Feedback on my Nude Day story

[TheRedChamber]

Now that the competition is finally over, I'm soliciting feedback on my entry. A Veil of Sky, A Bed of Earth.

It's quite long at five pages and covers a variety of proclivaties - group sex, first time and of course nudity.

I won't say anything about how I currently feel about it, but it had very low engagement and the score hovered around the low 4s for most of the competition before the final sweeps did it a big favour.

 

[Lifestyle66]

I liked the details you provided for the dogging. There was a great deal of imagery and detail in the scenes.

For the Nude Day challenge, it was probably too long, and both the dance scene and run seemed to drag on, possibly adding little value. There were also several spelling and grammar errors (aside from the idioms), which together with extensive use of idiomatic expressions would stop some readers from rating it a perfect 5.

I'll stretch a little and give this a 5, mainly for the dogging and lost virginity scenes.

 

[TheRedChamber]

Thanks for the feedback. That's very helpful.

I liked the details you provided for the dogging. There was a great deal of imagery and detail in the scenes.

That's interested as I was worried about this scene more than any of the others - especially having the plot interrupt it halfway through.

For the Nude Day challenge, it was probably too long,

Yes probably - I was trying to develop a simple scenario for Nude Day and failing. I only realized this would fit the brief about halfway through outlining it and by which time it was already quite complicated in terms of scenes.

and both the dance scene and run seemed to drag on, possibly adding little value.

My initial worry was that I would struggle to describe the dance in sufficient detail, so maybe I overcompensated here - especially as these are the 'Nude' chapters for the competition. In retrospect, having two similar 'action' scenes back to back might be a little much.

There were also several spelling and grammar errors (aside from the idioms), which together with extensive use of idiomatic expressions would stop some readers from rating it a perfect 5.

I'd wanted to write a story set on the moors for quite a while and felt this was the story, but obviously there's a question of how much of the idiom to include. Writing characters with more dialect is on my list of areas to improve though and Yorkshire is a fairly easy place to start given its so distinctive (though easy to go too far on, I actually softened it in a lot of places). Ultimately I decided to take the hit of having some people not follow/like it.

I'll stretch a little and give this a 5, mainly for the dogging and lost virginity scenes.

Thanks again.

 

[8letters]

Feedback:
* I liked the ending, but it was a slog getting through the first two pages
* You start the story with Verna Baldwin being the POV. She then goes on the holiday near the bottom of page 1 and isn't in the story until the last scene
* Emily on the first page is an unappealing character. There was nothing in her description that made her sound appealing to Neville. For reasons I didn't understand, he asked her out, and she rejects in a hurtful way, even if the hurt wasn't intentional
* Then we're introduced to three new characters. At this point, I didn't know were the story was going so I went to the end of the story to see if it was indeed about Emily and Neville.
* It wasn't until Emily walked into Brenda's store that the story got interesting
* It's not a Nude Day story. As far as I can tell, Emily isn't nude during the day (though she may be naked under the blanket at the end)
* Once I finished the story, I didn't understand it. Was Emily always a witch? Did she suddenly become a witch after reading the witchcraft books mentioned on page 1? Why did she summon Neville after treating him so coldly? Did Emily just happen to walk into Brenda's store the night after seeing her dogging?

 

[TheRedChamber]

Thanks for the feedback

Feedback:
* I liked the ending, but it was a slog getting through the first two pages

Oh no I have someone telling me pages 3 and 4 were a slog and now someone telling me pages 1 and 2 were a slog. At least page 5 is okay (for now)

* You start the story with Verna Baldwin being the POV. She then goes on the holiday near the bottom of page 1 and isn't in the story until the last scene

* Emily on the first page is an unappealing character. There was nothing in her description that made her sound appealing to Neville. For reasons I didn't understand, he asked her out, and she rejects in a hurtful way, even if the hurt wasn't intentional

* Then we're introduced to three new characters. At this point, I didn't know were the story was going so I went to the end of the story to see if it was indeed about Emily and Neville.

Emily is intended to be kind of the MC, but because the story would be less interesting if everything she does is given clear rationale and advanced planning, I had the story viewed through the eyes of others. I was hoping for a certain amount of 'where is this story going' from readers, but if they are confused or annoyed by it, it's a problem.

For Emily I was going for 'oblivious' rather than straight-up 'nasty' in the first chapter. It's quite hard to start out with a rejection and have the rejecting character still be sympathetic and maybe I didn't hit it here. Emily is appealing to Neville because she's an attractive girl with a love of fantasy.

