AwkwardMD and Omenainen Review Thread

[Ennokos]

I'm a pretty big newbie with erotic work and I've been trying to incorporate both my love of fantasy and eroticism. I've made a small six part anthology of the northern kingdom of Borea, and I would love your opinion.

First Part:

https://www.literotica.com/s/rotiq-01-the-blue-conqueror

I've always loved world-building, but I've tried my best to write a mythos that can hold up without much context.

Thanks in advance!

 

[AlinaX]

I'm a pretty big newbie with erotic work and I've been trying to incorporate both my love of fantasy and eroticism. I've made a small six part anthology of the northern kingdom of Borea, and I would love your opinion.

First Part:

https://www.literotica.com/s/rotiq-01-the-blue-conqueror

I've always loved world-building, but I've tried my best to write a mythos that can hold up without much context.

Thanks in advance!

Some brief remarks.
1. Avoid interrobangs!?
2. You close off dialogue and then sort-of tag it in a way that's confusing and disruptive when reading. The grammar around dialogue can be tricky to get right, but it should have a natural feel to it when reading. Perhaps find authors who you enjoy reading, and see how they do it.

ETA:
Grammar and typos aside, this feels like a lazy non-con and mind control story rather than the beginning of a fantasy series. It's explicit but not particularly erotic. You start out with promising a tournament in some fantasy land, and then throw it away before you've even begun to explain anything about the world you've set out to create. Far more interesting would have been a slow build of tension as the mysterious newcomer gradually works their way to victory, only to demand the princess as her wish. The only character building here is to make the princess an awful character, and the villain is so absolutely powerful they can basically fuck whoever they like and their cock is so awesome that everyone loves being raped and end up as willing slaves.

Ugh. This isn't my thread, and I'm sorry for going on a rant, but... ugh.

 

[yibala]

I'm a pretty big newbie with erotic work and I've been trying to incorporate both my love of fantasy and eroticism. I've made a small six part anthology of the northern kingdom of Borea, and I would love your opinion.

First Part:

https://www.literotica.com/s/rotiq-01-the-blue-conqueror

I've always loved world-building, but I've tried my best to write a mythos that can hold up without much context.

Thanks in advance!

I listened to the story of Moctezuma II and Hernando Cortes's march on the Aztecs yesterday. That's the closest real-world analogy I can come up to this story and this story is far more extreme in the amount of god-like power a foreigner holds over an entire kingdom. Not sure how kind of power imbalance happens in your story, but I assume you'll explain eventually. Moctezuma had little chance of winning, for reasons beyond his control, but he expressed far more emotion and did infinitely more to stave off the destruction of his realm than Jorann and Helia.

If your characters don't act with agency or react to external stimuli in plausible ways, they won't appeal to a lot of readers. The queen and princess do virtually nothing in the story except act as objects to be manipulated. There's an audience on Lit who will like stories about characters who are fuck-dolls. But if you want to write stories with a broader appeal, I think you need to put yourself in the mind of your characters and consider how they would act if they were real people in the situation you've placed them in. That makes the characters more real in a reader's mind, and makes the reader more likely to care what happens to them. The same can be said for Blue Conqueror/Beatrice, whose thoughts and feelings are opaque to the reader because the POV shifts between Jorann and Helia.

This is also not my thread. If my advice is helpful, use it. If not, discard it.

-Yib
My stories

 

[Ennokos]

Thank you both for your criticisms! They are both quite helpful.

 

[AwkwardMD]

@Throwaway256897q6r72
Link

Okay, so, obligatory waiver; these stories are stroke stories. They are, as they are, just fine. They don’t need to be any more or less. You can write stories just like this, forever, and you’ll get readers and fans and votes and you’ll do well. If this is what you want to do, you’re doing fine.

The writing is a little bit bland (ie, lacking in descriptive flair/color, maybe), but it’s fine.

As far as your question about growth, I don’t see it. I really don’t. These stories read as functionally interchangeable. If I was asked to spot differences, I’d say that An Unexpected Visitor stands better on its own as a solo story, with a beginning, middle, and end, but it’s supposed to be that and the Realtor story is not. The Realtor story is a chaptered entry, so it doesn’t need to stand on its own.

That being said…

This review thread is about writing more complicated stories, bordering on literature, and I’ll assume that since you’re here that’s what you’d want help getting toward, so here goes.

First and foremost, the characters are very much lacking in depth. Of the four characters that appear in both stories, the only one I walked away knowing anything about was Tia, and Tia is not the main character. She was painfully naive. Moreso than any woman in her twenties has any right to be. Say what you will about religions discouraging female sexuality, Tia should have known more than she did.

Your love interest is functionally 12 years old. My 9 year old might know more about sex than this woman, but I think it’s safe to say that you wrote Tia with a pre-teen level of sexual understanding and education. I don’t think this was entirely your fault, or even something you were doing intentionally, because writing women to be dumb for the purposes of asking questions, to move along the plot of a story, is a very common trope. It’s one you might not have interrogated, and it’s one that could have been avoided if “thinking through each character’s motives” was a part of your planning stage.

Definitely spend some time thinking through the motivations of all your characters.

