AwkwardMD and Omenainen Review Thread

[Omenainen]

EarlyMorningLight
Juxtapositions
Link

This story is a wonderful little snippet of life. It is short and sweet, well thought out and lovely. It is a description of casual meeting, one evening in life, and as such, it is complete and perfect. Your descriptive writing is strong and compelling. You can create tension, and your sex is hot. Technically you have all you need.

Now, because "I loved this" isn't very interesting feedback, especially when "what I love" certainly doesn't translate to "you will have great mass appeal", I want to say a few words that go a little outside of this story's scope. In your bio you mention that you are working on longer pieces, and this will hopefully come in handy with that. I'm gonna talk about two things from Juxtapositions, and hopefully you’ll be able to take those things and expand on them.

***

The first is scenes. Juxtapositions doesn’t really have scenes. There are lots of scene breaks, but they don’t always seem to be breaking anything up, and sometimes there are short time skips where there isn’t a scene break. Mostly, I just started to ignore them and form my own mental image of how time is flowing.

While you, as the author, can’t control everything I, as the reader, understand about your story, this is one of those things that should be avoided. You don’t want your readers ignoring the signs you’re giving them. You want to be purposeful with them, and let the reader know that they are safe in your hands. They can kick back, slip a hand in their panties, and just enjoy whatever you’re about to unfold. That’s the goal.

I think, fundamentally, the bigger issue is that you didn’t really conceptualize what any of these scenes were. A scene (every scene) should have a beginning, a middle, and an end. They should all have a point. They should all be going someplace as part of the larger story you’re trying to tell. I think it’s telling that we got through several scenes before I knew anything about the narrator, whereas when one stops down to think about “How do I write my first scene?”, introducing the narrator and the setting are obvious boxes that need to be checked. Specifically with erotic stories readers expect to be told whose head they're in very early on, especially when writing in first person. This being published on Gay Male probably helped with that, because at least the readers could guess the gender and orientation of the POV charcater.

I’ve seen this kind of thing happen a lot with stories that are based on real events. The authors fall into this trap of trying to retell certain steps with accuracy, like you’re trying to honor the original event, and include things that felt very important at the time but in hindsight (or if scrutinized from the viewpoint of writing fiction) maybe didn’t really matter at all. There are always some chunks of the story that meander in unnecessary details, and ultimately slow down parts of the story where you want to go fast.

Scenes are like microcosms of stories, because they are both an entire short story unto themselves as well as being parts of the larger picture. Figuring out how to make each scene do what it’s supposed to do, in exactly the right amount of time and get out with exactly the right amount of information reveal, stinging dialog, or partners fucked to a cross-eyed haze, is an artform unto itself.

You can build so much momentum in a story by getting that pacing right, and it starts with figuring out scenes.

***

The second thing I want to talk about is Lisa. Holy crap, how much do I love Lisa?

This story was puttering along, and there was tension, and I was into it, and things were right on target for a good little wank story, and then Lisa pulled back that curtain by accident, and the story took off like a rocket. Suddenly there’s both a break in the tension, but also a massive uptick in ‘holy shit, aren’t these two together?’ There are light hearted moments, there’s levity, and there’s genuine comedy, and you’re pulling all of that off at the same time that things are getting hot as hell between Seth and the narrator.

Lisa is such a wonderful addition. Her personality is so different from Seth and the narrator, and it wasn’t until she showed up that I realized that I’d wanted her there. I would have wanted to be her friend. Hell, I would have wanted to be her, given the situation.

Not every story would benefit from having this Lisa, but every story needs a Lisa. Some balance among the characters, and some places where the dialog can be lively, and colorful, and interesting, and surprising, and holy shit I’m gushing because I liked Lisa so much…

…and I have this sinking suspicion that when you were writing her, you didn’t think very much of her inclusion. The real Lisa was in the room, and you’re doing a (more or less) faithful recreation of her presence. End of story.

Not every story needs a wacky sidekick. Sometimes, the wacky sidekick is the love interest. Sometimes, the main character is the wacky one. In stories where there is one, it is often said that villains define the hero. An amazing villain requires an amazing hero, and I think there’s a similarity herein where Lisa’s presence adds contrast. Contrast makes things so much more lively and interesting.

While I suspect that her inclusion was almost incidental (and what the hell do I know), what I know for sure is that her presence elevates everything around her. I think you have a knack for characters, or characterizations, or giving very varied voices to your characters, and if you can find a way to harness that for yourself to suit the specific needs of your future stories, you’re going to be flat out amazing.

 

[Battlewarrior]

Hello. I would love to receive feedback on the Eldritch Realms:
https://literotica.com/s/the-eldritch-realms-pt-01
https://literotica.com/s/the-eldritch-realms-pt-02
The Eldritch Realms is a sequel to the Disciple of the Liga Umbrei (I hope I have written the Eldritch Realms in a way that readers should understand without reading the Disciple of the Liga Umbrei), but the reception to first chapter in particular has been rather lukewarm. Thank you very much in advance.

 

[MissAllison]

Yay! Alright, so I wrote this piece in the fall of last year, and I just recently revised it a little bit. I found your thread back in December and was kind of bummed that you stopped reviewing, because I read so many of them in one big reading session. I'm so happy you're back!

Would either of you mind reviewing my first story, The Princess and the Ladies ? It's 5 Lit pages, but the last page has a kind of appendix so it's more like 4 1/2. I was waiting for the updated versions with some revisions, and it finally updated today. Let me know!

Allison

 

[AwkwardMD]

Battlewarrior
The Eldritch Realms parts 1 & 2
Link

I have often stated, and firmly believe, that writing is an important outlet for creativity, and that everyone should be so lucky as to have this for a hobby. I hope that the following does not discourage you from continuing to write.

