AwkwardMD and Omenainen Review Thread

[yukonnights]

Dear AMD,

Thank you for your reply, and for the work you put into it! I appreciate it, and I think understand your point. Now I have to figure if, somehow, I can use this info.

Some background:

I like to understand my characters and their situations. I always want to know what's going on inside their heads; why they react the way they do. That's part of my joy in writing. I'm not sure if I can/want to write stories where that's not the case, and I certainly don't enjoy writing about flat characters. As a result, I think, most of my main characters are 'me' (or, how I'd like to be), put into varying bodies, placed into a varying situations, having varying backgrounds. I do emphasize different characteristics in different stories, sometimes more, sometimes less, but I really don't think there's that much variation in my characters' minds; in their way of thinking.

I have a very strong 'wait-and-see attitude', I don't like to rush into things, and rarely act recklessly. No one-night-stands for me; way too scary. Edit I forgot to add, I'm extremely introvert, so most of my life happens inside my head./ Since my characters are fragments of 'me', I want them to act according to my standards and values, and perhaps because of that, I find it extremely difficult to push my characters into action. As a solution, I to put them under certain circumstances, and make them find their way out. One way I tried, to create diversity and suspense, is by writing for different categories. Another way, by writing for contests.

My own standards often stand in the way when writing a story. Also in case of the 'One Night in Bilbala' story, I found it extremely hard to find an acceptable way for the characters have sex, given the short time and the circumstances. I considered it reckless; what if things would go wrong. That attitude is not very useful when writing erotic stories.

I will try to find out what makes 'One night' more attractive to you, and see if I can apply that to other stories. For now, I don't see what to do to make people "watching over their shoulder, experiencing things as they do. Do you have suggestions for improvement? Shorter story-sections; more dialogue; visiting the 'Story Ideas' thread; reading up on other people (understanding characters and situations feels like a prerequisite to me, and I often do quite a bit of research while writing) and finding ways to circumvent my own norms; word limit (as an extreme measure, I did put a story for this year's 750 word story contest, but I found that very unsatisfying); time constrains; offering to do more beta-reading to gain different points of view; ...?

Once more, thank you for your time and effort.

I think one thing AMD didn't mention is; Your stories are often crafted in a way that does not telegraph the end. Nor do you cater to an "expected ending" (predictable ending). You're good a pulling off the unexpected, IMO. It definitely takes more than a sampling of a story to see this aspect since it often happens deeper into them or toward the end.

I think I see what AMD is getting at in regard to the lack of "immediacy" that sometimes occurs in the "in-between" scenes that often involve a tour to a historic site or other culturally unique place.

I also think this may be what's implied by; watching over their shoulder, experiencing things as they do.

In my world — my style of writing — these would likely be places where my character's thoughts come into play. How seeing such things affect them, make them remember something intimate, or long for something more, or just wish that something in their life could be different. Basically non-essential information in the big picture, but a small peek into their minds, thus adding more understanding of them, etc. The more I, as a reader, can get into the mind of the character, the deeper I can go into their world, etc. That said, I'm not convinced it's necessary...my opinion also reflects my more flowery prose.

It goes without saying, but I'll say it for those who don't know; You're clearly doing something right. You're an accomplished author with a number of highly scored works. I found my exercise of laying on the Doc's surgery table to be helpful and interesting. Hopefully more skilled writers will pile on and help parse AMD's thoughts.

 

[AwkwardMD]

I have a very strong 'wait-and-see attitude', I don't like to rush into things, and rarely act recklessly. No one-night-stands for me; way too scary. Edit I forgot to add, I'm extremely introvert, so most of my life happens inside my head./ Since my characters are fragments of 'me', I want them to act according to my standards and values, and perhaps because of that, I find it extremely difficult to push my characters into action. As a solution, I to put them under certain circumstances, and make them find their way out. One way I tried, to create diversity and suspense, is by writing for different categories. Another way, by writing for contests.

My own standards often stand in the way when writing a story. Also in case of the 'One Night in Bilbala' story, I found it extremely hard to find an acceptable way for the characters have sex, given the short time and the circumstances. I considered it reckless; what if things would go wrong. That attitude is not very useful when writing erotic stories.

I will try to find out what makes 'One night' more attractive to you, and see if I can apply that to other stories. For now, I don't see what to do to make people "watching over their shoulder, experiencing things as they do. Do you have suggestions for improvement? Shorter story-sections; more dialogue; visiting the 'Story Ideas' thread; reading up on other people (understanding characters and situations feels like a prerequisite to me, and I often do quite a bit of research while writing) and finding ways to circumvent my own norms; word limit (as an extreme measure, I did put a story for this year's 750 word story contest, but I found that very unsatisfying); time constrains; offering to do more beta-reading to gain different points of view; ...?

Once more, thank you for your time and effort.

First of all (and I can't stress this enough), don't aim for 'attractive to me'. I'm nobody worth impressing. The most I can do is vote on a story one time. I'll be happy if anything I've given you helps you reach a wider audience, because I think you're very talented.

Second, I didn't expect to have people following this thread that weren't the person getting feedback right that moment. Ordinarily when people ask me for followup stuff I respond in a PM, but since other's are following along it might be beneficial to just add what I was going to say here.

