Literotica Newby Writer

I posted one of my stories a week ago and waiting on one more. I would love some constructive feedback since no one has left any. I actually want to learn to write better. I was a science major, so this is a stretch from research articles.

After it was posted I read it and saw a few editorial errors with one apostrophe and missing s. No need to add to my mortification on that note.

Thank you for taking your time,

Dream Christmas

//www.literotica.com/s/dream-christmas

Tristin felt his warm, strong hands moving up her thighs, gently pushing them apart. She let them go, keeping her eyes closed as he continued to kiss his way(up) her right calf. His smooth skin was felt (his skin was made of felt?)as he raised the other leg (,) hooking her knee over his shoulder. He continued his slow (decent)(If he is moving from calf to pussy, how is he decending?), and Tristin found herself(was she lost?) moving her hips, pulsing (you have her hips pulsing)with anticipation, not yet wanting to wake (up) (can she wake down?) fully and ruin the moment. You cannot merely toss in an 'and' when you have nothing else to say. the word 'and' has a specific use, to join two or more equal objects. "Wake up fully" and "ruin the moment" are not equal clauses, one depends on the other, therefore it should be placed in a dependent clause. e.g. not yet wanting to ruin the moment by awakening. or ". . . Awaken fully, ruining the moment."

(He took her leg off) and began (did he only begin or did he continue?) placing wet kisses (up the other thigh) ( I thought he was decending?) to the edge of her labia. Teasing. She was already wet with eagerness and anticipation. Still slowly undulating her hips. She willed herself to be calm. Pinning back both knees towards the bed, he licked across her folds, opening them. Tristin uncontrollably bucked harder.

Too many meaninglesss and contradictory words and confusing clauses such as "He took her leg off." Don't tell us he felt his hands move, it sounds as if someone else were moving them. And "She let them go." sounds as if they wanted to leave and she allowed it, or perhaps she had hold of them and let go. I don't think thighs can be spread together so you don't have to say they were spread (apart).

Tristan moved his strong warm hands up her thighs, spreading them. Her sleepy moans encouraged him, so he planted wet kisses up the inside of her thighs, seeking her hot pussy lips, already wet with the need of him.

thank you. Love the suggestions.

I have no significant complaints or errors to report. I suggest you read more and polish what you produce, and plenty of best-selling writers should do the same.

I kept getting thrown off by style/proofreading issues. Some examples of what I mean:

His smooth skin was felt as he raised the other leg

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Passive voice here is just confusing (unless you mean to say his skin was like felt), and there's a moment of "wait, whose leg?" If it were me I'd write this as "She felt his smooth skin as he raised her other leg".

He continued his slow decent

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"descent"

Tristin found herself moving her hips, pulsing with anticipation. Still not wanting to wake up fully and ruin the moment.

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I don't mind a sentence fragment here and there, I use them myself now and then, but I don't think this one works. I'd have reworded as "She still didn't want to wake up" etc. Same thing in a couple of other places.

He took her leg off

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Sounds painful.

"You are so wet for me. Always, so wet for me." He said into her pussy, while he blew cool air into it.

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Did you mean "into" or "onto" here? "Into" is a bit weird and occasionally fatal. I also question his ability to speak intelligibly while doing this.

Also, speech punctuation: should be '..."for me," he said into her pussy'.

With that, his mouth pierced her clit

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OW. No. I do not think "pierced" is the word you want here.

She, herself, could barley squeak out

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"barely".

Knowing she needed more and wanted release, Tristin grabbed his head

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This sentence starts out like it's going to be from his perspective, which threw me (especially since "Tristin" sounds like a male name). I'd have worded it just as "Needing more and wanting release..."

Tristin woke with a start. Heart racing, wet, pulsing, still needed release.

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Tense mismatch: "needing".

It's not clear to me whether the "it was all a dream" is intended to be a surprise to the reader - the "not wanting to wake up fully" could be read either as awareness of a dream, or as sleepy sex. From the title I'm guessing it's not meant to be a surprise, which IMHO is the right call, but might be worth flagging this more clearly at the start with some sort of "she knew she was dreaming".

She signed loudly into the tiled wall

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"sighed", unless she's part of the sign-language community. Computer spellcheckers will only get you so far!

Not even caring whom it was

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"who".
http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/who-versus-whom

Before him, stood her.

