A Picture is Worth a Thousand FAWCs

Slyc talked about having FAWC4 next year, but if anyone has thoughts or ideas on when to slip another challenge into the schedule, feel free to share them.
 
Well, I suggested up the line that everyone be challenged to write a GM one. ;):D
 
Well, I suggested up the line that everyone be challenged to write a GM one. ;):D

That would be cool. And interesting. You certainly wouldn't have to worry about dead giveaways then. :)

Of course, then I would want everyone to write a horror story....
 
Yep, you did. Maybe we can get some input from others on that suggestion?

It wasn't a serious suggestion. But it might be a suggestion to try one that feeds directly into a popular category rather than Chain Stories, so stories don't have to be moved and so that they aren't lost in a remote category where every single vote and comment has so much power. The sweeping of these stories shows that they get attacked the same why as the regular contest stories do.

I'm also serious in suggesting that, if the exercise is conducted in Chain Stories, that the voting be turned off for the duration of the exercise and that readers be urged in the into slug to comment on the story in terms of the exercise assignment. There aren't many looking at the stories now in Chain Stories and the voting, and emphasis on a rating winner is pulling at the purpose of the exercise. After the exercise is over, the stories can be released to their natural categories--and natural voting mercies.
 
Talk about a challenge. :eek: I'm not sure either of those would be something I could write with any success.
 
It wasn't a serious suggestion. But it might be a suggestion to try one that feeds directly into a popular category rather than Chain Stories, so stories don't have to be moved and so that they aren't lost in a remote category where every single vote and comment has so much power. The sweeping of these stories shows that they get attacked the same why as the regular contest stories do.

I'm also serious in suggesting that, if the exercise is conducted in Chain Stories, that the voting be turned off for the duration of the exercise and that readers be urged in the into slug to comment on the story in terms of the exercise assignment. There aren't many looking at the stories now in Chain Stories and the voting, and emphasis on a rating winner is pulling at the purpose of the exercise. After the exercise is over, the stories can be released to their natural categories--and natural voting mercies.

Chain Stories does have a limited readership so using specific categories is something to consider in the future. The voting might fall into place better then, too.
 
Chain Stories does have a limited readership so using specific categories is something to consider in the future. The voting might fall into place better then, too.

I do like the idea of a "write this category" challenge, with all authors writing stories in one category. I think it would be interesting to see each author flex their literary muscles and write in a specific category. I'd like to see the different stories that turn out.

And if that does become a challenge, it's gotta be a category that actually is a challenge. Like, in other words, NOT erotic couplings. Pilot suggested GM, there's also Romance, as I would be interested to see how everyone does the romantic, or BDSM (though some of that crowd might get butthurt if authors didn't nail that category). I don't have to say I'd love to read horror stories from everyone, but I did anyway.

Maybe layer little challenges on to that, like a basket item or something, just to add some depth.
 
I do like the idea of a "write this category" challenge, with all authors writing stories in one category. I think it would be interesting to see each author flex their literary muscles and write in a specific category. I'd like to see the different stories that turn out.

And if that does become a challenge, it's gotta be a category that actually is a challenge. Like, in other words, NOT erotic couplings. Pilot suggested GM, there's also Romance, as I would be interested to see how everyone does the romantic, or BDSM (though some of that crowd might get butthurt if authors didn't nail that category). I don't have to say I'd love to read horror stories from everyone, but I did anyway.

Maybe layer little challenges on to that, like a basket item or something, just to add some depth.

I'm all for Romance as the category. :)

It might take a little to get it figured out, but maybe everyone who participated could be assigned a category they haven't written before (or at least not often) along with a basket item or picture.
 
Romance isn't particularly challenging. I wrote a horror one for a previous FAWC and that was both challenging and was received well. I don't think the exercise should just be to write in a particular category, though. I think it should have some other common thread(s) required as well.