Your request for feedback seems to have been prompted by the release of The Eldritch Realms Chapter 1, and the lower score you received there. I think there are two primary factors that led to this.

1 - Literotica ‘rewards’ series stories with, generally speaking, increasing scores as a story continues with more chapters. Take, for example, your own Disciple series. Chapter 1 has a score (currently) of 4.58 while Chapter 7 has a score of 4.76. At face value, it could be argued that this means readers liked the story more as it progressed, but the truth is more mundane. Chapter 1 has 5.4k views while Chapter 7 has 1.4k views. Your readership dwindled until only the most dire fans were still reading, and those fans are carrying your score. People who didn’t like the story, or who didn’t care, stopped reading.

In the time since you requested this, you’ve posted a third chapter of TER that has, at time of writing, a score of 4.82. Again, though, the people who didn’t like the initial chapter stopped reading, and your fans are the ones left that are still voting.

The first chapter of a story will, almost universally, have the most views, the most votes, and the lowest score. This is simply how Literotica works.

2 - I have perused a handful of your other stories, including TER chapter 2, A New Life chapter 1, and John’s Adventure’s chapter 1. In my opinion, (and this is just the shared opinion of two women on the internet, so, you know, not actually that important), people are voting for your story based on whether it got them off, and not on whether they thought it was a good story.

It can be difficult to cultivate a literate readership on Literotica. It takes a lot of stories, and a lot of creativity, and a lot of effort. I would submit that your experience is a common experience for writers on Literotica. You have a handful of stories. Most of them don’t have many comments, or any comments at all. Of your handful of stories, there is a 50/50 mix of stories that surpass the 4.5 mark required to be classified as “hot”. You had a run of stories that did this, in the Disciples of Liga Umbrei, and that had you feeling pretty good about your skills as a writer and storyteller, and when TER chapter one came out to a flat response, you couldn’t figure out where you went wrong. I would submit that your success was mostly due to the capricious inclinations of whatever readers happened to find your story on the night it went up (rather than any specific demographic you might have been aiming for), the moment where it had maximum visibility, and they voted according to their orgasm. 5* for “I came”, and 1, 2, or 3 for “I didn’t”

It can be difficult to try and figure out what makes one story work vs another. In my opinion (again, just the shared opinion of two random women on the internet), it’s incidental, counterintuitive at times, and ultimately counterproductive to pursue success on Literotica and writing competency. The two are not related.

Success on Literotica looks like silkstockingslover. Lots of stories, making sure her name makes a frequent appearance on various genre pages. She doesn’t tend to aim for a lot of complex themes, from what I can tell. She has a few kinks, and she writes them in direct and unsubtle terms, and readers flock to that. She has, at time of writing, like 41,000 followers on Lit. That’s insane.

At the same time, I don’t think that silkstockingslover could take the skills she has acquired to succeed on Lit and apply those skills elsewhere. Lit, as a site primarily geared toward sexuality and, specifically, getting off, doesn’t necessarily reward deep storytelling or great writing. If silkstockingslover wrote a SFW story (and this is important) using the same skillset she uses here on Lit, she would likely bomb. This is not to say that she couldn’t produce something wonderful or amazing if she set her mind to it. I don’t know the woman, or what she’s capable of, but having read a bit of her writing I don’t think that what she produces here would cut it anywhere else.

Elsewhere, out in the more generalized world of fiction, you need to have deeper characters. Dialog that makes sense, and flows. A plot that unfolds with subtlety and pacing. In general, these are the skills I try to help other writers with. I would not say that what I do, and skills that I help others build, are particularly successful on Lit, but neither are they completely ignored. Just today, I received a comment on an older story that really touched one specific reader. Their comment made me cry, and that is a direct result of me trying to do something emotional and complex with my work.

I do not think that my way of writing is the best way, or the only way. It’s what works for me, and that was something only I could decide for myself. What works best for you is something only you can decide.

All of this is a very long way of me getting to the point; you need a lot of work on the fundamentals of writing. Tense shifts. Spelling. Grammar. The scope and the pacing are out of touch with each other. It seems like there was some attempts here and there at some very artsy, florid (read: colorful) prose, but more often than not that effect was undercut by your use of anachronistic (and vulgar) dialog.

The first three are straight-up problems, but the degree to which you apply yourself to fixing them is in your hands. There is a complicated relationship between textual correctness and the degree to which readers notice. When stories have a lot of mistakes, readers will notice, but improvements have diminishing returns beyond a certain point. Once you are creating stories at, like, a (US equivalent) 8th grade reading level with limited mistakes, people will stop noticing and tend to judge the story based on its own merits. Spending the effort to improve to a 12 grade reading level will not earn you extra readers or extra scores. It might change the tone of the comments you get, a little, but it won’t translate to success at Literotica.

Florid prose is fine. Some of the best writers I know are florid as fuck, and they make it work. Anachronistic is fine. My funniest work is anachronistic as hell, and I’m super proud of it. Pick one, though, because they clash. Scope and pacing will come from you getting a better idea of what you want to do with your art.

My advice to you is to A) figure out what kind of writer you want to be. B) find a good example on Lit, someone who is successfully creating the kind of art you want to create, and mimic the absolute crap out of them. Don’t plagiarize, obviously, but borrow liberally. C) get an editor. In some cases, you can find a good editor from the Lit Editors section. In other cases, readers will reach out to you and offer their services (“I loved your work, and if you’re ever looking for a beta reader I would happily volunteer!”).

 

[Battlewarrior]

Thank you very much for he advice! Much appreciated.

 

[Omenainen]

MissAllison
The Princess and the Ladies
Link

(Obs: this is a collaborated review by me and AwkwardMD, even though it's posted by me. We just think it would be, well, awkward, to say "we thought" etc. Sounds way too formal for what is essentially two strangers' opinions on the net.)

