AwkwardMD and Omenainen Review Thread

[TheseLegs]

For one thing, it seems like what you've written are a related series of standalone stories. There are some drawbacks to this, because it means that any subtle worldbuilding you did over there does not translate for readers over here. It definitely doesn't translate for me, who is just reading the one that you asked about.

I agree so much, I feel like I pretty much just said the same thing.

I am really not so much about scores, etc, and I was being a little facetious about the 2.2 in the original ask. I am just trying to have fun and get some of my writing read. I thought this review might be fun, and hoped it would focus more criticism of the writing aspects, style and whatnot, that your reviews often include. This topic is not fun for everyone, clearly not for you, but since I reached around Khei's age the thought of pregnancy is arousing. I suuuuuuuuuuuper don't actually want to be pregnant so I sometimes write about women who do. Is this a pregnancy fetish, or just biology? Either way, I'm going to stay away from Loving Wives. Following category descriptions just isn't worth it.

Thanks again for your time.

 

[AwkwardMD]

I agree so much, I feel like I pretty much just said the same thing.

I am really not so much about scores, etc, and I was being a little facetious about the 2.2 in the original ask. I am just trying to have fun and get some of my writing read. I thought this review might be fun, and hoped it would focus more criticism of the writing aspects, style and whatnot, that your reviews often include. This topic is not fun for everyone, clearly not for you, but since I reached around Khei's age the thought of pregnancy is arousing. I suuuuuuuuuuuper don't actually want to be pregnant so I sometimes write about women who do. Is this a pregnancy fetish, or just biology? Either way, I'm going to stay away from Loving Wives. Following category descriptions just isn't worth it.

Thanks again for your time.

At the risk of dragging out the conversation beyond the point of helpfulness, I don’t think you wrote a story about pregnancy, or the desire for it.

One story element that's come up for us in previous reviews, that I think is salient here, is humiliation. Imagine a story featuring two male protagonists who have penetrative sex, but the main kink explored is humiliation. Their dirty talk hinges on how embarrassing it would be if anyone found out. That changes the tone of how much these two characters can genuinely and honestly enjoy each other's company. It can still be hot, and it can still feature peens in butts, but adding humiliation switches around enjoyment and guilt in a way that makes it not really about boy on boy love at all, but about the secretive and shameful aspect of doing something socially taboo.

As always, if you get off on that, more power to you.

If you want to write a breeding fantasy, you will find a vast and exciteable audience out there waiting for you. Adding in infertility changes the dynamic, and makes it a lot more about Khei's squirming feelings of inadequacy (or, at least, it did for me) than it does about her increasing demanding biological clock.

 

[djrip]

Adding in infertility changes the dynamic, and makes it a lot more about Khei's squirming feelings of inadequacy (or, at least, it did for me) than it does about her increasing demanding biological clock.

I've been confused reading your review, why you several times have said that the story is about her feelings of inadequacy regarding infertility, when the story is about a couple where the man has an injury that everyone seems to think will keep him from fathering a child? I mean there is a brief mention that they don't know for sure that he is the problem, but it seems pretty clear that he's the problem, doesn't it? Or am I missing something?

 

[AwkwardMD]

I've been confused reading your review, why you several times have said that the story is about her feelings of inadequacy regarding infertility, when the story is about a couple where the man has an injury that everyone seems to think will keep him from fathering a child? I mean there is a brief mention that they don't know for sure that he is the problem, but it seems pretty clear that he's the problem, doesn't it? Or am I missing something?

If I've misunderstood the degree to which Khei was worried about whether or not she was the problem, that's on me. We rarely read a story multiple times to make sure our first take is 100% accurate to what's on the page.

EDIT: also, the further we get from reading it, the more the details blur. It's not intentional. We're doing our best.

 

[TheseLegs]

I've been confused reading your review, why you several times have said that the story is about her feelings of inadequacy regarding infertility, when the story is about a couple where the man has an injury that everyone seems to think will keep him from fathering a child? I mean there is a brief mention that they don't know for sure that he is the problem, but it seems pretty clear that he's the problem, doesn't it? Or am I missing something?

Thank you, I also was confused by that, and also thought it was obvious enough (without getting into details of his humiliation) in the story. @joy_of_cooking very helpfully mentioned in the first reply, including quotes.

 

[AwkwardMD]

This is why a plethora of opinions and wider participation is so helpful! We're never trying to purposefully misunderstand someone's work. Healthy conversations can go a long way!

 

[AwkwardMD]

I'm not sure that this meaningfully changes my thoughts, however. Having the infertility be Ramo's problem and not Khei's just shifts the blame around a little. It's still an elephant in the room that the story has to maneuver around before it gets to the good stuff (assuming that being bred is the good stuff).

