Stimtheone
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Other way around.
AwkwardMD and Omenainen Review Thread
- Thread starter AwkwardMD
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EroticCupcake
Just Tryin' to Write
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Omenainen and AwkwardMD, I wrote a Romance Piece and would appreciate your review. (10k words):
https://literotica.com/s/man-woman-and-meaning-betweenPrimary goal was to write a satisfying Romance story and get the hang of genre convention and expectations, including the pacing and quantity of sexual content.
Second goal was a love letter to Shanghai. I'm hoping for "authentic" and not "indulgent."
Edited to say this thread is awesome, and I have enjoyed reading (and hopefully learning).
Last edited:
joy_of_cooking
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I can't remember exactly what my comment was but something like
Your love for this city shines through. It's been decades for me and yet your writing brought me right back, even to the places that didn't exist last time I saw them.
ThatNewGuy
Not new; still a guy
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I enjoyed the first season of Luther. Thanks for recommending it! Ruth Wilson is terrific. I’m going to watch the next season too. I’m really interested to hear what you (and any other readers of this thread who have been holding their tongues as you asked) think about modeling Carina in Art of Deception after Alice Morgan in Luther.
I’ll group my initial thoughts and reactions into three main points.
First, I think it’s a fascinating thought experiment. If, like Alice, Carina’s defining personality trait were narcissism, then she’d find the anonymity of being a master forger to be almost unbearable. She’d crave narcissistic supply. It would lead her to make all manner of risky and ill-advised decisions. It offers an alternative explanation to why she puts herself out there in the original story as the liaison to the gallery that she is trying to dupe. It offers an alternative explanation to why she is obsessed with Adam, who is one of the only people in the world who truly recognizes and admires her genius.
In AoD: Light and Shadow, I can see why an alternate version of Carina would accept an assignment to frame Adam. It gives her a reason to engage with him again and get narcissistic supply through his recognition of her talent and also through his anger and frustration as she tortures him about why she sent him the fake Renoir. I can also see her double crossing Monica at the end—not because she is conflicted about saving her sister or saving Adam, as in the current version of the story—but because she is smarter than Monica and wants to keep Adam around so that she can continue her adversarial relationship with him. She chooses to go along with the criminals’ plans only so long as they align with her own motives.
The third chapter of the current story would have to be abandoned and/or overhauled almost completely to suit this version of Carina. I can’t envision what it might look like without putting more thought into it.
That brings me to my second point. I honestly don’t know that I could rework Carina the way that (I think) you’re suggesting. Not because it isn’t a good idea, and not because it wouldn’t make for an interesting and compelling story. It’s because that’s not the Carina I’ve come to know over three stories and several years.
An Alice Morgan-style version of Carina would be so far removed from the way I’ve come to picture her in my head that it would be difficult to reframe her in my own mind. The Carina I’ve come to know wouldn’t act in those ways. To rework the stories, I’d need to invent a new person who would act in those ways. Of course, I realize that’s your whole point. It’s certainly a doable task and an interesting challenge. I need to let the idea bake a little longer before I can really wrap my head around it.
Complicating all these matters is my third point. I have a very close family member who was married to an abusive, malignant narcissist for many years. He finally escaped that relationship, but it has been absolutely devastating. For a long time, I didn’t understand what his wife was. All I knew was that she was the worst person I’d ever known in my life, even though she presented a “normal” façade to everyone around her. Then I stumbled upon an article about narcissistic personality disorder. It was like flipping on a light in a dark room. For anyone who might be struggling with an abusive narcissist in his or her life, I highly recommend this book by Shahida Arabi: “Power: Surviving and Thriving After Narcissistic Abuse: A Collection of Essays on Malignant Narcissism and Recovery from Emotional Abuse.” It will give you a new vocabulary to understand what is happening to you and offer tools you can use to break free and begin to heal.
In any case, Alice Morgan’s character fits the traits of a malignant narcissist in some ways, but in other ways she does not. If I were to write Carina as a malignant narcissist, I’d be writing her as an abuser. That’s fine from a story standpoint. An abusive character can be well drawn and compelling. But I just don’t know that I could draw such a character.
I wonder if there might be another way to address your main issue with the series: namely, that you feel the criminal organization at the end undermines how dangerous and complex Carina was in the beginning.
I don’t know that the criminal organization itself is the problem. I think it might be how weakly the criminal organization is drawn. Dominic Fletcher, the head of the organization, may be the most weakly defined character in the entire series. In some ways, he comes off as a caricature of a rough and tumble bad guy with a cockney accent. Given how brilliant Adam and Carina are, he hardly seems like a worthy adversary. I can see some readers thinking: Wait, this is the man who has been pulling the strings all along? How disappointing.
If Adam and Carina are going to team up at the end of the story, maybe they need a worthier foil. A Moriarty. You seem interested in the idea of Carina as a Moriarty figure (or maybe a cross between Irene Adler and Moriarty). And when I started the first story, that’s also how I pictured her.
But I wonder if the story in its current form would fare better as a novel if the leader of the criminal organization packed more of a punch. I don’t know. Maybe that idea is just trying to put lipstick on a pig. Maybe sticking with Carina as the primary antagonist is a more natural choice. You’ve given me some great food for thought.
My response above makes a lot of assumptions about what you might have had in mind, so I’d be interested to hear your thoughts whenever you have time to share them.
AwkwardMD
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@ThatNewGuy
So, to start off, I think it’s important to get out that I don’t agree with the terms the show uses. To me, Alice Morgan displays traits of Antisocial Personality Disorder, not Narcissistic Personality Disorder. I think it’s there right from the start, when Alice did not match Luther’s yawn. That’s an indifference to others rather than a need for control.