I thought the image idea was fine. Maybe write in a specific category to a specific image. If the image idea is used again, I think the image should either be copyright free or one purchased for publication (one of my publishers could do that), so that the stories could be launched as an e-book anthology. It would even work better as an anthology if there was a unified category requirement. Later next year might be a good idea with either horror or the holiday theme. These two themes do well in the marketplace. (I already have one of my Winter Holiday contest stories up in the marketplace, and it's doing a hell of a lot better there than for free here.)


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Ha! This could get really tricky if you wanted it to. Let everyone pick a set of two numbers. One is a category, one is a general concept or stipulation. FAWCer could have all the numbers and what category they correlated with, and no one would know but him. Er... her. Them.

You could pick like 1 and 5. "1" could be Sci Fi and "5" could be something general like "use theme of sports" or "a vacation gone wrong". Then you'd have to write a Sci Fi story where a couple finally got to go to the city on the moon, or some shit like that.

Of course, the authors would know all the categories and concepts that are up for grabs (because they would all prolly have a hand in creating them here on a thread) but when they choose their random numbers, its anonymous, save for FAWCer. I guess if FAWCer was a participating author, it would be entrusted to an honest soul, like I dunno, TxRad or whoever does things like that. JBJ maybe.

Ah. Just an idea.
 
What I don't find fully attractive with that (and didn't with FAWC 2) was that this isn't a unifying, comparative exercise then (how each one handles the same set of criteria). It becomes how each one handles a set of criteria unrelated to what the others are dealing with.
 
What I don't find fully attractive with that (and didn't with FAWC 2) was that this isn't a unifying, comparative exercise then (how each one handles the same set of criteria). It becomes how each one handles a set of criteria unrelated to what the others are dealing with.

Hmm. True. Of course "all in one cat" with a few stipulations or baskets would work, maybe.

Its there as a thought though. What it would be good for is further adding to the "anonymity" of the challenge.

What would be the odds you pick a number that correlated with GM? ;)
 
Romance isn't particularly challenging. I wrote a horror one for a previous FAWC and that was both challenging and was received well. I don't think the exercise should just be to write in a particular category, though. I think it should have some other common thread(s) required as well.

I thought the image idea was fine. Maybe write in a specific category to a specific image. If the image idea is used again, I think the image should either be copyright free or one purchased for publication (one of my publishers could do that), so that the stories could be launched as an e-book anthology. It would even work better as an anthology if there was a unified category requirement. Later next year might be a good idea with either horror or the holiday theme. These two themes do well in the marketplace. (I already have one of my Winter Holiday contest stories up in the marketplace, and it's doing a hell of a lot better there than for free here.)


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I like the anthology idea with a holiday theme. The copyright free or purchased image is a must, for sure.

What about Valentine's Day? How does that do in the marketplace? Using the Romance category with a specific image . . . that might be pushing it to put together and squeeze between Lit contests though.

Eh, just thoughts.
 
The doomed gentle Thai royals being fucked over in more than one way by the hung German may not appeal to most, but none of the commentators deny it’s well-written. Yet at the back of it all are deeper romantic undertones. The love of Heinrich for Krit, so powerful that he will send a sort of secret cupid-agent in to seduce Krit back to Germany. The love of Krit and Somsri, their acceptance of each other’s fucking other men, their continued attachment to each other.

Thanks for the detailed analysis of "Harmony and Dissonance." I'm enjoying your critiques of the others, as well, and hope you can give them all this treatment. (I'm guilty of the writing humongously long, run-on sentences. I'm Germanic that way. My editor tries to blast them into smaller pieces, but he can't manage them all. But it does help establish my individual voice.) And I toned down the sex (I think a reading of some of my other works shows I don't often put any stops on the sex description), because, whereas any GM in an exercise like this gets panned, one with explicit sex description would get butchered out of hand, I think.

I'll zero in on this one aspect of your critique because no one else brought it up and you've missed a bit too (while catching far more than anyone else has).

