09 July 2001: Nellie's New Master by Blackbich

[Weird Harold]

Because I'm away from my random number generator this week is another author nomination.

Please hold comments until Monday 0800 GMT.

In her nomination, Blackbich says:

Here's my second attempt at writing. I've gotten some feedback on it but would love to hear some nitty gritty 'loved it because', 'hated it because'. Please please please consider this a nomination.

Story Name: Nellie's New Master
Section: Interracial
Author: Me

http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=10211

[oops, bad link the first ime]

 

[Lynn]

Welcome me back.

OK, so I missed a few weeks of discussion, sue me, better yet don't sue me, you won't get much - I just returned from vacation.

Lets see - the story this week was interesting, kept me intregued and I actually expected to see Rick's wife show up at the end, so it was nice she didn't.

I have a problem with the format (OK we have had these discussions before, so don't let it deteriorate into what is a chapter discussion again, OK?) the fact was the dialogue not being set off by itself made it harder to read than necessary.

I also found the use of parentheticals in the first paragraph a little much. now I use them all the time, but for some reason I found it too much -- For example:

Nellie was a belated wedding present to Rick and Victoria (Rick's wife).

The parenthetical was totally un-necessary, the fact that Nellie was a wedding present to Rick and Victoria makes it obvious that she is his wife.

Time frame possibly needs some research as well. I don't believe the household slaves actually slept in the house itself (I may be wrong - having never lived in the south or that time frame - but I have read me some). I am also not sure that if they were wealthy that the outfit Nellie wore would be WORN-OUT in places.

Positives included an interesting time frame - caught me off guard in my thinking it was a Master/Slave scenario from our time period. The descriptions given to the cercumstances was also well played out. It left me looking for more. I want to know how and when his wife will find out, leave him and make his life miserable - and when the community will string him up. Especially if he stupidly told the slave to call him by his given first name. I so wanted to read more. Keep up the good work.

Lynn - back and with an attitude - but I still can't spell without a spellchecker!

 

[christo]

Tip-toe...thru the minefield...

I'd be interested to know what kind of feedback the author got about this story, I'd bet it was all over the place. This is a tale of one person showing kindness to another, and that kindness morphing into lust. Happens all the time.

The difference in this story, of course, is that one person is the property of the other. And that makes the encounter much more complicated, to put it mildly. Rick seems to have some decent characteristics. He shows pity on Nellie, when he finds her cowering in the dark, when he finds bruises all over her body.

But instead of consoling her, getting her something to ease the pain of her injuries, he has sex with her. Indeed, after he gives her the candle to allay her fears of the dark, and sees her body, he knows that he won't be leaving the room without having her. Whether she wants to or not is at this point unknown and, in Rick's mind, irrelevant.

Rick doesn't force himself on her, he takes care to make her enjoy their lovemaking, so it's difficult to argue that he rapes Nellie. Even so, this isn't your typical employer-employee sex-at-the-office tale. Nellie is afraid, of the dark, of her new master. Rick is bored, with his easy life, with his shrew of a wife. The balance of power in this situation is tilted so far toward Rick that Nellie's acceptance of his advances are troubling. She has no choice--if she didn't want to have sex with Rick, it wouldn't matter to him.

A lot of the stories on Lit are about couples where the balance of power is out of whack. Most of my stories are like that, I enjoy writing about relationships where the one person isn't able to control his/her situation, because they lack the experience or self-assurance to deal with the stronger person. This is pretty much the ultimate powerful-powerless situation.

 

[Blackbich]

Hi everybody!! Sorry I didn't get this posted earlier but that's what happens when you don't check your e-mail every morning .

First, I'd like to thank Weird Harold for allowing my story to be ripped apart, um, I mean evaluated and discussed amongst my wonderful Lit family . Seriously, I feel honored that it would even be considered and am excited about what I may learn in the process.

As previously mentioned, this is my second attempt at writing. I wanted to write about something different. A storyline I hadn't seen so far at Lit. I still don't know if I succeeded or not.

I had considered writing before but felt I didn't have the patience or discipline. While writing this story, I found out that I don't have the patience or discipline. At least that's the way it felt when I lost the frigging thing twice trying to post it and I didn't have it saved the first time! I've decided to delay writing anything else until I find a better way of saving documents. Yes, that was more information than you needed to know!

In the meantime, please know that I will take your comments to heart. I hope you enjoy the story!

My sincere thanks, again, Harold.

BB

 

[Weird Harold]

I've decided to delay writing anything else until I find a better way of saving documents.

I know one Web|TV user who e-mails stories to himself to save them, and then cuts and pastes into the submission form.

I had forgotten that you are a WebTV user, and don't have the editing capabilitites that those of us who write on PCs do.

I found your story to be a good read, but was troubled by the modern feel to it. Rick is a very "modern" man in the Antebellum South. Still, as Christo points out, he doesn't even think twice about "easing himself" with a slave despite her injuries, which is typical of the way slaves were viewed in that time -- even by those enlightened abolitionists who were trying to set them free.