The main characters attraction to Tia was assumed; he is a guy, therefore he wants to fuck all the women. This is an uninteresting choice. He had four defining traits: Male, married, Mormon, and horny, and we only know those things because you told us explicitly. For all intents and purposes, this character is not married. This is not how married people approach affairs, let alone people who define themselves by their religion. Of the above listed traits, the only ones that matter are male and horny.

The primary kink in both of these stories is the infidelity, which goes completely unaddressed. The MMC being married doesn’t functionally matter, it doesn’t present a meaningful part of his decision making tree, but because it is mentioned so often the reader can’t help but contextualize these not as erotic coupling stories but as cheating stories. That’s really what you wrote, and what I think matters most, but it’s not confronted at all within the story. That’s a missed opportunity, because that should present a moral quandary. Moral quandaries make for interesting choices. Either have the MMC be married and weigh the options of infidelity or have them be single because you don’t want to write about infidelity. Doing it this way is… offputting.

 

[Throwaway256897q6r72]

Thank you much, I appreciate the feedback. Definitely starting to think as much as I enjoy people reading my stories, that literotica isn't the place for me. The writers here are way above me, and I just do it for fun. I appreciate all the feedback I've gotten, and will try to implement more of it into my writing going forward.

 

[djrip]

Thank you much, I appreciate the feedback. Definitely starting to think as much as I enjoy people reading my stories, that literotica isn't the place for me. The writers here are way above me, and I just do it for fun. I appreciate all the feedback I've gotten, and will try to implement more of it into my writing going forward.

Read a few random stories with ratings between 2 and 3, and then tell us if all the writers here are way above you. I have a feeling you'll come away with a renewed appreciation for your own work! If you enjoy what you've written, that's plenty reason enough to post it here. If others enjoy it as well, as your ratings indicate, even better.

 

[Throwaway256897q6r72]

Read a few random stories with ratings between 2 and 3, and then tell us if all the writers here are way above you. I have a feeling you'll come away with a renewed appreciation for your own work! If you enjoy what you've written, that's plenty reason enough to post it here. If others enjoy it as well, as your ratings indicate, even better.

True. Of course, as soon as I posted that, I thought opposite. I'll probably keep posting, as I already have the stories left, just need to edit them here and there. Thank you!

 

[LetsMisBehave]

I've been writing here for getting on to a year on and off. i am doing a bit more now for various reasons. I accept that some people don't like what I write full stop and automatically give ones. I am not looking to satisfy them. I am interested in sorting out problems with my style and presentation which take people out of my stories who might otherwise enjoy them.
I would also appreciate any advice on where I should place this type of story.
This is an earlyr story of mine which initially seemed to go down badly but its average mark has crept up over the months and has had around 9k hits, most of them after the first week so far as I can recall.
Rereading it it was both darker than I am going for now but also seems more interesting. I have my own theories as to why it didn't quite work, but would be grateful for some feedback on it.
There are some preceding stories but this was designed to be read as stand alone.
https://literotica.com/s/rebecca-goes-to-the-theatre
Thank you in advance for the feedback

 

[Omenainen]

Kayla and the Oni from the East
@Devil_PS

First of all, a lovely picture you have there, but maybe a tad on the large side

This story had a lot going for it. I liked the structure, I liked the humor, I liked the worldbuilding which made it feel like a real place even though it was done with a very moderate level of description. I liked the way to reference how this was not Kayla’s first rodeo, nor the last, and I liked the banter between Kayla and other characters. This seems like an excellent setting for a series of smutty stories. The characters feel alive, if a bit stereotypical. Extra points for the term “bluenette”, which I think is pure genius. All in all, a delightful little story. The setting, tone and characterization reminded me somewhat of AwkwardMD’s Terrible Company, which is a high praise in my books.

Onward to what you could improve.

The first thing to stand out is the language. We often get stories which are technically flawlessly executed, but the story side is lacking, and yours is the complete opposite: in your case, the creativity outperforms the technical execution by a vast margin. You need an editor and/or you need to be way more diligent when self-editing. Your verb tenses are all over the place, your sentences are at places very long and not always coherent, your dialogue tagging is not correctly done. I don’t know if English is your first language, I sort of get the feeling from some of the phrasing that it might not be. If so, it might be especially beneficial to find an editor or beta reader who is more fluent. That being said, I think it’s important for any writer to learn to really, honestly and thoroughly self-edit. (Mandatory disclaimer, English is not my first language, which makes me both give and not give leeway to others in the same position. Also, it makes me give very little leeway for people whose native language it is: what excuse do you have at writing worse than I do?)

Secondly, I like the humor, but I think you’re forcing it a bit too much. You don’t need to spell everything out to the reader. Here’s an example:

Leif and Joseph, upon finding out that the Oni is after Kayla, regret not instituting the background checks they had previously agreed on.
Kayla, upon seeing the Oni, wonders aloud if Leif and Joseph brought her to town.
Kayla, upon being thrown out of the building, spots Leif and Joseph and asks(yells) about the background checks they had previously agreed on.