I thought this was refreshing and held my interest from the beginning. You sold the idea of the game well, so that by the time they got to it I was super interested to see what it was all about. I’m gonna put this right out in front though: I, generally, have a problem with age play. My problems with it don’t really apply here, but there’s surely a chance I’ll end up being more negative than I intended to for exactly the reasons that the characters discussed toward the end. Age play is (usually) either a way to make an end run around the underage rules for Lit OR it’s an excuse for masochistic punishment. Neither of those is my jam, for different reasons, but this story is more… communal, and I dig that. Plus your characters are clearly adults pretending. The age play still gets side eye, but I dig the intent.

I liked Gwen as a main character. She seemed like someone I would have wanted to be friends with more so than that I wanted to be her, but I liked her vibe. Her incredulity at the game, along the way, mirrored mine, and that kind of detail can do so much for getting your readers to identify and root for a character.

I liked all of the women, to be honest. I liked the variety of sizes, ages, backgrounds, sexual proclivities, sexual acceptance. The way the wife was like “I’m pretty sure my husband has brought some trans girls down to the basement” was a mindblowing moment for me. I liked the kind of sex they were having. I liked the kinks being explored. I liked everything this story was aiming at. A story that nails all female group sex is a story I would definitely want to read. There is a lot of potential in the premise of this story.

I seriously loved the observation of how the game introduced dominance without meanness. That it rotated. I don’t know if you made this up or not, but both of us were very intrigued by the way control was exerted, and how the game was played.

THAT BEING SAID...

If we’re looking for talking points, things to refine, then the first thing is unnecessary details. Clothing, heights, weights, last names, maiden names. There’s a lot of things in here that don’t matter, but that take up space in our short term memory. Details you present will be remembered by the reader later. You mention a female characters last name is Miller, and then we’re waiting for Mr. Miller to show up later, to the surprise of everyone, and blow up the end of the story (or something). We can do without numbers for basically everything. If you just paint the picture in more generic terms, we can fill in the gaps in our heads and suddenly the experience gets more personal.

There’s certainly less creative control being exerted by you, when you give readers a range of interpretation (how large is ‘large’?), but readers generally respond favorably to being trusted to imagine aspects. It can be argued that describing for example what people are wearing builds their character, but we really don't need to know it in such detail when the first thing they do is get naked. We don't need to know they full real names if they're going by silly nicknames for the sake of the game. Sometimes less is more and this is one of those times.

The second is unnecessary POV changes. You could've stayed in Gwen's perspective and not lose anything significant. It wasn't super disturbing, but it also wasn't necessary.

Third was the actual vocabulary of the game. The dialog was tedious at best, the forced word replacements and childish wordisms, and a barrier at worst. Having it be Gwen’s first time, so that she was learning too and making mistakes and translating in her head helped, but it was still difficult to follow. I can handle difficult to follow when it’s going to lead somewhere and pay off later, but plopped in the middle of what amounts to one extremely long sex scene, I just ended up skimming over it to get to the good parts.

A lot of the sex was… I’m gonna put it as “hot in theory”. I was following and imagining, and my brain was doing a lot of the work for you, but what was described on the page was taking a backseat to the mechanics of the game. The ‘how’ of the implementation. Like, I just wanted them to shut up and fuck already. As stated earlier, I found the dialog to be cumbersome, and having that happen during the sex (constantly) was less than ideal. Focusing more on the sensation and feeling and less on what code word there was for each action would have made it hotter.

 

[gunhilltrain]

If I may jump in here - tell me if I'm interring with your thread - but one thing that struck me was that it is set in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, but there seems no point in putting it there beyond that Brooklyn is now considered "hip." They drive out here in a BMW X/7, no less. No B or Q trains for these people, who either are or are aspiring to be middle to upper-middle class. That might be a good plot entry to some subtle satire, but we are supposed, I think, to take all these lifestyle details at face value.

 

[LdyHoneybee]

Okay, they look like serious and diligently thoughtful reviews.
This is actually just one story, a first try here, posted in six parts, about six pages altogether or shorter because only the last posting registered a second page (of just a few words). I had to add to one of the posts because it was rejected for being “too short.”
Here is the first link. The other postings are linked in the comments.

With thanks and some considerable shy fear and trembling,


https://literotica.com/s/a-walk-in-paradise-garden-ch-00-prologue

 

[LdyHoneybee]

Now i am going to run away and hide.

 

[AwkwardMD]

If I may jump in here - tell me if I'm interring with your thread - but one thing that struck me was that it is set in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, but there seems no point in putting it there beyond that Brooklyn is now considered "hip." They drive out here in a BMW X/7, no less. No B or Q trains for these people, who either are or are aspiring to be middle to upper-middle class. That might be a good plot entry to some subtle satire, but we are supposed, I think, to take all these lifestyle details at face value.

My suspicion was that some (or all) of the story is based on one (or a series of) real event(s). This detail is just true.

That being said, I think this comment is a good example of the point we were making about unnecessary details gumming up the flow. For GHT, the neighborhood you specified represents an unfulfilled promise of some kind. For NY natives, it means something very specific, and for the rest of us it means little, but it doesn't seem like it helped either group.


Not trying to pick on you. Just siezing a teachable moment

 

[gunhilltrain]

My suspicion was that some (or all) of the story is based on one (or a series of) real event(s). This detail is just true.

That being said, I think this comment is a good example of the point we were making about unnecessary details gumming up the flow. For GHT, the neighborhood you specified represents an unfulfilled promise of some kind. For NY natives, it means something very specific, and for the rest of us it means little, but it doesn't seem like it helped either group.


Not trying to pick on you. Just siezing a teachable moment

It may have been true. I've dropped New York neighborhood names into stories without explaining much about them. Sometimes I hope that the story context will explain it; sometimes it does, sometimes not.

