Lien_Geller's Story Review Thread.

I'd be happy to! Although I don't give out my email address so it'd have to be when you're finished and it's up on the site. I'm also fine with gratuitous violence, I just don't like stuff that has a real non-con vibe to it. I leave you to judge whether your story falls under that category, and if not then feel free to link me when it's done! :D
 
I'd be happy to! Although I don't give out my email address so it'd have to be when you're finished and it's up on the site. I'm also fine with gratuitous violence, I just don't like stuff that has a real non-con vibe to it. I leave you to judge whether your story falls under that category, and if not then feel free to link me when it's done! :D

Thanks! :)

I'll try and make sure that you don't have to review a noncon part, although there is little or no erotica in this story. I'll link you the story when I'm done.
 
While this thread is here... I might as well add something to the queue.

This is a 2 part story. Here are the links to part 1 and part 2. Note the disclaimer on top. There is some implied violence.

Nonetheless, eager to get your insights
 
Hi! Sorry this has taken a few days but I'm waaay busy at the moment. LaRasscasse, I'll try to get to your story as soon as I can. Just posting here to let you know I've seen it. ^_^
 
Normal service shall be resumed shortly...

Hey guys and gals! I've got some time for doling out critiques and reviews again. Check the first post on this thread for info on the type of thing I'll look at. I won't look at some stories based on category, so it's worth a click if you're interested in posting here.

NaokoSmith also expressed an interest in adding some feedback for selected stories she can't put up on her own blog, so expect her to be popping up from time to time with interesting reads to check out.

Ok, cue the deluge of feedback requests or the tumbleweed!
 
Hey guys and gals! I've got some time for doling out critiques and reviews again. Check the first post on this thread for info on the type of thing I'll look at. I won't look at some stories based on category, so it's worth a click if you're interested in posting here.

NaokoSmith also expressed an interest in adding some feedback for selected stories she can't put up on her own blog, so expect her to be popping up from time to time with interesting reads to check out.

Ok, cue the deluge of feedback requests or the tumbleweed!

I'll stick my latest up: The Wasp of St. Judith's. Another horror-ish piece, but you'll be pleased to hear I left out the defensive author's note this time around.
 
I'll stick my latest up: The Wasp of St. Judith's. Another horror-ish piece, but you'll be pleased to hear I left out the defensive author's note this time around.

I can review that one on my blog! although I'm not sure I'd exactly call it safe sex, LOL. When I think what you did with the hilarious Red Callum, Sweet Cate - and then this! I'm gasping at your skill, your versatility, your wordsmith abilities ...
:rose:
 
Heya Bramblethorn! I'd be happy to take a run at that one for ya. It'll probably be done some time tomorrow cuz it's sleepy time soon!
 
I can review that one on my blog! although I'm not sure I'd exactly call it safe sex, LOL. When I think what you did with the hilarious Red Callum, Sweet Cate - and then this!

Thanks! There's actually a connection between those two stories. I'd been trying to write WoStJ for the Halloween contest, I got well and truly stuck (couldn't find the right voice to tell it, or the confidence to finish it), so I decided to write something completely different to blow through the writer's block.

(Also, I was pretty cranky with certain people at the time, and RC/SC was a good way to vent my spleen...well, somebody's spleen.)
 
Here goes!

Alright then, time to break out my reviewing shotg- um, my reviewing pen! Here’s my thoughts on Bramblethorn’s The Wasp of St. Judith’s.

I really like the opening. Normally I like openings that firmly seat me in the action but yours here is a really good example of an alternative that works. More importantly, I think all good story openings should pose an immediate question to the reader. Yours here is “what is he forgetting?” That’s a really great and insidious idea for a horror story because it’s automatically something everyone can relate to. Mostly we forget our keys or where we left the remote, but the idea that we might forget something really important and the realisation that we’ve smoothed it over in our heads is probably an unrealised deeply held fear most people have.

The description of Mel and her scarf (?) was great. Picking a single element to describe is a great way to establish character and you use her scarf here to craft a vivid picture of her in my head despite the minimalism!

In the next few segments you do a really good job of building the creep-factor and developing the canvas of your story, but the story itself doesn’t seem to go anywhere. I get the feeling that these are supposed to be glimpses into past memories, and so don’t conform to any traditional narrative structure. I’m sort of on the fence about that because on one hand it gives the story an almost abstract feel to it, and you’re great in your descriptions of the mists, the night shift, the home and Mel. It just doesn’t feel like it’s going anywhere fast. There’s a lot of ominousness (yes, I know that’s probably not a word) but nothing for me to actually fear or be concerned about.

