AwkwardMD and Omenainen Review Thread

[AwkwardMD]

A Nice Mug Of Tea by Ginlover

Link

I’m going to do something I don’t normally do, which is pick on grammar for a moment. It’s going to take me a minute to get to my point, though, so bear with me.

Cthulu knows I’m not perfect, but I have worked hard in my life to find my way to a level of competence that allows my first drafts to come out pretty solid. If you look at my oldest posted stories, starting about six years ago, you’ll see there’s a massive difference between what I was doing and what I do now. In my opinion, there are three major contributors to my growth: listening to and learning from my editors/beta readers, reading other people’s work critically (ie, this thread), and self-analyzation.

Self-analyzation is just a function of who I am. I’m brutal on myself, and I obsess about my work. It helps that I do that, but I don’t think “look over your work” is something you can just recommend to others. Or, at least, it’s not helpful.

Reading critically for the purpose of giving feedback has been very useful for me. Every story gives me examples of things that work and examples of things that don’t, and I absorb them all. I’m always looking at a variety of aspects in stories, and each time I find something new I turn around and work on that in my own stories.

Last but not least, I cannot stress how important a second pair of eyes is. When we work in a vacuum, it becomes very easy to start seeing your own work in a very warped way. You see the thing you had in mind when you started writing and maybe not necessarily the actual work on the page. I think that happened here.

You have a habit of starting sentences with participle phrases. These are dependent clauses that do not stand on their own as full sentences. These are some examples:

Washing my hands thoroughly, I turned the machine to sixty degrees and set it going.
Dumping them in the washing basket, I shoved the towels and sheet in the machine.
Clasping my arms across my chest, I put the front door on the catch and scampered down the stairs to collect our mail.

In your relatively short story, there were dozens of sentences that start like this, and it stood out to me. A beta reader/editor can help you spot these. All of us have blind spots, things we do without realizing, and getting help can be enormously useful in rooting out this specific kind of thing.

It is generally agreed upon that having a varied sentence structure is desirable, but it would be a stretch to call repetitive sentence structure a ‘problem’. There’s nothing wrong with a participle phrase. You aren’t using them incorrectly, just frequently. Since using a participle phrase tends to add an extra action above and beyond what a normal compound sentence would contain, this gives the feel of a runon sentence. Then, since you use them often, it feels like there’s almost too many things happening given the number of sentences we’re reading. It feels busy, and the biggest grouping of these clauses were in the beginning of the story.

I think there was room to slow down a little, and spend more time with your MCs. The whole opening moved quickly, covered ground fast, and then transitioned instantly to the sex scene. Make tea, sit down, grab cock. It happened that fast. It felt like you were in a rush to get to the sex scene, and that you were much more comfortable with the pacing and content once the clothes came off.

The sex scene works well, but I felt like the point of this story was to write something COVID-related. The COVID-related section was rushed, and once that cock was out the setting and setup didn’t matter. In most cases, an erotica author is really only going to care if the sex scene works, but your goal was elsewhere here.

A second pair of eyes, in whatever form that takes, would probably be a big help for you.

***

I’ve talked elsewhere in this thread about characters using each other’s first names in private. Here is the link to that advice (the first section of the feedback). A Nice Mug Of Tea is not so egregious as YukonNight’s Our Femdom Valentine was, but the advice is applicable here. Take a look through that, and compare it to how your MC’s refer to each other in during their sex scene.

***

All in all, I liked this story. It was cute, and the characters were fun. I love the spirit of it, and what you were going for, and I’m always excited to see attempts to use erotica to do more than get a few wanks out. I think that adult content is capable of a lot as a medium, and in my experience readers are very open to more ambitious, progressive themes.

 

[SimonDoom]

I can see where you are coming from, totally, but I think we also need to challenge some of the sterotypes, especially in the IR world. It's fascinating going back to gay and lesbian stories from the early 2000s on Lit and seeing the change in the way sexuality is portrayed over the last 15+ years. Being mindful of how we act as authors can help with some of the casual racism that we still see everyday. Just my 2¢!

I hear you. I'm thinking about this. I want to be a better writer and I can't help but think that better mindfulness is one of many paths to get where I want to go.

 

[GroverLang]

Apology

That is very far outside the scope of this thread. Please don't.

I apologise and, because I can’t delete my post, I’ve edited it and hope that’s acceptable.