The first one and the third one work perfectly. The second one is too close to both, crowds them, and doesn’t really make sense because how would she know Leif and Joseph are involved? It’s too coincidental for her to just guess that. It feels like you didn’t trust something (either yourself or the reader). Be a little less obvious, believe in the idea you have, and let readers figure it out. They can do that. You don’t need to spoon feed them.

I think this story was scoped well, but one thing that might work against you is the summarizing of sex scenes. After all, that’s what many readers are here for, so it’s a good place for stroke-for-stroke description. Also I’d say that the erotic focus was a bit unclear. I found the pseudo-penis interesting, but also I didn’t find it necessary for the purposes of this story. It was introduced, but barely used, and I didn’t feel it added a lot because the creature donning it was already this otherworldly demoness with other unusual characteristics, and she brought a bag of sex toys with her anyway. It might help you to draw a narrower focus on the sexual encounter that Kayla is drawn into at any given time, and then try to focus on that. For example, you could have used this story to focus on the anal sex, and then described that in more detail. The pseudo-penis and its many uses would have warranted its own chapter, I’d say. That way you could also plop the stories in other categories besides Sci-Fi & Fantasy, which is a lovely category, but doesn’t have that many readers.

I read the story and I liked it, but then when I thought about it with more scrutiny the plot started to leak a little. Like, is sex with Kayla really so alluring that this demon person would travel across continents for it? Would she not demand some other compensation for her troubles, or because Kayla had broken their agreement? It would have made more sense to me if Kayla had traveled back to those parts of the world, ran into the demoness again, and then had to pay her old debt. Then you couldn’t have structured it like this, of course. But this way the motivation of the demon was a little dubious. Why wouldn’t she just stay at home and fuck whoever she pleases? Why would she come after Kayla?

 

[Devil_PS]

Kayla and the Oni from the East
@Devil_PS

First of all, a lovely picture you have there, but maybe a tad on the large side

This story had a lot going for it. I liked the structure, I liked the humor, I liked the worldbuilding which made it feel like a real place even though it was done with a very moderate level of description. I liked the way to reference how this was not Kayla’s first rodeo, nor the last, and I liked the banter between Kayla and other characters. This seems like an excellent setting for a series of smutty stories. The characters feel alive, if a bit stereotypical. Extra points for the term “bluenette”, which I think is pure genius. All in all, a delightful little story. The setting, tone and characterization reminded me somewhat of AwkwardMD’s Terrible Company, which is a high praise in my books.

Onward to what you could improve.

The first thing to stand out is the language. We often get stories which are technically flawlessly executed, but the story side is lacking, and yours is the complete opposite: in your case, the creativity outperforms the technical execution by a vast margin. You need an editor and/or you need to be way more diligent when self-editing. Your verb tenses are all over the place, your sentences are at places very long and not always coherent, your dialogue tagging is not correctly done. I don’t know if English is your first language, I sort of get the feeling from some of the phrasing that it might not be. If so, it might be especially beneficial to find an editor or beta reader who is more fluent. That being said, I think it’s important for any writer to learn to really, honestly and thoroughly self-edit. (Mandatory disclaimer, English is not my first language, which makes me both give and not give leeway to others in the same position. Also, it makes me give very little leeway for people whose native language it is: what excuse do you have at writing worse than I do?)

Secondly, I like the humor, but I think you’re forcing it a bit too much. You don’t need to spell everything out to the reader. Here’s an example:

Leif and Joseph, upon finding out that the Oni is after Kayla, regret not instituting the background checks they had previously agreed on.
Kayla, upon seeing the Oni, wonders aloud if Leif and Joseph brought her to town.
Kayla, upon being thrown out of the building, spots Leif and Joseph and asks(yells) about the background checks they had previously agreed on.

The first one and the third one work perfectly. The second one is too close to both, crowds them, and doesn’t really make sense because how would she know Leif and Joseph are involved? It’s too coincidental for her to just guess that. It feels like you didn’t trust something (either yourself or the reader). Be a little less obvious, believe in the idea you have, and let readers figure it out. They can do that. You don’t need to spoon feed them.

I think this story was scoped well, but one thing that might work against you is the summarizing of sex scenes. After all, that’s what many readers are here for, so it’s a good place for stroke-for-stroke description. Also I’d say that the erotic focus was a bit unclear. I found the pseudo-penis interesting, but also I didn’t find it necessary for the purposes of this story. It was introduced, but barely used, and I didn’t feel it added a lot because the creature donning it was already this otherworldly demoness with other unusual characteristics, and she brought a bag of sex toys with her anyway. It might help you to draw a narrower focus on the sexual encounter that Kayla is drawn into at any given time, and then try to focus on that. For example, you could have used this story to focus on the anal sex, and then described that in more detail. The pseudo-penis and its many uses would have warranted its own chapter, I’d say. That way you could also plop the stories in other categories besides Sci-Fi & Fantasy, which is a lovely category, but doesn’t have that many readers.

