First story feedback!

[barebacknubianf]

Hi all,

I've submitted my first story, and got lots of positive feedback - but the vast majority of the feedback is just of the "great story! want to email me sometime?" ilk...not exactly constructive, if you know what I mean. Anyway, is there anybody out there who wants to give me some real feedback? My story is at:

http://english.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=276777&page=2

It's an interracial thing, and its main theme is sex for revenge, so if you're not into that....

Nat x

 

[Jen24]

I thought it was pretty good

The mother/daughter relationship was convincing enough, though perhaps it could have done with fleshing out a little bit - so we had a slightly bigger incentive for her revenge than her being grounded for being drunk. I appreciate that you were probably going for some subtlety there and were using soft, allusive brush strokes or whatever and leaving us to infer the full extent of the hatred and the passion motivating the characters: the absent father; overbearing mother and her lover. Out of interest: Did you have Freud or the Electra story in mind? I think you could have made it still more of a potboiler, there's plenty of mileage there. The mother as Clytemnestra, Dan as Aegisthus, the protagonist as a scheming Electra. I'd have liked to see more explosive exchanges between mother and daughter and the completion of the revenge action. Perhaps a second chapter is called for?

I noticed one typo ("All that morning and all the afteroon I thought about it") that would have been picked up by a spellchecker - don't rush to submit.

From this first effort, you're obviously a very able writer and I look forward to reading more of your stuff. I liked the Latin pun at the end, by the way. Seeing, cumming and conquering. Very good.

 

[AsylumSeeker]

Since You Asked

I'm sorry in advance, but I found the dialogue flat and decidedly uninteresting, even painful to wade through.

But I am not in the habit of criticizing and not offering assistance. I can help if you're interested in being mentored. Read one or more of my stories and decide if you're comfortable with my style. I have written in different catagories.

PM if interested.

AS

 

[barebacknubianf]

The mother/daughter relationship was convincing enough, though perhaps it could have done with fleshing out a little bit - so we had a slightly bigger incentive for her revenge than her being grounded for being drunk. I appreciate that you were probably going for some subtlety there and were using soft, allusive brush strokes or whatever and leaving us to infer the full extent of the hatred and the passion motivating the characters: the absent father; overbearing mother and her lover. Out of interest: Did you have Freud or the Electra story in mind? I think you could have made it still more of a potboiler, there's plenty of mileage there. The mother as Clytemnestra, Dan as Aegisthus, the protagonist as a scheming Electra. I'd have liked to see more explosive exchanges between mother and daughter and the completion of the revenge action. Perhaps a second chapter is called for?

I noticed one typo ("All that morning and all the afteroon I thought about it") that would have been picked up by a spellchecker - don't rush to submit.

From this first effort, you're obviously a very able writer and I look forward to reading more of your stuff. I liked the Latin pun at the end, by the way. Seeing, cumming and conquering. Very good.

That's not a bad critique. Thanks. I've just re-read the story, and you're absolutely right that more "explosive exchanges" would have added something...I was aiming for more action and less history, but in retrospect I could have fleshed things out a bit more. And yeah, spelling - duly noted. There's always one mistake that slips through the net. But it was my first submission. I can be excused, right?

 

[Thatdurtydawg]

Barebacknubianf,
I did send you feedback, but I can't say that it would qualify as a critique.
Taking apart your excellent story would be like dissecting a frog.
One can do it, but inevitably the frog dies.

 

[Enchantment_of_Nyx]

I had an unusual experience reading your story. Your link went to page two, and I started reading without noticing. Oddly, it made for a very attention-grabbing opening. I found it an unusual but compelling way to start your story. At least, I thought that's how you were starting your story. I thought it was a deliberate choice, and read all the way to the end, and only then noticed I was on page two.

I started from the beginning after that, but starting it there in the middle may have given me a different perspective on the writing. There are some things you do really well some places that you could really stand to improve in others. The surprising thing is that it sounds like you've got naturally dramatic descriptions in some places, and others fall flat.

When you describe pain, either by itself or mixed with pleasure, your descriptions are beautiful. When you say, "Fire lanced through my skin," it's evocative and poetic. It's an aesthetically pleasing description, but it's also one that I as a reader can say, "I know what that feels like." Your descriptions of pleasure were a lot more muted.