Alice is, for the most part, extremely independent. She has a job, she lives alone. Her job is solitary (research). She rejects her family. She does fixate on Luther, but she doesn’t attempt to control him for her own purposes. John is too busy hyper fixating on his ex-wife Zoey, and she adapts to that with ease. She was perfectly happy to get Luther back with Zoey if that was what Luther wanted, and perfectly happy to threaten Zoey’s boyfriend Mark to make that happen, and perfectly happy to enlist Mark’s help to get revenge in the end. Narcissists play games with others and gaslight them, but the goal is to keep them feeding the narcissists ego. The supply, as you so aptly put it.
(Spoiler for season 2: Alice goes to prison for John, to protect him, for the killing at the end of season 1. If Alice was a narcissist she would have tried to convince John to go to prison for her but she goes in his place without flinching. If I were to hazard a guess, she probably knew she was going to have to surrender herself in his stead right from the beginning, and this is rewarded later when John breaks her out. All of this happens early in episode 1 of season 2, so I don’t think I’m ruining much)
For the most part, I don’t think Alice is written with a specific depiction of a specific disorder in mind. I think she’s written to be “TV Crazy”, threatening and dangerous or mentally unhinged, when the show needs someone threatening and dangerous, which is why the show repeatedly uses the phrase Malignant Narcissist as if that was a real thing. Most people understand those terms in isolation, and putting them together certainly paints a picture, but they don’t really mean anything. If I was going to ascribe one to her post hoc, I think it would be Antisocial Personality Disorder. In most social settings, we would use the terms Sociopath and Psychopath, but those aren’t the medical terms.
This video here, starting around the 5 minute mark, does a pretty good job of breaking down Antisocial Personality Disorder as it applies to Sherlock in the BBC adaptation, and makes specific references to how some of the classic traits will often fade/soften as a person enters their 30s and 40s. In my mind, Alice Morgan shares some common traits with this description, and this Youtuber goes through the diagnostic criteria in such a way that we can see how they apply to Alice, and by extension, Carina.
If you ignore the way the show treats Alice, the way it talks about her behind her back through dialog between Luther and other secondary characters, and just take her actions at face value, Alice likes John Luther. We see enough of her to draw our own conclusions. She is intrigued by him. She’s charming when she wants to be, if it suits her goals, and she is honest with John about her goals from very early on. Whether he believes her or is even listening to her is a different story, but with the benefit of hindsight we can see that Alice is saying exactly what she’s going to do at pretty much every step of the way. She’s clever, and is not squeamish about what it takes to find and push the pressure points of others.
Imagine that Carina is a talented artist, but that she values her independence. She is a sociopath, and can lie at will if it gets her what she wants. She engages disingenuously where others are expecting someone to engage genuinely, and can put on other mannerisms at will because she is not invested in ‘who she is’. Names and identities come and go, but she continues on. She is not under the employ of others, although she does have some shady business connections. She uses them for contacts, for resources, for loans if a particular job she sets her sights on is above her current means, but she picks her own jobs. She does her own thing and sometimes she does it with other people’s money. This has worked, up to the present, because her record is spotless. When Adam foils Carina in chapter 1, she’s enthralled and delighted to have met someone on her level. For her, she is really only out to make a living using her natural skill sets, and if a job goes sideways but is extremely entertaining along the way then that is worth the price of admission.
That does not cut it for the people who loaned her millions, or are expecting millions in return for their investment.
In this way, Carina can still be on the hook, and need Adam’s help, but she is less damsel-y. She is her own kind of dangerous that would require sending talented underworld assets to combat. He can have a target on his back for costing them, she can have a target on her back for betraying their agent who tried to get Adam arrested, and they have a common enemy to draw them together. People with APD are mostly indifferent to others except in the ways that those people can be useful, and if the ways that Adam is useful to her are numerous and varied then I can see my way to a portrayal of Carina that is willing to make logical compromises while still being essentially the same person she was in the beginning.
Carina with APD would be resistant to growth, per se, but compromise is a fairly approximate sidegrade. You could easily end it with Carina going to prison for Adam, or her working alongside him, or bringing Adam into her world, while Adam finds someone who is endlessly intriguing, never dull, and always honest. You could even try to be clever and write it in a way where Carina never actually lies to Adam even once, even under a false identity, and merely lets him assume incorrectly when it suits her needs. It would take some clever and coincidental dialog, but I think you could pull it off. Then, later, when he’s feeling like his trust has been betrayed, she at least has a leg to stand on to try and rebuild.
Personally speaking, I would love an ending where she goes to prison, takes sole blame, and Adam gets off the hook because she claims (and he backs up) that she was coercing him into helping her, but then he goes to visit her in prison and she’s like ‘You came!”
Alice Morgan has a specific brand of independence that sets her apart from Luther, while also providing a gleeful foil for his dour cynicism, and if nothing else I think Carina can provide that for Adam, but those traits, those contrasts, need to stick around the whole time no matter how you implement them. You can’t have the beginning you have now with the ending you have now. They are incompatible, and I think that altering Carina’s motivations to better suit the beginning makes for a stronger overall story rather than sticking with the ending, and adapting the beginning to fit.
So, to start off, I think it’s important to get out that I don’t agree with the terms the show uses. To me, Alice Morgan displays traits of Antisocial Personality Disorder, not Narcissistic Personality Disorder. I think it’s there right from the start, when Alice did not match Luther’s yawn. That’s an indifference to others rather than a need for control.