I shouldn't be Lit's resident literary critic (isn't that your job!) but something about the way social class is depicted here rubbed me the wrong way, even if it may be true too. I guess I usually write about working class and lower middle-class New Yorkers (or nearby areas) who are ambitious yet are a bit more aware of what is going on around them. (It's usually in an earlier era too.) The people in this seemed more out-of-touch and wrapped up in themselves. It had a Sex in the City or Girls feeling that may have been inadvertent.

 

[rvagirl]

Hi there! I’m a new author on Lit and a long-time reader before that. I recently published my first story, White Knighting, to positive response. It made me happy writing it and it seems like readers are happy to read it.

But what can be better? Sometimes when something is just kinda nice it’s hard to get constructive feedback, you know?

Many thanks for all you do for the community!

 

[MissAllison]

It may have been true. I've dropped New York neighborhood names into stories without explaining much about them. Sometimes I hope that the story context will explain it; sometimes it does, sometimes not.

I shouldn't be Lit's resident literary critic (isn't that your job!) but something about the way social class is depicted here rubbed me the wrong way, even if it may be true too. I guess I usually write about working class and lower middle-class New Yorkers (or nearby areas) who are ambitious yet are a bit more aware of what is going on around them. (It's usually in an earlier era too.) The people in this seemed more out-of-touch and wrapped up in themselves. It had a Sex in the City or Girls feeling that may have been inadvertent.

So first off, thank you AwkwardMD and Omenainen for taking the time to thoughtfully and constructively offer my work some criticism! It's everything I'd hoped it would be.

The first thing you should know, and I feel completely safe saying this because I'm pretty sure most readers stay off these boards, is that this story is 100% fictional. I created everything about it: the characters, the game, the words and all that stuff. What I'm hearing is that you weren't sure if it was true or not, and that's exactly what I was going for. I wanted all these weirdly specific details -- which you've said aren't necessary -- to hit readers like 'that's weird, why would she need to mention that?' Like the Sheepshead Bay thing, it's really not necessary, but I tried to get into some nitty gritty stuff to make some readers think 'Did five women really get together and play this game?' So that gives me a lot of happiness. I do suppose there are a bunch of details I could have skipped and still given that appearance, so the fine tuning is certainly something I could do.

As for the sex being not sexy, well, I hope that over the years there are some girls out there who find it very stimulating. I came up with this game and its rules and everything in the last couple of years, and when I think about actually playing it with a few other chicas, I wonder if it would be a total dud in reality or whether we could actually get into it. Probably going more with the dud aspect lol. But I wanted it to seem plausible! So with the rules of the game and everything, I tried to make it as erotica as I could; I thought about going all the way with the characters and really telling the entire story of the rest of their group sex, but then I thought that would become tedious and way, way too long. So I don't know how I would fix that. I don't think people are exactly falling over themselves to read this piece, and it didn't get a lot of ratings, so I won't bother fixing it, but I do see your point.

The underage thing: yes, I had to fight a few times with Lit censorship until they fully realized that this is in no way some kind of runaround with their rules, that these characters were all very fleshed out adults using their imagination for some very strange kink thing.

 

[burgwad]

Am I scared of honest, scathing, intelligent feedback? [breathes deep and stares hard at self in mirror] No, I’m not. Please enjoy and, if you’ve the time and energy, review my story about Ingrid.

 

[gunhilltrain]

So first off, thank you AwkwardMD and Omenainen for taking the time to thoughtfully and constructively offer my work some criticism! It's everything I'd hoped it would be.

Oops, hi MissAllison, I'm sorry I gave you a hard time about Sheepshead Bay. I have used Brooklyn myself several times as a setting.

You could have had them all go to Roll'N'Roaster on Emmons Avenue for burgers or shrimp. I once had a female character joke about going in there with a hacksaw and cutting the chains to steal a napkin holder - just because she could. I still haven't published the story because it would be part of a long series.

 

[LdyHoneybee]

Am I scared of honest, scathing, intelligent feedback? [breathes deep and stares hard at self in mirror] No, I’m not. Please enjoy and, if you’ve the time and energy, review my story about Ingrid.

Courage is not the absence of fear. It is the conquering of it.

 

[AwkwardMD]

@LdyHoneybee
Link

Okay. First time author. Congratulations on posting your first story. You’re already off to a good start.

I like what you’re going for. There’s a poetic beauty to the writing (with some exceptions, see below) that I really liked. I dig the aesthetic. I like this style. One of my best friends writes very florid, prose-heavy 17th and 18th century fantasy stories, and they have this same kind of feel. What you’re attempting can be adapted to a lot of different kinds of stories, and it can be a very successful style.

You have some work ahead of you to get that far, though. Some of the things to learn are easy, and some will take some practice. Your basic writing is very good, and that is half the work right there. A lot of what follows has to do with site mechanics.

For one thing, I don’t think that breaking this story up into multiple chapters helped you. There is a case to be made for frequent postings as a way to keep your name fresh in the minds of readers, but this isn’t it. This was one short story, and presenting readers with the entirety of it for consumption probably would have been stronger. There weren’t any real cliffhangers here, and none of the individual chapters had anything resembling an internal arc. They were just… parts, and none so onerous that would have required an intermission.

Now, the fabled origin of Nymphomania is a story of a woman being taken advantage of by a powerful man. Yes, it is a fantasy story, so I understand the impulse to put it in the Sci-Fi/Fantasy category, but by that logic all stories could and should be posted to Sci-Fi. The Sci-Fi category is a fickle, small readership who generally reward deep worldbuilding and longer, complicated (bordering on convoluted) plotlines, of which your story has neither.

