Story Feedback

[MohanSingh]

I would appreciate it if you guys are willing to read my stories and give constructive feedback. Not just say good or bad etc.

 

[Vix_Giovanni]

I’ve previously read your story about “Me Too” and generally remember it. I was surprised that it was in Loving Wives; I’m not particularly familiar with the category, but I thought that those stories are (usually) about cheating wives and/or taking revenge on cheating wives. Regardless of my assumptions, it seems this story is well received in that category and you should feel very proud of that.

My knowledge of your writing is based solely on that one story, so please take my comments with a grain of salt. I thought that there was a lot of unnecessary information in the beginning that neither lead anywhere nor contributed to the overall story. For example, I didn’t need to know that the director was formerly a shoe salesman or how he’d made his film career. And I didn’t need to know that the actress was married to/dating some billionaire with a Ponzi scheme, etc etc.

Those kinds of extraneous details took me out of the story—in my philosophy of writing, I think it’s important that each paragraph propels the action and/or themes of the story forward, and I thought these details were stagnant. While character info can do that in some instances, here, those details weren’t revisited or built on later in the story. I nearly stopped reading before I got to the one-on-one audition. And that would have been my loss, because the audition is the meat of the story and was well done!

So IMHO, the story would be much improved if it just focused on the audition, perhaps with a tightly constructed introduction of the slim handful of important details, e.g. that the actress’ career is dwindling and she’s taking hormones to improve her appearance (so that later, the reader knows the hormone pills are making her lactate). As a stylized narrative, this story is rather boring because, essentially, nothing happens in the plot buildup. But it’s a good stroke piece; I personally think there’s no need to pad it superficially.

Another route you could explore to get exceptional, insightful feedback is to ask AwkwardMD to read and review one of your stories. Her feedback is extremely useful; you could PM her or you could post in her review thread here in “Story Feedback”.

Hope this was helpful!

 

[LWulf]

Please provide links to the story?

 

[MohanSingh]

https://www.literotica.com/stories/memberpage.php?uid=4708734&page=submissions

That should be the link.

Thanks for the feedback Giovanni.

 

[LWulf]

That is just a link to your library. Is there one story in particular?

 

[MohanSingh]

Just seeking general advice on how to imrpove writing and story telling. You can pick anyone.

 

[Vix_Giovanni]

Just seeking general advice on how to imrpove writing and story telling. You can pick anyone.

FWIW, I would strongly recommend picking a specific piece to ask for feedback. You will get more active engagement that way. I just happened to have been looking at Indian-themed writing a few weeks ago (related to a question about another author’s WIP) and thus come across your works. But it’s a bit daunting to put the onus of both selecting a story and giving feedback onto the commenters here.

 

[MohanSingh]

Some haters been giving my stories 1 star across the board overnight. Some feedback would be appreciated for the 1 star.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Some haters been giving my stories 1 star across the board overnight. Some feedback would be appreciated for the 1 star.

The one star is the feedback, affectionately known as a one-bomb. Generally speaking, it's trolling activity, malicious and with no intelligence behind it. Don't expect a coherent argument to go with it, unless your grammar is really bad, and then you'll be told. If the site considers it a non-genuine vote (many parameters, don't ask for details) those votes will be removed by a sweep, usually when a contest is running (even if your story isn't in that contest). You can spot a sweep going through because your vote count will drop and usually your score will rise.

After a while you get used to it, and factor it in for the ride. Welcome to Lit

 

[LWulf]

You might think getting one-bombed means something (and it kinda does), but you have almost every story being a "hot" story. What is it, 16 "hot" out of 21 stories? Look at that instead. Don't agonize over the one or two one-bombers.

 

[8letters]

I read "Cabin in the Woods". I don't know what it is about your style, but it left me feeling very distant from the main character. Maybe it's that the sentences are all about the same length? Maybe you need to spend more time sharing what the main character is thinking and feeling? Maybe alternate describing the physical action and what's going on in the main character's head? Maybe you need more dialog?

Your prose lacked spark. It felt more like a press report than an erotic story.

 

[LesDesirable]

Cabin in the Woods: Clinical, written without emotion or feeling, which from the viewpoint of a woman having the time of her life is rather disappointing.

Lonely Woman: Very much the same, again your protagonist "tells" the basics, then gets on with the sex. Same cell-phone ignore bits as in Cabin.

The Dilemma: First 4 paragraphs begin with "I" and mostly are just broken down versions of what should be one paragraph, written a lot tighter.