Alice is, for the most part, extremely independent. She has a job, she lives alone. Her job is solitary (research). She rejects her family. She does fixate on Luther, but she doesn’t attempt to control him for her own purposes. John is too busy hyper fixating on his ex-wife Zoey, and she adapts to that with ease. She was perfectly happy to get Luther back with Zoey if that was what Luther wanted, and perfectly happy to threaten Zoey’s boyfriend Mark to make that happen, and perfectly happy to enlist Mark’s help to get revenge in the end. Narcissists play games with others and gaslight them, but the goal is to keep them feeding the narcissists ego. The supply, as you so aptly put it.
(Spoiler for season 2: Alice goes to prison for John, to protect him, for the killing at the end of season 1. If Alice was a narcissist she would have tried to convince John to go to prison for her but she goes in his place without flinching. If I were to hazard a guess, she probably knew she was going to have to surrender herself in his stead right from the beginning, and this is rewarded later when John breaks her out. All of this happens early in episode 1 of season 2, so I don’t think I’m ruining much)
For the most part, I don’t think Alice is written with a specific depiction of a specific disorder in mind. I think she’s written to be “TV Crazy”, threatening and dangerous or mentally unhinged, when the show needs someone threatening and dangerous, which is why the show repeatedly uses the phrase Malignant Narcissist as if that was a real thing. Most people understand those terms in isolation, and putting them together certainly paints a picture, but they don’t really mean anything. If I was going to ascribe one to her post hoc, I think it would be Antisocial Personality Disorder. In most social settings, we would use the terms Sociopath and Psychopath, but those aren’t the medical terms.
This video here, starting around the 5 minute mark, does a pretty good job of breaking down Antisocial Personality Disorder as it applies to Sherlock in the BBC adaptation, and makes specific references to how some of the classic traits will often fade/soften as a person enters their 30s and 40s. In my mind, Alice Morgan shares some common traits with this description, and this Youtuber goes through the diagnostic criteria in such a way that we can see how they apply to Alice, and by extension, Carina.
If you ignore the way the show treats Alice, the way it talks about her behind her back through dialog between Luther and other secondary characters, and just take her actions at face value, Alice likes John Luther. We see enough of her to draw our own conclusions. She is intrigued by him. She’s charming when she wants to be, if it suits her goals, and she is honest with John about her goals from very early on. Whether he believes her or is even listening to her is a different story, but with the benefit of hindsight we can see that Alice is saying exactly what she’s going to do at pretty much every step of the way. She’s clever, and is not squeamish about what it takes to find and push the pressure points of others.
Imagine that Carina is a talented artist, but that she values her independence. She is a sociopath, and can lie at will if it gets her what she wants. She engages disingenuously where others are expecting someone to engage genuinely, and can put on other mannerisms at will because she is not invested in ‘who she is’. Names and identities come and go, but she continues on. She is not under the employ of others, although she does have some shady business connections. She uses them for contacts, for resources, for loans if a particular job she sets her sights on is above her current means, but she picks her own jobs. She does her own thing and sometimes she does it with other people’s money. This has worked, up to the present, because her record is spotless. When Adam foils Carina in chapter 1, she’s enthralled and delighted to have met someone on her level. For her, she is really only out to make a living using her natural skill sets, and if a job goes sideways but is extremely entertaining along the way then that is worth the price of admission.
That does not cut it for the people who loaned her millions, or are expecting millions in return for their investment.
In this way, Carina can still be on the hook, and need Adam’s help, but she is less damsel-y. She is her own kind of dangerous that would require sending talented underworld assets to combat. He can have a target on his back for costing them, she can have a target on her back for betraying their agent who tried to get Adam arrested, and they have a common enemy to draw them together. People with APD are mostly indifferent to others except in the ways that those people can be useful, and if the ways that Adam is useful to her are numerous and varied then I can see my way to a portrayal of Carina that is willing to make logical compromises while still being essentially the same person she was in the beginning.
Carina with APD would be resistant to growth, per se, but compromise is a fairly approximate sidegrade. You could easily end it with Carina going to prison for Adam, or her working alongside him, or bringing Adam into her world, while Adam finds someone who is endlessly intriguing, never dull, and always honest. You could even try to be clever and write it in a way where Carina never actually lies to Adam even once, even under a false identity, and merely lets him assume incorrectly when it suits her needs. It would take some clever and coincidental dialog, but I think you could pull it off. Then, later, when he’s feeling like his trust has been betrayed, she at least has a leg to stand on to try and rebuild.
Personally speaking, I would love an ending where she goes to prison, takes sole blame, and Adam gets off the hook because she claims (and he backs up) that she was coercing him into helping her, but then he goes to visit her in prison and she’s like ‘You came!”
Alice Morgan has a specific brand of independence that sets her apart from Luther, while also providing a gleeful foil for his dour cynicism, and if nothing else I think Carina can provide that for Adam, but those traits, those contrasts, need to stick around the whole time no matter how you implement them. You can’t have the beginning you have now with the ending you have now. They are incompatible, and I think that altering Carina’s motivations to better suit the beginning makes for a stronger overall story rather than sticking with the ending, and adapting the beginning to fit.
AwkwardMD
Belzebutts
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One more thing. Ted Bundy is a textbook example of what a sociopath is capable of, and he is probably what most of us think of when we hear the word, but sociopaths make up a larger percentage of the population than most of us realize. Many of them are capable of horrific things, and simply choose not to. They develop their own code of ethics because that helps them comfortably adapt to life in society, and really that's all any of us want.