I’m only a few paragraphs in so it’s not a major issue, but it’s something I’ve noticed.

Him sitting in the car with a knife under the seat waiting for Mel really ups the stakes. Again, the flashes of memory out of context and order really work in your favour because now I really want to find out what’s going on.

I love the conversation next about creativity. It’s a great alternate take on the familiar idea of “artists need booze to create”, and a brilliant introduction to Mr. Winstone. It also effectively puts across Mel’s passionate personality very well. Nicely done and nicely balanced. It’s not exposition-heavy and everything emerges naturally in the scene through the characters own voices. Big thumbs up there.

I enjoyed the introduction to Mr. Winstone and his blues music, and Mel’s slightly creepy perspective on reproduction was educational and very effective in giving me the heebie-jeebies.

I read on until the end, and didn’t find anything really to remark upon whilst I was reading. I will say that the story as a whole is a great execution of a really interesting take on a classic concept. The muses are often portrayed as beautiful and alluring. It’s really nice to see that being played out with horror elements rather than the typical romance. The story has a wonderfully unsettling undertone that’s pleasantly consistent. I often read horror stories where the horror is almost forgotten about when it shouldn’t be. So this was exceptional in that regard.

I do think that if the piece was longer that you’d run into trouble with a protagonist that wasn’t really all that fleshed out or compelling. It’s something I tend to keep an eye out for because I usually read big-ass fantasy books where it’s super important to invest the reader in the characters. Of course, that’s not as crucial in a short story like this one that can survive happily on a good concept alone.

My only gripes with it are relatively minor. The philosophising in some of the scenes does get a little top-heavy in some paragraphs. You’re quite blatant with your ideas in certain areas, and I think with more subtlety I’d still have understood and appreciated what you were getting at. I’m not saying you’re bull-in-a-china-shop blatant, but just that some elements of the dialogue might have been a bit more subtle. Especially when it comes to things like the stance on abortion and such. Again, it’s not bad at all but there’s room for improvement there I think.

Also, despite the consistently unsettling tone of the story it never quite builds into anything truly scary. I’m not saying you need blood splattering off the walls or shock scares but by the end of it I did feel like it was a little bit of an anticlimax in terms of horror. I found the ending to be really interesting but not really satisfying on an emotional level if you catch my drift. The sexy times were also pretty much non-existant. I’m hesitant to chastise you for that because going for both alluring and disturbing together can lead to confusion. I also think adding more sex would ultimately detract from the concept of the story and the concept is where this story really works!

So those are the only problems I can come up with other than the slightly bland protagonist, but they are definitely in the realm of personal opinion and far from actual literary fuck-ups. :D

Overall, this was great. I fucking love the uncanny tone you set throughout, and the mix of ideas is assembled damn-near flawlessly. It’s a brilliant twist on a classical concept and very well done to you in pulling it off so well!
 
I do think that if the piece was longer that you’d run into trouble with a protagonist that wasn’t really all that fleshed out or compelling.

Yep. That was a deliberate choice on my part to leave the protag as a cipher. I can't articulate quite why, it just seemed right in my head - I think part of it was wanting to keep the focus on Mel.

My only gripes with it are relatively minor. The philosophising in some of the scenes does get a little top-heavy in some paragraphs. You’re quite blatant with your ideas in certain areas, and I think with more subtlety I’d still have understood and appreciated what you were getting at.

Fair enough. I have a LOT of difficulty gauging when I'm being too subtle or not subtle enough. In "Magnum Innominandum" it went the other way - I thought I'd given some obvious hints about Katin's identity, but several readers had trouble with that.

Also, despite the consistently unsettling tone of the story it never quite builds into anything truly scary. I’m not saying you need blood splattering off the walls or shock scares but by the end of it I did feel like it was a little bit of an anticlimax in terms of horror. I found the ending to be really interesting but not really satisfying on an emotional level if you catch my drift. The sexy times were also pretty much non-existant.

Yup and yup. I wasn't writing specifically for Erotic Horror here - I wrote the story that was rattling around in my head, and ended up with something that didn't categorise neatly. I thought about posting it in Non-Human but that would've been a spoiler.

