AwkwardMD and Omenainen Review Thread

[AwkwardMD]

Dancing Together, by SisterJezebel

Link

The beginning of Dancing Together was a problem for me. I talk a lot about scope, and sections not mattering, and I want to elaborate on that here.

You were right to point out that things come to a head at the party. That’s where things start to matter. The ~2000 words before that are there to establish that the protagonist loves her husband, and that they have history.

Now, I usually avoid rewriting sections of someone’s story to show how I would have done it, because how I would have done it is not something anyone else should be trying to replicate. I'm not that good, nor do I think that my way is 'right'. What I am trying to do is demonstrate how a distillation of the important information can be done.

Everything came to a head at my staff Christmas Party. The five doctors at the practice, myself as the nurse and the other part-time nurse and reception staff went to the Casino for dinner. It was a package where smaller workplaces could buy tables and instead of just having our party of around 20, there were over 100 people in the room giving it a very festive atmosphere. I arrived fashionably late with my husband. Between the stress of the job, the inevitable wear and tear of a twenty-one year marriage with three kids, and all the expectations that come with family (mine and his) around the holidays, I was dying for a night out. Dave, the managing partner, and his wife Margaret paid for everything including the drinks package, however, the drinks package did not include cocktails.

There is a LOT of information in the beginning of the story, but what it boils down to is A) Molly loves her husband and, B) they’ve been married for a long time. Most readers can infer that from what I added.

Andreas’ shitty behavior, the other thing that happens in the first 2000 words, can simply be punted down the road a bit, and we really don’t need to see all the ways he is a shitty human being in order to accept characters acting uncomfortable around someone they perceive to be shitty. If you had, for example, shown Molly interacting with the receptionists or nurses, and then when Andreas comes over all the other women either roll their eyes or give him a sideways glance before leaving, that paints a picture.

My most recent story features a work place rife with harrassment (sexual and otherwise), but the worst offender never appears in the story. Instead, I wrote about the way his behavior impacted others, and the fallout on the office culture. You don't need to see a person run through the woods to be able to follow the footprints.

***

Andreas did not, to me, represent an appealing alternative to Stuart. The story definitely serves him on a plate, but it felt like I was being told he is option B rather than that I understood the attraction. He is arrogant and pigheaded, and at no time did I feel like Molly went for that kind of guy.

I don’t mean that to say that option B has to be a nice person in a story like this, just that option B should be in some way appealing to Molly. The story hinges on the “will she stray” tension, and even though the narration went to great pains to tell me about how Andreas continued to pay attention to/sexually harass Molly, I didn’t get the impression that his advances were all that welcome.

I think that it would not have taken much to explain that Molly, having only ever been with her husband, had started to worry that she regretted not listening to her mother when she was younger, and regretted not putting herself out there a bit more. Now she’s got this bad boy strutting around, and he’s got her weak kneed and fluttery even though she knows he’s not interested in her beyond the conquest. She hates how he makes her feel, but at the same time she can’t deny how he makes her feel, and she’s not equipped to hide those feels. She wishes she could have gotten guys like him out of her system when she was 16, without a marriage and kids hanging in the balance... or weighing her down. <gulp>

***

I think that the suitors in this story, husband vs coworker, made the lead-up to the choice more complicated. These two characters were, for the most part, never in the same place at the same time. They were never reacting to the same things in a way that we, the reader, could compare them. Instead, Molly bounced between them, and we had to experience them like different teams taking turns.

I also felt like you didn’t really go into the allure of straying. It is thrilling to have a secret, as well as to be ‘getting away with it’. When you know something other people don’t, that is power. Molly could have been privately getting off (literally or metaphorically) on her office flirtations. Loving it, and loving that it’s a secret. She’s in her 40’s, and she finally has a dirty little secret of her own! Even if she didn’t plan to stray, and even if Andreas was pushing for her to stray and Stuart worrying about her straying, all it would take is that one more straw for her to give in to her curiosity. That's the line you're trying to walk the reader right up to.

You did do a good job of showing Molly’s building frustration with Stuart. I've been married for 10 years myself. I understood her loneliness, and her frustrations, but I didn’t feel like she was at the kind of “any port in a storm” desperation that would have been required to make option B (Andreas) viable or sensible. Or appealing.

***

I was confused by the twist. I had to do a lot of re-reading up and down page 3, and then back to page 2, looking for a scene break I might have missed and now is Molly back at her house?... or maybe did Andreas have kids and I just didn’t know it? I don’t know that you could have done a better job revealing the twist you set up where you revealed it. I do think that perhaps revealing the twist before the sex might have been stronger. Doing that would have theoretically taken some of the edge out of the sex, but I was already out on Andreas. That affair, had it happened, would have had no… bite.