There is an acceptance between Krit and Somsri, but Somsri hasn't been fucking other men. I thought it was covered that Lars was the first man to fuck her. What should have been inferred from a close read of the story, I think, is that the relationship between Krit and Somsri transcended the sexual--their bond was in their compatible (and individually extraordinary) musical talents, and that bond was strong enough to keep them together (without sex). Somsri would have known that Krit fucked men only, and it didn't matter to her (as long as it didn't affect their musical collaboration). That she succumbed to Lars was her own weakness on the sexual level to a master predator (who is using her to get to Krit). She's not going to leave Krit, though, and Krit isn't going to leave her. I think I established that as a strong possibility at the end. While leaving it open, which I often do, to interpretation, there's no question in my mind that Krit and Somsri are not going to be broken up--that they will cling to their musical bond over their sexual needs. Somsri might (probably is--probably would even continue with Lars whenever he'd be there) be open now to sleeping with other men, of course. And I don't think there will ever be a sexual relationship between Krit and Somsri--and, if there were, it could go either way on whether that enhanced or ruined their musical bond.

I also can't say what effect the sexual tension being released and both openly accepting the other is going elsewhere for that will have on their artistic bond. A follow-up could be written on this, yes (and may be for the marketplace), taking it all in one direction or the other--but I don't think the Literotica crowd can intellectually follow or appreciate that. After all, you seem to be the first one to even consider what Krit and Somsri are up to in relationship to each other in this story. One commentator even said there was no emotion in the characters, when I think I made both Krit and Somsri sexual repression basket cases on the cusp of having a very tenuous tacit agreement strongly challenged.

One of my disappointments with the Literotica readership is the demand of some (many--and vocial) to have every story driven to a happy, all-threads-tidied-up and hammered into the reader's head conclusion. And that the characters be likeable. Doiing that all of the time, frankly, would give me the creeps and destroy my creativity.

As a background note, Krit and Somsri (as was Amnad) are written from a real couple, with that real relationship, and with the house with the studio that I described. As far as I know, though, there's no Heinrich or Lars in their lives--and it's been thirty years since I knew them, so who knows what direction they went in? (They also weren't my type, although I melded with them artistically. Sexually, I was of that fourth variety I've described in a previous post that I was presenting in the story--going after the Alpha One, Lars--with the notch on my belt of turning the head of an Alpha One as often/long as possible being all the satisfaction needed.)

On the attitude toward the servants, as you were in Thailand, and, presumably, a Westerner rather than a Thai, I think you can agree that this is precisely how Westerners--and the Thai upper class--related to the servant class--at least at the time I set this. They were there to be used and useful 24/7 and otherwise invisible. And, on the whole, they were compliant with any demands made on them. I frequently received offers from hotel bellhops and males of the underclass for sex, like it was expected for a Farang in Thailand, with many making it clear that being fucked by a Farang was a higher-level notch, and only being mollified when I told them I wasn't a top.
 
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I like the anthology idea with a holiday theme. The copyright free or purchased image is a must, for sure.

What about Valentine's Day? How does that do in the marketplace? Using the Romance category with a specific image . . . that might be pushing it to put together and squeeze between Lit contests though.

Eh, just thoughts.

There's no reason that someone's FAWC entry couldn't also be a Lit. Valentine's Day contest entry--and Romance does real well in the marketplace.
 
Thanks for the detailed analysis of "Harmony and Dissonance." I'm enjoying your critiques of the others, as well, and hope you can give them all this treatment.

Thanks for this! I was wondering if people were politely not saying anything about my crits because they were so offended by them so I should just shut up and go away. (I did come back on the board - a bit late, from a whole heap of stuff going on, in order to offer these. I don't mind if they are not helpful/interesting although I would use my time otherwise if so.)

After I posted, I wanted to say more about Somsri. I'm rushing these crits through, just jotting my thoughts down in the hopes that they get through and are useful.

I did appreciate that she was in an unusual situation: the virgin wife, who ought to have been fucked but had not been. I really liked the way you conveyed her terror and desire. I did feel an emotional bond with her, although she is a submissive, she is a ... I hesitate to use the word 'strong', I mean her character came across the page really well. I liked the depiction of the marital bond between her and Krit, how it was strong although not a sexual bond. When I said they accepted each other fucking men, I meant Krit accepted that she had had sex with Lars, maybe she would go on to have occasional (probably timid) sex with other men.

