Feedback wanted please.

• I reduced the 1st Draft by 10% to get to the 2nd draft.
• I deleted almost all of the adverbs I could find
• I removed all of the passive voice I could find
• I tried to edit out excessive back story, using it just to inform myself as to how my lead character would behave.

Maria_McGeorge said:

So, I woke up this morning with the nagging question, what was the point?

I recently posted up a story, and I am pleased with how it has been rated.

But, it took a lot of valuable time and effort to write and edit edit. I even invested in premium Grammerly in order to nail persistent Grammar issues. I'm not sure why I bothered.

The only answer I can come up with is the need to improve, to become a better writer. I guess that is where you guys come in, so I guess I would be interested in what you guys think of my writing, are there any obvious problems I can work on in future.

Just to note I recently read Stephen King's "On Writing" and tried to apply the following of his rules to my work.

• I reduced the 1st Draft by 10% to get to the 2nd draft.
• I deleted almost all of the adverbs I could find
• I removed all of the passive voice I could find
• I tried to edit out excessive back story, using it just to inform myself as to how my lead character would behave.

Anyway, I feel as if I am really exposing myself (I realize the irony of this given my story subject), but if I don't put myself out there I'll never get any better as a writer.

https://www.literotica.com/s/lady-carmens-fantasies

Thank you for your time.

MM
x

Click to expand...

Jada59 said:

I did read it. I saw what appeared to be grammar and spelling errors. Also odd uses of capitals. As in some words that I don't think should have been. Then you switched back and forth between "Lady" and "lady".

Overall, it read to me more like a Harlequin Romance and not erotica. Sorry. Maybe it's just me. Didn't do much for me and I found it hard to read.

Click to expand...

Maria_McGeorge said:

Thank you so much for taking the time to reply. I really do appreciate it.

I wonder if the spelling errors might be USA vs UK spellings? I've not got any errors flagged with my checkers.

Click to expand...

Maria_McGeorge said:

Thank you so much for taking the time to reply. I really do appreciate it.

I wonder if the spelling errors might be USA vs UK spellings? I've not got any errors flagged with my checkers.

I did consider switching to American spelling, but I decided against it for a 1st person story about an aristocrat. Carmen would definitely write in UK English.

Thank you once again.

MM
x

Click to expand...

Bramblethorn said:

Some examples:

Just before I started studying for A levels at my boarding school; the news came to be in one of mother's weekly letters. The House would become a hotel. As my parents had decided they could no longer bear to see their historic house rotting away.

The semicolon is incorrect there. The main role of a semicolon is to link two independent clauses, but the first one here isn't independent. (An independent clause is something that could stand on its own as a complete sentence.) This cartoon gives a pretty good guide to semicolons: https://theoatmeal.com/comics/semicolon

"be": I'm presuming this was meant to be "me".

"House": no reason to capitalise this.

Last sentence: isn't a sentence. Either delete the "As" and start with "my parents", or splice it to the previous one: "The house would become a hotel, as my parents had decided..."

My mind began wondering

"wandering"

it would be a dark green to compliment my long red wavy hair

"complement" (sounds the same as "compliment" but has a different meaning).

So we would keep each other secrets.

"each other's"

Our coaches would be being going out to fetch guests

delete "being".

A good reputation would essential to get a good marriage without it I would be nothing.

missing "be", and missing some punctuation after "marriage".

light coloured shorts with circle poker dot patterns

"polka dot"

Most of these aren't things that Grammarly will catch; you're best off looking for a beta reader, since it's hard to check your own work.

Click to expand...

Jada59 said:

That could be. I also don't understand the"x's".

Click to expand...

Maria_McGeorge said:

I do apologise, it would seem it wasn't the variations at all, but rather a failure in my editing..

Click to expand...

Maria_McGeorge said:

I wonder if the spelling errors might be USA vs UK spellings? I've not got any errors flagged with my checkers.

I did consider switching to American spelling, but I decided against it for a 1st person story about an aristocrat. Carmen would definitely write in UK English.