The original concept had slightly more of a horror-ish tone to it (more emphasis on Mel's interaction with Winstone and on his past breakdown) but I just couldn't get it to come out right. I ended up deciding to cut some of that stuff because I was never going to get it finished otherwise.

Overall, this was great. I fucking love the uncanny tone you set throughout, and the mix of ideas is assembled damn-near flawlessly. It’s a brilliant twist on a classical concept and very well done to you in pulling it off so well!

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it.

If you don't have anything else on your plate, I can offer something a bit more physical and rather different from my usual fare. But I don't want to monopolise your services.
 
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The Missing Dragon – Chapter 1

I thought I'd start off my contributions to this thread with a review of Lien's own latest story. I do really enjoy putting out my thoughts about stories I read, which are often too much for the comment box. Sometimes I read a story I'd like to write about which can't go on my review blog. (Safe sex only there! well ... that rabbit of Oggbashan's :D, never mind it wasn't unsafe sex in the way I mean it!) I try to write my reviews in a way that might help other writers have a think about writing. Lien is a highly accomplished fantasy writer and provides an excellent example for anyone who wants to work in this genre.

I am going through this story chapter by chapter. I was going to do the whole thing all at once but with everything else on the go, I got impatient. Anyway, Lien_Geller only posts a chapter per year! I might have to wait a lo-o-o-ong time before I get to read the end of the story.

To say this is a stock story is to miss the point, it’s supremely well done. The 200+ enthusiastic comments on it bear testimony to the expert handling of plot and characters, and the enjoyment afforded by the vivid streak of originality which enlivens the whole.

I really like the balance of this story. many of the fantasy stories on this site are either so dark you cant get through them or so light the characters can't be developed at all.
the right mix of humor, romance and interesting character interactions
hot and romantic

Gregory is a nice art-y guy who looks like a wimp. Since primary school, Freddie has been accustomed to kicking the shit out of him. Freddie is a shaven-headed primitive, probably the missing link which anthropologists have been searching for.

The bully story is just a backdrop to the well-crafted fantasy adventure. (In Real Life, bullies are usually charismatic kids who do better when given leadership opportunities.) The karate skills Greg has learned in order to cope with Freddie are in fact there to be deployed against a female orc who rushes out to try to enslave him and have her way with him.

The female orc is sexy and attractive in a FemDom way, and Lien_Geller’s fans are thrilled with this inspired original touch. The tussles between Algra and Greg are wildly exciting, if an unorthodox way for a young man to lose his virginity:
Fucking Awesome!!! And some truly awesome fucking as well!

Actually the first female character to be introduced is another initially dominant female: the gorgeous red-headed Janette, Freddie’s girlfriend. She treats Greg like dirt, although she does try to stop Freddie killing him. Later in the story, Greg is obliged to rescue her from slavery and she reveals that really she was in love with him all along.

So-o-o, strong women characters, plenty of sex, expertly crafted fantasy world.

However, the strong women are only strong until they meet Greg, then they are overcome by his physical prowess: his fighting skills in the case of Algra and his big dick in the case of Janette. Nothing wrong with this, fans male and female are enthusiastic about it. I feel there is a missed trick here, though. Sometimes gentle and creative love-making, sensitivity and imagination are celebrated, particularly in Greg and Algra’s first sex scene. This could be better highlighted as opposed to high octane physicality.

I have a feeling, Lien_Geller can of course correct me if I am wrong ;) :caning:, that I have come across Janette in an earlier story. Daughter of an alcoholic, with a hard life at home, who meets a sensitive and intelligent man who values her beauty and brains. Janet wants to get out into a better life. But it seems her only route to do so is stripping. She had been considering joining a strip club back on Earth, here in the fantasy world she can only gain freedom by belonging to Greg, and can only gain prestige for Greg by doing erotic dancing. She enjoys it, so no big deal. The only other career option for women so far appears to be fantasy warrior (Algra). These are the options young women often desperately consider first off when they don’t really want to become a Mum, and haven’t quite realised that they could be an accountant, architect or astronaut. The women characters are strong, however the world they operate in, and their ambitions, are limited.

The fantasy world is very carefully thought out. This is a Utopian tale, with reflections on e.g. the benefits of slavery if your master takes good care of you, versus starving to death in freedom. The alternative society and the ways in which different races interact in it are sketched out in fascinating detail. Of course I would personally have liked to have seen that Utopian imagination turned onto women’s opportunities. Not that that would hit the 5 star button, stories with a small amount of progressive – muscular strong women, do much better than those with a lot – women in charge.

