Bravo: Director's Commentary

[TheWritingGroup]

"Bravo"

This was an easy one to write. I deliberately didn't add huge complications or even hint much at worldbuilding. It's just a simple little scenario.

I broke down and explained my overcomplicated formatting that carried over from "Harmless". I think I might stop using that in future stories and go with more conventional writing. Like Annie says, we do these stories partly just to try different techniques and learn specific skills. These two stories were all about sensory impressions, forcing myself to pack lots of them into the story. Maybe future installments will have me trying to convey all these same things – feelings, thoughts, impressions, and action – without the peculiar formatting.

Now, let me go into peculiar formatting here! Namely, the quote-and-comment format we've been using for these director's commentaries. SPOILERS below.

Fingers sliding along its length, finding the bulbous end pointing toward the head of the bed, unconsciously caressing it because she was thinking of it as a man's root. It began to warm!

This is not something the Wizard was expecting. The Bravo has a powerful imagination, which becomes important toward the end of this series. She's activated this Working in a way the Wizard could not have predicted.

[What do I want it to do?] In her mind: phallus, lying on the pillow before her eyes, bends upward, extending its head toward her mouth, becoming hard to see because it is too close. She closed her eyes, relying on only her mind's sight.

This is a callback to "Harmless", where I joked about the Bravo constantly noticing she had closed her eyes only when she needed to open them again.

Warmth and tingling stimulation, as the thing crawled and squirmed under her most sensitive skin, brushing her steel-hard [stone-hard?] pleasure bean.

I want it to be clear that the Bravo might be a thug who lives by violence, and also semiliterate (as she mentions in this story) but she isn't stupid. She's comparing how she made the stone phallus become soft with how it made her clitoris become hard in a very poetic way.

Did the wizard carefully fold and stack my clothes before leaving? Kind of him. Where are my slippers, though? Why leave … men's boots, they look like, and steal my slippers?

It's very characteristic of the Wizard to do minor favors like that without thinking, as we will see in sequels. Speaking of: the next story has some major worldbuilding, and as a key part of that explains why the Wizard needed the Bravo's slippers.

Kimma was standing closest and spoke first. [What is she doing not still drunken asleep?] "Did you enjoy yourself, Renna? Did your lover?"

I don't know why Kimma isn't drunk. Luckily, we'll never see Kimma again. Or will we?

That is the one and only time I plan to ever mention the Bravo's name. And worldbuilding will explain why.


That's it. This is a short story (one Literotica page), and a pretty simple one. I wanted a little rest after building the entire universe behind this series for "Harmless". What do you think of it, readers?

Readers? Is anyone out there?

-Eddie

 

[ElectricBlue]

That was far too complicated to follow on a Friday night after a long day's work. Too much text formatting does my head in at the best of times, let alone having to remember what each font format signifies. Unreadable, for me.

A brave experiment, but not for me. Just as well I've got Lucinda Williams on the stereo, playing loud .

 

[TheWritingGroup]

I hope it was clear that I was consciously taking that weird formatting to the limit.

One reason it's that short is: it was really hard to write that way! Especially with Literotica's deliberately-limited formatting tools.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I hope it was clear that I was consciously taking that weird formatting to the limit.

One reason it's that short is: it was really hard to write that way! Especially with Literotica's deliberately-limited formatting tools.

Yes, I got what you were doing, pushing the limits of the text codes. I bet it was hard to write that way, teasing it all apart, deconstructing the narrative into its component bits.

My problem was being too lazy to remember what meant what - too much like hard work!

 

[countdowntolov3]

I feel like you could have achieved 99% of what you were going for by italicizing Bravo's direct thoughts and just leaving the rest of the prose unformatted. It doesn't seem to me like you gain anything by marking descriptive text with special formatting. Most narrative prose is descriptive text, it's the default expectation for the reader, and in close third person the reader understands that the descriptions are being filtered through Bravo's point of view.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

I feel like you could have achieved 99% of what you were going for by italicizing Bravo's direct thoughts and just leaving the rest of the prose unformatted. It doesn't seem to me like you gain anything by marking descriptive text with special formatting. Most narrative prose is descriptive text, it's the default expectation for the reader, and in close third person the reader understands that the descriptions are being filtered through Bravo's point of view.

That's basically what I have in mind for next chapter.

-Eddie

 

[TheWritingGroup]

OK, question for the assembled people-who-were-helpful-to-me.

This story has gotten a terrible reaction. Not just low ratings, but almost no one has actually read it compared to "Harmless", the first story in the series (so far, under 600 readers vs. thousands for "Harmless").

Do you think I should go ahead and rewrite it with more standard formatting and replace this one? It's pretty short, it wouldn't be a huge lift.

-Eddie

 

[ElectricBlue]

OK, question for the assembled people-who-were-helpful-to-me.

This story has gotten a terrible reaction. Not just low ratings, but almost no one has actually read it compared to "Harmless", the first story in the series (so far, under 600 readers vs. thousands for "Harmless").

Do you think I should go ahead and rewrite it with more standard formatting and replace this one? It's pretty short, it wouldn't be a huge lift.

-Eddie

Yes .