My latest: Let Them All Look

I've had this one up for a week: good ratings, but I'm disappointed to have no comments at all. It also hasn't gotten the views of my other stories. I'm sure that has something to do with it.

It's about a forty-some woman who finds that exhibitionism is good therapy for her body issues. Her partner is an enthusiastic supporter. Then they run into the real-world hazards of E/V when her vindictive ex-husband finds out.

Would anyone care to take a look and give feedback? I'm forging ahead with a new story, and if I've made any big mistakes on this one I'd rather not repeat them.

https://www.literotica.com/s/let-them-all-look

Thanks!

rebel_code said:

I've had this one up for a week: good ratings, but I'm disappointed to have no comments at all. It also hasn't gotten the views of my other stories. I'm sure that has something to do with it.

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It's really hard to compare stories in different categories. My impression is that incest stories of a certain rating will get a lot more views than a story with a same rating in a different category. I have no idea how many views or comments E/V stories typically get.

Another issue may be that not many E/V readers are interested in stories about mature women. I'm not an E/V reader, so I don't know.

I may took a look at it later.

8letters said:

It's really hard to compare stories in different categories. My impression is that incest stories of a certain rating will get a lot more views than a story with a same rating in a different category. I have no idea how many views or comments E/V stories typically get.

Another issue may be that not many E/V readers are interested in stories about mature women. I'm not an E/V reader, so I don't know.

I may took a look at it later.

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8letters is right that it's a matter of category. Incest stories are by far the most popular on this site. E/V stories are middle of the pack, popularity-wise. Every once in a while an E/V story will break out and be very popular, but in general they don't achieve the same level of views as incest stories. I've written stories in both categories and my incest stories average 2 to 3 times the number of views of my E/V stories.

E/V readers definitely are receptive to stories about mature women. I've had a series do pretty well featuring a woman in her mid-40s. All of my E/V stories are about married women, late-20s or older.

I'll try to look at the story later as well.

SimonDoom said:

E/V readers definitely are receptive to stories about mature women. I've had a series do pretty well featuring a woman in her mid-40s. All of my E/V stories are about married women, late-20s or older.

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But rebel_code's story has "Mature" in the description whereas you didn't. Readers didn't realize that your story featured a woman in her mid-40s until they were reading your story. Again, I don't know the category but I can see "Mature" keeping readers from clicking on the link.

As SimonD and 8L say, the number of views in Incest will always exceed any other category by a long shot, so forget about comparisons like that. It's chalk and cheese.

I read the first and last page of the story, just to see what it was about, I didn't score it, because I didn't read it all, and a rating would hardly be fair. But there's the thing - I wasn't gripped enough by the end of the first page to continue, but was vaguely intrigued to find out what happened, but I skipped the bulk of the story.

Cudos to you for writing a perfectly normal, healthy, sexually aware woman in her forties, coping with life. There's nothing at all wrong with that, we don't all want porn star blonde bimbos, some readers actually don't mind a bit of real life. But real life can actually be rather dull, rather lifeless, needs a bit of spice. Your story was a bit like that, rather dull, very little happening, I wasn't grabbed. More spice on the first page would have helped, I reckon.

Comments - stories get comments, I've found, if they're spectacularly bad (this isn't bad, by no means - it's technically competent, you can write), or spectacularly good. This was okay, but didn't stand out. So it's a case of, "no news is good news." Consider the absence of comments as, it's okay. It's not bad, it's not brilliant, it's in the middle of the great distribution curve of stories on Lit.

Why is it in the middle? Because you're just telling me things, you're not showing me. There's the promise of something in the opening scene with the mirror - a woman looking at her sexy self in a mirror should do it, just like that, you'd think. I should want to be there too, seeing her lush beauty, running my fingers over the silver streaks on her child bearing belly, feasting my eyes on those glorious nipples, but the writing doesn't drown me in thick paint, it's thin colour by numbers.

Step it up a notch. Convince us your characters are sexy, sensual women, describe their emotions, describe their passion for life. Don't tell us so much background, who cares about dull Jeffrey? Write in the moment - show me why my eyes should follow Andrea, as she walks past my cafe table, catch that seductive sway of her hips, now, right now. Make me look up from the crossword!

electricblue66 said:

Why is it in the middle? Because you're just telling me things, you're not showing me. There's the promise of something in the opening scene with the mirror - a woman looking at her sexy self in a mirror should do it, just like that, you'd think. I should want to be there too, seeing her lush beauty, running my fingers over the silver streaks on her child bearing belly, feasting my eyes on those glorious nipples, but the writing doesn't drown me in thick paint, it's thin colour by numbers.

