"Becoming his Prison Bitch"

I've been looking for more feedback for this story in particular, as it is what I'm working on most actively at the moment.

It is the story of an effeminate man who lands himself in prison, and in the cell of a strong, dominant, alpha male who turns him into a proper bitch.

(LINK in my sig)

Let me know what you think. The comments, while wonderful, have been less as the story progresses and not enough to give me an idea of whether I'm going in the right direction.

You've drastically changed the category (and thus the reader set) in the series and you've gotten a good rating and some favorable comments anyway. I think you've probably already gotten more feedback that could have been expected and are sitting fine with what you have.

KeithD said:

You've drastically changed the category (and thus the reader set) in the series and you've gotten a good rating and some favorable comments anyway. I think you've probably already gotten more feedback that could have been expected and are sitting fine with what you have.

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This is exactly what I mean that I'm missing. I want to have a discussion and I can't do that in comments.

Was is that drastic of a change?

Aren't the first two chapters in Nonconsent and the most recent one in Gay Male? Those are drastically different in use of categories here. Totally different readerships. You have three comments on the GM chapter and a Hot rating. GM readers don't generally comment as much as some of the other categories. They come, read, and leave, all as anonymously as they can do--in general.

KeithD said:

Aren't the first two chapters in Nonconsent and the most recent one in Gay Male? Those are drastically different in use of categories here. Totally different readerships. You have three comments on the GM chapter and a Hot rating. GM readers don't generally comment as much as some of the other categories. They come, read, and leave, all as anonymously as they can do--in general.

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Thank.uou for the insight. I did go gay male but had plans to bounce back to non-con purely because of the content of the story. Are you saying that it would develop a more consistent base if I left it in non-con even though the general content is less non-con for the chapter?

LittleKay said:

Thank.uou for the insight. I did go gay male but had plans to bounce back to non-con purely because of the content of the story. Are you saying that it would develop a more consistent base if I left it in non-con even though the general content is less non-con for the chapter?

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My point was that Gay Male is almost exclusively kept separate from the other categories here and takes precedence as a category of choice--if it contains male-on-male sex, readers of that go to Gay Male to find it--and quite often readers dump on it if they find male-on-male sex anywhere but GM here. Thus, the readership is split off the top if you split the categories of chapters in a series as you have.

Your story looks absolutely Gay Male to me, and I would have placed it there from the beginning to catch the readers primarily looking for gay male content (and others not wanting to see it anywhere else). This bears out in the ratings. The two you put in Nonconsent are in the 4.30 range. The one in GM is 4.61 currently. I think you are just very lucky there don't appear (unless you erased the comments) to have been readers outraged you put any of it in Nonconsent and dumped on it for being there.

I'm surprised, as well, that Laurel didn't put the first two chapters in GM (where I think you would have gotten higher ratings). She retains the right to locate and I've seen her direct male-on-male to GM before.

The drop in readership as the series progresses doesn't surprise me. That's the natural progression with series here. It also doesn't surprise me that chapter three has such a drop in readers. GM readers will see the series for the first time starting with chapter three and a lot of them won't have bothered to start reading a story at chapter three or to go back to dig out the earlier chapters posted to a different category. This is another, natural, problem for the author in jumping around the categories with a series.

The upshot is that, no, I wouldn't go back to posting chapters of this to Nonconsent. I think you've found the proper place for it in GM. This is a male-on-male sex story series. Not much you can do about the series being split drastically across categories at this point, though. A lot of readers aren't going to backtrack to recover anything from the past.

KeithD said:

My point was that Gay Male is almost exclusively kept separate from the other categories here and takes precedence as a category of choice--if it contains male-on-male sex, readers of that go to Gay Male to find it--and quite often readers dump on it if they find male-on-male sex anywhere but GM here. Thus, the readership is split off the top if you split the categories of chapters in a series as you have.

Your story looks absolutely Gay Male to me, and I would have placed it there from the beginning to catch the readers primarily looking for gay male content (and others not wanting to see it anywhere else). This bears out in the ratings. The two you put in Nonconsent are in the 4.30 range. The one in GM is 4.61 currently. I think you are just very lucky there don't appear (unless you erased the comments) to have been readers outraged you put any of it in Nonconsent and dumped on it for being there.

I'm surprised, as well, that Laurel didn't put the first two chapters in GM (where I think you would have gotten higher ratings). She retains the right to locate and I've seen her direct male-on-male to GM before.