Click to expand...

Maria_McGeorge said:

Goodness, that is a very thorough assessment.

Thank you for taking the time to point those out.

I certainly didn't spot any of those. I guess I need to find an editor, although it is hard to justify asking another person to spend time editing a story.

Click to expand...

Emirus said:

What I would say is, judging by the favourable comments at the end of the story and the rating of 4.67 at the moment, readers in that category are easily satisfied.

Click to expand...

Bramblethorn said:

I think the usual arrangement here is to swap editing services - I have a few writers who look over my work, and in exchange I look over theirs. Obviously an amateur writer isn't going to give the same level of editing that you might get from a pro, but the main thing is just to have a second set of eyes to catch things you missed. See if you can find somebody in the Editor's Forum who's looking to trade reads, perhaps?

Click to expand...

Maria_McGeorge said:

Thank you, that is great advice. As this thread has proven, grammar is not my strong suite.

Click to expand...

housewares said:

You mean "strong suit".

Click to expand...

Maria_McGeorge said:

So, I woke up this morning with the nagging question, what was the point?

I recently posted up a story, and I am pleased with how it has been rated.

But, it took a lot of valuable time and effort to write and edit edit. I even invested in premium Grammerly in order to nail persistent Grammar issues. I'm not sure why I bothered.

The only answer I can come up with is the need to improve, to become a better writer. I guess that is where you guys come in, so I guess I would be interested in what you guys think of my writing, are there any obvious problems I can work on in future....

...Anyway, I feel as if I am really exposing myself (I realize the irony of this given my story subject), but if I don't put myself out there I'll never get any better as a writer.

https://www.literotica.com/s/lady-carmens-fantasies

Thank you for your time.

MM
x

Click to expand...

yukonnights said:

Maria, I didn't read your story since some of the best have already made excellent points for you to ponder. What I want to say is, despite your brave exposure here and putting your story up for feedback...I know it is hard to not feel bad about this stuff. So what's the point? It's important because you love to explore your thoughts and the stories in your mind. We all do, that's the prime motivator. It's a creative outlet that can be yours to enjoy for the rest of your life.

We post them here for free because we want to share our handy-work with others. Of course we want to do well, and based on the reception you've received you have a story (stories) to tell. Thus, you have what it takes to do this. The stuff here in this review is mostly mechanics that you can learn. There are a million things one could learn about this craft, but one need not learn them all to collect enough skill to express their thoughts and feelings.

Basically, I'm here saying all this to boost your confidence and encourage you to keep doing what your doing. This forum, and the Author's hangout forum are the usual places the real writers hang out the most and say smart things the rest of us can steal. So do that, keep writing and heed the advice of those who know as best you can...but remember it's for fun.

Click to expand...

rahtruder said:

I’m no critique but that was a great read and I’m looking forward to more. You seem to have a good command of the written word (educated and well read) and what people are looking for and the urgency you’re feeling flows through. 10 out of 10. Let me know when you post again.

Click to expand...

Maria_McGeorge said:

OMG Brutal! Lol.

Click to expand...

AwkwardMD said:

I have been giving feedback on various sites for just over 5 years. In that time, I have only ever come across one story that I read and thought ‘wow, this person is categorically better than I am.’ There is a second group of stories, also small, that impressed me greatly, and I had to dig deep to find criticisms (the last being ChloeTzang's excellent ‘Will you still love me tomorrow?’). There have only been a handful of these, and ‘Lady Carmen's Fantasies’ qualifies. You should be very proud of this.

So here comes the deep dive. You aimed really high with the setup for the themes you were trying to explore, and I think you fell short in the execution. In other words, this story was hot but it also shot itself in the foot repeatedly, and that muddies the results.

First of all, the “Please allow me to introduce myself” opening is an anomaly. This section, right at the beginning, is addressing the reader directly and making the reader part of the story. Some author's can pull off the raconteuring, easy narrative style that repeatedly breaks the fourth wall, and indeed this style has its upsides, but that is not what you attempted anywhere else in the story. The rest of it is a straight-forward first person narrative in which there is only “I”. I did this, I did that.

