Constructive comments please

[catalina_francisco]

We have submitted some stories we have written individually and jointly and are seeking any constructive feedback anyone would like to take the time to give. We have been a little busy of late so have not submitted anything recent though we have a good supply in waiting. For now we are trying to decide whether to submit or not, and also if there are any suggestions on how we might grow as writers in this context.

 

[Chicklet]

Cat's Link

first off, for any other takers, there's a link to the stories in question.

A Vacation To Remember:

I like the style in this. It flows nicely, good images, much better than most BDSM stories I click on when I'm in the mood to read them. I might suggest, and keep in mind I haven't read your others yet, that you work on the natural flow of conversation. When your male character opens his mouth, the words that are coming out don't seem natural to me. Now, I could be totally wrong and this guy could have said these exact things, but as a reader I'm not buying it.

"You will see the trouble I have gone to when we enter the club; though I will not give you long to absorb every detail. I am anxious to begin. I have had a special platform made for you though, all my own design. Come, you will see."

I don't know who it was, but someone told me to try to cut semi-colons and "..." out of my conversations. Also, a tiny thing that might make it flow better would be to use the shortened "you'll" or "we'll" instead of "you will" - makes it more like natural speech.

I felt my face begin to burn with shame as my dress was peeled from my body, my nakedness exposed, and my cunt hot and wet.

In your style of writing, the sensual words you're using, the word cunt sort of struck me as a poor choice. That's just opinion, and a lot of people are probably shaking their heads at me now, but I felt like your character wouldn't have thought of it as a "cunt"

"I love you slave. You are doing so well.....pleasing Your Master more than ever before."
"Thank you Master, I live only to please You.........will this soon be over Master?"
"Not yet Catalina........I need much more from you before I am ready to say enough."
My heart raced, "But Master I have to be released soon...please Master?"
"No Catalina, you will stay where you are."
"Master, You don't understand..........I have to pee, and soon!!!!"

I liked the way you sort of made this one paragraph. It seemed disconnected from the rest of the story, and that really worked. Again, working on the conversation and such, I rather disaprove of more than three little dots "..." instead of "........" and only one exclaimation mark instead of four. Also, since this flowed nicely away from the story, I think you could have cut out "my heart raced" - it would have been understood, I think.

Anniversary Present:

Okay first couple paragraphs and I'm just noticing a few little mistakes. You say "Damian" when it should be "Damian's" for posession, his hand, his lips and such. Few word choice mistakes, or I think actually just words left out:

...giving Catalina the sensation that he was biting it of her...

Instead of "of" it should be "off of" right?

Damian ordered his wife, mistress and slave.

This didn't make a lot of sense to me, because usually I think of "mistress" as either a Domme or a lover on the side of a relationship. In this case I think "lover" would have been a better word choice, just because of the double take it gave me. Opinion only, though.

Catalina was complete immobilized by now, Damian blindfolded his slave and walked slowly towards his folding table he was in doubt how to start, while thinking he took a sip of water from his silver cup and looked at Catalina, the sight of her so helpless and so completely under his control aroused him again, and he could feel his manhood growing.

This sentance was hard to read. It needs cut up and rephrased in parts, I think...

Overall, I liked it, I think it just needed a couple more "once-overs" before submission to lit.

Damian Ch 01:

“Are you a member”, the doorman asked Frank. “No”, Frank said. “Well then you will not get in”, the doorman replied to Frank. “Will 50 bucks cover my membership fee”, Frank asked the doorman.

Okay, this really needs broken up. If someone is asking a question, you really ought to use question marks. The question mark, comma, or period for that matter ought to be inside the quotation marks.
"Are you a member?" the doorman asked.
"No," Frank said.
"Well then you will not get in," the doorman replied to Frank.

You don't need so many he said he replied he asked, either. It is enough to know that the person said it once, the reader can follow from there. A suggestion would be to cut those down in the future, and when you re-read your story, if it doesn't make sense to you, put a few more back.

Overall this story was a little hard to follow just because of the minor mistakes. The errors get more and more numerous as the story went on, spelling errors and grammar and such. It really just needs a few proofreadings to fix up.

Lesson Learned:

Very well written. I like the story, I like the style. I thought it was very hot. The only bad things I could say are the same as the comments for Vacation, the overuse of "..." in speech.

I gave this story a 5, I just thought I'd tell you.

Stories Overall:

I think you just need to look things over a couple more times before submitting them. The stories seem natural, and are very well written, imho. A few minor changes, and they'd be wonderful.

If there are two of you writing, and the style really does seem to vary between two people, you should bounce your stories off of each other.

I think you should submit more stories to lit, I think that they would be well received. I certainly would keep my eyes out for them.

 

[catalina_francisco]

Thank you very much Chicklet for your very constructive and complete feedback. This feedback is very useful to us and makes us improve our stories and writing.

You are correct in you assessment that we are two people writing. Unfortunately one of them is not a native English speaker which sometimes leads to small and minor mistakes in the writing.

Next time before posting we will check them better and will ask Catalina to edit my stories before posting them.

I especially thank you for pointing out the way the conversations in the stories are held.

F.