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[Duil2]

Hi, I'm a newbie on Literotica as both reader and writer and would love some feedback please on my recently published story.
I've been writing for my own pleasure for years and also love to read reverse harem romance...us women can dream...
In a recent story the main character was caught writing on a site very like Literotica which made me go and see what sites were out there.
Not since my early twenties when Mills & Boon ( as it was then) rejected my early efforts at a romance novel have I dared put my work out there.
There's such variety on this site that the pressure seemed a lot less but I'd still like to improve.
Any and all feedback would be much appreciated.

Three Times the Pleasure by Duil2

 

[Duil2]

Just noticed that my story linked above just got a Hot symbol so I'll take that as being good feedback, I think.
It's a pity that the 2.8k views don't result in more star ratings, but hey ho.

 

[cally420]

Hey there! Read the story - liked it. I think you have a good sense of where the story is going and your prose is solid.

I found the head-hopping a bit distracting - you handled it adroitly enough, and I think I get what you were going for. I just think the tricky part is that it means the reader doesn't have the chance to settle into a single POV. You change POV what,

Personally, I think there's room to do a story on its own for the initial hookup with Fid and each of the brothers, then maybe invest a bit more in Fid & Seamus figuring out that they want to expand the horizons of their marriage to include his brothers. There's a lot that could get unpacked in that part of things.

On a purely technical note, the first Seamus interlude had an awful lot of paragraphs starting with "She...". Most of the other scenes/segments didn't have this, which is part of why it stood out to me. This is also one of the writing sins that I slip into myself, if I don't have good editing passes!

Oh! and yeah... 2.8k views translating into a couple dozen ratings is about right. From what I've seen, ratings happen with something between 0.5% and 1.5% of views, with an average of about 1%.

I don't think a view necessarily means a whole read every time, either... it just means someone clicked on your first page. This is a good reason (IMHO) for authors here to favour an "in media res" approach to storytelling. Get in there right away with something to capture interest. I think you get at that somewhat with your opener, but it's a little oblique. Opening with something steamy is probably not a bad plan for many stories.

A parting thought... category might also be a factor for this particular story. My very first story I had in "Erotic Couplings" and there was some negative feedback that it included some anal. It seemed to do better in Mature. Your story is certainly appropriate in "Mature" but I wonder if it'd have more of an audience in "Taboo/Incest". You don't really delve into the taboo aspect of it much, which I actually think is a strength of the story... you're treating it a bit more matter-of-fact that all 3 of the lads are into Fid.

And... wow. I haven't had the time to look at your other works (oh my goodness you've put up so many in so short a span!)

FWIW, there is my considered and constructive feedback.

Cheers,
Cally420

 

[Duil2]

Hey there! Read the story - liked it. I think you have a good sense of where the story is going and your prose is solid.

I found the head-hopping a bit distracting - you handled it adroitly enough, and I think I get what you were going for. I just think the tricky part is that it means the reader doesn't have the chance to settle into a single POV. You change POV what,

Personally, I think there's room to do a story on its own for the initial hookup with Fid and each of the brothers, then maybe invest a bit more in Fid & Seamus figuring out that they want to expand the horizons of their marriage to include his brothers. There's a lot that could get unpacked in that part of things.

On a purely technical note, the first Seamus interlude had an awful lot of paragraphs starting with "She...". Most of the other scenes/segments didn't have this, which is part of why it stood out to me. This is also one of the writing sins that I slip into myself, if I don't have good editing passes!

Oh! and yeah... 2.8k views translating into a couple dozen ratings is about right. From what I've seen, ratings happen with something between 0.5% and 1.5% of views, with an average of about 1%.

I don't think a view necessarily means a whole read every time, either... it just means someone clicked on your first page. This is a good reason (IMHO) for authors here to favour an "in media res" approach to storytelling. Get in there right away with something to capture interest. I think you get at that somewhat with your opener, but it's a little oblique. Opening with something steamy is probably not a bad plan for many stories.

A parting thought... category might also be a factor for this particular story. My very first story I had in "Erotic Couplings" and there was some negative feedback that it included some anal. It seemed to do better in Mature. Your story is certainly appropriate in "Mature" but I wonder if it'd have more of an audience in "Taboo/Incest". You don't really delve into the taboo aspect of it much, which I actually think is a strength of the story... you're treating it a bit more matter-of-fact that all 3 of the lads are into Fid.

And... wow. I haven't had the time to look at your other works (oh my goodness you've put up so many in so short a span!)

FWIW, there is my considered and constructive feedback.

Cheers,
Cally420

Thanks Cally420 for reading and taking the time to give such considered feedback. About the POV, I read a lot of 'reverse harem' romances and the chapter per character is usual there but granted they are longer works so I take your point. I guess I likely rushed to publish as I was excited when I found this website. I'll be slowing down with the volume of releases now as what's already published were some finished works I had sitting on my laptop and so I had fun editing and getting them out. I'm becoming used to the rating approach but really I don't mind too much. It's just a nice indicator that I don't completely suck as a writer.
Thanks again for your thoughts and advice.
If you get to read anything else of mine please don't hesitate to leave a comment.

