Feedback for Blame it on the Alcohol

Story Title: Blame it on the Alcohol

Wordcount: 5300

Category: Incest

Author: HaremStarter

Link to first chapter: https://www.literotica.com/s/blame-it-on-the-alcohol

This is my first story on the site and appreciate all feedback positive and negative.

I'm a big reader of incest/taboo stories. Yours has a 4.44 rating right now, which I think is fair.

Good stuff:
* The mom comes across sexy as hell
* Sex was hot

Things I feel you could improve on:
* While the bar scene was much better than a narrative summary dump, it was still essentially a narrative summary dump. Would have been better if you had opened with a scene where David is talking to his mom while waiting for Laura to show up. Sara is in her small black mini and David tells her how hot she looks. Show us the sexual tension rather than tell us about it
* You're painting a picture with your words and there isn't much detail about David or Sara. The only character we get a description of when we meet her is Heather, who's an unimportant character. The descriptions of David and Sara come out in dribbles as the story goes on rather than giving us a clear picture up front. For example, we find out that Sara is wearing a small black mini only when she takes it off. We find out Sara is 38 only after she cums. I think the descriptions of David are only limited to his body. Tell us early their hair color, their eye color, some facial features, how tall they are. Fill in that part of the picture
* Think some more on your plot points. The more believable your story, the better. David's been dating Laura for six months and they've only kissed? Really? And there were no girlfriends before that? Sara is a smoking hot woman living in the big city and she can't get a date? You seem to imply that Sara hasn't been in a relationship since she divorced David's Dad long ago. Why? Why did David's dad get custody and not Sara?

Hope that helps.

Things I feel you could improve on:
* While the bar scene was much better than a narrative summary dump, it was still essentially a narrative summary dump. Would have been better if you had opened with a scene where David is talking to his mom while waiting for Laura to show up. Sara is in her small black mini and David tells her how hot she looks. Show us the sexual tension rather than tell us about it

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This is exactly the kind of thing that I'm talking about. Yeah it would have been a lot better if I had David accidentally walk in on his mother while she was getting ready for her date as he was all snazzed up for his. I could have played up the tension where she straitened his collar and maybe they lingered close to each other a bit too long and had some awkward sexual tension between each other.

* You're painting a picture with your words and there isn't much detail about David or Sara. The only character we get a description of when we meet her is Heather, who's an unimportant character. The descriptions of David and Sara come out in dribbles as the story goes on rather than giving us a clear picture up front. For example, we find out that Sara is wearing a small black mini only when she takes it off. We find out Sara is 38 only after she cums. I think the descriptions of David are only limited to his body. Tell us early their hair color, their eye color, some facial features, how tall they are. Fill in that part of the picture

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I wrestled with this very issue as I was writing. I myself tend to want very limited description of the main characters as what I find sexy may very well be different from you. For example in my head Sara has short red hair and is around 5'6''. To someone else she may a statuesque blonde. If I describe her completely she would always be that 5'6'' red head. But I think in my aversion to giving to many details I gave too few. I'll try to avoid being Stephenie Meyer ish in my descriptions from now on.

* Think some more on your plot points. The more believable your story, the better. David's been dating Laura for six months and they've only kissed? Really? And there were no girlfriends before that? Sara is a smoking hot woman living in the big city and she can't get a date? You seem to imply that Sara hasn't been in a relationship since she divorced David's Dad long ago. Why? Why did David's dad get custody and not Sara?

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I blame this on the author being omniscient. Sara is a workaholic. That's why she moved across country, it's why she gave up custody of David, and it's why she hasn't had a date in a while.

Yeah the David and Laura thing was kind of serving the plot. I mean they had gone farther though not very successively. Also, Laura was not the best girlfriend. The reason for her being his girlfriend is she felt she could control him. I allude to him not taking the move well and being depressed. She was basically belittling his sexual prowess as a method of control. Alas in the first draft I realized I had put to much blame on David. After the first draft I did rewrite to put some blame on her. {David came across as pathetically impotent in that draft.} But I don't think I articulated it well enough.

Hope that helps.

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So thanks for all your points. This is exactly the kind of feed back I was looking for!

HaremStarter said:

I wrestled with this very issue as I was writing. I myself tend to want very limited description of the main characters as what I find sexy may very well be different from you. For example in my head Sara has short red hair and is around 5'6''. To someone else she may a statuesque blonde. If I describe her completely she would always be that 5'6'' red head. But I think in my aversion to giving to many details I gave too few. I'll try to avoid being Stephenie Meyer ish in my descriptions from now on.

