Feedback needed for tone. Sexy or scary?

I sent one of my friends/beta readers the first draft of a story introduction to get her opinion on the premise. I was surprised as hell to be told "as a woman, that's not sexy, it's terrifying."

Can I get initial feedback from you lot - especially any female readers?

Ta.

(It really is a first pass write, so don't expect it to be great literature. )




Have you ever been in the back of a police car? This is my first time, and it’s nothing like I expected. I guess I’ve seen too many American cop shows, but I was expecting wipe down vinyl everywhere and a heavy duty cage between the prisoner bit and the police bit.

So, it turns out that British cop cars aren’t anything like that. The seats are normal seats and there’s no cage. I don’t feel like I’ve been arrested for some terrible crime - I feel like my dad has just picked me up from a night of underage drinking. I could probably reach between the front seats and turn the radio up like I used to when dad was telling me how inappropriately dressed I was.

No matter what my dad thought of the skirts I wore back then, I never had my bare bum prickled by the horrible velour fabric he seemed to love.

I should probably explain. I’ve not been arrested for a horrible crime. I’ve been picked up by two very nice policemen who saw me sprinting naked across the road at three in the morning and decided it would be a good idea to find out what was going on, you know?

So, I’m sat in the back of a police BMW wearing nothing but a hi-vis jacket and an incredibly itchy blanket. The blanket is prickling my bum as bad as any velour and making my pussy itch. Well, it’s making my pussy itch more, if you know what I mean?

[Excerpt edited ~ Exceeds prescribed forum limit]

Damnit - I didn't realise there was a length limit. Sorry mods.

Is there anywhere else I can stick to get feedback?

NoCorrelation said:

Damnit - I didn't realise there was a length limit. Sorry mods.

Is there anywhere else I can stick to get feedback?

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You can't post longer stories here on the forums, but you could ask in the Editor's Forum if anybody there is willing to give you feedback, then send them a copy via PM or email.

I think it's a matter of not wanting to host stories that haven't been moderated by Laurel.

Also, this forum is explicitly for feedback on stories already posted on the Literotica story file. Requests for this sort of help should, yes, go in the Editor's Forum or even on the Author's Hangout. There's still a limit to how much text you should post on the forum, though.

I wouldn't be too concerned about putting off female readers, we're such a small demographic here. Even amongst males, most kinks have limited appeal. Write what you think is sexy and you'll find kindred spirits with like interests.

blin18 said:

I wouldn't be too concerned about putting off female readers, we're such a small demographic here.

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What concrete evidence do you have of that?

sr71plt said:

What concrete evidence do you have of that?

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It was just an opinion, and I set my burden of proof pretty low for opinions I express on the internet. Certainly I set it well below the grade of "concrete evidence".

I keep a mailing list of readers, a surprisingly large proportion of whom reveal either their gender, a given name from which I am able to infer a gender, or some gender empathy with a male character in the story.

I leave room for the possibility that there is an untapped wellspring of female readers in a category that I don't publish, like BDSM. I also grant that women as a class either don't like my stories, don't choose to read them, or don't choose to write to authors to thank them for their submissions. It's just that none of those possibilities strikes me as convincing enough to alter my opinion.

blin18 said:

I wouldn't be too concerned about putting off female readers, we're such a small demographic here. Even amongst males, most kinks have limited appeal. Write what you think is sexy and you'll find kindred spirits with like interests.

Click to expand...

"...we're such a small demographic here." Right. That's a good one.

Maybe, maybe not. There's no way to tell other than personal opinion.

True. There could be more women on Lit than men. We will never know.

For me, it's the "just a small" that's questionable. I wouldn't have any trouble thinking there were more men than women, both as readers and as writers--which is another cut at it. It's unlikely that the true gender proportions of readers and writers and forum participants are exactly the same.