Had Molly gone through with it, I just would have thought less of Molly rather than empathizing with her conflicting desires.

 

[SisterJezabel]

Thanks so much AMD. You have made some very valid points. I mustn't have made it clear they were in the hotel at the casino where Stuart had initially refused to go.

You don't need to see a person run through the woods to be able to follow the footprints.

Yeah. This I think is what I'm really going to reflect on next story. Thanks again for taking your time and effort, it is appreciated.

 

[AwkwardMD]

Thanks so much AMD. You have made some very valid points. I mustn't have made it clear they were in the hotel at the casino where Stuart had initially refused to go.

I wasn't confused as to where they were. I think, upon reflection, that the continued use of "he said" and ambiguity after the sex scene ended went on too long. Molly asked where the kids were, and it wasn’t clear to me that she meant her own kids. Then the conversation went on even longer, and it didn't feel off so much as 'confusing'. I think you maybe did need the reveal sooner, if only by a paragraph or three

 

[BelleCanzuto]

I wasn't confused as to where they were. I think, upon reflection, that the continued use of "he said" and ambiguity after the sex scene ended went on too long. Molly asked where the kids were, and it wasn’t clear to me that she meant her own kids. Then the conversation went on even longer, and it didn't feel off so much as 'confusing'. I think you maybe did need the reveal sooner, if only by a paragraph or three

I will add that the part that confused me was the line after that when Stuart said something about his mom and dad really giving him a lecture. That was my clue that I'd missed something, and I reread that paragraph a couple of times. Then I scrolled back to confirm that it had been left unclear who texted Molly to meet at the hotel bar.

The only other technical note I'd make is to have a different way to set off the texts. I know you (Jezebel) couldn't differentiate Stuart from Andreas without giving the twist away, but aside from that a couple of times I wasn't sure that what I was reading was a text, vs a piece of dialogue.

FWIW, I agree that Andreas was an unappealing guy, but for whatever reason I was bought into the idea that Molly *might* sleep with him, once.

 

[SisterJezabel]

Thanks BC and MD again. I've re-read it this evening and can see where the confusion could come from. I figured I'd made a thing about Stuart having dinner with his parents the night before, but I can see where the confusion would come in.

I now know that if I were to write it again:

1) I would have Molly fantasize about what sex with with Dr Douchebag would be like- great idea!
2) Make it clear Andreas sent the texts!
3) Get someone other than my partner to read it before it's published.

Thanks again to you both for your feedback. It really is much appreciated.

 

[AwkwardMD]

The Alpha Gender by Mikethe3DGuy2

Link

I read this story a week ago, and I had to give myself some time afterwards to cool down. My initial reaction to this (and I was not alone in this assessment) is that The Alpha Gender is (paradoxically) incel porn. I’m going to assume from the outset that my initial reaction was wrong, and that this was not the interpretation you were looking for.

I think that a big part of what you were trying to do with this story would have worked better visually. The women in this story are all very physically appealing, very attractive and forward, and in a visual medium that gets a certain kind of response. There are great videos out there of female bodybuilder Kortney Olsen, mostly nude, repeatedly putting a dude’s head between her unbelievable thighs and nearly crushing him. His face turns so many colors it’s like he’s a human rainbow, and all the while she is degrading him verbally. Putting him down. KO is an amazing physical specimen. Had you followed through with making a visual novel out of this (since I’m assuming your “3dguy” moniker means you dabble in DAZ or something similar), I think you could have produced something powerful with The Alpha Gender.

Where these paths diverge from KO crushing a man’s head is that he A) paid to be there, B) was paid to be there, or C) really wanted to be there. He got off on being treated badly, and the whole video is an extension of that.

There is no such motivation in The Alpha Gender. All of the sex is rape. There’s no enjoyment for Brian. In every sex scene I read through the 10th chapter, Brian is either fucked unconscious, injured badly, or under mind control while also being verbally degraded. There’s no payoff for this character.

All the women are predators. All the men are victims. Women have all the power, physically and metaphorically. Visual mediums can get away with ludicrously bad story/plot/motivation because the point of it is the spectacle, but a literary medium has a higher minimum requirement. Nobody is going to write a novelization for Hardcore Henry.