 

[Lazaran]

Oh look, another one for my ignore list.

Yeah, ignore the trolls and focus on helping BrokenSpokes get the next installment of "Wheels In Motion" out.

Priorities first.

 

[AwkwardMD]

Yeah, ignore the trolls and focus on helping BrokenSpokes get the next installment of "Wheels In Motion" out.

Priorities first.

It's been pending for days. It should literally be up any minute now.

 

[Lazaran]

It's been pending for days. It should literally be up any minute now.

Thanks for the heads up, and thanks for helping promising young writers perfect their craft.

 

[SisterJezabel]

It's been pending for days. It should literally be up any minute now.

I've had a pending story since Monday! I think with the Covid competition ending in the next week or so the focus is on that as it should be in some ways!

 

[Ginlover]

I’m going to do something I don’t normally do, which is pick on grammar for a moment. It’s going to take me a minute to get to my point, though, so bear with me.

Cthulu knows I’m not perfect, but I have worked hard in my life to find my way to a level of competence that allows my first drafts to come out pretty solid. If you look at my oldest posted stories, starting about six years ago, you’ll see there’s a massive difference between what I was doing and what I do now. In my opinion, there are three major contributors to my growth: listening to and learning from my editors/beta readers, reading other people’s work critically (ie, this thread), and self-analyzation.

Self-analyzation is just a function of who I am. I’m brutal on myself, and I obsess about my work. It helps that I do that, but I don’t think “look over your work” is something you can just recommend to others. Or, at least, it’s not helpful.

Reading critically for the purpose of giving feedback has been very useful for me. Every story gives me examples of things that work and examples of things that don’t, and I absorb them all. I’m always looking at a variety of aspects in stories, and each time I find something new I turn around and work on that in my own stories.

Last but not least, I cannot stress how important a second pair of eyes is. When we work in a vacuum, it becomes very easy to start seeing your own work in a very warped way. You see the thing you had in mind when you started writing and maybe not necessarily the actual work on the page. I think that happened here.

You have a habit of starting sentences with participle phrases. These are dependent clauses that do not stand on their own as full sentences. These are some examples:



In your relatively short story, there were dozens of sentences that start like this, and it stood out to me. A beta reader/editor can help you spot these. All of us have blind spots, things we do without realizing, and getting help can be enormously useful in rooting out this specific kind of thing.

It is generally agreed upon that having a varied sentence structure is desirable, but it would be a stretch to call repetitive sentence structure a ‘problem’. There’s nothing wrong with a participle phrase. You aren’t using them incorrectly, just frequently. Since using a participle phrase tends to add an extra action above and beyond what a normal compound sentence would contain, this gives the feel of a runon sentence. Then, since you use them often, it feels like there’s almost too many things happening given the number of sentences we’re reading. It feels busy, and the biggest grouping of these clauses were in the beginning of the story.

I think there was room to slow down a little, and spend more time with your MCs. The whole opening moved quickly, covered ground fast, and then transitioned instantly to the sex scene. Make tea, sit down, grab cock. It happened that fast. It felt like you were in a rush to get to the sex scene, and that you were much more comfortable with the pacing and content once the clothes came off.

The sex scene works well, but I felt like the point of this story was to write something COVID-related. The COVID-related section was rushed, and once that cock was out the setting and setup didn’t matter. In most cases, an erotica author is really only going to care if the sex scene works, but your goal was elsewhere here.

A second pair of eyes, in whatever form that takes, would probably be a big help for you.

***

I’ve talked elsewhere in this thread about characters using each other’s first names in private. Here is the link to that advice (the first section of the feedback). A Nice Mug Of Tea is not so egregious as YukonNight’s Our Femdom Valentine was, but the advice is applicable here. Take a look through that, and compare it to how your MC’s refer to each other in during their sex scene.

***

All in all, I liked this story. It was cute, and the characters were fun. I love the spirit of it, and what you were going for, and I’m always excited to see attempts to use erotica to do more than get a few wanks out. I think that adult content is capable of a lot as a medium, and in my experience readers are very open to more ambitious, progressive themes.

I do get a bit over excited by a participle phrases, lol, it's something I'm.trying to work on. As for grammar that's pretty terrible due to dyslexia, two lovely editors did attack the story for me but I'm not surprised if they missed lots as they must lose the will to live with the amount of errors I make.

