Best Friends Forever

Kantarii

I'm Not A Bitch!
Joined
May 9, 2016
Posts
9,360
I’m looking for a little honest feedback on my newest storyline “Best Friends Forever”. It’s in the Transexual/Cross dresser category where it belongs, but I thought it would be nice to get some input from people that don’t necessarily read that category. The story is being drawn from my diary and love letters between myself and my best friend, digging into my younger days of being a transvestite when I dated guys right after my college days. I do plan on submitting an edit of it before I move onto the second chapter. 🌹Kant👠👠👠

https://www.literotica.com/s/best-friends-forever-pt-01
 
Hey!!

I loved it! I think you should keep going with it. I won't bore you with the usual grammatical crap people rip me over, you've said you're going to edit it. But I think it's a great start to some fun work. That's what it always takes. An idea that you can chase down the rabbit hole!!!

I've read a couple of your stories and when my life calms down, I plan to read all of them. I've started a trans story of my own on my other profile, enobeson. I struggle because it's something I know little about, but I try.

I'll give you feedback s I work through your stories!! You have a lot to catch up with!!!
 
I’m looking for a little honest feedback on my newest storyline “Best Friends Forever”. It’s in the Transexual/Cross dresser category where it belongs, but I thought it would be nice to get some input from people that don’t necessarily read that category. The story is being drawn from my diary and love letters between myself and my best friend, digging into my younger days of being a transvestite when I dated guys right after my college days. I do plan on submitting an edit of it before I move onto the second chapter. 🌹Kant👠👠👠

https://www.literotica.com/s/best-friends-forever-pt-01

I really enjoyed this story too - looking forward to reading more. :)
 
Hey!!

I loved it! I think you should keep going with it. I won't bore you with the usual grammatical crap people rip me over, you've said you're going to edit it. But I think it's a great start to some fun work. That's what it always takes. An idea that you can chase down the rabbit hole!!!

I've read a couple of your stories and when my life calms down, I plan to read all of them. I've started a trans story of my own on my other profile, enobeson. I struggle because it's something I know little about, but I try.

I'll give you feedback s I work through your stories!! You have a lot to catch up with!!!

As far as my older work, I’m a much better writer now than when I first started, slowing down to actually think through what kind of story I wish to tell. “A Slut’s Triangle” currently stands as my best work; however, “once I reedit “My Brother’s Ghost” sometime in the Spring, I’m sure it will rival my best writing. The storyline actually has better potential since I really love murder/mysteries and ghost stories. I want to bring “My Brother’s Ghost” up to my current writing style. Eventually, I will do the same with “The Diablo Masquerade”.

Glad you enjoyed my story. It was a lot of fun reading through my old diary and shoebox of love letters between me and Brian.
 
I really enjoyed this story too - looking forward to reading more. :)

I am so glad you enjoyed my story🌹I am busy finishing up editing on the 2nd chapter of “Best Friends Forever”. Hopefully, I will have it posted in time to be read on Lit by Friday or Saturday this week
💋Kant 👠👠👠
 
I would have guessed, having read this, that I was reading non-fiction. Non-fiction is an entirely different beast than fiction. In non-fiction, you as the author are at the mercy of events as they happened. It is your job to be a transparent entity in the process, sharing things in a beat-by-beat fashion that honors something by portraying it honestly.

Fiction, on the other hand, places the author on the other side of events. The author is not a transparent layer between the reader and the story, but instead, the story should be an opaque layer between the reader and the author. A reader should only see the story, and the author has complete autonomy to shape that story however they see fit. You are the wizard, and nobody should look behind the curtain.

Often when I read fiction drawn from actual events, I see this problem where the story is not able to be encapsulated within the story. It often presents as a pacing problem, because real life tends to happen much slower than in stories, or a scope problem, where the real beginning of a story is much earlier than where the story starts, but the real problem is that the author does not understand, truely, that they are in charge of the story.

I've known Brian most all of my life, growing up as the closest of best friends and doing most everything together. In my eyes, he's the older brother I never had, joking and picking on me in good fun. In some ways, I'm jealous of him, his popularity and luck with women but, then again, he was a star on Newnan High School's football team and I kept to myself in the library. With just a fraction of his luck, things might've turned out different for me - but it's doubtful

This paragraph, and the couple that follow it, are a perfect example of non-fiction give up. This is you saying, "I don't know how to put all this backstory in my story, so here it is in a flashback." It feels, to me, like you don't appreciate the power you have to make it so that all of that information is given to us in the story. It feels like you are stuck honoring the course of events.