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My take is that there isn't a man alive who doesn't find both 5'6" red heads and statuesque blondes sexy. As a reader, I don't care too much what the woman looks like as long as she looks hot. No description and it's like a stick figure is walking around.

HaremStarter said:

Yeah the David and Laura thing was kind of serving the plot. I mean they had gone farther though not very successively. Also, Laura was not the best girlfriend. The reason for her being his girlfriend is she felt she could control him. I allude to him not taking the move well and being depressed. She was basically belittling his sexual prowess as a method of control. Alas in the first draft I realized I had put to much blame on David. After the first draft I did rewrite to put some blame on her. {David came across as pathetically impotent in that draft.} But I don't think I articulated it well enough.

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Show, don't tell. I think it would have worked much better if in the first scene after David's awkward moments with his mom, the doorbell rings and Laura comes in. We then see her being controlling and belittling David and being catty to his mom. We would then understand why the mom hates Laura so much.

HaremStarter said:

So thanks for all your points. This is exactly the kind of feed back I was looking for!

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Glad to have helped!

8letters said:

My take is that there isn't a man alive who doesn't find both 5'6" red heads and statuesque blondes sexy. As a reader, I don't care too much what the woman looks like as long as she looks hot. No description and it's like a stick figure is walking around.


Show, don't tell. I think it would have worked much better if in the first scene after David's awkward moments with his mom, the doorbell rings and Laura comes in. We then see her being controlling and belittling David and being catty to his mom. We would then understand why the mom hates Laura so much.


Glad to have helped!

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I really do appreciate it. It always helps to have another set of eyes on a story. I'll definitely incorporate this in my future works.

In general, I agree with the criticisms 8letters made.

I think your opening scene, in the bar, was a good attempt at show don’t tell. You’re trying to work backstory in slowly. Unfortunately, you literally repeat every single important detail from the opening scene once Sara gets back to her apartment. Redundancy is to be avoided, and largely what that is telling you is that the opening scene is completely superfluous. You could literally just start the scene by having Sara wander home drunk and frustrated. You probably should have done that.

***

Within the scene at the bar, you talk about how Sara is unwilling to admit to herself that she’s attracted to her son. From a bird’s eye view, it’s a magnificent detail that Sara hasn’t lived with her son, and suddenly she has this 18 yr old guy in her apartment that she barely knows and is really good looking. That’s great in theory, but you kind of stumble in the scene-level execution of the idea. It’s difficult in a story to have a character that isn’t willing to admit something to themselves because what that usually means is that the character will willfully misattribute that something to just about anything else.

"Something must be wrong with my birth control pills because all of a sudden I am horny, like, all the time. Especially by the end of the night, once dinner is over and I'm alone in bed."

They certainly wouldn’t say it in an inner monologue, even to say “I won’t admit this to myself.” That’s literally admitting it to themselves. When you have characters that aren’t admitting something to themselves you get into having an Unreliable Narrator, and while that can be an AMAZING storytelling technique, it’s not for beginners.

In the above example, about birth control, you can see how a reader might not understand what you're trying to do. It's obtuse and indirect. It can be made to work, but it requires a skill and a delicate touch.

The really brilliant part of the “my son is basically a stranger” plot mechanic you are using is that it should have allowed you to have a mind-blowing moment where Sara really sees David, consciously, for the first time, and that is where you can drop in a really explicit description of him. How broad his chest is. How wide his shoulders are. How his chin is so much like his father’s, and that it turns her on now as much as it did when she was dating his father. You missed that opportunity.

***

For me, though, the biggest problem was the dialogue once the sex started. Dirty talk has a place. There’s no question that dirty talk has a place in erotica, but in a moment like this? Between family? Once you get past the “oh my god, what are you doing? What are WE doing?!”, realistically those characters would just be lost to their physical desires. Dirty talk is a cerebral kind of sexy. A thoughtful kind of sexy. It requires real poise and self-control, in the moment, to dissociate yourself from whatever physical sensations you’re feeling and wrap your brain around the specific kinks of the encounter that are at work for the other person, because that’s who dirty talk is for (for the most part). It's for the benefit of the listener and not the speaker.