I really agree with you over use of names, it is jarring. In this case the draft was created with someone as the male character and he does actually use names, it's a kind of leaning to more middle to upper class english turn of phrase. I did edit out a lot of his use of names, but left a couple in as it was his character but I clearly missed the mark if it did not read as him being from a more privileged background.

Good perspective om the lead in, I hoped I'd got enough in, one editor thought it was to long so its good to hear you wouldve made it longer. Something to think about for my next story.

Most of all I want to tell you how happy I was you noticed my attempt to bring the stress of a pandemic impacting the couples intimacy even if you didnt feel I managed it this time, as yes I would love to make sex scenes carry more than just sex within the story.

Thank you so much for taking the time to provide some helpful detailed feedback..

 

[AwkwardMD]

Consequences by Emirus

Link

On the whole, Consequences is a largely unfocused effort. I appreciate that you were trying to do a lot with it, and cover a lot of ground, but it’s aimless and, in my opinion, misses the mark on just about every target. I think that you have consumed a lot of complex media and have high aspirations for your art. That’s good, but complexity collapses without a firm foundation.

For one thing, Consequences does not establish a likable character. It almost seemed like you were going out of your way to make Hela unlikable. Having unlikable characters is fine, even unlikable main characters, but a story that goes this route needs a ‘something else’. It needs intrigue, or action, or interpersonal drama. Consequences doesn’t have that; not at the beginning at least. I know you were heading in the direction of intrigue later on, but it needed ‘something else’ in the beginning. A hook, or a lure, or a love interest we can’t wait to see come to fruition. Something.

I think that the site average in reader engagement is somewhere are 1% on votes. An average story with 10,000 views will have 100 votes. Only a few stories eclipse this for any length of time, but a lot of stories come up short of this. I see that this story has 7.7k views, but I would guess that the vote count is somewhere around 40. I would guess that a lot of readers checked out early rather than voting at all, and that's because of the opening.

The twist at the end of your opening is a screwball, but it’s unwarranted. The point of a twist is to force the viewer to re-examine some earlier information they were given, or create alternate interpretations. They help reveal things that, hopefully, you foreshadowed elsewhere. Twists are hard to pull off properly. In Consequences, we have a twist on page 2, in the first quarter of the story, that doesn’t really serve a purpose. Yes, it maybe shows us that Hela is tough and unattached, but you had already done that elsewhere, with greater effect.

The contracted killing of her father was redundant and, ultimately, just weird. There are eight billion people in the world. Even if she goes around killing 1 person a day for the rest of her life, and she has a professional career lasting 40 years, that’s 14,600 people, giving her a 0.0001825% chance of finding the one guy that she has a super grudge against. Now, lots of stories are about unlikely circumstances, some even less likely than this, but it is then incumbent on the author to make that rarity worthwhile in some way. What was the point of bending fate so stupendously? Hela kills this guy and never looks back. Never expresses regret. Never mentions it. Doesn’t seem affected by it. Suffers no consequences as a result of it (more on that later).

Following this scene, we get Backstory: The Movie, and it is a ton of exposition. We get Hela’s life story in an info dump like I haven’t read in a long time. Again, none of this serves a purpose. We didn’t need to know the details of Hela’s life, to learn how she became so cold, when the opening scenes of the story already told us she’s one cool customer. I think that in your head, you saw this as some grand montage of an origin story, but you could cut out almost an entire Lit page and jump to Hela arriving at Freya and Alexander’s house without the story losing anything. We’d still be in the same place, with the same understanding of who Hela is, which makes her backstory a waste of space and time.

At this point, we start a completely different story for another entire Lit page. Freya and Alexander and Alfred (an extremely uninspired name for the butler) and Sylvia and Catherine are… who? None of these characters matter. Why am I reading about them having sex? Why is this here? Where is Hela? Spoiler alert: these people don’t matter and Hela is in the corner watching (ie, of no consequence to the scene). I think you wanted a femdom scene, and either couldn’t figure out how to make one happen organically with Hela or had a femdom scene lying around from some other aborted writing project and just stapled it into place. It’s disjointed and unearned.

The least important scene in the whole story is the scene where we flashback to Alexander proposing to Freya. This is bafflingly inconsequential to the point that I can't figure out why it was included at all.

