Feedback please

[Hascats]

If you don't mind, could you give me some feedback/advice on ways to improve or things you didn't like (be constructive) about my first story. I hope to post more stories soon, but I would like to take into consideration other's viewpoints : )

Could you take a look at "Sarah's Happy Ending"

I would appreciate it!

http://www.literotica.com/stories/sh....php?id=416971

 

[Darkniciad]

We're a bit lazy around here. Best to provide a link

Here's the link to the story, to make it easier for others. 1 page, Erotic Couplings.

http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=416971

I'm just flashing in for a second. I'll come back to read if I can get away from what I'm in the middle of.

 

[sr71plt]

I'm just flashing in for a second. I'll come back to read if I can get away from what I'm in the middle of.

You checked into the forum in the middle of flashing someone? Oh, my.

 

[Hascats]

Thank you for the link Dark. I'm still new at using the forums!

 

[Darkniciad]

Thank you for the link Dark. I'm still new at using the forums!

The link you added to the first post is the shortened version printed out by the forums. It doesn't actually link to your story. Try clicking the link in my post, and then copy the URL from the address bar of the browser. Then just paste it into the post and it will automatically change into the link for you.

You can also do the same thing, except go to your submission page:

http://www.literotica.com/stories/memberpage.php?uid=1083383&page=submissions

And then go to the top of the forum, User CP -> Edit Signature and paste it in the text box. That will put a link to your stories in every post you make

(as long as the person has signatures set to visible. If not, you can always direct them to it, and they can find your sig from your profile page )

Okay, if my son is actually going to stay asleep, I'm going to try to read now *laugh*

================

SR71 *laugh*

Only in fractional agreement with the recent comment on your new story from the feedback portal. "riven by" seems like it fits better, but riven otherwise fits in that passage.

 

[Darkniciad]

Pardon the nitpickiness. I'm just typing out anything that hits me as I read in another window. General impression at the end of the post

SR71 may need to correct me on this, but I think that out-of-state should be hyphenated in the first paragraph.

Missing comma in the first quotation from "you"

Some of the sentences feel a little bumpy. Example:

She smiled back, acknowledging relief knowing that I would be friendly.

A comma after relief would help a little, but it still feels a little bumpy even with the pause.

I could tell she would be someone that I would like to get to know better. Strictly work, of course....

An ellipse should always be three pips -- no more, no less. Technically, it should only represent the speaker trailing off, too. I think you could have punched this up and eliminated the ellipse.

I could tell she would be someone that I would like to get to know better.

Strictly work, of course.

Dropping it onto it's own line almost visualizes a wink to me

"Sure," I said. Very glad to return.

The second part is a fragment. I would have replaced the period after "said" with an em dash and combined the two, but that's just one solution. I'm fairly sure that I overuse dashes when I write Probably would be better just to expand the second part into a full sentence.

In the next paragraph, you have the opposite problem, with a fragment in the first part.

When I walked into the back office at the copier. The place was a mess.

Here, just combine the two sentences with a comma.

"self-disgust" seems a little strong for her reaction to what she just said in the heat of the moment. Maybe "self-recrimination" instead?

The paragraphs when you get into the heat are a little long. When you're reading on a computer screen, it's easy for your eyes to get lost in a wall of text. You have to break up paragraphs a lot more for reading online than you would on a printed page.

About ten lines is all that the average person can focus on -- and that's pushing it. You can lose readers if their eyes keep jumping when they try to move to the next line and lose their place too many times.

Enough nitpicking.

Overall, I feel like you were a bit technical in the heat. Too many "vagina" and "vulva" type references for my taste. That's just my taste, mind you. It pulled me out of the heat of the story a little, which is really the focus of the story.

I loved the ending line.

 

[sr71plt]

SR71 may need to correct me on this, but I think that out-of-state should be hyphenated in the first paragraph.

Ah, the case that raises more hackles of an author with an edit than anything else. Yes, "out-of-state" should be hyphenated in that position. Such combined adjectives are hyphenated when in front of the noun they modify but not hyphenated after the verb.

When editors correct for this in both positions in a manuscript, most writers see it as an inconsistency in the edit. Unfortunately, the inconsistency is in the rules of English grammar and not in the editor's work.

- - -

Re "riven." I looked it up before using it (since I was sort of stuck for the word I wanted to use). It's great to have readers hanging on every word, though--especially of an LW story.

The LW category is great fun--especially when you pull down an E for the story. It really has those thumbs stroking the "1" ratings.

 

[CWatson]

You misspelled "along" in the first paragraph; there's no space in it. Also, going with what Dark said, I believe "odds-and-ends" should be hyphenated.

In the 5th paragraph you use an uselessly complex attribution. " 'I'm going to [blablablah],' I stated." Is that truly necessary? Why not just "said"? It breaks the flow less, and the last thing you ever want to do is disrupt the Willing Suspension of Disbelief.

6th para:

...and, although hidden by a tucked in blouse, you could see that she wore no bra.

...Who's "you"? Shouldn't it be "I"? Telling The Reader what he should be thinking is a pit you probably don't want to step into.

Here's another punctuation gaffe:

Yanking at the paper, Sarah thrust her body back abruptly, nestling for an all-too-short moment, her wonderful rear in my crotch.

Having a comma there... Well, suffice it to say, it acts like a close-parenthesis, making "for an all-too-short moment" a tangential phrase--which is how it belongs, your instincts are dead-on there. The problem is, you don't have an open-parenthesis. In other words, you've written,

Yanking at the paper, Sarah thrust her body back abruptly, nestling for an all-too-short moment) her wonderful rear in my crotch.

You should either add a comma/parenthesis after "nestling" or remove the offending comma in question.

"What are you doing?!" she jumped with a startle.

...Can "startle" be used in a verb clause like that? Also, "jumped"? Jumping is not a speaking phrase. This is another one of those needlessly-complex dialog attributions. Why not just, "She jumped. 'What are you doing?!' " Cleaner and less silly.

And I'm going to stop there because the sex starts and that stuff's boring.

Make no mistake: we're all being really nitpicky here. There's a reason for that: there's nothing else to criticize. If there were larger, more pertinent errors--massive misspellings, bad characterization, physics of intercourse--we'd be all over that... But there aren't. And the reason for that is because you're a good writer. You know what you're doing, both from a technical and from a storytelling standpoint. So, please, take it as a compliment that all we can find is niggly little stuff like this. It's certainly meant to be one.

 

[Joeehartley]

I read your story and commented. The editors types here are far better than I, so I just looked at the story content, and that I liked. An editor is very important to a story so that the reader is not distracted.

I thought that the story flowed nicely and much better written that a lot that I have read.

Keep writing, but get an editor.

-Joe-

 

[Hascats]

Thank you for all your feedback. Can't improve if I don't know what I did wrong, right?! The next one will be 10x's better....I hope!

Thanks again!