While The Alpha Gender does technically include content that meets the front end criteria for the tags “Male Humiliation”, “Female Domination”, and “Female Supremacy”, it doesn’t take that last step into fetishizing them. Brian doesn’t like what is happening to him. As near as I can tell, no male character in the story was enjoying themselves without some kind of mind control helping it along, and that misses the point of FemDom. FemDom is about the worship of women and the subjugation of men, not just the latter. The two are connected, two sides of the same coin, but without the appreciation what you are left with is abuse. It’s a fantasy of bitter victimhood. That's incel territory.

What compounds this is your choice to leave the how and the why as gray areas. To you, it is a stylistic choice not to understand the mechanisms that are changing gender dynamics around the world simultaneously. To the incel, this is a dog whistle. To them, you didn’t need to include an explanation because this is already how the world is. To them, you’re just speaking truth to ‘power’. You being specific would have ruined their ability to paint any agenda they wanted on your story.

You may be saying to yourself, “But Doc, if I had tried to write details it would have just come off as technobabble. Nothing I could make up could be as scary as the unknown.”

Well, strawman I just invented, I happen to know that isn’t true because I’ve written two stories about it, and the very real disease I based my story on is fucking terrifying. At the end of the next paragraph, I’m going to link one of my stories in which I tackled basically the same subject.

Before I do, a few warnings. One, this is an extremely dense story. It’s a black comedy/heist/sci fi/futurism story. It has themes of femdom, gender role reversal, and mental illness (PTSD and schizophrenia). It’s a lot, and I didn’t approach the gender role stuff as bluntly as you did. You spent maybe 90% of the words I read in those 10 chapters talking directly about the changes whereas I just had my characters walk around in a world where these changes had already taken place. You have to read between the lines to find the common ground, but I promise it’s there.

One last warning: it is one of my older stories. I had refined my storytelling style by this point, but the editing is extremely lacking here. Please forgive the embarrassing goofs (so many incorrect “it’s” uses).

The Huntress
To a lesser extent, Light Rays Coming Out Of The Computer

EDIT: To repeat a point from previous, unrelated feedback, I am not holding up my writing as "correct" or anything to be emulated. I'm sharing this because it's a different approach that gets to the same place without the incel angle.

***

Once you get past the content and just embrace this as erotica, the writing is pretty good. The descriptions are all very powerful, which I think stems from your visual background and a good vocabulary. You know how to set a scene and describe it, and that skill will carry you very far.

***

My hope is that your next project will benefit from spending a little more time in the planning stages. My hope is that your next project will be a little more purposeful, and will land closer to its intended target. My biggest hope is that you have a next project, because I know how hard it can be to receive negative feedback. Don't be too discouraged. I'm just one person, so try not to let one person's opinion mean too much.

 

[RickyHardon]

Might not be your cup of tea, but here's my debut story. My BBW Cuckold Story Pt.01

Hit me with all you got.

 

[AwkwardMD]

This is not a drill

This message contains feedback for: AwkwardMD
This feedback was sent by: fuckyoudykecunt@dikecuntfucker.com

Comments:

You can't keep your fucking politics and personal opines out of your review? 100 to 1 says that asshole doesn't even know what an incel is. You claim to want to help people write better, but instead you insult the fucker by pointing out an incel subculture that only quick to anger feminist cunts like you know all about. What good is your review thread if you let your feelings get in the way?

*DO NOT hit the REPLY button to respond to this email.*

***

I can't say that I understand this email. I'm not sharing it here to mock or poke fun at it.

Hate like this always implodes in one way or another. I don't know what it takes to bring someone like this in from the cold, but I can try. Whoever you are, I would love to have a conversation with you. There are people in your life who love you. Please reach out to me again, and this time leave an email address.

 

[Emirus]

This message contains feedback for: AwkwardMD
This feedback was sent by: fuckyoudykecunt@dikecuntfucker.com

Comments:

You can't keep your fucking politics and personal opines out of your review?

How can you keep personal opinions out of a review? Surely that’s what you’re being asked for (even though they might not agree with it...hmmm). I haven’t read the review so I don’t know if politics was mentioned.

 

[b7ffh1]

My Humiliating Immigration Exam by b7ffh1

Hi AwkwardMD,

Thanks for taking the time a few months ago to review my story, Shy Indian Wife's Humiliating Exam. I really appreciated the detailed feedback.