***

I’d like to stop here for a moment and talk about some of the targets you mentioned. Specifically, “Non-Erotic - Erotic Couplings - BDSM - Romance - Mature”

- Consequences could maybe work as a non-erotic story if you took out all the sex scenes, but that’s true of just about any piece of work on the site.
- Consequences does not work as an Erotic Couplings story, because at no point are there any characters engaging in anything approaching vanilla, consensual sex. Everything is deeply embedded in some kind of kink.
- Consequences could maybe work as BDSM, but at that point it would be Freya and Alexander’s story and you’d be better served taking out everything about Hela. What are you left with then?
- Consequences does not work as a Romance because Hela is patently unlikable and Adam is a drone. Nobody is rooting for these two to work out as a couple.
- Consequences does not work as a Mature story because even though you have it in your mind that these characters are older, that does not come across. A Mature story is a story that works because of contrasts, specifically in age, and there is none to be found here. Yes, Adam is younger, but it’s not clear how much younger and at no point is the difference in their age a matter of concern. Hela is perfectly healthy and full of stamina. There’s no taboo (think student/teacher) that would otherwise prevent them from being able to go out in public together. They just bang a couple times. Alternately, sometimes Mature stories are about characters exhibiting wisdom where they might have been impatient or exuberant in their youth. Taking the time to enjoy something you might have missed when you were younger and full of life. That super isn't the case here.


You communicated in PM that you were curious about the voting, and I think this here is why. Now, I’m no stranger to writing stories that don’t fit into Lit’s specific categories, but at the end of the day I’m at a loss to explain what your goal was at all. I don’t know what it was that you thought you were making. Bear in mind, I’m nobody. I’m just one rando on the internet, so whether or not I get it is a drop in the bucket, but I think that the mark of good art is that it leaves you with something. All I felt was disinterested confusion, and I think the Mature crowd looking for a May/December relationship or characters with some perspective on their lives felt equally unfulfilled.

***

Following the second sex scene, with Hela and Adam, there is an extended flashback scene. It’s not a continuation of the montage from earlier as it’s really more focused on a single event from the past. I have ranted before, in another thread, about how authors misuse flashbacks, and this is a textbook example of doing it wrong. The only reason this scene exists is because, afterwards, there is an attempt on Hela’s life and you felt like we needed to know why.

We didn’t need to know. Hela leads the kind of life where attempts to kill her probably happen about as often as thunderstorms. Readers can and will accept something like that with a character like her without knowing why. Let there be some mystery.

It’s strangely coincidental for her to think/dream about her first solo job right at that moment, right before it matters. Impossibly coincidental, even, and it’s a perfect example of an inorganic flashback. It only exists to serve the plot, and not the character. In other words, after a long fuck with that guy, what would Hela be thinking about? To my mind, there are about a billion things that would occur to her first, starting with “Is my gun within reach”, a thought I think most assassins have several times a day.

The “oh yeah, my first kill” scene is what bad use of flashbacks looks like. There is information that you as the author didn’t know how to put into the story, so instead of working it into the flow, hereisalloftheinformationinadumpwhocaresifitmakessenseinthegrandschemeallthatmattersisthatIputitheretoenablethenextscene. It’s exhausting. Flashbacks are a tricky tool to use properly. There should be a reason why you tell a story out of chronological order, since that’s how we mere mortals experience time.

Be purposeful. Do things for a reason more important than that you saw a story with a flashback once and wanted to do one too.

Lastly, I want to point out that the title of the story is a complete misnomer. There are no consequences to anything Hela does in the course of this story, or has done in her past. Not meaningful consequences anyway. She had sex with a stranger, but it all worked out fine so the consequence is that she doesn't get pregnant, or get an STI? She killed a guy who was also her dad, but the police don’t catch her so the consequence is that she doesn't go to jail? Other people want revenge on her, but the guy they send fails in his job so she keeps on living? Keeps on killing? I think that the goal here was to write a story where Hela’s past comes back to haunt her, but that isn’t what happens. Remotely.

None of the big threads in this story reach a satisfying conclusion. They don't interweave artfully. At best they collide randomly and the result is that, by the end, the character is basically in the same place she was at the start, having learned nothing.