I had previously read the story thinking that the elephant was the point (which is why we focused on it so much) but it sounds like it maybe it wasn't.

 

[TheseLegs]

I think a big difference in the plot is that Evan can solve Ramo's problem (to some degree) where obviously in your reading there's no chance. Again, I didn't want either Ramo or Khei to feel bad(der than the situation was making them feel), I just wanted to give young Evan a chance to help this struggling couple out. With his dick.

Again, thanks for sort-of reading my story. Have a good one.

 

[Omenainen]

@Bazzle
Phantom Flings

So, this is a story inspired by another story. I did read the original too, mostly because after 35k words of this the 2.5k words didn’t feel like much of an investment, and also because I was curious to see how much was in the original piece.

I’m curious about your intentions. You saw this short story, this kernel of a story, and thought to yourself, this could be expanded. But expanded how? What were your goals? What do you think the original author said with the story, and what was it that you wanted to add or change? What were you trying to say? What did you think your story would be about?

If your goal was to steamroll these 2.5k words into tenfold the length, to have more surface to slather your kinks onto, then in that you succeeded.

I tend to want more from stories. To me, writing is profoundly an art of saying something. Sometimes we get requests from people who go “oh I wasn’t trying to say anything,” and those people misunderstand what we’re trying to do in this thread. I see our reviews as a tool to help authors say what they want to say more effectively, but I don’t know what we could help them with if that is not their goal.

I was trying to come up with a definition on what a story is, but got exhausted imagining the ill-willed bystanders chiming in saying “but I write stories that do <the thing> and/or don’t do <the thing> all the time!” Instead, I’m going to point out the places where I saw storytelling potential that you didn’t tap into.

Reading the original, the questions that were left unanswered were how is it possible that ghosts exist, why does this particular ghost exist, why does it use its ghostly abilities to fuck women who happen to be in its house, is it confined inside the house, what would it do if there was a man staying there? Those are the first ones that come to (my) mind. In 2.5k words it’s okay to leave things hanging and just introduce them as facts. But, after reading 35k words of yours… none of those questions have been answered, or even asked.

In the beginning, we are introduced to the main character, who is slovenly, unkempt, self-centered, a bad friend and a liar, all on page one. We follow her around for ten Lit pages, and in the end she is shown to be slovenly, unkempt, self centered, and a bad friend. In the ten lit pages, essentially nothing happens. Nobody grows, nothing changes, nothing is revealed, nothing grander is referenced or implied. There’s things happening, but things happening is not the same as a story.

Phantom Flings is fatphobic in the way most interracial stories are racist. Her weight and bad habits are fetishized in a way that makes the first person narration seem oddly unfitting, like she’s talking about herself outside of herself. It’s also not consistent. Her fat seems to come and go with what the story needs, but it doesn’t convey real understanding on how a person of this size moves or thinks. For example, she’s supposedly sitting on the ground, under a tree and keeps “popping in” to fill up her coffee mug, with no concerns on how difficult it is for a big person to sit down or get up from the ground. In the next paragraph, she’s squatting to pee and that’s then portrayed to be very cumbersome.

You have fetishized Miranda’s perceived failures as a human being, and from that angle I can see how you don’t want to see her change (at least not for the better) but that’s the first obvious one. She could have learned something from this encounter, evaluated her life, learned to understand and love herself more, leading her to make better choices. She could have pondered about how fleeting life is and how she’s throwing hers away. She could have derived more strength and self esteem from her newfound sapphic sexuality and her deepening relationship with Tammy. The way you start with Miranda writing at home and end with Miranda writing at home gives you an opportunity to showcase how she’s changed during the story. To serve your fetishes you could have shown her getting worse; you could have had her be more fit and in control of her life in the beginning, and then spiral into some kind of “fuck it, I’ll just drink and smoke and lie here and let the ghost fuck me until I die.” That would have been change, if not in the direction I’d rather see personally.

The story within a story is a neat tool. Miranda is writing a book, which mirrors the events in “real life”, but you’re not using that tool for anything. The doubly fictional story is unable to produce different narrative voices, so that even with the chapter titling it takes some effort with each switch to determine which one is happening. One easy technique would have been to use past tense for one and present tense for the other, if you couldn’t differentiate the actual narrative style. Then again, that would necessitate you to be able to stay consistent in tenses, which you didn’t.

Even putting narrative concerns aside, what were you trying to do with the story-within-story? You could have used it to show us something about Miranda, how she transforms things happening to her in real life into fiction. You could have used it to mirror the framing story in a way that reveals something about the reality of the story, or maybe have them affect each other in some supernatural way. The stories ended differently, but I didn’t get any significant arc or meaning from the story-within-story, just like I didn’t get it from the framing story. Mostly it was just like reading the same story twice.