I'm going to recommend one of my stories because A) one of them features a POV protagonist who seems like your kind of character but is then drawn into something bigger and, B) I think that critical reading comprehension skills are super important. You said that my feedback has you doing some thinking, and that's great and I want to keep that going. You asked me for what I think you could do differently, and this story is a good example of what I would do differently. As you go through this, try to compare it One Night in Bilbala and see where we diverged.

To be clear, I am not holding up my own work as being a great example, but this piece shares a lot in common with your voice. I was experimenting with style and narrative, and I think there's some overlap. What you will find is that there are some things you might want appropriate for your own future works, and some things you would absolutely do differently. Whatever you take away from this, and whatever you learn, is going to help you grow.

https://www.literotica.com/beta/s/a-midautumn-nights-dream

Note the first: This chapter is part of a larger story. Only Orchid Chapter 0 is necessarily applicable. Later chapters feature different POV characters. If you want to continue reading, great! I'm very proud of it and godspeed to you, but chapter 0 is the one that I think can help.

Note the second: This is one of my older stories. I think I originally wrote this in 2014. My style hasn't evolved significantly since then, but it definitely has a lot less polish. Please forgive the mistakes.

 

[AwkwardMD]

But we mustn't hijack MD's thread - which I find fascinating and insightful, always interesting. MD is very much a "constructivist" in her approach to writing, which is the complete opposite of my own approach, so these critiques are illuminating. Cudos, MD .

I'm actually very flattered by the conversations that are striking up. I would never expect everyone (or even most people) to agree with me, and I'd be some kind of hypocrite if I didn't acknowledge that other people had valid ideas. I may not engage with those conversations, because I'm trying to be better about not getting into arguments, but I read them and appreciate them as I'm sure the requesting authors do.

Everyone learns. Everyone wins.

 

[AwkwardMD]

I think one thing AMD didn't mention is; Your stories are often crafted in a way that does not telegraph the end. Nor do you cater to an "expected ending" (predictable ending). You're good a pulling off the unexpected, IMO. It definitely takes more than a sampling of a story to see this aspect since it often happens deeper into them or toward the end.

I actually wouldn't have seen this. The only story I finished was the 4th chapter of a story with more chapters coming (so there wasn't a real ending, per se), and then I only finished a few pages each of the other self-contained works. I did see that Yukon had commented on a number of your stories, and I thought that was really awesome.

 

[BelleCanzuto]

I'm actually very flattered by the conversations that are striking up. I would never expect everyone (or even most people) to agree with me, and I'd be some kind of hypocrite if I didn't acknowledge that other people had valid ideas. I may not engage with those conversations, because I'm trying to be better about not getting into arguments, but I read them and appreciate them as I'm sure the requesting authors do.

Everyone learns. Everyone wins.

Personally, I'm enjoying the "side" conversations as much as the critiques that are spawning them. It's been interesting to see the back and forth and get the different perspectives. It's a lot more of a real discussion than most of the other threads I've seen.

 

[yukonnights]

Personally, I'm enjoying the "side" conversations as much as the critiques that are spawning them. It's been interesting to see the back and forth and get the different perspectives. It's a lot more of a real discussion than most of the other threads I've seen.

I concur 100%. The discussion by many experienced authors is really interesting. Both we who are being reviewed/critiqued and AMD are opening ourselves up for comment. My ask is; Let's not ruin it with any silly arguments — please

 

[ElectricBlue]

My ask is; Let's not ruin it with any silly arguments — please

Yukon, you know we've got the moose's back .

Speaking of porches, yours must be under several feet of snow by now? I honestly cannot recall the last time I saw snow - probably in England twenty-five years ago.

 

[yukonnights]

Yukon, you know we've got the moose's back .

Speaking of porches, yours must be under several feet of snow by now? I honestly cannot recall the last time I saw snow - probably in England twenty-five years ago.

Well son, yous just got to risk it. Just go north lad, thar's gold for the tak'in an advintchores too. Just don't freeze yor butt when you go out to the loo.

Just brave up an go. Tha ladies is waiting, just so ya know, and thar's whores in the alley a raring to go.

Taint yor fault you was plopped were you was. Tha North's a lover of all, if ever thar was. She'll take you right in and hold ya fer life, just one taste an yew'll give up tha fight.

What could be better'n just sitting tite, watching the fire and smok'in our pipe. A wait'in for Spring nite after nite, no sun to disturb us or blind us with lite.

It's the land of the freeze, the home of the lame. But by god it's difrint, taint no where the same. So get off yor arse, and saddle yor horse — north lad, go north!

 

[8letters]

I think, most of my main characters are 'me' (or, how I'd like to be), put into varying bodies, placed into varying situations, having varying backgrounds. I do emphasize different characteristics in different stories, sometimes more, sometimes less, but I really don't think there's that much variation in my characters' minds; in their way of thinking.

I'm very much the same way. There's some variation in how my MMC's act, but not a lot. All of my stories are fantasies for me that I share with other people. So yeah, my MMC's are going to act like I'm going to act. The FMC's are going to be women that appeal to me. The story has to be hot for me for me to write it.