 

[AwkwardMD]

I do get a bit over excited by a participle phrases, lol, it's something I'm.trying to work on. As for grammar that's pretty terrible due to dyslexia, two lovely editors did attack the story for me but I'm not surprised if they missed lots as they must lose the will to live with the amount of errors I make.

Taking up writing as a hobby, with dyslexia, is amazing. That's like an asthmatic trying to beat their best mile time. It's awesome and I love it! The best part is that you have natural storytelling talent. Everything after that is just a matter of polish.

It took me years to really absorb the advice and suggested edits of my extra eyes, and learn how to not just fix my own writing after I wrote it, but to write it better the first time and put myself in a position to succeed. Don't punish yourself by thinking you only ever get to make a mistake once and then never again. We're all works in progress, and so is our art.

I really agree with you over use of names, it is jarring. In this case the draft was created with someone as the male character and he does actually use names, it's a kind of leaning to more middle to upper class english turn of phrase. I did edit out a lot of his use of names, but left a couple in as it was his character but I clearly missed the mark if it did not read as him being from a more privileged background.

Everyone does it sometimes, and there's certainly a place for it. The difference between any theoretical 'best amount' and what you put out is a matter of degrees. Shades of gray.

Good perspective om the lead in, I hoped I'd got enough in, one editor thought it was to long so its good to hear you wouldve made it longer. Something to think about for my next story.

I can see where both pieces of advice work. One editor was trying to steer you toward more of a straight wank piece while the other was trying to steer you toward a more literary piece. Both are noble ends, but you fell in between in the execution by trying to do both. Be purposeful. Know what you're aiming at, and follow through on it.

Most of all I want to tell you how happy I was you noticed my attempt to bring the stress of a pandemic impacting the couples intimacy even if you didnt feel I managed it this time, as yes I would love to make sex scenes carry more than just sex within the story.

Thank you so much for taking the time to provide some helpful detailed feedback..

You're welcome!

 

[Emirus]

Consequences review

Thank you for taking the time to read about Hela and I will, as I do with all comments, read it again, several times because I value your opinion. I’m not going to quote it all but I would like to clarify some things.

1. You said: It almost seemed as if you were going out of your way to make Hela an unlikeable character. That’s exactly what I wanted to do. Hela is unlikeable. The only times when she’s close to likeable in the story, I hope, are with Freya and Alexander, her relationship with her mother, her relationship with her mentor, her falling in love with Lucas, and at the end with Adam. I didn’t intend her to be likeable in her using the guy in the restaurant for casual sex. She didn’t even know, or want to know, his name and as I said in the story as soon as she was satisfied “she was out of the door before he’d even got the rubber off.” I didn’t want her to be likeable in the lead up to the murder of her father. She’s a killer. An assassin without a conscience. As for the victim being her father improbable coincidences do occur and not just in fiction. I didn’t want her to be likeable when she killed him. Why would she? After he had ruined her mother’s life? The consequences of his action caught up with him. Her killing of the gangster showed she wasn’t likeable. Her disposal of Lucas was cold blooded even though it was to save her life. She didn’t have her gun handy but the fact she killed him with the knife showed she was always prepared. Even when she had lowered her defences.

2. At the moment the story is on 4.47 with 49 votes. It’s received 33 @ 5 plus 10 @ 4. Unfortunately it’s also received 4 @ 1. If those were removed (I requested a sweep but it never happened) it would be on 4.78.

3. You said: The twist at the end of you opening is a screwball, but is unwarranted. I don’t understand what you are saying. He discovers the person who’s going to kill him is his daughter and he’s about to receive not only the consequences of him stolen from the mob but also the consequences of what he did to her mother and herself. I thought the point of the ending was obvious.

4. You said: We didn’t need to know the details of Hela’s life. I would say without “Backstory : The Movie” and missing out the personal reasons why she enjoying killing him and then jumping straight into Freya and Alexander it would have been a completely different story. A story you might have wanted to read but which I didn’t want to write.

5. You said: At this point, we start another completely different story. I did say in the description and at the beginning of the story the action took place over several days. I didn’t intend it to be “5 days of a cold blooded killer running round the country murdering people” or “5 days in a dungeon with Hela.” Either of those could be done in a couple of pages but not the story I wanted to write. I wanted a story of what (in Fantasy Land) could happen to a character such as Hela over a relatively short period of time.