Anyway, now I must rush off - (get off my lap, kitten!). I just popped back in here to blurt in "I have ..." but in my absence the thread appears to have been submerged under other threads, LOL.
 
On Harmony and Dissonance....

Just know I mean no insult or no offense by anything that follows....

I got the theme that you titled your story after, Pilot. It was really clever, and I don't see how anyone couldn't find it in the story. It's musically titled, fitting, and the main "harmony" and dissonance" I found in the story was Somsri and Krit. That very mutual relationship you mentioned earlier was an exact match for the title, how they couldn't be a better fit but couldn't be a worse match in certain respects.

The bulk of the story just didn't move me much in one way or another. You having explained about GM stories and their categorizations of character types was indeed apparent in the story, but for me had little to do with why I didn't necessarily enjoy it.

When I mentioned in the comment about being "emotionally" detached from the characters, it didn't mean I wanted to see touchy feely emotional characters and such. Your women with penises as you put it. It's just that the way it was written didn't draw me in to anything any character was doing, any of their motivations of theirs, any feeling at all. Cold, I guess. The writing as I said was flawless... in the technical sense. By that I mean, you don't make amateur mistakes of missed commas and misspellings, incorrect word or verb forms, or any other editorial errors. By anyone's account, it's flawless and complex.

But for all its perfection, it reads kind of cold. I suppose that might match Lars's personality, but I felt like I was being told that things were happening and watching from afar, clueless to each characters true emotion, be it aggressive GM or married virgin in the water. Rather than being in the moment with them I guess. That may be why I couldn't entirely feel the scene from the pic. I could see it, and it was a great use of the scene, but I didn't feel like I was there.

Your toning down of the sex makes sense to me now. I really wanted some of your more vivid scenes, but I can kinda see why you did what you did. Still, it kinda helped to distance me from the characters.

But your theme and all that? I could see it fine. Your open ending? You did well enough to lead a reader to believe it could go this way or that, so I saw no problem there. The one thing I did get from that ending is that for all of Lars's attempts to drive a wedge between them and send Krit running back, he couldn't break through their Harmony by using their dissonance. I got the impression that he'd failed, but indeed we never know. I kinda like endings that are left open for interpretation. You're right to not be discouraged by those that do not prefer that type of ending.

Well, for what its worth, there that is. Just a bit of discussion on the story, I meant no offense. I don't think FAWC 3 is dead yet, and I like conversing with the authors on their stories.
 
Great premise, lovely romantic story, and FAWCking Heaven! some seriously hot and sensuous sex. Especially the first scene with this poor woman whose name he can’t remember.

The story is really bogged down by business though. Don’t tell us what kind of woman Lilly is – that’s like the worst Mills and Boon/Harlequin kind of writing. Let it become apparent in the way she behaves, the things she says or he says.

. . . .


You could find a beta reader? Just someone to read it through and put a big red line through all the unnecessary bits of business. It’s a nice story, just needs stripping down and it will be a real goer.

Thank you for your critique Naoko. I find the turn around with Fawc is so fast that by the time I have an idea I am writing a story in one day just to get it in on time. After my first attempt at a Fawk last time being so dismal I tried to take a little more time in editing thought not quite enough and had no time to send it to a beta reader although i have recently lost another editor to illness so I would have had to find one first. I think i sent it to Slyc with an hour to spare after bugging him with a lot of pm's questioning the timezone difference, (Sorry Slyc).

Be assured I will take what you have said on board for next time, more action - less business :D

I really do appreciate the time you and Secondcircle and possibly one other anon commentor took with really thorough critiques.
 
