Completed cycle

[CWatson]

Hi, I was trying to see what people thought of my last few stories. They haven't gotten any feedback whatsoever, which really makes me worried.

Memberpage: here.

The last three installments of the "More Than Friends" series is what worries me. It may be wise to actually just jump straight in without reading the first two; if my writing quality deterioriated going into Ch 3, it'll be obvious if you don't have Chs 1 and 2 lingering in your head (which I'm pretty sure are okay), because then Ch 3 will look like a piece of shit and there won't be anything to mitigate it.

Any other thoughts, reactions, critiques, etc welcome. Thank you, please drive through.

</shameless self-promoting>

 

[dr_mabeuse]

First of all: why is the first page of Part 3 of "friends" all in italics? Very distracting.

Second: why steal another author's descriptions of anything? And if you are going to steal, why admit it?

Now: you write very well, so you'll get no kid glove treatment from me. As much talent as you have, you should use it, do something with it. Instead you seem to kind of futz it away on this sweet little fantasy that is just like a million other sweet little fantasies. It's very nice. It might even be as good as it could be. The problem is: so what?

I read part 3 of "Friends". I seem to remember reading part 1 some time ago too. Maybe I commented on it then or maybe I didn't; I really don't recall. If I didn't, I think know why, and it's the same reason I really don't want to comment on Part 3 either, and probably the same reason why you're not getting many comments at all: It's because the story is just fine as far as it goes, so what is there to say about it?

Does it move the reader? Does it make them think? Is it extremely hot? Do you take any chances? What makes this story more worth reading than any of the other thousands of stories in 'loving couples'?

I say this stuff not to put you down, but you get you out of your comfortable little place. You're good enough so that you could write this kind of stuff in your sleep I'll bet. You've got the chops, as they say, now you've got to find a story worth telling or something that pushes a story beyond the pack; something that makes a story unique. I think that's the only place you've fallen down and I think that's probably why you're getting so little feedback.

I always find the subject of "loving couples" (I assume that's where this story was posted; I didn't realy check) dangerous because to me the stories always verge on boredom. Tolstoy said that all happy families are alike, but all unhappy familes are unhappy in their own way, and that's why he wrote about unhappy families. I think that goes for sex stories too. All loving couple stories are pretty much alike and, unfortunately, inherently uninteresting unless the author can find some angle to exploit, or some way to bring drama into the story. Otherwise all you have is a pleasant daydream, and we all have our own daydreams.

I don't know how serious you are about writing. If you're not serious, then I'll just tell you you've written a fine little story. If you are serious then you've got to push yourself.

Best,

---dr.M.

 

[TongueTyler]

I will be honest I will not even read a story with a Part one, two, three, ..... I may scan the last story part to see what kind of writer they are then go to part one if I am interested (not very often).

No one here is writing "Star Wars" or "Holloween" Finish the story then post it. If there is another event all together then make a title that denotes a continuation of the same characters at a different time.

If I like your story I will look to see what other stories you have wrote.

I could be wrong but the feed back must tell you something? Not every reader writes back I would think average is 60-100 per every 22000 hits

 

[Rainbow Skin]

I've got to agree with the canny Doctor here. You write superbly. Your style and language are flawless: I can't find anything to cavil at in them, no idiosyncrasies that don't work, no habits that become wearisome, no small errors or discontinuities that would have been improved by repolishing. Nothing wrong at all with any of the writing.

But why read it? It's all background. Nothing leads into anything. Never mind sex: I'm not saying you have to dive for the clitoris in the early paragraphs. If this was a straight novel, I'd have the same objection. Where is it going? One page of introduction, two pages, when does it stop? When will I reach something that makes me look forward to continuing?

I've just turned my attention to part five, with the same result. Wonderful felicities in the detail: his beat of hesitation, a paragraph of Ottoman history. I should be enjoying this. But I get to the bottom of the page, and oh my god! It's four pages long! And I know by now that nothing is going to grab me, because it didn't on page 1 of part 1 (and I didn't want to click on page 2 of that either), and this is part five and still all you're doing is laying out scenes and sketching characters.

It's like a whole album of sketches, with no painting produced from them.

Sure, I know, somewhere in one of these parts someone had sex, but I don't care either way about that, and my guess is it's going to be gentle, pleasant, realistic, and unchallenging. Remember I don't want 'hot' sex: I'd be making the same complaint if this was a non-sex story. Great writing of all the background, but nothing in the foreground driving it.

 

[Rainbow Skin]

Cavil

Thought of a cavil.

These long italicized introductions. Why? Why make it sound as if it's some 22th-century California in an alternative universe? If for some reason you don't want to set it in Oakland, Berkeley, Stanford, you can either blur it (but twee circumlocutions like 'a medium-sized college in a small mid-western town' drive me nuts), or you can just give the places realistic made-up names: Harrisford, Bonnington, Oakhampton College, ad libitem.

 

[CWatson]

...Oh YEAH. Stories are supposed to have PLOTS.

...Wow, now I feel stupid.

For the record, "More Than Friends" DOES have one. But it's, uh... Boring. Which is probably why I decided to stop writing it.

Thank you all for your advice. You said a lot of things I needed to hear. Hopefully next time I put something up it won't be this stagnant. And hopefully I won't be either.

 

[Rainbow Skin]

Plot

I wouldn't go quite as far as saying you need a plot. Perhaps at the length you write, you do: yours are novel-like. I'm hopeless at plot; I can never think of any, and they don't interest me much. If I try to think of a plot it goes all jewel thieves and ticking bombs and secret councils in caves. That is, I make the mistake of thinking a plot has to be about action.

If someone asks 'What's it about?' I'm stuck. If my story had jewel thieves escaping on submarines I could tell them that... as if that was what it was 'about'. But mine are more like 'a woman plucks a flower and drifts off to sleep thinking about it'. That is, what happens isn't the crucial thing. You don't need more events: it's only a two- or three-page short story; no-one's expecting Napoleon's retreat from Russia.

What you need is focus. This is why my initial criticism was couched as foreground and background, not plot. With however few or many events you have, you need to concentrate on some, to make them interesting, to show them as significant.

She is, say, pausing, considering whether to drop her towel or brush her hair first, or whether to move the flower vase to the other side of the dressing-table... At this moment, this is the plot. You move the 'camera' in, study her face, study her thoughts, convey more about what sort of person she is by how she deals with these matters.

Other events, even major ones, you can have going on the background: brief snatches of conversation at the party as two others fall in love or plot their treachery. The importance isn't necessarily correlated with the length or depth you give it. Some things can be conveyed briefly. Others can be lingered on.

 

[CWatson]

You're right, but I wouldn't say it has focus either. It started out mostly as an experiment: I put these two people together and wrote what they would do. It never really evolved beyond that. And now that they're done doing whatever it is they do... Well, the tale fizzles out.

Oh, well. You do things to see if they can be done. Then you find out they can't, and, if you're smart, you don't try it again. Anyway.