I read the story and I liked it, but then when I thought about it with more scrutiny the plot started to leak a little. Like, is sex with Kayla really so alluring that this demon person would travel across continents for it? Would she not demand some other compensation for her troubles, or because Kayla had broken their agreement? It would have made more sense to me if Kayla had traveled back to those parts of the world, ran into the demoness again, and then had to pay her old debt. Then you couldn’t have structured it like this, of course. But this way the motivation of the demon was a little dubious. Why wouldn’t she just stay at home and fuck whoever she pleases? Why would she come after Kayla?

Thank you very much for looking into the story. The Endis setting was something that I've enjoyed expanding on since 2009.

I do happen to have a case of ESL as I live in an Asian household in America. Despite learning English in school and it became my main language, I sorta became a pseudo interpreter for my parents whenever they needed to talk to someone when conducting business. The irony being I kinda forgot much of my parents native language, I kind of resort to mixing English and Vietnamese for them to figure out what I'm trying to tell them...I think it's around college I was told I probably have a form of ESL as my essays showed a lot of it. But nevertheless, I intend to keep improving and grateful to understand what needs to be worked on.

Agreed that perhaps Hana's need to seek out Kayla is pretty flimsy as apparently the incident back in Hana's homeland is treated as serious business...Or she really liked to have sex with Kayla. It's pretty weird. but right, the sex is quite unclear (something admittedly similar to my Susana Bluestone story).

Thanks again and...Yeah, the image was a tad too large.

 

[ThatNewGuy]

I've enjoyed the thoughtful and thorough reviews you both have shared in this thread. I'm interested in a review of the first two parts of the Art of Deception trilogy: Art of Deception and Art of Deception: Light and Shadow.

I'm considering one day trying to stitch together and expand these three stories into a non-erotic novel. To that end, feedback on character development, plot, and pacing would be helpful. I'm also interested in what elements of the story/characters, if any, made you think, "I wish we'd delved a bit more deeply here." I have some thoughts about how the story could be fleshed out into a longer work, but I'd also value your perspective as a reviewer. I'm not looking for feedback on the lone sex scene (which is too long and weakly drawn) because I plan to cut it almost entirely.

Thanks for your consideration.

 

[DarkCosmos]

Hooo boy. Here we go.

https://www.literotica.com/s/the-dotted-line-ch-01

I'd love a review of the first Chapter of my new series. This is my first foray into true non-consensual mind control and I'm interested in knowing if I've written a story that, while certainly on the darker side, is still palatable and engaging.

I'm especially curious to know what you think of the relationship established between the protagonist and his owner. If I do enough personality wise to make their dynamic work. I really aimed for balance on this one.

 

[AwkwardMD]

@Ennokos
Link


So some other people have chimed in on this one. We encourage conversation and different opinions (although in this case we agree), so for our response to this one I thought I’d take a slightly different direction. Rather than talk about the story as a whole, I’d like to talk about hooks and characters.

This has been echoed elsewhere, so I feel comfortable pointing out that the characters are not likeable. I think you know that. I think you set out to write the princess as whiny and bratty, and the queen as pompous and arrogant. I think you set out to make the as-yet unnamed Ice Queen aloof and distant. We’re not supposed to identify with them (at least, not yet. I don’t know what you have planned and I didn’t read past the first chapter) by design. You might not have sat down and thought to yourself, “I’m gonna make a bunch of unlikeable characters”, but that is what you did and I don’t think it was a mistake.

It is a constant point of discussion in the Author’s Hangout about whether or not it’s necessary to have likeable characters, and we come down on the side of ‘it’s not necessary’ with a caveat. It’s fine to have unlikeable characters, but there needs to be some other hook. Some other lure that keeps the reader reading.

Readers do not owe you their time. They will not come simply because you built it. Their attention, and their will to continue reading something, cannot be assumed. You, the author, need to be doing something to lure readers in. It is incumbent on you to provide that motivation.

Most authors get there by having likeable characters, someone the reader can root for or experience the story through the eyes of. Harry Potter, for example, puts readers behind the eyes of a character who was previously unaware of the magical world. Harry is experiencing all this new stuff at the same time readers are. He’s asking questions we want to know the answers to as well. He’s not offensive. He’s not rude. He’s the victim, at first, and the readers are going to cheer for him as he faces increasingly complicated trials.

As stated before, this isn’t necessary. There are other ways of getting readers to hang on your every word, and they usually boil down to some kind of lure. Either there’s a mystery, or there’s humor in the narration or dialog. There’s style. A dead body inside a locked room. A rambling, stream-of-consciousness, racontour-heavy narrative. Glass Onion is an example of a story chock full of bad people, but it’s compelling.

Rise of the Ice Queen doesn’t have that. The story is competently written, barring the interrobangs Alina mentioned, but it lacks color. The Ice Queen herself is so ridiculously overpowered this early in the story that I can’t imagine what kind of inhuman monster it would take to slow her down, and she’s so unlikeable that I don’t care to try. At her existing power level she is going to steamroll every hurdle you put in her way, and the only reason she wouldn’t is to fulfill plot requirements (ie, she has to have a long drawn out fight because, I don’t know, these two characters have to get worn out before they can knock boots), which is uninteresting. Even if you have neat hurdles for her later, I, the impatient reader, will not stick around to find out if the beginning is so on the nose, automatic, and doesn’t inspire curiosity

Saying “There was this land and then it was conquered by this powerful enemy” is not, on the face of it, interesting. Even saying “There’s this land where everyone is futa” is not, by itself, very interesting. You need to give us a reason to care. You need to show us why it is interesting.

