Feedback on my first cheating story please?

[CheatingHot]

Hello guys,

i published my first story on Literotica and am kind of nervous but thought to post this anyway and ask kindly for your thoughts about it. Any constructive critique is appreciated. I hope you guys enjoy this as much as I did and support me so i can write more naughty stuff like that.

https://www.literotica.com/s/something-about-him

 

[Gamblnluck]

I'll have to read it later. I don't usually read erotic couplings. Generally too much emphasis on the sex and not enough on the plot. But I have one question. Why ask for opinions here and not allow comments at the end of your story? That is where you get your comments. From a reader.

 

[filthytrancendence]

Hello! Congrats on getting your first story live!

A couple disclosures before I begin my criticism so you have context for where I'm coming from. I just don't enjoy the 'betrayed by her body' genre of story, for my own subjective reasons. I'm not going to harp on that, and I'm not going to mention it again, it just seems like you should know that particular hook just happens to have the opposite effect on me for reasons outside your control. Also, I didn't make it through the whole thing, partly for that reason. It is quite long for this sort of thing and it moves pretty slow. I read about half of it.

That out of the way, here we go.

What I Liked

A lot, actually. Your prose are spartan and compact and easy to read. I know this will sound like a contradiction right now, but stick with me, the cadence of your phrasing is compelling--you make it easy to keep reading. You don't linger too long on anything and you don't get bogged down in excessive description or digression. Jared is a compelling character. You do a good job selling why he has the effect on her he has. It's believable and he is likable.

You can work with all of that, it's a really solid foundation. Now, the things I think you can work on:

Technical Stuff

1. You significantly overuse the em dash (which ends up displayed as '--' unless you use &mdash). Em dash is a sometimes punctuation. Using 4 in your 10,000 word story is probably about right. It's supposed to be a little shocking to the reader. You use it at least 4 times per chapter, and the chapters are real short. I found one short line of dialogue where you used 4 in a 6 word sentence. It loses all meaning when you use it that often.
   1. If you want to annotate somebody stuttering, use a hyphen: "I-I-I d-d-on't know w-w-what to say"
   2. Use the em dash mostly when one character is directly cutting another character off in the middle of a sentence.
2. Similarly, you overuse ellipsis. Not as much, but still too many. It's generally better to give the reader something there, instead of leaving it unsaid. "I just don't-" she trailed off, sighing. Describe what they do instead of speaking/thinking. Use it as an opportunity to paint a picture.
3. This might be a generation thing, but you're using asterisks when you should just italicize things. You can do this in the editor with the tags <i></i>. You're surrounding things in asterisks to emphasize them, and that is the function of italics. I also think you do that a bit too much. The effect of overusing all of these is to lessen how effective they are in the reader's mind. And you rob yourself of the opportunity to paint a vivid picture of what is occurring.
   1. If you want to emphasize something more casually, describe how the character is emphasizing it. Or just describe the thing in a more vivid way than usual.

Structural Stuff

1. My biggest problem with the story overall is that Lena is a bit of a non-character. You give her a good background and solid characterization in the very beginning, but then she spends the entire story absolutely and completely consumed by her reactions to Jared. She doesn't have much interiority of her own that doesn't pertain to the men in her life. She needs her own thoughts, feelings, etc. She is a vessel for Jared to inflict conflicted sexual frustration upon.
   1. I said I wouldn't harp on it, and I'm not harping. But I just want to say out loud, this is one of the dangers of the 'betrayed by her body' trope. I'm not going to say it's impossible to do it well, but the trope sets you up to ignore the interiority of the woman. I want her to feel like a person, and she does not.
2. While your prose does move at a good clip, the structure of the story is very slow. You have scene after scene where only the slightest escalation is occurring. It becomes repetitive and it is difficult to make it all the way though. If I were reading this in the editing phase, I'd recommend cutting or combining about half the scenes.
   1. I'm trying to say this several different ways so that hopefully one of them makes sense. While your moment-to-moment writing makes it easy for people to read, your scenes do not progress at a satisfying rate. You end up repeating yourself.

That said, I want to reiterate you've got a strong foundation to build on. I hope you're enjoying the experience and I hope you'll keep writing!

 

[CheatingHot]

I'll have to read it later. I don't usually read erotic couplings. Generally too much emphasis on the sex and not enough on the plot. But I have one question. Why ask for opinions here and not allow comments at the end of your story? That is where you get your comments. From a reader.

Thank you for your question. I heard about the comment section being rather toxic and I can't handle baseless personal attacks or ugly negative feedback. I hope that the forum is kind of moderated and we get some constructive positive and negative feedback without hurting my feelings.