 

[AwkwardMD]

hen I started reading this story, I thought, ‘We’re definitely at a different wavelength here.’ Describing a blowjob for characters that only know each other for five minutes is a no-go for me. I’m glad I didn’t stop there and then, and although my feelings are still very mixed, I do wonder how far I would/could go in making my characters play a role.

At the same time while I was thinking ‘This blowjob comes WAY too early,’ I was also smiling. I think it’s fair for me to point out now, that I never said I considered the first chapter of “Ethiopian Dreams” to be boring. I wrote, “ I'm a bit uncomfortable about chapter 1, too far away from my own knowledge, ...” The first chapter almost exclusively describes Aster masturbating. And what do I know about how women experience masturbating…? Another thing I’m not comfortable about, is Aster’s adoration for Chris, in particular in that chapter; for various reasons, I make her appear like a ‘weak’ woman, and that’s not what I normally aim to do, and, in all fairness, that’s not how I wanted to introduce myself to you. Even though Aster climaxed, it was not meant to be a satisfying masturbation-scene; my message to the readers: My story may contain sex, but it’s not a porn-story. I wonder if you picked it up, but, in Chapter 4, Aster didn’t climax, but nevertheless, the first sex since their reunion was very satisfying for her. To me, those are the details that matter.

Just to be clear, the most important thing I thought I was doing in that story that overlapped with you was the protagonist. Gill is very much a "Wait and see" character, and I had him interact with a Manic Pixie Dream Girl (except that I went the extra mile and made her a whole character, not just a trope). Gill has been waiting years for the woman he has a crush on to notice him, and under different circumstances would have waited years more. I used the love interest to strap a rocket to the plot despite the fact that the pace of it made the protagonist extremely uncomfortable.

Sometimes being shaken out of our comfort zones is an excellent opportunity for growth.

When I read chapter 4 of Ethiopian Dreams, I thought you were doing a fine job of having a strong woman put into an extremely difficult situation where she knows nothing and no one except for one person, so she leans on him to get her through a period of adjustment. I didn't think she came off as weak or cloying. You walked a fine line. When the chapter started, and I sorted out where you were going with it, I tried to pay a lot of attention to that aspect specifically, and I was really impressed with Aster's composure.

 

[AwkwardMD]

Vix Giovanni - Ten Thousand Spoons

Link

First and foremost, I am a sucker for a good title. That was worth the price of admission alone. Excellent, excellent title.

I’m not sure I have a whole lot I can say about this. As with most things in a creative endeavor, there are margins to allow for taste. It’s possible for a story to have bad pacing, like where a story that is grand in scope is told in 5,000 words. If you narrow the scope and tell a small story briskly, within 6k words, that’s right up some people’s alley. If you slow it down and tell a similar story in 20k words, you’re simply appealing to a different group of readers.

Do I think the pacing was a little off? Maybe. Was it problematic? No. Would I have done it differently? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Do I think the story spent a little too much time listening to Trina hammer home the irony? Maybe. Was it problematic? No. Would I have done it differently? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Do I think this story could have been 12,000 words without sacrificing much in terms of emotional impact? Maybe. Was it problematic? No.

I think the biggest mistake you made with this was writing a romance with diverse characters, and then submitting it to the Interracial category. This isn’t really an ‘interracial’ story, or else Nadia being Jamaican-Canadian would have been her defining trait, and all of the sex would have been focused on it. There’s definitely a racial aspect to the story, but I think that the point where the tendon meets the bone is “What was the sex about?” The point of the sex, the titilating aspect, is the affair with Rad, and the tenderness with Jared, and the story ending on a high note with Jared tips the overall tone in that direction.

Literally. That was your biggest mistake. The rest of this is just delightful. Nadia is lovely. I understood her isolation, and her willingness to grab for any kind of emotional connection. I understood her complex relationship with Trina, and that understated little thrill of “I have a secret” any time Trina’s sister came up. It’s perverse, and you should feel bad about it, but holy crap does it scratch an itch. You captured that really poignantly.

I liked the way you used a story like this to punch up. It’s a subtle thing, but it’s there and I appreciated it. The sex scenes were lovely.

Now, I saw that this story was inspired by Ogg, so I don’t know how much of this was your style and how much was his and you were doing a bit of an homage. Take the rest of this with a grain of salt.

If I was going to make a suggestion for where you could grow, I would say that learning to structure scenes in sequence, each with beginnings, middles, and endings could be really good for you. This story had a lot of floating around between her office, and her memories of meeting Rad, and her fantasies, and then back to the office, and it more ‘drifted from place to place’ than anything else. Having tightly focused scenes is a lesson in scope, in efficient plotting, and in writing tight dialog. Find your moments, get in, and get back out again.

I think that there’s definitely a place for this kind of organic storytelling, but learning to set yourself up in a different way is an opportunity to grow. Master both, and then pick and choose which one would serve the story better knowing you can execute either one.

 

[AwkwardMD]

BelleCanzuto - Symon & Michelle: Poker Night

Link

If the question is “What did I do wrong?”, then I maybe see two answers.