A first chapter really needs to grab readers (or a first page, or a first paragraph, or a first sentence). Make them care. Give them a reason.

 

[Omenainen]

@LetsMisBehave
Rebecca Goes to the Theatre

(It appears this is too long to be posted in one forum post... so this is part 1/2)

This will be a bumpy ride. I hope you will not despair. Despite all I’m about to say, I think there was promise in this. There’s a complex story underneath all, and I think that if you keep honing your craft, one day you can tell that story. Also, I do empathize. I remember reading the definition of a short story:

A short story is a piece of prose fiction that can typically be read in a single sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood.

I remember reading that and thinking, but I want to do so much more than evoke a single effect or mood! So believe me, I do emphasize wanting to tell a long and complex story in a short story format. I do. And in many ways, I still haven’t given up on that. What it comes down to is the more complex the story, the more you need to do to keep the reader with you and keep them engaged.

There’s a lot I could say, but the most pressing issue in my opinion is the scope and framing. This does not work as a standalone story and I don’t think this would work as a part of a series, either. Even chapters of a series work better with specific scope, a purpose, some idea why that precise chapter is written, or hopefully some kind of dramatic arc. I’d be hard pressed to guess what this one tried to accomplish. Based on the title I’m going to go with the assumption that it was about Rebecca going to the theater, so let’s look at this from that perspective.

The foreword is generally okay. I think it’s fair to point out that the story takes place in 1980 Britain because it alters people’s expectations, although generally it’s better to establish the setting through the storytelling. That being said, I think forewords should be short and concise and contain only the bare minimum, and not be apologetic. You’ve written a thing, now let it stand on its own.

About verb tenses: “she had previously unfastened the stockings from her garter belt, but he had asked to be allowed to actually take them off” is simply painful to read. This sentence uses two different past tense forms, and it isn’t entirely clear what order they happen in. If you use framing devices that make you use past perfect, please keep it to a minimum and cut to a flashback that narrates the action in simple past tense. If I wasn’t reading this to review, I would’ve bailed out long before the end of the first page, it was that tedious.

Outline of the story (contains spoilers)

“Rebecca woke up Sunday morning with a mild panic attack.” This is a good beginning, it has tension and goes straight to something interesting. Too bad it doesn’t deliver, because then it goes to a long summary of the sex she’s had with some older bloke, a summary that is both too detailed and unnecessary (because this story is not about any of that at all). Anyway, this is the first point in time that the reader is introduced to. One might assume this is the “now” of the story, and that we would wind up back here.

So, Rebecca wakes up and remembers she had just been fucked by an older man. Then “she recalled the second bout of sex,” and I assume this points to the same previous night she wakes up remembering, though it is not 100% clear.

A lot of detailed sex ensues but none of it is hot. Detailed descriptions of positions and who does what to which body part, but no emotion, no feeling, absolutely no heat. Stating “after a minute or so of kissing it was clear that they were both eager to round two” is not hot to the reader, and it also doesn’t sound very hot for the characters, no matter how much you proclaim it is.

Then there’s mention that “the morning after she had told Marion a censored version” which leads me to think that all the sex that you just listed had not, in fact, happened the previous night. So now I’m confused where this Sunday morning that Rebecca wakes up in happens within the timeline, was the older man she fucked “within hours of meeting him” the same guy as in the sex just described or someone else, and what does any of this mean? And who’s Marion?

“On Monday she had gone to school.” On Monday? Is this the Monday following the panic attack? No, because she “woke up” on Sunday but “had gone to school” on Monday? Then you introduce Julian, George, Bill and James into the story without telling us who any of these people are.

The thing is, whatever details you introduce to the story, the reader will try to hang on to in case it means something later. So now I’m trying to keep track of all these time shifts, I’ve lost where the present time is, and I need to remember the names of Marion, Julian, George, Bill and James, and possibly that George had got into Oxford, in case that proves to have some significance later.

Also, your verb tenses are not uniform in that you start with “on Monday she had gone to school, she heard from Julian on the way into the form room… he had passed the cash over.” But then “the form teacher called the register” and then you just continue with simple past tense. I can’t figure out why you’d use the past perfect for some of that and not the rest and if it should mean something. These style choices should signify something.

Rebecca panics over a call to the headmaster’s office, “had the guard worked out he had been fooled and reported her.” I have no idea what this refers to, and then it turns out it wasn’t about that, so now I’m just confused. Rebecca is accepted to some college that is not named outright and I have no idea which one that is. From what follows I deduce she’s been accepted where George would’ve wanted to be accepted, but it’s all very murky. Anyway, George is an ass about it, Claire slaps him, and there’s also mention about Elizabeth.

So now I have to remember Marion, Julian, George, Bill, James, Claire, Elizabeth, the headmaster and Mr. Hampton and possibly which schools everyone got accepted to, though I still don’t know what school Rebecca is going to because saying that “the college was known as ‘The House’ by those who went there and had a church which was also a cathedral” might say something to British readers but says absolutely nothing to me. I personally like reading British text, including different dialects, but some things are too obtuse for me. If cultural references I don’t get wouldn’t matter I could just skim over them, but I don’t know if this matters or not so I am hanging on to it.