I thought the image idea was fine. Maybe write in a specific category to a specific image. If the image idea is used again, I think the image should either be copyright free or one purchased for publication (one of my publishers could do that), so that the stories could be launched as an e-book anthology. It would even work better as an anthology if there was a unified category requirement. [/img]

As much as I have said I wasn't a fan of this particular picture i still like the idea of a picture as a theme for a wide variety of stories. I think with so many creative and talented people here you could use a photo taken and submitted by someone here. I have a photo of a bum in a box that was delivered to work for a teaching exercise, that spawned many tales when people saw it.

Just saying why purchase or search for something the people probably have on their camera roll.
 
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When I mentioned in the comment about being "emotionally" detached from the characters, it didn't mean I wanted to see touchy feely emotional characters and such. Your women with penises as you put it. It's just that the way it was written didn't draw me in to anything any character was doing, any of their motivations of theirs, any feeling at all. Cold, I guess.

Thanks. I do understand that you don't get what I'm saying about gay males of the macho end of the scale not being women with penises (and it's fine if you can't get it). Leaving a feeling of distance and "cold" in the reader's mind is precisely correct, I think, for most of the men I was writing about in "Harmony and Dissonance." Gay male attitudes at that end are distant, narcissistic, reserved--cold, in the eyes of emotion-driven people. Real GMs at that end of the spectrum are concentrated on their cocks and getting them hard and off--based on whatever fetish they have. Their motivations are to get it off with desirable A and move on to getting it off with even more desirable B, within the context of what gives them the maximum personal satisfaction--usually without much regard to whether the other party is getting enough satisfaction too. If the other guy wants more, that will be the sign he was satisfied. Whether Alpha One gives him more is based on what Alpha One wants.

Sorry, but I think that's authentic depiction of the lifestyle in that construct.

Lars wants to please Heinrich for some reason of his own. It isn't made clear whether it's for money or some sort of other reward. It isn't likely for affection, as Lars and Heinrich will both be self-centered Alpha Ones. Beyond getting Krit back to Heinrich however he can, he's all for serving his fetish. He fucks Amnad, Krit, and Somsri to fulfill his mission. He gets more fetish satisfaction in fucking the transvestite and the various servants complying to his needs. Amnad isn't enough for him; he immediately goes out to find blood sport and a fetish lay. Krit isn't enough for him in the boat storage area; he grabs a servant or two after Krit leaves. Somsri is just a means to an end.

Amnad's just delighted that he's found an Alpha One who knows exotic sexual positions and will at least pretend to give him what he wants in the context he wants it. If Lars gave him what really turns Lars on, that's an entirely different story, which could bring a change in Amnad in one way or another. In real life, he's likely to feel raped.

So, both of these--and the transvestite and servants--are, yes, doing the "cold" thing in sex. That's what these types do. I'm not a female author trying to make a GM into the perfect domestic partner.

It's Krit who is torn between two worlds and isn't cold about any of this. If Krit has come across as cold in this story, that's where I have failed to be authentic. If the others have come across detached and "cold," then what you are reading is a real GM story told by a real GM author targeted to a real GM audience. The targeted audiences reading this realm of GM will be looking for hot connections they can fantasize about in terms of their own narcissism. They won't be looking for an apron and a duster and a kissy face when the husband arrives at the door after work.

You are looking, I think, for something that wouldn't be an authentic story in this genre--while not catching the thread inside it that is emotion and internal-struggle based. Krit doesn't really want to be gay; he wants to substitute music for sex--he'd prefer to be sexless--but he can't, at least now. He is struggling with, but being overpowered by, the need to be dominated by an Alpha One. That's the whole reason he isn't in Germany with Heinrich now.

So, I guess my frustration is that I think I'm being dinged for writing an essential element of the genre.
 
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Just saying why purchase or search for something the people probably have on their camera roll.

The main reason, I think, would be that you'd want an image that could attract as a professional book cover. That is possible to be done by an amateur photographer, but not easy. A book cover image has special needs.
 