One
"You're not actually questioning me, are you?" His tone was serious.

He glanced at her. "I don't understand you masochists."
"Yeah, but without me, you'd probably wind up in jail."

In most* stories, there’s a certain amount of empathizing and self-inserting that happens between readers and protagonists. A story about a good fucking can leave one feeling flush, and panting, and it’s glorious. The imagination is a really powerful place.

For me, these two sections indicate abuse, and not in the fun way. Elsewhere in the story, there’s a lot of kinky roleplay, respect, and boundaries, and these two examples don’t just seem out of place, they kind of taint everything else. Now I can’t just self-insert, because I’m worrying. Now I almost don’t want to empathize, because that kind of powerless is a very different kind, and not necessarily the one I thought I was signing up for.

Two
There is a video game series out there called Left 4 Dead. It’s a first person shooter zombie survival game. When they developed the game, the programmers decided that they wanted Left 4 Dead to be able to generate an experience that was ‘like a horror movie’. They came up with a little AI system that’s built into the game that they called “The Director”.

The purpose of The Director is to read the aggregate stress level of the players. If the players are exhibiting bold, cavalier behavior, then the game assumes their stress level is low and will throw randomly-generated zombies at them from unexpected angles to stress them out. If the players are exhibiting hesitant, nervous behavior, the game assumes their stress level is high and will keep the zombie threat level very low for a while. It might even throw some special weapons at the players to help them feel confident.

What The Director is trying to do is generate unique-but-repeatable peaks and valleys of emotional involvement from the player. Ups and downs. Movies and television are paced the same way. Moments of tension are followed by some calm, however brief, before the tension ramps back up again. Having that periodic intensity allows you to appreciate the moments of calm, and it’s only in the quiet moments that you can laugh and admit how hard your heart was pounding a moment ago.

Put differently this is another example of contrast, and there isn’t much to be found in Poker Night. Once it got going, it was pedal-to-the-metal for 13k words (took me a little under an hour (I think I read pretty slow)). That’s a long time to keep up that kind of intensity. It asks a lot of the reader. Somewhere in page 3, I had to skim a little bit. I think that at least some of those readers are wandering away from the story partway through, and they probably aren’t really aware of why they’re doing so. They wanted/needed a break, and they may or may not have returned.

In A Kind of Communion, you nailed this contrast. You interspersed the sex with flashbacks that gave everyone a chance to breathe and compose themselves, and in that quiet you packed a lot of lovely storytelling. The reader is primed to absorb during those lulls. Hit ‘em with the feels! I know Poker Night ofisn’t supposed to be much of a feels story, but I think there could have been room for something else.

We should all be aiming to control the emotions of the reader, for however long we have their attention. We're narrating their experience, and the better we are at it, the more comfortable the reader will be in surrendering themselves to your whims. In the literary medium, the authors are the directors.

***

If you move past the possibility of abuse and the open-throttle pacing, everything else here really worked for me. The dialog was really hot. The dirty talk was pretty cutting. The variations in attitudes and body types among the men were awesome. You rarely see that kind of attention being paid to the men. In fact, I felt like the story gave me a much clearer description of the men than it did of Michelle (which was fine because I could just imagine it), and that is super rare.

You gave just enough about Symon and Michelle that I didn’t feel like I’d missed anything by only reading this one. You filled in the necessary backstory without any lengthy exposition. It felt very organic, and that’s to be commended.

 

[BelleCanzuto]

If the question is “What did I do wrong?”, then I maybe see two answers.

One
"You're not actually questioning me, are you?" His tone was serious.

He glanced at her. "I don't understand you masochists."
"Yeah, but without me, you'd probably wind up in jail."

In most* stories, there’s a certain amount of empathizing and self-inserting that happens between readers and protagonists. A story about a good fucking can leave one feeling flush, and panting, and it’s glorious. The imagination is a really powerful place.

For me, these two sections indicate abuse, and not in the fun way. Elsewhere in the story, there’s a lot of kinky roleplay, respect, and boundaries, and these two examples don’t just seem out of place, they kind of taint everything else. Now I can’t just self-insert, because I’m worrying. Now I almost don’t want to empathize, because that kind of powerless is a very different kind, and not necessarily the one I thought I was signing up for.

I appreciate you pointing that out. When I've reread the story (after it was published and landed with such a thud) that one line "You're not questioning me?" did stand out as out of character for the couple. In my head, she questions him all the time, because I'm trying to illustrate the difference between a person who's a masochist, and one who's a submissive.

The other line about him being in jail if not for her is an inside joke between the two of them. The fact that it sounded abusive to you reminds me that I have to keep in mind that the readers don't know these characters as well as I do.

Put differently this is another example of contrast, and there isn’t much to be found in Poker Night. Once it got going, it was pedal-to-the-metal for 13k words (took me a little under an hour (I think I read pretty slow)). That’s a long time to keep up that kind of intensity. It asks a lot of the reader. Somewhere in page 3, I had to skim a little bit. I think that at least some of those readers are wandering away from the story partway through, and they probably aren’t really aware of why they’re doing so. They wanted/needed a break, and they may or may not have returned.

