Feedback request

[gogolovercoat]

I would be grateful for any feedback on my first story here. It's also the first thing I've written in a long time so I'm sure it's clunky in some places. Any thoughts on pacing, character development, sentence construction, spelling, grammar, etc., are welcome.

It's the first chapter in a longer story, the category is erotic couplings and there's nothing particularly transgressive about the sex.

https://www.literotica.com/s/the-lost-city-ch-01

Feel free to pm me your thoughts if you don't want to post them publicly.

Thank you to all who take the time.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I read a few paragraphs of it.

Get rid of the passive voice, change HE COULD SEE to HE SAW. add HE SPENT FIVE HOURS IN THE AIRPLANE or airport or whatever it was.

Dump all the LY adverbs. Its larded with adverbs.

 

[gogolovercoat]

Yeah, I slip into passive voice too often. I'll edit for that more carefully next time.

 

[robertreams]

He'd been in the bus for more than five hours. He'd been in the country for just over two days. He really needed to pee. (what does his being in the country for two days have to do with his needing to pee?)

Josef pulled his headphones from his ears and stuffed his already bent and rumpled book into a small backpack before stretching and joining the slow moving line in the aisle. (30 words)

Josef removed (Or pulled off) his earphones, stuffed his rumpled book into his backpack, stretched, and joined the slow-moving line in the aisle. (21 words)(You could perhaps tell us something about Josef, by revealing the title of the book. e.g. The Catcher In The Rye, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, The Travels of John Dos Passos, etc.)

The two Australians behind Josef joined the queue (as well,) continuing the endless discussion of which particular areas of corporate law they hoped to focus on that had plagued the pre-sleep part of Josef's bus ride. The girl was actually cute in a waify way, but her apparently genuine fascination with the details of commercial paper and/or transactional intellectual property law--she couldn't decide--robbed Josef of any attraction he might have felt. Not her fault really.(78)

The two Australians joined the queue, continuing their endless discussion of corporate law that had plagued Josef's sleep. The waif-like girl's fascination for transactional intellectual property law, robbed Josef of any attraction he might have felt toward her. Not her fault, really. (43)

 

[8letters]

Congrats on getting a Red H on your first story. It's a good one. I really liked the bus scene.

My thoughts:
* The first three paragraphs were a total waste. The jump from him closing his eyes in the SFO airport and opening them on a bus in Columbia was jarring. I didn't recognize "CTG".
* There's very little about Josef, so it's hard to have any feelings for him. How old is he? We find out later that he's a lawyer who had quit his job. Why did he do that? What's the motivation for this trip?
* When he walks into the dorm room with three naked/near-naked gorgeous women, there is no reaction from him. "Just typical day in a South American hostel". There should have been an "Oh shit! What a lucky guy!" reaction
* There's no foreshadowing of his relationship with the woman. Which one does he like and why? What does he think of Michal coming on to him so strongly? What does he think of Mira on the beach?
* With Michal - suddenly she's all over him and Josef acts like this isn't a big deal. Where's the "Oh shit! What a lucky guy!" reaction?
* He holds hands with Michal and puts his arm around Mira. Why? He's going to fuck Michal. Why would Mira let him put his arm around her? Why would he want to put his arm around her?
* I thought it odd that he and Michal didn't fuck when they got back to the hostel. Or at least get a private room and sleep together
* Again, we aren't getting any insight into what Josef is thinking
* When the sex scene came, I didn't care as I had no emotional involvement with Josef or Michal

 

[gogolovercoat]

Thanks for the comments!

Robert, cheers for the edits. I'm not sure I agree with all of them, but you definitely forced me to consider which details are necessary and a lot of them aren't. I actually had the title of the book in there originally (it kept changing between The Unbearable Lightness of Being and The War of the End of the World), but I took it out because it felt too much like a clumsy signpost.

I think that actually ties into 8letters' comments. I was consciously avoiding using the narration to spell out Josef's feelings. It felt forced when I did it, but I think you're right that I went too far in the other direction and he ended up as little more than a cipher.

I'm guessing this might be a common problem for first time writers. There's a little too much of me in Josef, and that makes it difficult to sketch him as a real character.

I'll see what I can do about fixing that.

 

[8letters]

I'm guessing this might be a common problem for first time writers.

The most common problem I see in first-time stories is that they have the following structure:
* "Let me tell you about the girl I'm going to fuck..."
* Many paragraphs describing who wonderful she is
* "Let me tell you about me..."
* Many paragraphs describing the male lead character
* The plot begins

To me, the key to writing a good story is to weave telling the back story into the plot. You had plenty of opportunities to do so, but didn't take advantage of them. What was it about the Australians' conversation that bothered Josef so much? How did he compare to them in at least age? Helping Mira with the bus driver was another opportunity. Walking with Mira was another opportunity. You don't have to spell everything out at first. Give us enough details that we want to know more.

For example, you could have had on the walk from the bus stop to town:

"What brings you to Taganga?" asked Mira.

"I wanted to get away from it all for a while."

I was getting away from square one. My life had been like a real-life version of "Chutes and Ladders". I had been on space 95 and had just needed a good roll to win, but I had rolled badly and slid all the way down to square one. I hadn't been able to handle starting over, so I came to Columbia to regroup, to get my head on right. When I return to San Francisco, it will be to square one.

There's no details there, but it would give us a general idea of what has happened to Josef. The quitting of the lawyer job and the breaking off of his engagement can come later.

There's a little too much of me in Josef, and that makes it difficult to sketch him as a real character.

I'll see what I can do about fixing that.

All my lead male characters are versions of me. That's all I know. You want to share with us what makes the Josef version of you interesting, what makes him worth rooting for. The experienced South American tourist who tries to rescue young women in distress started interesting, but you didn't continue to flesh him out.

 

[Dream_Operator]

You write well. The story was intelligent and entertaining for the most part.

For me the characters didn't seem very realistic: everything was too perfect, everything happened too easily, every character seem to be trying too hard to be clever. It felt superficial and forced.

Here's one example:

"Well, that was certainly nice," she said a bit breathlessly. "I was planning on blowing you and then riding you like I was Amelia Earhart and you were a biplane, but I don't seem to have any muscles at the moment. How would you feel about climbing on top of me and fucking me?"

"A biplane? Really? Plus didn't she crash?"

"Just focus on the fact that she was really hot."

-------------

A few other points:

- Some physical description of Josef would have been nice. You go into a fair amount of detail describing the female characters, but literally nothing about Josef.

- The story is told from Josef's POV, but we have little insight into what he is thinking or feeling until he confronts Mira, and then it seems to have come out of left field.

- On a grammar note:

"None at all," Michal kissed his neck.

s/b

"None at all." Michal kissed his neck. Commas are only used with a dialogue tag like "she said".

 

[CyranoJ]

gogolovercoat, not much to add to prior critiques. I just wanted to say how tickled I was to see Die Antwoord referenced in your story, and the title of their dance hit spelled correctly.

 

[gogolovercoat]

Thanks for the detailed responses! This is exactly the type of feedback I was looking for.

 

[robertreams]

All my male leads are also versions of me, but some are versions of me doing what I would only do in fantasy. I love the freedom to do anything at all (in writing).