A P.S. on the "cold," "emotionless" issue. In most instances, an Alpha One GM at his peak will hit the road at the first sign of any emotional tie being wanted by a sex partner. It's only when the Alpha One ages and loses the edge that qualifies him as Alpha One that he starts looking around to adjusting to being another type. That's usually when longer-term relationships, emotions, and domestic partners start entering his mind.

One aspect of this that I find pretty funny is that much of the criticism by women of men's (inadequate) emotional responses to them surfaces much the same--that men are cold, emotionless, concentrating on their own pleasure and on getting off. So, an interesting discussion would be how much these GM types are acting to that GM type and how much they are just being naturally male--in a purely honest form.
 
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Witty and hard-edged. A convincing story which we are willing to suspend disbelief to go along with. The background on flying is excellent.

The sex was a bit cerebral, as if the characters were thinking about it – or sometimes (Jasmine) thinking about other things like their revenge on Tenley, rather than getting into the moment. There were times when it was listed rather than described too. Those parts could be filled in (ho ho) some more to good effect, especially with some feeling, and people losing their sense of the world around them, the revenge they wanted to get, it’s all gone in a blissful rush of hot orgasmic pleasure.

The splitting off into different sections from different POVs didn’t quite work at first, I was wondering what was going on. Is there a way to make it more evident to the reader that this is what will be happening? Perhaps bring one of the stewardesses into the cabin with drinks and write from her POV so it’s clear it won’t all be written from one POV?

I wasn’t sure at the end – is Petersen’s wife going to get off with Tenley? I liked the suggestive way this was written. The characters are all pretty superficial about their swinging sex life! but that is the premise of the story, apart from Petersen who does it but feels guilty about it. I liked that characterisation, too.

This one was mine. Thanks for the review. The storyline popped out at me as soon as I saw the image because the setting is very much like a gay male beach resort south of Phatayya Beach in Thailand that was popular with commercial airline pilots and stewards (and both Thai and U.S. Air Force men) who were so inclined to to rendezvous at during layovers (I was piloting at the time, but not commercially). It just all sort of fell into place. I moved it to Malaysia because I was using Thailand for "Harmony and Dissonance." It was a place for shallow swinging and hookups, and that's what I wanted the story to convey, so I'm happy that's the impression you got. I made it a straight story, though. The GM version would have been steamier. The straight version was mostly to be a "who's on first?" romp with a twisted tail.

I'll have to look at it more closely to see what the POV problem is. I wrote it in third person changing POVs because that seemed necessary to establish and maintain the questioning in the reader's mind on who is doing what. I think that's the way Shakespeare did it.

Whether Peterson's wife goes with Tenley is up to the reader, but I rather think that she either does (I thought I established that she was attracted to him--and that Peterson deserves to be cuckolded, if only mildly deserves it) or that he at least will make the attempt--if he's going to stay in character. I didn't close it out on that point both because I like to leave some imagination room for the reader and because it's in the nature of the story, I think, that it will just keep on spinning--and that just about everyone is up for the games even if to different degrees.
 
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Thank you for your critique Naoko. I find the turn around with Fawc is so fast that by the time I have an idea I am writing a story in one day just to get it in on time. After my first attempt at a Fawk last time being so dismal I tried to take a little more time in editing thought not quite enough and had no time to send it to a beta reader although i have recently lost another editor to illness so I would have had to find one first. I think i sent it to Slyc with an hour to spare after bugging him with a lot of pm's questioning the timezone difference, (Sorry Slyc).

Be assured I will take what you have said on board for next time, more action - less business :D

I really do appreciate the time you and Secondcircle and possibly one other anon commentor took with really thorough critiques.

You are welcome! I think I did offer to edit your first FAWC story, and I would like to offer on this one too but right now I am up to my ears in real life and can barely make it on the board to post a tease.

This was truly a great premise. Men sacrificing love/family life for work: "but I did it all for you", is a real big theme and it's great to see a story raising it.
:rose:

Gosh, I have put in a special effort and managed to finish reading all the stories! I did guess one or two of the authors, even though I'm still not quite sure who entered, LOL. I really hope to put a story in myself next time :).
 
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