A Tale of Two Stories; In Two Categories

[lyricalcandy]

Hello all,

Last week I posted my second story, "Another Night to Remember" which is the sequel to a story I wrote last summer. It has been well recieved by the few who voted and left feedback, but I was hoping for a bit more.

Today my third story was approved. "What Rain Can Do" is the tale of what happens when college friends get caught in a storm. It is located in the Erotic Couplings category.

I've noticed that in less than 24 hours this latest story has gotten twice as many votes and over 3 times as many views as the vampire story has recieved over the entire week.(Although my scores for the vampire stories are a bit higher) I suspect this is because people tend to overlook the NonHuman category. I did recieve feedback from one reader saying that they don't usually read stories in that category because they tend to be violent and graphic. I'd like to think that mine are an exception, more of a romance with a BDSM overtone which happen to feature vampires. I should hope they would appeal to a wide array of readers.

So my primary goal is to grab your attention and get you to read my stories and give me feedback and perhaps a favorable vote. My secondary goal is to perhaps get feedback on how to make my stories more appealing to a wider audience if I decide to continue developing the vampire story. For example, is it possible that my description of the story is a turn off?

Hope you enjoy!

 

[nushu2]

I read What Rain Can Do

Overall, I liked it. The story kept that touch of realism from start to finish. For the same reason, it didn't get really passionate, but that's fine. You, also, used a very passive voice for the main character. It fit but restricted her, sexually. When you make that kind of a choice, play with character a bit more. Show us how passive she can get, or otherwise. Though, I did feel I knew her and I'm starting to doubt that I read thoroughly enough.

There is a difference when reading a story, preparing to give feedback, or for enjoyment. First of all, too much "... ". I've done this myself, but only in dialogue. Granted, first person POV is a lot of internal dialogue, but I would have preferred commas. You repeated yourself at times and then, at other times, you repeated yourself. (Department of Redundancy Dept.)

My only other piece of advice is that you chose words like "Soon thereafter" that made me cringe a bit. Now, I'm biased. I've been spending a lot of time, lately, thinking about lyrical phrasing (my own terminology, for lack of a better education). That means a lot, from word choice to sentence and paragraph structure and length. It's possible to express a feeling in the way something is written as well as what is written.

 

[lyricalcandy]

Thank you for the feedback. I'm glad a sense of realism was maintained, as that to me was more important than any of the other aspects. I know that it is lacking in finesse and I'm hoping to guage by feedback if I should consider editing. It is a personal fantasy lifted from an online journal elsewhere on the web, and at the moment I decided to post it here I feared that too much editing might rob it of its original feel.

Hmmm ... passion. I think the lack of that might actually be a personal choice I didn't realize until just now that I had unconciously made; as if subconciously telling myself not to go there! But hey, if I can't have him in real life, I should go for the gusto in the writing shouldn't I??

The elipses and the repetition are bad habits of mine. The amusing thing to me (you may be somewhat relieved by this actually) is that the original version had a lot more ... ... ... so I actually did make an effort to reduce this but perhaps not enough.

Concerning lyrical phrasing; sometimes I think in an almost poetic fashion, sometimes I don't. This was one of my more simplistic peices.

Thank you so very much for your feedback! It made my morning.