Looking for a technical eye

[Liethra]

Hi all!

So I'm looking for something a little different than someone to just edit one particular story. Rather what I feel I'm in need of is someone to have a look at what I write and give a more technical perspective on what could be improved overall. Of course, if such a person would feel like also doing proof reading it'd be stellar, but advice on pacing, mood, flow and similar is what I'm mainly looking for at the moment.

As a sample, I think my story Primal Hunt (https://www.literotica.com/s/primal-hunt) does a good job of showing what kind of writing style I'm going for. That particular story is more domination/kink in substance but I also write a lot fantasy (including non-erotica off-site). Especially in the fantasy there's strong elements of gender-bending. So sharing those kind of interests would likely be a plus!

Anyway, I thought asking around here would be worth a shot. But if anyone has suggestions of better ways to go about it, I'm all ears!

 

[HeyAll]

Quick thought:

Your dialogue needs to be separated better.

Dialogue, at most, should be like this:

"Hello there," she said. "It's nice today."

But you have extra stuff at the end of that which makes it more difficult to read. Dialogue should stand on its own.

Also, dialogue should be seperate from the other person. I see that you bunch one person's dialogue, followed by the response of the next person. Again, it makes it harder to digest for a reader.

 

[KeithD]

Dialogue, at most, should be like this:

"Hello there," she said. "It's nice today."

But you have extra stuff at the end of that which makes it more difficult to read. Dialogue should stand on its own.

Umm, this not so much. The treatment looked fine to me.

Also, dialogue should be seperate from the other person. I see that you bunch one person's dialogue, followed by the response of the next person. Again, it makes it harder to digest for a reader.

Agree with this, though.

 

[Liethra]

Thank you both for the input, I'll have an extra look at that! Don't suppose you'd have examples that you feel do dialogue particularly well?

 

[RandyD1369]

Thank you both for the input, I'll have an extra look at that! Don't suppose you'd have examples that you feel do dialogue particularly well?

I doubt the story itself will appeal to you much (it's rather tame by Lit standards), but I think the dialog is pretty good in my story "Vacation Heat" in Exhibitionists/Voyeurs.

Link = https://www.literotica.com/beta/s/vacation-heat-1

Happy New Year, too.

 

[yukonnights]

Keith and HeyAll can probably speak more to this than me — but my takeaway is that you are a classic story teller. The amount of dialogue is pretty insignificant.

This line is classic "head-hopping"; "Fucking"- she pants, her breath heavy. "...fucking finally." I can't help but smile, despite the fact that I was pinned.

My first reading of this, I thought this was her dialogue followed by some manner of speech tag. "Fucking," she pants, her breath heavy.

But then came; "...fucking finally." I can't help but smile, despite the fact that I was pinned.

Still her words, but I was jolted out of the story by the; I can't help but smile, despite the fact I was pinned.

I assumed the next were again her words. I finally figured out that it is the "him" character doing the smiling and thinking. The problem with that is it's best to not confuse the reader, too much of this and they'll give up. Basically only one character's dialogue per paragraph.

You also changed from present tense to past in that line; ...despite the fact that I was pinned. —> I can't help but smile, despite the fact that I'm pinned.

Since I only have this one example of your work, it may be that this story teller style is not typical of your overall work. But, I like it a lot. It has a nice urgent energy, crisp and gets the story told well.

One final thought on this one, and it could just be me; "OhffuuckkfucckkyyyyeaahhImgonnaaahahhhhh," and suddenly she explodes in a screaming climax, still grinding and pushing my cock deep inside her pussy.

I understand the intent, but it seems a little bit too much on the mash up of words. And once again, you hopped heads midway through the sentence. This is both a bit confusing and a lost opportunity.