Lynn picked on the prenthetical remarks in the first paragraph, using "Nellie was a belated wedding present to Rick and Victoria (Rick's wife)," as an example.

The "proper" way, or at least the way I see used most often, is "Nellie was a belated wedding present to Rick and his wife, Victoria."

I would have liked to see a bit more historical tidbits and dialogue. I think the characters would be much better defined if I could set them in a a fixed time period.

 

[alexander tzara]

This is a really novel idea for a story and I think you have a good style of writing, Blackbich. I found it very readable. I hope you get your Internet-TV thing sorted out so you can do more.
I only had a few problems with the story. Although the master was shown to be fairly compassionate, we weren't given any real indication that Nellie was given any kind of real choice in whether or not she wanted to have sex with him. It might've been nice if he'd become so guilt-ridden by the way she had been treated in the past that he decided he should leave her room - only continuing because she tells him she wants to continue. Also, I thought that some of the sexual terms used "dick" and "pussy", although they probably were used at that time, had too much of a ring of modernity about them. It kind of drew me out of the story a little 'cause I started wondering what terms would have been used at that time in the South. I thought the story was very erotic build felt that the climax could have had a little more punch.

Basically, though, I thought this was a really interesting idea for an erotic story, carried out well.

 

[Hullo_nurse]

purple c l


Ok.... well, I first thought that this was a s&m or BSDM story. I can say I was pleased to find out it was not. The first clue should have been that it is in the interracial section. LOL

I found it difficult to read because the talking parts were not spaced as they traditionally should be.

Also, when Rick is thinking the "thought" should be marked with a single ' , not double ". I was quite confused at first.

I wish the story would have been longer -- I felt hung out to dry that it ended so quickly. I would love to read more about this odd couple.

Good job for a second story, though. I enjoyed the story line.

 

[Sonia_de_Beaumanoir]

I once used WebTV in a hotel room. It was not a fun experience, so you have my admiration for even trying to write that way.

My knowledge of that period is limited to reading Mark Twain and "Uncle Tom's Cabin," but I think Nellie should probably speak in a dialect. Instead of "Yes Sir," she would probably have said "Yaasah" or something that effect, or called him "Massa Richard." The Joel Chandler Harris books probably are a great source for slave dialect (I confess to never having read any). There is (was?) an author named Kyle Onstott who wrote novels about this period as well.

I have never read any 19th-century novels where characters had nicknames like Rick. It would be preferable to use the full name.

Another nit, it is preferable to spell out numbers: ten instead of 10. I think someone told me to spell out everything under one hundred.

 

[KillerMuffin]

I'm wondering if Laurel could add a field or two that allows people who have WebTVs to store their unfinished stories on the site. Them only. You know, like a webtv users submission area where they compose and then when they're done, they have a separate button to submit it, that way Laurel would know it's done. Of course, to preserve space, there would be a time limit, like a month or so, that way people wouldn't write half a story and leave it.

This story was very rushed. She created some incredibly interesting characters, but never explored them. Perhaps it's the webtv thing where she had to write it all in one sitting.

Rick is interesting. How did he get his attitude? He's a rich white man, presumably surrounded by slavery all of his life, how did he get such a non-conformist attitude? Where did he learn it? From my understanding, even the compassionate kind slave owners still considered slaves as non-human.

Victoria is interesting as well. What is her attitude about her new slave? Is she cruel, compassionate, or does she consider Nellie another peice of furniture? It would be nice to get an idea from her treatment of Nellie what she might do if she ever discovered what her husband was doing.

Nellie was the one I had trouble with. Trust is one of those things that's more valuable than gold, but once lost is nearly impossible to get back. Why would she trust Rick right off the bat? Prior abuse by white men, no doubt sexually as well, wouldn't make her disposed toward suddenly trusting Rick.

Of course, this is fiction and it was a very romantic ending.

 

[JUDO]

Good bones

BB-

Your story has good bones. But it doesn't pay off the promise.

Where is the story of Rick first visiting and finding Nellie's scars. Then, being so upset and afriad of hurting her, he leaves. Hunts down the person who did this, finding his own kind of revenge on them?

Where is the gentle story of Nellie slowly over a long period of time, becoming Rick's lover. Rick, of course, carefully not wanting anyone to find out and denying himself, because in the South of the time "that sort of thing just isn't done by the Church-going."

Where is the cruel treatment of Rick by his wife, a slave in his own house. And the enticing threat of Rick's intimacies with Nellie being discovered by her?

When will Rick begin to replace Nellie's worn house dress with proper clothes befitting of a house slave on a wealthy plantation?

Perhaps as KM suggests, you have created a wonderful premise and tried to pay it off in a first words on paper version because of the WebTV issue of not being able to edit easily. Although, couldn't you simply email it to yourself as a way of saving/editing, saving/editing?

It could have been a very romantic story complete with a long-suffering man and woman slowly coming to climax over a period of time "against all odds".

Good bones. Now, flesh it out. Give the good and the bad their due.

- Judo