The drop in readership as the series progresses doesn't surprise me. That's the natural progression with series here. It also doesn't surprise me that chapter three has such a drop in readers. GM readers will see the series for the first time starting with chapter three and a lot of them won't have bothered to start reading a story at chapter three or to go back to dig out the earlier chapters posted to a different category. This is another, natural, problem for the author in jumping around the categories with a series.

The upshot is that, no, I wouldn't go back to posting chapters of this to Non-consent. I think you've found the proper place for it in GM. This is a male-on-male sex story series. Not much you can do about the series being split drastically across categories at this point, though. A lot of readers aren't going to backtrack to recover anything from the past.

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It is very easy to jump to older chapters though, as all you need to do is click the users profile or scroll to the bottom of the last page and click ch 1. There's not much digging needed.

Even chapter 2 has less readers than ch 1. To be honest from my point of view, logically, its expected as you're not going to read ch 3 if you haven't read or didn't like ch 1.

I haven't had anyone crap on me about the story being "in the wrong category", I actually expected more crap about my portrayal of prison if anything else (I've had people tell me "don't write what you don't know" when I accidentally used hay instead of straw as bedding in my farm story in a single sentence and that I did delete, but no real complaints about "Becoming his Prison Bitch")

The first and second chapters are quite non-con if you read it, and the main character does fight against it until chapter 3, in which he gives into his situation and comes to enjoy his place. I've seen others flip flop as well.

You asked why you weren't getting what you anticipated/wanted, and I answered on the basis of experience with over 900 GM stories posted here. Your story is clearly GM. It's up to you on what you do/don't do with the advice. I'm not going to argue with you.

Sorry if it came off that way. But I'm not arguing. I'm having a discussion. Just because I'm not accepting your word as gospel and bowing down to it doesn't mean i'm not taking in the information.

I can see your member tag, I can see you have experience. but I'm seeking to understand it better as a new member to the site.

So please, feel free to take your "I'm experienced so don't question me" high and mighty crap somewhere else.

KeithD said:

You asked why you weren't getting what you anticipated/wanted, and I answered on the basis of experience with over 900 GM stories posted here. Your story is clearly GM. It's up to you on what you do/don't do with the advice. I'm not going to argue with you.

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And also, I did not ask why I wasn't getting feedback. I was asking for a place to discuss feedback if anyone wanted to read my story and talk about it with me here. Despite having over 900 submissions as you say, your reading comprehension skills need some work.

Pilot doesn't read stories or give feedback. You're not going to get that from him.

I'll try to read this as soon as I can, but no promises on how long that will take.

AwkwardMD said:

Pilot doesn't read stories or give feedback. You're not going to get that from him.

I'll try to read this as soon as I can, but no promises on how long that will take.

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I would be fine with feedback on how the site worked if there was discussion and not just telling involved. Or you know, if they didn't try twisting my original intent.

Read it on your own time! I appreciate that you want to. Thanks <3

AwkwardMD said:

Pilot doesn't read stories or give feedback. You're not going to get that from him.

I'll try to read this as soon as I can, but no promises on how long that will take.

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Reported. You just can't stop backbiting, can you?

I read this series. As I noted, it is directly GM. Try to justify to me that it isn't. (Ironically, you're commenting without having read the story. Exactly what you've falsely accused me of doing.)

KeithD said:

Reported. You just can't stop backbiting, can you?

I read this series. As I noted, it is directly GM. Try to justify to me that it isn't. (Ironically, you're commenting without having read the story. Exactly what you've falsely accused me of doing.)

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And I've reported you because you've totally derailed the intent of my thread and are being rude to someone who wasn't even talking to you. Please go away.

KeithD said:

Reported. You just can't stop backbiting, can you?

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I don't think you understand what backbiting is, or how forums work. I made a public post in a public thread.

What you've demonstrated above is that you read the author's posted works list and think that miscategorization is an issue. You also think that Kay should be happy with what they have in terms of rating and number of comments. You have not demonstrated any knowledge of the characters, style, plot, or provided what the OP asked for: feedback on the content of the story.

AwkwardMD said:

I don't think you understand what backbiting is, or how forums work. I made a public post in a public thread.

What you've demonstrated above is that you read the author's posted works list and think that miscategorization is an issue. You also think that Kay should be happy with what they have in terms of rating and number of comments. You have not demonstrated any knowledge of the characters, style, plot, or provided what the OP asked for: feedback on the content of the story.