On Literotica, when you are trying to gage which category to post your story to, the most widely accepted method of reaching the audience you were hoping for is to try to be honest about what you’ve written, and post it where the sex makes the most sense. Danae has no agency in A Walk In Paradise Garden, and is taken advantage of by someone more knowledgeable and powerful than herself. That’s a non-con story. This would have been received a little better there, I think. There’s also this good how-to on how to categorize stories: https://www.literotica.com/s/love-your-readers-categories

Next, make sure to take full advantage of the tag system. On the whole, stories get most of the attention they will ever get within the first 2-3 days of posting, when it’s new and shiny. After that, it goes into the pile of however many millions of stories that Lit is currently hosting. Once it goes there, once it’s off any new lists, the only way anyone will ever find it is by searching for tags for something they want to read. Tags like “First time”, “Anal”, “Siblings”, or whatever. Go through your story, and try to find as many applicable tags as you can find to make your story more likely to be found in a search later in its life. Looking through the tags sections of stories you want to emulate, or enjoy, is a good way to get a feel for what others are doing.

There’s a lot of nuance in tags, and how they work, and trying to guess what readers coming to the site in the coming weeks/months/years will want to search for, but there is certainly some value to be gained. I will tell you for free that of my various lesbian stories, the ones tagged as “First Time” outperform the others in views, votes, and comments. They continue to draw in regular readers even years after their initial posting. I am not suggesting that you try to write a story that conforms to something you think might be popular, but tags work, and it’s worth spending a few minutes at time of submission to add in some helpful descriptors.

I want to give you two things to work on for your next story. The first is mechanical.

The most exquisite pleasure she had ever known, better than anything she had experienced this extraordinary night, began to overtake and master her as his inexorable thrusting finally found that spot inside, the very center of the circle of creation upon which existence turns, and caressed it urgently, firmly, insistently, sinking into its softness, pressing, moving, pumping. She struggled weakly to free herself but it was no use so she closed her eyes and abandoned herself to it as it shook her with a powerful orgasmic seizure that held her in its grip for long enough for her to be warmed by his seed filling her, spreading within her and by the light that exploded behind her.

This is two sentences. It should probably be ten. These are run ons. In general, a sentence should be one complete thought (or two, if you want to construct some compound sentences). There is certainly a place for a meandering run on, just as there is always an exception under which even the best rules should be broken, but this isn’t it. It seemed like most of the writing in the story was very strong, so a few examples later on really stuck out as being unpolished. It feels like maybe, once you got near the end, you were impatient to post. Maybe. I can’t say for sure, and my track record for guessing the motivations of those who come here looking for help is spotty at best.

The second thing to work on, for your next story, is distance, or maybe closeness. I never felt like I knew who Danae was, or what she was thinking, or what she was feeling. I didn’t feel close to her. Her motives were alien, and her situation was alien, and her pursuers were alien. It’s hard to connect with that on an emotional level, as a reader. Stories like ours are narrating an experience, and the reader is here to feel it. It takes more than explaining which part went into which hole to get there.

Don’t go back and rework A Walk In Paradise Garden. Let it be, and spend your efforts on your next story. When you do, though, spend some time thinking about how you want readers to see your characters. What can you show them doing that will explain who they are, at their core? How can you let them shine just by being themselves?

 

[AwkwardMD]

So first off, thank you AwkwardMD and Omenainen for taking the time to thoughtfully and constructively offer my work some criticism! It's everything I'd hoped it would be.

The first thing you should know, and I feel completely safe saying this because I'm pretty sure most readers stay off these boards, is that this story is 100% fictional. I created everything about it: the characters, the game, the words and all that stuff. What I'm hearing is that you weren't sure if it was true or not, and that's exactly what I was going for. I wanted all these weirdly specific details -- which you've said aren't necessary -- to hit readers like 'that's weird, why would she need to mention that?' Like the Sheepshead Bay thing, it's really not necessary, but I tried to get into some nitty gritty stuff to make some readers think 'Did five women really get together and play this game?' So that gives me a lot of happiness. I do suppose there are a bunch of details I could have skipped and still given that appearance, so the fine tuning is certainly something I could do.

As for the sex being not sexy, well, I hope that over the years there are some girls out there who find it very stimulating. I came up with this game and its rules and everything in the last couple of years, and when I think about actually playing it with a few other chicas, I wonder if it would be a total dud in reality or whether we could actually get into it. Probably going more with the dud aspect lol. But I wanted it to seem plausible! So with the rules of the game and everything, I tried to make it as erotica as I could; I thought about going all the way with the characters and really telling the entire story of the rest of their group sex, but then I thought that would become tedious and way, way too long. So I don't know how I would fix that. I don't think people are exactly falling over themselves to read this piece, and it didn't get a lot of ratings, so I won't bother fixing it, but I do see your point.

The underage thing: yes, I had to fight a few times with Lit censorship until they fully realized that this is in no way some kind of runaround with their rules, that these characters were all very fleshed out adults using their imagination for some very strange kink thing.

@MissAllison

I want to break this down a bit, so that we're not being misunderstood.

1) The 'detail' problem we referred to is not that the game is specific. It's the numbers: height, age, bust. Neighborhood. Make and model of car. Yes, as you said, there is fine tuning to do. You're not far from a perfect mix already.

2) It's not that the sex isn't sexy. The sex being described sounds hot as hell. The problem for us was in the writing of it. It's the difference between having a great recipe (Theory), and having a great recipe but using inferior ingredients (execution). It felt more like we were being told things were hot rather than that we understood the heat because we were feeling it. I think that your larger idea, the scope of the whole thing, made it so that you had to skip through each action as fast as they were happening so that you wouldn't get too bogged down. There was a lot to get to. I think that maybe playing with the pacing would have served you well here, having some scenes where Gwen was into it, and turned on, but it just gets a surface level description, followed by some scenes Gwen was really into, and we get the whole shebang (see what I did there?).

We both really liked this story. It was almost great, and I'm sure that your next one will be amazing.