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"Her" = object
"She" = subject

In this sentence she's doing the standing so she is the subject. ("She kissed him"/"He kissed her").

So "Before him, she stood" or "She stood before him", or "Before him stood his girlfriend/the woman of his dreams/etc".

His boxers were covered in seamen.

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"Semen". Unless you're channeling The Captain's Wife's Lament.

Also, assuming he was wearing them at the time, wouldn't it be "full of" or "soaked with" rather than "covered in"?

I have to leave it there, but I'd encourage you to find a beta reader for future work - it's hard to proofread one's own stuff and computer spellcheckers really don't cut it. There may have been a good story here but I was just too distracted by these issues to focus on it.

JAMESBJOHNSON said:

I have no significant complaints or errors to report. I suggest you read more and polish what you produce, and plenty of best-selling writers should do the same.

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thanks.

Bramblethorn said:

I kept getting thrown off by style/proofreading issues. Some examples of what I mean:

I have to leave it there, but I'd encourage you to find a beta reader for future work - it's hard to proofread one's own stuff and computer spellcheckers really don't cut it. There may have been a good story here but I was just too distracted by these issues to focus on it.

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Thank you for taking you time and giving constructive feedback. It makes me want to rewrite it all now, which is positive. You are correct - I need to utilize other reader/editors in the future. I will try to apply your suggestions to my future work. I tend to want to write the choppy sentences with own my brain works, but can see how it leaves a lot of confusion. Adding and rephrasing does indeed create a larger impact. Have a great weekend.

I would reduce the size of your first section. Personally, I find sex without context to be boring. At first, I thought your story would be those stories that was all sex between two characters that we never get introduced to. I almost didn't make it to the alarm clock. The longer that first section, the longer until we meet your characters.

Bramblethorn did a great job taking the work down to its components. If I have time, I'll pick up where s/he left off. (Also, referencing Da Vinci's Notebook / Paul & Storm is automatic points in my book.) But one suggestion straight from Stephen King:

After you're done writing something, put it away and leave it alone. Do the housework you've been neglecting, spend time with your friends and family, have a beer out to celebrate finishing a story. Leave it alone until you've basically forgotten most of it. That way, when you come back, it will look like a stranger's work and you can really get down to fixing it.

Some people say there are three voices involved in the creative process: the Writer, the Editor and the Critic. I think the latter two are easily combined. The Writer is the one who loves going out to play, who just splashes words on the paper with abandon--the one who gets drunk on the sheer joy of creation. The Editor/Critic is the one with the scowl and the red pen, who says, "Nope: that was unclear. This tense is wrong. This punctuation must be fixed. This paragraph needs to be less shitty." Obviously, you need both. The problem is, they can't co-exist in your head; they're the opposite of each other. One is happy-go-lucky, wears their heart on their sleeve, and has a very thin skin; the other is a cerebral perfectionist who can't mince words to save their life. To engage one, you need distance from the other. That's why sai King suggests walking away from the work for a while: this lets you disengage emotionally. You're then ready to savage your work later without hurting your own feelings.

CWatson said:

After you're done writing something, put it away and leave it alone. Do the housework you've been neglecting, spend time with your friends and family, have a beer out to celebrate finishing a story. Leave it alone until you've basically forgotten most of it. That way, when you come back, it will look like a stranger's work and you can really get down to fixing it.

Some people say there are three voices involved in the creative process: the Writer, the Editor and the Critic. I think the latter two are easily combined. The Writer is the one who loves going out to play, who just splashes words on the paper with abandon--the one who gets drunk on the sheer joy of creation. The Editor/Critic is the one with the scowl and the red pen, who says, "Nope: that was unclear. This tense is wrong. This punctuation must be fixed. This paragraph needs to be less shitty." Obviously, you need both. The problem is, they can't co-exist in your head; they're the opposite of each other. One is happy-go-lucky, wears their heart on their sleeve, and has a very thin skin; the other is a cerebral perfectionist who can't mince words to save their life. To engage one, you need distance from the other. That's why sai King suggests walking away from the work for a while: this lets you disengage emotionally. You're then ready to savage your work later without hurting your own feelings.

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That's about as good a discussion and advice as anyone's going to get/give on Literotica about the author review process.