I haven't said much here about the actual writing. Because it's superb! Active action, thrilling sex scenes (fantasy ones, of course, LOL), excellent vividly descriptive passages and so few typos that only an obsessed editor type would be distracted by them. Things like explaining how things work in the alternate world are expertly done through dialogue instead of boring asides. If you have not already read and 5*ed this Hall of Fame series, you are missing out.

Link to The Missing Dragon Chapter 1.
 
Is his story being posted for us to review? Or just something that you wanted to review?
 
Yo!

Hey Iceprincess12!

I started this thread so that folks could have a place where they could get some detailed and (almost) certain feedback on their writing. NaokoSmith asked if she could join in, but she didn't really have to! ^_^

Anything that gets reviewed here is welcome to get additional criticism. I'm sure all the authors would welcome some additional feedback on their stories. Just be respectful and all that!
 
Hey Iceprincess12!

I started this thread so that folks could have a place where they could get some detailed and (almost) certain feedback on their writing. NaokoSmith asked if she could join in, but she didn't really have to! ^_^

Anything that gets reviewed here is welcome to get additional criticism. I'm sure all the authors would welcome some additional feedback on their stories. Just be respectful and all that!


Sounds good, the story feedback thread is still slow :(
 
Limbo

Here’s LaRascasse’s Limbo Ch.01.

I like how you start out with the opening couple of lines focusing on the doctor’s movement. It immediately creates the idea that we’re going somewhere which encourages the reader to follow along.

Then we hop into a scene with Callie and for me here things get a little bit too forward too fast. I don’t really know these characters and neither of them seem to have much in the way of chemistry. As a reader I’m not seeing any attraction between them other than maybe him glancing at her boobs. It’s like you’ve suddenly turned the volume up from 0-100 and I can’t quite place the song. The note on her bloodshot eyes and dark circles beneath them doesn’t exactly titillate me either.

“Eighteen-year-olds are never known for making smart decisions. When they decide to marry, it invariably ends in flames sooner rather than later.” – Well there’s a grim attitude! All you need is love, man!

You’ve also got a problem here of telling and not showing. He has a slightly stressful conversation with Zoe and then starts flicking through his phone reminiscing about pictures of her. The thing that really lands here is the phone call, because here the reader is witnessing Zoe directly rather than through the idealistic and indirect narration that follows. It would have been much better to fold the latter points into the dialogue.

“Hey honey, I thought soon maybe we could get some time off and head back to blabidibloo land where we went for our honeymoon.”
“That’s sweet. We did have such a great time there, didn’t we? I’ll always remember you falling off the log.”
“Yeah, and I’ve still got the bump to prove it!”
“I know, sweetheart. I just can’t see myself getting away from work anytime soon. We’ve already got two nurses out with the flu right now so it’s all hands-“
“I know. I just thought…”
“Maybe in a few months time?”
“Yeah, maybe.”

Stuff like that there conveys so much more to the reader than just having the protagonist look over his phone. We get that their marriage is strained due to work. We get that there were happier times before. We see it directly through the eyes of the characters. My example up there is simplistic, but I’m sure you get the idea.

The next portion of the story where it’s seen that Zoe is working overtime but dun, dun, duuuuuuuun! her boss says she isn’t is just really predictable. I hope you go somewhere else with a twist on that or something.

Small note on the next scene concerning word-usage.

”…stroking his fingers over her scalp” – That’s not very erotic or sensual. Keep it to stroking his fingers through her hair. Scalp just doesn’t sound right to me.

The sex scene is fairly bland. The imagery isn’t especially interesting to me and I’m not nearly invested enough in these characters to enjoy it as a connective moment between them. Neither of them show much in the way of personality beyond what the plot demands.

In the next section there’s a great example of the kind of thing I’m talking about

"No thanks. I just came to get away from the insufferable fund-raiser inside."

It’s like he’s talking about the plot from the outside looking in.

“Nah, I thought about starting up a habit to take the edge off work but I’ve seen enough pictures of tar-filled lungs in my time to think better of it. I just came out here to get away from Mr. Monotone in there. If that guy isn’t an anaesthesiologist he’s missed his calling. I was about two minutes away from a boredom-induced coma.”

My point here is that your characters sometimes come off less as people with personality and more as drones made to push the plot forwards. I know that sounds harsh but giving your characters that spark of life is crucially important in getting readers to invest in them.

