In for a Penny

Chapter one. Looking for specific constructive criticisms, and general comments welcome, too.

http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?url=in-for-a-penny-ch-01

Thanks in advance.

This is a very short piece, just the first page of what's presumably going to be a longer story, so it's hard to give feedback on the story. There just isn't enough there yet. But a few comments:

When the bartender gave him that, "ready for another?" look" - delete the comma. Somebody with a style manual handy should be able to give chapter and verse on why this isn't punctuated the same way as "the bartender said, 'ready for another?'".

He couldn't really afford to be drinking much less tipping that much, he didn't want to be asked to leave. - missing "but".

A straight face that made Tobias think an unflattering thought connected to her thick blond hair. Not a complete sentence. Erotica doesn't need to be terribly formal, and fragments can work sometimes, but I don't think it works here; "Her straight face made Tobias think..." might've been a better choice.

Maybe it's because I just got out of bed and my brain's still slow, but I had to reread this a couple of times to figure out the meaning (she's misunderstood him, is she stupid i.e. blonde?) It wasn't obvious to me that the silent "a" should have been in "Highlander"; it only made sense when he explained this two paragraphs later. It broke my reading flow.

I felt the story wasn't consistent in its narrative mode. There are bits where you're giving only Tobias' perspective, withholding Jennifer's, and bits where you're alternating between the two. Compare:

Her eyes ran over his face and made a special note of his eyes. In the poor light she had to guess they were a light blue and wondered if they darkened when he thought about sex. - written from Jennifer's perspective, showing the reader the truth of what she's thinking.

The tall blond seemed to think about the way Tobias pronounced his name them barged ahead. - written from Tobias' perspective, with only his speculation about what's in Jennifer's head.

IMHO you'd do better to decide whether this is a two-viewpoint story or a single-viewpoint story and be consistent in that. Given where I suspect the story is headed, it might work better to keep it solely to Toby's perspective.

Also: Jennifer should be "The tall blonde" (see this note on blond vs blonde) and "them" should be "then".

"Her eyes ran over his face and made a special note of his eyes" - be careful of this "disembodied organs" style of writing. Eyes can't "make a note" of anything; you need fingers or a brain for that. Better just something like "She looked over his face, paying special attention to his eyes".

After Tobias shook her hand she fought the urge to brush the stray strands of milk chocolate colored hair back onto his head. Why did Beth blow this guy off, she wondered. He's cute.

If you're presenting her thoughts as "speech" they need to be punctuated. I believe this is official CMOS style:

"Why did Beth blow this guy off?" she wondered. "He's cute."

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I'm not wild about the CMOS style here and I often prefer to italicise thoughts instead, especially if they're presented near dialogue:

...back onto his head. Why did Beth blow this guy off? He's cute.

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But one way or another, the thoughts need to be distinguished from the rest of the narrative.

"Milk chocolate colored" - this ought to be "milk-chocolate-colored". Otherwise the reader starts to wonder who spilled chocolate on him before getting to the bit that clarifies we're talking about hair; hyphenating establishes that it's a compound adjective.

I'll drop you back at wherever your staying - "you're".

"And you seem to be just a real nice guy" - what is she basing this on? It just doesn't seem like they've talked enough for her to gauge that.

Thanks for your comments! I made some pretty silly mistakes, didn't I?

I will not comment on your comments because I'm here to see what readers have to say not argue or "defend". However, I feel it is important to point out that the post is, as the title suggests, a full chapter of 3744 words (12-15 pages depending on font, size, and layout), and not a single page. I double checked what is shown in the link and it is all there.

Again, thanks for looking and commenting.

Myikael said:

I will not comment on your comments because I'm here to see what readers have to say not argue or "defend". However, I feel it is important to point out that the post is, as the title suggests, a full chapter of 3744 words (12-15 pages depending on font, size, and layout), and not a single page.

Click to expand...

Sorry, should've been clearer - I meant a single Literotica page. I realise that's the whole chapter, but to me it still felt like I was too early in the story to have a good feel for how it was turning out.