There were a couple of things that stood out to me that relate to the category. I felt like the insistence on his blue eyes was repetitious and it felt like beating us over the head with the fact that he's white. I didn't really get that same feeling from comments about the narrator's own skin. Those felt more natural, maybe because they were in keeping with her prideful cockiness. There was one description of the narrator's skin that was a bit jarring. That was the description of the wounds on her knees when she first injured them. You described them as "deep red against my black skin." That had a potential to be very good imagery, but it got lost in the race tag. I viewed "black skin" as a label more than a description, maybe because nobody's skin is really true black. I think a simple swap out, like "deep red against my [dark] [dusky] [espresso] [cacao] [mocha][caramel] skin" would have made a big difference. I'd have been visualizing the contrast instead of thinking, "I get it, she's black."

Take my category-related comments with a grain of salt, because I have some issues and confusion with the category. I'm not really wild about treating interracial sex as a kink rather than just like any other sex. So, some of what bugged me here may just be that I don't respond well to it as a kink. Maybe people reading for interracial as a kink enjoy the insistence on it.

Dialog was oddly flat. There were times when you somehow managed to create emotional tension without great dialog (not sure how you did that!), and it left the dialog sounding like the characters were reading emotionless lines from cue cards. I'd suggest trying to make sure your characters are speaking in a way that conveys the passion and intensity of the moment.

One thing you can easily fix next go-around is eliminating artificial-sounding greetings by name. There were a whole lot of "Hi, Dan," and "Hi, Janine" lines. People in the same household rarely address each other by name. When they do, it's usually when one person is calling out to another, to get attention, or because a person is pissed and making a point. ("Jesus Christ, Janine, put some clothes on!")

In terms of storytelling, there were a couple of things that stood out. One was the suddenness in the shift between how Janine describes Dan as just an annoyance, maybe even someone trying to take her dad's place, and when very shortly after that, she starts noticing him looking at her and starts thinking about him from her own sort of predatory perspective. I thought you were trying to convey that this was the first time she had noticed him looking at her like that. If not, it would be helpful some mention of it in the initial description.

If it was intended to be the first time she noticed, I would have expected her to describe her reaction in terms beyond a mere acknowledgement that he was looking. Was she surprised, shocked, disgusted, aroused, amused, flattered, coldly calculating?

The relationship with her mom needs a little more context. Screwing her mom's significant other is a pretty strong reaction to what happened. I don't think it's necessary to explain the reasons for her extreme animosity, but I do think you needed to establish that it was a long-standing animosity. Otherwise, it just doesn't make sense.

I think your writing has a lot of potential. Just take the things you do well, like imagery and tension, and apply them more uniformly, and make sure your character's motivations are established.

 

[NotWise]

EoN,

The OP was from 2006. I doubt they're reading your analysis.

 

[Enchantment_of_Nyx]

EoN,

The OP was from 2006. I doubt they're reading your analysis.

Great. Someone's cheesy come-on bumped ancient history and I didn't notice. I'd better learn to look.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Did you have Freud or the Electra story in mind? I think you could have made it still more of a potboiler, there's plenty of mileage there. The mother as Clytemnestra, Dan as Aegisthus, the protagonist as a scheming Electra.

...

From this first effort, you're obviously a very able writer and I look forward to reading more of your stuff. I liked the Latin pun at the end, by the way. Seeing, cumming and conquering. Very good.

Also, Lovecraft alert, higher up. Freud, Greek legend, Latin; all in one post. That's got to get panties down. Lucky Jen .

 

[Thatdurtydawg]

EoN,

The OP was from 2006. I doubt they're reading your analysis.

The story was posted in 2006, but the writer of the story was here as recently as 4/24/20, so the writer may read the critique.

 

[Thatdurtydawg]

Great. Someone's cheesy come-on bumped ancient history and I didn't notice. I'd better learn to look.

Would you object to one of your stories being brought to the forefront after 14 years?
Please don't take my response as a come-on.

Your analysis might be exactly what the author needed.
Time will tell.