6. You said: Alfred (an extremely uninspired name for a butler) You don’t have the same sense of ridiculous as myself. The choice of the name was deliberate. I appreciate not everyone is familiar with Batman and only those of a certain age will remember the original television series but, for those who do, I wanted the reader to imagine an Alfred in the image of Alan Napier and, more recently Michael Gough. Not Michael Caine and certainly not Sean Pertwee. For anyone not familiar with Batman I left it to their imagination which is what a writer had to do sometimes.

7. You said: The least important scene in the whole story is where we flashback to Alexander proposing to Freya. I wanted to show how their relationship had begun and also how close her friendship was with Hela. Towards the end of the story I also gave information about their close friendship with her visiting Hela many times, their excursions together to bdsm clubs, the reason for Adam’s arrival. Earlier on it was mentioned Freya and Alexander knew what Hela did for a living.

8. Which category would you think the story should be in? As for maturity I think it’s obvious Hela is at least in her mid thirties and, with her life so far, I think she could be expected to be mature in her outlook. Adam’s age, on page 4, is specifically stated as 22.

9. As I said in (5) I did say at the beginning of the story the action does take place over several days. As for the May/December I didn’t picture Hela as a 60 year old assassin.

10. You said: Following the second sex scene, with Hela and Adam, there is an extended flashback scene. I can’t find such a scene between Hela and Adam and when she gets into bed with Lucas. So I can’t answer your comment.

11. You said: it’s strangely coincidental, for her to think/dream of her first solo job...impossibly coincidental. I don’t agree. There is the saying about things happening that are “stranger than fiction.” I see fiction as transporting the reader to another time, another place, far removed from their normal humdrum life. I’ve never met a contract killer. Not as far as I know. As for “the gun within reach” I think I’ve explained that point with knife ie: always prepared even when lulled into letting her guard down with Lucas.

12. You said: The “oh yeah, my first kill” scene is what bad use of flashback looks like. There is information that you as the author didn’t know how to put into the story. This is the comment I most object to. To say it was wrongly placed, it shouldn’t have been there, I wouldn’t object to but to insult me by saying didn’t know what to do is unacceptable.

13. You said: You saw a story with a flashback once and wanted to do one too. I’m not going to respond to that comment.

14. You said: The title of the story is a complete misnomer. You seem to think the consequences were for Hela. You haven’t got the point. The Consequrnce of her killing her father wasn’t for her it was for him. The Consequence of how he had behaved twenty years previously. The Consequence for Freya and Alexander for how their lives worked out. The Consequence for Adam of meeting Hela and how different it turned out. The Consequence for Hela if meeting Adam. The Consequence for Lucas for taking the job of killing Hela.

When I began this post I didn’t expect it to be so long. I was hoping for constructive comments on the standard of my writing not just the difference as to how you would have written, or not written, the story. However, I will look on your comments as intending to be constructive. All comments are helpful except for those which tell you that your story is the best they’ve ever read on Literotica or those which tell you the story was a load of s***e and give up. The comments I like are the ones which tell me the reader enjoyed the story and why and the the ones telling me why they didn’t enjoy the story.

In any event thank you for spending a considerable amount of time both reading the story and giving such a long comment. I do honestly appreciate it.

ps. I put my first story up in Story Feedback for exactly the same reason as I asked you. Although it was ripped apart (quite rightly) I took all the constructive comments into account in order to try and improve my writing.

 

[Bad_Egg]

My impression of Emirus

https://media.giphy.com/media/l3q2RauzE5Vzf7iYo/giphy.gif

 

[AwkwardMD]

Okay.

 

[BrokenSpokes]

This...

Okay.

Is the correct response.

 

[lovecraft68]

I'm going to cut in here for a second to make a public service announcement/ suggestion.

This is an excellent thread. Awkward has great insights into people's stories and everyone here has been engaging in some good discussion. I don't post here as I've offered nothing for feedback, but I do like reading through it, and this is what this forum is supposed to be for and desperately needs.

But one person here-and we know who it is-cannot stomach the thought of a thread not being about them and continues to swoop in and attack and then pollute the thread with his insecurity and jealousy by touting his phony resume and passive aggressive attacks.

Please stop responding. Stop quoting him, stop replying to him, and stop discussing him.

I've been here for 10 years. I have seen him ruin several threads like this and bring the forum down in general. The mod never does anything about it, but we can police ourselves and stop feeding the troll.

