FAWC 5: Line, Please!

[SecondCircle]

I dunno. I don't really get as worked up about JBJ's antics as most do. Probably because I can see what his intent is most of the time. Usually, the grain of salt you gotta take him with is hauled in on a flatbed.

Sure I'll have a lil chat with him. Helps me put things in order as much as anything. Nine times outta ten, logic usually wins out in any discussion. If JBJ is simply stoking fires and condemning this story and that just to get a rise, that becomes pretty evident to everyone once you have a logical discussion with him. That or he'll pick on me a while a leave everyone else alone. (Rarely happens).

I could stop quoting him so anyone with an iggy button doesn't have to see him. (Sorry, I just always hit 'quote' when responding to someone in particular, it's habit. I'll not quote him anymore)

Ahem. Anyway onward with our contest.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I devoutly wish some of these mouth-breathers would put me on iggy but who can blame them when the menu includes Naoko and 3113 and Patheticlee.

 

[SecondCircle]

Since when do I give a shit what others think? I blaze my own trail, and don't need your OK when I do. You can pout and kiss my ass. Ditto the others. I cant imagine what I'd win if I pleased any of these people.

<smiles and raises glass>

Ah, you don't have to give a shit what anyone thinks. And you'll never need my ok for anything.

But that is a two way street....

 

[SecondCircle]

God dammit... I quoted him again. Sorry.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

<smiles and raises glass>

Ah, you don't have to give a shit what anyone thinks. And you'll never need my ok for anything.

But that is a two way street....

I intend to conquer with my sterling high 5s. Ellie and the others have never read an awful story they didn't love but one of my 5s isn't made of fools gold.

 

[AMoveableBeast]

God dammit... I quoted him again. Sorry.

This is good stuff.

 

[SecondCircle]

Aye, no fools gold indeed.

But lets see where the gold lies. Let's get into some nitty gritty. Pick a story, any story, and give us a lil raw truth about it. Why it wasn't up to snuff in the JBJ standards. You've done it with one... Swillys? ... but it was a bit vague. You could have been talking about any old story. Lets go with specifics. Tear meat from bone. You've read all 25 stories you said. Give us some insight on one.

You could just be going on and inciting the riot for kicks. Or you are one who critiques with few words, or you can dissect something with validity. I dunno. But you haven't provided anyone much of anything though you've shouted quite a bit.

Whaddya say. Hard truth feedback on FAWC stories? I mean if you're in our bar hollering you might as well drink.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Aye, no fools gold indeed.

But lets see where the gold lies. Let's get into some nitty gritty. Pick a story, any story, and give us a lil raw truth about it. Why it wasn't up to snuff in the JBJ standards. You've done it with one... Swillys? ... but it was a bit vague. You could have been talking about any old story. Lets go with specifics. Tear meat from bone. You've read all 25 stories you said. Give us some insight on one.

You could just be going on and inciting the riot for kicks. Or you are one who critiques with few words, or you can dissect something with validity. I dunno. But you haven't provided anyone much of anything though you've shouted quite a bit.

Whaddya say. Hard truth feedback on FAWC stories? I mean if you're in our bar hollering you might as well drink.

The Bullet story has as many factual errors as a turd has corn kernels.

 

[SecondCircle]

There's a start. We've heard as much. It was enough of a stumble for a low low rating? Or was the writing and theme pretty good or what? I've seen some factual errors in my time and committed prolly four times as much. Was much of the rest of the story terrible?

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

There's a start. We've heard as much. It was enough of a stumble for a low low rating? Or was the writing and theme pretty good or what? I've seen some factual errors in my time and committed prolly four times as much. Was much of the rest of the story terrible?

SC? You asked for an example and got one. And now you wanna argue: HOW CAN HER ASS STINK WHEN HER LIPS ARE SO SWEET! Go away.

 

[SecondCircle]

I don't wanna argue. I want you to elaborate. Unless the story was one paragraph long, I'm thinking there was a bit more to the story. It's why I asked about the severity of this mistake. Was it so strong it ruined any other potential quality in the story? Theme? Grammar and Punc? Plot? Characterization?

I'm asking you questions calmly, not shaking you by the shoulders. Not being a smart ass. I'm just discussing.

 

[AMoveableBeast]

The Bullet story has as many factual errors as a turd has corn kernels.

Which is often zero, depending on diet. It was a pleasant image, though. Thanks for that, Whitman.

There's a start. We've heard as much. It was enough of a stumble for a low low rating? Or was the writing and theme pretty good or what? I've seen some factual errors in my time and committed prolly four times as much. Was much of the rest of the story terrible?

