Feedback on Bella Donna appreciated

[jalaurie]

Any feedback would be appreciated on my erotic, light BDSM story.

https://www.literotica.com/s/bella-donna-ch-01
https://www.literotica.com/s/bella-donna-ch-02

Many thanks!

J. A. Laurie

 

[jalaurie]

A taste

"There is something incredibly erotic about sitting in a quiet, upscale bar discussing the details of a beautiful woman's subjugation. Letting her tell you what she fantasizes about. Knowing that the actions are only half the fantasy. The better half of the fantasy is that you are the man she wants to do these things to her. You are the man she needs to do these things to her."

From Bella Donna - Chapter One

 

[jsmiam]

Please replace incredible with incredibly? With a typo on the first line of the first sentence of the first page, our heads popped. Fix that, then can just pretend it never happened and start over. ;-)

 

[sr71plt]

I'm sure someone else will be along shortly to say it (and probably mistakenly say this is second person, when it is first person--only a fake second person), so I'll go ahead and note that fake second person ("You were standing there when I walked around the car") is not a popular stab at a voice with readers, especially erotica readers, because it is convoluted, unnatural, belabored, and begs the response that "I'm not what 'you' are describing as 'you' at all" from 99.9 percent of the readers. It also tires the reader out and has most of them jumping ship if the story has much length to it at all. Maybe you could recast in first or third person?

 

[jalaurie]

Thank you for the feedback

Sr71plt, I agree that "pseudo-second person" is unusual. I may recast the story at some point. Thank you.

 

[jalaurie]

Thank you, jsmiam

Please replace incredible with incredibly? With a typo on the first line of the first sentence of the first page, our heads popped. Fix that, then can just pretend it never happened and start over. ;-)

Jsmiam, I sent you a private message but you didn't reply, so I'll do this here.

Please read at least some of the story before giving feedback. I appreciate you catching that typo, but it is buried deep within my story, not "first line of the first sentence of the first page".

Had you made even the vaguest attempt to read the story, you would have seen that.

Had you been anything besides condescending and snide, I would have let it go. Your post, however, may put others off even looking at my work, so, as distasteful as it may be, I need to reply.

Thank you for your feedback on my snippet, though. I'll be sure to proofread them more thoroughly in the future.

 

[jsmiam]

Jsmiam, I sent you a private message but you didn't reply, so I'll do this here.

Please read at least some of the story before giving feedback. I appreciate you catching that typo, but it is buried deep within my story, not "first line of the first sentence of the first page".

Had you made even the vaguest attempt to read the story, you would have seen that.

Had you been anything besides condescending and snide, I would have let it go. Your post, however, may put others off even looking at my work, so, as distasteful as it may be, I need to reply.

Thank you for your feedback on my snippet, though. I'll be sure to proofread them more thoroughly in the future.

You posted a snippet. With an error. Don't get all snippety! You've demonstrated anything beginning with "snippet" isn't your strong suit.

You're not going to do well being this sensitive on a site like this. Hang around a bit, you'll see what rude really is from lots and lots of different folks. And getting whiny over not getting an instant reply to a pm, also indicates being overly sensitive.

I did look at part one, btw, in preparation of composing a reply to your pm, and before seeing your comments here. It took getting two thirds of the way into it before I was sure of the gender of the first-second-third-fourth-whatever person style you are using.

 

[jalaurie]

Thank you, jsmiam, for admitting you posted false feedback without even reading the story.

It always amuses me when a critic makes a false statement and then accuses the author of being too sensitive for pointing it out.

I don't care how quickly you respond to my pm, but I do care about potential legitimate readers/commenters who can be put off by a false statement like yours.

Not to put too fine a point on it, the process goes like this:

1. Read
2. THEN give feedback

Please continue being condescending and snide. It reinforces my earlier point.

 

[jsmiam]

Thank you, jsmiam, for admitting you posted false feedback without even reading the story.

It always amuses me when a critic makes a false statement and then accuses the author of being too sensitive for pointing it out.