 

[darwin1859]

Hi, I'm a newbie on Literotica as both reader and writer and would love some feedback please on my recently published story.
I've been writing for my own pleasure for years and also love to read reverse harem romance...us women can dream...
In a recent story the main character was caught writing on a site very like Literotica which made me go and see what sites were out there.
Not since my early twenties when Mills & Boon ( as it was then) rejected my early efforts at a romance novel have I dared put my work out there.
There's such variety on this site that the pressure seemed a lot less but I'd still like to improve.
Any and all feedback would be much appreciated.

Three Times the Pleasure by Duil2

Welcome! Happy St. Patty's Day!

I started your story and I can report that it was well-written and drew me in. I think you write well, but there are some very minor issues with punctuation. I think you chose good tags (and I think that's important--well done you!)

I am not a fan of the rotating first-person POV but it's an established framework that most readers will know and some people feel strongly that first person is the best way to tell a story and in that context, this is a good compromise to show different POV. I think it gets tricky when you have two characters interacting (I'm thinking especially of sex scenes). I haven't read far enough to see how you handled it, but I think if you know that pitfall is there, you can avoid it. You don't want to flip back and forth to fast and you don't want to re-tell the same point from a second POV, so you need to pick the best character to tell it in first person and emphasize what that character can see of the internal states of others (e.g., from Fidelma's POV, describe how Seamus or Liam is liking it... you cannot get in their head, but you can use her observations and their dialog).

But I would recommend that you use boldface and possibly italics to announce these transitions. Like this:

<b>Fidelma</b>

<b><i>Twenty-six years ago</i></b>

"There's something ...

<b><i>Present Day</b></i>

which will render like this:

Fidelma

Twenty-six years ago
"There's something ...

Present Day

Finally, I'd consider your choice of category carefully. This story does fit into Mature, but I think of Mature more as age-gap stories (like a young guy and a cougar/milf, a silver fox and a young woman, grannys, etc.). I think your story was more focused on group sex, so it might go into Group Sex. Or it could fit into Erotic Couplings. It could fit into Loving Wives, which seems mostly associated with extra-marital flings (of all sorts). And one reason you might care is that readers expect certain types of stories and the same story might get rated differently; but your story is well received in Mature.

Another reason to carefully consider category is that readership volumes differ. Mature is not a very popular category (near the middle). There are probably about 4x the readers in Erotic Couplings as compared to Mature. Group Sex is slightly higher volume than Mature. Loving wives has probably more than twice the readers as Mature.

A final consideration is that some of the groups have reputations. You are more likely to receive harsh feedback in Loving Wives than any other Category. Also, average ratings are probably lower in LW.

 

[Duil2]

Welcome! Happy St. Patty's Day!

I started your story and I can report that it was well-written and drew me in. I think you write well, but there are some very minor issues with punctuation. I think you chose good tags (and I think that's important--well done you!)

I am not a fan of the rotating first-person POV but it's an established framework that most readers will know and some people feel strongly that first person is the best way to tell a story and in that context, this is a good compromise to show different POV. I think it gets tricky when you have two characters interacting (I'm thinking especially of sex scenes). I haven't read far enough to see how you handled it, but I think if you know that pitfall is there, you can avoid it. You don't want to flip back and forth to fast and you don't want to re-tell the same point from a second POV, so you need to pick the best character to tell it in first person and emphasize what that character can see of the internal states of others (e.g., from Fidelma's POV, describe how Seamus or Liam is liking it... you cannot get in their head, but you can use her observations and their dialog).

But I would recommend that you use boldface and possibly italics to announce these transitions. Like this:


which will render like this:



Finally, I'd consider your choice of category carefully. This story does fit into Mature, but I think of Mature more as age-gap stories (like a young guy and a cougar/milf, a silver fox and a young woman, grannys, etc.). I think your story was more focused on group sex, so it might go into Group Sex. Or it could fit into Erotic Couplings. It could fit into Loving Wives, which seems mostly associated with extra-marital flings (of all sorts). And one reason you might care is that readers expect certain types of stories and the same story might get rated differently; but your story is well received in Mature.

Another reason to carefully consider category is that readership volumes differ. Mature is not a very popular category (near the middle). There are probably about 4x the readers in Erotic Couplings as compared to Mature. Group Sex is slightly higher volume than Mature. Loving wives has probably more than twice the readers as Mature.

A final consideration is that some of the groups have reputations. You are more likely to receive harsh feedback in Loving Wives than any other Category. Also, average ratings are probably lower in LW.

Thanks Darwin1859 for your kind feedback. I hope the minor punctuation errors will be better from now on as I got another story I'm due to submit edited on the site and they pointed out some items to me which I'm trying to apply.
I take your point about the POV. I am conscious that I don't head hop between POV and generally the shortest I would give to each is a scene and in a longer piece a chapter. Now that I've figured out that it's better to attach a file at submission if you want all of your formatting and the like to come through to the final version, I'll be able to put the changes in POV or timeframe in bold as you suggest.
I appreciate the information supplied about the categories but luckily this was well received in Mature. I had come across a number of threads about the harsh critique that can be received on the Loving Wives category and so I was actually avoiding it for now until I build up my confidence a little more. I have already felt the lash by an anonymous commentor on my April Fools contest entry but that's all part of the risk of putting yourself and your work on the line.
I'm in the process of writing a follow up to this piece and will definitely consider Group Sex as the category as the number of participants in the sex goes from four to ten but I've decided to stick with one of the characters for the entire story this time.
Thank you so much for taking the time to give me helpful, constructive feedback.