Ethan showing Callie the pendant of him and Zoe just comes off as completely random too. Are these two co-workers really close that he’d share something that personal with her just off the cuff like that? I haven’t seen any evidence of it so far in the story.

Then Ethan sees Zoe with another man in what must be the most telegraphed plot twist ever and BOOM here comes the melodrama. The overwrought reaction. The gut punch. The T.K.O.

I didn’t feel any of it.

I’m sorry, man. I’m not trying to beat you down here for no reason but from the stories of yours that I’ve looked at you have a bad tendency to lean towards heavy melodrama. It’s almost like the story starts for you at the biggest gut-punches and most awful moments in your characters lives. Like I said to you before, it’s meaningless to put your characters through tragedy without anchoring that tragedy with real meaning. In order for me to really feel bad for Ethan here, I need to be SHOWN how good his relationship with Zoe is. So far all you’ve given me is a slightly bland blowjob and a lot of poetic reminiscing about what a perfect little sunflower she is. Neither of those things invests me in Zoe or Ethan as individual characters and it does very little to invest me in their relationship at all.

I should probably say here that I’m not a regular in the Loving Wives category. I might be missing some of the conventions of the subgenre. The lack of a real connection between Zoe and Ethan might be intentional. I dunno. All I can say is that right now at what I imagine to be one of the heights of your story… I’m bored.

The sex that follows between Zoe and Ethan didn’t do anything for me. That might be because I’m not really turned on by cheating, at least not in this way. It also came across as a bit rapey, which combined with my vague dislike of Ethan as a character at this point didn’t do my investment in the story any favours.

We then introduce the P.I. and after that Ethan goes back to Zoe as an almost completely different character. Oh, wait, he’s dreaming! That’s a shame because that scene there was probably the best sex scene in the story so far. It actually did quite a bit to alleviate what I’ve been complaining about so far. If you’d had a scene like this before all the crap happened then the revelation that she’s cheating on him would have had a hell of a lot more of an impact.

The confrontation was pretty much by the book as-expected. Although that last line:

He needed the solace from whiskey that he once got from his wife. – My first thought when reading that was “his wife bought him all his whiskey? Weird.”

Zoe’s explanation reads once again without much in the way of personality coming through in the dialogue. It’s like listening to her autobiography on tape. The emotions that you tell me are there in the narrative don’t come through in the words either of the characters are speaking. As a reader I’m certainly not at the place much of your writing is suggesting I should be. That last line where you say the band-aid was off and the wound bled freely? As a reader I should surely be feeling a little bit of that?

Nerp. Nothing. Flat-line.

It seems like every section of the story finishes with an overly melodramatic line like that too. The next one is “he was in a prison of a different kind.” Don’t tell me that. Use your skills as a writer to establish the sensation of the walls closing in on Ethan. Establish mood, setting and characterisation. Blurting out stuff like that is the cheap and easy route. Sometimes you can get away with it, but as I said your flare for the melodramatic is way out of sync to where I am as a reader right now.

"And I thought it happened only in Loving Wives stories on Literotica." – LOL. HE SAID THE THING THATS NAME IT IS!

There’s a thing in writing called “hanging a lantern on it” and here it feels more like you’re “hanging a thermo-nuclear detonation on it”. It’s like you’ve said to yourself “welp, I need summore sexy time here and I can’t figure out how to manage it. I know! I’ll tell them it’s what would happen in a Literotica story because…IT IS IN A LITEROTICA STORY!”

You’re going from what feels like slightly formulaic writing there to bordering on self-parody.

I read to the end of part 1 and for me things didn’t improve much. More overwrought sadness for a relationship I couldn’t get myself invested in at all. More of the protagonist flailing about mournfully again and again going from one low to the next.

Overall, as you’ve probably guessed, this wasn’t my idea of a good time. You really need to work on characterisation and the techniques writers use to get readers invested in characters. Everything here is plot and the plot is so incredibly predictable that there’s just nothing there for me. No interesting twists or turns that I’ve seen you attempt in your other works. Again, you’re quick to take the levels of melodrama to extremes without bothering to attempt to try and make your readers feel anything like what you’re describing.

Sorry I’m being rough on you here. Like I said, it might be awesome to fans of the category. I don’t really have an opinion of loving wives, and it’s not a section of the site I go on regularly. Maybe I’m way off in my opinions! I’m not going to bother with the second chapter, since I obviously didn’t really like this one. Still, it’s got some good reviews so I might come back to it in future!
 