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Reported.

Okay, I have read the first part of your story and found it very well crafted. Of course, the piece did paint a somewhat unrealistic portrait of prison reality...but I think that was well within artistic license and absolutely necessary for such a setting. The capitulation might have been somewhat rushed, but again...this is erotic fiction...so no big deal...and actually I thought you spent enough time showing the results of failing to submit enough to make it real. I'm not convinced a presumably straight man is going to become aroused as he's being processed into prison...or that the first time a man is raped he instantly loves it and wants more...but once again, this is short story on an erotic story site, and you used this to show his weakness... so not a biggy.

In regard to the controversy about category: I have to agree with SR71/Kieth that this is 100% gay content from start to finish. The non-consent issues are side fetishes that support the gay theme. I have several such scenes of "being forced" to accept yourself scenarios in my gay stories.

I'm busy with my own new story at the moment, but will try to get back to yours soon...it's a good story and in my opinion deserves a higher rating...which again, goes back to Kieth's comments. But life is all about learning and at least you now know why the scores and comments might have fallen below your expectations...

yukonnights said:

Okay, I have read the first part of your story and found it very well crafted. Of course, the piece did paint a somewhat unrealistic portrait of prison reality...but I think that was well within artistic license and absolutely necessary for such a setting. The capitulation might have been somewhat rushed, but again...this is erotic fiction...so no big deal...and actually I thought you spent enough time showing the results of failing to submit enough to make it real. I'm not convinced a presumably straight man is going to become aroused as he's being processed into prison...or that the first time a man is raped he instantly loves it and wants more...but once again, this is short story on an erotic story site, and you used this to show his weakness... so not a biggy.

In regard to the controversy about category: I have to agree with SR71/Kieth that this is 100% gay content from start to finish. The non-consent issues are side fetishes that support the gay theme. I have several such scenes of "being forced" to accept yourself scenarios in my gay stories.

I'm busy with my own new story at the moment, but will try to get back to yours soon...it's a good story and in my opinion deserves a higher rating...which again, goes back to Kieth's comments. But life is all about learning and at least you now know why the scores and comments might have fallen below your expectations...

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I appreciate your feedback!

Stretching out stories is actually a weakness of mine, if it feels rushed, perhaps it is because I feel as if, were it stretched out, it would be a lot of forced nothing. But I am trying to take it a bit slower in this chapter and beyond since everything is set up. From what you say, that's a good idea.

First of all, let me clarify that the following is just my opinion. I am one random woman on my internet. I am not a professional writer. I am not a professional editor. I am not successful. The points I’m going to make do not come from a “Keys to success” list that will guarantee you riches and fame. My opinion should only count for exactly that much: the opinion of one person.

Secondly, I want to put aside the issue of categorization. On the one hand I almost agree with Pilot in that this is not a non-con story. Stories that hinge on consent, one way or the other, are stories about power dynamics. This isn’t that. Really this is more of a story of self-discovery like Eat, Pray, Love but in the other direction. There isn’t a category for self-discovery. I only read the first two chapters, but it seems like the long term direction of the story might fit the Transgendered/Crossdressing most appropriately, but none of them are really adequate for what you’re trying to do here.


***

Being a good author requires two distinct skillsets: Writing and Storytelling. We’ll start with writing.

This story could use an editor, or at least a good beta reader. There are some homonym errors and some basic typos. There was one time where you referred to Kendall as Randall. I don’t want to get into the nuts of bolts of this because any in-depth discussion of mistakes like this turns into an unreadable nitpicky mess. Suffice it to say that if I were to edit this document, I would bring a fresh red pen to the table.

On a similar but related note, I think you would benefit from some minor formatting changes regarding your paragraphs. There are no hard rules about the length of a paragraph, but it is generally accepted that they should not be less than four sentences. Five, six, or seven sentences is entirely possible if some of the sentences are shorter or on the uncomplicated side. By comparison, in Chapter Two I counted two that had thirteen or more sentences.

On its own, sentence count in a paragraph is not technically a problem, but a wall of text can be daunting to a reader. Speaking personally, I can get lost in a paragraph that size given the small font that Literotica uses and will need to re-read sections. I’m certainly not suggesting that you dumb down your work or cater to the nearly blind, but there is probably a happy middle ground where your word packs are being formed in bite-sized chunks. That’s why we make paragraphs in the first place.

