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The Succubae Seduction, Discussion

* You are a good writer and you know what you are doing, so I believe it is OK to be more critical of your work

* Very poor opening: clunky sentences which don't give the reader a feel for the incoming story.

* I like how you are trying to build-up each scene by drip-feed, but you stop short of making them vivid in the mind because. . .

* Your weakness is giving the reader enough rich description/details so you can imagine each character or scene. When you are writing fast paced scenes this is not a problem, but in the slower scenes [when you are using stative verbs or whatever], then it becomes a problem.

* For various reasons you are overusing Adverbs. My primary problem with your adverb overuse is that you are using adverbs instead of adjectives in your descriptions. I admit at times you do need to use adverbs as adjectives, but most of the time when you are using adverbs you are cheating the reader of details which they savour. Expand out your adverbs into short sentences which show us the detail. [see above problem - interrelated]

* Ta-da-Here-I-am plot-character introduction. This plot annoys me for several reasons. Could you at least try to have the main character willfully choose to advance the plot by using his curiosity. Wait, she was haunting his dreams too? When did that happen and why did you cheat the reader of what could have been fantastical dreams.

* The orange bubble car, sigh, please don't call your car that. It is a cheap technique for false exoticism, where you rename real world objects into other fancy objects without any change to its basic characteristics. It makes the object confusing and far less vivid (counter-intuitive, I know). It is a small coupe, hatchback or whatever, and you can introduce your car however you like but your car is not an "Orange Bubble".

* You need an experienced and tough editor to take your writing to the next level.
- You are good at self editing, but nobody is good enough to self-edit. There are far too many missing word errors & wrong word mistakes (hole instead of whole).
[I finished reading the first story here]
- Damn, you did have an editor. I see. So your editor is skipping some sections and not correcting every little error. Use two editors if you must.

* At times you can be good with dialogue, but then you have sentences which do things like this:
The Succubae Seduction Ch. 02 said:
"Depending on how time warps randomly between the two worlds."
Click to expand...
Dialogue from an exposition character who knows&explains everything, sigh. I hate these characters in Sci-fi & Fantasy. It is a labour saving device that cheapens your writing.

* Floating Dialogue - Sometimes you have long conversations where you fail to give occasional mention to the background, any actions or description of the characters. This dialogue feels detached from the story. When you first went to the other world I thought it was on purpose, later I understood it was neglect.

* Countersinking - Another occasional exposition problem in your dialogue. You have a character say something explicit which has implicit action, then you tell us what the action is.
The Succubae Seduction Ch. 02 said:
"More succubusses, er, succubae?" I have no idea what the plural for succubus is.
Click to expand...
Your editor should have deleted the redundant dialogue explanation. Don't do it, it gets messy and confusing.

* I only read the first two chapters. I did vote :)
 
Critique!

Wow, thank you! I truly appreciate you taking the time to give such a detailed critique of my work. I've copied what you've written to my notes, so that I can work on that. Once again, thank you!
 
As the "editor", thank you litmlove for the wonderful assessment for the both of us (I really needed it!), I recommended DBs_Bro to post here because I knew he'd get an honest critique from more experienced writers, something we haven't had much exposure to.

I want to point out that this was DBs_Bro's first original series, and you only read the first two chapters, so for you to say he is a good writer that knows what he is doing is a real testament to how much potential as a writer he has. I'm pretty amazed at his skills myself.

I'm more of an accidental "editor". I saw some mistakes in Dark_Brother's work and decided to message him and the friendship grew from there, and "Dark_Brother" is how I got to know "DBs_Bro" here and friendship grew there too.

But yeah, I think I have improved since chapter 1 and 2, and I do read each chapter twice even, sometimes three times or more nowadays. I'm not sure if I was doing that with Ch01 & 02. I often catch a lot of mistakes in big-name magazines, so I can't be that bad. =P

Let it be known that even though I'm a huge fan of story-telling, and think about stories all the time, I'm not a writer myself, which is a huge detriment to trying to be an editor, I know this. I just don't have the time to practice writing. So I am more of a proofreader than anything, although I do try to give suggestions on the story too lately.