I have to agree with pilot here--hey, it happens--JBJ doesn't really give reviews. He gives blurbs.

"If you read one story this year, make it 'Two racial epithets go to a Cleveland buffet, yadda, yadda, yadda, dripping cocks!'"

"Fawc 5: Cowpies in a Dangerous Time. Utter-ly awful! The milk has gone bad!"

"Dear Author whose style I like, I hate you as a person and would dearly love to urinate in your breakfast cereal of choice, but this story makes the rest of these half-chew manuscripts look like the recycled toilet paper they are. When sweet merciful death claims your rotten ass, I hope it's only half as awful as it is for the rest of these fucks."

"This just in, everyone is a moron and I read a new noir story on the pooper! In addition, studies show that women and black folks aren't people. Film at eleven!"

There is no dissection, just opinion. He is the Chris Mathews of Lit. Still, I like him. I can't help it. And he isn't always wrong, no matter how unsupported his assertions are.

 

[sr71plt]

Might as well own up to having written “Knife, Book, and Hankie,” as the definitive guesser, PL, has already fingered me for it and TTT has already passed by it with his pretty-much definitive critique (and halfway fingered me for it as well). That said, when have I only entered one story to a FAWC? (*smile*) There’s still some hunting to be done on me (even by PL). I did think I wouldn’t be fingered for it—or that I’d be fingered late in the guessing game rather than early—if for no other reason than that it goes six pages. I say I don’t read anything over three Lit. pages (and even trying to do that for this exercise exhausted me and set my production schedule back to an irritating degree); I haven’t said I don’t write anything over three Lit. pages—most of my fiction written to the marketplace (and not posted to Literotica) goes way over three Lit. pages.

As should be obvious, I didn’t write this one to win a ratings or views contest. Literotica is not bisexual friendly and I tossed in a transsexual as well. This one was written to be commercial (to a reader niche) beyond Literotica, not literary, which is what I think goes over well with the FAWC crowd (rightly). I wrote it to be an e-book for the market, and it is being processed now to be released as Death on a Ping Pong Table to the male protagonist-perspective bisexual genre (which, again, is snubbed by Literotica). I have a series of novels out (The “Death in . . .” series, some of which are provided on Literotica) with a promiscuous GM detective protagonist. With this one, I’m contemplating doing a series with a promiscuous bisexual detective protagonist. I think there’s a market for that. I think there’s a readership for it here at Literotica, too, but that the Web site stifles it.

“Knife, Book, and Hankie” is inspired by the 1991 Ted Kennedy/William Smith Palm Beach, Florida, sex scandal. I laughed at TTT’s comment that the promiscuity of the senator’s Hilton Head compound seemed over the top—because that’s exactly how Kennedy’s Palm Beach compound was written up by the tabloids at the time, and it’s what I was invoking. (This is not to say, of course, that TTT is wrong in saying it is over the top—it’s just one of those funny instances when a reader says something is implausible when it’s exactly that something that provided the reality base for the story.)

My immediate reaction to the given elements was murder mystery. I thought I was being clever. Very soon other FAWCkers were saying their immediate reaction was murder mystery (obviously because of the knife). By then, though, I had this one half written and couldn’t turn back. (If I’d seen my initial reaction matched that of others before I was committed to a storyline, I would have looked for another angle.)

The element that screamed out to me was the hankie. I have wanted for some time to write a GM story focusing on the GM hankie color code for cruising (which has fallen out of practice in the real world, I think. But it was used in Bangkok when I was hyper active). So, if the Kennedy sex scandal (one of several) was the inspiration for the storyline, the hankie was the inspiration for the story focus—and the element I played up. I hoped to get kudos for the most inventive use of that element, and TTT did mention it, so I’m pleased by that.

I included the transsexual both to provide a surprise twist at the beginning and to enrich the storyline—to provide more to be investigated—and to provide variety in storyline. That wasn’t preplanned. It just happened while I was writing. If it hadn’t, this would not have been a six-pager or an e-book.

Anonymous wondered if I was going for a Carl Hiassen vibe. I have written some stories where I purposely went with a Lawrence Durrell vibe (because the stories were set in a Mediterranean villa both Durrell and I once rented—at different times, of course), but beyond that I don’t try to go with the style of any author. I mostly just let loose with my own style. And I don’t know who Carl Hiassen is. I imagine that PL picks my stories out easily (although it’s a wonder to me that she even tries) because I don’t really purposely follow anyone else’s style.