ThatNewGuy
Not new; still a guy
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@AwkwardMD and @Omenainen
Completely agree about Alice being a better fit for APD than NPD but didn't want to get too alphabet soupy in my reply.
Really fascinating perspective about the direction the story might take if Carina were less "damsel-y," as you put it. I'm going to digest all this, watch the video, and give it some thought before replying.
Can't tell you and Omenainen how much I appreciate being able to engage with someone about the story and characters at this level of detail.
Completely agree about Alice being a better fit for APD than NPD but didn't want to get too alphabet soupy in my reply.
Really fascinating perspective about the direction the story might take if Carina were less "damsel-y," as you put it. I'm going to digest all this, watch the video, and give it some thought before replying.
Can't tell you and Omenainen how much I appreciate being able to engage with someone about the story and characters at this level of detail.
joy_of_cooking
Literotica Guru
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What would be her motivation here? I wasn't imagining her as the self sacrificing type.
AwkwardMD
Belzebutts
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Personally speaking, for most of my life, I was only able to understand love as sacrifice. I understood gifts in terms of money. On my birthday, a day in which gifts from others was quasi-expected, i was easily able to rank the value of things given to me. Uncle gives me a $100 bond. Brother gives me a game that woukd have cost him an entire month's allowance. Classmate/friend gave me nothing.
Obviously I allowed for context, but this helped me understand what I meant to others. I would use that as a metric for giving back, as well as for governing every day behavior.
I understood that my father would take a bullet for me. I understood that my mother would not.
Through this lense, what is prison but time? Would you give two years for someone else?
This is just an example I can speak to personally. It's not the only way to get from point A to point Z.
EroticCupcake
Just Tryin' to Write
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This is an interesting worldview. I know this is specific to your life, but I also think it was a function of being young at the time?
AwkwardMD
Belzebutts
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I was 41(ish) when I moved past this.
Omenainen
Finnishing
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I'd also like to thank you for being such a wonderful requester. I'm delighted that you took our advice and really gave it some thought. Makes this all feel worthwhile. Also, your story was/is excellent.
Now, it's been a few months, so the details start slipping from me. I read what I'd originally written down for the basis of the review, and back then I read all three parts and thought the story, while diminishing in punch, did stick together until the end. Now that time has passed, I'm of the opinion that it doesn't hold up after all.
The first chapter is brilliant. The second chapter works. The third chapter undoes and undermines the first two.
Yes.
I'll expand on my opinions a little.
The first chapter of the story is absolutely brilliant. It has Carina as a mysterious, intriguing, and eventually wonderfully deceitful. It executes the plot points flawlessly. This really is head and shoulders above a lot of short stories in this world. The second chapter manages to hold the same energy, fulfilling the difficult sequel demand of "the same, but ramping up the intensity somehow". It works, it holds up, and even though the guy (Adam? Adam. Sorry, I'm bad with names) started off presented as nerdy, academic, kind of sciency type who just gets caught in these happenings, and in the second one he already goes wired into the criminals' trap, it still isn't too far fetched to work.
Then what happened is that you fell in love with Carina. This happens, we've all been through it. You fell in love with her, and so you didn't want her to be this sociopath but instead someone worth loving. You wanted Adam, as your stand-in, to get the girl, and not only that but to save the girl, and then have a happily ever after. The third chapter is all about that. The problem is, this kind of "good guy superman single-handedly takes down entire criminal organizations to save this talented but sadly mistreated poor girl" does not fit either of your protagonists, or the plots of previous two chapters, at all. Either Adam is this nerdy guy with terrific attention to detail and ability to fuss over not contaminating the evidence he examines under his microscope, or he is a secret agent level action hero with amazing abilities in undercover operations, but having him secretly be the second undermines how you presented him in the earlier chapters. Either Carina is an independent entity or she isn't. If she's in the grips of the organization, they would never endanger their gold-laying goose by letting her traipse over continents doing in-field operations. They would keep her in a golden cage somewhere, just like they do in this third chapter of yours. Also, she's either this sociopathic level liar who's capable of dancing circles around Adam not once but twice, or then she's this sweet girl Adam would throw his life away to marry, but I don't see how she could be both. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me; fool me thrice and I'll throw my life away and marry you? Like, what?
This kind of saving a damsel in distress romance is a viable approach for a story, but those stories are thirteen in a dozen. Which brings me back to the beginning.
The first chapter is absolutely brilliant. Whatever you do, don't toss it away. Don't dilute it.
I think you should definitely toss the happily ever after. As funny as the twist was, I don't think standard romance fits this story at all. I also think you should ditch the "saving the girl" approach. If there is a criminal organization, and maybe there has to be for you to be able to ramp up to the third chapter, then I don't think making it more powerful is the answer. I think Carina needs to be a force of her own, and even though she might have been working with or for the organization, she needs to have more autonomy, her own backup plans, more power. I can imagine a plot where Adam and Carina team up to take down the organization, maybe for different reasons, but united against a common enemy. They could end up in some sort of secret forces for art world, like some kind of international police unit against forgeries, working side by side. Obviously, Carina would need to be forced into it. Like, it's either that or rotting away in prison for the rest of her life. But her ending up on the right side of the law, beside and equal to Adam, would be a worthy ending without sacrificing either one of your characters.
EroticCupcake
Just Tryin' to Write
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This is good advice. I had an Alex Morgan woman in my life (I think), and it was a wonderful, painful experience I plan to write about. Thanks for the well articulated strategy.