I say this from the experience of wasting time sparring with him for years-and therefore contributing to the problem-because I was tried of seeing him attack everyone and try and force his limited views and 'rules' on everyone else.

After extended time away I decided this time would be different and he's on ignore. The first and only person I've done that to in my time here and that includes the general board. Its much better this way.

Every reply takes away from what this thread is about, and that's feedback and discussing writing,

I'll close by saying of course I'm not telling anyone what to do, but simply suggesting a way to keep this forum for what it was meant for, and not a personal soap box for a troll.

 

[GroverLang]

This is an excellent thread. Awkward has great insights into people's stories and everyone here has been engaging in some good discussion. I don't post here as I've offered nothing for feedback, but I do like reading through it, and this is what this forum is supposed to be for and desperately needs.

But one person here-and we know who it is-cannot stomach the thought of a thread not being about them and continues to swoop in and attack and then pollute the thread with his insecurity and jealousy by touting his phony resume and passive aggressive attacks.

I agree with LC68. This is a good thread and does produce some interesting discussions but is easily spoilt by people commenting when their comment has no bearing on whatever is being mentioned. They do it to provoke an argument not to stimulate a discussion. However, I do think there is more than one person with that attitude. If they are ignored they won’t go away but it will reduce the number of comments they make.

 

[GroverLang]

Lovecraft and Keith are just playing with each other. Keith's last post in this thread has been more than a week ago, and now LC feels the need to put Keith in the spotlight again? Wonder why. I'd wish they'd leave their games and arguments in the GB.

I should have made it clear that although my comment is on this thread it applies to other threads as well on which there are people (apart from KeithD) who are a pain.

 

[KeithD]

Lovecraft and Keith are just playing with each other. Keith's last post in this thread has been more than a week ago, and now LC feels the need to put Keith in the spotlight again? Wonder why. I'd wish they'd leave their games and arguments in the GB.

This is LC's first life here all over again. He personally attacks me and I don't respond (in fact, several have personally attacked me on this thread and I didn't respond), and someone says we are playing with each other and should stop it. LC's the only one of the two of us attacking the other one here--just like the first time he was playing King of the Hill on the discussion boards. It's just going to continue as long as you all continue saying two are dancing this tango.

 

[AwkwardMD]

As of right now, I don't think I have any pending feedback. If I've missed any requests, please let me know either here or in PM. I've gone back and added links to the stories in the feedback posts.

 

[SisterJezabel]

As of right now, I don't think I have any pending feedback. If I've missed any requests, please let me know either here or in PM. I've gone back and added links to the stories in the feedback posts.

I have one in the queue that I am not sure how it's going to be received but will link it here when published. I feel I am a but of a SM attempting another LW story after my first was (rightly so upon reflection) torn down in flames!

 

[AwkwardMD]

Congratulations to Ginlover! A Nice Mug Of Tea was the best rated Erotic Couplings story in May! That's awesome!

 

[SisterJezabel]

Awesome work, Ginlover! (from another gin devotee!)

Also, AwkwardMD, my LW story is finally up. It's probably a bit tropey, but, meh! Because no woman had her tits cut off or lover's cock burnt in a sandwich press I doubt the masses there will like it. Your evaluation would be appreciated though

 

[AwkwardMD]

In that case, a belated Congratulations might also be in order for Yukonnights, for his story Our Femdom Valentine getting rated the best Fetish story in January!

Yes! Apologies and congratulations for any stories reviewed here that I missed!

 

[Vix_Giovanni]

Congrats Ginlover! And congrats BrokenSpokes—and AMD as editor—for first of all crushing everything, but also winning the May monthly contest!!

 

[Mikethe3DGuy2]

I'll submit to the Harsh Light of your review

Glad I saw your post and offer. I'd love you to review my story, or at least whatever portion you'd like to read. I have 11 chapters currently. Each chapter is 7-8 pages on average. Here are the first two.

https://www.literotica.com/s/the-alpha-gender-ch-01
https://www.literotica.com/s/the-alpha-gender-ch-02

This didn't start out to be a novel or novella, but a treatment for a visual novel, so I wasn't initially too concerned if it was clunky at all. Later I decided to novelize it and re-wrote it somewhat. Hopefully I "fixed" it, but you can be the judge of that.

Gracias!