First erotica story, would love some feedback!

[Mazim_Cetero]

Click here to read Hellish Retribution Ch. 01
Click here to read Hellish Retribution Ch. 02

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Howdy! Thanks for checking out this thread. As the title states, I'm looking for feedback on my first ongoing erotica novella, Hellish Retribution. You've probably seen chapters one and two if you browse the new submissions in the Non-Consent/Reluctance category. It may have been more fitting in SciFi/Fantasy, but I wasn't (and am still not) sure where to have put it.

I've been writing for close to six years by now, but it's all been almost exclusively in various online role playing forums. So I've never really had any real critique on my creative writing. On the contrary, my friends and I would constantly praise and gush over each other's characters in one giant circle jerk. It was fun, but I felt as though I lacked room for improvement, as everything I wrote was perfection in the eyes my friends, the few people who ever read my writing.

So I would love any feedback/criticism on this project! Whether it's good or bad, or if it's about my grammar (though there are a few very specific mistakes that I only noticed after the chapter was published), my erotica, the story/plot/characters, anything! Please, let me know what I'm doing right and what I'm doing wrong, and what can be fixed or improved on. I would certainly appreciate it!

Thank you for giving me a chance, Literotica community!

 

[ElectricBlue]

I skimmed the first one, and my first reaction was, "Oh no, another bloody info-dump in the first few paragraphs..." but then it settled down into a more natural story tell.

Why do writers feel they need to do that, tell us chapter and verse where the story is set, all in the first five-hundred words? I'm thinking, don't tell me all this background stuff up front, give it to me in little bits and pieces, let me do some work as the reader. Stop telling me stuff, let the story reveal it.

I find it far more interesting to start reading and then think, "Hey, is this story an allegory of hell? That's pretty clever, let's see what else happens..." and you've ensnared me as a reader. But if you tell me right up front, I might as well pack up and go home.

Imagine if Milton's Paradise Lost started with the line, "Satan was a very big worm, and he spent a shit-ton of time climbing out of a very big hole (which was Hell, by the way), and here's how he did it." It sort of loses something.

But - you can write, your technical bits and bobs are mostly okay. Run a word-find on "that" to either get rid of it, change it to "who" when referring to a person, not a thing, or think about it - you overuse the word. I suspect you have others - "that" just jumped out at me. Don't worry, we all get caught with this kind of thing - I always do an edit run to eliminate "and then."

"I can't believe that someone would just throw something like this away," she murmured thoughtfully to herself. Well, actually, she very well could believe it.

"murmured thoughtfully to herself" is a double redundancy - the context has already told us she is by herself, so "herself" is unnecessary, it's obviously a thought spoken out loud (to herself), so "thoughtfully" is unnecessary. This is nit-picking, but purely to illustrate that you could edit yourself more tightly. There are other examples, it's a little over-written, but nothing a good tight edit won't "fix." You might decide it's perfectly fine as it is, but be aware of this kind of thing - it can become very automatic, and tough to spot for yourself.

What I'm not sure about here, though, is the last sentence in the quote - you've just added a new character, the narrator, providing chatty commentary. Breaking down the fourth wall like this can be tricky - and in this case, the narrator has just contradicted the character's belief system, so where does that leave us? Don't get me wrong, unreliable narrators can be wonderful in stories, but not when you've got one by accident, which is my sneaking suspicion here.

Overall though, your gaming background has probably helped, in that your scenarios are reasonably well fleshed out - although you might be relying on a "character sheet" mentality a bit too much, as I'm not really "feeling" the characters through the story telling.

Lastly, I'd be inclined to get this re-categorised into sci-fi and fantasy, I think your world-building might go down better there than in non-con, and overall you might get a better response. Keep writing, folk will like this.

 

[Mazim_Cetero]

Thank you so much for the reply, electricblue66! This really, really helps!

I skimmed the first one, and my first reaction was, "Oh no, another bloody info-dump in the first few paragraphs..." but then it settled down into a more natural story tell.

Ah, yes, I kind of noticed this one when I was first starting to write it. The first few paragraphs can be a nightmare, and I was stuck for quite awhile. I will make a conscious effort to begin my stories in a more natural flow, as you said, similar to how the rest of the chapter is.

But - you can write, your technical bits and bobs are mostly okay.