Dirty talk is a place that many sexual relationships get to, sometimes sooner than others, but there’s other things that tend to get sorted out first. I understand the urge to cram every brilliant idea you have into a story. The frailty of genius is its need for an audience. However, a healthy dollop of restraint in the amount of conversation happening once Sara and David got going would have improved this for me.

***

The biggest missed opportunity, in my opinion, was the way you ended it. You established that your characters were lonely. Fine. You established that your characters were attracted to each other. Fine, though I think we all agree that could have been a little smoother. You created a situation where they were at emotional low points, and where sex between them was not a complete left turn. Fine.

In property law, there’s a concept called Easement. If you boil it down to very simple terms it says that yours is yours and mine is mine, and that permanent access to what is mine requires special permission. You created a story where special circumstances (drunk) broke down some walls, but those circumstances are very temporary. Most human beings that have drunk sex with someone their not supposed to regret it later, but not here. Being drunk should have only created temporary permission and not an Easement (permanent access), and instead you wrapped this up SUPER neat with “Oh I guess us fucking is just a thing that’s happening now.”

The effects of Alcohol are not a mystery. Alcohol does not grant courage. That courage had to be there already. What Alcohol does is remove the reasons people learn to not act on that courage. “That guy is cute, and although I would normally just go talk to him, I’ve been shot down too many times.” This is where Alcohol helps, and where you missed your biggest opportunity.

Alcohol didn’t make her fuck her son. She wanted to fuck her son, and that realization in the cold light of the following morning could have been devastatingly powerful whether you chose to let her embrace the idea or not. You went out on a fluff note instead of a thundering chord.

Incest is a heavy kink. It is not lightly added to a story, and if it is you aren't doing it justice.

Imagine if i wrote a short story where two characters have sex, and then in the authors notes at the end of it add "oh btw, those two are brother and sister." That wouldn't work as an incest story. You can't shortcut the emotional weight of incest, and when you do, you do your story a disservice. You built that up nicely in the beginning, you oversold it in the middle with needless dialogue, and then ignored it completely afterwards.

I enjoyed this story. Don't get me wrong. I liked it, but it was only good when it could have been amazing.

AwkwardMD said:

Incest is a heavy kink. It is not lightly added to a story, and if it is you aren't doing it justice.

Imagine if i wrote a short story where two characters have sex, and then in the authors notes at the end of it add "oh btw, those two are brother and sister." That wouldn't work as an incest story. You can't shortcut the emotional weight of incest, and when you do, you do your story a disservice. You built that up nicely in the beginning, you oversold it in the middle with needless dialogue, and then ignored it completely afterwards.

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I think AwkwardMD's advice is awesome. I'd like to add a little bit to this section. At the end, Sara is a sex-crazed woman who's happy that she might have been impregnated. That to me is inconsistent with the workaholic Sara you described (and is kind of implied in the story). To me, the story would have been more successful if David turned out to be the type of guy that Sara had wanted all along but couldn't find.

Edit:
Thinking a little more on this, three points:
* Pregnancy is a huge step and she takes it far too lightly
* Morning after pills are readily available and Sara would know that
* Sara's transformation borders on misogynistic. One fuck and she's transformed into a David's willing sex slave

8letters said:

Edit:
Thinking a little more on this, two points:
* Morning after pills are readily available and the main character would know that
* Sara's transformation borders on misogynistic. One fuck and she's transformed into a David's willing sex slave

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Agreed. I feel like the ending got a lot of things wrong because the OP was aching to be done and put this out there.

I appreciate all the criticism.

I knew the story wasn't perfect and that there were things that didn't work. But I tend to get tunnel vision and have a hard time identifying the places where improvement could be made. So that's why I wanted others to give me their honest opinion. I think a fresh set of eyes can notice things that someone who has spent hours working on a story might miss.

For me, though, the biggest problem was the dialogue once the sex started. Dirty talk has a place. There’s no question that dirty talk has a place in erotica, but in a moment like this? Between family? Once you get past the “oh my god, what are you doing? What are WE doing?!”, realistically those characters would just be lost to their physical desires. Dirty talk is a cerebral kind of sexy. A thoughtful kind of sexy. It requires real poise and self-control, in the moment, to dissociate yourself from whatever physical sensations you’re feeling and wrap your brain around the specific kinks of the encounter that are at work for the other person, because that’s who dirty talk is for (for the most part). It's for the benefit of the listener and not the speaker.