All of your stories tend to dump a setting/character by telling us directly what and who that person is, and from there we never get any more sense of the character at all, just some events, often very similar to those in your other stories.

I am a successful doctor/businesswoman/student/whatever, I have not had a relationship in 3/4/2/1.5 years. my bestie / insert name/ texted/called/rang/posted an invite to club/party/dinner/show/movie, where man x put a finger into me.

I felt that three of the four stories I read were their own themed series.

But in none the four did you make me care about your protagonist, or the people she interacted with, they were just names in a text, doing assorted actions.

 

[Jada59]

I read "Obsession". I saw one typo. "Hoe instead of "how". Otherwise well written, but the story seemed implausible. Why would she confess to him of her boyfriend trying to have sex with her? And then all of a sudden she's in love with him, has sex with him, is a virgin and knows how to move and cums hard? That's not usually how things work.

 

[MohanSingh]

Thanks for taking the time to read the stories and provide feedback. Dialogue is one of my main issues. It is more to do with not having the time to spend on the stories and develop them beyond the basic concept.

I appreciate the criticial eye and hope to implement this in future.

 

[MohanSingh]

I read "Obsession". I saw one typo. "Hoe instead of "how". Otherwise well written, but the story seemed implausible. Why would she confess to him of her boyfriend trying to have sex with her? And then all of a sudden she's in love with him, has sex with him, is a virgin and knows how to move and cums hard? That's not usually how things work.

Haha. Thinking back I had a darker idea for the story about his obsession growing and him taking escalating steps. But had to wrap it up or it was going to be too long so I shoe horned in the sex. I think my actual sex writing needs a lot of improvement and nuance across the board. It is too similar. If you have any ideas or stories that you would recommend where it contains subtle writing around sex. It would be appreciated.

 

[MohanSingh]

Cabin in the Woods: Clinical, written without emotion or feeling, which from the viewpoint of a woman having the time of her life is rather disappointing.

Lonely Woman: Very much the same, again your protagonist "tells" the basics, then gets on with the sex. Same cell-phone ignore bits as in Cabin.

The Dilemma: First 4 paragraphs begin with "I" and mostly are just broken down versions of what should be one paragraph, written a lot tighter.

All of your stories tend to dump a setting/character by telling us directly what and who that person is, and from there we never get any more sense of the character at all, just some events, often very similar to those in your other stories.

I am a successful doctor/businesswoman/student/whatever, I have not had a relationship in 3/4/2/1.5 years. my bestie / insert name/ texted/called/rang/posted an invite to club/party/dinner/show/movie, where man x put a finger into me.

I felt that three of the four stories I read were their own themed series.

But in none the four did you make me care about your protagonist, or the people she interacted with, they were just names in a text, doing assorted actions.

This is fair criticism. I need to spend time on building characters. Can you read A Woman's Journey and let me know what improvements you would make.

 

[MohanSingh]

I read "Cabin in the Woods". I don't know what it is about your style, but it left me feeling very distant from the main character. Maybe it's that the sentences are all about the same length? Maybe you need to spend more time sharing what the main character is thinking and feeling? Maybe alternate describing the physical action and what's going on in the main character's head? Maybe you need more dialog?

Your prose lacked spark. It felt more like a press report than an erotic story.

Character development is an issue. I am not a writer by nature so my work can be back handed. I am going to try and create an internal monologue in characters and try to develop dialogue yo give more insight into characters. Can you read A Woman's Journey and let me know what you think the weaknesses are.

 

[LesDesirable]

A Woman's Journey:

The writing is very simplistic, sometimes painfully so. You do not permit the reader to infer anything, instead preferring to tell us nearly every detail. This would be OK, if it fit the story, or felt like her thoughts. Instead it seems that she is just narrating her way through a sequence of events, many of which have little to do with creating an erotic experience.

I think you would profit from writing a longer story, then deleting about 50% of the unnecessary portions.

Am I truly to believe that an intelligent, educated Indian woman, cannot find a way to hide a cigarette from her mother? That she needs to obtain a good job in order for her lawyer husband to join her in the UK? That he was divorced in paragraph 8, but waiting for her and only her later in the story? That she would give her body to a fat slob, again and again for tobacco, when she is qualified to do so much more?

As I see this tale, the entire portion about her mother stealing her cigarettes, her working a low paying job, the not quite forced sex with Henry, and the rest, could be cut entirely without damaging the story.

The real story is not girl works low paying job in order to keep distant from unwanted arranged husband, it is Girl and arranged husband grow into a marriage.