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Thanks, that's the kind of thing I needed to see. I do have some work to do on the 'writing to the audience' thing. It's easy for me to look at a paragraph and say "that looks good". Of course--it looks good because I wrote it!

rebel_code said:

Thanks, that's the kind of thing I needed to see. I do have some work to do on the 'writing to the audience' thing. It's easy for me to look at a paragraph and say "that looks good". Of course--it looks good because I wrote it!

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You can write, you don't need to worry about the technical stuff. If this is personal writing, and I think it might be, dig really deep into yourself. Reveal what you feel, personally, intimately. The peripherals of the story will then find their right place, revealed when they need to be. Write yourself first, I reckon. All else follows.

electricblue66 said:

You can write, you don't need to worry about the technical stuff. If this is personal writing, and I think it might be, dig really deep into yourself. Reveal what you feel, personally, intimately. The peripherals of the story will then find their right place, revealed when they need to be. Write yourself first, I reckon. All else follows.

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This one wasn't personal. But the current one, that I'm working on now, is. So I'll take your advice to heart. Thanks again.

Before I give my feedback, let me say that I'm not an E&V reader so I don't know how your story matches the expectations of the category.

Edit: Let me add that your writing is technically very strong. I felt that you smoothly got across whatever you were trying to get across.

My opinion is that the most reliable way of starting an erotic short story is with an interesting scene. I found the beginning of your story...okay. It described Andrea as an attractive woman and set things up for her to show off her body. But it didn't fire my interest. Covering Jeffrey's background slowed down the momentum of the story and the sex wasn't that interesting as I didn't have a significant emotional attachment to either character.

I'm thinking that if you had started the story with:

"My god, babe, you were one hot firecracker," he murmured, while running a hand over her warm, smooth bottom. "What was it got you going so? Really good dream last night?"

"No, but it...well, it's a story. I was shopping at the mall. I had bought this bra, and was looking for a nice top to go over it, something casual, you know. So I was in front of 'Forever 21', and it was just calling to me to come in. I know that their stuff is for the young girls and I was being kind of silly to want it, but I was like 'Dammit, I want to be hot too. I want to be beautiful and sexy like they are in those clothes.'"

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You would have gotten into the interesting part of your story much sooner. As it is, this is repeating the beginning of your story.

I'm just tossing this out there and I'm not saying this was the right way to go, but did you consider writing the story from Andrea's point of view? With the story being third person and jumping back and forth from Andrea's to Jeffrey's perspective, there's a distance which I don't think helps your story.

Edit: Thinking more on your story and it getting no comments. You wrote the story you wanted to write and I'm not criticizing that choice. Also, I'm not an E&V reader. Given that, I would think that the type of E&V story that would draw a lot of comments is where there is the E&V and that leads the E and the V to having sex for the first time. In your story, Andrea is in a happy relationship with Jeffrey and at the end of the story, she's in a happy relationship with Jeffrey. My opinion is that the fact that their isn't a new relationship in the story limits the hotness of the story. Again, just my uninformed opinion.

Thanks for the comments; they are well taken.

8letters said:

My opinion is that the most reliable way of starting an erotic short story is with an interesting scene. I found the beginning of your story...okay. It described Andrea as an attractive woman and set things up for her to show off her body. But it didn't fire my interest. Covering Jeffrey's background slowed down the momentum of the story and the sex wasn't that interesting as I didn't have a significant emotional attachment to either character.

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Both you and electricblue66 have stressed the importance of having the strongest possible opening. Obviously I didn't quite get there with this story.

I'm just tossing this out there and I'm not saying this was the right way to go, but did you consider writing the story from Andrea's point of view? With the story being third person and jumping back and forth from Andrea's to Jeffrey's perspective, there's a distance which I don't think helps your story.

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I wrote it in third person mostly because I had written exclusively first person so far and felt it was getting old. I wanted the exercise of doing third person and making it work. So this was an experimental effort, not calculated by what would be best for the story. Of course the story will be more of a factor going forward.

Edit: Thinking more on your story and it getting no comments. You wrote the story you wanted to write and I'm not criticizing that choice. Also, I'm not an E&V reader. Given that, I would think that the type of E&V story that would draw a lot of comments is where there is the E&V and that leads the E and the V to having sex for the first time. In your story, Andrea is in a happy relationship with Jeffrey and at the end of the story, she's in a happy relationship with Jeffrey. My opinion is that the fact that their isn't a new relationship in the story limits the hotness of the story. Again, just my uninformed opinion.

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I had read some E/V but certainly not exhaustively. I found a couple of stories that interested me and got me thinking about trying to write one.

I know the "new relationship" convention is very strong, no doubt for good reason. But this is the story I had in my head. I can accept it not being seen as being as hot as the conventional story type.

I think I'm learning that, like electricblue66 wrote earlier, Lit readers will comment if either you really ring their bells, or you write something that really offends them. I'll go with trying to ring some bells harder in future.

Thanks again!