 

[Omenainen]

@rvagirl
White Knighting
Link

(Obs: this is a collaborated review by me and AwkwardMD, even though it's posted by me. We just think it would be, well, awkward, to say "we thought" etc. Sounds way too formal for what is essentially two strangers' opinions on the net.)

First of all, I had read White Knighting before you asked for a review. I enjoyed it a lot, and so I was happy to read it again for the sake of this review. Now I kind of wish I hadn't, because I really loved it the first time, but after a second read with more critical eyes I did find some things to point out.

For a first story, this was phenomenal. Your writing flows very well, your pacing is impeccable, your dialog is very natural and witty, and that is something many authors seem to struggle with. Your main characters were believable and lovable, had great chemistry, and I absolutely loved the trans positivity. Sex was super duper hot. I don't know how big an audience there is for stories like this, but I am definitely one of them, so my sincerest thank you and welcome to Lit! Keep them coming!

Now then, the things that could have been different.

This could have been shorter and tighter. Personally, many of the references (music, places, landmarks) weren't familiar to me so I just browsed past them, so they didn't feel essential. Then again, the flow of the story is perfect, so the level of detail comes down to personal preference. There are many readers who like immersive, descriptive writing, and since this flowed so perfectly, this is more of an observation than recommendation.

You could do with one more editing round, maybe someone to beta read it for you. There were more than a few small things, like sentences without ending marks and quotes without ending quote marks, that another reader would catch. They didn't get in the way of the story, but then there's no reason not to fix that.

The section titles with the dates were very specific, but also kind of distracting. When I encountered the second date I went "wait, what was the first one? Does this mean a lot of time has passed or what?" but was too lazy to go back and check what the first date was. So that might have been better with "Monday, Tuesday" etc. Again, this is a very minor point.

Your dialog was very nearly perfect, so I'll just point out this one place:

"Well, his looks weren't the whole thing, nor the conversation," she said. "There was this moment..." Hester told Sandy what happened after lunch.

and then you go on to narrate what she tells. You're in the middle of a conversation, why narrate part of it? Why not let Hester tell it?

Then on to the bigger stuff. (Might contain spoilers, so anyone who hasn't read the story by now, off you go!)

The flow of your story is so good that on the first read, when I wasn't reading to review it, I just glided merrily past a scene that on the second read was frankly nonsensical. I'm referring to the police station scene. Firstly, Jamie and Leah and Quinn weren't being held at the station, so there was no reason for them to sit around waiting for Hester. Secondly, Quinn kept sending texts to Hester but when Hester finally saw them, it didn't occur to her to call and ask what's happening? Instead she started running there, but in spite of her obvious haste and distress, she stops to buy donuts on the way, because... yeah, why? Because you wanted to make the lamest, most stereotypical police joke in existence? The Leah character makes very little sense to me, being kind of super clingy like that, even before this scene. What is the message there exactly, that it's okay to impose yourself on others physically if you happen to be smol and not sexually motivated? But again, on the first read I didn't pay that much attention to her bizarre behavior, because the story flows so well. And the thing is, I don't think you needed this scene at all. I don't see how that was relevant to the plot. You could have covered Jamie's incident differently, if indeed you needed the incident at all.

So the thing you should take from that is that you write so well that you can make the readers follow you to stupid places. Take a step back and see if what you've written makes sense from a higher perspective. You might well be able to charm readers into ignoring that, but your writing will be better if you make yourself make sense with your scenes.

The other bigger issue I had in mind was the angst, or rather, the lack of it. I spent some time pondering whether this is just a personal preference issue, because I like angsty people, but I don't think it is. I think you introduced conflicts that would have warranted more angst as a response. For example the fight Jamie got into, it had no noticeable impact on either of them afterwards. You did the positive stuff wonderfully, the attraction and their chemistry, but I think it would have benefitted from having the lows be lower to highlight the difference. Especially since you had the conflicts be quite severe in nature.

The story was pure blooded romance, but the ending was not. I don't think it should have been "happily ever after" or even "happily for now", I kind of liked the open ending you had, but I think the emotional impact should have been more severe, ie. more angsty. Now it kind of diluted the attraction they had that they were both able to walk away from that with not much sorrow. I get that you might want to focus on the positive when writing smut, but the balance of ups and downs is something to consider with your future stories.

 

[rvagirl]

Thank you so much for reading and rereading my story! I’m sorry if I ended up tarnishing it at all. Should’ve asked you to review my other posted story, which is, compared to White Knighting, a huge fucking mess.

I will gladly take my lumps on the lack of polish from not having another reader to look it over. Purely impatience on my part.

I also am glad for the feedback about the dates. I personally love that specificity. Catch me flipping to the map page of every fantasy book every 30 seconds. But I think I needed to hear that it doesn’t work for every reader to consider breaking the cycle. My other posted story and my WIP are similarly laid out with clear dates, but I’ll look to expanding my narrative style in the future.

I don’t feel defensive about anything in your critique. I think you pretty much got my number in all the right ways. I will add a few clarifications and author’s notes.

- The police station sequence is my least favorite part, which is probably why it felt notably silly. There was a larger subplot about this incident, but none of it made sense to tell from Hester’s POV. It also got much too dark for the tone of the story. Jamie’s take on the action would’ve probably made more sense, but I don’t like being in his head as a writer. The donut gag served two purposes. One, it was supposed to be a call back to how he brought food to her place. She subconsciously picked up that trick. Two, it was meant to reinforce the cultural disconnect. Hester isn’t from the States, but her understanding of our police growing up probably would’ve been “coffee and donuts,” although you could rightly fire back that she’s lived in the US long enough to know better. If it didn’t accomplish those things, then it is a super dumb gag and I appreciate the hearing that it came off that way. Your point is well-made and it stands.