The ghost itself. From how it was described to have this cold touch, I thought maybe there’d be some horror life-sucking aspect of “as the story progresses, the ghost gets warmer and the living get colder,” but there wasn’t. The ghost’s motivations or goals were not explored, the specifics of its predicament were not covered. In many ghost stories the gist is “something is left unresolved and the spirit can’t move on.” Maybe the ghost never satisfied his wife, and is now doomed to pay for his negligence? After a million female orgasms, he’s finally free to move toward the light? He needs to knock somebody up with his ghostly spunk and breed the next antichrist? Nobody in the story seems interested in these questions, or in any way affected when confronting the hitherto unknown world of the supernatural. The reaction to “ghosts are real!” is “oh, okay, I’ll just fuck it then!” from both Miranda and Tammy and also the doubly-fictional Jenny. There’s no fear, no shock, no surprise, nothing. An element in the story is only as effective as you make it to be. You have to have tension to have release. Nothing in this story affected anyone, as far as I can see. In the story-within-story it’s even more pronounced, as having sex with the ghost is for no apparent reason more important than anything in the protagonist’s life, up to a point where she gleefully throws her life away with no second thoughts.

Also, having the ghost leave the toilet seat up makes no sense whatsoever.

Miranda’s and Tammy’s sexuality. In the beginning, you present them as straight, except that you have Miranda ogle Tammy in a male gaze-y sexualized way. During the story they go from friends to friends with benefits (plus a ghost for a third wheel), but it’s a non event. They supposedly find out they’re at least bisexual, but neither of them bat an eye at this revelation. It just happens. This could have been a bigger moment for one or both of the women, but also it could have been used to counterpoint the cold (literally), impersonal, in many ways nonconsensual and mechanical sex with the ghost, to say something about human touch and connection and love as opposed to just the mechanics of sex. And, like with the self-destructive habits, if what you wanted to say is “sex with even a dead guy is better than a relationship with a living woman,” you could have started with them as lovers and then have them succumb to the superb dead dick.

Prose-wise, the most glaring issue is the shifting verb tenses. You go back and forth past and present, sometimes within a sentence. Pick one and stick to it. Edit yourself until you have it right. The other shortcoming is how much you waffle on about things that don’t matter to anyone. Even with the kinks you want to shoehorn in, the storytelling could be much snappier and more purposeful. I’ve said this before, and I’ll repeat it now: the ability to tell a 2.5k story in 35k words is not a virtue in the modern world. It might have been once, back when authors were paid by the word, but in today’s world where stories are fighting for readers’ attention with all the more quickly gratifying digital experiences, it’s more of a liability.

For the positives, it’s obvious that you have ideas you want to explore. Even the ability to produce more from a prompt is an ability. You should spend a moment thinking about what it is that you really want to say, and then spend some effort on trying to get that across. If you only want situations where a random character smokes and drinks too much and pisses themselves, then shorter, more stroker-like stories, with porn-like “plots” might fit that goal better.

 

[Bazzle]

Many, many thanks for your review. I appreciate reading my waffle could be hard work.

I helped edit the original story, and liked the character. I to wanted to work out how she got to the house. Where did she come from, and importantly where is she going?

I tend to want more from stories. To me, writing is profoundly an art of saying something. Sometimes we get requests from people who go “oh I wasn’t trying to say anything,” and those people misunderstand what we’re trying to do in this thread. I see our reviews as a tool to help authors say what they want to say more effectively, but I don’t know what we could help them with if that is not their goal.

I wanted to tell a story, an author under pressure to write a story. Yes playing to my kinks but a story of close friendship changing to almost a threesome. Just one was a ghost. How close were the two friends? That sort of thing.

The story is her ability to tell a story (even if I failed at telling it!) The inspiration around us helps us as authors write.

The contrast maybe fetishization of her weight and unfitness is meant to be compared to the character she writes. Her dream shape and athleticness. Her chainsmoking persona is contrasted by the hiking and adventure as she munches on yet another pizza and guzzles wine.

One easy technique would have been to use past tense for one and present tense for the other, if you couldn’t differentiate the actual narrative style. Then again, that would necessitate you to be able to stay consistent in tenses, w

I will agree that my tenses got muddled up. But I was trying to write two stories with two different perspectives in one. I clearly failed and got myself into a right muddle! So yes, I got that wrong. I think I tried to do something that was bigger than my skill set

Also, having the ghost leave the toilet seat up makes no sense whatsoever.