Instead of telling us Brian used to hook you up with his cast-off exes, have Brian ask you about one and then spend 4 lines of dialogue discussing this pattern of behavior. Instead of telling us he is like a big brother to you, have him admit to feeling uncomfortable asking you for help since he usually ends up being the one that looks out for you.

This is your story. You own it. It does not own you.
 
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I would have guessed, having read this, that I was reading non-fiction. Non-fiction is an entirely different beast than fiction. In non-fiction, you as the author are at the mercy of events as they happened. It is your job to be a transparent entity in the process, sharing things in a beat-by-beat fashion that honors something by portraying it honestly.

Fiction, on the other hand, places the author on the other side of events. The author is not a transparent layer between the reader and the story, but instead, the story should be an opaque layer between the reader and the author. A reader should only see the story, and the author has complete autonomy to shape that story however they see fit. You are the wizard, and nobody should look behind the curtain.

Often when I read fiction drawn from actual events, I see this problem where the story is not able to be encapsulated within the story. It often presents as a pacing problem, because real life tends to happen much slower than in stories, or a scope problem, where the real beginning of a story is much earlier than where the story starts, but the real problem is that the author does not understand, truely, that they are in charge of the story.



This paragraph, and the couple that follow it, are a perfect example of non-fiction give up. This is you saying, "I don't know how to put all this backstory in my story, so here it is in a flashback." It feels, to me, like you don't appreciate the power you have to make it so that all of that information is given to us in the story. It feels like you are stuck honoring the course of events.

Instead of telling us Brian used to hook you up with his cast-off exes, have Brian ask you about one and then spend 4 lines of dialogue discussing this pattern of behavior. Instead of telling us he is like a big brother to you, have him admit to feeling uncomfortable asking you for help since he usually ends up being the one that looks out for you.

This is your story. You own it. It does not own you.

This is an interesting observation. I actually used this section early in the chapter for that very reason - to give a little backstory and pay tribute to some historical events that I will reveal in chapter 3. I get what you are saying. I have mapped out a conversation between Brian and Kevin that discusses Brian’s match making with Kevin. Thanks for the insight🌹
 
I've read your work before. In the technical sense, what I'm talking about is show don't tell, but I've seen you show beautifully. This here is a special exception brought on, I think, largely by the circumstances of your own personal past and not any inherent flaw in your style.
 
Surprisingly chapter 4 of “Best Friends Forever” is doing better than I thought, so I thought I’d give the thread a bump to see what people thought about it. It’s a bit different in a sense from the previous chapters. In a way, I felt like it was a bit boring even though it was difficult and complex to write.

There’s no easy way to approach a best friend of the same gender and express one’s feeling of love for them.
 
all of that information is given to us in the story.

I once violated this rule so badly I gave up and lampshaded it, and had the 1st person narrator say, “Let me stop the story and just tell you something.” :eek:
 
I once violated this rule so badly I gave up and lampshaded it, and had the 1st person narrator say, “Let me stop the story and just tell you something.” :eek:

Lol. I had something similar, where my first person narrator got bored doing a bit of world building, and handed over to my third person narrator for a while - chapter segues all present and correct. My beta correctly spotted it, but said, yeah it kinda works, leave it.

I'll be interested to see how many call me out, when it finally goes live.
 
Surprisingly chapter 4 of “Best Friends Forever” is doing better than I thought, so I thought I’d give the thread a bump to see what people thought about it. It’s a bit different in a sense from the previous chapters. In a way, I felt like it was a bit boring even though it was difficult and complex to write.

There’s no easy way to approach a best friend of the same gender and express one’s feeling of love for them.

I enjoy this story. I think it's doing well, because you manage to put across the yearning and the honest desire, and the insecurity of revealing yourself to someone you love. Those are themes most people can relate to.
 
I once violated this rule so badly I gave up and lampshaded it, and had the 1st person narrator say, “Let me stop the story and just tell you something.” :eek:

I didn't know the term 'lampshade'. This place has been a daily education.
 
I enjoy this story. I think it's doing well, because you manage to put across the yearning and the honest desire, and the insecurity of revealing yourself to someone you love. Those are themes most people can relate to.

