Feedback Swap? My first story for one of yours.

[MateoParks]

Does anybody want to trade critiques? Kinda seems like you have to be proactive on here to get feedback.

Mine's 4k words and more of a dark psychological story than a sex story, and it's in the Incest/Taboo category. I'd like to get some general impressions. I'm pretty happy with the first half, but I'm not sure about the last half. I'd like to know if the dialogue is too vague or if it's unclear what the characters are referencing, and whether it works in the story. I'm a bit worried about pacing and jumping the shark there. It's always been a bad habit of mine to rush.

I'm new to erotica, but I've been writing as a hobby for a little while and have done a ton of critiques, and I know they're work to do, so if you send me a link to your story, I'll respond in kind up to 10k words.

Also, I know people have lots of mixed opinions on what kind of feedback is useful, but you don't need to spare my feelings with a compliment sandwich or anything. Honestly, the best critiques I've ever had were scathing--lol.

Thanks!

Trigger warning: Attempted rape. https://literotica.com/s/ghost-in-a-jar

 

[SomaSlave]

Here's the comment I posted on yours:

What a juicy, creepy tale you've spun! I can't I love it, because it's about three broken people who will never be healed. But I gave it five stars because it's wonderfully written. What's left unsaid is more important than the actual words. I appreciate your trusting your readers enough to figure it out. There's still enough unsaid to make the exact nature of their relationships ambiguous, but I consider that a feature, not a bug.

Bravo!

In exchange, could you look at this and give me some insight into why it's not rated any higher? I know there are only 6 ratings, but it's the lowest rated story I've submitted, and I'd like to know why. The Shopping Spree Pt. 03

Thanks

 

[lovecraft68]

Read it despite the warning and the story pissed me off to an extent. But it was well written, pissing me off means it was handled well enough to spark an emotional reaction, and I tip my hat to people who post stories they know can be polarizing and get them some crap from the readers.

I think that's why the story-from where I can see as only you gets the up to minute scoring-is around a 4 because its written much better than that score indicates, but the taboo crowd really gets funny with anything non consensual, so that's keeping it from soaring score wise.

Very good first effort, read it last night and it stayed with me for a while, a good mark of success.

Hope you plan on publishing more stories.

No need to read any of mine in return.

 

[MateoParks]

Here's the comment I posted on yours:

What a juicy, creepy tale you've spun! I can't I love it, because it's about three broken people who will never be healed. But I gave it five stars because it's wonderfully written. What's left unsaid is more important than the actual words. I appreciate your trusting your readers enough to figure it out. There's still enough unsaid to make the exact nature of their relationships ambiguous, but I consider that a feature, not a bug.

Bravo!

In exchange, could you look at this and give me some insight into why it's not rated any higher? I know there are only 6 ratings, but it's the lowest rated story I've submitted, and I'd like to know why. The Shopping Spree Pt. 03

Thanks

Hi Soma, thanks for reading mine and giving me your thoughts!

On yours, I went back and read from Chapter 1 for some more context, so this'll be for the first 3 chapters.

At the beginning you told me exactly what the story was going to be about in the first three paragraphs, which was great.

Everything was written clearly and explained well. And you even threw in the phone text itself, which told me a lot about the personalities of the characters involved, more so than if you just straight up said "this is who they are and what they're doing," which was even better.

Just two critiques about those opening paragraphs: 1) It felt like I was jumping into the middle of a story and being told about the beginning chapters. 2) Seemed like there was a lot of unnecessary info right off the bat. That 4th paragraph where you go into how far away they are, where they meet, how often, all that seemed like it could easily be omitted until later on or done with a couple quick dialogue lines.

I did like how you hinted at another plot thread with the guy in the bathroom. It didn't feel like a tangent and seemed to explicitly say "Hey, something's gonna happen with this later."

Sounds like a healthy dominant relationship, clearly stating what's going to happen and if it's in their boundaries. I like that.

The third guy was the most entertaining of the bunch. I liked the dynamic of him being nervous. It was a great way to segue into some humanizing backstory. Soma's dialogue did feel a bit meta at points, though, like the rationalizations were directed at me rather than George.