I was playing on that forever issue...even in death its annoying?

or the positives, it’s obvious that you have ideas you want to explore. Even the ability to produce more from a prompt is an ability. You should spend a moment thinking about what it is that you really want to say, and then spend some effort on trying to get that across. If you only want situations where a random character smokes and drinks too much and pisses themselves, then shorter, more stroker-like stories, with porn-like “plots” might fit that goal better.

I totally agree. But this story isn't really one of those. I tried to make a story tell a story. Whilst giving space to my fetishes.

I tried, and potentially failed. I looked to build characters and an environment for them to live in.

However I really do appreciate you reading it, and ultimately helping me with what I need to do for my next stories. Thank you so much.

B

 

[AwkwardMD]

@Devil_PS
Link

This is your second time around, so we’re just gonna briefly touch on a couple good things. Love the creativity. There’s also a levity to this that makes it a very easy and light read. Those are strengths for you, and the story works best when you are able to indulge these things.

***

Anachronisms are things that don’t belong. Here in reality, the only anachronisms to be found are things that are very old co-existing with things that are new, like a cobblestone street in the middle of a bustling, modern city. There’s a juxtaposition, an incongruity, that is striking.

In fiction there are any number of ways to subvert the expectations of the reader, but the end result is the same. The audience will see this contrast, this unexpected element, and take something away from it. The best use of anachronisms in fiction are when they are used to draw attention to something. In M. Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense, there is a visual anachronism in the color palette of the film, drawing attention to the color red whenever it appears on screen, which culminates (pays off) in the climax of the film.

To some extent, within fiction, the expectations of the reader are not exactly the same as true, or pure. We expect a thing because of past experience, cultural influence, etc, and maybe not because that’s how it is supposed to be, or has to be. To be an effective communicator (and, as writers, that’s what we are all doing) one must be at least somewhat aware of these things. It’s hard to get your point across if you leave your work wide open to common misinterpretations.

All this is to say that there’s no hard and fast stricture that says fantasy Elves must sound like British people… but it is mostly what people are expecting. Something stiff, perhaps a bit regal. In general, Elves are a stand in for the upper class. Seemingly ageless, effortlessly graceful. Obviously, some fantasy chooses to ground their Elves a bit more than this, but if we were able to conduct a poll for the casting of an elf character in a fantasy film you’d get a lot more votes for Orlando Bloom than Larry the Cable guy.

That’s not to say that you couldn’t cast Larry the Cable Guy as an elf, not at all. There’s a lot of interesting stuff to mine from a choice like this, but it’s one you would make with the specific purpose of doing just that. The choice to have your titular Forest Elves speaking the way you do is theoretically interesting and surprising, but you did nothing with it. As near as I can tell, you’re not using this change to paint your elves as anything other than elves.

I’m going to include a couple examples from my own writing here. Remember, what we’re talking about is strong writing and how to do it, not to pass judgement on the things you are ‘allowed’ to do.

For context, Mathilda is a Dwarf, Ayen is half-Elven, and Ivy and Katsa are both human.

“Oh no,” Mathilda groaned, as they and their horses ambled toward the small mining outpost of Gahlston. “Dwarves.” A troupe of them marched across the street ahead, going from one establishment to another.

Marched is perhaps too strong of a word.

“Finally!” Ayen exclaimed. “Someone your own size to pick on!”

“Didn’t think we’d find Dwarves this far south,” Katsa mused.

“Oh these aren’t Dwarves of the ‘true’ Southern Kingdom,” Ivy said, miming air quotes. “They’re all dead. Those…” She pointed for clarity. “...are resettlers.”

“Criminals,” the Divinist snarled. “Outcasts an’ buffooons.”

“Do you like anyone?” Ayen asked.

“Lemme pu’ it this way,” she answered, finding some of her old voice. She held up her thumb. “Ah don’ like Dwarves. Unruly, ungrateful, an’ stubborn.” Index finger. “Ah don’ like Southern Dwarves even more. Ridiculous numbskulls. The Necromancers did us a kindness by riddin’ the world of ‘em.” Middle finger. “First thing these degenera’ ingrates did was appropriate an entire dead culture withou’ the sligh’est sense ‘o digni’y!” She stared daggers down the road. “One’f em found a corpse that’d had a birdcage slammed onto ‘er head as ‘er town was razed. Suddenly, there’s a whole village of these gene pool trespassers wearin’ cages as ‘ats!”

“G’day, mates!” one of the dwarves said cheerily as he passed them in the street.

Mathilda turned, fuming, to Katsa, her short arms held straight out at her sides. “ ‘oo talks like tha’?!” They both shook their heads as they rode on, although for different reasons. “Look’t ‘em. Like a flock o’ cows blitherin’ about.”

“Herd,” Katsa corrected.

“What?”

“Herd of cows.”

