Any feedback on "Bathtime" appreciated.

[FeelMe2Nite]

Hi all

Bathtime is the first story I've submitted and I'm keen to get some feedback.

http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=323763

Thanks

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

Let me see. I'll start with the technicals first -

Paragraph 1

We've been down the pub for a drink and have just arrived back at the house. Both slightly drunk and turned on from the flirting we've been enjoying all evening.

Your second sentence doesn't seem to have a noun

Paragraph 2

You open some wine and we start drinking, you dancing to some music as I sit, drink and enjoy watching you – your boobs swinging and even better your arse swaying when you turn round, god how I like your arse.

I'm not sure if the punctuation is just bad or this is one or maybe two run-on sentences. In any case, the sentence is 39 words long and you used "Your" or "You" seven times. Why? Seems kind of excessive.

Paragraph 3

Seeing my eyes all over you you smile and dance toward me swaying, leaning over so I can see your cleavage, turning round and wiggling your arse, lowering yourself onto me wiggling again and up and away as I reach for you and miss. You're laughing now and so am I - "do that again!" - I demand.

Oh wow. Where to begin? In the first line "...you you..." should be "...you, you..." You you doesn't make sense. Then your last sentence is just not ... ARG!!!! This is just not the way dialogue is done. It should be set off in it's own paragraph. It should be both capitalized and punctuated. Then you "demand"? Look dude. You demand a blow job from some bitch you are raping. You "ask", "tell", "request", "pleade" or any number of things. Just not demand.


Overall, the news ain't too good.
From this point on, the story drags on to become a sexual snippet of a larger story (What story? I don't know. You didn't write it.).

Throughout, I have no idea or even care who "I", "He", "She" or "Her" is. These characters are maniquins drawn from a bad 50's melodrama. You need to develop your characters, tell us who they are - at least, give them bloody names!

A story always consists of a beginning where the characters are introduced and the setting is given. That is followed by a middle where the characters interact with each other and the setting to move the story along to a Logical Conclusion.

This story doesn't move at all. It's not much more than a sex scene. Thc characters are wooden, the story is entirely without any imagery at all and it's, frankly, boring. Your sentence structure and punctuation is simply the last nail in its coffen.

Generally, you write competantly, but need a lot of help with the technical end - punctuation, structure, etc. The idea was good enough that you will likely get a few wanks from Lit's Highly Decerning (LMFAO) readers. But next time you need to give us a story, not just a scene. And find an editor.

 

[FeelMe2Nite]

Thanks for taking the time Jenny - I do appreciate it.

I sort of get the impression that you were not impressed...

I do accept all your points (and will try to improve for next time!). I am quite embarrassed about the grammatical errors...!

However the "story" was just intended as a brief, intense scene and I would probably not change that aspect of it in this particular case. I appreciate that will not go down well with everyone, but it just felt right to me. Does anyone out there agree?

 

[drksideofthemoon]

I have to agree with what Jenny has said. It's not a story, it's a scene.

I read in your profile where you have been writing tales for another person. This is where you piece would work, as a bit of intimacy between friends. As a stand alone piece for other people to read, it falls rather short.

You need to do a bit of work on the technical end of your writing. If you intend on continuing to write for more than just your friend, you should look into enlisting the help of an editor.

There is nothing wrong with your idea, it's just that it wasn't written very well. There isn't much for the readers to identify with.

Good luck.

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

Actually, you snippet isn't totally bad, guy. But when you are writing, there are a couple things you need to do.

You need to pay attention to the rules of Grammar. They taught you that for a couple of reasons. First, it makes your prose a lot easier to read. Second, it paces the flow of your story for the reader. A comma is a pause (among other things). A period is a much longer pause. Dialogue is set off in separate paragraphs because you are telling the reader the POV is changing.

When you get done writing, set the piece asside for a day, then read it out loud - the way it's written, not the way you meant it. Many of the grammar and punctuation errors will pop out at you.

How do you make a story interesting? Two ways that I know about. Make the reader empathise with your characters. To do that you have to let them tell the reader who they are, what kind of people they are, how they think, what they think about the situation they are in. That's what dialogue does.

The other thing is to make the plot interesting and the action fit the plot.

Those two things are really essential to getting a lot of reads on Lit and respectable vote-scores. There are just too many stories coming out daily on this site for everyone to read your story. The readers find an author they like and look for them. All the older writers on Lit have a following of loyal readers. It takes a while to build up a following, but it's done regularly.

 

[MarshAlien]

Your second sentence doesn't seem to have a noun

This is the sort of overscrupulous pedantry that gives us here at the Story Feedback Forum a bad name.

But in this case, Jenny's right. Not just about the noun, but about the "story" as a whole. It is just a sex scene; nothing more. There are people who come here just read sex scenes (and people who read sex scenes here just to come), and as a sex scene it's not bad. If it turns you on to read it, that's great; maybe it'll work for others, too.

But if you want to write a real story, and get others to read not only that story, but other stories by you, you have to make them want to know who your characters are. That's very difficult to do in second person, where you're describing the action to a "you" who really ought to be presumed to know what is going on. The best second person stories (and I think they're very difficult to do period) get the reader inside the mind of the narrator, which, after all, is really the only interesting thing going on in the story. I think you need more thoughts, more descriptions of how you interacted with your GF. And, as always, I think you need more dialogue. I counted five lines, from the time you arrived home to the time you came inside her. Think of your own life: could you really expect anyone to go that long saying only that little? If you read it, what would you think about the people in the scene? I'm not saying they have to yak through the whole thing - "oh yeah, baby, stick it right in there. Oh, yeah, that's right." - but I do think that your acknowledgement of peoples' needs for communication will help give your story more credibility.

Nouns, too.

 

[FeelMe2Nite]

Thank you

I just wanted to say thanks to all of you.

Your comments are clearly well thought through and do make a lot of sense.

Let's see if I can do better next time?

Thanks again
Martin

 

[drksideofthemoon]

I hope you do keep at it. The best way to get better at writing is simply to write.

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

I hope you do keep at it. The best way to get better at writing is simply to write.

And Read. The best writers on Lit and everywhere else are voracious readers. Read and see how others do it. Read a tuck away good lines. Read and tear others writing apart to see what they did and how they did it. It works.

And the regs are always here to give you some pointers.