 

[CheatingHot]

Hello! Congrats on getting your first story live!

A couple disclosures before I begin my criticism so you have context for where I'm coming from. I just don't enjoy the 'betrayed by her body' genre of story, for my own subjective reasons. I'm not going to harp on that, and I'm not going to mention it again, it just seems like you should know that particular hook just happens to have the opposite effect on me for reasons outside your control. Also, I didn't make it through the whole thing, partly for that reason. It is quite long for this sort of thing and it moves pretty slow. I read about half of it.

That out of the way, here we go.

What I Liked

A lot, actually. Your prose are spartan and compact and easy to read. I know this will sound like a contradiction right now, but stick with me, the cadence of your phrasing is compelling--you make it easy to keep reading. You don't linger too long on anything and you don't get bogged down in excessive description or digression. Jared is a compelling character. You do a good job selling why he has the effect on her he has. It's believable and he is likable.

You can work with all of that, it's a really solid foundation. Now, the things I think you can work on:

Technical Stuff

1. You significantly overuse the em dash (which ends up displayed as '--' unless you use &mdash). Em dash is a sometimes punctuation. Using 4 in your 10,000 word story is probably about right. It's supposed to be a little shocking to the reader. You use it at least 4 times per chapter, and the chapters are real short. I found one short line of dialogue where you used 4 in a 6 word sentence. It loses all meaning when you use it that often.
   1. If you want to annotate somebody stuttering, use a hyphen: "I-I-I d-d-on't know w-w-what to say"
   2. Use the em dash mostly when one character is directly cutting another character off in the middle of a sentence.
2. Similarly, you overuse ellipsis. Not as much, but still too many. It's generally better to give the reader something there, instead of leaving it unsaid. "I just don't-" she trailed off, sighing. Describe what they do instead of speaking/thinking. Use it as an opportunity to paint a picture.
3. This might be a generation thing, but you're using asterisks when you should just italicize things. You can do this in the editor with the tags <i></i>. You're surrounding things in asterisks to emphasize them, and that is the function of italics. I also think you do that a bit too much. The effect of overusing all of these is to lessen how effective they are in the reader's mind. And you rob yourself of the opportunity to paint a vivid picture of what is occurring.
   1. If you want to emphasize something more casually, describe how the character is emphasizing it. Or just describe the thing in a more vivid way than usual.

Structural Stuff

1. My biggest problem with the story overall is that Lena is a bit of a non-character. You give her a good background and solid characterization in the very beginning, but then she spends the entire story absolutely and completely consumed by her reactions to Jared. She doesn't have much interiority of her own that doesn't pertain to the men in her life. She needs her own thoughts, feelings, etc. She is a vessel for Jared to inflict conflicted sexual frustration upon.
   1. I said I wouldn't harp on it, and I'm not harping. But I just want to say out loud, this is one of the dangers of the 'betrayed by her body' trope. I'm not going to say it's impossible to do it well, but the trope sets you up to ignore the interiority of the woman. I want her to feel like a person, and she does not.
2. While your prose does move at a good clip, the structure of the story is very slow. You have scene after scene where only the slightest escalation is occurring. It becomes repetitive and it is difficult to make it all the way though. If I were reading this in the editing phase, I'd recommend cutting or combining about half the scenes.
   1. I'm trying to say this several different ways so that hopefully one of them makes sense. While your moment-to-moment writing makes it easy for people to read, your scenes do not progress at a satisfying rate. You end up repeating yourself.

That said, I want to reiterate you've got a strong foundation to build on. I hope you're enjoying the experience and I hope you'll keep writing!

Thank you very much dear. I have to digest your clinical diagnosis first. I appreciate your feedback very much.

 

[filthytrancendence]

Thank you for your question. I heard about the comment section being rather toxic and I can't handle baseless personal attacks or ugly negative feedback. I hope that the forum is kind of moderated and we get some constructive positive and negative feedback without hurting my feelings.

I haven't had trouble in EC, for what it's worth. LW is the main one you want to watch out for.

 

[CheatingHot]

I haven't had trouble in EC, for what it's worth. LW is the main one you want to watch out for.

I beg your pardon, but what does EC mean? And LW is supposed to mean loving wife, right?

 

[filthytrancendence]

I beg your pardon, but what does EC mean? And LW is supposed to mean loving wife, right?

Sorry, Erotic Couplings. And yes.

It's common to use abbreviations for the categories around here. If you come across one you don't understand it's probably the abbreviation of some category or other.