“ ‘course Ah heard o’ cows,” Mathilda scoffed. “Are ye daft? Think Ah don’ know what cows are jus’ because Ah grew up under a mountain?” She continued to mutter under her breath about the pervasive racism she faced on a day-to-day basis simply because she was a Dwarf, while Katsa sighed, missing the cultured conversations and learned debates of the Arcanist Guild and not for the first time.

On the one hand, the point of this interaction was to highlight that I, the author, am aware of how dense and inscrutable Mathilda’s manner of speech is. She doesn’t pronounce h’s, and she sometimes doesn’t pronounce any hard consonant sounds (especially at the end of words). That becomes Tha’, and so on. It can be a bit of a slog but I’m aware of it.

On the other hand, this scene is highlighting how un-self-aware Mathilda is (and a little bit ignorant). She doesn’t see herself as being capable of the kinds of egregious offensiveness she immediately assigns to people she already doesn’t like. Her outrage at a perfectly intelligible Australian mode of speech says more about her than it does about anyone else. Mathilda’s default condition is outrage, and this scene highlights that she’s entirely fallible in her choices of where to direct it. She projects things she doesn't like about herself onto others without realizing that's what she's doing.

***

The next scene also features Val, who is an Orc. They are stalking a Bigfoot and, upon seeing it, are not sure how to fight it.

“We should probably send in the Elf.”

“Is that like our default strategy now?” Ayen hissed.

“We should be using it more often than we do,” Val laughed. “You could totally seduce a Bigfoot. Until we started swinging, that Hairon was way more interested in your backside than your hand.”

“Which still isn’t working right, by the way.”

Mathilda held up her middle finger as she continued to read in silence, and Ayen rolled his eyes.

“If only we could get to it from the inside,” Val said distractedly, as she stared off into the distance. “Get under the skin somehow.”

“Yeah,” Katsa laughed, “like if the Bigfoot used Ayen as a dildo.” After a beat, the Arcanist reared back, gasping and covering her mouth with her hand.

“Why would you even think that?” Ayen said, glaring.

“Ah like where yer head’s at, lass,” Mathilda added without looking up.

“No.”

“You could be our Trojan man,” the big Orc said excitedly. “Like, literally!”

“I am exercising my right of veto,” the Half Elf demanded.

“Ooooooh,” Ivy mumbled, as she quickly pulled out her pad of yellow paper and scanned through it. “Ssssorry. We don’t have anything like that, but I’m making a note so we can revisit the ‘veto’ subject later.” She scribbled a few notes, murmuring veee toe slowly under her breath.

“I can’t stop picturing it,” Katsa cackled. “Your little flailing legs sticking out of a Bigfoot’s ass!” She paddled her hands in front of her as she went red-faced.

{...The scene continues. Ayen falls out of the tree they are hiding in. The Bigfoot drags his unconscious body back to its lair, and the rest of Terrible Company is following the trail...}

Katsa shook her head and detached from the conversation between the Healer and the Bard. Behind them, Val looked pensive. “He’ll be fine.”

“What?” Val said, blinking. “No. No, I was just thinking it was weird that I didn’t get more laughs at that Trojan man joke. I mean, you got it, right?”

“Yeah, it was funny.”

“He’d be just like the Trojan Horse!”

“I know.”

“Cus he’d be, like, sneaking inside under false pretenses!”

“I know,” Katsa groaned.

“But also like, you know how Trojan is a brand of—”

“Oh my Gods, I know!”

Val frowned. “I mean I thought it was a pretty good joke, but it didn’t get much of a reaction.”

“It’s crazy how needy you are sometimes.”

“What?” Val scoffed. “I’m not needy.”

“I can’t be responsible for propping up your ego every other day.”

“Are you doing that thing where you’re actively trying to piss me off?”

In this fantasy setting, I’m having Val reference both the modern product of Trojan condoms as well as the real world historical Trojan War and the Trojan horse specifically, in the service of having a character try to make a joke that doesn’t land. Everyone understands what she’s saying, but it’s just not where their heads are at, and in fact Katsa is using this as an opportunity to get Val riled up because their sex is more interesting for her when Val is all riled up. This out-of-place reference is paid off much later, in the finale of the series, where I reveal that Terrible Company is a game of D&D being played by some horny teens. They usually stay in character, but there are hints throughout the story (like this Trojan joke) that I put there on purpose to foreshadow the ending.

Now, there is certainly room for discussion on how effective my use of anachronisms are, but I was definitely trying to do something with it. Anachronisms are a spotlight you can use to shine on something that the audience might miss, something you want them to remember later, something that you want to draw attention to. Including an anachronism for the sake of anachronisms is pointless.

