Any feedback on first story please

doobius

Virgin
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May 21, 2018
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Just posted first part of a story. It is my first story to be posted. Would welcome constructive feedback.

Did this in first person which I know can be dangerous. Did not find any of categories really fit well and would welcome thoughts on that to. Remainder of story does not feature masturbation. BTW I am Scottish and this was spell checked to the UK dictionary and some of the colloquialisms may be regional too - but I don't think difficult to grasp.

https://www.literotica.com/s/a-curious-combo
 
Technical spoiler ahead - please read the story first, before you read my thoughts.

I'm not sure the first person presentation of both points of view worked. I was OK with the first section - its disjointed structure sort of worked to capture the randomness of her thoughts (I'm not sure if the quick shifts in her thinking were done deliberately, or clumsy writing - I give the benefit of the doubt).

In one or two places you shift abruptly to a third person sentence, then jump back to first. Don't do that - catch it in edit and fix it.

Suggestion - break your paragraphs down more. Remember that many readers use portable devices to read, so make your paras shorter, give them more white space. It makes it a lot easier to read - no dreaded 'wall of text.'

You then shifted abruptly to a different first person point of view, and it just became confused. Sure, you marked it with a section break, but I was expected her pov again. Any sympathy or feeling I had for the woman being portrayed vanished. WTF, I'm the bloke all of a sudden? I've only just got used to being in the woman's head, and now I've got to start over? Too hard, I'm afraid - I can be a lazy reader sometimes, you know :).

I'm further thrown because now I've got a completely different story telling style going on, and I'm thinking, "Hang on, have I just walked into a different story?" Whenever a reader has to stop and figure out what's going on like this, you run the risk of them walking away - which, frankly, I did.

I think (just me, mind), if you're going to pick first person, you have to stick with the one pov for the whole story. This story might have worked better with a close third person narrator - you could have still gone in close to her thoughts as you did, and still gone with the more conventional story telling of the middle section (which got a bit bogged down in telling me stuff, but you'd lost me already, so I was only skimming by that point).

So, technically, smaller paras, tighter editing; grammar is okay but watch your pov and maybe tense shifts. Your style is a bit of work because it either plods a bit, jumps around too much, or tells me what I'm meant to be feeling, but you can string sentences together.

Don't get defensive about your spelling. I write Australian English, and I've not once in nearly sixty pieces here told anyone that in a preamble, and not once been picked on it, because my spelling is accurate, consistent, my grammar is good. If insular readers can't get their heads around the rest of the world, that's their problem, not yours - you just need to nail the editing in whatever nation's English you use.

You can tell readers if you want (I don't, I assume intelligence in my readers... ) but as soon as you do, you've drawn attention to something that just wakes the pedants up. My way, they have to figure it out for themselves, and so far, the spelling nazis have stayed asleep.

The big stumbling block on this one, for me, was the use of two different first person narrators - I don't think it worked.

Keep writing, short pieces like this are good to learn the technical basics of writing, find your style, get your flow. You've obviously got a second chapter - make it better, don't bother fussing with this first chapter - it's what it is. Write the next one.
 
Something that’s hard for me to digest and I had to read your profile to see what’s going on. You’re a guy writing from a woman’s POV. I’m not really picking on it, but it’s obvious in a few places in your story. Just a thought. 🌹Kant👠👠👠

There’s a phrase in your chapter that throws me for a loop. “Looking straight back” sounds a little odd. Wouldn’t that be said better as “glancing over the shoulder?” Maybe it’s just me.
 
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