The scene ends with Rebecca sexually harassing the teacher.

Then we cut to “Alan was slightly flustered after the girl left.” I assume Alan is the Mr. Hampton Rebecca just hugged against his will. So, okay, we’re still at the same place and time. You mention William Brown who he has tutored before. He’s worried he will harass Rebecca in turn but that “he then recalled two other students who had been accepted into Oxbridge.” (Okay, so maybe it was Oxbridge she was accepted to? Is that even a college? Maybe? Should I google it? Nah, can’t be bothered.) Then “he thought back to the incident thirteen months ago.”

But, instead of hearing what he thinks of 13 months ago, we jump back to Rebecca who “also thought back to last year.” (So I assume this is 13 months back from where she just harassed the teacher, and I still have no idea where this is in relation to the Sunday when she woke up with a panic attack or the theater that is supposed to be the point of the story). “After the date with Roland a few more of the upper sixth had invited her to films.” Of these you name Roy. Apparently, she did sexual favors to all the guys she went to the movies with, and Roy tit-fucked her.

Then Rebecca talks to Claire, and this seems like this is where Rebecca and Claire first got to know each other. Claire is going out with Joe who knows Roy. And you name Roland and James, who might or might not be the same James as in the beginning of the story. I’m assuming this is the same Claire as before.

We are now more than one Lit page into the story, 4706 words. (Yes, I checked.)

 

[Omenainen]

@LetsMisBehave

part 2/2 of the review

Then, “a few days earlier she had accepted an invitation to go to a matinee performance of Measure for Measure at the Malvern Theatre from Alex in the upper sixth.” Okay! A mention of a theater! Maybe we’re getting closer to the gist of the story now. You go back into using past perfect, and I don’t really know why. Are you now narrating this theater memory from the flashback where Rebecca talked with Claire? Anyway, you don’t stick to the past perfect for the whole of the theater memory, and I still don’t have any idea why you’d use it for some but not all of the narration of the same scene.

You give us plenty of detail concerning the play, including a plot description and explanations about the production, but at this point I’m too burdened with all the previous details to really pay attention. After the play they drive to a country pub, where they meet two of Alex’s cousins, one of whom harasses Rebecca because Alex has told them she is a whore. They drink despite Alex needing to drive them home, and Rebecca is nervous to get into a car with him after “because of what had happened to her mom.” There’s mention of Marion again, but still no mention who she is. We find out her mom has died as a result from a drunk driver while cheating on her dad, and her dad has taken that badly.

They stop at an old brick factory still miles away from home and Alex is drunk. They make out, which Rebecca finds acceptable, but then he comes and wipes it off with her blouse which she finds unacceptable. Alex locks the car doors with Rebecca outside and her purse and bra inside and demands sex. She finds her spine and tells him no. He leaves and she starts walking home with her heels and flimsy clothing. Guys stop and offer her a ride but she refuses because they think she’s a whore and ask for sex in return. Then she gets in one car anyway, and ends up taken advantage of and dumped even further from home.

“She had not that many clothes left that she could afford to lose any more in the game of strip hitchhiking.” – now this is a marvelous observation There are lovely little gems like this buried in the story. I love the dry humor in this.

Then she gets into someone’s car once again, against her better judgment. He also mistakes her for a whore, but treats her with respect. He takes her to his home to warm up, and they have sex and he pays her. He takes her home.

Now we find out Marion is “a friend of her mom’s”, though that doesn’t really explain why Rebecca would go to her place, but I kind of just jump to the conclusion that maybe she lives there. It turns out “one of her teachers is there” despite the late hour, because Alex has crashed the car while driving under the influence. The teacher is Mr. Hampton.

Then we cut back to Alan remembering that same night. The police had found Alex crashed and Rebecca’s stuff in the car, alerted the headmaster, who alerted Alan, who went to Rebecca’s house in the middle of the night. (Admirable caring and availability for school personnel. Maybe the world was like that in the eighties.) Rebecca tells them what an ass Alex had been, and “Alan is inclined to take Rebecca’s side” because he thinks Rebecca is so sexy (what the fuck?).

Alex is expelled from school, so justice is served in a way, though for questionable reasons. This is where the story ends.

So. The structure, as it is, seems to be

• Rebecca on a Sunday morning
• Remembrance of sex with an older man
• Rebecca going to school on Monday (I’m now thinking this is indeed meant to be the following day, but it was not clear when I first read this)
• The teacher thinking about Rebecca and “thinking back to the incident 13 months ago”
• Rebecca thinking about 13 months ago, listing her sexcapedes with schoolmates and discussion with Claire, then continuing without pauses to the theater story and having her first outright sex-for-money exchange
• The teacher remembering the end of the theater-and-whoring night 13 months ago

This is needlessly complicated. The first 4706 words add nothing to the story at hand. I’ll repeat that, because it’s important. The first four thousand, seven hundred and six words do not matter. They are not relevant to the story of Rebecca going to the theater. There was no reason to introduce Mr. Hampton’s point of view. You made me remember all those characters and their preferred colleges for nothing. Whatever you were trying to accomplish with Rebecca’s dating history you could’ve done with a few carefully placed sentences like “she knew she approached dating differently from other girls, but still didn’t fully understand why these sort of things kept happening to her.” Fucking the older guy had absolutely nothing to do with any of the rest of it, and you didn’t even tie the end of the story back to it in any way.