 

[Omenainen]

Celebration! Party! Champagne! Bring out the edible body paint and glitter!

The above review marks a milestone in the review thread, because it was the 47th we've done together, which means that we've now given as many reviews together as AwkwardMD gave on her own before I joined in. Because having me involved means SPREADSHEETS, and DATA, and SUMMARIES, and LAW AND ORDER, I thought we might celebrate with a bit of statistics. (So sexy!)

AwkwardMD started this thread in January 2020. Between that and closing up the thread in August 2021 (a bit over 1.5 years) she gave 47 reviews for 34 different authors.

We reopened the thread in April 2022. Since then, in approximately 1 year and 10.5 months, we've given 47 reviews for 41 different authors. One story we read but it disappeared before we could review, and that's not included in the total.

It's been quite a journey. I remember back when AwkwardMD renamed the thread to include my name, and I thought it was not appropriate because she'd given out so many reviews before my time. Well, I feel more at home now.

As much as I'd like to include stats about the stories, the data is inconclusive because some of the stories have since then been removed or reposted (and some savage people didn't use to keep spreadsheets of the requests grumble grumble grumble).

 

[Bazzle]

Thank you so much for doing it!

 

[StillStunned]

Thanks for doing this, both of you, and in particular for reviewing my story.

 

[joy_of_cooking]

spreadsheets

What do your spread sheets record?

 

[Omenainen]

What do your spread sheets record?

Mostly it's to keep a list who's asked for what and when so we don't lose track. Author, story title, category, word count, day requested, day review posted, which one of us posted the review. Links to story and review. But some of the stories have since gone missing or updated, so it's not reliable data, especially with AMD's earlier reviews because all that remains are the reviews.

 

[Devil_PS]

Congrats!

I will also hopefully reply to the review proper soon when I got time but thank you for the read!

 

[Devil_PS]

@Devil_PS
Link

This is your second time around, so we’re just gonna briefly touch on a couple good things. Love the creativity. There’s also a levity to this that makes it a very easy and light read. Those are strengths for you, and the story works best when you are able to indulge these things.

***

Anachronisms are things that don’t belong. Here in reality, the only anachronisms to be found are things that are very old co-existing with things that are new, like a cobblestone street in the middle of a bustling, modern city. There’s a juxtaposition, an incongruity, that is striking.

In fiction there are any number of ways to subvert the expectations of the reader, but the end result is the same. The audience will see this contrast, this unexpected element, and take something away from it. The best use of anachronisms in fiction are when they are used to draw attention to something. In M. Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense, there is a visual anachronism in the color palette of the film, drawing attention to the color red whenever it appears on screen, which culminates (pays off) in the climax of the film.

To some extent, within fiction, the expectations of the reader are not exactly the same as true, or pure. We expect a thing because of past experience, cultural influence, etc, and maybe not because that’s how it is supposed to be, or has to be. To be an effective communicator (and, as writers, that’s what we are all doing) one must be at least somewhat aware of these things. It’s hard to get your point across if you leave your work wide open to common misinterpretations.

All this is to say that there’s no hard and fast stricture that says fantasy Elves must sound like British people… but it is mostly what people are expecting. Something stiff, perhaps a bit regal. In general, Elves are a stand in for the upper class. Seemingly ageless, effortlessly graceful. Obviously, some fantasy chooses to ground their Elves a bit more than this, but if we were able to conduct a poll for the casting of an elf character in a fantasy film you’d get a lot more votes for Orlando Bloom than Larry the Cable guy.

That’s not to say that you couldn’t cast Larry the Cable Guy as an elf, not at all. There’s a lot of interesting stuff to mine from a choice like this, but it’s one you would make with the specific purpose of doing just that. The choice to have your titular Forest Elves speaking the way you do is theoretically interesting and surprising, but you did nothing with it. As near as I can tell, you’re not using this change to paint your elves as anything other than elves.

I’m going to include a couple examples from my own writing here. Remember, what we’re talking about is strong writing and how to do it, not to pass judgement on the things you are ‘allowed’ to do.

For context, Mathilda is a Dwarf, Ayen is half-Elven, and Ivy and Katsa are both human.



On the one hand, the point of this interaction was to highlight that I, the author, am aware of how dense and inscrutable Mathilda’s manner of speech is. She doesn’t pronounce h’s, and she sometimes doesn’t pronounce any hard consonant sounds (especially at the end of words). That becomes Tha’, and so on. It can be a bit of a slog but I’m aware of it.