Red Callum, Sweet Cate.

Here’s my thoughts on Red Callum, Sweet Cate by Bramblethorn.

Ooooh! A Poem!

Full Disclosure: Lien knows bugger all about the technical side of Poetry. A university professor once tried to teach me Sylvia Plath. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti. Somehow that made more sense to me than Plath did.

The opening is interesting. The rhyming scheme is fairly simplistic, but I quite like that. It has a classical sort of fairy-tale feel to it. Recalling all of Callum’s conquests on the outset kind of adds to this, and the poetic structure allows the reader to more easily suspend disbelief. A convent of nuns? This guy is persuasive.

I also like that you’ve retained a lot of humour. It’s kind of like a fairy-story meets a dirty limerick. It establishes what I’d say is just the right tone. Not too brooding (all the poems I’ve read leaned a little towards the broody side,) and not overly dramatic.

There are some small issues of word-usage. The phrase “chickening out” kind of took me out of the moment a little bit. I don’t know if this is a story meant to be set in the past (it seems that way from what I’ve read so far) but I consider that phrase to be a bit more modern.

I also see that some of the lines come off a little clunky in your attempt to maintain a consistent number of syllables in your rhyming scheme. Again, it’s nothing major but just a few words here and there that feel out of place or unnecessary. Having said that, it must have been a pain in the ass to maintain your rhythm with such consistency for so long. So I’m willing to forgive you there!

The crescendo was… well I don’t think I’ll ever criticise you again for being afraid to use gore, that’s for sure. Wowza. The graphic imagery worked extremely well and it turned the almost light-hearted and playful tone of the piece into something far more sinister. It’s sort of why ghost children and clowns and stuff tend to freak people the fuck out. Something so seemingly innocent gets under our defences very easily and the distortion of images like that can be much more effectively plummeted into the uncanny valley. You get that effect with the tone of your story very well. What starts out being almost jovial turns downright disturbing when the tone stays consistent and the subject matter shifts to horrifying. It’s a great trick of the piece that really pays off. Very clever writing. Well done!

I don’t really think there’s much else to say about this though. It’s a simple story that lands effectively with a few very well utilised tricks of the writing. Despite that, the imagery stays with the reader perhaps more effectively than if it was told in a traditional narrative. What might easily have been seen as way overdoing the gore in a regular story actually works very well here. It’s sort of a master class in the idea of “less is more”.

On the whole it’s a great little scary tale. Keep up the good work!
 
There are some small issues of word-usage. The phrase “chickening out” kind of took me out of the moment a little bit. I don’t know if this is a story meant to be set in the past (it seems that way from what I’ve read so far) but I consider that phrase to be a bit more modern.

Yeah, you're right there. I'm not sure quite what the setting is myself, but "chickening out" doesn't belong there.

The crescendo was… well I don’t think I’ll ever criticise you again for being afraid to use gore, that’s for sure.

Heh. Thought you'd appreciate that! I don't go there often, but just once in a while it's fun to take the gloves off.

This one started out with me grumbling about authors who write like their characters are a bunch of independent body parts: "her eyes admired his chest, as his fingers explored her breasts and his lips kissed her elbow" sort of thing. I thought I'd try taking that literally and see how it worked out...

I really liked the job Kingswoman did on reading this one. Fit in very nicely with the mood I wanted to set!
 
I reviewed Bramblethorn's story here.

LaRascasse, I will try to take a look at your story too. I remember I started editing it but caught up in the chaos of Real Life for a while there. I did also think it wasn't as classy as your other stories: Katrina, and Black Sheep. I see it's pretty popular over there in the Loving Wives category, though, so I want to re-read and check what some of the comments are saying :eek:. (I will borrow TXRad's sharkproof suit before I head over there!)
 
Anyone else? *Watches tumbleweed blow on past*

To continue the Wild West theme...

Some of us are just the townspeople watching through the windows as the amazingly talented gunslingers occasionally dazzle us.

Signed,
A Grateful Lurker

:D
 
In the absence of amazing displays of marksmanship by other more talented gunslingers :D maybe, Lien, you would return the compliment and check out one of my stories? I wrote it a while back for the first Friendly Anonymous Writing Competitions. It was a bit of a cheat, we were all supposed to write an erotic story about writing, however SlycWillie kindly let it ... slip through the fishnets ;)

Was It Real?