That being said, I can still try to learn to be an editor, I will try and look for more ways to improve the flow of the story instead of just proofreading. I've done that a bit, but it could be better. I'm good at thinking up over-arching stories, like what you think of in your head, not filling in the details and wording while you're writing.

Now to responses!

* Your weakness is giving the reader enough rich description/details so you can imagine each character or scene. When you are writing fast paced scenes this is not a problem, but in the slower scenes [when you are using stative verbs or whatever], then it becomes a problem.
Click to expand...

I believe I did notice this in the beginning, but I probably should have been more diligent in makes DBs_Bro aware of the issue each time it comes up. Not sure if this came down to laziness, not taking the story serious at first, or lack of confidence in myself (I don't want to be too picky with my editing, but I realize this is a fine line to walk and that I should be more focused on helping the story than coming across picky), all three issues I've been working on.

* For various reasons you are overusing Adverbs. My primary problem with your adverb overuse is that you are using adverbs instead of adjectives in your descriptions. I admit at times you do need to use adverbs as adjectives, but most of the time when you are using adverbs you are cheating the reader of details which they savour. Expand out your adverbs into short sentences which show us the detail. [see above problem - interrelated]
Click to expand...

Thanks, I never thought about this before, it seems to be something a writer has to actively ponder over after each chapter.

* The orange bubble car, sigh, please don't call your car that. It is a cheap technique for false exoticism, where you rename real world objects into other fancy objects without any change to its basic characteristics. It makes the object confusing and far less vivid (counter-intuitive, I know). It is a small coupe, hatchback or whatever, and you can introduce your car however you like but your car is not an "Orange Bubble".
Click to expand...

I'm going to go out on a limb here (or should I say bubble? =D), and say that this critique on the Orange Bubble was because you didn't know it would actually be a secondary character of its own, so perhaps this critique doesn't apply. It was fitting to have a name for this character, and it is not odd for someone to have a name for their car (my uncle's name for his Dodge is "Bull"). I don't believe DBs_Bro ever made this mistake in later chapters either.

Could you at least try to have the main character willfully choose to advance the plot by using his curiosity.
Click to expand...

It would be great to hear examples of what you would do to fix this in particular? I believe in most stories something happens or someone appears in order to advance the story. Perhaps you're saying its better to have the character stumble upon something instead, ala The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe?

"Depending on how time warps randomly between the two worlds."
Click to expand...

To be clear, are you pointing out the sentence fraction or something more?

Dialogue from an exposition character who knows&explains everything, sigh. I hate these characters in Sci-fi & Fantasy. It is a labour saving device that cheapens your writing.
Click to expand...

How would you fix this? I can't think of any other way to explain something without writing out 5 chapters just on the character experiencing lore, so you have to pick what lore would be interesting for your character to experience themselves and what lore should be explained. The character has to learn somehow, if not from someone, by something, like a book. Maybe you are tired of it because it's a cliché used in almost all Sci-Fi and Fantasy writings (unless I'm just not seeing something)? Using a cliché doesn't automatically mean something is bad, it's the way the cliché is used, right? Perhaps you mean not ALL of the lore should come from one person? I agree with that, but Angela is only the beginning. ;)

* Floating Dialogue - Sometimes you have long conversations where you fail to give occasional mention to the background, any actions or description of the characters. This dialogue feels detached from the story.
Click to expand...

This is similar to the first point, right? Add more details. Gotcha, thanks!

"More succubusses, er, succubae?" I have no idea what the plural for succubus is.
Click to expand...

In this case I don't feel what was said (in quotation) is enough for some readers to understand what was meant. Sometimes you have to write for the lowest common denominator to make sure everyone can experience the story. This makes it more redundant for more educated readers, but your audience and who you want to appeal to is something you have to consider and decide on with any particular story. I will admit, I could be wrong in this case, it's only my hunch.

Keep in mind, too, that this could have been made redundant in order to be a jab at the title of the story. An example from the movie The Blind Side:

The left tackle's job is to protect the quarterback from what he can't see coming. To protect his blind side.
Click to expand...

(Maybe this wasn't it, or it's not the same, I don't know.)

Looking forward to learning more from your responses! Thanks again, this one of the best if not the best reply we've ever gotten on this story.
 