AG31
Literotica Guru
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Back in October, the two of you reviewed my Twelve Maxbridge Street. It was fairly negative, but I was very pleased with the close reading you gave it. Your (plural) main critique had to do with the need for what I call attention to character (see quotes below), while acknowledging that I had alerted you that I didn't do that.
I probably should have done this a long time ago.
I'm Dr. Awkward. I like to give reviews. I like to be helpful.
I do, however, have one story that is unique within my output in that it does attend to character. I didn't set out to do that. It just happened. I'm curious as to how it strikes you? Is there enough emotion/feeling?
Here's the link: Naked
tia
ag
Quotes from Maxbridge review.
Omenainen
Finnishing
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@Usually_Lurking
Link
Hi and welcome to Literotica!
Congrats on your first story! Well, first two stories. You’ll learn the ropes around here soon enough. You already got a helpful comment on how series work (thanks, @alohadave), which is mainly that every additional chapter gets fewer readers. At some point it evens out and the hardcore fans stick to the end. The scores go up, the views go down. Many things contribute to the view count of the story, but a lot of it depends on how it publishes on its first day. If it’s high on the category hub new list, and high on the all new list, it will get more views than if it’s buried lower. This is all a game of chance, and it’s not worthwhile to dwell too much on it.
Another thing that contributes to the popularity of a story is the category and how you meet the category expectations. Trying to pander to readers’ expectations isn’t the sensible thing to do artistically, but it helps to be familiar with them to anticipate what kind of reception your story will get. Your story is in Incest/Taboo, so let’s take a look at the category expectations.
As far as I’ve understood, the I/T readers expect blood relatives, and they expect the sex to be relatively vanilla and loving and they are particularly interested in how the incestuous relationship begins. They appreciate the slow burn and the wrestling with guilt and will they-won’t they tug of war, overcoming the taboo. They are appreciative of romance.
Now, you said you want to “submit to the judgment of the council”, but I have no desire to trample your first story. I hope you can take the following without getting discouraged.
Your story has blood relatives, and states the incestuous relationship in the title, which is helpful. After that you succumb to what we like to call “first story syndrome”*, which is that you try to include All The Kinks in this one story. You have dub con and forceful seduction, which isn’t the top selling thing in incest. You make the boy call the aunt “mom”, which makes no sense to me. If you want to write mom-son, why do you write aunt-nephew and then make them role play mom-son? I mean, there could be a point, but I didn’t see one here. You’re in such a hurry to get to the sex that there’s hardly any buildup at all, let alone slow burn. The boy is reasonably well written and interesting, but the aunt is just a slut because she was born to be one (?) and there’s zero potential for character development there. So, the reader reads the title “Breaking In Her Naive Nephew” and… that is the story. All of that happens in chapter one already. What more can there be for the upcoming chapters? Different sex acts? No matter how well you write them, that’s not the main interest to taboo readers. They want to know how they got there, and now they already do. You might be able to keep the readers with you if they’re invested in your characters, but there was no room to get invested in the characters here (plus Lexi has no character) because you barreled into sex right away.
It’s not a bad story, and you write well especially after you ditched the present tense storytelling. Strokers don’t need to be long and complicated, and can get to the sex quickly, but multi-chaptered strokers don’t really make sense. I would encourage you to scope down, decide what kink you want to handle and then focus on that, and maybe write standalones to get your footing before trying a longer series. Find your voice and write what you will. Get familiar with category expectations, not because you have to pander to the masses, but so that you know if you are meeting them or not, and can brace yourself for the impact.
***
*) Practically everyone’s first story looks like this. You ask yourself, if I wrote an erotic story, what would I write? and then you write all of it. It’s every good idea one can imagine, stapled together in a feverish collage of kinks. Concepts that are mutually exclusive get hand waved away so that we can have all of them. Flimsy premises are taken at face value so that we can include every idea we’ve ever had, because the idea of submitting it online is mania-inducing. We get it. We’ve been there, and so while there are some things we could harp on, they don’t ultimately matter. These aren’t mistakes people tend to make after the first one.
You get your first story out, and then you really start to stop and think about what you could do, or how you could do another one, and you get more purposeful. This is the natural arc of authorship, and your next story will be better for it. Being purposeful solves this, and that comes with experience. Just keep writing.
Link
Hi and welcome to Literotica!
Congrats on your first story! Well, first two stories. You’ll learn the ropes around here soon enough. You already got a helpful comment on how series work (thanks, @alohadave), which is mainly that every additional chapter gets fewer readers. At some point it evens out and the hardcore fans stick to the end. The scores go up, the views go down. Many things contribute to the view count of the story, but a lot of it depends on how it publishes on its first day. If it’s high on the category hub new list, and high on the all new list, it will get more views than if it’s buried lower. This is all a game of chance, and it’s not worthwhile to dwell too much on it.
Another thing that contributes to the popularity of a story is the category and how you meet the category expectations. Trying to pander to readers’ expectations isn’t the sensible thing to do artistically, but it helps to be familiar with them to anticipate what kind of reception your story will get. Your story is in Incest/Taboo, so let’s take a look at the category expectations.
As far as I’ve understood, the I/T readers expect blood relatives, and they expect the sex to be relatively vanilla and loving and they are particularly interested in how the incestuous relationship begins. They appreciate the slow burn and the wrestling with guilt and will they-won’t they tug of war, overcoming the taboo. They are appreciative of romance.
Now, you said you want to “submit to the judgment of the council”, but I have no desire to trample your first story. I hope you can take the following without getting discouraged.