I don't care how quickly you respond to my pm, but I do care about potential legitimate readers/commenters who can be put off by a false statement like yours.

Not to put too fine a point on it, the process goes like this:

1. Read
2. THEN give feedback

Please continue being condescending and snide. It reinforces my earlier point.

You posted a snippet. Let me put it in bold. YOU POSTED A SNIPPET. If you didn't want the snippet to be considered, you shouldn't have posted it.

And I posted a smilie in my reply, and tried to help you. I even decided not to quote your error on line 1, sentence 1, paragraph 1. You know, the error?

First impressions matter. You failed. People were ignoring your post because the snippet was so bad. You did that, not me.

 

[jalaurie]

And I will repeat what you seem to have missed from my first reply:

"Thank you for your feedback on my snippet, though. I'll be sure to proofread them more thoroughly in the future."

 

[Bramblethorn]

Stories addressed to "you" tend not to go down well with a lot of readers (me included). Unless it's interactive fiction where I actually get a choice, my instinctive reaction to something like "Without me needing to ask, you lifted your ass, slid your tight skirt up and spread your legs" is "no, I don't".

It looked decent otherwise, but I had a lot of difficulty getting past that issue. Sorry :-/

edit: missed that SR had already commented on this. Oh well.

 

[jalaurie]

Thank you, Bramblethorn

I appreciate the feedback.

The point of view for this story seems to be the major sticking point. I have another story that is written from the same POV, but that story is explicitly defined as a letter. It seems to work better.

Right now I am trying to determine if a rewrite as a letter would make Bella Donna more readable, or if a complete change of POV would be best. At this point it is, effectively, a letter to the woman in the story.

The "pseudo-second person" POV does seem to work for a subset of women who are able to see themselves in the story.

****Sample One*********
Dear Anna,

You were waiting by Bella Donna when I walked out of the terminal, leaning against her passenger side door with a smile on your face. As you handed me her keys and I opened the door to let you in, I took a moment to admire the short black skirt and deep red blouse you were wearing. You managed the transition without unintentionally flashing me. As short as that skirt was, I was impressed.

****Sample Two*********
Anna was waiting by Bella Donna when I walked out of the terminal, leaning against her passenger side door with a radiant smile. As she handed me the keys and I opened the door to let her in, I took a moment to admire the short black skirt and deep red blouse she was wearing. She managed the transition without unintentionally flashing me. As short as that skirt was, I was impressed.

*************

Any further thoughts, from any and all, would be greatly appreciated.

 

[thelaughingcat]

Apologies, I would like to point out that I wasn't put off reading your material due to jsmiam's wry comment on your snippet, but rather your tetchy response. Which you did nothing to ameliorate in further posts. Rather worried to say anything, just in case you attempt to put me down for it!

Thank you, jsmiam, for admitting you posted false feedback without even reading the story.

It always amuses me when a critic makes a false statement and then accuses the author of being too sensitive for pointing it out.

I don't care how quickly you respond to my pm, but I do care about potential legitimate readers/commenters who can be put off by a false statement like yours.

Not to put too fine a point on it, the process goes like this:

1. Read
2. THEN give feedback

Please continue being condescending and snide. It reinforces my earlier point.

 

[jalaurie]

Thank you, thelaughingcat

I appreciate the feedback.

Responding to negative criticism is always a dicey business, even when the criticism is clearly untrue. I had to balance the possibility of reactions like you pointed out ("Rather worried to say anything, just in case you attempt to put me down for it!") against the fact that jsmiam did not comment on my snippet. Jsmiam commented on my story. Without ever reading it.

"With a typo on the first line of the first sentence of the first page..."

Jsmiam did not see the first page of my story until well after that post. The snippet was from the middle of the story. There is a substantial difference between a typo eight paragraphs into a story, and a typo on the first line of the first sentence of the first page. The former happens even in printed books with professional editing, the latter is evidence of poor writing.