On the other hand, this scene is highlighting how un-self-aware Mathilda is (and a little bit ignorant). She doesn’t see herself as being capable of the kinds of egregious offensiveness she immediately assigns to people she already doesn’t like. Her outrage at a perfectly intelligible Australian mode of speech says more about her than it does about anyone else. Mathilda’s default condition is outrage, and this scene highlights that she’s entirely fallible in her choices of where to direct it. She projects things she doesn't like about herself onto others without realizing that's what she's doing.

***

The next scene also features Val, who is an Orc. They are stalking a Bigfoot and, upon seeing it, are not sure how to fight it.



In this fantasy setting, I’m having Val reference both the modern product of Trojan condoms as well as the real world historical Trojan War and the Trojan horse specifically, in the service of having a character try to make a joke that doesn’t land. Everyone understands what she’s saying, but it’s just not where their heads are at, and in fact Katsa is using this as an opportunity to get Val riled up because their sex is more interesting for her when Val is all riled up. This out-of-place reference is paid off much later, in the finale of the series, where I reveal that Terrible Company is a game of D&D being played by some horny teens. They usually stay in character, but there are hints throughout the story (like this Trojan joke) that I put there on purpose to foreshadow the ending.

Now, there is certainly room for discussion on how effective my use of anachronisms are, but I was definitely trying to do something with it. Anachronisms are a spotlight you can use to shine on something that the audience might miss, something you want them to remember later, something that you want to draw attention to. Including an anachronism for the sake of anachronisms is pointless.

Thank you again for giving the story a look. Currently nearing the end of writing another story (though might look back and do some possible expanding and editing).

I see what you mean there as it does admittedly feel like I mostly give the Forest Elves, specifically Slarinda, a very out there accent unexpected for elves especially when Gwendyn is there to differentiate just for a fairly small joke. Like Slarinda was quick to clarify this doesn't make her a backwater hick though her accent while speaking the human language threw our heroines into a loop. But then, that was kind of it and there's not much to show for it. A little more could had been added but I did miss that opportunity and mostly focused on the way she spoke. It's a little embarrassing I haven't actually thought bout anachronism when writing the story until you pointed it out because that's really what it was though it could've been done better than what the story gave. Nevertheless, I do appreciate the lesson here and to figure out how to write anachronisms with more effort in mind I'm doing something with it.

Truly appreciate it

 

[Omenainen]

@THBGato
The Hardest Step

Hi and welcome to Lit!

This was your first submission, so I’ll just briefly touch on a few things.

Forewords. They seldom have a purpose, and if a content warning (in addition to proper tagging) is necessary I prefer short and to the point ones, for example

Content warning: rape, suicide, drug addiction

I don’t think warning about no sex in Non-Erotic is necessary and I do think readers want to get to the story, not read the author’s musings about the story. The story should stand on its own. If it needs explaining, you’re doing something wrong. Write the explanations into the story so that it makes sense again. Also all kinds of “current issues” in forewords are bound to get stale very quickly. AwkwardMD has often removed ones she’s written, over time, feeling like they don’t age well. I also think there’s no reason to be apologetic: you’ve written a thing, now let it stand on its own. It’s not necessary to apologize in advance for how some hypothetical person might feel about it.

Standalone stories. This was not a story. This was barely a scene. That might be fine as a part of a series, but this was not a part of a series. Most readers come to our stories from the new lists, and every story is a brand new opportunity with mostly brand new readership. Relying on readers knowing something about you, the other stories you’ve written, your characters, or your fictional world, is usually not a very good course of action. Each stand alone story should be able to stand on its own. If they don’t, they’re not really stories, and most things we can say about storytelling as per purpose of this thread don’t apply.

When I was a kid, I sometimes got so enthralled with books that I would’ve wanted to stay in that world. I found myself reading slower when I got closer to the end, so that it would last longer, and I would’ve welcomed any kind of continuation. Like, I didn’t even care if there was a plot to it, I would’ve gladly read more even if it meant following the character go grocery shopping and do the dishes. If fan fiction would’ve existed back then (it probably did but I was unaware), I might’ve tried my hand at writing my own more just to get more. On Lit, it’s possible to cultivate a rabid fanbase that gets into this mindspace (and your preferred category is a good one for that), but this was your first submission. I don’t see the point in writing more before you have something to write more about. This is the cart before the horse.

One type of problem that stems from trying to tie otherwise unrelated stories together is continuity issues. Constructing a universe of interrelated stories might work as a marketing gimmick after the fact, publishing existing stories to new audience in a cleverly designed order to control the reader experience, but writing them as you go you’re bound to run into some kind of “I wanted to take this story here, but in the other story I’ve dictated they have to go there”, which either leads to continuity issues or gets in the way of your creative expression. It certainly adds to the pain of trying to get your facts straight and you should consider carefully if there can be sufficient payoff.

