disagree with me.

Don’t take too much of the criticism of Jake and Kitty to heart. There’s nothing wrong with having characters that are perhaps not very deep in a very short story. It’s a stylistic choice. A longer story with more nuance would benefit from deeper characters, but that’s a horse of a different color.

That being said, if you reeeeally want to drive home humiliation as a kink, it would behoove you to get the reader very invested in the protagonist. Give them a reason to root for her. You want the reader to cry when Kitty cries and cum when Kitty cums. That requires depth and emotional relatability.

Wth, I'll keep plugging away, if only for my own cathartic journey and enjoyment. Oh and thanks for Pony tales, I'm hooked, love my bedtime stories, adding you to my favourites. I find it an intriguing subject matter from a D/s and psychological standpoint and stories of your calibre and genre are difficult to find.

AkwardMD,

I am just browsing about the forum and found your in-depth advice to RocketLauncher to be very informative and insightful. I know little of the BDSM world oustide of a few series I have read in Literotica and while it isn't really my thing, parts of it are fascinating and I always enjoy learning more.

I take it the BDSM section is patrolled by those defensive of that genre who have grown to resent themselves being misunderstood by the mainstream, which I can understand. That explains them punishing with votes, as you describe. Now that I know, I can view the vote scores there with the same critical skepticism that I do the Loving Wives category.

I appreciate the compliment, but I also don't want to turn this into a spotlight on me. I give feedback because I a)never got enough of it when I was starting out, and b) use it to improve myself. This is how I learn.

That being said, I received a dozen comments, on my stories and in private, on Dark Horse that said "I read both BDSM and NonCon. If you had posted this in NonCon, I would have given it 5 stars. Since you posted this In BDSM, I'm giving it 1 star."

It still stings.

AwkwardMD said:

That being said, I received a dozen comments, on my stories and in private, on Dark Horse that said "I read both BDSM and NonCon. If you had posted this in NonCon, I would have given it 5 stars. Since you posted this In BDSM, I'm giving it 1 star."

It still stings.

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And that's why I have so little regard for such-like negative comment behaviour and would delete such a comment immediately, because that's not about the quality of your writing, it's about some 'category policeman' with their self righteous views as to what is 'acceptable' in 'their' favourite category. And thank goodness a sweep would come along and remove their one-bomb (these people really must not know their protest is futile, because the sweeps will remove it in time).

Elsewhere someone said, "Oh, I keep all comments because to remove them is censorship." To which I replied, "No, it's censorship when a third party (eg: a censor or a government) does it; when an author deletes a comment, it's protecting their property rights, it's removing graffiti from their fence, it's removing a dog turd from their front lawn."

Those comments on Dark Horse are in effect thought police trying to censor you as an author, to deny you your rights as a creator of artistic product; and on those grounds alone, their act is beneath contempt. Furthermore, to say it's a 5 if it was painted white and a 1 because it's painted black is as absurd as separate buses and separate toilets.

Now if that person had come along and neg'd your story down because the characterisation sucked, the grammar was shit, there was no plot nor pace (), the premise was absurd, then I'm sure you'd say, "fair enough". But to see a story get a 1 because the leading lady is a Jane and the reader wants her Mary, well, that's just a stupid reader. What's so special about Mary?

These people who can't look the other way, and don't know how to use the reverse key, I don't know.

If they don't like it, they can go write their own material... oh, wait, they can't, because they're...

Lw

I'm fairly new here but even I've heard the horror stories about LW. Must say it's quite the category! My curiosity was piqued and I gave it a quick perusal this morning and I wasn't disappointed lol. Might just post a story there for fun.
AwkwardMD thanks again, I haven't given up and I've taken your advice to heart. I'm taking my time with this one, not a written in a few hours and post it story and so far so good but that's imo. I have a mercurial nature so it takes some discipline on my part but I think the pay off will be worth it, if not to Lit readers then most definitely to myself. I'm sticking with the humiliation theme cuz that's what I like to write. Although I am forming a story dedicated to my Sissy friend because he's a fine man with a strange kink who is sorely misunderstood esp. by his wife so I feel his story needs to be told as I'm sure a lot of misunderstood Sissies live their lives in secrecy and shame. Again thank you, taking my time and your critique to heart as I continue to torture my muse. Peace