I know that if I saw jsmiam's comment as the very first response to a "virgin" writer, I would be unlikely to bother even reading their work.

Had jsmiam made exactly the same comment about the snippet, my response would have been limited to offering thanks.

Do you need to worry? That depends on you. Do you intend to criticize my work before you read it? If that is your intention, expect confrontation. Otherwise, as you will see from my other responses, you have nothing to worry about.

Again, thank you for your feedback.

 

[jsmiam]

I appreciate the feedback.

Responding to negative criticism is always a dicey business, even when the criticism is clearly untrue. I had to balance the possibility of reactions like you pointed out ("Rather worried to say anything, just in case you attempt to put me down for it!") against the fact that jsmiam did not comment on my snippet. Jsmiam commented on my story. Without ever reading it.

"With a typo on the first line of the first sentence of the first page..."

Jsmiam did not see the first page of my story until well after that post. The snippet was from the middle of the story. There is a substantial difference between a typo eight paragraphs into a story, and a typo on the first line of the first sentence of the first page. The former happens even in printed books with professional editing, the latter is evidence of poor writing.

I know that if I saw jsmiam's comment as the very first response to a "virgin" writer, I would be unlikely to bother even reading their work.

Had jsmiam made exactly the same comment about the snippet, my response would have been limited to offering thanks.

Do you need to worry? That depends on you. Do you intend to criticize my work before you read it? If that is your intention, expect confrontation. Otherwise, as you will see from my other responses, you have nothing to worry about.

Again, thank you for your feedback.

I am very entertained by your reasoning. I didn't comment on the snippet, AND I didn't read the story, at the same time? Am I some sort of mind-reading magician? I responded to your post. I didn't say I read your story. I responded to your post, containing the snippet, with the error on line frikkin one.

Please, continue. I'm also curious about how pointing out the typo is a falsehood? I am confident you have an explanation, though.

Your logic patterns and your story continuity clearly come from the same place!

Questions: He's from out of town? Or he travels? And he's never seen the car, and their relationship is new, yet it's his car somehow? Did she buy it for him? Nice girlfriend! Or is he the girlfriend writing him a letter as if it was him, writing a letter to her, writing a letter to him? And the car also has nothing to do with the main story line. Yet the story is named after it. Please elaborate! I can't wait!

 

[jalaurie]

Jsmiam, thank you for your feedback. These are interesting questions. The easy answer is to say that all will be made clear as the story progresses, but I won't take the easy way out.

He is from out of town. The car belongs to her. I find it interesting that you got the impression that the car belonged to him. Can I ask which lines gave you that impression? The relationship I was aiming for between him and the car was one of "good fit", not ownership. Love at first sight if you will.

The overall story could be viewed as a letter from him to her. Or as him reminiscing. The voice of the story is one of the things I'm working on.

Regarding the car and the main story line I need to know if you have read the second chapter. Like Chekhov's gun, the car needs to have a role. It seems to me that by the end of the second chapter the car has earned its place in the story.

Again, thank you for the feedback. I appreciate it.

 

[thelaughingcat]

Ok, here are a few things then, some content and some copy related.

1) Use of the word awesome in Ch1, paras 13 & 21 'awesome beauty' and 'awesome reality'. Now, I love the word 'awesome', it is the most overused word in my vocabulary. 'I had an awesome burger', 'That episode of NCIS was awesome', 'How awesome is the new WoW expansion?' yada yada yada. What I really mean when I say something was awesome, is usually that something was marginally better than average; it was good. So when I read it in a story, I don't read it as the superlative that you mean by it. Go for a different word: 'I revelled in the rich beauty of', or go simple with 'I revelled in the beauty of'. Try 'stunning reality' - he is more stunned than filled with 'some awe'. Awesome deserves to go the same way as nice! Copy Edit: remember to rewrite 'reveled' as 'revelled'

2) Ch1, para 23 Even the obviously gay waiter was fascinated I personally find this both overkill and insulting. It is gratuitous and adds nothing to the story. Plus, how can you tell someone is 'obviously gay?' Avoid assumptions; I've known uber camp straight guys and butch gay guys and everything in between. You. Just. Can't. Tell. So don't let those assumptions bleed into your writing.

