kurrginatorX
Literotica Guru
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A Sissy's Tale
- Thread starter kurrginatorX
- Start date
AwkwardMD
Belzebutts
- Joined
- Apr 13, 2014
- Posts
- 2,333
The 4.11 rating this story has is a shame, because it is well-written and competently told for the most part. Your pacing was strong, and I liked the flow of events. The sex was worked for me. Bruce is fine although his reaction at the end seems a bit out of character. The assistant was fine.
Michael/Micaela is where I think you went wrong:
A) the story follows Bruce, not Michaela, so the title is sort of missing its mark.
B) The texting mechanic broke the flow of the story. I think this is one of those times where you tried to do something 'too real'. I'd try to elicit more responses on this specific component because this is a 'feeling' of mine, and I wouldn't want you to make writing decisions based on one loud reader. The idea is well executed, but I think it doesn't read well and that no amount of effort could have made it work.
(To be fair, the texting idea was ambitious, and I appluad experimentation, but experiments are only worthwhile if you learn something)
A and B are small. Easy to fix.
C) This is the big one, and I think this cost you some score. Micaela is, at times, a cross dresser, a sissy, and trans. These are not the same thing and it strains credulity to suggest Micaela wouldn't know that. I know that, from a distance, sissy/trans/futa/crossdressing/intersex are all story choices by which an outwardly female character might have a penis under their dress, but they are not interchangeable and you risk offending a readership who literally "IDENTIFIES" themselves as one (and only ever one (at a time)) of those.
I feel like both the root cause and solution here is intention. I feel like you didn't really think through Micaela, or her motivations, or her personality, because the goal was to write a story about a straight dude who is super not gay. Like, all the way not gay. This, by the way, is why I said the story here is about Bruce; you, as the author, have not demonstrated that you know who Micaela is.
***********
EDIT:
1- Micaela identifies herself to Bruce as Transgendered.
2- Based on the story and the actions you showed, Micaela is a cross dresser, or possible genderfluid.
3- Assistant calls Micaela a Sissy.
Transgendered is when someone feels wrong in their skin, or alternately, trapped in a body that doesn't fit them. The process of changing their body takes years, is usually sterilizing, and almost always results in alienating some percentage of the people who had been in their lives prior to transitioning. It is not something to be undertaken lightly, and those who do would not bounce back to their birth gender from day to day or for a few hours.
A cross dresser is someone who enjoys putting on the trappings of the opposite gender for a period of time while always being able to go back. They don't feel wrong, like someone who is transgendered, and instead enjoy the blending of stereotypical gender roles (ie, I'm a man but I like to feel pretty). A crossdresser would never claim to be transgendered.
Genderfluid, like transgendered, is someone who feels wrong in their skin but only sometimes. They tend to try to androgynize themselves as much as possible, allowing them to add some femininity one day or some masculinity the next as their emotions, hormones, or feelings guide them.
There's not great consensus on sissies in terms of definition, but it can be reasonably defined as a very specific sexual aspect of cross dressing involving humiliation at failing to fulfill an expected level of expected masculinity. The embarrassment causes emotional pain, and letting it hurt gives release.
The assistant could only know that Micaela is a sissy if A) they were sexual partners, or B) the assistant had somehow spied on Micaela during sex. Based on her brief appearances, neither of those is true, and that leaves the only reason for her to call Micaela a sissy is if the choice came from You, as the author, not realizing there was a difference.
That's what I meant by you not knowing who Micaela is.
Also, no 40-word, postage stamp definition really covers any of these topics. I did my best to describe them briefly so as not to derail the thread into a treatise on gender studies, but I can't say that what I wrote is comprehensive. My apologies if I misrepresented any aspect of the above through omission or by mistake.
*****
I hope you can understand how trying to write a story with compassion and complex emotions featuring badly-conceived characters in those complex roles might land differently than you intended.
I would highly recommend this video by Contrapoints on similar and tangential topics. She is far more eloquent on the specifics of this topic than I am. These are things that would apply to both Micaela and Bruce.
You seem like you have a lot of the tools of a good writer here, and I think that spending a little more time in the conceptualizing phase, figuring out who your characters are and where they're going, will help you take the next step as a writer.
Michael/Micaela is where I think you went wrong:
A) the story follows Bruce, not Michaela, so the title is sort of missing its mark.
B) The texting mechanic broke the flow of the story. I think this is one of those times where you tried to do something 'too real'. I'd try to elicit more responses on this specific component because this is a 'feeling' of mine, and I wouldn't want you to make writing decisions based on one loud reader. The idea is well executed, but I think it doesn't read well and that no amount of effort could have made it work.
