Feedback request! Now in the actual correct forum!

[optimizer888]

I screwed up and posted a request in the wrong place before. So, once more, with feeling:

I wrote a much shorter story than my usual efforts, to see if I could. I won't ask for feedback on the novellas I've written, but this one is 1.01 Literotica pages, a much more manageable size:

http://www.literotica.com/stories/sh....php?id=451896

I do try to learn from my mistakes; hence my posting here, in the actual forum set aside for this sort of thing. In that spirit, please point out mistakes in my fiction writing that I can correct in the future.

 

[driphoney]

Your link's not working. Here you go:

Downsides and Upsides

 

[driphoney]

Wow! I read it--and SO GLAD I DID! It was a great story. Maybe, to prevent picky reviewers from dissing you on your comment page, you should request they give comment HERE. Live and learn, huh?

Your writing is better than about 99% of what's posted here. I was reading it as a non sci-fi reader not generally attracted to the genre, and my standard was not the New Yorker, Asimov or Herbert, rather the hundreds of stories posted that give a numerical description, tell vs. showing, or struggle with plot development. (Like mine.)

I'm more of a reader than a writer, and never going to be as good as you, so I'm ill-qualified to give you any real advice. What's wrong with it? Such little stuff, maybe an odd sentence or word, that the story carried me over any minor glitches.

Did you self-edit? or use an editor? If you self-edited, wow, I'm impressed. A really good editor, especially one who writes sci-fi his/herself, would probably knock any rough edges off, clear up any sentences,, and de-"cartoon"ize rolleyes if needed, but they're going to find you a joy to assist, I'm sure.

I guess I haven't really helped you. Oops. Just gushed.



Good luck.

 

[optimizer888]

Your writing is better than about 99% of what's posted here.

Well, thanks, but let's not get carried away. It's worth pointing out that much of the scenario is not original with me... the general framework is from an old comic-book experiment. Google the "White Event" and you can see the gory details. It was slightly ahead of its time - well before Heroes - and only indifferently written, but the fundamental premise was good. So, technically, this was fan-fiction, though I changed details whenever I felt like it.

I will admit that, according to Google, I'm the only writer here ever to use the phrase "velvet jackhammer". (Bill Murray in "Caddyshack" voice: "So I've got that goin' for me.")

Did you self-edit?

Yeah; I'd feel guilty asking someone else to go over my stuff in raw form.

Thanks for the kind words!

 

[driphoney]

Well, thanks, but let's not get carried away. It's worth pointing out that much of the scenario is not original with me... the general framework is from an old comic-book experiment. Google the "White Event" and you can see the gory details. It was slightly ahead of its time - well before Heroes - and only indifferently written, but the fundamental premise was good. So, technically, this was fan-fiction, though I changed details whenever I felt like it.

I will admit that, according to Google, I'm the only writer here ever to use the phrase "velvet jackhammer". (Bill Murray in "Caddyshack" voice: "So I've got that goin' for me.")



Yeah; I'd feel guilty asking someone else to go over my stuff in raw form.

Thanks for the kind words!

Perhaps 99% is high, and the comment brought out some unforeseen heat on the other thread, but it's not the first time he's used that line, and I hate to see newbies fired at straight out of the shoot. Frankly, I opened your link thinking it was going to read like most of the stories posted by first-timers wanting critique. I was pleasantly surprised and felt his knee-jerk reaction was unfounded. If the comment had not been made, I probably wouldn't have posted because you're a much better writer than I am and it's a genre in which I'm unfamiliar. I could offer nothing but the usual feedback praise.

And why would you feel guilty having someone go over your raw material? My raw stuff is so rough I HAVE to have someone look at it.

 

[eliseolisbos]

I'm skimming over it and it looks very awesome to me so far. I like the storyline and Val is amusing without being annoying, which sometimes happens with female characters for me. I'm going to give it a deeper read tomorrow!

 

[elfin_odalisque]

I liked your scenario and then you went and let me down with a two-cent stroke story. All the intriguing sci-fi build-up got blown when Val just jumped his bones.

There is a basic structure problem where you intrigue us into some Machiavellian plot following The Event, then deflate us with one of those Tab A-Slot B yawns.

IMO, you use far too much back-story for no real reason. You describe and explain for so long without having action in the story that you lose your audience. Convention has it, for good reason, that you tell your story directly whilst filling in the background as and when appropriate.

Sex is good, but without a justified explanation -like here - leaves the writing two-dimensional.

Your writing is great, as Drip said, but you really need a story editor.

 

[optimizer888]

I liked your scenario and then you went and let me down with a two-cent stroke story. All the intriguing sci-fi build-up got blown when Val just jumped his bones.

I know. It damn near killed me squeezing things into a story that short; what facilities I have lend themselves to much longer works. As I said at the top of this thread, this was specifically intended to be far briefer than my usual output. It ended up bearing about the same relation to my regular stories as a trailer does to a full movie.

On the bright side, there's been enough positive feedback that I might actually tell some more stories in that world... of the appropriate length and pacing.