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I wrote an erotic short story entitled Necopinata and it is posted on this site. (The link is www.literotica.com/s/necopinata). I am going to start writing weekly chapters for my work Spank soon, so it is important I understand what people disliked about my story.
This is a challenge. I glanced at it last night and decided not to review it, but then I looked more closely this morning and thought I'd have a go. The piece is intriguing in its way, but it certainly doesn't try very hard to accommodate the reader. I think its interest lies much more in language than in story - though that doesn't mean I think the language is 'right'.
You say: ... it is important I understand what people disliked about my story. Of course, I can't speak for them - since I don't know them - but here are my own guesses:
1. The title is obscure. I looked it up. Necopinata, according to Wikipedia, can refer to a species of sea snail - amoria necopinata - or, possibly, a flat worm - imogine necopinata. Either way, it's a title that may put some Literotica readers off. For those of us it intrigues, however, it's a bit of a disappointment in the long run. I thought at first, having established the zoological reference, that the story might be describing a snail or worm rather than a woman - which would have been a clever trick, if true. But that didn't fit by the end. So were we in sci-fi land? Was she a shape-shifter, maybe - a snail/worm who took on the appearance of a woman? Well, perhaps - but that certainly isn't clarified by the end and, on balance, I think that theory's wrong too. So why the title? I don't know - and that puzzlement is likely to annoy readers who bother to get to the end of the story. (Of course, I may be being dense. Perhaps there's a significance to necopinata that I've simply missed. But I think you'll agree that the title is at best obscure and likely to cause frustration.)
(An afterthought: I've just looked up necopinatus (feminine: necopinata) in a Latin dictionary. It says it means 'unexpected'. If that was your meaning - I can't be sure, of course - why not just say 'Unexpected'? That would be a perfectly good - and clear - title for the story.)
2. Character: Despite the extremely detailed descriptions of the woman, I had very little sense of her as a personality until the very end - when she turns the narrator down. Of course it isn't a very long piece, and character might emerge later if the story were continued. But there is no later. So the reader's pretty-much left with a description of a body without a soul.
3. Language: This, it seems to me, is the nub of the matter. To say the piece is over-written would be an understatement. I strongly suspect it was produced with constant reference to a thesaurus.
I have to qualify that slightly, though. You've obviously tried for a 'high' style here, and that in itself is interesting. There's absolutely nothing wrong with trying to develop a distinctive style. The trouble is, developing a style of this kind is very difficult. If you get it just slightly wrong, everything jars. Here are a few examples:
a) Her eyes broadcast the nascent brilliance that accompanies the occasion of a lady revealing herself in a new formal dress.
- Well, there is an idea here - and an image - but it seems word-heavy. I suspect a lot of readers gave up after this first sentence with the thought: 'He's trying too hard."
b) She looked stunning and, like always, this revelation ...
For me, like is unnatural here. I'd say 'as' instead. Of course, that may just be a matter of personal preference - of my personal dialect, perhaps - but little problems like that stand out much more strongly if the writer is trying for 'high' style. They undercut it.
c) Above her dress rose a soft neck, a smooth manifold which diverged streaming at its ends, emphasizing stateliness.
Manifold??? Are we suddenly in an engineering class? The word seems completely out of place. Doesn't 'manifold' mean - broadly - 'having many parts'? I've just looked at the more technical meanings of 'manifold' in the dictionary and there is, maybe, a glimmer of relevance in some of them. Are you thinking of her neck as a pipe with a number of inlets and outlets? Or is it something to do with Kantian properties? Whatever your metaphor is, it certainly isn't clear. Manifold is much more likely to confuse and repel a reader than engage him or her.
And, of course, there's 'streaming' in the same sentence. This confused me too. (Is she sweating a lot, maybe? Or has she just been for a swim?) This was one of the points in the story where I entertained the 'woman who's really a sea-snail' theory. But I still don't get it, really.
I could go on but I think I've said enough. It seems to me that considerable effort has gone into this piece of writing - and you're certainly to be congratulated for that - but your first task from now on should be to develop a simpler (much simpler) and more natural style. I think you really should go on writing, though. The fact that you've put so much effort into this means you'll probably get there in the end. (You might consider throwing the thesaurus away, however. You'll be better off without it, in my opinion.)
- polynices