* It's not a Nude Day story. As far as I can tell, Emily isn't nude during the day (though she may be naked under the blanket at the end)

To be honest I hadn't really considered this. The rules (or maybe just the thread advice) said it didn't actually have to be set on Nude Day - just feature lots of public nudity.

* Once I finished the story, I didn't understand it. Was Emily always a witch? Did she suddenly become a witch after reading the witchcraft books mentioned on page 1? Why did she summon Neville after treating him so coldly?

in writing this I wanted to make Emily's motivations somewhat mysterious, although this risks them being seen as inconsistent. The way I imagined it was that Emily is largely asexual/aromantic before the start of the story. A combination of the knowledge that someone is interested in her and her witnessing sexual acts awakens something inside of her. Because she lives in her own fantasy world (and is currently fascinated by witchcraft) she expresses this by experimenting with

Did Emily just happen to walk into Brenda's store the night after seeing her dogging?

Yes pretty much - it's the only shoe shop in the town and she needs boots for the adventure. This is possibly a coincidence too far in the story, but it was easier for them just to meet quickly.


* Once I finished the story, I didn't understand it. Was Emily always a witch? Did she suddenly become a witch after reading the witchcraft books mentioned on page 1?

Again, I've tried to keep things ambigious and bust out the old 'was the magic real or not' trope - but everything is largely explained by coincidence - there wasn't any need for magic as Neville is already crazy about Emily.


For this story, I was exploring telling a story using multiple POV and a less straight-forward story - perhaps I went to far in some places if you ended with so many questions. Thanks again for reading.

 

[HectorBidon]

I liked the story a lot. It's witty and entertaining, with engaging characters and real emotion. If it takes a little effort to work out who is who and what is what, well, so does Wuthering Heights.

I was about to bail out of the story on page 4 when Neville arrived at the van and Brenda proposed that they start without Emily. (Grrr. I think you meant to have her say "start without her" rather than "start without you.") I hadn't liked the dogging stuff, hadn't found Brenda or Ted very attractive at all—had found the whole subplot lurid and lowbrow and like something you might read on a porn site. And now you were going to drag poor Neville down to that level too.

But then the magic in the story began to kick in. Neville pulled back, and "suddenly the temptress was gone, replaced with a middle age woman." That transformation was quite vivid to me, and it worked on two levels: in the plot, in Neville's perception, saving him from what would have been a sad, tacky encounter, but also in the story's sense of itself, saving us readers from exactly the same thing.

And instead you give us a primordial rite of passage: the skyclad witch, the chase across the moors, the cave and the fire and the blood. That was another amazing transformation: the way you started out from the familiar everyday world of cell phones and fast food shops and automobile headlights and conjured up so believably an encounter that was so primitive and archetypal.

I liked the character of Emily. I appreciated the fact that you only let us see her from other people's point of view, which added to her mystique. But I've known people like her—people who march to their own beat, not really concerned at all about what the world thinks of them. Not so much aromantic as romantic in her own terms. Emily wants the world to be as magical and wonderful as it is in her fairy stories, and she isn't afraid to try to make it that way.

Did she really believe that her spells would be effective? Were they in fact effective? I'd have to think that she is as much a witch as any of her ancestors who ever danced naked across the moors. It's not that she's creating a fairy-tale cosplay world, it's that she's getting in touch with the ancient ways that are still as effective in our age of headlights and cell phones as they ever were.

I liked the generosity of spirit in the story. I might not have cared for Brenda, but you did, and you let us see her kindness ("Off ye go, ye daft bugger."), and Emily sees the goddess within her. Neville might not be a player, but he fulfills his archetypal role. He may have acted irresponsibly, but he chose to do so, and you let us believe that the ancient binding will be as strong as any ring. He and Emily will have to reconcile that binding now in the everyday world of the village, but one thinks that that will be a happy occasion for everyone involved.

 

[TheRedChamber]

I liked the story a lot. It's witty and entertaining, with engaging characters and real emotion. If it takes a little effort to work out who is who and what is what, well, so does Wuthering Heights....

Thanks for taking the time to write out such detailed feedback and for being so (mostly) positive about the story. I don't have too much more to say as your analysis has pretty much hit all the points I was trying to get to with the story. There's a difficulty in mixing the tawdry with the pure and maybe it can turn people off earlier on, but the contrast is needed - just needs to be a bit more fine tuned possibly.