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Unless you're asking for a critical beatdown for your story, I would say that your story reads quite well for any passerby who's just glancing through your work.

As most readers go, they really don't mind minor grammatical mistakes here and there. They're a forgiving bunch. You might get a few browbeatings such as "this mistake here and there", but don't go too hard on yourself.

The next thing I noticed is a tiny bit lack of details of a scene. Other readers have said this, so I don't think I have to elaborate on that.

Otherwise, I liked reading your story. The pace is good and the plot is engaging.

I noticed that your series order is a bit botched due to your naming methods. I think you should change the name of the first book from " The Succubae Seduction" by adding a "Bk. 01" to the name.

You can PM Laurel regarding this, if you want.
 
garbonzo607 said:
As the "editor", thank you litmlove for the wonderful assessment for the both of us (I really needed it!), I recommended DBs_Bro to post here because I knew he'd get an honest critique from more experienced writers, something we haven't had much exposure to.
Click to expand...
Cool.

Could you at least try to have the main character willfully choose to advance the plot by using his curiosity.
Click to expand...
It would be great to hear examples of what you would do to fix this in particular? I believe in most stories something happens or someone appears in order to advance the story. Perhaps you're saying its better to have the character stumble upon something instead, ala The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe?
Click to expand...
I didn't explain myself.

I was writing my comments as I was reading, and at the time I had a sneaking feeling DBs_Bro was writing an "And plot". An "And Plot" is where this happens, and that happens, then this happens, then that happens, and more stuff happens. I don't like "And plots" because I want to know why everything is happening.

So when I said I want the main character to investigate to progress the plot, what I really want is a reason for the plot progression.

"Depending on how time warps randomly between the two worlds."
Click to expand...
To be clear, are you pointing out the sentence fraction or something more?
Click to expand...
It is a clunky sentence which also commits a sin of exposition.
- The focus of a sentence comes first, so what is the subject here? Commit yourself to being bold and clear.
- the adverb
- one sentence of exposition that explains everything and nothing. There is no further explanation, the statement only raises more answered questions.
- It is not natural dialogue - human speech prefers contractions. So it should be something like : "It depends on how time warps" with a followup sentence, or maybe: "the link between our words fluctuates, it is impossible to say how much time you will lose." They are only a suggestions (and too late). The solution to these clunky sentences is to break them down into their constituent parts and build from there. In my opinion the statement should have been the subject of entire conversation later on when he discovers he has lost track of time.

Cliches can be useful templates but they come with a lot of negative baggage.
- They make reading familiar/bland/boring. Why bother reading your cliches when somebody else has done the elsewhere better than you? Good for you if you can do orks and elves better than Tolkien and every other fantasy writer. I presume you would be subverting and reinterpreting those tired cliches.
- They often do not fit to the style of the story and you can create your own.
- distractions
- lack originality
Dialogue from an exposition character who knows&explains everything, sigh. I hate these characters in Sci-fi & Fantasy. It is a labour saving device that cheapens your writing.
Click to expand...
How would you fix this? I can't think of any other way to explain something without writing out 5 chapters just on the character experiencing lore, so you have to pick what lore would be interesting for your character to experience themselves and what lore should be explained. The character has to learn somehow, if not from someone, by something, like a book. Maybe you are tired of it because it's a cliché used in almost all Sci-Fi and Fantasy writings (unless I'm just not seeing something)? Using a cliché doesn't automatically mean something is bad, it's the way the cliché is used, right? Perhaps you mean not ALL of the lore should come from one person? I agree with that, but Angela is only the beginning. ;)
Click to expand...
You can remove exposition in million ways, the short answer is "Show don't Tell".