One rule of thumb type basic advice I’d like to give for every newbie is that when you’re starting out, write one thing and write it all the way. Make it relatively short (say, about 10k words). Try to wrap your head around the complete story and write an ending. Endings are hard. Much easier to have infinite cliffhangers, but that’s a terrible habit.

All that being said, do what you wish, there’s space on Lit for all kinds of approaches.

Welcome again, and the best of luck with your future endeavors.

 

[AlinaX]

As an addition to the above...

I dislike forewords, although I have on occasion added one. This one is far too chatty. I want the story, not a rambling intro.

It's generally best to write out numbers, i.e., twenty-two years, not 22 years. There are cases where it's okay or better to use actual numbers, but numbers are a distraction from text.

Pet peeve, but it's okay or OK, never ok.

Short standalone stories are possible. I've written many myself. In my experience, a decent short scene is a thousand words, and three scenes are needed for a story. Here you have two scenes and the story feels unfinished. It's not sufficient to say the resolution is in future chapters. Not, of course, that you have to tie up all the loose ends. Scene 3 could be back at home, caught between painful memories of the past and a desperate hope for the future.

 

[THBGato]

Thanks @Omenainen and @AlinaX for taking the time to read it and give feedback. It's much appreciated.

Standalone stories. This was not a story. This was barely a scene. That might be fine as a part of a series, but this was not a part of a series.

I think I had sort of anticipated your criticism (which had come via comments on the story) and The Hardest Step is now part of a wider story arc. It does say that on my bio, but, to be fair to you, it's not filed under a series. Maybe I should do that? That might be a takeaway from this.

I think my biggest problem was impatience. I wanted to put something up on Lit as a test balloon. The Third Date wasn't ready (and I was way too invested in that for it to be my test balloon) so it ended up being this. I didn't want a trite ending (e.g.all is forgiven instantly, tearful reconciliation), nor did I want one that was deceptive (e.g.Bex storms out), but writing a real one would probably have taken another twenty thousand words (I'm learning AlinaX!) and I didn't have the patience for that. Plus, I don't know how it ends. These characters feature in Eve & Lucy, but I still don't know what the final outcome for Bex and Georgie will be. I'd love it to end up all Oyster River or My Dearest Nicole but I'm not sure if that would be true.

Forewords. They seldom have a purpose, and if a content warning (in addition to proper tagging) is necessary I prefer short and to the point ones, for example

I dislike forewords, although I have on occasion added one. This one is far too chatty. I want the story, not a rambling intro.

Respectfully, I disagree. As a reader, I really like them. It feels like you're building a relationship with the writer. I'm taking BrokenSpokes and bi_cathy as my models here (not that I'd put myself in their league, but theirs is certainly the style I'm aiming for.)

Reading between the lines, I'm assuming that the dialogue and general prose was OK yet didn't particularly grab you, otherwise I'm assuming you would have said something?

For anyone else who is reading, I am keen to find an editor/beta reader. I was really, really lucky to work with BrokenSpokes on The Third Date (and it's surely no coincidence that this is my highest ranked story). Sadly for me, she's on hiatus at the moment, but if any editors/readers out there like my stuff and fancy volunteering I'd be grateful. I've tried contacting editors, and advertising, but the only reply I've had was a polite refusal from AwkwardMD.

Many thanks again Omenianen, not just for this review, but for the whole "service" you're offering here. I've learnt a lot from your other reviews too.

T x

 

[AlinaX]

I'm assuming that the dialogue and general prose was OK yet didn't particularly grab you

It was okay, although the punctuation in places needs tweaking.

I sometimes offer to edit, although I'm quite busy lately with real life. Feel free to message me; at worst I'll say no.

 

[AwkwardMD]

. These characters feature in Eve & Lucy, but I still don't know what the final outcome for Bex and Georgie will be.

Endings are really, really hard. Everyone reading this understands and sympathizes.

For me, this is the most important skill to learn. Everything else pales next to the ability to pull the trigger on the right ending.

 

[Devil_PS]

I personally am cool with forewards, probably because I feel like even with tags to the story, I might kinda need to mention just what one might run into reading it.

...Or after years of retail, I learned harshly nobody really pays attention to the fine writing and somehow found themselves upset at how the deal works. And it extends to my stories to a degree. Though admittedly, I've been kinda curt on these and simply said notice my tags before you read...And get weirded out I got weird plant creature sex in my story.

 

[MelissaBaby]

Endings are really, really hard. Everyone reading this understands and sympathizes.

For me, this is the most important skill to learn. Everything else pales next to the ability to pull the trigger on the right ending.

I always think about gymnasts who perform a brilliant routine, then blow the whole thing on their dismount. With every story, I tell myself, over and over again, "Stick the landing!"