Dirty talk is a place that many sexual relationships get to, sometimes sooner than others, but there’s other things that tend to get sorted out first. I understand the urge to cram every brilliant idea you have into a story. The frailty of genius is its need for an audience. However, a healthy dollop of restraint in the amount of conversation happening once Sara and David got going would have improved this for me.

Click to expand...

This comes from my own personal turn on. When I watch porn if there is not some dirty talk I get bored and disinterested. I should have realized though that I could be getting the same effect from describing the encounter. Different mediums have different strengths. I'll try to work on this.

Agreed. I feel like the ending got a lot of things wrong because the OP was aching to be done and put this out there.

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Yeah, it's a weakness of mine. I run out of steam toward the end of a story. I didn't mean for it to come across as misogynistic. It never even crossed my mind that Sara would be considered David's sex slave. But if multiple people are getting that vibe from reading it there is probably something to it. I'll need to do better in the future.

Edit:
Thinking a little more on this, three points:
* Pregnancy is a huge step and she takes it far too lightly
* Morning after pills are readily available and Sara would know that

Click to expand...

Yeah the Pregnancy thing was a shameless vote grab. I write for another site and over there that kind of thing scores you easy internet points. In fact there were a lot comments I received that were all enthusiastic about the possibility of Sara getting pregnant. Though if I'm going to improve I'll need to stop "popping" the reader and instead build a logical story.

HaremStarter said:

This comes from my own personal turn on. When I watch porn if there is not some dirty talk I get bored and disinterested. I should have realized though that I could be getting the same effect from describing the encounter. Different mediums have different strengths. I'll try to work on this.

Click to expand...

This is the wrong take-away Dirty Talk is amaaazing in erotica. It's a fantastic way to break up dense description, but it's not a silver bullet. It is not universally applicable. There are times to use it and times to focus on other things. A first time incestuous encounter is one of those times to focus on other things. Usually that thing is the erratic internal narrative of "omgwtfamidoingwhydoesthisfeelgoodIhatemyselfI'mgonnacum!"

HaremStarter said:

Yeah, it's a weakness of mine. I run out of steam toward the end of a story. I didn't mean for it to come across as misogynistic. It never even crossed my mind that Sara would be considered David's sex slave. But if multiple people are getting that vibe from reading it there is probably something to it. I'll need to do better in the future.

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An editor, or a beta reader, would really help you follow through on your endings. Trust me.

Yeah the Pregnancy thing was a shameless vote grab. I write for another site and over there that kind of thing scores you easy internet points. In fact there were a lot comments I received that were all enthusiastic about the possibility of Sara getting pregnant. Though if I'm going to improve I'll need to stop "popping" the reader and instead build a logical story.

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There's nothing wrong with writing stroke pieces. Pieces that are entirely purpose-built for that pop. I can only speak for myself, but I gave you feedback to help you improve on a different curve; more traditional storytelling with a powerful erotic component rather than pure stroke material. Whatever you want it write is your prerogative, and you shouldn't feel bad for trying to write something with the express purpose of attempting to get readers off.

AwkwardMD said:

An editor, or a beta reader, would really help you follow through on your endings. Trust me.

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I had a reader and a couple of beta readers. The editor did help me. This was the second version of the story. In the first version it wasn't clear that Sara was jealous of Laura and David was way to passive and then switched on a dime to dominate. Also, the pregnancy/breeding aspect was much more pronounced without the proper build/foreshadowing. I still never felt fully satisfied so once the story went live I asked for additional feedback.

AwkwardMD said:

There's nothing wrong with writing stroke pieces. Pieces that are entirely purpose-built for that pop. I can only speak for myself, but I gave you feedback to help you improve on a different curve; more traditional storytelling with a powerful erotic component rather than pure stroke material. Whatever you want it write is your prerogative, and you shouldn't feel bad for trying to write something with the express purpose of attempting to get readers off.

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I don't feel bad about my story. I have a respectable rating and some good comments. It's my first time writing a self contained short story. I've always felt that the best stroke material is good erotica so I want to get better at that. I've found writing short story fiction to be a fulfilling hobby and like with any hobby I always try to get better.

HaremStarter said:

Yeah, it's a weakness of mine. I run out of steam toward the end of a story. I didn't mean for it to come across as misogynistic. It never even crossed my mind that Sara would be considered David's sex slave. But if multiple people are getting that vibe from reading it there is probably something to it. I'll need to do better in the future.