So, this is the exact opposite of what I *thought* I'd done wrong. I thought maybe it wound up being to boring and repetitive. But I guess those are just two sides of the same coin. You're right, there isn't a lot of contrast. Thinking about it now, I could have gone into more detail about what Michelle was thinking and feeling during the times that she's waiting for the next man up. Explore a little more about why she wanted to do it, and that might also have alleviated some of the concerns about the whole thing being abusive or her being coerced into it. I've got a couple of other stories about them in the works, and this is good feedback to make sure I don't forget their internal lives while I'm describing their actions.

If you move past the possibility of abuse and the open-throttle pacing, everything else here really worked for me. The dialog was really hot. The dirty talk was pretty cutting. The variations in attitudes and body types among the men were awesome. You rarely see that kind of attention being paid to the men. In fact, I felt like the story gave me a much clearer description of the men than it did of Michelle (which was fine because I could just imagine it), and that is super rare.

You gave just enough about Symon and Michelle that I didn’t feel like I’d missed anything by only reading this one. You filled in the necessary backstory without any lengthy exposition. It felt very organic, and that’s to be commended.

Yeah, the dirty talk was supposed to be cutting, because that's part of what she's into. And I think I am going to have to figure a way to describe each of them a little in each story, since they're all designed to be stand-alone.

Thanks AMD. This has definitely been helpful.

 

[NotWise]

Yeah, the dirty talk was supposed to be cutting, because that's part of what she's into. And I think I am going to have to figure a way to describe each of them a little in each story, since they're all designed to be stand-alone.

I have that problem with my "Pixie" series. The six stories are intended to stand alone, although they do daisy-chain together. I have to give the readers some background on Pixie and, to a lesser extent on Tamara, in each story.

It really isn't a very easy thing to do without becoming repetitive, and I sometimes wonder if it's worth the effort. The stories could just be chapters.

 

[Vix_Giovanni]

First and foremost, I am a sucker for a good title. That was worth the price of admission alone. Excellent, excellent title.

I’m not sure I have a whole lot I can say about this. As with most things in a creative endeavor, there are margins to allow for taste. It’s possible for a story to have bad pacing, like where a story that is grand in scope is told in 5,000 words. If you narrow the scope and tell a small story briskly, within 6k words, that’s right up some people’s alley. If you slow it down and tell a similar story in 20k words, you’re simply appealing to a different group of readers.

Do I think the pacing was a little off? Maybe. Was it problematic? No. Would I have done it differently? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Do I think the story spent a little too much time listening to Trina hammer home the irony? Maybe. Was it problematic? No. Would I have done it differently? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Do I think this story could have been 12,000 words without sacrificing much in terms of emotional impact? Maybe. Was it problematic? No.

I think the biggest mistake you made with this was writing a romance with diverse characters, and then submitting it to the Interracial category. This isn’t really an ‘interracial’ story, or else Nadia being Jamaican-Canadian would have been her defining trait, and all of the sex would have been focused on it. There’s definitely a racial aspect to the story, but I think that the point where the tendon meets the bone is “What was the sex about?” The point of the sex, the titilating aspect, is the affair with Rad, and the tenderness with Jared, and the story ending on a high note with Jared tips the overall tone in that direction.

Literally. That was your biggest mistake. The rest of this is just delightful. Nadia is lovely. I understood her isolation, and her willingness to grab for any kind of emotional connection. I understood her complex relationship with Trina, and that understated little thrill of “I have a secret” any time Trina’s sister came up. It’s perverse, and you should feel bad about it, but holy crap does it scratch an itch. You captured that really poignantly.

I liked the way you used a story like this to punch up. It’s a subtle thing, but it’s there and I appreciated it. The sex scenes were lovely.

Now, I saw that this story was inspired by Ogg, so I don’t know how much of this was your style and how much was his and you were doing a bit of an homage. Take the rest of this with a grain of salt.

If I was going to make a suggestion for where you could grow, I would say that learning to structure scenes in sequence, each with beginnings, middles, and endings could be really good for you. This story had a lot of floating around between her office, and her memories of meeting Rad, and her fantasies, and then back to the office, and it more ‘drifted from place to place’ than anything else. Having tightly focused scenes is a lesson in scope, in efficient plotting, and in writing tight dialog. Find your moments, get in, and get back out again.

I think that there’s definitely a place for this kind of organic storytelling, but learning to set yourself up in a different way is an opportunity to grow. Master both, and then pick and choose which one would serve the story better knowing you can execute either one.

Hey, AMD! Thank you so much for your feedback!

I didn’t want to give any additional information before submitting so that it wouldn’t color your reading. My hope was to get feedback from someone who doesn’t know my writing to see if the structure and tone of this story was coming across as intended. The things you pointed out are some of the exact creative goals with this story, and so this is very exciting.

I appreciate the “floating” description. In small part, it’s related to the stories I picked from Ogg’s ouerve as inspiration. Mantrap Dress is structured around describing first the dress and then the relationships, and The Long Holiday is, in part, about finding love again after a major late-life loss.