It’s all part of making the characters in the story believable. You hit upon a key point, though. If I can’t relate to the characters in a story, it’s hard for me to finish reading it.🌹
 
It’s all part of making the characters in the story believable. You hit upon a key point, though. If I can’t relate to the characters in a story, it’s hard for me to finish reading it.🌹

Likewise writing characters. If I can't relate to my characters, they don't get written and a story stops, dead in the water. I find I have to have a kernel of truth somewhere, however small, and however fantastic the situation, or the character won't become real in my head. I regularly fall in love with my heroines - if I don't, nobody else will!
 
Likewise writing characters. If I can't relate to my characters, they don't get written and a story stops, dead in the water. I find I have to have a kernel of truth somewhere, however small, and however fantastic the situation, or the character won't become real in my head. I regularly fall in love with my heroines - if I don't, nobody else will!

There’s more than a mustard seed of truth in your words🌹
 
Likewise writing characters. If I can't relate to my characters, they don't get written and a story stops, dead in the water. I find I have to have a kernel of truth somewhere, however small, and however fantastic the situation, or the character won't become real in my head. I regularly fall in love with my heroines - if I don't, nobody else will!

I think your co-heroes are more interesting, personally.
 
And curiously, more so the male co-leads. "More so?" - who are we kidding here? "Totally so." Just so the auto-correct doesn't get confused.

Now see, I’m just the opposite, my supporting female characters are a lot more interesting than their male counterparts.
 
Just wanna bump the thread and let those that critiqued my last chapter know that the newest chapter is posted.

https://www.literotica.com/s/best-friends-forever-pt-05

There’s a little sexual tension, some soft seduction, and the early stages of submission in the chapter. It’s a bit more than I normally write for a chapter and I thought about breaking it in half. Doing so, however, just didn’t feel right. Taking the chapter to an intermission point allowed me to capture a majority of the emotions I wanted to highlight from my diary of the events as they unfolded.

Since the chapter holds a special place in my heart, I put the extra time into getting everything right. Still, I’m sure there are flaws in it I may have missed. Would love to hear what others thought reading this piece.

By the way, it’s TG/CD material 🌹Kant👠👠👠
 
This chapter has perfect pacing. Absolutely perfect.

I wish I could convince you to abandon the passive voice phrase "Thoughts flood/surge my mind." Passive voice makes it appear like this is being done to you, externalizing the source of these images and memories. It is one thing to be at the mercy of nostalgia, but something else entirely to have no say in the matter.

"I can't help but to succumb to a torrent of thoughts and fantasies long wished for and never granted" says the same thing, but it does it in a way where the protagonist is complicit in their part in the internal action.

Owning the action, even an action of submission, is always more powerful than being the victim of action.

That is a very minor quibble in the grand scheme of things. Overall this was a very strong, emotionally honest chapter full of real emotions and powerful portrayals of naked desire. I thought that ending the chapter with a coy wink about more coming was unneccessary and disjointed with the tone of the rest of the chapter, but the first 99% of it was extremely solid.
 
This chapter has perfect pacing. Absolutely perfect.

I wish I could convince you to abandon the passive voice phrase "Thoughts flood/surge my mind." Passive voice makes it appear like this is being done to you, externalizing the source of these images and memories. It is one thing to be at the mercy of nostalgia, but something else entirely to have no say in the matter.

"I can't help but to succumb to a torrent of thoughts and fantasies long wished for and never granted" says the same thing, but it does it in a way where the protagonist is complicit in their part in the internal action.

Owning the action, even an action of submission, is always more powerful than being the victim of action.

That is a very minor quibble in the grand scheme of things. Overall this was a very strong, emotionally honest chapter full of real emotions and powerful portrayals of naked desire. I thought that ending the chapter with a coy wink about more coming was unneccessary and disjointed with the tone of the rest of the chapter, but the first 99% of it was extremely solid.

Solid advice. I’m going to take a look at the chapter again before I start work on the next and tweak the ending a little to make it flow better into the next chapter. I’ll look at the aforementioned suggestions as well. Thanks. I really poured my heart out to convey the emotions required for the chapter to keep them authentic and believable as possible🌹Kant👠👠👠
 
Okay, so I haven’t visited this thread in a couple of months. I took a hard look at some of the advice a few people suggested and tried my best to work it into my writing style on my latest chapter. Chapter 5 was a pure emotional endeavor for that chapter whereas my latest chapter was an experiment in creating a visual experience for the reader to feast upon in certain areas. Overall, I am pleased with how my latest chapter turned out by the time I posted it. For those, that would like to check it out and offer constructive feedback, it is most appreciated🌹Kant
Story link:
https://www.literotica.com/s/best-friends-forever-pt-06

It’s in the Transexual/cross dresser category by the way💋
 
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