Female feedback requested

[Octavian]

At the risk of sounding sexist I would really welcome some feedback from a feminine perspective. I had hoped that my Loving Wives themed story might appeal to women as well as men, since it is in essence a love story, albeit an erotic one. However since my wife doesn’t want to read it I have no idea whether or not my hopes have been realised.
I have had some really good feedback but I think it has only been from men. I would love to know how women rate it.



www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=51798

 

[KillerMuffin]

Your first sentence was in the character's head. The rest of the paragraph was in the narrator's head. I am not a fan of descriptive narrative, which is what you're doing on the first page, so I take pains to avoid it. Descriptive narrative is--what's the best way to put it?--dry.

Then there was the formatting. Any paragraph that's longer than the space between my tool bars and my start bar on my 19 inch monitor is entirely too long to be one paragraph.

There's too many pages for huge blocks of text and descriptive narrative. That's entirely too much commitment for me. I didn't read past the first page.

I'm sure it was a lovely story though.

 

[NCmVoyeur]

I'm not a female, but . . .

Since the story was put up on the Board, link and all, it was too easy to click on it.

I noticed right off what KillerMuffin observed: there are quite a few monstrously long paragraphs.

About page 2, I noticed one other thing. The story is written in first person point-of-view, but you've got the narrator/Ben off in Zurich, yet purporting to narrate what Kelly and Carl are doing at a party somewhere else. Even more bizarrely, Ben (who's not even there) is telling us (the readers) what's going on in Carl's mind.

There is no such beast as 'First Person Omniscient' point of view.

 

[the_bragis]

Feminine View

Hi Octavian,

Thank you for the request, and kind words, that has given me a big buzz.

Yes, it is a long story, a very long story, with some very long paragraphs too. To be honest, I think it could have been cut shorter without loosing any impact. From a female point of view, this is what I observed.

Apparently Kelly argued with me because I took the last one (cookie).

Women never forget do they? I can relate to this.

She thinks that her mouth is too big but since she is always smiling it just adds to her charm.


Don't all females have at least something they don't like about themselves? This was a nice and reassuring line for every single woman who reads it.

She said this was her 'favour' and it signified that I was her champion and that I would for evermore have to protect her honour.


That's nice . Yes, you pinged my feminine string there for sure!

The only thing she wouldn't do was to head the ball because she didn't like getting her hair dirty.


Naturally!

Kelly had placed our container of orangeade on the armrest so that we could share it.....


This is so damned corny, but I loved it anway.

I had fallen in love, for the second time in my life, and with exactly the same person!


Nice, really nice. Why dont' men say things like this to their women more often?

Ok, nothing glaringly sexist yet.

It was only as we arrived that she casually informed she was not wearing any underwear!


I've pulled this one myself, it's a hell of a turn on. I bet a few women who read this story will have done it, or something similar.

He was wearing a pale green Ralph Lauren shirt and a pair of dark blue trousers with a razor sharp crease.


You know, details are important, but a few times I felt there was just too much to read through to get to the 'good bits'. I am interested that he was dark, handsome and muscular certainly, but what he was wearing...unless it was what he wasn't wearing, doesn't really interest me that much. I think you were wanting to let the reader know he was well dressed, ok, 'he was well dressed."

Our meeting in Zurich had been curtailed when the person with whom we had the appointment had been involved in a fatal accident on his way to meet us.


Definitely way too much information. Please keep it happy for me. Actually, I could have skipped this whole paragraph, his business dealing didn't interest me at all.

But it was his bulge that commanded her attention.


Mine too, damn it I don't care what anyone says about keeping it realistic, in my fantasies I always have big beautiful tits, and the man always has a hug cock. I mean isn't that why it's called a 'fantasy'?

She was regretting the fact that she would be deprived of the experience of full sexual intercourse because she had got too carried away when she was fellating him.


There are lots of these kinds of desciptions, they feel too 'formal' to me. I really enjoy a more raw description. "Damn it, she spent too much time sucking his cock and now she was going to miss out on a good fuck," would have really done it for me. On that subject, clitoris, labia, penis, etc, don't really do it for me either. I prefer the pussies and cocks. ~laughing~

She sat on the edge of the sofa, leaned back and spread her legs. As she did so, I moved between them and bent down so that I could look more closely at her open vagina. On either side of her distended canal was the engorged flesh that was Kelly's labia.


I'm sorry, but this just turned me right off! Why? I'm not sure, maybe it just reminded me too much of my last visit to my gyno.

"I'm hardly likely to get pregnant, am I?" she said.


Every intelligent woman knows getting pregant is only one of the risks of not using a condom. In my opinion, this makes Kelly look ignorant, and that bugged me.

.....In fact I was seriously considering crying off."

I didn't understand this expression.

At that precise moment there was a piercing shriek. Kelly had seen a huge spider close to her foot. In her panic she raised her legs out of harm's way without giving a moment's thought to her lack of underwear.


Any female could relate to this, the spider I mean. It's a cute scene too.

I kind of predicted who the old woman was at the beginning, but it was an interesting twist at the end when Carl turning out to be a complete jerk. Let that be a warning to women everywhere!! 'just kidding.

Less detail about nonsexual issues would have worked better for me, but that just me. I think the problem readers. male or female, will have with this is simply the length. Many people may be put off before they have even attempt to get into it, which will be a pity because it is a good read!

These are my 'female feelings' on your story (little laugh). I hope this is what you were looking for.

Have a great day,

Alex(fem)

 

[MooncatX]

Well, as a whole I liked the story, but there is a serious need for fixing the narrative perspective. Others have already mentioned those points, so I won't belabor them. But that does need to be fixed.

MC
>^,,^<

 

[Octavian]

Firstly, thank you to everyone for the feedback, especially Alex.
I am a first time writer and I readily defer to others who clearly have much more experience than I do. But surely it is a legitimate ploy to have a different narrative perspective in the prologue and epilogue of a story. ‘A Modern Love Story’ is, in effect, a tale within a tale, the outer tale, so to speak, being the prologue and epilogue.
I am not convinced that KillerMuffin’s point is valid. Making an observation does not necessarily put you in the character’s head but I accept it is ambiguous.
I concede there is a narrative error at one stage, a point succinctly made by NcMVoyeur and I wonder whether I might have overcome that if I had started that particular section, ‘I later found out that….’
Yes, there are some long paragraphs (they didn’t look so long in my Word draft!). Whether they are too long, or indeed if my story is too long, is simply a matter of individual taste.