Feedback requested for my first story

AwkwardMD said:

Hello! I read both chapters, and I have some thoughts.

The beginning of a story is crucial. It’s the hook. There are an infinite number of ways to draw in your reader. Your story does not do that.

First of all, you tell us that it’s not going to end well. It’s fine to have stories that don't work out and where there is no HEA (I have stories where all my characters die!), but telling us that in the first paragraph is too much. Even qualifying it with “But it’s still a period I look back on fondly” doesn’t do enough to repair the damage.

Then you proceed to jump back in time to posting Alanna’s personal ad. Now, I have no feelings about the title of “BEST OF BOTH WORLDS”, but it’s weird to then go on to disparage that as bad title SINCE YOU NAMED YOUR POSTED STORY THE SAME THING. It’s weird.

Then, you proceed to jump back in time even farther and give us a Reader’s Digest version of Alanna’s life falling apart. Flashbacks are bad. Stories should move forward. If there’s a good reason for a flashback, that’s one thing, but arbitrarily jumping forward and backward is confusing at best and bad narrating at its core.

I appreciate the complexities and nuances of Alanna’s personality, but there are more subtle ways to convey this information. Creating sympathy for your main character is important, but this is too much too quickly. Work this information in over time. Create a story that gives you the opportunity to unfold, exposing the vulnerable center little by little, rather than vomiting it all up at once.

Don’t give numbers. The reader gains nothing by knowing that John is 6’2”, as opposed to say 6’1” or 6’3”. Be specific only when it matters. “John is tall. Much taller than me.” That paints a contrast in the POV, where Alanna is looking up. It says more.

You explain too much. In the second paragraph of the scene at the Vietnamese restaurant, you explain John and Lissa’s jobs, which you further go on to explain later in the story in conversation (although at one point you said Lissa worked for a tech firm and later stated she worked for a law firm). Redundancy is redundant. Use dialogue to relay this information. It’s better storytelling.

A lot of your internal narrative at the restaurant is fantastic. How she second guesses everything she’s saying as she’s saying it. You do a great job here showing how uncertain and nervous Alanna is. Unfortunately, you undercut all of the great writing you did by telling us very explicitly that Alanna is both uncertain and nervous. Let the narrative speak for itself.

And now, it’s time for the soap box. BDSM Legalese.

Pursuant to conversation held 17.4.2017, Party A, hereafter referred to as ‘Sir’, shall have unfettered and continuous, upon request received in triplicate, access to the backside, hereafter referred to as Ass, of Party B, hereafter referred to as ‘the sub’. Requests to access the Ass of the sub shall use form B (attached), and must be filled out completely leaving no blank spaces.

Some BDSM stories that I’ve read, and bear in mind that I am not widely read on the subject, approach the complexities of BDSM too literally. They become completely bogged down in the details and lose sight of the fact that it’s a story. It’s a fantasy. It has to move forward and should not get stuck in the mud.

(Apologies to Neil Gaiman for stealing his metaphor). Imagine for a moment that a map of the state of Washington is sketched onto a napkin. Given the size of your paper, you can only really go into the tiniest bit of detail. The shape of the state. Maybe some shading on the water for contrast. A star for Olympia, and maybe a dot for Seattle. Not much else, because it’s a napkin.

Now, imagine a map of Washington sketched onto a piece of 8x11 paper in landscape. Now you’ve got rivers, with their names traced along the curves. You’ve got lakes. You’ve got every city with a population of 75,000 or more. You’ve got room to include basic terrain and notable altitudes. A few of the highest peaks in the state.

Now, imagine a map of Washington sketched onto a fold-out piece of paper the size of your desk. Highways. State Routes. Railroads. Every city with a population over 20,000. You’ve got a color scale with 15 separate designations for various altitudes.

Now, imagine a map of Washington the size of the floor of the room you’re in. Nearly every road in the entire state, capturing a great amount of detail in terms of the twists and turns roads take around property lines and through hills and valleys. Streams and creeks. Ponds.

Each time you increase the size of the map, you give yourself more room for detail. Eventually, you increase the size of the map to be of equal size to the state itself, and you can now include every single detail. Literally every single detail. Every blade of grass is represented on your map. Your map is, of course, useless as a reference now.

There is a tradeoff between details and convenience. The more things you cram into a map, the less handy it is. BDSM often gets this wrong in stories.

Now, I know that the dynamic, the negotiation back and forth, is important to an actual BDSM relationship. It’s essential to trust, and trust is everything. I get that… BUT it’s bad storytelling to include all those details. It’s like trying to cram all the streams and creeks onto a napkin, and what you end up with is an indistinguishable mess.

The actual ins and outs of a D/s relationship would be better portrayed in a technical writing document rather than a piece of erotica. Be more ruthless with the details you chose to include, and your writing will be stronger for it. Many more things can be inferred than you would suspect.

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Bramblethorn said:

I really liked it. Yeah, it had its flaws, and AwkwardMD has made some good criticisms. But it's refreshing to read a trans story that's focussed on an actual trans person and not on the fetishised version. It felt honest and real, and I'd read that category more if there were more stories like this one.

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