TTT mentions the coldness of the characters. Although I have written characters high on emotion, that my GM characters usually have a cold approach to sex goes both with my experience (as I’ve discussed in the forum—the lifestyle I lived in in terms of GM activity was a narcissistic, casual one, not a “looking for a spouse or domestic helpmate one or someone I can discuss Hemingway with one”) I think that aspect of GM is underrepresented in fiction (mostly because most GM appears to be written by women who can’t connect with/fathom that lifestyle), so I write lesser-emotion GM to help fill in the gap. (I do have more emotional pieces too, though.) My promiscuous bisexual detective protagonist in this story is cold about sex on purpose—as are most of them around him. (The scandal that inspired this was cold on sex, as well—as the tabloids wrote it up. And the story is faithful to the depiction of Ted Kennedy in the tabloids of the time. In fact, of a whole bunch of Kennedy men in real life.)

One aspect of the story, as delivered, appalls me and TTT picked up on that (and others apparently were forgiving about it). Over the past two days, I’ve been reviewing this story and setting it up to go to the publisher to become Death on a Ping Pong Table, and I’ve been appalled by the technical mistakes I found (and I plan on being appalled by the mistakes the editor finds when it comes back). An author simply cannot adequately edit her/himself, especially close to the time they wrote the draft. Their mind simply does not see a lot of mistakes because he/she is too close to it. I’ve found plenty of technical mistakes in this story in a time-delay review—and still haven’t found some of the ones TTT indexes in his critique. Really have to have that completely fresh set of eyes—or more than one set. TTT provided a mitigating circumstance of the deadline constraint, but I won’t fall back on that. I had this one written within four days of being given the first sentence. I did review it more than once, and I had plenty of time to review it more often before the deadline. I just don’t think I’d ever have found some of the mistakes on my own without putting it aside for more than a week before reviewing it again—with work on other stories in the interim.

This leads me to change stance a bit on the earlier discussion on whether FAWC should allow the pieces to be edited. I think we should encourage that they be edited. It’s legitimate for a reader to be distracted by mistakes and for this to be mentioned in comments. (Although I continue to consider that what some say are mistakes are really their (mis)understandings based on high school English rather than commercial style.) Thus, to aid concentration on content and writing—given that everyone needs an editor or two to clean up—or at least challenge—the technicals—I think use of an editor, just like this is a real competition piece, should be permitted and encouraged. (And there should be the recognition that there will still be a few mistakes present, even if a good editor is used.)

Anyway, thanks to everyone who sloughed through this one and commented. It all helps in setting it up for publication.

 

[AMoveableBeast]

Damn it, pilot! Yours is the only story I haven't read.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Might as well own up to having written “Knife, Book, and Hankie,” as the definitive guesser, PL, has already fingered me for it and TTT has already passed by it with his pretty-much definitive critique (and halfway fingered me for it as well). That said, when have I only entered one story to a FAWC? (*smile*) There’s still some hunting to be done on me (even by PL). I did think I wouldn’t be fingered for it—or that I’d be fingered late in the guessing game rather than early—if for no other reason than that it goes six pages. I say I don’t read anything over three Lit. pages (and even trying to do that for this exercise exhausted me and set my production schedule back to an irritating degree); I haven’t said I don’t write anything over three Lit. pages—most of my fiction written to the marketplace (and not posted to Literotica) goes way over three Lit. pages.

As should be obvious, I didn’t write this one to win a ratings or views contest. Literotica is not bisexual friendly and I tossed in a transsexual as well. This one was written to be commercial (to a reader niche) beyond Literotica, not literary, which is what I think goes over well with the FAWC crowd (rightly). I wrote it to be an e-book for the market, and it is being processed now to be released as Death on a Ping Pong Table to the male protagonist-perspective bisexual genre (which, again, is snubbed by Literotica). I have a series of novels out (The “Death in . . .” series, some of which are provided on Literotica) with a promiscuous GM detective protagonist. With this one, I’m contemplating doing a series with a promiscuous bisexual detective protagonist. I think there’s a market for that. I think there’s a readership for it here at Literotica, too, but that the Web site stifles it.

“Knife, Book, and Hankie” is inspired by the 1991 Ted Kennedy/William Smith Palm Beach, Florida, sex scandal. I laughed at TTT’s comment that the promiscuity of the senator’s Hilton Head compound seemed over the top—because that’s exactly how Kennedy’s Palm Beach compound was written up by the tabloids at the time, and it’s what I was invoking. (This is not to say, of course, that TTT is wrong in saying it is over the top—it’s just one of those funny instances when a reader says something is implausible when it’s exactly that something that provided the reality base for the story.)