Your story has blood relatives, and states the incestuous relationship in the title, which is helpful. After that you succumb to what we like to call “first story syndrome”*, which is that you try to include All The Kinks in this one story. You have dub con and forceful seduction, which isn’t the top selling thing in incest. You make the boy call the aunt “mom”, which makes no sense to me. If you want to write mom-son, why do you write aunt-nephew and then make them role play mom-son? I mean, there could be a point, but I didn’t see one here. You’re in such a hurry to get to the sex that there’s hardly any buildup at all, let alone slow burn. The boy is reasonably well written and interesting, but the aunt is just a slut because she was born to be one (?) and there’s zero potential for character development there. So, the reader reads the title “Breaking In Her Naive Nephew” and… that is the story. All of that happens in chapter one already. What more can there be for the upcoming chapters? Different sex acts? No matter how well you write them, that’s not the main interest to taboo readers. They want to know how they got there, and now they already do. You might be able to keep the readers with you if they’re invested in your characters, but there was no room to get invested in the characters here (plus Lexi has no character) because you barreled into sex right away.
It’s not a bad story, and you write well especially after you ditched the present tense storytelling. Strokers don’t need to be long and complicated, and can get to the sex quickly, but multi-chaptered strokers don’t really make sense. I would encourage you to scope down, decide what kink you want to handle and then focus on that, and maybe write standalones to get your footing before trying a longer series. Find your voice and write what you will. Get familiar with category expectations, not because you have to pander to the masses, but so that you know if you are meeting them or not, and can brace yourself for the impact.
***
*) Practically everyone’s first story looks like this. You ask yourself, if I wrote an erotic story, what would I write? and then you write all of it. It’s every good idea one can imagine, stapled together in a feverish collage of kinks. Concepts that are mutually exclusive get hand waved away so that we can have all of them. Flimsy premises are taken at face value so that we can include every idea we’ve ever had, because the idea of submitting it online is mania-inducing. We get it. We’ve been there, and so while there are some things we could harp on, they don’t ultimately matter. These aren’t mistakes people tend to make after the first one.
You get your first story out, and then you really start to stop and think about what you could do, or how you could do another one, and you get more purposeful. This is the natural arc of authorship, and your next story will be better for it. Being purposeful solves this, and that comes with experience. Just keep writing.
StillStunned
Scruffy word herder
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- Jun 4, 2023
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- 8,877
I'm coming back to this thread after a couple of months because I've finally finished the series, and the feedback here helped me to complete it. So thanks, @AwkwardMD and @Omenainen for the encouraging review and suggestions, and @yibala for your input too.
The review covers the first of five instalments: Dark Encounters. Just to recap for those poor souls who haven't read The Rivals and whose lives would be much enriched if they did:
So thank you again for the review and for all the feedback. I'm very happy with how the series came out as a whole, and a lot of that is due to taking all your thoughts and suggestions on board for the final story.
Thanks!
The review covers the first of five instalments: Dark Encounters. Just to recap for those poor souls who haven't read The Rivals and whose lives would be much enriched if they did:
This encouragement really helped when I was struggling, and particularly when one of my stories had another 1 dropped on it for no apparent reason. I could tell myself that the rating reflected more on the reader than on my writing.
One reason why it took me so long to write the final instalment was because the fourth chapter ended with the characters separated and in trouble. I wrote about 10k words of them trying to get back together, and it just didn't work. Like you say, the story is all about the two of them interacting. In the end I used my original opening scene, repurposed it as a prologue and then skipped forward to the pair of them back together and arguing. That was my favourite part to write, particularly because it focused on Avilia trying to figure out her feelings for Sligh. I'm also quite pleased with the sexy scene when they finally start talking again.
I had an idea of Avilia as I was writing her, but it wasn't quite clear in my mind why she acts the way she does. With the final instalment, I realised what it was: she's an adrenaline junkie. This isn't something I tagged on: right from the start, Avilia is a leap-before-you-look character who sees an opportunity and goes for it, and every time the thrill is sexually arousing for her. With your question in mind, I was able to crystalise this for myself. Much of the final chapter is about Avilia struggling to deal with the conflict between her chaotic character and her commitment to Sligh.
So thank you again for the review and for all the feedback. I'm very happy with how the series came out as a whole, and a lot of that is due to taking all your thoughts and suggestions on board for the final story.
Thanks!
I'm a big fan of writing to the end of a story and finding clarity in these kinds of details. I look forward to reading it!
-Yib
EmilyMiller
Wanted to have fun
- Joined
- Aug 13, 2022
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- 11,620
I’ve asked @AwkwardMD and @Omenainen to take a look at one of my most recent stories:
A Hard Day’s Night
Em
A Hard Day’s Night
Em
Omenainen
Finnishing
- Joined
- May 5, 2020
- Posts
- 1,635
Thank you for the thank you! It’s so nice to hear we could help, because that’s precisely why this thread was founded in the first place. Sometimes it’s a hit and sometimes it’s a miss, and it’s not like I’m begging for praises for doing this, but it is disappointing to use time and concentration over a review when it often seems that the requester maybe hasn’t even read the review. Some people come in, ask for a review, and then just… vanish.
AwkwardMD
Belzebutts
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- Apr 13, 2014
- Posts
- 2,315
@EroticCupcake
Link
There’s three main things to go over here.