But largely, the “floating” and “drifting” stream-of-consciousness-like influence was a very deliberate literary choice. This story is about loneliness: a woman who at fifteen lost her parents in a horrific accident (if you ever want a good scare, read the transcripts of that Continental flight 3407 and it’s crash) and at twenty-five her grandparents, and then, came all alone to one of the world’s most isolating, urban cities. The meandering style of writing was purposefully chosen to reflect that isolation, and Nadia’s aimless inability to connect to the people around her. I completely agree with your initial points; there’s more than one way to skin a cat. I’m glad to know this way worked: to bring the lonely isolation across demonstratively, rather than just telling the reader, “Hey, Nadia is super lonely, lost her family and is just wandering around life in a glazed fog.”

And I loved that you bring up that the conversations with Trina are a bit hammering. Trina is insulting, priggish, overbearing and talks to much... but who else does Nadia have to talk to during the day? I used those “conversations” (well... one character talking at another character) as tools for giving context to the loneliness, so again, I’m glad to know, to a degree, that this translated to the reader!

The one thing that I would strongly disagree with however, is your assessment that posting this story to Interacial was a mistake. I agree 10000% that this is just a romance story. But, the reality of publishing on Lit is that there’s pushback to stories with realistic, non-raceplay of black characters outside of Interracial, and thus, there’s a sizable genre of black-heroine romances that have found their home there. The most familiar of these are stories like Stardust (though sadly, MsLala31 removed it recently), Damn Dress, Seven Days, Dindi, Trust, The Goddess, Fundamentals of Friendship etc etc.... This story was written for that audience, with the open invitation to others to join in reading. And it seems it’s been well-received by them, since it’s holding its place in the Hall of Fame. By and large, the readers of that audience (at least those I’ve discussed this with) and my beta-readers for this story impressed on me that black women don’t need to be told they’re black; they feel already fetishized and stigmatized enough IRL, and they enjoy stories where they’re people and the nuances of their social-cultural experiences are the forefront, rather than race/colorism objectification. The race spin here was that, whereas a lot of black heroine romances on the site usually feature a white male, here, the hero that heals her heart is a young black guy.

Again, many thanks!

 

[AwkwardMD]

I appreciate you pointing that out. When I've reread the story (after it was published and landed with such a thud) that one line "You're not questioning me?" did stand out as out of character for the couple. In my head, she questions him all the time, because I'm trying to illustrate the difference between a person who's a masochist, and one who's a submissive.

The other line about him being in jail if not for her is an inside joke between the two of them. The fact that it sounded abusive to you reminds me that I have to keep in mind that the readers don't know these characters as well as I do.

Honestly, I had let the first line about jail go as a joke. It wasn't until the second line that I started thinking about it, and then I had them in the back of my mind.

I wouldn't worry too much about this. You've got, I don't know, 200-300 lines of dialog for these two, and out of all of that there's one line that's slightly out of character. Really, I think the line works, but the narration around it makes it sound more serious than I think you meant it, and that's just shades of gray.

Sometimes, you work on something so much, and you run it through in your mind so many times, and eventually you lose track of what's on the page and read straight from memory. This is one of the reasons to have a beta reader or two look through your work. A second pair of eyes is an amazing resource.

So, this is the exact opposite of what I *thought* I'd done wrong. I thought maybe it wound up being to boring and repetitive. But I guess those are just two sides of the same coin. You're right, there isn't a lot of contrast. Thinking about it now, I could have gone into more detail about what Michelle was thinking and feeling during the times that she's waiting for the next man up. Explore a little more about why she wanted to do it, and that might also have alleviated some of the concerns about the whole thing being abusive or her being coerced into it. I've got a couple of other stories about them in the works, and this is good feedback to make sure I don't forget their internal lives while I'm describing their actions.

I think that staying with Michelle in the intervening time would have been really good. Clearly she had some downtime to recover herself, and using that head space and internal narrative to flesh out some other things could have been really powerful. You might have needed to restructure the larger story, because staying with the characters through five rounds of poker and five rounds of downtime might have made the story a bit long, but that might just have meant that Symon only invited over three people.

I'm glad you found this helpful. Good luck with your next piece!

 

[AwkwardMD]

Hey, AMD! Thank you so much for your feedback!

I didn’t want to give any additional information before submitting so that it wouldn’t color your reading. My hope was to get feedback from someone who doesn’t know my writing to see if the structure and tone of this story was coming across as intended. The things you pointed out are some of the exact creative goals with this story, and so this is very exciting.

I appreciate the “floating” description. In small part, it’s related to the stories I picked from Ogg’s ouerve as inspiration. Mantrap Dress is structured around describing first the dress and then the relationships, and The Long Holiday is, in part, about finding love again after a major late-life loss.

But largely, the “floating” and “drifting” stream-of-consciousness-like influence was a very deliberate literary choice. This story is about loneliness: a woman who at fifteen lost her parents in a horrific accident (if you ever want a good scare, read the transcripts of that Continental flight 3407 and it’s crash) and at twenty-five her grandparents, and then, came all alone to one of the world’s most isolating, urban cities. The meandering style of writing was purposefully chosen to reflect that isolation, and Nadia’s aimless inability to connect to the people around her. I completely agree with your initial points; there’s more than one way to skin a cat. I’m glad to know this way worked: to bring the lonely isolation across demonstratively, rather than just telling the reader, “Hey, Nadia is super lonely, lost her family and is just wandering around life in a glazed fog.”