- Regarding angst, well, I wanted our girl to win. I think trans women deserve our fluffy cotton candy romances. More importantly, Hester is not an angsty person. She was never conceptualized that way. And that’s real. There are so many trans woman out there who are okay, who are excited about life, even when it’s difficult. The problems we face as a community are so severe however it’s much easier to think it’s all dysphoria and violence all the time. And while Hester is keenly aware of those issues, she’s a buoyant soul who can’t help but see wonder in things. There is an angsty version of this story, but Jamie would have to tell it. I know you’re not criticizing me for writing romance, and that angst is a seasoning everyone uses to personal taste, but some of the lack of it is by design. That’s especially true of the fight, which Hester only hears about secondhand. We don’t know what Jamie thinks of it, but his reaction is certainly different. There are shades of it early on when he shows disappointment in himself for the office incident.

- I make no excuses for Leah’s behavior other than to say that she’s the only character in this whole thing based explicitly on someone I knew IRL when I was living in Chicago and going to Carol’s regularly. She’s exactly the kind of person a writer meets and thinks, “I can use that behavior somehow.” She was annoying as fuck and we loved her

- I thought when I was writing it that the ending was tipped toward happy. I wanted readers to trust the implication that she’d be going to see him real soon and that this wasn’t a hard stop to their relationship. But I’m also a bitch so I didn’t put a bow on it. I can see how that contradicts what I said about wanting Hester to win. To me, however, there’s a difference between the end of White Knighting and the end of Hes and Jamie’s story.

The pair of you stun me with your own writing and your willingness to help others. You are the best of what a community like this can be!

 

[LdyHoneybee]

@LdyHoneybee
Link

Okay. First time author. Congratulations on posting your first story. You’re already off to a good start.

I like what you’re going for. There’s a poetic beauty to the writing (with some exceptions, see below) that I really liked. I dig the aesthetic. I like this style. One of my best friends writes very florid, prose-heavy 17th and 18th century fantasy stories, and they have this same kind of feel. What you’re attempting can be adapted to a lot of different kinds of stories, and it can be a very successful style.

You have some work ahead of you to get that far, though. Some of the things to learn are easy, and some will take some practice. Your basic writing is very good, and that is half the work right there. A lot of what follows has to do with site mechanics.

For one thing, I don’t think that breaking this story up into multiple chapters helped you. There is a case to be made for frequent postings as a way to keep your name fresh in the minds of readers, but this isn’t it. This was one short story, and presenting readers with the entirety of it for consumption probably would have been stronger. There weren’t any real cliffhangers here, and none of the individual chapters had anything resembling an internal arc. They were just… parts, and none so onerous that would have required an intermission.

Now, the fabled origin of Nymphomania is a story of a woman being taken advantage of by a powerful man. Yes, it is a fantasy story, so I understand the impulse to put it in the Sci-Fi/Fantasy category, but by that logic all stories could and should be posted to Sci-Fi. The Sci-Fi category is a fickle, small readership who generally reward deep worldbuilding and longer, complicated (bordering on convoluted) plotlines, of which your story has neither.

On Literotica, when you are trying to gage which category to post your story to, the most widely accepted method of reaching the audience you were hoping for is to try to be honest about what you’ve written, and post it where the sex makes the most sense. Danae has no agency in A Walk In Paradise Garden, and is taken advantage of by someone more knowledgeable and powerful than herself. That’s a non-con story. This would have been received a little better there, I think. There’s also this good how-to on how to categorize stories: https://www.literotica.com/s/love-your-readers-categories

Next, make sure to take full advantage of the tag system. On the whole, stories get most of the attention they will ever get within the first 2-3 days of posting, when it’s new and shiny. After that, it goes into the pile of however many millions of stories that Lit is currently hosting. Once it goes there, once it’s off any new lists, the only way anyone will ever find it is by searching for tags for something they want to read. Tags like “First time”, “Anal”, “Siblings”, or whatever. Go through your story, and try to find as many applicable tags as you can find to make your story more likely to be found in a search later in its life. Looking through the tags sections of stories you want to emulate, or enjoy, is a good way to get a feel for what others are doing.

There’s a lot of nuance in tags, and how they work, and trying to guess what readers coming to the site in the coming weeks/months/years will want to search for, but there is certainly some value to be gained. I will tell you for free that of my various lesbian stories, the ones tagged as “First Time” outperform the others in views, votes, and comments. They continue to draw in regular readers even years after their initial posting. I am not suggesting that you try to write a story that conforms to something you think might be popular, but tags work, and it’s worth spending a few minutes at time of submission to add in some helpful descriptors.

I want to give you two things to work on for your next story. The first is mechanical.



This is two sentences. It should probably be ten. These are run ons. In general, a sentence should be one complete thought (or two, if you want to construct some compound sentences). There is certainly a place for a meandering run on, just as there is always an exception under which even the best rules should be broken, but this isn’t it. It seemed like most of the writing in the story was very strong, so a few examples later on really stuck out as being unpolished. It feels like maybe, once you got near the end, you were impatient to post. Maybe. I can’t say for sure, and my track record for guessing the motivations of those who come here looking for help is spotty at best.

The second thing to work on, for your next story, is distance, or maybe closeness. I never felt like I knew who Danae was, or what she was thinking, or what she was feeling. I didn’t feel close to her. Her motives were alien, and her situation was alien, and her pursuers were alien. It’s hard to connect with that on an emotional level, as a reader. Stories like ours are narrating an experience, and the reader is here to feel it. It takes more than explaining which part went into which hole to get there.

Don’t go back and rework A Walk In Paradise Garden. Let it be, and spend your efforts on your next story. When you do, though, spend some time thinking about how you want readers to see your characters. What can you show them doing that will explain who they are, at their core? How can you let them shine just by being themselves?