- how does the character know this? Which leads you to ... now show it!
- Why do you need exposition or back-story? You could have had your character come back to this world and notice a day missing. No explanation, but there definitely is a day missing.
- dull exposition should be deleted, dramatic exposition is fascinating.
- using actions: character reads a newspaper which has unfolding action & exposition at the same time.
- cut it down to a few words
- flashback?
- in the form of an answer to a question in conversation. Your character needs to know the answer to the question, the answer is not dumped on them.
- by deleting it and ignoring the exposition


"More succubusses, er, succubae?" I have no idea what the plural for succubus is.
Click to expand...
In this case I don't feel what was said (in quotation) is enough for some readers to understand what was meant. Sometimes you have to write for the lowest common denominator to make sure everyone can experience the story. This makes it more redundant for more educated readers, but your audience and who you want to appeal to is something you have to consider and decide on with any particular story. I will admit, I could be wrong in this case, it's only my hunch.
Click to expand...
Sorry, but you are wrong. It is exposition redundancy. Did I mention it is exposition redundancy? It is also Telling not Showing.

“You have to get out of here,” he said, urging her to leave.
Click to expand...
No, the burly detective intoned, refusing to agree
Click to expand...
In these made up examples you can see how painful countersinking is.

Also, your reading audience is never stupid, there is only varying levels of readability (ignoring the ideas of the content).





I may review some of your later chapters. Should I jump to chapter 34? That is another I thing I am not a fan of: a million little chapters. I didn't comment on this because it is very subjective. I would prefer if you amalgamated your chapters into 7,000 to 10,000 word sections.
 
garbonzo607 said:
Keep in mind, too, that this could have been made redundant in order to be a jab at the title of the story. An example from the movie The Blind Side:

The left tackle's job is to protect the quarterback from what he can't see coming. To protect his blind side.
Click to expand...

(Maybe this wasn't it, or it's not the same, I don't know.)

Looking forward to learning more from your responses! Thanks again, this one of the best if not the best reply we've ever gotten on this story.
Click to expand...

It isn't. It is saying Blind Side = left tackle's job.
Which I didn't know because I am not American.
 
litmlove said:
So when I said I want the main character to investigate to progress the plot, what I really want is a reason for the plot progression.
Click to expand...

Got it, thanks.


- one sentence of exposition that explains everything and nothing. There is no further explanation, the statement only raises more answered questions.
Click to expand...

You seem to have got the gist. If it was better written, it'd probably be fine except he probably should have experienced it instead, like you suggested.

- It is not natural dialogue
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's because it's only a fraction of a full sentence. I understand, thanks.

Cliches can be useful templates but they come with a lot of negative baggage.
- They make reading familiar/bland/boring. Why bother reading your cliches when somebody else has done the elsewhere better than you? Good for you if you can do orks and elves better than Tolkien and every other fantasy writer. I presume you would be subverting and reinterpreting those tired cliches.
- They often do not fit to the style of the story and you can create your own.
- distractions
- lack originality
Click to expand...

Most stories have been done to death over and over again, basically, most if not all stories are only variations on tried and true cliches. It's impossible to be entirely original. That's what I meant by the way you use cliches (and what cliches you use).

You can remove exposition in million ways, the short answer is "Show don't Tell".
Click to expand...

These are all good points to keep in mind while writing, thanks for this. I thought you meant lore, or backstory, such as a war that happened previously (something even the best writers need to do to flesh out the world). Obviously this needs to be read / told, or perhaps a flashback, as it can't be experienced. I understand what you originally meant now, it all has to do with exposition.

Sorry, but you are wrong. It is exposition redundancy. Did I mention it is exposition redundancy? It is also Telling not Showing.
Click to expand...

Ah, I found the blog where your example was taken from (or otherwise a crazy coincidence): http://jenniferkoliver.livejournal.com/7272.html

This is really good to keep in mind, thanks a bunch for this.

I like this definition:

A form of expositional redundancy in which the action clearly implied in dialogue is made explicit.
Click to expand...

DBs_Bro has probably made this mistake before, since it seems almost all new writers do it, but I believe what I take issue with in your example is that it really wasn't clearly implied, at least not to me. I had no idea what "succubae" was supposed to mean when I first read the title of the series (except that it had something to do with succubus somehow), and I might not have known what it meant in this sentence either, as far as I can tell DBs_Bro made the word up, as his story is one of the first results when you search for the word. But perhaps that's just me, I can be dumb like that.

Also, your reading audience is never stupid, there is only varying levels of readability (ignoring the ideas of the content).
Click to expand...