I ended up rewriting the story from the woman's perspective as "My Humiliating Immigration Exam." I could not alter some of the major plot points from the other story without causing too much of a discrepancy, but I tried to use the points you brought up to make it better. For example, I got rid of the "chapters", and added more explanation of how the situation came to be, and tried to add more emotions, and make the woman a more active participant, while still having it be recognizable as the same event.

https://www.literotica.com/s/my-humiliating-immigration-exam


I would love see what you think of this revised story. Did this story feel more believable and engaging? Did I overcompensate in a different direction?

Thanks again for your time and attention. Your insight is greatly appreciated.

 

[SimonDoom]

Link

I read this story a week ago, and I had to give myself some time afterwards to cool down. My initial reaction to this (and I was not alone in this assessment) is that The Alpha Gender is (paradoxically) incel porn. I’m going to assume from the outset that my initial reaction was wrong, and that this was not the interpretation you were looking for.

.

I wonder how different the reaction would be if the story were told from the woman's point of view. As it is, one of interesting aspects of the story is that it's told in second person POV, which is highly unusual. And it's from the man's point of view.

To me, it's not really erotica at all because there's nothing erotic about the man's experience. It could be erotic from the woman's point of view.

 

[AwkwardMD]

The second person perspective felt like another dog whistle. "You’re so angry. Look at all these reasons you have to be angry."

 

[Enchantment_of_Nyx]

The Alpha Gender

Edit: Decided this doesn't belong here because it's not my review thread.

 

[AwkwardMD]

I wonder how different the reaction would be if the story were told from the woman's point of view. As it is, one of interesting aspects of the story is that it's told in second person POV, which is highly unusual. And it's from the man's point of view.

To me, it's not really erotica at all because there's nothing erotic about the man's experience. It could be erotic from the woman's point of view.

This is a disturbing answer, because it sounds like what you are saying is that it is (potentially) more enjoyble to be the rapist than the victim.

This story is not unclear about the mentality or intent of any of its characters. I don’t think the author intended it to read like this, but that doesn’t change what's on the page.

 

[SimonDoom]

This is a disturbing answer, because it sounds like what you are saying is that it is (potentially) more enjoyble to be the rapist than the victim.

This story is not unclear about the mentality or intent of any of its characters. I don’t think the author intended it to read like this, but that doesn’t change what's on the page.

That's not what I meant, because I didn't see it as a rape story. I was thinking about what it would be like to tell it from the standpoint of his partner, Nina. She is not in any sense a rapist. She might have mixed feelings about what is happening, but she might enjoy it, too. Focusing on her perspective would make it less of a story about male victimhood, and more an interesting story about how individuals might respond with traditional roles being flipped in a way that is beyond their control.

 

[AwkwardMD]

Edit: Decided this doesn't belong here because it's not my review thread.

There is room for multiple opinions.

I only put my feedback here because often when people ask for feedback, what they really want is to be told they did great. When I come in with construcrive criticism, it often isn't well recieved, so I restrict myself to avoid that fight (because it's exhausting). If you ask here, you're going to get some things to work on (assuming I can find any), and more opinions are always a good thing.

 

[AwkwardMD]

That's not what I meant, because I didn't see it as a rape story. I was thinking about what it would be like to tell it from the standpoint of his partner, Nina. She is not in any sense a rapist. She might have mixed feelings about what is happening, but she might enjoy it, too. Focusing on her perspective would make it less of a story about male victimhood, and more an interesting story about how individuals might respond with traditional roles being flipped in a way that is beyond their control.

You'd need to read past chapter 2 to realize that Nina is a minor character who barely appears again until chapter... 10, I think. Eventually what appears is that Nina is not the exception to the rule. Nina is not loving or caring. In chapter one, she is gaslighting the main character and the reader.

 

[SimonDoom]

You'd need to read past chapter 2 to realize that Nina is a minor character who barely appears again until chapter... 10, I think. Eventually what appears is that Nina is not the exception to the rule. Nina is not loving or caring. In chapter one, she is gaslighting the main character and the reader.

OK. I read only chapter 1 and based my commentary on that chapter.

 

[AwkwardMD]

When I read this story, I read the first two chapters as asked, and I couldn’t decide if it was femdom that maybe missed the mark or agitprop masquerading as literature. I asked two friends to read, and they picked up the incel vibe as well...

BUT

I had asked them, specifically, if it gave them an incel vibe. I biased them, unintentionally, toward that possibility.

SO

I decided to read more of the story to find out for myself. Honestly, through chapters 8 and 9, I was pretty sure that I'd had it wrong. The femdom stuff got stronger, and sex was more enjoyable, and then the story revealed a twist where the enjoyment was a byproduct of the pheromones that women put out that had brainwashed the main character.