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A woman has spent her whole life building her career, then one day she meets a manly man and suddenly all she can think about is pleasing him and raising a family. The favorite stereotype of people who like to tell working women, "Don't worry about getting a promotion. Worry about getting a MAN." Add some dinosaurs and you've got the plot of "Jurassic World".

HaremStarter said:

This comes from my own personal turn on. When I watch porn if there is not some dirty talk I get bored and disinterested. I should have realized though that I could be getting the same effect from describing the encounter. Different mediums have different strengths. I'll try to work on this.

Yeah the Pregnancy thing was a shameless vote grab. I write for another site and over there that kind of thing scores you easy internet points. In fact there were a lot comments I received that were all enthusiastic about the possibility of Sara getting pregnant. Though if I'm going to improve I'll need to stop "popping" the reader and instead build a logical story.

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If you're going to have dirty talk and an impregnation in your story, you might as well go full stroker. Give the mom massive tits and her son's main attraction to her is that he's hung like a horse. There's nothing wrong with a stroker. Right now, you're in no man's land.

HaremStarter said:

I knew the story wasn't perfect and that there were things that didn't work. But I tend to get tunnel vision and have a hard time identifying the places where improvement could be made. So that's why I wanted others to give me their honest opinion. I think a fresh set of eyes can notice things that someone who has spent hours working on a story might miss.

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I think you can write well enough. It's now learning to envision a story all of whose elements work together to deliver a great story.

8letters said:

A woman has spent her whole life building her career, then one day she meets a manly man and suddenly all she can think about is pleasing him and raising a family. The favorite stereotype of people who like to tell working women, "Don't worry about getting a promotion. Worry about getting a MAN." Add some dinosaurs and you've got the plot of "Jurassic World".

I think you can write well enough. It's now learning to envision a story all of whose elements work together to deliver a great story.

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Like I said I petered out at the end. The weak ending is the result of me wanting to be finished. If I'm being honest while I can sit here and tell you most everything that happened in the story without looking I do not remember the ending. I can tell you I never envisioned nor was it my intent for the it to come across as it did. Also, from now on I should probably outline my stories before I write them. That way I have an idea of the ending before I get there and just go "awe fuck it let's just end on them basking in the after glow." Which can easily be misconstrued as me having the woman become completely subservient to a man's dick. And maybe I shouldn't use the early 2000's rom com trope of woman working too hard to have time to find a dude as part of the back story. It is in and of itself problematic and can as I now see only lead to other story problems.

The next step is putting in the work and taking to heart constructive criticism and knowing that if I want to improve I can't take short cuts.

HaremStarter said:

The next step is putting in the work and taking to heart constructive criticism and knowing that if I want to improve I can't take short cuts.

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Yes, no short cuts. You've learned the delights of a premature submission! The story ain't properly done until it's finished, and, like others, you've found that satisfaction drops if you end too soon .

Don't fuss with this story though, it is what it is. Do better on the next one.

HaremStarter said:

Also, from now on I should probably outline my stories before I write them. That way I have an idea of the ending before I get there and just go "awe fuck it let's just end on them basking in the after glow."

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Find what works for you. I never outline my stories as I have the whole story in my head before I start writing. Other people start with two characters in an interesting situation and make up the plot as they write.

HaremStarter said:

Like I said I petered out at the end. The weak ending is the result of me wanting to be finished. If I'm being honest while I can sit here and tell you most everything that happened in the story without looking I do not remember the ending. I can tell you I never envisioned nor was it my intent for the it to come across as it did. Also, from now on I should probably outline my stories before I write them. That way I have an idea of the ending before I get there and just go "awe fuck it let's just end on them basking in the after glow." Which can easily be misconstrued as me having the woman become completely subservient to a man's dick. And maybe I shouldn't use the early 2000's rom com trope of woman working too hard to have time to find a dude as part of the back story. It is in and of itself problematic and can as I now see only lead to other story problems.

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Don't be too hard on yourself - most mother-son stories end like yours did. I write what I think are plausible romantic incest stories and mother-son is the most difficult type of incest for me to come up with a story line where they end up as a happy, committed couple. And I think that lack of romantic punch is why even though mother-son is the most common type of incest story, they don't make the top-rated lists. If you want to stay with incest, I'd suggest trying some other type.