Thank you! I'm really glad to see that!

speaking of that...

Run a word-find on "that" to either get rid of it, change it to "who" when referring to a person, not a thing, or think about it - you overuse the word.

Wow. 156 instances of the word 'that' in my Chapter One document. I genuinely had no idea I was doing that- hmm, such a thing.

I believe that 'had' is also another overused word of mine.

"murmured thoughtfully to herself" is a double redundancy - the context has already told us she is by herself, so "herself" is unnecessary, it's obviously a thought spoken out loud (to herself), so "thoughtfully" is unnecessary.

Aye, and as you said a bit later in the paragraph, this one indeed was an automatic habit. I always feel strange ending dialogue with only 's/he said,' 's/he whispered,' 's/he shouted,' etc. etc. so I've gotten into the habit of adding flavor text or descriptive actions to the end of these sentences. For the most part, it seems to work fine, but occasionally I'll let a redundant sentence full of redundancy slip through the cracks.

What I'm not sure about here, though, is the last sentence in the quote - you've just added a new character, the narrator, providing chatty commentary.

I originally wrote that sentence as an extension of her thought process. It wasn't until you pointed it out that I saw it as being a narrative. Thank you for noticing, because I do write lines like that from time to time.

Overall though, your gaming background has probably helped, in that your scenarios are reasonably well fleshed out - although you might be relying on a "character sheet" mentality a bit too much, as I'm not really "feeling" the characters through the story telling.

This is an issue I've always had when writing stories on my own, and not collaborating with friends. In a role play setting, my character(s) contributes to a basic outline or plot idea, and the story is built from character interactions. In solo writing, my characters tend to be a storytelling device to move through an already fleshed-out plot.

I will defend myself a little bit, however, and say that I hadn't been focusing on the characters in this story as much as the erotica. Though it is still a very legitimate critique nonetheless.


[quote="electricblue66]Lastly, I'd be inclined to get this re-categorised into sci-fi and fantasy, I think your world-building might go down better there than in non-con, and overall you might get a better response. Keep writing, folk will like this.[/quote]

I'm not sure how to do that, but I'll figure it out! I originally was going to submit it to that category, but I was concerned that it would be rejected due to the focus on it being a non-consent story. I'll take your advice and get them there.

Reading over this, I did notice the three 'thats' all close together in the paragraph above. Yeesh, that- I mean it really is redundant.

Once again, thanks so much for the feedback!

 

[ElectricBlue]

Info-dump intro paragraphs - you could get rid of the first three or four, and weave in the background as and when you need to. They read quite clearly as bolt-ons, added later. Have a look at my Floating World https://www.literotica.com/s/the-floating-world-pt-06-madelyn to see how I did it with a brand new character. Just enough to give you a sense of the woman, but the story is underway from the first paragraph. Who is she? Read and find out, is what I want readers to do, so I reveal her slowly (like undoing that zip, which happens later...)

When you self-edit rigorously, over time you will put together a list of your word tics and avoid them from the get-go - but if you know them, just do a find word search and look at every usage. You'll find it's always these kind of filler construction words that you just don't see when you're writing. The other thing I always look for is the same words used close together. Change the second and third usages, so when you DO repeat, it's a deliberate choice. With erotica, there are a bunch of words that you might want to repeat, because they're triggers, but keep them for the sex scenes.

Don't worry about the "she said, he said" speech tags - the eye processes them automatically. Feeling you must elaborate on them every time can result in a forced, over-written chunk of text. Kantarri will be along later to elaborate on this - loves a speech tag, does Kant . There was an AH thread on this subject not so long ago, and when a bunch of quite different style writers counted 'em all up, overall folk were saying that for 90% of their dialogue they didn't actually need a speech tag if you keep the context running well enough, and the remaining 10% were mostly, "said" and "replied."

Characters being fleshed out - but, but, but...you can't have erotica without personalities!

To change category, resubmit the story with the same title plus EDIT in the title, change the category to sci-fi & fantasy, put a Note to the Editor that all you are doing is a category change (and a brief reason why - in this case, your hell fantasy setting acts as an over-ride). If Laurel agrees, she'll move it (scores and comments will not be affected). Takes about 5 - 10 days for an edit.

 

[Jada59]

I couldn't finish it. I think the writing is good but it isn't erotic at all to me. Just not my genre I guess.