The first is the objectification. On the one hand, after 4 Lit pages we know functionally nothing about Anna. The most important detail we learn about her personal life is that she lives in Dallas, and likes the Mavericks. These are insignificant things about a person, and they are dwarfed by the amount of time the story spends describing Anna. The narration is obsessed with her tits and her ass, and Mark having repeated bouts of “oh I shouldn’t be staring” kinda just makes it worse. Awareness of inappropriate behavior toward a coworker might excuse ogling someone one time, the first time, but only the first time, and this story is deeply obsessed with Anna’s curves. Nothing else about her matters, as demonstrated by the fact that we learn nothing else about her.
On the other hand, Anna, with very little provocation, immediately jumps to wearing revealing and body shaping clothing around Mark. She’s supposed to be a professional. For her to be in the position she’s in, in a foreign country on her own to audit another company, she needs to be good at her job. This is a significant responsibility. We can infer that the purchase of another company, a transaction of potentially millions of dollars, rides on her findings. Her skills. Anna, as written, is inviting this attention from Mark where most women would not. It is a constant struggle for women to be taken seriously in the workplace, and one surefire way to lose any credibility you have is to give others the idea that you slept your way through the office to get where you are. This is not to say that doesn’t happen, but that’s a very different story (read: incompatible) from the one you wrote.
Why would Anna have packed a killer dress and fuck me heels for a trip like this? Given the economy of space in a suitcase, packing for travel halfway around the world, she was planning for this?
However, instead of trying to hit you over the head with “it’s not plausible to have your women act like this”, let’s instead take a detour. Most women would not act like this, but there are certainly some exceptions. It’s okay to write stories that explore coincidences, less likely scenarios, and unlikely combinations, but those require a little bit more groundwork to make them solid.
Maybe she doesn't bring these clothes with her, but instead buys them on-site, which begs the question; What is Mark offering her that would make her do that? He seems nice. He sure likes Shanghai. He’s a little introverted, and a little quirky. He has more personality than some male POV characters I’ve read, but aside from staring at Anna’s assets Mark does not seem all that interested in Anna. Not nearly so much as he is interested in Shanghai anyway. He knows history, demographics, trivia. He wants to fuck Anna, but given the chance to talk he talks about Shanghai.
In an alternate dimension, there is a version of this story where Mark gives Anna a reason to step out a little. As it is, this lacking undercuts the idea that this is a romance in anything but name
***
I understand the appeal of this story for men; Anna is hot. The story goes to great pains to explain how curvy she is, but (and this is the second thing) what is the appeal for women?
Anna’s looks are very specific, and are directly praised to the exclusion of other body types. I felt like, between the lines, Mark was saying “Ah, finally, a real woman. All women should be shaped like this, not small or flat.” Now, that is an entirely subjective take by me, but there also isn’t any evidence to the contrary. Unless I am shaped like Anna (and I am not), this story is not interested in me. There’s no way for me to see myself in it, and I think it’s telling (albeit tenuous) that no female-presenting accounts have left a comment on this story. Just Men and Anonymous. That’s not a smoking gun, certainly, but it does suggest something.
Mark has some appeal, so that’s good. He has some interests, and he can make a joke. He’s not bland, and that’s a big check mark in the Pro column, but only in terms of his personality. Physically, he is a blank mannequin, an every man whose body and clothes get zero descriptive time, and so every man can insert themselves into it. Think about that contrast.
If I was being charitable (ie, operating on the assumption you didn’t intend to write Anna as a life support system for a pair of tits), I would say that what this story is missing are some circumstances. Not just places to go eat, but things that are happening that allow the characters to react and reveal who they are.
Mark goes to one of the meetings, where Anna displays her professional skills. They engage in some game, like an escape room, and Mark shows off his keen observational skills. Laser tag. Gambling. A hay maze. Getting mugged. Something.
***
The dialog is number three. It’s missing some… organic finesse. I almost felt like, at some point, there had been more dialog that you deleted, and the sections on either end were stapled together to hide the gap. It’s also a little stiff, which I think is more a function of the fact that they really have nothing to talk about. She’s hot, he’s there, and they’re in Shanghai; that’s the entirety of the situation. More interesting circumstances as mentioned above will produce more interesting dialog, and get you away from the moments where Mark is coming to conclusions about how cool Anna is without really showing the reader why.
Around the dialog, the rest of the writing is fine. Strong. No notes.
It was an interesting premise, but there was not enough follow-through on anything except Anna’s looks.
***
You also asked about two other things; pacing and sexual content. The sex was fine. No notes.
The pacing is hard to judge because although there is a clock running the whole time, we’re mostly measuring it in meals consumed and Anna’s costume changes. There isn’t enough else happening. The scenes are short and don’t overstay their welcome (a plus), but this story would be served by having two or three scenes that really bulk up the word count and give the characters some room to be themselves.
Link
There’s three main things to go over here.
The first is the objectification. On the one hand, after 4 Lit pages we know functionally nothing about Anna. The most important detail we learn about her personal life is that she lives in Dallas, and likes the Mavericks. These are insignificant things about a person, and they are dwarfed by the amount of time the story spends describing Anna. The narration is obsessed with her tits and her ass, and Mark having repeated bouts of “oh I shouldn’t be staring” kinda just makes it worse. Awareness of inappropriate behavior toward a coworker might excuse ogling someone one time, the first time, but only the first time, and this story is deeply obsessed with Anna’s curves. Nothing else about her matters, as demonstrated by the fact that we learn nothing else about her.