I never said they were. I agree, "there is only varying levels of readability," and, depending on the story, you have to appeal to different levels of readability, that doesn't mean everyone has a certain static level of readability either, sometimes people can understand some things clearly, whereas not other things, or sometimes a person will be reading your story drunk :). As a game designer myself, it reminds me of how game designers use lighting, objects, and other details in order to absolutely make sure that all players understand and know where to go in a level. You don't want to "leave any player behind".

Since this is the title of the series, it's kind of important that the reader understands what it means.

But don't get me wrong, I can definitely see why countersinking is a mistake and a bad habit to pick up, and I thank you for making me more aware of this.

I may review some of your later chapters. Should I jump to chapter 34? That is another I thing I am not a fan of: a million little chapters. I didn't comment on this because it is very subjective. I would prefer if you amalgamated your chapters into 7,000 to 10,000 word sections.
Click to expand...

Ah, I believe this is because you are reading the first book after it is finished, instead of in progress. For instance, it's best to watch Breaking Bad on Blu-Ray so that when one episode is done, the next one plays, since the series is over, but back in 2012, I would prefer to watch the show episodically as it comes out instead of having to wait a year or so until it is released on Blu-Ray (I know some people wait in order to binge-watch, but I'd rather watch something I'm interested in ASAP). This is also the approach Telltale takes to video games, with episodic releases online, and then a retail full version when it's done. This also gives the writer/developer more chances to interact with the community over the course of the story/game in order improve the story/game in response to feedback. It really works for us.

Chapter 34 and/or Book 2 Chapter 1 would be cool.

It isn't. It is saying Blind Side = left tackle's job.
Which I didn't know because I am not American.
Click to expand...

Ah, sorry, you probably don't understand because it's an American phrase I guess. (Google says North American)

To be blind-sided means to "catch (someone) unprepared; attack from an unexpected position."

So it is redundant because they've already said, "from what he can't see coming", this is what "the blind side" means. They basically repeated it. But it was for effect, because it is the title of the movie / book.

Thanks again for your awesome help.
 
Ah, I found the blog where your example was taken from (or otherwise a crazy coincidence)
Click to expand...
Not mine. It is the first example I found on google :)

Also, please don't go to the other extreme and delete all dialogue exposition, then you end up with floating dialogue lol ;)

garbonzo607 said:
Got it, thanks.

... I agree, "there is only varying levels of readability," and, depending on the story, you have to appeal to different levels of readability, that doesn't mean everyone has a certain static level of readability either, sometimes people can understand some things clearly, whereas not other things, or sometimes a person will be reading your story drunk :). As a game designer myself, it reminds me of how game designers use lighting, objects, and other details in order to absolutely make sure that all players understand and know where to go in a level. You don't want to "leave any player behind".
Click to expand...
You subscribe to the Hemingway school of writing and I respect that (beauty in simplicity). Please remember it is a really hard style to do master: it even took Hemingway hundreds of drafts to get right. You are not Hemingway, so please don't shun adjectives and don't mistake brevity for clarity. Oh, one more thing, if you truly want to understand Hemingway's style, then please master dialogue.

And my style? I am comfortable with a more expansive style often to my detriment. I do it because at some point you can put your foot down and say, "this story contains [hardcore sex] and I will treat the expected audience with the language they deserve".

Removing adverbs, passive verbs and unnecessary qualifiers all helps improve the readability, but using them is not sinful. The problem is that these words add avoidable complexity. You may have to use them to convey a specific meanings of ambiguity or reticence in your writing.
 
Chapter 3

Just submitted chapter 3 to Literotica. Should be up in less than a week. You can view it now on my blog at http://fantasytrove.blogspot.com/ along with chapter 4.

Thanks for the great constructive feedback so far. I have already tried to improve my writing with the advice given, and hope it shows.
 
People have already given a lot of great feedback, just wanted to pop in to agree and say I really dig it. Thanks for contributing :)
 
vStrictly said:
People have already given a lot of great feedback, just wanted to pop in to agree and say I really dig it. Thanks for contributing :)
Click to expand...

Thank you very much! I really appreciate hearing that. I hope I can continue to deliver.
 
Chapter 12

Chapter 12 has been pushed to the blog, and chapter 11 will be up here soon!
 
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