The beginning might have made a little more sense if this was a chapter on Rebecca’s story, and we for example knew some of the named characters from before, though even then you should take care to only name the characters relevant to the plot now and maybe reintroduce readers to who they are. Now you sprinkled names around like confetti, and none of those people ended up having anything to do with the main story. The problem with writing “standalone” stories about the same characters over and over is to include just the amount of backstory needed and not repeat yourself. I’d recommend you either write a long series of everything that ever happened to the character, or then self contained standalones, but this both-and-neither with gazillion characters and jumping back and still more back in time is very tedious to follow.

There’s a lot you can do with structuring your story. It’s not mandatory to start at one point of time and eventually wrap up a flashback to come back to that same point, and the same POV character, but it is also a very good practice to do so. The reader needs to maintain a mental pointer to what different timelines have been introduced and where they are at any given time, and the more you play with flashbacks-within-flashbacks, the more you will lose readers on the way. You should seriously consider if that will be worth it. In this instance I think it definitely wasn’t.

Based on the title “Rebecca Goes to the Theatre'' I assume that this story was supposed to be about the trip to the theater with Alex. Fair enough. From that premise, you could tell a story about the rape-y date with Alex, or the more congenial encounter with the unnamed guy who pays her, but I don’t know why you’d want to cram both in the same story. You can have both scenes in the same story, but I think you’d better pick one and make it the centerpiece while using the other as a counterpoint to add weight to it. You could emphasize the non-con and place it in non-con, or you could emphasize the erotic coupling and place it in erotic couplings. I’m not sure what point you were trying to make with this story, and the answer to that question would dictate how you should’ve handled it and the category you should’ve picked.

My advice is basically to pay attention to the scope, use simpler structures, and try to avoid the past perfect at all costs. You can use flashbacks using simple past tense if you mind your transitions and take care to bring the reader back from the flashback. Think about what you want to say with the story, and emphasize that point. Long, rambling recollections about everything that ever happened to someone are rarely interesting as such. Having tighter scope and clearer focus will serve you well. After you have that pinned down, try adding more spice to the sex. You have the mechanics, add emotion and sensation and you’re going places.

***

Outside this story I want to say one thing. I noticed that while this story was published last year, it had no comments until a few days ago. The comments it received now made me think that people read it anticipating this review and commented with a similar-ish reviewing POV to what we use. This is all fine, the comments were constructive and I definitely wouldn’t tell anyone to not give feedback, but I want to point out that I always comment with my own name and I don’t vote for the stories that we review. The same goes for AwkwardMD.

We encourage feedback and conversation, and multiple voices, but there’s also a reason why our feedback is in a thread like this. There are boundaries. This conversation happens here. Everyone can see what others are saying, and we all build our knowledge bases together. It’s about learning, together, not about taking people to task for their mistakes, or getting to flex our big brains to punch down on new writers.

When an author reads this thread, even with our warnings up front that we’re going to be blunt, they think that this is what they are signing up for. This thread, and sometimes some contributors. They are not signing up to have lots of people coming to them in their comments section, or in private feedback. Asking for feedback here is not a signal that it’s open season. Please be respectful.

 

[AwkwardMD]

I'd like to add an example of using simple past and past perfect, together.

3rd person past tense:
She went to the store.


3rd person past perfect tense:
She had gone to the store earlier, but had forgotten to buy oranges. She had gotten distracted by a loud customer at the service desk, and had tried to get out of there as fast as possible.


3rd person past tense flashback:
She remembered having done the same thing, a year prior.


3rd person past perfect tense flashback:
That time, she had just plum forgotten, but she hated making the trip into town so much that it stuck out in her memory.


***

In these five sentences, I have painted a picture that spans multiple periods of time. The tense forms serve a purpose (like tools!), and are not interchangeable. It is possible to use them, but this example is really only correct in the theoretical sense. It isn't wrong, but it also isn't strong, concise writing. I'm using this format to add in details that, as an editor, I would be encouraging any author to remove. This kind of backfill storytelling rarely adds value when the story should be moving forward.

She went to the store. Then what?

 

[LetsMisBehave]

Thank you both for your responses. It confirmed a lot of what I thought I had got wrong with this story but also some I had not spotted. That I shut people out of the story early on is frustrating as I thought there was an interesting character build lurking in it and some humour. I am glad that some of it seems to have come through.
If you don't mind I may come back in the next day or so with a more detailed response as to why I made the choices I did, if only as a warning to other authors not to overcomplicate things or to avoid making the same mistakes. I made a conscious choice early on to have all my stories occur in the same universe and that has given rise to problems - duh.
Actually, perhaps it may also be helpful to say what changes I would have made if iI had engaged my brain properly (starting the story with the conversation with Claire seems a no-brainer in retrospect).
My stories that have got the best scores have been the ones where I adhered to the KISS principle (Keep It Simple, Stupid). Embarrassingly, it includes one where I accidentally only submitted a third of the story I meant to, but the bit that was published was fortunately self-contained.
I assumed that the comments I had received recently had not come from you. I took them as being constructive.

