Editor wanted for a CD/trans story

[AlexBailey]

I'm looking for someone who can beta read and edit the first chapter (+/- 20k words) of my first story (+/-70k). I'm looking for help with style, grammar, pacing and anything else you may offer.

The first chapter is about a closeted enby high school senior crossdresser who gets outed and begins to explore sexuality with the the mostly lesbian cheerleading squad from the all-girls school.

There is a lot of spandex and tight clothes fetish and lots of lesbian/t-girl play.

It's titled: The T-girl, the Tomboy, the Surfer and the Cheerleader

Please PM me if you're interested.



I will use your feedback to rework the rest of the story which could be ready soon after your editing.

Thanks!

-Alex Bailey

 

[AlexBailey]

Now that I've been haunting the forum for a little while I understand that asking someone to edit a long first story can be a big request and that my subject matter may not interest many editors. I'd now like to narrow my request.


First off, I'd love to get some feedback for the short story linked in my signature. (<1200 words) It's a bit rough but I'm glad I submitted it before doing my big story. I accidentally up loaded an unedited version first (forgot to save changes before uploading the file) It got published with lot of stupid errors and it took days before the edited version was posted. I'm sure this was devastating to the story rating. Oh well, live and learn.



For my big story I'd like to get help with some challenging sections. It's the darkest part of the whole story,(backstory for one of the characters.) A character is telling a story during a bondage session. There is kind of a lot going on and I could really use someone else's eyes to let me know if it works. (+/- 4200 words)

It's at a pleasure party with a bunch of cheerleaders and a t-girl all on ecstasy. One of the girls is sharing her story of being horribly abused at a conversion therapy clinic while putting another girl in consensual suspended rope bondage.

Excerpt:

----

Sandy paused for a minute as she kneaded Shawna’s ass cheeks with her hands. “I got fingered like a guitar and it never escaped my mind that I was being raped. I was being finger fucked by some religious med student at the order of my Mom.”

(Sandy, the teary-eyed leather dominatrix was fierce as she attach a rope to Shawna’s braid. She tied her hair to her crotch-rope just above her butt crack. As she pulled the rope ends thru, Shawna’s head was pulled back and her face was brought up. Her eyes were closed, her breathing was slow, regular and deep. Her body was heaving in the ropes. Sandy sat on the ground, sobbing with Shawna swinging above her.)

“I’m so fucked up. I am SO fucked up! I can’t stand to be touched by anyone anymore, not by Cheryl, not by Jena… I’m so sorry babes, I want it, I miss it, but it burns, it feels like my skin is peeling off. Pain feels better than pleasure to me now.”

---

 

[SynSlave]

Now that I've been haunting the forum for a little while I understand that asking someone to edit a long first story can be a big request and that my subject matter may not interest many editors. I'd now like to narrow my request.


First off, I'd love to get some feedback for the short story linked in my signature. (<1200 words) It's a bit rough but I'm glad I submitted it before doing my big story. I accidentally up loaded an unedited version first (forgot to save changes before uploading the file) It got published with lot of stupid errors and it took days before the edited version was posted. I'm sure this was devastating to the story rating. Oh well, live and learn.



For my big story I'd like to get help with some challenging sections. It's the darkest part of the whole story,(backstory for one of the characters.) A character is telling a story during a bondage session. There is kind of a lot going on and I could really use someone else's eyes to let me know if it works. (+/- 4200 words)

It's at a pleasure party with a bunch of cheerleaders and a t-girl all on ecstasy. One of the girls is sharing her story of being horribly abused at a conversion therapy clinic while putting another girl in consensual suspended rope bondage.

Excerpt:

----

Sandy paused for a minute as she kneaded Shawna’s ass cheeks with her hands. “I got fingered like a guitar and it never escaped my mind that I was being raped. I was being finger fucked by some religious med student at the order of my Mom.”

(Sandy, the teary-eyed leather dominatrix was fierce as she attach a rope to Shawna’s braid. She tied her hair to her crotch-rope just above her butt crack. As she pulled the rope ends thru, Shawna’s head was pulled back and her face was brought up. Her eyes were closed, her breathing was slow, regular and deep. Her body was heaving in the ropes. Sandy sat on the ground, sobbing with Shawna swinging above her.)