Begin your tale with Anjali either leaving school, her job, whatever and talking with her parents about the planned holiday to India. Make us care about her. Let us know who she is, have her talk about her boyfriend Jay, talk with her friends, do something while in the UK. Give her a personality and a life.

Move to the trip to India, give us her excitement, give us her dreams and hopes, and give us her planning. Crush us with her parents taking her to Vijay for the arranged marriage. Crush her when she realises the duplicity, and that everything she planned no longer matters, as she is now expected to be dutiful wife to a man she does not know. Pummel us with her feelings when he beds her on the wedding night. Rage, hatred, whatever, perhaps even some hint of love or lust to help with the ending later.

Move to the separation, and her reluctance to see him. Feelings again. What does she feel, how does she act in response to all of this. How does she make the decision to return to him and try again. If she has affairs (Henry), then don't just tell us what happens, tells us why, tell us what she is thinking, is she shaming herself, is she doing it from self-anger or self hatred or is she just being raped by a co-worker because she is a tobacco addict?

Bring them back together, by intent, not by accident in a city of 11 million. They are husband and wife, and should at least have a basic knowledge of where the other is, his traditional family values would almost certainly require that much.

And finally, her feelings again when she decides that he might not be so bad a choice, given the things she underwent in the hiatus.

You have good story ideas, but much like the others I read, this one had the thematic, "successful woman, frigid for x time, meets man x, he puts finger in her". . .

 

[Jada59]

Haha. Thinking back I had a darker idea for the story about his obsession growing and him taking escalating steps. But had to wrap it up or it was going to be too long so I shoe horned in the sex. I think my actual sex writing needs a lot of improvement and nuance across the board. It is too similar. If you have any ideas or stories that you would recommend where it contains subtle writing around sex. It would be appreciated.

I'm not the one to ask for that. The sex in my stories is not subtle.

 

[MohanSingh]

I'm not the one to ask for that. The sex in my stories is not subtle.

Now that you say that, I might give them a read.

 

[MohanSingh]

A Woman's Journey:

The writing is very simplistic, sometimes painfully so. You do not permit the reader to infer anything, instead preferring to tell us nearly every detail. This would be OK, if it fit the story, or felt like her thoughts. Instead it seems that she is just narrating her way through a sequence of events, many of which have little to do with creating an erotic experience.

I think you would profit from writing a longer story, then deleting about 50% of the unnecessary portions.

Am I truly to believe that an intelligent, educated Indian woman, cannot find a way to hide a cigarette from her mother? That she needs to obtain a good job in order for her lawyer husband to join her in the UK? That he was divorced in paragraph 8, but waiting for her and only her later in the story? That she would give her body to a fat slob, again and again for tobacco, when she is qualified to do so much more?

As I see this tale, the entire portion about her mother stealing her cigarettes, her working a low paying job, the not quite forced sex with Henry, and the rest, could be cut entirely without damaging the story.

The real story is not girl works low paying job in order to keep distant from unwanted arranged husband, it is Girl and arranged husband grow into a marriage.

Begin your tale with Anjali either leaving school, her job, whatever and talking with her parents about the planned holiday to India. Make us care about her. Let us know who she is, have her talk about her boyfriend Jay, talk with her friends, do something while in the UK. Give her a personality and a life.

Move to the trip to India, give us her excitement, give us her dreams and hopes, and give us her planning. Crush us with her parents taking her to Vijay for the arranged marriage. Crush her when she realises the duplicity, and that everything she planned no longer matters, as she is now expected to be dutiful wife to a man she does not know. Pummel us with her feelings when he beds her on the wedding night. Rage, hatred, whatever, perhaps even some hint of love or lust to help with the ending later.

Move to the separation, and her reluctance to see him. Feelings again. What does she feel, how does she act in response to all of this. How does she make the decision to return to him and try again. If she has affairs (Henry), then don't just tell us what happens, tells us why, tell us what she is thinking, is she shaming herself, is she doing it from self-anger or self hatred or is she just being raped by a co-worker because she is a tobacco addict?

Bring them back together, by intent, not by accident in a city of 11 million. They are husband and wife, and should at least have a basic knowledge of where the other is, his traditional family values would almost certainly require that much.

And finally, her feelings again when she decides that he might not be so bad a choice, given the things she underwent in the hiatus.

You have good story ideas, but much like the others I read, this one had the thematic, "successful woman, frigid for x time, meets man x, he puts finger in her". . .

Appreciate the feedback. I am happy with the story as it was. My style is noted as being direct. I am trying to flower it up but I find myself getting bored.