My immediate reaction to the given elements was murder mystery. I thought I was being clever. Very soon other FAWCkers were saying their immediate reaction was murder mystery (obviously because of the knife). By then, though, I had this one half written and couldn’t turn back. (If I’d seen my initial reaction matched that of others before I was committed to a storyline, I would have looked for another angle.)

The element that screamed out to me was the hankie. I have wanted for some time to write a GM story focusing on the GM hankie color code for cruising (which has fallen out of practice in the real world, I think. But it was used in Bangkok when I was hyper active). So, if the Kennedy sex scandal (one of several) was the inspiration for the storyline, the hankie was the inspiration for the story focus—and the element I played up. I hoped to get kudos for the most inventive use of that element, and TTT did mention it, so I’m pleased by that.

I included the transsexual both to provide a surprise twist at the beginning and to enrich the storyline—to provide more to be investigated—and to provide variety in storyline. That wasn’t preplanned. It just happened while I was writing. If it hadn’t, this would not have been a six-pager or an e-book.

Anonymous wondered if I was going for a Carl Hiassen vibe. I have written some stories where I purposely went with a Lawrence Durrell vibe (because the stories were set in a Mediterranean villa both Durrell and I once rented—at different times, of course), but beyond that I don’t try to go with the style of any author. I mostly just let loose with my own style. And I don’t know who Carl Hiassen is. I imagine that PL picks my stories out easily (although it’s a wonder to me that she even tries) because I don’t really purposely follow anyone else’s style.

TTT mentions the coldness of the characters. Although I have written characters high on emotion, that my GM characters usually have a cold approach to sex goes both with my experience (as I’ve discussed in the forum—the lifestyle I lived in in terms of GM activity was a narcissistic, casual one, not a “looking for a spouse or domestic helpmate one or someone I can discuss Hemingway with one”) I think that aspect of GM is underrepresented in fiction (mostly because most GM appears to be written by women who can’t connect with/fathom that lifestyle), so I write lesser-emotion GM to help fill in the gap. (I do have more emotional pieces too, though.) My promiscuous bisexual detective protagonist in this story is cold about sex on purpose—as are most of them around him. (The scandal that inspired this was cold on sex, as well—as the tabloids wrote it up. And the story is faithful to the depiction of Ted Kennedy in the tabloids of the time. In fact, of a whole bunch of Kennedy men in real life.)

One aspect of the story, as delivered, appalls me and TTT picked up on that (and others apparently were forgiving about it). Over the past two days, I’ve been reviewing this story and setting it up to go to the publisher to become Death on a Ping Pong Table[/b], and I’ve been appalled by the technical mistakes I found (and I plan on being appalled by the mistakes the editor finds when it comes back). An author simply cannot adequately edit her/himself, especially close to the time they wrote the draft. Their mind simply does not see a lot of mistakes because he/she is too close to it. I’ve found plenty of technical mistakes in this story in a time-delay review—and still haven’t found some of the ones TTT indexes in his critique. Really have to have that completely fresh set of eyes—or more than one set. TTT provided a mitigating circumstance of the deadline constraint, but I won’t fall back on that. I had this one written within four days of being given the first sentence. I did review it more than once, and I had plenty of time to review it more often before the deadline. I just don’t think I’d ever have found some of the mistakes on my own without putting it aside for more than a week before reviewing it again—with work on other stories in the interim.

This leads me to change stance a bit on the earlier discussion on whether FAWC should allow the pieces to be edited. I think we should encourage that them be edited. It’s legitimate for a reader to be distracted by mistakes and for this to be mentioned in comments. (Although I continue to consider that what some say are mistakes are really their (mis)understandings based on high school English rather than commercial style.) Thus, to aid concentration on content and writing—given that everyone needs an editor or two to clean up—or at least challenge—the technicals—I think use of an editor, just like this is a real competition piece, should be permitted and encouraged. (And there should be the recognition that there will still be a few mistakes present, even if a good editor is used.)

Anyway, thanks to everyone who sloughed through this one and commented. It all helps in setting it up for publication.

Your tales are easy to spot.

Here's a plot bunny for you. Omar Hussein Habu fucks Perry Winkel in the ass then uses Perrys shirt tail to clean his dick after which he writes Perry up for poor grooming.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Damn it, pilot! Yours is the only story I haven't read.

Read one, read them all. Someone gets fucked in the ass by an authority figure.

 

[sr71plt]

Damn it, pilot! Yours is the only story I haven't read.

And there's a good reason for that, I think (neither did most everyone else). Literotica blatantly doesn't serve the bisexual preference.

