First submission: help with criticism?

[hardtaskmaster]

I am getting good scores on the first chapters of my "Highwaymen" novella so far, but haven't received any comments. As this is my first story I would very much welcome some criticism from anyone who can spare the time to look at it.

http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=435977

The story is of a Master (who does not yet know he is such), and a slave (who thinks she is Mistress). It concerns their mutual journey to full discovery of their true natures, includes graphic sex and developing BDSM elements, and falls pretty much in the genre of historical romance.

Thanks in advance, any comments would be very gratefully received.

Chris

 

[hardtaskmaster]

Bump!

Please excuse my bumping this thread.

(There was a duplication problem when Lit was misbehaving after I originally posted.)

 

[Adakgirl]

Done, my comments are posted.

 

[hardtaskmaster]

Thanks

Good to have some helpfully critical feedback - it's much appreciated.

 

[driphoney]

Your chapters are all new, so give it a little time.

By the way, many might think it's better to have red H's and no comments, than have lower votes with good comments!

I have to go in a few minutes, but I tend to like this topic, so I'll try to read your chapters when I get home this evening.

And congrats on all those red H's!

 

[poppy_cock]

As first submissions go, this is better than many by far.

I liked your evocative use of language. You've clearly worked hard at trying to capture the tone of the period and the building relationship between the characters is done well.

A few quibbles - take or leave - not meant to be negative criticisms, just things that might help the flow of your story.

You overuse exclamation marks, IMHO. Used too frequently, they start to get annoying and actually, kind of give the impression of farce. 'Ooh vicar, really?'

There's some punctuation missing in places. “Oh no” he groaned should be “Oh no,” he groaned, for example. You probably just need to do a little more proof-reading before submission.

There’s an awful lot of mention of eyes / gaze – something I’m quite guilty of in my own writing so I guess I might be overly sensitive to it. But be careful. There are other ways of describing emotions and behaviour, even if eyes are indeed the window to the soul.

Interesting that you’re writing in British English (I do too) but referring to the bottom as an 'ass' (isn’t that a donkey?) rather than an arse… If you’re going for authenticity – and given the language you’re using, I’d say you are - either stick to 'arse' or change the description altogether.

Be careful with point of view. Initially, you only use his but as the story goes on you use both his and hers. Try not to hop from one head to the other in consecutive sentences – it can be pretty jarring to the reader. Try to stay in just one person’s head for a paragraph or so at a time before switching to the other – and at the point of switching, make it clear whose head we’re now in.

And watch the adverbs – the words ending –ly. Some would say not to use them at all because you’re telling the reader what’s going on rather than showing. I wouldn’t go quite that far – sometimes you need to tell, plus the use of adverbs fits with the oldey-worldey language style you’re using. But try hard not to overuse them. Half the time, they’re not even necessary.

I reckon that's quite enough for now. Hope there's something useful there - and congrats on all the Hs.

 

[hardtaskmaster]

Thanks poppy_cock

All your points are well made and I can see they are fully justified, I really appreciate your suggestions and will try to school myself to actually adopt them!
^^(But you see one of my problems immediately, yes I am too attached to exclamation marks.)

The "ass"/"arse" thing is a foible of mine - I can see it will jar for some British-English speakers in particular, but because I just don't like the sound of the word "arse" in modern-day usage I have substituted it in my story.

Thanks again.

 

[York]

The "ass"/"arse" thing is a foible of mine - I can see it will jar for some British-English speakers in particular, but because I just don't like the sound of the word "arse" in modern-day usage I have substituted it in my story.

How bizarre! What's not to like about arse? Why is it wrong in modern language? It seems like a doubly odd thing to see when you have a story about highwaymen, which is a somewhat old fashioned concept.

I would agree about the donkey point. You rarely hear people say ass over here and when they do it really jars. Be proud of your British English.

 

[hardtaskmaster]

"What's not to like about arse?"

As I said, just my foible, I have no justification for it. But I wouldn't want anyone thinking I don't like arses, now that's a completely different matter!