“I’m so fucked up. I am SO fucked up! I can’t stand to be touched by anyone anymore, not by Cheryl, not by Jena… I’m so sorry babes, I want it, I miss it, but it burns, it feels like my skin is peeling off. Pain feels better than pleasure to me now.”

---

Hello and welcome to the dark (publishing) side of Lit! I myself haven't been publishing here long and others can fill you on how nervous I was or you can take my word for it. Lot of us are writing, so scrounge up as much patience as you can. I was antsy as well and I don't expect that to ever completely go away.

As far as worrying about errors, ratings and subject matter. Welcome to the club!

I did take some time to read what you've already published so I'll try to help a bit but it'll be a while before I can set aside time for additional "larger" projects. Please take the criticism constructively and even if you don't--don't let it dampen your enthusiasm to write.

Your plot is mostly dialogue driven, which is fine but you can do better with the narration around the dialogue. You prefer the first two large chunks of dialogue with "The boyfriend:" and "The girlfiend:" - going for style? Ok, but don't lol. You still used some prounouns and narration so just work with that and in fact, use it more. Work it in. The very first paragraph you tried trailing off with a an ellipses but continued after with narration. Your sentence structure isn't bad; you can write. But the overall throw can be improved.

Later you surrounded dialogue with quotes and parenthesis. Don't do that. Ever. Can't stress enough how wrong that was. Small but horrible and easy-to-fix mistake.

And of course there's plenty of people here to give you more than one opinion, more editing advice etc. Keep at it.

As far as the larger scope of the story, I get from your post that at least one (and should be both) your early protaganists have some sort of mental issues. That's fine but all I got from your story was a bipolar conversation that had me switching modes so many times I got dizzy. And that was all in the span of time it took to pleasure the boyfriend? Oy vey.

Consider spacing it out and using more narration to make sense of the conversation. ANY type of description on them, their surroundings... or even be reassured they were somewhere on planet earth would be nice as well. You literally wrote "the boyfriend" and "the girlfriend" and left it at that. Got some on the maintenance guy but he didn't even show up till the end. So for most of the story it was just one of the most uncomfortable, flip-flopping convos I've ever read by two unhealthy people in a relationship. Realistic? Probably. We all know they're out there. But dont give a reader JUST that, even in a short prelude to a larger arc.

You can write so expand it, describe it (even marginally) and rework the pacing out.

Excerpt from the later material looks promising. Get rid of those unneccessary parenthesis again.

 

[AlexBailey]

....

Consider spacing it out and using more narration to make sense of the conversation. ANY type of description on them, their surroundings... or even be reassured they were somewhere on planet earth would be nice as well. You literally wrote "the boyfriend" and "the girlfriend" and left it at that. Got some on the maintenance guy but he didn't even show up till the end. So for most of the story it was just one of the most uncomfortable, flip-flopping convos I've ever read by two unhealthy people in a relationship. Realistic? Probably. We all know they're out there. But dont give a reader JUST that, even in a short prelude to a larger arc.

You can write so expand it, describe it (even marginally) and rework the pacing out.

Excerpt from the later material looks promising. Get rid of those unneccessary parenthesis again.

Thank you so much for taking the time to respond! I really appreciate the critical feedback.

The parenthesis inside of the quotes was an attempt to indicate whispering alternating with shouting thru the door. It felt awkward and I would now put breaks between the quotes and indicate what was whispered and what was not.

I was intending to have it dialogue driven with the intention of having the reader fill in the blanks based on their own perspective, but reading it now I can see how it would be better to provide more scenery. My previous writing experiences have been with technical writing and with song writing, complete opposites, so writing stories is completely new to me. It's more challenging than I ever imagined and has brought me to a whole new level of respect for the skill and talent of good writers!

Your comments about the uncomfortable flip-flopping "by two unhealthy people" shows me that I really need to make the last four paragraphs more clear. The flip flopping was supposed to be a major point but as the author it is my responsibility to make it clear.

I had struggled with the character of the maintenance man, I think it would have been better to have someone less abrasive but he is actually based on a real person and the interaction is very similar to an IRL encounter that has been stewing in my mind. Writing this was very cathartic but I see how I could have made it more enjoyable for the reader.

I'm very glad I released this short story before publishing my big one. I believe the my big story balances description and dialogue much better.

Thanks again!