Noir style story feed back - please!

[dmallord]

I am truly a tech virgin - techies hope this makes sense.

https://www.literotica.com/s/life-is-marked-in-milestones

"Life Is Marked in Milestones" is my most recent post in Incest/Taboo.

It's about 4,100 words in length. I had started the story attempting to experiment with a Noir writing style wherein the characters seem blatantly dark and flawed to the reader, but are oblivious to those flaws themselves. I'm not sure this comes across to the readers. Perhaps the vague circumstances element didn't appeal to them as well. [I also didn't tell the readers it was Noir!] I would like your opinion in that regard. Did I get the tone, settings, and dialogue pointed in the right direction?

My other stories/postings (21) seemed to do well with scores avg. 4.59; in eleven months their combined views are right at 210,000. However, this has been up for a couple of days now and is less well received by comparison, rated at 3.76 with 1.8K views. Six love it and one anon commented that it was great and really wanted to see where it goes.

This excerpt is how the story begins -

[Lately, flying out of La Guardia, at least for me, always seemed to be snake bite prone. Again, this afternoon I was stuck on another rattler and it was chewing on my butt with sharp fangs. ’I just needed to get to Atlanta, just get wheels up, for God’s sake and make it happen.’ I muttered to no one in particular.

Those were my thoughts as I sat stewing in my own angst. I had a tenth-year date to make and I felt like it might not happen if we weren’t airborne soon. Normal flight time was two-and-one-half hours and now we just tacked on another forty-five minutes. With traffic, I calculated, now, that I wouldn’t arrive until after 7:45 pm. Dinner and room reservations had been set for 6:30 at the hotel. We had sat for forty-five minutes, delayed on the runway and still it was a judgment call for takeoff amidst an afternoon thunderstorm that had unexpectantly rolled in from the east.

Apparently, someone did hear my muttering. I felt a light hand reach over and tap mine, “Not to worry, sugar,” her southern drawl purred, “this old bird is gonna take us home, just be a bit more patient. Make sure to bring a book along to read next time, honey.”

I glanced across the aisle as her arm pulled back to grasp the spine of a paperback book entitled, “Life is Marked in Milestones” She was cute, seemingly statuesque from the way her body was tucked so tightly into her seat. Late thirties I’d say. Certainly a lady anyone with normal vision would recognize and behold as a wonderful ‘long drink of water;’ if she were undressed, certainly undressed for sure! No ring. If I didn’t have plans for the evening, I would have given some thought to asking her to dinner. From her remark about home, Atlanta seemed to be her final destination, or at least close by for the night.]


Landing here in the forum, is all new territory for me. I'll read some more and if I get a bit more confidence - I'll be glad to comment and/or assist others. I love writing!

dmallord

 

[yowser]

I haven't read any of your other works, so am coming in 'cold' on this one. I/T isn't my normal realm, so take some of what I say with a proper grain of salt.

First of all, never hurts to expand boundaries so congratulations on trying new approaches, styles, story-telling. The only way to grow is by attemping something new.

The story has some issues, I won't be able to explain all of them, but here are a few observations.

It is both too short and more padded than necessary. Too short since you have a complicated plot and relationship tangle, and need time to develop it. Too long in the way that scenes are often over-drawn. You'll need to be very clear in how you narrate out all the intricacies to your reader, or confusion will result.

Noir typically works better with short crisp sentences, hints rather than lush descriptions. You may want to pare down some of this.

Some overwordy examples: The somberness of the short conversation about a cruel milestone in our lives had pushed that elephant's weight upon our shoulders.

(The world 'elephant' gets pushed into the reader's face so frequently and so heavily it grows most wearisome...)

"when an errant thumb found the swollen nubbin between her thighs dismissed any thoughts of the outside world." Errant thumb? Swollen nubbin? A lot of overused words and phrases, best to prune them down/out.

Mechanics are decent, certainly above average here on LIt, but while there are no boulders in the way, there are a fair number of pebbles, and if you could get another pair of eyes on the ms. you would likely have a better final effort. ('Jonathan' is the usual spelling, 'shepperd' better rendered as 'shepherd', have to be careful in an erotic story when using phrases like 'that next seminal milestone in our lives,' There's more.)

So, sorry not a gushing review, but you asked for reactions. Sounds like there is more coming so there is room to move.

Good luck, keep writing.

 

[Winter_Fare]

I enjoyed the style of writing, and I liked the detailed background but felt a bit let down by the sex scene. They have not touched for twelve months, where's the passion? This is their special night, they put their lives and everything they care about on the line every time they do this.

And why involve some random woman from the plane? Involving a third person, a near stranger, jarred a bit for me.

 

[Winter_Fare]

Also, re chapter 2, some people have issues about dubious consent and "surprise" anal.

 

[dmallord]

Thanks Yowser for your constructive feedback

I am open to constructive criticism, Yowser, so no need to be sorry about pointing out those items that can use improvement. I find writing to be an enjoyable iterative process, so I will take the golden nuggets you have given me and refine my storyline.

One other comment in one of my stories spoke of being short. "Give us some pages!" the comment pleaded. Typing is a fatiguing process for me. Lost a few fingers on one hand and sustained damage to the other one in a far away jungle years ago. So, I find that to be a factor in some of my revision processes. I reach a point where they ache and accept that stage of the writing process as a final. Yet much later I may return and revise a piece.

My writing audience has been myself until the virus hit. I found solace on Lit. and decided to overcome my trust issues and post here. I'm not comfortable enough to trust anyone with editing. That is a hurdle I haven't been able to leap over, yet.

