A new piece

[Lee Chambers]

Brandy and the Prince Ch. 1

This is a short piece I put together. Hoping to make a small series out of it but I'd like some feedback first. Please let me know what you think and thanks in advance.

 

[drksideofthemoon]

It was very short. Too short, I never felt either of the characters, and as a result I have no interest in them.

 

[Varian P]

Hi Lee,

For a take on sheer reader interest, I'm probably not your best audience for this piece, as I tend to need a bit (okay, a lot) of plot and tension with my sex, and this is more of an erotic vignette than a story. So, like drksideofthemoon I didn't find the piece very engaging.

However, at the prose level, I think the writing is quite good. You language mechanics are fine, the pace/flow work, and you do a good job with imagery.

There are a few spots where the phrasing could be tightened up, though.

Hearing the sound of approaching footsteps, she turned around to see Duane coming down to the water from their seaside villa. He wore a white, button-down T-shirt that was open and a pair of khaki shorts. Brandy admired the parts of his chest and stomach she could see and turned to meet him as he came close.

It's a bit confusing that she "turned to meet him" after "she turned" once, earlier in the paragraph.

And where I'm from, T-shirts don't have buttons. Could be a cultural thing?

Brandy glanced down and grinned impishly. Duane was referring to the fact that she was standing on the beach completely nude. Her skin had turned a nice shade of brown in their two week honeymoon and because Duane owned a private grotto and villa on the island, she had began spending more and more time wearing only a smile. It was a simple pleasure that she enjoyed, making her feel free and comfortable. Duane had not objected.

Giving her husband a warm smile, Brandy reached up...

I realize that "wearing only a smile" is a figure of speech, expressing nudity. But here we get three mentions of her smiling or grinning in short succession.

Duane had worked her into such a frenzy that her juices had went from clear and wet...

"had gone" I think.

I hope that's helpful.

-Varian

 

[_Lynn_]

Hi Lee,

For a take on sheer reader interest, I'm probably not your best audience for this piece, as I tend to need a bit (okay, a lot) of plot and tension with my sex, and this is more of an erotic vignette than a story. So, like drksideofthemoon I didn't find the piece very engaging.

However, at the prose level, I think the writing is quite good. You language mechanics are fine, the pace/flow work, and you do a good job with imagery.

There are a few spots where the phrasing could be tightened up, though.

Hearing the sound of approaching footsteps, she turned around to see Duane coming down to the water from their seaside villa. He wore a white, button-down T-shirt that was open and a pair of khaki shorts. Brandy admired the parts of his chest and stomach she could see and turned to meet him as he came close.

It's a bit confusing that she "turned to meet him" after "she turned" once, earlier in the paragraph.

And where I'm from, T-shirts don't have buttons. Could be a cultural thing?

Brandy glanced down and grinned impishly. Duane was referring to the fact that she was standing on the beach completely nude. Her skin had turned a nice shade of brown in their two week honeymoon and because Duane owned a private grotto and villa on the island, she had began spending more and more time wearing only a smile. It was a simple pleasure that she enjoyed, making her feel free and comfortable. Duane had not objected.

Giving her husband a warm smile, Brandy reached up...

I realize that "wearing only a smile" is a figure of speech, expressing nudity. But here we get three mentions of her smiling or grinning in short succession.

Duane had worked her into such a frenzy that her juices had went from clear and wet...

"had gone" I think.

I hope that's helpful.

-Varian

Varian mentioned the problems I had with this piece.

First was the t-shirt issue.

Next was the repetitive "turns" in one paragraph and "smiles" so close.

Last I agree that it's short. Too short to get a real feel for it, in my opinion.

ML

 

[rachlou]

Hi Lee,

Read your story. Others have made relevant comments so I won't repeat them too much. I probably would have enjoyed your piece more if it had been longer. Rather than post this as chapter 01, it would have worked better as the introduction to a longer chapter where more happens. However, you set a nice scene and on the whole it was fairly well written.

One thing that jumped out at me was this recurrent mistake -

I would have married you sooner." He said.

This should be

"...sooner," he said.

Watch this - you did it several times in the dialogue.

It would be useful to have an editor to read through and pick up the small errors that interrupt the flow of the story. There was nothing too major, just little things here and there.

Good luck with the continuing story.

 

[MarshAlien]

You do need to spend a little more time establishing the characters so that we get some sense of who they are. If this is going to be the first chapter of a longer set, we need a reason to care about them. And so far, all we know is that he's rich, and she's impish, mischievous, and wicked. Which are all pretty much the same. And they're happy. But we have no reason to be happy for them, or concerned about what happens next.

There are some grammatical errors and/or typos: "laid back" should be "lay back" both times; "in their two week honeymoon" should be "on their two week honeymoon" or "in the last two weeks"; "it's way inside of her" doesn't take an apostrophe; "intimated" should be "intimate" -- in short, you do need an editor. Even in the first paragraph, the image of her sifting her toes through golden sand was pretty until I realized that she was at the water's edge. And then I started thinking, but isn't the sand pretty well packed there? In the opening paragraph, you don't want the reader thinking extraneous things like that; you want him/her focused on the story, absorbing the characters and wanting to learn more about them.

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

Yeah. This is more of a scene than a story. As I've said before, a story has a beginning, a middle that moves the plot along and an ending. This is more of a piece of the middle than a story.

Also, I don't think I've ever seen a "Button-down T-shirt." Am I confused?

 

[MarshAlien]

Also, I don't think I've ever seen a "Button-down T-shirt." Am I confused?

well, not about that...

 

[Lee Chambers]

I want to say thanks to everyone who responded with your feedback. I really appreciate it.

I'm slapping myself in the head over the "button down t-shirt" thing. This was a piece that I wrote really quickly and that I wasn't very focused on. I did a bit of editing on it, but mostly just spelling and not so much grammar and punctuation.

I'm going to look through the story again and check the mistakes that all of you mentioned so that I'll know not to make them again. I do blame my Texas upbringing for some of them though.

Thanks again, everyone. Your feedback has been very helpful.