CWatson said:

After you're done writing something, put it away and leave it alone. Do the housework you've been neglecting, spend time with your friends and family, have a beer out to celebrate finishing a story. Leave it alone until you've basically forgotten most of it. That way, when you come back, it will look like a stranger's work and you can really get down to fixing it.

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One suggestion I've seen to help with this is changing the font before re-reading. I haven't tried it myself, but apparently it works for some.

Okay. I'm getting a better sense of the pacing now that I've read through the end of the story. It's not a story, it's the first chapter of a story. In that case, the rather extended "stroke" scene at the front is workable. The problem is, in no way did you indicate that your story would be a multi-chapter effort, so the lot of us got thrown off. In future, you might want to entitle it "TITLENAME - Chapter 1" so that The Reader know what to expect.

Okay. After we switch to Lucas's POV, things get bumpy. First you have him in his office chair, and then suddenly he's in bed, waking up after what is presumably some amount of sleep. These kind of transitions work on film or television, but not on paper--or, rather, they do work on paper but they have to be done differently. You need to set the scene better. Don't start with extraneous details about how he's looking at the alarm clock through his shirt: establish that he is in bed and something is waking him up. Honestly, the whole first paragraph of Lucas's narration is in the wrong place: that information could be worked into the section where he meets his dream woman. And it'd be a stronger start to have this 6'4 stranger wake up in bed. The Reader's going to be confused, just like he is, until you clue them in on what's going on. And then the lightbulb will go off above their heads and they'll feel smart. =)

Only the fuzzy dim light from the alarm clock could be seen from underneath his t-shirt

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Why is he looking at the clock through his T-shirt, anyway?

His cock started to pulse and heart rate sped up rapidly.

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Okay, first off: "pulse" is stretching it a little. "Stiffen" might be a bit easier to grasp. I only have experience with the penis I was issued at birth, but I very rarely find it genuinely pulsing--most of the time it just gets hard, with maybe a little bobbing along with the heartbeat, but not much. Second: "heart rate sped up rapidly" is Telling instead of Showing. You could say, "heart began to thunder" and it would be more descriptive as well as getting your point across.

She was wearing a short black dress, made to look even smaller with her long leg poking out the bottom falling into her teal colored high heels.

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Just the one leg? Also, "falling into" her shoes? Not a description I've heard before, and a bit of a strange one. Finally, you might want to consider a comma after "smaller". You have a lot of run-on sentences where you don't use punctuation even when using it could make the sentence more understandable or readable. This might just be your personal style but you should always question whether you need more punctuation than you have or conversely less than you have. Punctuation, you see, is the written equivalent of traffic signals: they organize words, in a way that gets them where they are going. If you had to drive, in a place, with no lane divider lines, or no traffic lights, you could do it... but it wouldn't necessarily be safe. But, by the same token, there are always road signs, that are unnecessary, and tell us things we don't need to know. Punctuation should hit the Goldilocks zone: not too much, not too little; juuuust right.

He lowered one hand down her flat stomach, dipping his fingers inside her silky black panties. Felling along her wet slit.

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Fragment. Also, "felling"? Is he Edward Scissorhands, denuding her old-growth pubic forest?

"Spread your legs for me," he whispered in her ear.

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Realism Hat time. Typically, the woman is shorter than the man. If she spreads her legs enough for him to really go to town, she's now even shorter still. Reaching her vulva would now be an awkward stretch.

His cock was rock hard and he could already fell the pre-cum seeping out.

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Lucas slid her panties down to her ankle. He ran his large hands up the back of her legs spreading her ass. He ran his tongue from the edge her pussy and anus, tasting her.

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From the edge... of what? Also, how'd his tongue get there? Did he bend down? Is he kneeling? These are important logistical concerns that you need to address.

"Well, mom will just have to wait if I miss it." Tristin said in her head. That was not an option though.

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As BThorn indicated, you need a comma at the end of that dialogue. Any sentence that would end with a period, but has an attribution rider after it (IE "he said" "she said"), must instead end with a comma. This is a hard-and-fast rule and you will never be wrong if you follow it. (Question marks and exclams have their own rules which are separate.) Secondly, why is it not an option? Srsly, if she misses her flight, she misses her flight. If Mommy has problems with that, they're Mommy's problems, not Tristin's.