3) Ch1, para 27, line 2, copy edit: as if you hand were and on line 4 one last long, powerful squeeze, (should be a comma).

4) Ch1, para 35. Again, this is going into overkill. No one is that beautiful. People may glance up as someone passes, they may even appreciate for a few seconds but nowhere except The Wild West does someone silence a bar when they walk in. This unattainable beauty only serves to make the female character completely non-relatable for the rest of us merely gorgeous mortals That is not to say that the narrator cannot believe that she is the most stunning example of womanhood he has ever seen, but you write of a femme fatale to cause car wrecks with her distracting allure, a veritable Helen of Troy. This may end up puttingoff all your female readers except maybe the very young ones. I won't speak for the male readership

5) Ch2, para 4 You handled it with good-natured aplomb. I'm not fond of 'good natured aplomb'. It's a little clunky and awkward. You handle a jerking train stop with good natured aplomb. Or a sudden downpour. Not so much a breeze round your privates! How about something along the lines of 'You handled it with barely a shiver and a small smile on your lips.' Slightly more erotic than Tim-Nice-But-Dim's good natured aplomb

6) Ch2, para 12 sliding it a little closer to heaven. It's a bit of a cliché and the problem with clichés is that you've heard them before. This causes your mind to instantly try to dart to other times you have heard it (because brains are tricksy that way), and this then bounces you back out of the story. Keep your readers in the story and find some way to describe it better - 'sliding it a little closer to your hot, needy core' could be one way of describing it, though that is quite the cliché too One line further down, time it such that I would scans better if you replace 'such' with 'so'.

7) Ch2, para 14, line 1: 'Between my teasing and Bella's vibrations, you were whimpering with need...' scans a little better. Line 4 has 'parking' and 'parked' within 4 words - could you change it to garage or just lot and parked? Also you say the lot is empty, but then he parks 'far from any cars'. If the lot isn't empty, could you take that word out? It would then read something like I pulled into the next lot but parked far from any other cars

8) Ch2, para 23, copy edit: replace breathe with breath

9) Ch2, para 26: not sure about the word 'hanky-spanky'. Nice BDSM twist on 'hanky-panky' but the only men to ever use that term were camp middle-aged ones in the Seventies. Not an image I want in my head in this context! How about something along the lines of, 'maybe even some spanky fun' (God that is awful, but all I have, given I am now rushing!). I'm trying to keep to the cool, calm, controlled male voice that you have been writing in, and 'hanky-spanky' just jars.

10) The Voice. Others have called the pseudo-second-person voice awkward amongst other things, but I actually quite like it. What it does need is some context. Maybe develop the story further and flip between their present (the story's future) with this story their past. Maybe they are old and she now has dementia, so he is talking to her of how they met, their shared past. Maybe it is only a few years down the line but she has been in an accident, lost some of her memory and he is helping fill in the gaps. Or she is in a coma and this is his way of reaching out to her trapped mind. Maybe she is leaving him and he is desperately trying to remind her of what they had so she will stay. If you open by setting the scene in the future and take breaks every so often to return to the future. 'The machine beeps, waking me from the memory. I look down at you, brushing the hair back behind your ear.' That kind of thing. It will give that voice a meaning that your readers can understand and they can start to hear it in their own head.

11) The car. Not sure about the car. I can see what you are trying to do by having your narrator almost anthropomorphize it but it feels a little forced to me. And a little weird. But that is personal taste.

All in all, it has some good potential with a few tweaks. In the end this is all my own personal opinion. Others will have different opinions and they are welcome to them. You do not need to heed my advice, as it is freely offered. But I do think that a few small tweaks like those above can make what is a decent story even better.

Now, if you actually read all that, you deserve a cookie

 

[jalaurie]

Enjoying my cookie.

I will implement and update later today.

Thank you