My prose "reads robotically"

[u1u1u1]

A few years ago I got some very negative feedback on some stories I wrote on here.

Since then I have done a creative writing course and been working hard on my writing in non-erotica. I do find that erotica is much easier to plot than, say, action or mystery. There's no expectation that the story will be shocking or unexpected, and there's a natural flow to sexual activity that fits well with what humans like in storytelling (a desire, rising action, and a climax, followed by a conclusion).

In August, I published my first erotic story for two years, Control, a BDSM story. This was much better received than any story I have done before, currently rated 4.67 from 24 reviews, although it doesn't have as many "favourites" as the celebrity-focused stories I have done in the past.

I decided to try and turn the story into a trilogy. I wrote a short second part and a longer third part. The second part was published, but not before being rejected for seeming robotic and AI-generated. It was accepted when I included a note saying I wrote it myself. You can read this story, Alternate, here: https://literotica.com/s/alternate (2,800 words)

I'm now trying to publish the finale, but it keeps getting rejected for seeming robotic and AI generated. This part is much longer, 8,000 words, so it's hard for me to identify exactly what the problem is. I have sections that are more erotic than ChatGPT or Bard could write, there's lots of continuity, I take care when describing the positions people are in, characters possess specialist knowledge that AIs would mangle... I just don't have the perspective that would allow me to identify what is coming across as robotic in my writing. I've used three separate AI detectors (GPTZero, Sapling, and Content At Scale) and they give some pointers but mostly contradict each other - seems they really hate when you refer to musculature ("deltoids" rather than "shoulders") but it's been hard to adapt the story without making one of them angrier.

I'd be grateful for feedback on Alternate that highlights any areas that seem robotic. It's obviously pretty crushing to be told that you're no better than ChatGPT but I'm looking to use this experience to make me a better writer.

 

[countdowntolov3]

Disclaimer: I am not a AI professional or anything.

The modern AIs like GPT and Bard, that can generate believable human-like text are a really new thing. That means everyone is still figuring out how to deal with them. It seems Literotica receives enough AI generated submissions that they had to put a filter in place. I think we all assume this is one of the off-the-shelf AI detectors that they run every submission through. These are known to be really inaccurate. So you are not alone in having your work falsely flagged.

That being said. I think you should give Literotica some understanding here. There may not be a better option available to them. In most cases it seems people are having no problem resubmitting their work with a note that they actually wrote it, which seems to prompt a more human review. Since you are getting repeat rejections for the same story, I speculate your issue is more the "roboticness," than just an automated AI filter.

Your style is short and clipped. It moves efficiently to, and then through, the action. It is grammatically competent. And in general character's feelings are stated instead of shown. I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with this style. Your linked piece has a 4.2ish score. So many readers are saying it was 4 or 5 starts to them. They loved it! But these traits I listed are also stereotypical of AI writing.

To try and answer your question, I pulled some examples. First, let me try to demonstrate that you move quickly through the scene.

She leaned forward and licked his throbbing manhood, swirling her tongue around the tip. Tom groaned, urging her to take him deeper into her mouth. Emily did. Tom could feel his orgasm building rapidly.

After Emily obediently swallowed his load, Tom ordered her back onto the bed and practically devoured her clitoris, his tongue spelling out his name on her sensitive nub. A swipe up, followed by one from side-to-side; a swirl around the perimetre of her clitoral hood; a jagged zig-zag. Emily came soon enough, and begged Tom for mercy, subtly using their safe word to bring their encounter to an end.

I picked this quote because I think it has some good detail in it (unlike a lot of other sections, we'll get to that). But it still moves through the action at a breakneck pace. In two paragraphs we have: a blowjob, Tom cums, Emily gets eaten out, Emily cums, Emily uses her safeword, the session ends. In another writing style that action would encompass an entire page. I'm not going to belabor this point, but I hope you'll agree that you move more quickly through the action than most. Writing that prioritizes efficient delivery of information over the way that information is delivered can feel more robotic.
You are also doing a lot of telling, not showing, in the emotion department.

Emily felt so desired. "Thank you, sir.". She felt a hint of trepidation, but then she had to trust Tom to take care of her.

Tom, for his part, could feel true love stirring in his heart. It was something he had only felt once before, and never for someone with compatible proclivities. He took a good look at the woman in his arms, and had an idea.

I think the true love example is interesting. Because you do elaborate, instead of just stating it and moving on. Which is good. But I feel like you elaborate on the wrong part? Tom falling in love (not just love, but true love) should be a bombshell. But when you elaborate, you talk about how Tom has been in love once before. That seems strange to me. It seems to me that the natural thing to talk about here, the thing that matters, is what about Emily has Tom falling in love with her. I think you can see where this leaves me feeling like a human touch is missing.
Lastly, I'll just point out that your abruptness is most apparent at the beginning of your story.

Three days had passed since Tom and Emily's first date on Friday night. They'd been inseparable over the weekend... almost. Tom had taken Emily out to a theatre in the West End on Saturday night. On Sunday they'd gone to dinner at a Michelin-starred restaurant near the top of the Shard. Both nights, Tom had walked Emily back to her place and left her to sleep in her own bed in order to create a greater sense of anticipation. She had masturbated furiously before bed to satiate her growing lust.

This is really just a list of things im the order they happened. Again, it's not necessarily bad. I can empathise as both a reader and a writer, wanting to get right into the action. But this is very mechanical, even when compared to the rest of your story. I just wonder if your human reviewer started at the beginning and made a decision based on the first two paragraphs. Seems a reasonable thing for a reviewer to do. Just speculation though.

Okay. I hope that was helpful. Let me say again that I don't think there's anything wrong with your style. I'm just trying to point out the pieces of it that might come off a little robotic. If it helps, the very famous and beloved "Story of O" has many of these same stylist trappings.

P.S. It makes me sad to hear your longer piece is stuck in acceptance limbo. That must be very frustrating. Since I'm sure it took a long time to write. I would try two things:
1) When you resubmit. Put a comment with it that says something like, "Hey, I'm really trying here, can you help me out a little?"
2) I think there is like an approved editors program whee an editor's review can help you along? I don't know the details but I'm bringing it up in the hopes that someone else can add them.

Good luck!

 

[u1u1u1]

Gah, I wrote a response to DDM but forgot to submit it. In the period in-between, I redid the story and resubmitted before I could get any further advice.
DDM: You've helped me understand why Control was better received than Alternate. Essentially, the characters in Alternate are flat. The leads want to have a threesome, they have a threesome, and they don't really learn anything from it. Contrastingly in Control both the lead characters experience growth and change.
Part three is much longer so I'm hesitant to add anything much, but thinking about it, I might be better off removing an entire scene which is basically just there so I can write some woman-on-top. Removing the unnecessary sex scenes should hopefully make the female lead's character arc more apparent.
I've cut out 1,800 words (kill your darlings!) and sent it back to Laurel for another review.

countdowntolov3: excellent post, thank you. You're right, I do tend to move things along quite quickly. I have a non-fiction background and have been trained quite hard to be concise in my professional life. Perhaps I need to try learning from how other writers would write similar scenes. And you're especially right that the intros to both 2 and 3 are very quick recaps of "the story so far" and what has happened in the time between stories. I'm very grateful for your help - if the story gets kicked back again, or if I write any more in the future, I'll take this advice on board.