This makes the anomalous opening really stand out and not in a good way. You had a problem where you couldn't figure out how else to introduce your character and the solution you chose is incongruous. A more organic choice might have involved Carmen talking briefly with her mother near the beginning, and the Mother is the one to refer to the POV as Carmen. That gets us the same information without diverting from the direction of the rest of the piece.

**

The story is very confusing. You wrote a past tense story that sometimes features fantasies in the then-present moment, as well as some fantasies that were in the past before the past tense narrative. It’s like reading nested past tense, and it’s hard to keep them straight. I applaud you for attempting something like this, but the approach did not pan out. Instead, the story succeeds in spite of the time jumping rather than because of it.

A different approach might have been to write the main section of the story in the present tense, so that when Carmen goes into fantasy in the past tense, there are visual cues that something has changed. Additionally, having Carmen interact with a character in fantasy when said character is very close nearby was difficult to follow since you used double quotes for actual dialog, fantasized dialog, and thoughts.

“This is something that someone says out loud,” said the man with the double quotes.

‘This is a thought,’ thought the girl with the single quotes..

“This is a fantasy,” said the man of her dreams, in her dreams.

A lot of people have taken issue with my use of typography in fiction to create visual cues for distinctive purposes, but like anything else in writing it is a tool. Tools have value when used properly. Learn to use all of your tools.

I do not often encourage writers to experiment. I usually give advice that boils down to ‘master the fundamentals’. However, I think you are at a level where experimentation is in your best interest. Not every experiment works out the way you want it to, but there’s always something to learn from trying new methods and techniques. Failures might be hard to take sometimes, but they always make the next story that much stronger.

**

The twist ending is as flat as a pancake. You over-explained the presence of the blond man, and when he shows up as a ‘surprise’, no one is surprised. Twist endings are very hard to pull off. There’s a very delicate balance of foreshadowing and seeded information that needs to be present in very specific, very small amounts. You have to establish something but then also make the reader forget about it either through misdirection or time.

-You told us that ‘perhaps this is where I went wrong, and this caused what came next.’ Thumbs down.
-You told us about the blond man and his dog at the edge of the forest. Perfect and innocuous.
-You told us about a dog whistle in the background that Carmen didn’t hear. Thumbs down.
-You told us the blond man was watching. Thumbs down.
-You told us the blond man was touching himself. Thumbs down.
-Carmen puts herself back together and finds the dog next to the horse. Perfect and hair raising.
-Blond man shows up and gives a subtle hint that he watched her. Perfectly executed (if you remove everything else that didn’t work).

Instead, as you wrote it, by the time the blond man is whispering to her about the puss in boots (a very clever confluence of events and wordplay), it was like “UGH! GET ON WITH IT!”

It takes a lot of confidence in your own writing to attempt to pull off a twist like this. The over-explanation betrays that lack. You didn’t trust readers to get it, most likely because you didn’t think you were doing enough or didn’t think that what you did was good enough, so you added more. Then you added more. Then you added more.

Less is more. Less is better. Trust yourself. Then, when your self-confidence is lacking, ask a friend to take a second look.

**

You have real talent. This story is really hot. The themes are smoking hot. The exhibitionism is extremely hot. Carmen’s inner monologue and tortured libido are extremely hot. The way Carmen describes herself physically is subtle and incredibly hot. The situations you put Carmen in were incredibly hot. The fantasies are accessible, understandable, well-conceived, and relatable. This was the most turned on I’ve been while giving feedback in a very, very, very long time. Where you went wrong is in the way the fantasies tie into the narrative on a nuts and bolts level. If you can manage to make those things work together more seamlessly, you will have a massive following very quickly.

Click to expand...

Emirus said:

Brutal was probably the right word for it but I’m glad you could laugh about it because that means you will bounce back. Everything was intended to be helpful even though it might not seem like it.

Click to expand...