Mind control is only delineated from noncon by the thinnest of lines. It was always rape. He was always a victim.

 

[Enchantment_of_Nyx]

There is room for multiple opinions.

I only put my feedback here because often when people ask for feedback, what they really want is to be told they did great. When I come in with construcrive criticism, it often isn't well recieved, so I restrict myself to avoid that fight (because it's exhausting). If you ask here, you're going to get some things to work on (assuming I can find any), and more opinions are always a good thing.

I see. Thanks for the clarification.

 

[WoodmanStark]

Tempting. Very.
I have two works published already, but I think I'll wait and ask Doc Awk to read "Jennifer" which should come out of Pending any day now. My "Sex Goddess" epilogue contains a brief summary of that story as well as its continuation/conclusion; maybe I'll ask her to read that one later (presenting them in chrono order rather than writing order.)
In any case, her feedback appears to be very considered and thoughtful, so passing up this opportunity would be just silly.

 

[AwkwardMD]

My BBW Cuckold Story Ch. 01, by BBWLovingBeta

Link

It’s interesting how this story shares some base level details with the last one I reviewed, as both are about men who are (more or less) slaves to the women in their lives, but they differ quite a bit from there. My BBW Cuckold Story paints a more subtle picture of emotional manipulation, and a character who has agency in their life despite his reluctance to use said agency in any way.

Colin, the protagonist, is a really well fleshed-out toady. He’s Patton Oswalt’s Max to Felicia Day’s Kinga Forrester, destined to live in her shadow pining for Lucy’s attention. He’s pathetic, self-aware, and kind of hates himself for his inaction, but at the same time he also seems to get a kind of compersion (happiness or joy at someone else’s happiness) from providing for Lucy’s lifestyle. It almost seems like he’s living with an e-girl, paying an exorbitant amount to her OnlyFans even though she doesn’t do nudity, and while it’s not an ideal situation he does get some secondary benefits.

I gotta tell you, that’s a lot of good layers. Say what you will about how desirable those traits are in a male lead, this character was really well thought-out.

The whole story is like that. I even liked the use of a flashback here, filling in who Mark Reilly is after Mark has been introduced as a rival love interest. It served a purpose (huzzah!), and was very well executed. I am usually death on the use of flashbacks, but this was a textbook case of how to do it right.

There’s also foreshadowing! Holy hell, foreshadowing! Early on, Colin frets over leaving a mess, knowing that if Lucy finds a mess he will have hell to pay, and then the chapter ends with Lucy finding a mess and there is about to be hell to pay! Foreshadowing is how you show you knew what you were doing all along.

***

The one thing I will pick at is that I feel like you didn’t challenge yourself to a project commensurate with your skill. This is, like, 20% of the story. It’s the beginning of something wonderful, and it is a hell of an opening act, but I think you are capable of doing a lot more. Yes, this is just the first chapter, but I think you could have set the bar much higher and written something self-contained.

***

This was well written, well conceived, the characters were consistent and interesting. There’s tension, and the sex is an organic function of the plot and the nature of the characters. It all comes together. Every element of this story is working toward the complete goal, and that is a ridiculously good achievement for your first story.

Congratulations. I have only ever read a handful of stories (the last ones being Vix_Giovanni’s Ten Thousand Spoons and maria_mcgeorge’s Lady Carmen’s Fantasy) that were this well put together. Your comments section is a dumpster fire, but this is a really good piece of writing and you should be very proud.

 

[SisterJezabel]

Link

I saw exactly one kind of grammatical mistake repeated in a few places.



When dialog ends in a question mark, but the phrase continues to include a dialog tag (and sometimes narrative action), you would continue in lower case. It would be he asked.

Apologies! The editor should have picked that up

 

[AwkwardMD]

Redacted. Editing someone elses work is a noble undertaking.

 

[WoodmanStark]

"Jennifer" is posted now and submitted for your perusal. It's 4500 words including the short author notes. So far, it's the story I most enjoyed writing.
I think I'd also like you to read the (4400 word) epilogue to "A Visit From the Sex Goddess" to get the rest of the story.
OPTIONAL: just the first two chapters (3190 words) of "Sex Goddess" to bridge the gap. I know you said you only want to read two entries at most, and the epilogue can be read without the preceding story (or at least I tried to make it so,) but you may want to see what he saw anyway. His subsequent sexual escapades with the goddess are not germane to the Jennifer arc, so you can tap out when you reach chapter 3.
All right, Dr Awkward, bring it. Make me cry.