(To be fair, the texting idea was ambitious, and I appluad experimentation, but experiments are only worthwhile if you learn something)
A and B are small. Easy to fix.
C) This is the big one, and I think this cost you some score. Micaela is, at times, a cross dresser, a sissy, and trans. These are not the same thing and it strains credulity to suggest Micaela wouldn't know that. I know that, from a distance, sissy/trans/futa/crossdressing/intersex are all story choices by which an outwardly female character might have a penis under their dress, but they are not interchangeable and you risk offending a readership who literally "IDENTIFIES" themselves as one (and only ever one (at a time)) of those.
I feel like both the root cause and solution here is intention. I feel like you didn't really think through Micaela, or her motivations, or her personality, because the goal was to write a story about a straight dude who is super not gay. Like, all the way not gay. This, by the way, is why I said the story here is about Bruce; you, as the author, have not demonstrated that you know who Micaela is.
***********
EDIT:
1- Micaela identifies herself to Bruce as Transgendered.
2- Based on the story and the actions you showed, Micaela is a cross dresser, or possible genderfluid.
3- Assistant calls Micaela a Sissy.
Transgendered is when someone feels wrong in their skin, or alternately, trapped in a body that doesn't fit them. The process of changing their body takes years, is usually sterilizing, and almost always results in alienating some percentage of the people who had been in their lives prior to transitioning. It is not something to be undertaken lightly, and those who do would not bounce back to their birth gender from day to day or for a few hours.
A cross dresser is someone who enjoys putting on the trappings of the opposite gender for a period of time while always being able to go back. They don't feel wrong, like someone who is transgendered, and instead enjoy the blending of stereotypical gender roles (ie, I'm a man but I like to feel pretty). A crossdresser would never claim to be transgendered.
Genderfluid, like transgendered, is someone who feels wrong in their skin but only sometimes. They tend to try to androgynize themselves as much as possible, allowing them to add some femininity one day or some masculinity the next as their emotions, hormones, or feelings guide them.
There's not great consensus on sissies in terms of definition, but it can be reasonably defined as a very specific sexual aspect of cross dressing involving humiliation at failing to fulfill an expected level of expected masculinity. The embarrassment causes emotional pain, and letting it hurt gives release.
The assistant could only know that Micaela is a sissy if A) they were sexual partners, or B) the assistant had somehow spied on Micaela during sex. Based on her brief appearances, neither of those is true, and that leaves the only reason for her to call Micaela a sissy is if the choice came from You, as the author, not realizing there was a difference.
That's what I meant by you not knowing who Micaela is.
Also, no 40-word, postage stamp definition really covers any of these topics. I did my best to describe them briefly so as not to derail the thread into a treatise on gender studies, but I can't say that what I wrote is comprehensive. My apologies if I misrepresented any aspect of the above through omission or by mistake.
*****
I hope you can understand how trying to write a story with compassion and complex emotions featuring badly-conceived characters in those complex roles might land differently than you intended.
I would highly recommend this video by Contrapoints on similar and tangential topics. She is far more eloquent on the specifics of this topic than I am. These are things that would apply to both Micaela and Bruce.
You seem like you have a lot of the tools of a good writer here, and I think that spending a little more time in the conceptualizing phase, figuring out who your characters are and where they're going, will help you take the next step as a writer.
Last edited:
Emirus
Literotica Guru
- Joined
- Jan 25, 2018
- Posts
- 1,074
“I did the best I could with what I had. If I had better, I could have done better.”
I agree with that statement. I would like every one of my stories to be voted a five. Wouldn’t everyone? But if I was that good I’d be worth $45 million the same as my favourite author. I write for me and hope that others like my stories as much as I do. I wouldn’t submit a story I wasn’t satisfied with, I would delete it.
I enjoy reading a certain type of transexual story but crossdressing and transvestite stories hold no interest for me. I therefore haven’t read the story. But MD has given you a very comprehensive comment.
I’ll restrict my comment to the rating. If it’s a low rating after a few votes it doesn’t matter. It’s only after fifty votes that you will get an accurate appreciation and that’s when you can feel dejected. If that’s what you want to do. In that case lock the knife drawer, lol.
I’ve read stories with 4.11 and less that have been very good and enjoyable and haven’t been able to understand the low rating. I’ve also read stories with 4.71 and above that, again in my opinion, have been absolute crap. I’ve been unable to understand how anyone could give a five to a story so badly conceived and written, and so full of spelling and punctuation errors plus everything else that Laurel hates. I’ve also wondered how a story with so many mistakes managed to slide past her.
If you enjoy writing and want to continue then do it. It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks unless they give you constructive advice. As MD has done.