In that vein, I forgot to ask a question on mine.

Where do those who read it think it should be categorized to Literotica? Left just where it is? (Don't say GM, please, or I'll just scream in frustration at Literotica's categorizations).

 

[sr71plt]

Your tales are easy to spot.

Here's a plot bunny for you. Omar Hussein Habu fucks Perry Winkel in the ass then uses Perrys shirt tail to clean his dick after which he writes Perry up for poor grooming.

As I've already posted, you aren't an honest critiquer--aren't a critiquer at all--so you're just spitting in the wind.

 

[sr71plt]

Your tales are easy to spot.

OK, then. What other FAWC 5 story(ies) is (are) mine? No, I didn't think so. (you didn't get them right last exercise either.)

You're just a bag of noxious wind.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I don't wanna argue. I want you to elaborate. Unless the story was one paragraph long, I'm thinking there was a bit more to the story. It's why I asked about the severity of this mistake. Was it so strong it ruined any other potential quality in the story? Theme? Grammar and Punc? Plot? Characterization?

I'm asking you questions calmly, not shaking you by the shoulders. Not being a smart ass. I'm just discussing.

And what did I say about the story beyond its 20 inch dicks and 60FFF tits? I said something along the lines of its a contender but for the impossible premise. She might as well have summoned unicorns and fairies to fix her guy.

 

[FAWCker]

While we're waiting on the trophy, I figure I'll go ahead and reveal the authors and their stories. Much gasping and hilarity will ensue.

A Craving for Brandy: _Lynn_
Account for a Bullet: stlgoddessfreya
A Mile: AMoveableBeast
Arranged Marriages: patientlee
Bluetooth: stlgoddessfreya
Cooking It Up: Sabb
Desperate Times, Desperate Measures: Tx Tall Tales
Empires of the Stars: PennLady
Escape: Seanathon
Heirlooms of a Wicked Time: MSTarot
Inspiration and Desperation: MSTarot
Invasion of the Orcs: Jagfarlane
It's Danielle's Birthday!: drteetho
Kay Submits to Bob: Swilly
Knife, Book, and Hanky: sr71plt
Lorelei's Call: sr71plt
Mesmerized: Sheablue
Mystery Night: Saxon_Hart
Of Roses and Thorns: SecondCircle
Reunion: Blind_Justice
The Games She Plays: xelliebabex
The Midnight Ball: TamLin
The Sex Manual: Aynmair
The True Oracle: slyc_willie
Transitions: Jomar

I also want to issue a public apology to Aynmair. I had submitted an edit for her story with the HTML corrections, but it did not seem to go through. I don't know what happened. But as the organizer for FAWC, I want to apologize for her story remaining the way it was when it should have been fixed.

So, now that everyone is outed . . . .

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

As I've already posted, you aren't an honest critiquer--aren't a critiquer at all--so you're just spitting in the wind.

The word you want is CRITIC.

 

[FAWCker]

And there's a good reason for that, I think (neither did most everyone else). Literotica blatantly doesn't serve the bisexual preference.

In that vein, I forgot to ask a question on mine.

Where do those who read it think it should be categorized to Literotica? Left just where it is? (Don't say GM, please, or I'll just scream in frustration at Literotica's categorizations).

I'd probably put it in EC myself.

 

[sr71plt]

The word you want is CRITIC.

No it isn't. JBJ can be considered a critic. But he has never ever provided a critique that I've seen. You can do a one-liner and be a critic. You can't have provided a critique with one line. That's all JBJ does. And he doesn't need even to read the story to do so.

 

[AMoveableBeast]

And there's a good reason for that, I think (neither did most everyone else). Literotica blatantly doesn't serve the bisexual preference.

In that vein, I forgot to ask a question on mine.

Where do those who read it think it should be categorized to Literotica? Left just where it is? (Don't say GM, please, or I'll just scream in frustration at Literotica's categorizations).

Just luck, really. I don't read FAWC for sexual enjoyment, and I'm not squeamish about a little man-love, anyway. It just ended up last. I will still read it. I read all but the ending last night before I grew too tired to finish (happens to a lot of guys, I'm told). I liked it. Though, it is hard to give a full critique without the ending. Very clean writing, professional grade. Very sexual, somewhat of a rarity in this contest, surprisingly.

Even saw that TTT thought it might be mine. High compliment, considering. Didn't know he knew I existed. I had it pegged for you too, actually. Course, TTT and pl helped. The crispness of the writing did the rest. I did have some issues with it. Let me formulate.

Let me get to a clear point in my day, and I will finish her up.