The relentless playing Christmas tune of the Little Drummer Boy, could be heard in the in the background.

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Passive voice. You also have "in the" twice.

The deep gravely voice of the man sitting next to her surprised them both.

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I think you meant "gravelly" here, as in "like or as gravel." "Gravely" means "in serious tone or manner."

What was she thinking, wait for this man. Screw him. He has not idea how bad she needed this.

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That's a lot of tense changes. "wait" should be "waiting", and "has" should be "had". Also, he has "not" idea or "no" idea?

His familiar voice may have been stern, but his eyes could hide their amusement.

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Well, I'm glad they could hide their amusement, but are they?

She up stared up at him with her hazel eyes huge. "You..how..you.."

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That's not how ellipses work. An ellipsis always consists of three dots, not two. Additionally, some editors (though not all) demand a space before and/or after the ellipsis. Some don't, so the space is not technically necessary... But I use the spaces to show where one thought ends and the next begins. ...Since, after all, they can be used both before and after a sentence to show where the hesitation takes place. So the space adds to the, well, space. It helps organize the flow of words. (Again, punctuation as traffic signage.)

"You're mom will be so happy," he said as he sat down in his seat.

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No, your mom will be so happy! In seriousness, though, please learn the difference between "you're" and "your". It's another hard-and-fast rule that you can never be wrong if you follow.

The man in the isle was already asleep or at least pretending

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How did she know about a man on an island? I've never been to the San Diego airport (I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, so whenever we head down there, we drive), so for all I know you can see islands from the boarding gates, but that seems pretty far-fetched. Or did you mean "aisle"?

Taking his large hand in hers, she managed to stamper out, "Tristin, nice to meet you."

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Is "stamper" a word? (I mean, it clearly ought to be... But is it?)

"Oh, I think I know you better then that. I am guessing by your reaction, somehow, you do to.

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Also the differences between "then" and "than", and "too" and "to" (and "two" for that matter). More hard-and-fast rules.

Tristin drank her champagne surprisingly without chocking.

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This is an example of how your run-on, punctuation-less sentences can cause semantic difficulties. Did you mean that she drank her champagne in a surprising manner? Or that, to her surprise, she drank it without choking (no C)? Where you add the comma(s) will determine what the sentence means.

Punctuation may only involve a very few key presses on the keyboard, but it's the difference between "Let's eat, Grandma!" and "Let's eat Grandma!" Respect punctuation.

Once in the isle, he grabbed her wrist, "Those are my favorite shoes, teal."

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Oh, you did mean "aisle"... stupid me. Also, the rule about dialogue riders is reversed if you don't have one. "Wrist" should have a period after it, not a comma. Either that or the sentence should read, "he grabbed her wrist and said, 'Those are' " etc.

Looking down at him, "You and better be as good as you are in my dreams." Then Tristin stuck her chest out and walked to the bathroom.

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Same problem, except with a fragment. Here, you don't have the option of just putting a period in, because "Looking down at him" is a sentence fragment with no subject or verb. It has to be, "Looking down at him, she said, 'You had better be as' " etc. Also, why does she stick her chest out? What's the purpose of that?

Okay, I'm out of story, but that's definitely enough for one day. =)

Okay, I'm out of story, but that's definitely enough for one day. =)[/QUOTE]


Thank you for your time. I will continue to work on my side and get others to read/edit and help me as I go. I truly appreciate all your feedback.

All the best.
Ceallaigh

* I had a quick read and these are only brief impressions.

- My first thought was that Tristin was man's name which made me think it was gay male erotica Sorry, but it's my cultural bias. I think you should have chosen a better name for your female lead. How about Selene (greek goddess of moon) or Amy (a random girly name).

- Please use less commas (ie. stop breaking the flow of the action).

- The start of the sentence has the most attention. Please don't load the end of your sentences with actions.

- You are using too many adverbs: I don't like you doing this because you are cheating us of rich descriptions. I think you are capable of giving us more, so please spend the time to give us more considered descriptions.

- Your story's rating would improve if you delivered on the promises you set. By being in the romance category romance readers are expecting the erotic tension to build up and not simply be there as a given. Your story doesn't do this and it isn't romance, it's straight erotica (erotic couplings). Nitpicking? Sure, but you score would improve.

fewer commas.