On the other hand, Anna, with very little provocation, immediately jumps to wearing revealing and body shaping clothing around Mark. She’s supposed to be a professional. For her to be in the position she’s in, in a foreign country on her own to audit another company, she needs to be good at her job. This is a significant responsibility. We can infer that the purchase of another company, a transaction of potentially millions of dollars, rides on her findings. Her skills. Anna, as written, is inviting this attention from Mark where most women would not. It is a constant struggle for women to be taken seriously in the workplace, and one surefire way to lose any credibility you have is to give others the idea that you slept your way through the office to get where you are. This is not to say that doesn’t happen, but that’s a very different story (read: incompatible) from the one you wrote.
Why would Anna have packed a killer dress and fuck me heels for a trip like this? Given the economy of space in a suitcase, packing for travel halfway around the world, she was planning for this?
However, instead of trying to hit you over the head with “it’s not plausible to have your women act like this”, let’s instead take a detour. Most women would not act like this, but there are certainly some exceptions. It’s okay to write stories that explore coincidences, less likely scenarios, and unlikely combinations, but those require a little bit more groundwork to make them solid.
Maybe she doesn't bring these clothes with her, but instead buys them on-site, which begs the question; What is Mark offering her that would make her do that? He seems nice. He sure likes Shanghai. He’s a little introverted, and a little quirky. He has more personality than some male POV characters I’ve read, but aside from staring at Anna’s assets Mark does not seem all that interested in Anna. Not nearly so much as he is interested in Shanghai anyway. He knows history, demographics, trivia. He wants to fuck Anna, but given the chance to talk he talks about Shanghai.
In an alternate dimension, there is a version of this story where Mark gives Anna a reason to step out a little. As it is, this lacking undercuts the idea that this is a romance in anything but name
***
I understand the appeal of this story for men; Anna is hot. The story goes to great pains to explain how curvy she is, but (and this is the second thing) what is the appeal for women?
Anna’s looks are very specific, and are directly praised to the exclusion of other body types. I felt like, between the lines, Mark was saying “Ah, finally, a real woman. All women should be shaped like this, not small or flat.” Now, that is an entirely subjective take by me, but there also isn’t any evidence to the contrary. Unless I am shaped like Anna (and I am not), this story is not interested in me. There’s no way for me to see myself in it, and I think it’s telling (albeit tenuous) that no female-presenting accounts have left a comment on this story. Just Men and Anonymous. That’s not a smoking gun, certainly, but it does suggest something.
Mark has some appeal, so that’s good. He has some interests, and he can make a joke. He’s not bland, and that’s a big check mark in the Pro column, but only in terms of his personality. Physically, he is a blank mannequin, an every man whose body and clothes get zero descriptive time, and so every man can insert themselves into it. Think about that contrast.
If I was being charitable (ie, operating on the assumption you didn’t intend to write Anna as a life support system for a pair of tits), I would say that what this story is missing are some circumstances. Not just places to go eat, but things that are happening that allow the characters to react and reveal who they are.
Mark goes to one of the meetings, where Anna displays her professional skills. They engage in some game, like an escape room, and Mark shows off his keen observational skills. Laser tag. Gambling. A hay maze. Getting mugged. Something.
***
The dialog is number three. It’s missing some… organic finesse. I almost felt like, at some point, there had been more dialog that you deleted, and the sections on either end were stapled together to hide the gap. It’s also a little stiff, which I think is more a function of the fact that they really have nothing to talk about. She’s hot, he’s there, and they’re in Shanghai; that’s the entirety of the situation. More interesting circumstances as mentioned above will produce more interesting dialog, and get you away from the moments where Mark is coming to conclusions about how cool Anna is without really showing the reader why.
Around the dialog, the rest of the writing is fine. Strong. No notes.
It was an interesting premise, but there was not enough follow-through on anything except Anna’s looks.
***
You also asked about two other things; pacing and sexual content. The sex was fine. No notes.
The pacing is hard to judge because although there is a clock running the whole time, we’re mostly measuring it in meals consumed and Anna’s costume changes. There isn’t enough else happening. The scenes are short and don’t overstay their welcome (a plus), but this story would be served by having two or three scenes that really bulk up the word count and give the characters some room to be themselves.
Last edited:
AwkwardMD
Belzebutts
- Joined
- Apr 13, 2014
- Posts
- 2,315
Addendum re: "the appeal for women"
This is not a requirement by any means. Lots of stories are exclusionary by design. Gay Male, for example, does not offer much for the average female reader (unless that is their thing). Most of my own personal lesbian stories don't take the male perspective into account, and I lose zero sleep over that.
Romance, however, should have some varied appeal. That should be a factor as it is one of founding genre conventions.
This is not a requirement by any means. Lots of stories are exclusionary by design. Gay Male, for example, does not offer much for the average female reader (unless that is their thing). Most of my own personal lesbian stories don't take the male perspective into account, and I lose zero sleep over that.
Romance, however, should have some varied appeal. That should be a factor as it is one of founding genre conventions.
EroticCupcake
Just Tryin' to Write
- Joined
- Jan 19, 2022
- Posts
- 182
Thanks for your detailed feedback!
I think your critique of Anna being underwritten is fair (although not intentional). The intention was for her to be extremely outgoing and attractive, but also wise/insightful if you could look past the superficial. Your proposed solution to have action that illustrates character would have solved several problems.
Your "appeal to women" comments are fair and insightful. I'll need to consider them, and hopefully incorporate for future writing.
AG31
Literotica Guru
- Joined
- Feb 19, 2021
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- 3,313
I just happened upon an essay about The Story of O that I hope you find interesting. It gives a better historical take on it than Wikipedia does, I think. It's How to Make a Film on 'Story of O' by @Vitavie.
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