(A)When writing a paragraph in which a character has dialogue surrounded by narration, do not include dialogue from other characters. Break that off into different paragraphs. Spacing between paragraphs/lines is an understood code for ‘the speaker has changed’. (B)Likewise, if one character is going to continue to speak, it is generally accepted that all of one characters speech be kept together so that it is clear who is saying what at all times.

There are plenty of exceptions to A and B, and many reasons you would want to subvert those expectations for your own purposes. Master the basics first before you try to turn the literary world on its head.

‘Writing’ is a tough sell in terms of improving yourself because there are diminishing returns. On the one hand, given the subject material most readers won’t care about a few mistakes. They just want to get off. On the other hand, if you work hard and improve you will rapidly exceed the grasp of grammar held by the population at large (ie, no one will notice once you finally make something that is literally perfect which can make the effort feel like a waste (unless your goal is to sit around and brag about how great you are at grammaring)).

To me, writing is the delivery car and storytelling is the pizza. It’s possible that the writing is so atrocious that it breaks down completely and nobody ever gets to taste the delicious things you cooked up, so you definitely want to reach a certain level. On the flip side, pizza delivered by a reliable Toyota Camry tastes exactly the same as if it was delivered by a Lamborghini. Writing can’t fix bad storytelling.

***

Judging the taste of pizza is an entirely subjective process. I absolutely love Pizza Hut, and I don’t know anyone else personally who does. I’m going to do my best to give you objective feedback about the content of the story, but this should always be taken with a grain of salt.

One of the problems I run into when giving feedback on serialized (read: multi-chapter) stories is that authors will ask for feedback after a certain point, receive it, and then try to implement it midstream. That’s not a good plan. There are some things I’m going to point out that you can change, but a lot of this is groundwork stuff. You already missed your window. These are things you should try to apply (assuming you agree with my assessments) on the next story.

Point the first Lexus is an entirely passive character.

He has no desire, no goal, no needs, and no wants. Yes, technically, he wants to ‘survive’, but every human being does that every day. This crosses the line between a relatable condition and a basic fact of existence. Lexus is so thin that he has no personality except for what DC eventually gives him.

In the beginning of chapter 2, there is a perfect microcosm of this problem. When Lexus wakes up, “memories flood his mind” or something. This sentence is worded passively, which is always a thing to avoid, but more importantly, within the context of this sentence, Lexus is the victim and the memories are the aggressor. He’s so powerless and lacking in agency that his own subconscious is abusing him. This is our hero.

Because Lexus has no drive of his own, he (and the plot) is (are) at the whim of other characters. The secondary and tertiary characters of your story are defining the direction, and that’s a bad trend. Luke Skywalker is a compelling protagonist because he wants to fight the Empire. Over time, he learns that what he needs to do is let the Empire defeat itself.

Human beings have wants and needs. Those wants and needs compel us (read: motivations) to do things, and it is the doing of those things that makes our stories interesting. By comparison, the role of Lexus could be played by a fleshlight and very little would change (think about it).

In my opinion (and mine is not the only one), truly great stories are born when needs and wants conflict. I want a better car/better status symbol so I start working more hours at work to afford it but that leaves my husband at home alone more often and he cheats on me and when I find out I cheat on him but it feels hollow I realize that what I really need in my life is my family. That is a horrendous run-on, true, but the plot that evolves from this basic mission statement is informed by the characters. It comes to life effortlessly rather than being a series of co-existing tropes and cliches.

Point the second Baffling decisions.

It is pretty obvious that you haven’t been to prison. In about the third paragraph of this story, we see that Lexus is only ‘pretty sure’ that he is innocent. No innocent person staring down the barrel of jail time is anything less than positive about that fact.

Jail is not a setting that lends itself to romantic endeavors. In order to make this work as a setting, you had to turn jail into a hypersexual parody of itself.

I want to write a story about a soccer team, except that I don’t know anything about soccer. Instead, I think I’m going to make them use an oblong, brown ball with big white laces. Yeah. And… instead of 10 players per side how about 12 per team. Instead of players playing offense and defense at any given moment, I’m going to introduce more regimented possession so that sometimes you are on offense and there are changes that have to happen before you switch to defense. Yeah. It’ll be the greatest soccer story ever told.