My second chapter was posted yesterday. It flushes out some the storyline. Based on your comment about chapter one much of it will apply and I will address that chapter as well. They were written weeks apart. The second chapter probably should have been combined with the first based on you note about being complex and too short to handle that complexity.

You noted I/T is not an area of interest for you, I do have two storylines in the Romance category about a returning soldier's return from Vietnam and coming to grips with PTSD as it is called these days. Those are a bit more fluid and less maudlin than this story.

You are my first out-world contact - I am glad you were so expansive in your commentary. Thanks for that detailed info. dmallord

 

[dmallord]

Thanks, Winter_Fare for you Input

I enjoyed the style of writing, and I liked the detailed background but felt a bit let down by the sex scene. They have not touched for twelve months, where's the passion? This is their special night, they put their lives and everything they care about on the line every time they do this.

And why involve some random woman from the plane? Involving a third person, a near stranger, jarred a bit for me.

Thank you for your commentary. I may or may not have achieved my writing goal for this storyline, based upon your feedback.

I was attempting to write this in a Noir style as guided by notes by Barbara DeMarco-Barrett's explanation “... in noir, the main characters want better things for themselves, but try as they might, they just keep making wrong choices and things go from bad to worse.”

Noir writings have a dark side to them especially in detective stories; jarring, sometimes with things coming out of the unexpected to surprise the reader(s). The way it did you, I see.

I couldn't let the loving father and daughter meet alone on a tenth anniversary just for passion and expressive love. It would have been difficult to show they were broken after ten years of consent. It would be a 'normal lit. incest and taboo story' theme with a glowing ending perhaps. [I'm okay with those kinds of ending, too!]

I used Caroline as the ingredient for pointing out their flaws and broken sense of morality. They felt okay with using her. They even thought she was fine with it. She seemed to go along with them albeit hesitantly. I think she has some of same character flaws as well, perhaps that's why she went along with them. I took that as far as I thought I could - up to the anal but you will note that the last act was not flushed out in any details. The idea was to leave it unscripted and let the reader draw inference as to the how the night concluded with the trio.

That last jarring anal scene, you noted would also upset some readers as well.

At this point in the story, I haven't decided how the grandfather informs David, that he is actually both father and grandfather. That will be a really interesting dilemma for chapter three.

Thanks for your feedback. I hope my winded expianation helps you to understand the motivation for the lack of passion and the extra woman's role for the evening. It's all in the Noir!

 

[RoperTrace]

I actually didn't read or remember the I/T label you placed on your story, so it was a complete WTH surprise to me. I thought it was well done, but can't get my head around your noir label, or maybe I don't fully understand the reference. It's pretty fucked up in a good way. I'll read more of your stories.

 

[dmallord]

Appreciation Note

Thanks to the good feedback responses from: Yowser, Winter_Fare, and RoperTrace.

Yowser's comments provided improvement comments that make good sense.

Winter_Fare's and RooperTrace's reactions to the storyline have me leaning toward the idea that perhaps I am closer to achieving the Noir Style of writing I was going for: both like the writing and both left it with a sense of wonder about the swirling story line.

Winter_Fare found it 'jarring' one of the key ingredients for Noir.

RoperTrace's remark about it being 'pretty fucked up but in a good way' lit up my face - that seems to be the equivalent of 'jarring' in my mind, but in a good way!

Perhaps I did have a bit of success in the genre Noir - a new area that I had never thought about writing in previously.

 

[dmallord]

I took a grindstone to my ax and spent a good long while pruning and chopping both Chapter One and Two until I could see daylight through the canopy. Following Yowser's notes on lengthening the storyline to flush out the chain of events, I wrote Chapter Three and took it to the woodshed as well.

I've added an educational note section in the beginning on noir and what the writing style covers. Hopefully that will give a heads up to writers who might enter the story unaware of twists they may encounter. That 'jarring' sensations or the 'WTF' is this, responses.

Somewhere here is another post to this thread that I am unable to find today. [newbie related] Is a long time author's comment about his latest noir story. I think it is called 'The Last Cigarette'. When I read that one, I saw more clearly that my take on noir is really a hybrid of the genre. Mine is 'close' but 'no cigar!' My ending is a tip of the hat to that gentleman and his story. If you get a chance to read Chapter Three, when it is posted, you will see references to cigarettes.

Chapter Three is pending approval as of about 2:30 AM 9/23/2021

Thanks again.

 

[dmallord]

The final chapter was posted early this morning! Hope you have a chance to peruse it. Please, let me know how you thought the writing project went. Again, thanks for your input and feedback. dmallord

https://www.literotica.com/stories/m...ge=submissions:)

 

[Winter_Fare]

I loved that, it works so much better as one installment, and the ending was like a fist in the guts.

 

[dmallord]

I loved that, it works so much better as one installment, and the ending was like a fist in the guts.

Thank you! Really appreciate your feedback. While reworking the MS Word file and combing it for errors for the umteenth time, I too found that I liked reading it as one storyline rather than individual chapters. Noir has that short story, read all, taste. And chunking out the story like I started wasn't the best way to go.

I got the feeling readers needed to know what 'noir' meant, so I added the intro and included all the pervious chapters for continuity.

It nearly broke my heart to treat the couple and their child that way. I was misty eyed by the last paragraph. But, that gut punch you felt was how noir writers liked to come at readers - from the far left field bleacher stands.