And I loved that you bring up that the conversations with Trina are a bit hammering. Trina is insulting, priggish, overbearing and talks to much... but who else does Nadia have to talk to during the day? I used those “conversations” (well... one character talking at another character) as tools for giving context to the loneliness, so again, I’m glad to know, to a degree, that this translated to the reader!

The one thing that I would strongly disagree with however, is your assessment that posting this story to Interacial was a mistake. I agree 10000% that this is just a romance story. But, the reality of publishing on Lit is that there’s pushback to stories with realistic, non-raceplay of black characters outside of Interracial, and thus, there’s a sizable genre of black-heroine romances that have found their home there. The most familiar of these are stories like Stardust (though sadly, MsLala31 removed it recently), Damn Dress, Seven Days, Dindi, Trust, The Goddess, Fundamentals of Friendship etc etc.... This story was written for that audience, with the open invitation to others to join in reading. And it seems it’s been well-received by them, since it’s holding its place in the Hall of Fame. By and large, the readers of that audience (at least those I’ve discussed this with) and my beta-readers for this story impressed on me that black women don’t need to be told they’re black; they feel already fetishized and stigmatized enough IRL, and they enjoy stories where they’re people and the nuances of their social-cultural experiences are the forefront, rather than race/colorism objectification. The race spin here was that, whereas a lot of black heroine romances on the site usually feature a white male, here, the hero that heals her heart is a young black guy.

Again, many thanks!

Mission accomplished on all counts. Congratulations on a lovely piece!

 

[AwkwardMD]

Metabob - Packback

Link

This is the Bechdel test. It is a terrible test, extremely limited in scope, and yet a disturbing percentage of media (in forms long enough to warrant this metric) fail it. Obviously, a short wank story just can’t be measured, but Packback is a novella.

Given the PM conversation we had, I think that finding out that Packback failed this test will be a surprise for you. I read through maybe 25k words of this before tapping out, and at no point did I find female characters engaging each other out of the context of Scott, their relationships with Scott, or sex with Scott. This was made all the more apparent because of the sheer number of women. In the first 5000 words, Scott sleeps with 10-15 women a total of about 20 times, and for a total of about 50 orgasms, before finally circling back around to the one that got away.

These aren’t women, they’re pokemon. Different names and different colors maybe, but the differences are skin deep. Greta is… tall? Brit is… thick? Glyn is… shallow? The pacing of the story works against you. There’s no time for there to be depth to any of them, because we’re already done with that scene and moving on to something else. Megan sleeps with Scott for the first time, and the very next day she’s as happy as she could possibly be, and nearly using the L word. One day after that, Greta is in tears because she wants what Megan and Scott have. Later, Flake meets Greta and his first words to her are, essentially, “Hello Girlfriend”. It’s meant to be a joke, but it’s only funny because it’s true.

Yes, some relationships move quickly. Yes, some people have a lot of sex. That’s not the case here. This is a race to catch ‘em all, and check off as many threesome/moresome pairings as possible. There’s so little setup that I’m getting whiplash trying to follow the emotions that pop up out of nowhere and then disappear completely by the end of the paragraph (if not the end of the same sentence).

There’s also some disturbing themes of women as property. It’s not as overt but the way many of the men treat Megan, including Mike and Master Kim, are as property that belongs to either Mike or Scott. This is a function of depth. There’s nothing to these women except their various sordid relationships, and so those relationships define them. In some cases, that definition (who belongs to whom) is violently reinforced, and in others it’s more subtle.

All of these things are interrelated, and the solution for them all is the same; slow down. Each of these things I’m laying out sound scary, but they’re really just a product of the pacing. By slowing down, you’ll be forced to show things in more detail. I’m sure that, in your head, each of these characters has many layers, but I didn’t find it on the page. The execution wasn’t there. By spending more time with them, that depth will be revealed. Give these characters some mundane tasks, like riding around in a car and covering an entire ten minute conversation, and I think you’ll be shocked by what comes out of their mouths.

 

[MetaBob]

AMD,

First, I want to thank you for making a sincere effort to look at one of my pieces. I wrote it as if it were in the style of a private-eye novel, like Robert B. Parker might have written, a different style than any of my others. I remain pleased with how it turned out despite its very real omissions, and also that many people seem to like it anyway. I imagine you decided to give it a try rather than one of my others because it's my shortest finished piece (which, at 32K words, isn't actually very short), but it doesn't actually matter to me which one you chose because I wanted to get a good, honest read from a different perspective, for any one of my pieces, and you've given me that, for which I'm very grateful.

I might quibble with some details of your review, especially about Flake and Greta (and Glyn, who is revealed in chapter 6 as the opposite of "shallow", though this doesn't stop her from exploiting a good fuck when opportunity arises), mostly because Greta rather than Flake was definitely driving their first encounter and Flake refers to Greta as "girlfriend" in the sixth paragraph he addresses to her because she's ... Megan's girlfriend, but there's no real point -- you've given me exactly what I hoped you would: a good, informed, honest perspective from a good, honest, informed writer.

