Athenium: Requesting any kind of feedback!

[GK_Miller]

So after reading stories for years, I decided to post one of my own, and I'd love to hear what you think!

https://www.literotica.com/s/athenium-ch-01

It's a mental erotica told through the eyes of a male researcher stationed in Antarctica. The station's staff find an empathic goo, and after it grows to the size of a swimming pool, it wants to know about them, but this time, what it wants to know is decidedly more carnal.

I love writing, but I've never written erotica before. This story is tagged erotic horror, but maybe it should be under nonhuman instead? This is one of many things I want to know: is it scary and/or sexy enough? If you're a fan of the sinking or slime girl genres, does this do it for you? Really, any feedback at all - even if it sucks, let me know, I'm pretty thick-skinned - would be appreciated!

 

[LesDesirable]

It is interesting and well written. Only a couple minor word errors that slipped through editing.

Most of it was well thought out and flowed well enough. The part I was less certain was necessary, was the bit about feeding the worst of prisoners to the goo. A bit of a cruel and horrible society. I suppose that bit is enough to qualify it for Erotic Horror, if the rest was more Non-Human.

For a series, you probably have already given up too much of the story in chapter 1, having skipped any buildup of characters as anything but soon-to-be-food. Yeah, Marco has a wife, the men masturbate, but other than those two facts the characters remain empty, and a gelatinous blob of hyper-sexual empathetic semi-evil goo might not carry my interest through several chapters.

 

[Vix_Giovanni]

Nice first submission! I’m not familiar with “goo” sexual stories, so this was a new type of read for me.

There were a couple of things that made the reading a little jarring. The main one was that you switch between past and present tense. You went from first person present to past tense to explain what happened to Marco and then switched back and forth between past and present tense in that scene. Those switches are incorrect; since it all occurred three days ago, Marco’s sensations/experiences with the goo should still be described in past tense. An editor can likely help you with correcting that and a handful of grammar issues. Best of luck!

 

[GK_Miller]

Most of it was well thought out and flowed well enough. The part I was less certain was necessary, was the bit about feeding the worst of prisoners to the goo. A bit of a cruel and horrible society. I suppose that bit is enough to qualify it for Erotic Horror, if the rest was more Non-Human.

Fair enough. I tried to create a story that was as interesting to read as a sci-fi as it was erotic.

For a series, you probably have already given up too much of the story in chapter 1, having skipped any buildup characters as anything but soon-to-be-food. Yeah, Marco has a wife, the men masturbate, but other than those two facts the characters remain empty, and a gelatinous blob of hyper-sexual empathetic semi-evil goo might not carry my interest through several chapters.

There is more story to be told. Hopefully, the next chapter really hits home that the negotiator is an unreliable narrator. None of the characters will be static, including the goo. I've already submitted chapter 2, but hopefully I have not sacrificed too much intrigue in the individual chapters for the sake of a longer-running story.

 

[GK_Miller]

There were a couple of things that made the reading a little jarring. The main one was that you switch between past and present tense. You went from first person present to past tense to explain what happened to Marco and then switched back and forth between past and present tense in that scene. Those switches are incorrect; since it all occurred three days ago, Marco’s sensations/experiences with the goo should still be described in past tense.

This is partially due to the limitations of the Literotica story submitter. The story is meant to switch between two points of view from the same character: what is actually happening, and what the goo is making him see. I wrote the former in plain text and the latter in italics, though recently, I've seen that too much italics can make the story difficult to read.

Additionally, as far as sticking with present tense, I wanted to make the reader feel that they were experiencing something that was happening right now. Yes, Marco's encounter happened in the past, but I wanted the way the reader and the negotiator see it to like something that was happening right before their eyes, too vivid and with too many sensual inputs to be viewed in a detached way, like someone watching a recording. The negotiator felt like he was right behind Marco, experiencing everything Marco felt, and he was able to see things that he shouldn't have been able to see, like Marco being played with inside of the goo. I was trying to follow the "show, don't tell" principle but that needs some work, I see.

You said you're not familiar with goo stories; did it seem sexy enough? As a mud/quicksand fetishist, I'm a bit biased, so it's...shall we say, interkink appeal would be helpful to know.

 

[ElectricBlue]

This is partially due to the limitations of the Literotica story submitter. The story is meant to switch between two points of view from the same character: what is actually happening, and what the goo is making him see. I wrote the former in plain text and the latter in italics, though recently, I've seen that too much italics can make the story difficult to read.

Additionally, as far as sticking with present tense, I wanted to make the reader feel that they were experiencing something that was happening right now. Yes, Marco's encounter happened in the past, but I wanted the way the reader and the negotiator see it to like something that was happening right before their eyes, too vivid and with too many sensual inputs to be viewed in a detached way, like someone watching a recording. The negotiator felt like he was right behind Marco, experiencing everything Marco felt, and he was able to see things that he shouldn't have been able to see, like Marco being played with inside of the goo. I was trying to follow the "show, don't tell" principle but that needs some work, I see.

You said you're not familiar with goo stories; did it seem sexy enough? As a mud/quicksand fetishist, I'm a bit biased, so it's...shall we say, interkink appeal would be helpful to know.

It's unwise to depend on different font styles to separate content on Lit - it can go very badly wrong if there is an html error. Also, be aware that not all devices even support html coding and will only show plain text. I only ever use plain text now, after half a dozen stories glitched because of html errors.

Re the tense thing - in my earlier pieces I would often shift tense unknowingly (when writing sex scenes, usually, getting into the moment) until i was rightfully pulled up on it. Once it was pointed out, I realised how clunky bad it was as a narrative device. It's your call, but many readers are thrown out of stories by tense shifts as being grammatically incorrect. Your narrative became disjointed because of it, I think.

The goo reminded me of Scarlett Johansson walking backwards into the black water in Under the Skin, so your scene came across as a little derivative for me, because of that.

It's a peculiar kink, but having enjoyed some nuru massage recently, I can sort of relate. Although not being totally enveloped, that sounds like drowning or suffocating.