Oh! Hello! Thank you so much! This is, as I anticipated, a very serious and considerate review! For that I am extremely thankful. I value every reader response. Not only are there valuable explanations here but also honest and thoughtful indications that, in some cases, i did not succeed in what i planned. Thank you for the compliment on the style. I do try to make things “pretty” even though it does sometimes clutter the purpose. I am more a fan of Melville than of Hemingway. That does kind of make me a bit of an anachronism, I’m afraid.

You rightly assess my lack of familiarity with the labeling. I get it a little better now than I did when i submitted the first episode, partly due to your explanation. In fact when i submitted the second episode, i almost changed the category, but then decided it might be too confusing to have different episodes of the same story in two categories. I totally agree that it should have been submitted as a whole story rather than in segments but by the time i realized it, it was already too late. Every time I logged on, the database kept urging me to submit, so i thought that was what it was all about, uploading something. But i didn’t have anything, so…..
As for the “underdeveloped” characters, i did it on purpose because it is a characteristic of mythological characters. “Nymphs seldom cry for long.” If i were a better writer, though, i am sure i could have made Danae more sympathetic and still held with the model.
The sentence was also a decision, an effort to build intensity and quicken pacing (also how I “heard” it). It is grammatically (although perhaps not stylistically) “correct.” I just steal from great authors. I am not one. there is a 3 page long grammatically correct sentence in “The Bear” by Faulkner, a story about a boy being chased by a bear. Obviously, however, I am NOT Faulkner! i can see how it might have been confusing. Again, I have to figure out how to accomplish the goal rather than obscuring it!
The last episode was one-bombed. I have to say I anticipated that someone would not like the ending. I did not particularly, but I had to do it because the ancient gods were just depicted that way. Apollo himself famously turned his gift to Cassandra to a curse when she displeased him.
Thanks again for the helpful review! Thanks also for the encouragement. I am working on something for that Leinyere project and so will hopefully be able to put your suggestions to good use!

 

[soflabbwlvr]

I'll give it a go. I wanted to submit a newer story, but all of my recent entries were written under deadline and could have used more editing. So here's what I consider the best story that is not multi-chapter. Desperate Measures: The Fluffer

 

[Parhelical]

Hope nobody minds if I chip in with a little unsolicited critique.

The sentence was also a decision, an effort to build intensity and quicken pacing (also how I “heard” it). It is grammatically (although perhaps not stylistically) “correct.” I just steal from great authors. I am not one. there is a 3 page long grammatically correct sentence in “The Bear” by Faulkner, a story about a boy being chased by a bear. Obviously, however, I am NOT Faulkner! i can see how it might have been confusing. Again, I have to figure out how to accomplish the goal rather than obscuring it!

Personally I like long run on sentences during periods of high tempo. The problem here is that the beautiful parts are suffocated by purposeless recursions and those recursions are also deadening the tempo and so frustrating the effect.

The most exquisite pleasure she had ever known, better than anything she had experienced this extraordinary night, began to overtake and master her as his inexorable thrusting finally found that spot inside, the very center of the circle of creation upon which existence turns, and caressed it urgently, firmly, insistently, sinking into its softness, pressing, moving, pumping. She struggled weakly to free herself but it was no use so she closed her eyes and abandoned herself to it as it shook her with a powerful orgasmic seizure that held her in its grip for long enough for her to be warmed by his seed filling her, spreading within her and by the light that exploded behind her.

Could become:

The most exquisite pleasure, overtaking and mastering, inexorable thrusting finding that spot inside, that center of the circle upon which creation turns, caressing urgently, firmly, insistently, sinking into softness, pressing. She struggled weakly but it was no use so she closed her eyes and abandoned herself, shaking in orgasmic seizure. Light exploded behind her. Seed filled her, spreading within.

And your opening line:

The moon was a silver coin, large and bright in the sky, so bright that it cast sharp, dark shadows on the forest floor under the trees.

Could become:

The moon was a silver coin, casting sharp, dark shadows on the forest floor.

Both pieces have beautiful images that really sell the setting, I can see it, I can see all of it. Light exploding? The center of the circle upon which creation turns? Wonderful. But you have a tendency to drown your great moments.

If the moon is a silver coin we know that it's large and bright, we know that there are trees in the forest, we know that brightness casts a shadow. You need to get aggressive; really beat your prose into shape. I love the florid baroque style, but it is a tightrope walk and you have to treat it as such.

Still, I love what you're doing, you just need to be remorseless in your selection.

 

[LdyHoneybee]

Hope nobody minds if I chip in with a little unsolicited critique.


Personally I like long run on sentences during periods of high tempo. The problem here is that the beautiful parts are suffocated by purposeless recursions and those recursions are also deadening the tempo and so frustrating the effect.



Could become:



And your opening line:



Could become:



Both pieces have beautiful images that really sell the setting, I can see it, I can see all of it. Light exploding? The center of the circle upon which creation turns? Wonderful. But you have a tendency to drown your great moments.

If the moon is a silver coin we know that it's large and bright, we know that there are trees in the forest, we know that brightness casts a shadow. You need to get aggressive; really beat your prose into shape. I love the florid baroque style, but it is a tightrope walk and you have to treat it as such.

Still, I love what you're doing, you just need to be remorseless in your selection.

I don’t mind. I probably would not be comfortable making *all* the cuts you recommend, but I definitely see your point. Is it description or just more words? When i write (and this is going to sound weird), I “hear“ rhythm, and the extra words are probably a result of my having gotten lost in it. Your observation taught me something really significant! Thank you so much for taking the time to add it!

 

[AwkwardMD]

That's not weird. I would argue (without evidence) that most people only ever go far enough with their language studies to know what correct "sounds like." Enough to get through spoken conversation. The written word has to stand up to a little more scrutiny, and its not until one tries writing that the difference becomes more apparent.

"What do you mean? Of course you use an apostraphe for  it  when it's possessive."

- Me, 7 years ago