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“Write what you know” is good basic advice, and it applies here, but using jail is only one of the many choices that exist AND don’t seem to matter. Having Lexus be the victim of reverse racism is a completely useless aspect of the story. Showing us the courtroom scene in the beginning tells us nothing. Lexi’s crime, regardless of whether or not he did it, could have huge implications on the inside, but it is neither mentioned nor relevant. You could begin this story when Lexus shows up at the prison and loose nothing.

Be ruthless when you are conceptualizing a story. Carve out anything that doesn’t matter, and think through the things that do.

Point the third There is no plot.

The vast majority of this story involves the following pattern.


<loop>
Character B tells Character A that Thing 1 is going to happen.
Character A frets about Thing 1.
Character A can’t decide if he can handle Thing 1.
Character A is afraid of Thing 1.
Character B inflicts Thing 1 on Character A.
It’s not so bad.
Thing 1 happens again.
Thing 1 + 1 //becomes Thing 2, etc
<repeat>

Too much time is spent handwringing and worrying and oh dear and poor me and what will happen next? A plot is not a series of things that occur. It is a cohesive, progressive, organic being that thrives off of its characters. It can bring them together or push them apart, but it always does something.

This has no life.

Point the fourth You have room to improve. So does everyone.

Keep creating. Everyone should be so lucky as to have an outlet as good as writing for emotional and mental health. You asking for feedback here seems like a sign that you want to improve, so I tried to point out some areas for you to work on. It’s not my style to hold hands and tell everyone that what they’re doing is good enough.

Feedback is great, but no one is going to be able to teach you better than you can teach yourself. Read the writing of others critically rather than just enjoying it for the escapism, and ask yourself questions as you go. Who are these characters? Do I like them? Does that matter? Why are they doing these things? Do those things they’re doing matter?

It seems like you have a few stories under your belt, and that’s fantastic. Keep going.

AwkwardMD said:

First of all, let me clarify that the following is just my opinion. I am one random woman on my internet. I am not a professional writer. I am not a professional editor. I am not successful. The points I’m going to make do not come from a “Keys to success” list that will guarantee you riches and fame. My opinion should only count for exactly that much: the opinion of one person.....

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And...you are far too humble! I'm going to copy all of this so I can find it and read it from time to time. Thank you for taking the time and effort to share this ~

PS: How have I missed finding your stories until now I think I need to get out of the house more often!

There was something I wanted to mention that I forgot in my earlier post, and it hit me this morning. It specifically relates to Point the First. I feel like I see entirely passive protagonists often when writers are trying to write a character who is very submissive. Their submissiveness (read: passivity) is a function of their nature, and it takes someone else to come along and be their dominant to give their life(read: story) purpose and direction.

That’s not an excuse. You would be hard pressed to find a submissive who has no wants or desires of their own, and it gets into dangerous waters to write them as otherwise empty vessels. Be careful conflating a submissive person’s desire for someone else to take the lead in the bedroom with a passive characters desire for someone to take the lead in their whole life.

The biggest exception to this is something I’ve seen referred to as a TPE, or Total Power Exchange. TPE is a whole thing between a dominant and submissive that doesn’t just happen by accident, and it isn’t something you should default to because your submissive protagonist has no flavor of their own.

On the one hand, I am ardently opposed to the idea that you need to portray a certain kink in a certain light because people who identify with or enjoy that kink will feel slighted. Creative freedom is important. On the other hand, Lexus does not read like a person. He’s two dimensional at best. Authors should always strive to write about fully-formed people because that’s your target audience: other people. The fantasy comes from empathy and/or self-insertion, where the reader visualizes the action you describe from any number of mental angles. It’s only a matter of time until a two dimensional character looks as flat as they are.

So to start off to say that I respect your technical input, it has been wonderful to read.

So the issue though, that I have is that at this point in thee story, Lexus doesn't have wants, aside from freedom. His identity in his imprisonment is solely based on what he doesn't want, and what Darian does want. He becomes more bold by the third chapter in his lust for Darian but it was born solely from his desire to survive and there's not much beyond that. His life is on the outside. He is not in a dominant/submissive relationship, he is in an ownership. Even if he stopped for a moment, his desires would not be more than what Darian would want and so there is no room for him to have them.

Once (spoiler, if you care) Darian is removed from the picture, Lexus will be in a deal more danger but able to express his self autonomy a bit more. Once he is out entirely, he will have the luxury of having wants and desires.

The fact that things are happening to him and not with him or as a product of his wants or needs isn't an accident, or a result of being unable to create a 3D character. It's a result of him being a victim in this system that he is not playing very well.