As far as the third chapter goes as a whole, I can't really find a whole lot to say about it. You upped the story with George's nerves and the Domme blowjob, but other than that, it didn't read much different than the second chapter.

Overall, I never had an issue following along. Good simple prose, which is perfect for this kind of story, and enough actual interaction to glean the personalities of the characters.

Probably my biggest critique overall is that it's not very concise. I liked how you went through the play by play of him going through the store and showing why he was embarrassed--which let me live vicariously through him and experience the eroticism, which worked really well because of how grounded you kept the story. On that same point, it also seemed like a lot of lesser scenes gave that same play by play and didn't add much to the story or really help me empathize with the characters any more, such as the trip to Walmart and those other kinda transition scenes between the real action of the story.

I can tell you've written a lot of works because in this one, I didn't see any weird prose or narrative cliches, big grammar mishaps or anything like that. The TLDR version is narration was just a bit long winded on the "in between scenes" and by the 3rd chapter, the hook felt repetitive without much being added to up the story.

One thing I did notice when I got to the third chapter is that there wasn't a sidebar at the end of the second chapter that tagged it to the first. I had to go to your profile and click the link.

What I liked most about the story was how grounded it felt. The kink wasn't over the top, and everyone behaved perfectly believably and rationally. This really helped me live vicariously through the character, which upped the erotica factor far more than crazy sex positions and whatnot--at least to me.

Thanks again!

 

[MateoParks]

Read it despite the warning and the story pissed me off to an extent. But it was well written, pissing me off means it was handled well enough to spark an emotional reaction, and I tip my hat to people who post stories they know can be polarizing and get them some crap from the readers.

I think that's why the story-from where I can see as only you gets the up to minute scoring-is around a 4 because its written much better than that score indicates, but the taboo crowd really gets funny with anything non consensual, so that's keeping it from soaring score wise.

Very good first effort, read it last night and it stayed with me for a while, a good mark of success.

Hope you plan on publishing more stories.

No need to read any of mine in return.

I appreciate the feedback!

I'd be lying if I said I didn't care about the rating, but the fun of writing about disturbed characters outweighs that.

Thanks for the encouragement. I doubt the next story will be any better received seeing as it'll be an erotica about some dude who's paralyzed and numb from the waist down--lol.

 

[SomaSlave]

Hi Soma, thanks for reading mine and giving me your thoughts!

On yours, I went back and read from Chapter 1 for some more context, so this'll be for the first 3 chapters.

At the beginning you told me exactly what the story was going to be about in the first three paragraphs, which was great.

Everything was written clearly and explained well. And you even threw in the phone text itself, which told me a lot about the personalities of the characters involved, more so than if you just straight up said "this is who they are and what they're doing," which was even better.

Just two critiques about those opening paragraphs: 1) It felt like I was jumping into the middle of a story and being told about the beginning chapters. 2) Seemed like there was a lot of unnecessary info right off the bat. That 4th paragraph where you go into how far away they are, where they meet, how often, all that seemed like it could easily be omitted until later on or done with a couple quick dialogue lines.

I did like how you hinted at another plot thread with the guy in the bathroom. It didn't feel like a tangent and seemed to explicitly say "Hey, something's gonna happen with this later."

Sounds like a healthy dominant relationship, clearly stating what's going to happen and if it's in their boundaries. I like that.

The third guy was the most entertaining of the bunch. I liked the dynamic of him being nervous. It was a great way to segue into some humanizing backstory. Soma's dialogue did feel a bit meta at points, though, like the rationalizations were directed at me rather than George.

As far as the third chapter goes as a whole, I can't really find a whole lot to say about it. You upped the story with George's nerves and the Domme blowjob, but other than that, it didn't read much different than the second chapter.

Overall, I never had an issue following along. Good simple prose, which is perfect for this kind of story, and enough actual interaction to glean the personalities of the characters.

