First Lit story-constructive feedback please!

[Nameless_Rose]

Hello all. Lit just posted my first story, and I was hoping to get some constructive feedback. It's entitled "Irena's Shadow," and it's located in the BDSM section. Here's a link: http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=322360&page=1

I would really like to hear thoughts about character development and the general flow of the story. I feel like it can be a bit cumbersome at points. I would be grateful for any suggestions on how I can improve it. Thanks in advance for taking the time to read.

-Rose

 

[drksideofthemoon]

First I must tell you that I don't care for BDSM.

You seem to be a very capable writer. I found the first part of the story long, and tedious at times.

As as a writer, I tend to I tend to fall on the realism side of things, and that's what I enjoy reading as well. The bit about her father declaring an eighteen year old mentally incompetent and assigning her a guardian was too much of a stretch for me, and after that point in the story, you lost me as a reader.

 

[Nameless_Rose]

First I must tell you that I don't care for BDSM.

You seem to be a very capable writer. I found the first part of the story long, and tedious at times.

As as a writer, I tend to I tend to fall on the realism side of things, and that's what I enjoy reading as well. The bit about her father declaring an eighteen year old mentally incompetent and assigning her a guardian was too much of a stretch for me, and after that point in the story, you lost me as a reader.

It was a bit of stretch for me too, actually. I was trying to think of a way to trap Irena into the situation, and as literotica has a no minors policy, I had to think of something to render her helpless, and without rights. I just couldn't picture Irena allowing herself to be put in that situation without being absolutely backed into a corner. I did do a bit of research, and adult personal guardians do exist, but only for those truly unable to care for themselves.

I had actually intended it to come across that it was Soto who procured the paperwork, as he is much more well connected. Bribery and the calling in of favors would of course have been necessary to accomplish something like that.

Thank you very much for your feedback.

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

I'm with Drk on this one. I don't read a lot of BDSM, so you can take my comments any way you like.

You writing is technically quite good. You story, however, is left wanting. I think the fist thing that caused me to roll my eyes was the old cliche], she ran off with the mail man. Why not the milk man or the box boy at Albertson's? This is the stuff that jokes are made of. Sorry.

Then you went on for another fifteen paragraphs or so telling me all about the story. You actually included far more than the story needed - all in boring expostulation.

So, Irene has blue eyes and blue-black hair. I really don't care. Nothing in this gave me anything to empathize with. She is so sad because her father spent her college fund. Boo-Hoo. Get a job, lady!

In the end, Irene is more child-like than you should have written. The mental picture I get is about thirteen.

Potentially, I think you can do a lot better.

 

[Nameless_Rose]

I'm with Drk on this one. I don't read a lot of BDSM, so you can take my comments any way you like.

You writing is technically quite good. You story, however, is left wanting. I think the fist thing that caused me to roll my eyes was the old cliche], she ran off with the mail man. Why not the milk man or the box boy at Albertson's? This is the stuff that jokes are made of. Sorry.

Then you went on for another fifteen paragraphs or so telling me all about the story. You actually included far more than the story needed - all in boring expostulation.

So, Irene has blue eyes and blue-black hair. I really don't care. Nothing in this gave me anything to empathize with. She is so sad because her father spent her college fund. Boo-Hoo. Get a job, lady!

In the end, Irene is more child-like than you should have written. The mental picture I get is about thirteen.

Potentially, I think you can do a lot better.

Thanks for the feedback. I can't believe I missed the mailman thing. I was drawing a blank as to who I should say she ran away with, so I just filled in the black with mailman so I could come back to it later. Guess I forgot.

 

[Varian P]

Hi there, Nameless_Rose.

I think the beginning would be stronger, more compelling, if you'd opened with this,

She turned a page and cast an annoyed glance over at the slatted metal opening of the air duct in the corner. Her father's voice had been filtering up through the vent for the past half-hour, but Irena was doing her best to ignore it.

and then fed us details about her appearance, about the book being dog-eared and worn because she's on her third read, etc., as little morsels to accent the action (that image of her father's voice filtering up through the vent is lovely, by the way).

She supposed that she should just stuff a pillow in the vent and go back to her book, but the shrillness that she had heard in her father's voice worried her. She had never heard him sound like that before, and knew that it meant he was in deep trouble. She had to find out more.

Irena jumped up from the floor, threw a robe over her thin nightgown, then went to the door and eased it open, willing the hinges not to squeak. She began to creep down the stairs, deciding that she would listen to the rest of the conversation at the door to her father's study and see if she could figure out what he had done.

That “She had to find out more” is superfluous. I feel like you're telling me too much, not letting me ride with her and work out her motivations for myself. Same with that second phrase I bolded. The reader understands what she's up to. Over-explaining just waters down the action, and deprives us of the chance to work out what's going on, which is half the fun of reading.

Irena decided that it was time for her to leave. She'd heard enough, more than she had ever wanted to know, in fact. If she didn't go soon she would break down right outside the door and alert both men to her presence. She had turned to leave when the sound of breaking glass came from the study, immediately followed by the dull thump of a body hitting the floor.

This should be a tense, suspenseful scene, but again, that bold sentence is dragging the action down, and other phrasing and verb tense choices are hampering the flow, here. Consider this slight re-phrasing:

She'd heard enough, more than she had ever wanted to know. Afraid the sob in her throat would break loose and alert them to her presence, she clamped her hand over her mouth and turned to leave. That moment, she heard the crash of breaking glass in the study, immediately followed by the dull thump of a body hitting the floor.

My concerns with disbelief kicked in a little earlier than drk's; Irena hears a stranger threatening her father, then hears those sounds, but doesn't try to look and see if he's alright? Or call the police when she gets upstairs, if she's too frightened of the stranger to peek into the study? At this point, I have the idea that the stranger has bashed a bottle or something over the father's head, and Irena is coming off as being too passive to be a sympathetic character (I was already feeling this a bit based on her response to her father after the death of her mother).

These specific criticisms aside, you clearly have a fine grasp of language, and many of your phrases and images are wonderful.

I hope some of that's helpful.

-Varian

 

[Nameless_Rose]

Thank you Varian, all your points were very helpful. I've been trying to break myself of the habit of over-explaining the actions in my stories, but as you can see, I still have some work to do.

As for sympathies with Irena, I think I might have made too many cuts. In one of my original drafts, I spared a paragraph explaining that she hated her father because he had been having an affair with her future step-mother while her real mother was bed-ridden with cancer. In hindsight, maybe I should have left that in. It would have given her more of a reason to be so unsympathetic towards her father.

Thanks again for your feedback, it was really helpful.

-Rose

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

As for sympathies with Irena, I think I might have made too many cuts. In one of my original drafts, I spared a paragraph explaining that she hated her father because he had been having an affair with her future step-mother while her real mother was bed-ridden with cancer. In hindsight, maybe I should have left that in. It would have given her more of a reason to be so unsympathetic towards her father.

And there's your problem. Even had you left that paragraph in it would have been YOU telling the reader. Damn girl, let your characters tell their own story. A sweet, short argument scene between Irene and her father in which all this comes out would have been far more interesting than the fifteen or so paragraphs you began with. It would have set the stage, developed your character and given us something to empathize with.

Just a thought.

 

[Nameless_Rose]

That's a really good idea Jenny. Thanks for the thought. I'm done with Irena for awhile, because I'm currently working on something else, but I do plan to submit an edit eventually, and that's definitely something I'll think about