 

[AwkwardMD]

I assumed that the comments I had received recently had not come from you. I took them as being constructive.

I just want to encourage that conversation to happen here, in an environment where we can all share.

 

[dara1833]

My first post. Apologies if I do it wrong. I submitted my first story to this forum a few days back. Here:

https://literotica.com/s/alana-pt-01

I would be very happy if either of the principles would look at it with a critical eye but I really have the following question. The story involves a girl who is kidnapped, tied to a post and diddled a little but there is no PIV intercourse. I asked to have the story entered in BDSM and the moderators put it in Nonconsent/Reluctance. Looking at my feedback I have 25 votes, a 4.05 rating, three hearts and two comments saying Great start and Wow. I like the hearts and the comments but am disappointed in the 4.02 though I realize I'm writing to write and not to entertain. I wonder if the people in Nonconsent want real rape type stories, which mine isn't and if I should ask in the future to specifically have the moderators put the continuing parts in BDSM to better target the intended audience.

Any comments from the principles will be well received. Enjoy this thread and have learned from it.

 

[djrip]

My first post. Apologies if I do it wrong. I submitted my first story to this forum a few days back. Here:

https://literotica.com/s/alana-pt-01

I would be very happy if either of the principles would look at it with a critical eye but I really have the following question. The story involves a girl who is kidnapped, tied to a post and diddled a little but there is no PIV intercourse. I asked to have the story entered in BDSM and the moderators put it in Nonconsent/Reluctance. Looking at my feedback I have 25 votes, a 4.05 rating, three hearts and two comments saying Great start and Wow. I like the hearts and the comments but am disappointed in the 4.02 though I realize I'm writing to write and not to entertain. I wonder if the people in Nonconsent want real rape type stories, which mine isn't and if I should ask in the future to specifically have the moderators put the continuing parts in BDSM to better target the intended audience.

Any comments from the principles will be well received. Enjoy this thread and have learned from it.

If she was kidnapped, tied up and diddled non-consensually, it's NC/R. If she agreed to it first, it's BDSM.

 

[MediocreAuthor]

If she was kidnapped, tied up and diddled non-consensually, it's NC/R. If she agreed to it first, it's BDSM.

I haven't read the story, but I'm prone to disagree. (slightly)

"If she was kidnapped..."←That's noncon. 100%

Kidnapping is non-con, point blank. Even if she agreed to the kidnapping, that makes it CNC.

If the sex involves lots of BDSM stuff, then perhaps it could outweigh the CNC.. But it would still be CNC flavored.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Then we cut to “Alan was slightly flustered after the girl left.” I assume Alan is the Mr. Hampton Rebecca just hugged against his will. So, okay, we’re still at the same place and time. You mention William Brown who he has tutored before. He’s worried he will harass Rebecca in turn but that “he then recalled two other students who had been accepted into Oxbridge.” (Okay, so maybe it was Oxbridge she was accepted to? Is that even a college? Maybe? Should I google it? Nah, can’t be bothered.)

"Oxbridge" is a colloquial way of saying "Oxford/Cambridge". Although they're separate universities, they're very similar culturally and in being very prestigious, so it's common to refer to "Oxbridge" when that prestige or snobbery is more important than which specific university it is, or when referring to a group of people with a mix of Oxford and Cambridge.

So for instance, if I say "John is a professor at Oxford", I might be saying that he has an impressive job, or I might just be telling you where to look for him if you need to talk to him. But if if I say "John is an Oxbridge professor" I'm definitely saying something about social status.

In many places a "college" is more or less the same thing as a "university", but Oxford and Cambridge each contain a whole bunch of colleges - very very roughly, things like student accommodation are organised at college level (with colleges being partly or completely legally independent) but examinations would be run by the central university. So one student might be at King's College, Cambridge, and another at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, but they both get their degree from "Cambridge University".

 

[Bramblethorn]

I haven't read the story, but I'm prone to disagree. (slightly)

"If she was kidnapped..."←That's noncon. 100%

Kidnapping is non-con, point blank. Even if she agreed to the kidnapping, that makes it CNC.

If the sex involves lots of BDSM stuff, then perhaps it could outweigh the CNC.. But it would still be CNC flavored.

I think there was a thread about this a while back on AH, but I'd have said CNC is a subset of BDSM.

This particular story doesn't look like CNC though. From skimming the intro, looked like pretty clear-cut non-con.

 

[djrip]

I think there was a thread about this a while back on AH, but I'd have said CNC is a subset of BDSM.

This particular story doesn't look like CNC though. From skimming the intro, looked like pretty clear-cut non-con.

I agree. CNC is not NC, IMHO. But it works in the NC category, especially if it's not clear that it was CNC until a reveal afterwards.