I will digest ... as I also mentioned, each of my four finished pieces was written as an exercise of one form or another, and the experience and feedback from each will inform my next works.

Thank you again, sincerely.
-MɛtaBob

 

[AwkwardMD]

I should point out that no one should ever aim to pass the Bechdel test. It's not worth focusing on as a goal. Simply treat all of your characters as important people in their own right, on their own journies through their own lives. They are their own main characters in a different story.

 

[NotWise]

I should point out that no one should ever aim to pass the Bechdel test. It's not worth focusing on as a goal. Simply treat all of your characters as important people in their own right, on their own journies through their own lives. They are their own main characters in a different story.

I've never made a goal of passing the Bechdel test, but I've faced it before and given it some thought.

A lot of erotica is bound to fail the test because the story is about sex and (not surprisingly) most of the dialogue is about sex. The story needs some plot element other than sex in order to pass the test.

Another problem is that in a heterosexual story you can have two well-developed female characters who relate to the male character, but have little or no direct contact with each other.

There's some variation in how strict you want to be with the terms, but maybe only half of my stories would pass the test.

 

[Vix_Giovanni]

All of these things are interrelated, and the solution for them all is the same; slow down. Each of these things I’m laying out sound scary, but they’re really just a product of the pacing. By slowing down, you’ll be forced to show things in more detail. I’m sure that, in your head, each of these characters has many layers, but I didn’t find it on the page. The execution wasn’t there. By spending more time with them, that depth will be revealed. Give these characters some mundane tasks, like riding around in a car and covering an entire ten minute conversation, and I think you’ll be shocked by what comes out of their mouths.

Simply treat all of your characters as important people in their own right, on their own journies through their own lives. They are their own main characters in a different story.

I think that this is a profound insight that could help so many writers. I think that a lot of writers--and, based solely on my own observation, particularly male writers--fall prey to an assumption that if they've given the reader one "fact" about the MMC's sexual partner (e.g. that she's a computer programmer, or a gamer, or she likes a certain movie or she doesn't mind going dutch on a first date) is sufficient for sketching out a dimensional character as well as all the underlying reasons for mutual attraction have been explained. To the writer who, presumably, does know this character, those one or two facts become "shorthand" from which we should extrapolate an entire, developed person.

But there simply is no shortcut to understanding; people are complex, and contradictions and one fact at the end of the day is just that-- one fact about that person. I like anime, trap music, travel, designer fashion and structuring derivatives: any of these one things on their own would not likely lead to an assumption of any of the others. While the writer might understand/know the nuances that would flesh out the female character and relationship, when those details aren't included in the story, it tends to flatten instead of rounding out, resulting in a female character that is little more than a sexual vehicle of the MMC. I've read so many stories labeled "Romances" where this summarizes the entire story; the female character never even speaks a line of dialogue except to compliment the MMC's prowess.

And I think you nailed it: the end result is that those female characters are essentially Pokemon! That one "fact" about them is synonymous with a Pokemon technique and name, and when the MMC "chooses that Pokemon", the character "evolves" i.e., her sexual attraction to and/or love for the MMC deepens, whereas the primary source of attraction for the MMC is limited to 1) her appearance and 2) her enthusiasm for his more-dimensional character. I think that type of story is repeatable and consistently has high appeal on Literotica, given the user base: most readers are probably just coming here for a stroke story, and this kind of construction lends itself to that. But I think it's a literary shortcoming that there's no acknowledgement of the breadcrumbing, zombieing, ghosting and other abusive/offputting ways the MMC has put the female sexual partner on the shelf until he feels like using her.

 

[ChadAlpha]

I've never made a goal of passing the Bechdel test, but I've faced it before and given it some thought.

A lot of erotica is bound to fail the test because the story is about sex and (not surprisingly) most of the dialogue is about sex. The story needs some plot element other than sex in order to pass the test.

Another problem is that in a heterosexual story you can have two well-developed female characters who relate to the male character, but have little or no direct contact with each other.

There's some variation in how strict you want to be with the terms, but maybe only half of my stories would pass the test.

https://img.ifunny.co/images/da67e48663a7e0b42d35e3e81c9d96dbff2e8a99418d421fddb8dced2f081560_1.jpg

I think there’s some room for non-sex dialogue and plot elements built around a female supporting character; it is after all LITerotica. Some readers are (or at least, I am) looking for a bit more than the equivalent of a PornHub teaser video.

 

[SeabornFare]

I should point out that no one should ever aim to pass the Bechdel test. It's not worth focusing on as a goal. Simply treat all of your characters as important people in their own right, on their own journies through their own lives. They are their own main characters in a different story.

Unless that's not the point of the story.

 

[AwkwardMD]

[

This is the Bechdel test. It is a terrible test, extremely limited in scope, and yet a disturbing percentage of media (in forms long enough to warrant this metric) fail it. Obviously, a short wank story just can’t be measured, but Packback is a novella.

TLDR, for those of you playing along at home.