Critique request

[optimizer888]

Most of my stuff is novella-length or greater, and asking someone for feedback on that is a big order. But, just to see if I could do it, I decided to write a shorter piece, and it's up now; just barely over one Literotica page.

http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=451896

I like writing people reacting plausibly to wholly implausible situations. I'm curious to know if anyone sees ways I can do that better.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Your story is identical to 99.99% of the stories on LIT.

 

[DearEmma]

I thought your story was original and well-written. Sent you feedback off the board.

Keep writing.

 

[driphoney]

Your story is identical to 99.99% of the stories on LIT.

What he means is: welcome to the AH! And good-morning to you, too JBJ. lol

Most of my stuff is novella-length or greater, and asking someone for feedback on that is a big order. But, just to see if I could do it, I decided to write a shorter piece, and it's up now; just barely over one Literotica page.

http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=451896

I like writing people reacting plausibly to wholly implausible situations. I'm curious to know if anyone sees ways I can do that better.

People will respond here, but this question is usually posted in the Story Feedback forum.

And welcome.

(I'll try to look at it later, but now I'm too focused on the snow coming down outside!)

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

Most of my stuff is novella-length or greater, and asking someone for feedback on that is a big order. But, just to see if I could do it, I decided to write a shorter piece, and it's up now; just barely over one Literotica page.

http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=451896

I like writing people reacting plausibly to wholly implausible situations. I'm curious to know if anyone sees ways I can do that better.

I found your post uninspired and rather dull. The URL in the middle really doesn't do much to help out you post. The same goes for your lack of characterization and plot.

Oh. You mean your story? Nevermind.

 

[TxRad]

Your story is identical to 99.99% of the stories on LIT.

How would you know? You just come here to take cheap shots at people who do write here.

Welcome to the AH, 888.

Ignore the idiot, he's not housebroken yet.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

What he means is: welcome to the AH! And good-morning to you, too JBJ. lol



People will respond here, but this question is usually posted in the Story Feedback forum.

And welcome.

(I'll try to look at it later, but now I'm too focused on the snow coming down outside!)

Next time I'll say, IT'S A LUXURY LIT CAN'T AFFORD. No! Wait, thats TEX.

 

[TxRad]

Next time I'll say, IT'S A LUXURY LIT CAN'T AFFORD. No! Wait, thats TEX.

At least I add something to the community besides bullshit and crying.

 

[optimizer888]

Your story is identical to 99.99% of the stories on LIT.

...and to make it better, I should...

 

[lance gt]

...and to make it better, I should...

avoid asking things in here. Come and have fun, but ask those questions in the right forum for a constructive response. Look for threads that pertain to your writing needs and try some writing challenges to improve yourself. Other than that, nice to meet you and welcome to AH, the land that never was.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

At least I add something to the community besides bullshit and crying.

Your New Years resolution?

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

...and to make it better, I should...

It doesnt appeal to me but I dont set the standards for anything.

 

[optimizer888]

People will respond here, but this question is usually posted in the Story Feedback forum.

And welcome.

Dammit. Well, next time I'll choose the correct forum. You can count on me to make all the mistakes, but I'll try to only make them once.

 

[driphoney]

Dammit. Well, next time I'll choose the correct forum. You can count on me to make all the mistakes, but I'll try to only make them once.

It's all confusing, and like I said, people will respond here.

Maybe just not like you were hoping!

 

[optimizer888]

avoid asking things in here.

Got it. I have reposted my request in the spot that was - golly gee - set aside for such things. Let's move any further responses there. My apologies for the interruption, and thanks all for being courteous in the correction.

 

[driphoney]

BTW, I posted on your Story Feedback thread, but I felt it worth bringing up here. Your story is better than 99% of what's here. It's really very good. I do hope one of the really talented sci-fi writers drops by and gives you a sincere critique. I could really only read it and enjoy.

Good luck.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Once again we have someone wanting a backslap and an attaboy!

 

[Dragonlipz]

I read your story with some interest (I also write sci-fi) and posted some feedback....Thanks for the submission and keep writing.....don't take any of the nattering nabobs of negativity's nonsense personally, most of it is a knee-jerk reaction to everything.....

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I read your story with some interest (I also write sci-fi) and posted some feedback....Thanks for the submission and keep writing.....don't take any of the nattering nabobs of negativity's nonsense personally, most of it is a knee-jerk reaction to everything.....

I just knew you had to be Spiro Agnew's love child by Anita Bryant. Twas Willaim Safire who invented the nattering nabob appellation.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I'll take a chance here.

You write well, and your mechanics are sound, but this story doesn't really appeal to me because, like most Lit stories, it focuses on physical descriptions of sex and leaves the entire emotional dimension out, and so seems shallow and superficial. The sex is novel but their reactions aren't, and so the story's payoff isn't worth the great slug of expositional explanation and suspension of disbelief required to set it up.

Quite simply, I'd expect people possessed of these extraordinary abilities to be more different and interesting than they are. I'd expect them to have kind of complex feelings for each other and for what they're doing, given the bizarre consequences of their lives. I think there'd be some shame and desperation in what they're doing--a chance to make love and connect with another human being after all this time--but they just go at it like a couple of fuck-dummies. The descriptions of sex focus on technique rather than emotion.

In that, JBJ is right: it's like a sex cartoon. These are caricatures, not characters. That's what makes it like so much else on Lit. At the same time, the style and imagination make it superior to the usual Lit pap.

I have to wonder too whether the lengthy explanation of how they got their powers and all is really handled in the best way, It would have been nice if all this history could have come out in the course of conversation between them, rather than as a long aside to the reader that stops the progress of the story dead in its tracks. That's work, I know, but that's the kind of thing that separates the good authors from the merely adequate ones.

The energy of the story seems, in fact, to be divided between the description of their powers and how they got them, and the actual sex. It's as if you couldn't decide which was more interesting, or maybe I couldn't. I'm fascinated by this guy with the exploding zits. He seems a lot more interesting than the terminator-style narrator.

The premise of the story is so strange and the set-up so extensive that it seems a shame to waste it all on what happens between these two. In that sense, I don't know if you've succeeded in what you set out to do: show the reactions of people to extraordinary circumstances. The circumstances are indeed special, but their reactions are pretty pedestrian. Really great writing requires that you thoroughly get into their heads and relate their experiences back to us, and I don't know if you've accomplished that.

Hope this helps.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Yep. Once I got the whiff of sex cartoon in my nostrils I was over it. But lotsa folks like sex cartoons, but Hugh Heffner done it 40 years ago.

 

[lesbiaphrodite]

To be honest, I found your story very pedestrian. The title is stupid and the way you write the characters is just so stiff. I got nothing out of it at all and could find more eroticism in a cereal commercial.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Once again we have someone wanting a backslap and an attaboy!

Someone wants to fall off the wagon in a big way.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Someone wants to fall off the wagon in a big way.

Not before I run you down with the wagon.

 

[Dragonlipz]

I just knew you had to be Spiro Agnew's love child by Anita Bryant. Twas Willaim Safire who invented the nattering nabob appellation.

I stand naked before you. I have no secrets. You know me, in ways that only one who cherishes me could ever know. You're the Anais Nin of my existence. Let us wander in those shining fields: nattering nabobs together...Close your eyes....it's right there....