Would appreciate some feedback, first thing I've written since HS

I am seriously not a writer, everything I've written since HS has been technical white papers or process descriptions......

Would be interested in some feedback on whether I should go back and just be a reader.

First story https://www.literotica.com/s/not-quite-the-brady-bunch

It felt clunky and disjointed, especially the conversations, as I wrote it but seemed to be readable.

Story is about a girl and her stepfather. Rather formulaic from there.

I do wonder if part of my issue was trying to find realistic dialog and story-line in what is a rather unrealistic scenario.


TIA

Well done for popping your erotica cherry! I thought it was a good start.

I had a long detailed reply typed up for you and then my laptop crashed and I lost the lot. Sadly I lack the energy to type it all out again, so here it is in point form:

- Overall, it was okay.

- The sex was sensual and erotic - very hot. Well done

- The dialogue did feel wooden. Avoid long speeches like the one with Emma unburdening to Mike. Keep the sentences short with a lot of exchanges, and lots of described feelings, expressions and observations padding them out.

- The transition from non-erotic to erotic was way too sudden and difficult to believe. I know guys can be ready to fuck at the drop of a hat, but you need to pace erotica for your reader. Start off slow to get them in the mood, then slowly dial up the heat. You tried to do that with Mike sneaking glances at her body, but it still came off too fast.

- The whole thing was written in Third Person Omniscient, which made it feel clinical and distanced from the reader. Erotica needs to draw the reader in, and the best way to do that is to use First Person or Third Person Limited https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narration#Third-person_voices

- It was a very short story, but even so it was a bit of a slow starter. Obviously the "story" is all about setting up a plausible scenario for fucking, so right from the beginning you need to be priming your reader for juicy scenes to come. My teachers called it a Sizzling Start (although I don't think they were talking about erotica) http://www.highlightingwriting.com/newsletters/archive/Sizzling_Starts.html

- There were too many Mikes and too many Emmas. You need to use more pronouns.

- Step-child sex is not very taboo for the Incest crowd. What you have here is a twin kink - a little bit of incest kink and a little bit of petite teen kink. But we didn't find out the petite teen kink until well into the story. Try to get your kinks on the table early.

Put it aside for a month and then re-read it, editing as you go.

Sinstories said:

I am seriously not a writer, everything I've written since HS has been technical white papers or process descriptions......

Would be interested in some feedback on whether I should go back and just be a reader.

Click to expand...

Incest isn't my thing but the writing skills seemed reasonable, especially if you haven't had much practice with this sort of thing. Step 1 of learning any new skill is giving yourself permission to suck for a while.

I agree with blin on the abrupt transition from non-erotic to erotic, and on the slow start. One solution for that is to lead with a preview of the sexy bits (when did you ever watch a James Bond film that begins with a mission briefing?) but another thing that can help is to work on making the exposition as smooth and readable as possible. Stuff like this:

Mike shared custody of his two sons with his ex-wife and Carol's two daughters lived with her ex-husband since she traveled a lot for her work as a Software Sales Rep.

When I first read this, sentence, I processed it like this:

Mike shared custody of his two sons with his ex-wife

...okay, that makes sense...

Mike shared custody of his two sons with his ex-wife and Carol

...wait, Carol also has custody?

Mike shared custody of his two sons with his ex-wife and Carol's two daughters

...no, wait, her daughters are sharing custody of Mike's sons?

Mike shared custody of his two sons with his ex-wife and Carol's two daughters lived with her ex-husband since she traveled a lot for her work as a Software Sales Rep.

Okay, now it makes sense - but I can only parse that "and" correctly after I've read what comes later, which breaks my flow while reading. I have to go back and reinterpret what I've just read. If I'm doing this a lot and I haven't got to the exciting part of the story yet, I may lose interest and move on to something else.

A semicolon helps separate those ideas:

Mike shared custody of his two sons with his ex-wife; Carol's two daughters lived with her ex-husband, since she traveled a lot for her work as a Software Sales Rep.

The "since" is also a little ambiguous here - when I first encounter it, it's not clear whether it means "because" or "after". Changing it to "because" might help the flow a little. Just little tweaks, but they can improve a reader's experience and improve the odds of them making it past the exposition.

Thanks for the feedback.

I decided to take a different approach. I wasn't happy with where I had taken that story, so I figured it was a good stopping point and I'll let it sit.

I took what you said and started a new story. Both of your comments were very helpful in making it work. I like where it went and has some opportunity to build on. I just posted to it so it should be available in a couple days. I'm going on vacation so won't be able to post a link for comment until I get back.

Anyway, thanks again for the input. I feel like it helped a lot.

Please do not fall into the trap of letting the commenters who post on your story guide your story line. Ignore those who post negative comments. Usually the negative comments come from the Anons who like to be nasty but stay hidden.

Do not rely on spellcheck solely as all it does is tell you if the word you used was spelled correctly. It does not tell you if you used the wrong word. Keep an old fashion dictionary at hand to check to see if a word is hyphenated, two separate words or combined.

Always print out your story so you can read it slowly. This allows the author to make notes on what needs correcting and how to make a sentence flow better. By doing this, the author stands a good chance of discovering missing or added words.

Good luck and keep writing.