Probably my biggest critique overall is that it's not very concise. I liked how you went through the play by play of him going through the store and showing why he was embarrassed--which let me live vicariously through him and experience the eroticism, which worked really well because of how grounded you kept the story. On that same point, it also seemed like a lot of lesser scenes gave that same play by play and didn't add much to the story or really help me empathize with the characters any more, such as the trip to Walmart and those other kinda transition scenes between the real action of the story.

I can tell you've written a lot of works because in this one, I didn't see any weird prose or narrative cliches, big grammar mishaps or anything like that. The TLDR version is narration was just a bit long winded on the "in between scenes" and by the 3rd chapter, the hook felt repetitive without much being added to up the story.

One thing I did notice when I got to the third chapter is that there wasn't a sidebar at the end of the second chapter that tagged it to the first. I had to go to your profile and click the link.

What I liked most about the story was how grounded it felt. The kink wasn't over the top, and everyone behaved perfectly believably and rationally. This really helped me live vicariously through the character, which upped the erotica factor far more than crazy sex positions and whatnot--at least to me.

Thanks again!

Thank you for your detailed critique. I particularly appreciated your comments about the level of detail and apparent repetition. Let me address each of them in turn. While I don’t disagree with your comment, I’d like to explain why I’m making the writing decisions I am.

As you can tell from reading my stores, especially the Soma Slave’s Journey series, he represents me, and, through me, I hope, the reader. The series follow an arc: Soma Slave’s Journey are all based on my actual experiences; The Apotheosis of Soma is a bridge story which moves from reality to a fantasy I would dearly love to become reality. My goal in it, and in The Pleasure Giver Chronicles, is to build a world that is, if not likely, at least feasible (a form of sexual magic realism, perhaps). It is a world by and for ordinary people, not the stereotypes of porn. The details are there to flesh out the world: I hope by piling those on, I’m making it easier for my readers to step into Soma’s shoes and see the possibilities for themselves.

A large part of my stories focus on the inner feelings of characters, especially Soma. As ”real“ people exploring outside the accepted norms of their society, they’re going to alternate between the euphoria of sexual discovery and the fear of exposure and ruin. You were correct about Soma’s conversation with George being directed at the reader: it’s my attempt to rationalize my own explorations. In that sense, George can be seen as an early version of me/Soma.

I’m a great believer in “show, don’t tell.” I try to do that through the little details and by the dialog. While the sex scenes may seem repetitive, I try to add some variety by the approach each of Soma’s shoppers takes towards the encounter. Given the basic premise of the story, the sex is going to be the least memorable part, though that should change in parts 5 and 6 (part 4 was just published; I’d be interested in seeing your reaction to it based on my explanations here). The “in between“ scenes are there for character development and showing the reader who these people are. I shall, however, revisit those scenes in future stories to make sure I’m not overdoing it.

Thanks, again, for your thoughtful remarks. They’ll help make me a better writer.

 

[MediocreAuthor]

So I read the story, and yep... It made me miserable. Lol

But it was well written, and I don't have any complaints. Obviously a story like this one isn't going to rate super well, but that doesn't make it bad.

I would compare this story to the Joker film starring Joaquin Phoenix.
I've always said:
"Joker is a very well made film. I'm glad I saw it, but I didn't enjoy it... because it brought me no  joy. It was a sad, depressing story, excellently told."

And that's how I feel about your story. I pity the onscreen characters, and I wish they could be happy... but I know that isn't the point of the tale.

So excellent job; I hated it. 5 stars.

(I don't really need a critique of my stories, although you're more than welcome to look at any that seem interesting to you... I know that some of the older ones desperately need rewrites haha)

[EDIT: Ooh... I did think of one possible change that might be helpful. Maybe? I realize that the guy had sex with his dead brother's wife: his sister-in-law, but I almost feel like this story might be better off in the non-con/reluctance category. Just a thought. It is taboo, but not really incest... and the NC/R category is more at home with the darker tones prevalent within the story.]

 

[SureWhyNot88]

https://literotica.com/s/my-cousins-maid
I am surprised at the rating my story is at in a good way, but i would like to know if there anyone can tell me, here or dm, what they would give it and why.