I am not sure with how much detail you read it. She is not a 'successful' woman. She is a graduate but is entered into a forced marriage before she is able to find herself and be a mature adult.

The emotions are fairly clear in that she is suffocated and trapped by her parents constant vigilance. She has resentment/hatred towards her husband and parents. This is pretty clear in the story. There is a trauma alluded to in the early parts of the story. She is coping with this and finds an outlet with the creepy older worker that ultimately forces himself on her.

The story is about the subtlety of consent. The two scenes are held in contrast. The forced encounters are different but the result is the same, violation.

The ending is misleading. It was something added on and it is the reason that there is an inconsistency in character description. The ending was added as I felt the story was too dark with two forced sex scenes.

 

[SimonDoom]

I read your story IT Nerd and CEO Boss. A few comments:

I thought the story itself was quite good. That is, although I had some concerns about how you wrote the story, you came up with a good story that was very kinky and erotic. You have the potential to get a lot better as you work on the writing technical aspects.

You have some odd ways of handling dialogue. I strongly recommend reviewing some essays on this site that discuss how to write dialogue. But here are a few things:

You introduce paragraphs of dialogue with a preceding paragraph that ends in a semicolon. You do this often. I've never seen this done, and it's not correct.

Too often, in a paragraph, you put the narration before the dialogue. Although it's important to mix up the way you handle dialogue, the general format for most lines of dialogue should be something like this:

"Wipe my hard drive," said Shilpa. "Wipe it now."

Keep dialogue format very simple and you usually will not go wrong.

I'm not a big fan of stories that switch from one first person POV to another. You lose the element of surprise. I think it would have been a better story if you had told it from Salman's perspective throughout, and he found out, when he confronted Shilpa later in the story, that she knew who he was, but she wanted him anyway. I think this would have been a more erotic story.

If you want to tell a story from two or more POVs, then I think third person omnisicent is a better choice.

There are some places where you could have made the story stronger with more detail and dialogue. Sometimes there was too much general narration. For instance, when he's looking at her hard drive and history, you could give more detail on specific things he reads, instead of general narration.

I have no idea why Salman would use his real name for the online profile to contact Shilpa. That makes no sense. He wouldn't pick the name "Salman" because he works for her.

By switching perspectives to Shilpa in the second half and ending the story about how satisfied she was, you say nothing about Salman. He's the character we started with. What about his satisfaction.? It's not a completely satisfactory ending. As a reader I want to know how he feels at the end, because he's the character you made me start with.

As I say, I think you have a good story idea and overall story arc but it could use some refinements to make it more effective.

 

[MohanSingh]

I read your story IT Nerd and CEO Boss. A few comments:

I thought the story itself was quite good. That is, although I had some concerns about how you wrote the story, you came up with a good story that was very kinky and erotic. You have the potential to get a lot better as you work on the writing technical aspects.

You have some odd ways of handling dialogue. I strongly recommend reviewing some essays on this site that discuss how to write dialogue. But here are a few things:

You introduce paragraphs of dialogue with a preceding paragraph that ends in a semicolon. You do this often. I've never seen this done, and it's not correct.

Too often, in a paragraph, you put the narration before the dialogue. Although it's important to mix up the way you handle dialogue, the general format for most lines of dialogue should be something like this:

"Wipe my hard drive," said Shilpa. "Wipe it now."

Keep dialogue format very simple and you usually will not go wrong.

I'm not a big fan of stories that switch from one first person POV to another. You lose the element of surprise. I think it would have been a better story if you had told it from Salman's perspective throughout, and he found out, when he confronted Shilpa later in the story, that she knew who he was, but she wanted him anyway. I think this would have been a more erotic story.

If you want to tell a story from two or more POVs, then I think third person omnisicent is a better choice.

There are some places where you could have made the story stronger with more detail and dialogue. Sometimes there was too much general narration. For instance, when he's looking at her hard drive and history, you could give more detail on specific things he reads, instead of general narration.

I have no idea why Salman would use his real name for the online profile to contact Shilpa. That makes no sense. He wouldn't pick the name "Salman" because he works for her.

By switching perspectives to Shilpa in the second half and ending the story about how satisfied she was, you say nothing about Salman. He's the character we started with. What about his satisfaction.? It's not a completely satisfactory ending. As a reader I want to know how he feels at the end, because he's the character you made me start with.

As I say, I think you have a good story idea and overall story arc but it could use some refinements to make it more effective.

This is brilliant feedback. Thank you.