Am I on the right track?

[chillout]

Hi - I've seen some great feedback on this bulletin board and I'm looking for any insights or advice on improving my stories going forward. This is a great site and I'm excited to finally be participating.

http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=73296

 

[dr_mabeuse]

My opinions:

First of all, I don't think anyone will buy thgat this is a dream. Dreams just aren't like this, and we all know that. Daydreams, maybe. But night dreams are just not that coherent at all.

I think your story suffers from being too dense overall. By that I mean that a story should have "heavy" or dense parts where the action and feelings are intense, and then it should have some parts that are "lighter" or less dense, where the characters and reader can rest a little bit. The lighter sections give contrast to the heavier sections so that we know what is important and what is not that important.
Lighter sections usually involve descriptions of setting and characters, backstory and general non-action sequences.
In this story everything is dense, especially the action, which is non-stop and unrelenting. The action starts and doesn't stop, and everything seems as important--or as unimportant--as everything else. For me it was very intense and tiring to read because I could never relax. Figuring out just what was going on was difficult, mainly because of this constant density of action.

The transitions didn't work for me. Was this a dream within a dream? Or was part real and part a dream? Still don't know. After the first tryst in the motel, I couldn't tell what was going on.

If you read over the story I think you'll also find that the narrator tells us very little about what she's feeling or thinking. ("It felt great" or "I was about to come" don't count) She gives us an extremely detailed picture of what's going on, but at the same time she's very emotionally detached from the action, which makes the action comes off as very flat and non-erotic. (I've never heard of a woman on the verge of orgasm being so aware of the exact way her breasts were being manipulated.)

When the mystery lover appears, she doesn't even mention that she's surprised or shocked or frightened. She just goes into another description of the action and what he looks like. What is this woman thinking? What's she feeling?

I also think you're suffering somewhat from "first-personism". In my opinion, writing in first person is too easy. It's too easy to just tell the reader how you feel rather than show them and make them figure it out; it's too easy to use the same cliche's we use in everyday speech; it's too easy to use value judgments ("She was gorgeous" or "I felt great"); and it's too easy to fall into the same habits we use when we're verbally telling a story, and that's not writing, it's transcribing. I'd like to see you tackle this same story in third persopn. That would take some doing.

But you certaiunly have a nice and sensual erotic imagination. I think if yoiu learn to vary the texture of the stories you'll see a big improvement in readability.

---dr.M.

 

[chillout]

I've certainly been described as 'dense' before but the is the first time for a story of mine. (Having only asked for opinions once or twice before probably has something to do with that.)

I appreciate all the feedback, will take the critcisim to heart and work on it and build further on the strengths you called out.

THANKS!!