Feedback?

https://www.literotica.com/s/last-day-of-tax-season

If you can and would be so kind to guve any feedback on my second story that would be great. Would be willing to return the favor. Thank you!!!

You have some awkward technical issues to resolve - this paragraph can be used to illustrate:

Her phone vibrated against the desk and it was Tom, her boyfriend. Sorry, won't be home until after midnight. The text read. Great it's been three months since I was taken care of and he isn't going to be home. His boyish antics of him coming to my house anytime he wants is wearing thin on me. Loneliness has crept over her the last three months. Seeing nothing but frozen entrees, clients and the pizza delivery boys can weigh on someone over tax season.

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Firstly, you mix tenses, using past tense and present tense, interchangeably. Most of your story is told in present tense, and there's nothing wrong with that (although some readers thinks it's a major crime), but you need to be consistent.

Secondly, you jump between first person and third person narrative, and in this example, you do so nearly every sentence. That's really jarring, and gets in the way of the flow, making it very hard to read.

The sample paragraph opens in past tense third person, shifts to present tense first person, then shifts back to third person (or it could be first person, with the narrator referring to herself as "someone") - it's clunky, either way.

As a beginner writer, you might find it easier to write all in first person past tense, or third person past tense, but be consistent.

It reads as if English might be your second language, because there are other strange sentence constructions here and there, but getting your narrative voice right is the main thing - don't chop and change between first and third person all the time.

Unfortunately, the readability issues got in the way of the story, which could have been a spicy little office encounter, and who doesn't imagine those .

Keep writing, you'll sort out the tense and narrative voice stuff soon enough.

In between the grammar and tense problems (highlighted by EB), there's actually a plot in here. You established a character with motivations, needs, and wants. A lot of authors make the mistake of thinking that "a lot of events and conversation" constitutes a plot, and they are wrong. You created a quick, neat well-established story.

And then you overexplained it. Give your readers more credit, and spend less time redundanly restating information. In the span of a few paragraphs, you explained who Tom was and how unimpressive he was as a boyfriend 4 or 5 times. That's too much, and Tom's ineptitude isn't the only example.

Thank you both but Electric, yeah with the sample paragraph I wrote
The whole story in first person and then try to transition into 3rd person so the I and me is a mistake. Obviously, my editing isn’t up to par. Thanks.

Like EB pointed out, the tense and narrative voice was not consistent. The story could have read more smoothly had you stayed in present tense/first person throughout. There are a few minor things you miss like capitalizing the start of dialogue. But again, all these are easily fixable and any half decent volunteer editor can remove them.

The story itself was good for what it set out to do. A hot office encounter between a CPA and a business owner. It was sharp and to the point without having any unnecessary bits. Their motivations, desire and personal lives worked well in context. The sex itself was pretty hot and provided a satisfying end to the story.

Overall, I gave the effort 5 stars. You're a new author and the technical part of the writing - tense, voice, word choice will get better, but you do the basics of the writing itself well. Relatable characters, sharp plot and hot sex. What more could you ask for?

Keep it up and write more. Try a longer story if you can.

Thank you LaRascasse.

So, does narrative and dialogue have to be same tense? For example:

The wind whispered at night. “She climbed the stairs.” Alana said. All past tense, my dialogue can’t be present?

Dialogue varies depending on when the character is talking about. The narrative can describe a character in the past tense who is talking about then-current events, which would be rendered in present tense if within quotation marks and past tense if in the narrative. If the past tense character is talking about events that happened in their past prior to the telling, they would be in past tense both in narrative and in dialogue.

One way to avoid getting into this trouble is to be scrupulous about following dialogue conventions. For instance, don't mash together dialogue and narrative into one paragraph. Give each line of dialogue its own paragraph. In the passage cited by ElectricBlue, above, for instance, it would be better if done this way:

Her phone vibrated against the desk. It was Tom, her boyfriend.

"Sorry, won't be home until after midnight," the text read.

"Great," she thought. "It's been three months since I was taken care of and he isn't going to be home."

Tom's boyish antics of coming to her house anytime he wanted were wearing thin on her. Loneliness had crept over her the last three months. Seeing nothing but frozen entrees, clients, and the pizza delivery boys could weigh on someone over tax season.


When you break it apart like this, the tense, point of view, and punctuation issues become more obvious, as do the solutions.

Simon thanks for the tip!

RedJaime said:

Thank you LaRascasse.

So, does narrative and dialogue have to be same tense? For example:

The wind whispered at night. “She climbed the stairs.” Alana said. All past tense, my dialogue can’t be present?

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Dialogue can be in present tense if the speaker is talking about an event which needs present tense. Non-dialogue should be consistently in one tense (past or present) and dialogue can vary depending on what the speaker is talking about. However, within one conversation, the dialogue should be in the same tense as well.

So..

Dave said, "I have plans for you. By the time I am done with you, you will be begging for more."

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Non-dialogue - past tense, dialogue - future tense

However all the rest of your non-dialogue should also be in past tense.

What I have found the simplest way to do this (and all other grammar/word choice issues) is to say each paragraph aloud in my head after I write it to see if it "sounds right". It's an unscientific method, but it works for me.