(The FAWCS were competitions on the Authors' Hangout, where writers sent stories to Slyc which were all entered under the name FAWCker. The stories went into Chain Stories, and the winner was the one with the best votes. There had been a lot of grumbling before FAWC that people trolled our stories but we were all astounded because without exception everybody's story scored far worse when it was anonymous.)
 
In the absence of amazing displays of marksmanship by other more talented gunslingers :D maybe, Lien, you would return the compliment and check out one of my stories? I wrote it a while back for the first Friendly Anonymous Writing Competitions. It was a bit of a cheat, we were all supposed to write an erotic story about writing, however SlycWillie kindly let it ... slip through the fishnets ;)

Was It Real?

While we wait for Lien, a quick bystander comment...

I was EXTREMELY impressed by your skillful handling of the shifts between the online chat and real life. I also very much enjoyed how you treated vibrancy of the youthful mind coexisting simultaneously with the mature body! Those positives far outweigh the two minor things... I stumbled a bit trying to understand how he learned her real life location, and I was put off by the language of their chat; to me, it seemed over-done, but probably would have been perfect for someone who is more into that mode.

Overall, a very-nicely written and extremely enjoyable story!

Thanks for the pleasurable reading experience,
- curl

<ducks down and hides, waiting for a professional to arrive and show us how it's really supposed to be done>
 
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FAWC 1: Was It Real?

Here I go with NaokoSmith’s FAWC 1: Was It Real?

Ok, then we dive right into the action from the get-go with a steamy bout of cybersex. Woot!

You certainly have an affection for graphic imagery, don’t you? Wowza. It almost goes too far in your opening salvo there.

”His fingers were trembling, they felt like fat sausages, like ten erect penises pushing at the keyboard as if the keys were teeth behind which was a warm soft wet mouth.” – I read that and just got a little bit queasy. I can see what you’re going for there, but you just went a bit overboard with the simile. It’s less “mmm, spicy!” and more “ew, gross!”

That being said, overall the dirty talk is quite good and you successfully catch the writing style of horny people online. :D There’s the familiar rush of words from people you just know are typing with one hand, scrambling for satisfaction. It works very well, gives the reader the sexy voyeurism of overhearing someone else’s dirty talk.

Finding out who the protagonist is and where he is shortly thereafter is an interesting twist. Having his son stroll in on him merrily strangling the leviathan? I’m not so sure about that. It seems like you’re trying to show the protagonist’s vulnerability and loneliness, but it does come off a bit creepy. Especially the “young” stuff that’s discussed. It’s not exactly the sort of subject matter that really blends well with an erotic story. As I said, I think it’s more of a flaw in the execution than the intent but there were a couple of paragraphs there that I didn’t think needed to be.

He’s an old guy having fun on a porn site! Leave it at that. It’s more than enough to freak out his son and that’s all that’s needed here.

Of course the real connection here is with Shirley, and that plays out well over the course of the story. Knowing that she’s essentially playing pretend too is a fun twist, and it makes the ending kind of sweet.

My only major problem with the story as a whole are that the protagonist doesn’t exactly come off well in the long run. It seems like he dislikes everyone except his dream girl, and often mentally chastises people who probably don’t deserve it. You put us in his head quite well, but it’s not a very nice place to be. It’d have been nicer to get a bit more sympathy for him as it would have gone a long way to invest the reader in his happiness.

There were also some smaller issues such as the somewhat logic-bending use of similes. I also noticed some clunky writing here and there.

“He shoved in the most lascivious fucking emoticon, then realised that was wrong, found some heart thing, the seconds were ticking by ....” – I had to read that twice. Too many commas and an overall lack of clarity in what’s being said.

I get that this might have been somewhat intentional to convey the pace of what’s happening. It’s just that you don’t get a lot from what you give up in terms of making your writing clear enough to understand what’s going on.

I won’t say I liked this story, but I did find it quite an interesting insight into an area most people don’t think about all that much. Old people getting their jollies isn’t exactly stuff that a lot of people swarm for, but here you put across the struggle and frustration to get something everyone should have. I felt quite a bit of sympathy for the protagonist by the end, even if I never quite liked him.

Overall, interesting stuff but not exactly my idea of a good time. Some minor errors and a few speed bumps in the fluidity of the narrative. Nothing major though!
 
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