I'll try something different as an example; Suddenly she explodes in a screaming climax! Her incoherent growl of...is it agony or ecstasy? I can't care right now. As I lay under her, she grinds herself into me — her cunt claiming my cock as her trophy. As the urgency within us both dies down, I can't say I'm sorry she won...but there will a next time. There'll definitely be a rematch.
***
Main take away; I like your story telling style. It's quite different than mine and gives me probably more to think about than I've given you here.

 

[Liethra]

Keith and HeyAll can probably speak more to this than me — but my takeaway is that you are a classic story teller. The amount of dialogue is pretty insignificant.

...

Main take away; I like your story telling style. It's quite different than mine and gives me probably more to think about than I've given you here.

Thank you very much for the in-depth feedback! Certainly seems like there were a few misses in the proofreading, and I should definitely be more careful about the separation of dialogue in general. Especially the head-switching remarks is a good point, as I can get kind of carried away by the "sound" of the narration without considering how it sounds to someone outside of my head.

It feels like my prose could do with being a bit more descriptive as well, though I'm often a bit afraid of making it too focused on minutia instead. Your example makes a good point that parts that should have intensity still shouldn't be hurried.

I'll freely admit to being very influenced by the Sin City / old Film Noir type of narration, though I'm certainly wary of going too cheesy with it. I'm having a bit of trouble getting the style adapted to other genres though, as it works better for certain atmospheres than others. But practice and reading makes perfect I suppose!

 

[Vix_Giovanni]

Some things that I think could help you develop a clearer, stronger narrative are: 1)stick to one tense (you shift a lot between past and present), 2)carefully choose and use modifiers (you have a lot of ambiguous and dangling ones), 3)avoid personal “short hand”—i.e., words/phrases that have specific meaning to you but are ambiguous and open to interpretation (for example: Most humans sensed the feral blood instinctively. Knew to stay away. and The great thing about having a superhuman sense of smell was that it was easy to tell that she was feeling it as well. —in my first read, I thought this was a werewolf/shapeshifter story), and 4)read the story to yourself out-loud multiple times.

I think that you have already identified the main issue with your story: that you need to clearly project what’s playing in your mind’s theatre to what’s written down. Since you have a film-style influence, it may help to remember that you won’t have any visual images to support your short story, and perhaps to look at the ways some of the iconic stories were originally written (for example, Cain’s Double Indemnity is written quite differently than the film script). Hope this is helpful!

 

[Liethra]

Some things that I think could help you develop a clearer, stronger narrative are: 1)stick to one tense (you shift a lot between past and present), 2)carefully choose and use modifiers (you have a lot of ambiguous and dangling ones), 3)avoid personal “short hand”—i.e., words/phrases that have specific meaning to you but are ambiguous and open to interpretation (for example: Most humans sensed the feral blood instinctively. Knew to stay away. and The great thing about having a superhuman sense of smell was that it was easy to tell that she was feeling it as well. —in my first read, I thought this was a werewolf/shapeshifter story), and 4)read the story to yourself out-loud multiple times.

I think that you have already identified the main issue with your story: that you need to clearly project what’s playing in your mind’s theatre to what’s written down. Since you have a film-style influence, it may help to remember that you won’t have any visual images to support your short story, and perhaps to look at the ways some of the iconic stories were originally written (for example, Cain’s Double Indemnity is written quite differently than the film script). Hope this is helpful!

Absolutely helpful, thank you very much!

1) The tense criticism is absolutely warranted, especially as I realized that I had somehow uploaded a version that wasn't the very final proof-read. So that's very much my bad.

2) This one I had to read up on a bit (not having English as a first language), and I'll keep it in mind!

3) It was actually meant to allude to a werewolf connection, but I think it would have been better to either cut it completely or push it much further. I think I got so focused on the "fighting" aspect that I got a bit blind to the rest.

4) This one I should practice more, as I'm usually wary of hearing my own voice...

It's a recurring problem of mine, not just with the visual imagery, but with worldbuilding as well that I tend to have a hard time considering it properly from the reader's perspective. It's definitely something I'm working on, and I'll check out the story!