I am excited about my first story. (comment request)

[RuzieD]

Hey all!

I was pleasantly surprised with the ratings of my first story. I have had two positive comments so far and its at over four stars. My story is below here:

http://www.literotica.com/s/the-feminist-i-should-be

It is a exhibitionist/voyeur story in a college.

I hope to turn this into a three part. I'd like all kinds of feedback as to what worked well and what might be improved.

Please help me improve my writing!

 

[englishkev]

Hey all!

I was pleasantly surprised with the ratings of my first story. I have had two positive comments so far and its at over four stars. My story is below here:

http://www.literotica.com/s/the-feminist-i-should-be

It is a exhibitionist/voyeur story in a college.

I hope to turn this into a three part. I'd like all kinds of feedback as to what worked well and what might be improved.

Please help me improve my writing!

Very well written, VERY erotic story.

Well done - a great debut, which is going to be hard to follow!

 

[RuzieD]

well thank you! And thank you for the comments on story as well.

Yes, there will be more. Plan on doing more writing on this next month. This december though, is my break. I did a NaNoWriMo this year again.

 

[astuffedshirt_perv]

Hah! I added it to my reading list yesterday and then just now read your request.

Interestingly, there seems to be a bug with your name. If you search "feminist" in titles, your name does not show up, which is unique as far as I have seen. Copied below, note that there is nothing after "Submitted by" for your story, unlike the other stories.

On Being a Busty Feminist Slut - The girl behind the stories takes a moment to give context.
Submitted by naivesluts (Reviews & Essays) 08/25/12

The Feminist I Should Be - A friend's 'performance' gets Kailee aroused and inspired.
Submitted by (Exhibitionist & Voyeur) 12/06/12

 

[RuzieD]

Huh...

Who can I look into for that?

Oh well, I'm off to read a few naughty stories.

 

[CWatson]

This is really good for a first submission, and you have a lot of talent. Kailee brings with her a vivid voice, which helps gloss over some of the technical problems (missing or incorrect punctuation, the occasional tense change, not starting new paras for different speakers of dialogue)--in fact, one would be forgiven for thinking it was deliberate. You have a better command of first-person narration than 99% of writers here.

The major problem is that Kailee's particular style--terse, telegraphic, somewhat scatterbrained--starts to impair comprehension. She's going off in whatever direction she wants to, providing only whatever context she thinks The Reader needs. I have experience with this from my friends; I stop them and ask questions when they're making statements or assertions that don't make sense from what they've told me. Inevitably, there's something else they've yet to mention. The problem is, I can't do that with Kailee, and she switches topics repeatedly without ever fully explaining the background details. This gets off-putting after a while, and you're losing readers to it: either people who give up and hit Back, because they can't be sure they're following the story; or people who persevere but get to the end and still don't have it.

Lastly, I ended the story without much understanding of where any of the characters are emotionally. I don't believe Kailee is or was a virgin, but some of the freshman-year Ade encounter implied she might have been. Why did she pull away from Ade in the first place? Given Johann and Clara's obvious liberal attitudes towards sexuality, how does Kailee know for a fact that Johann is cheating on Clara?--maybe they have an open relationship. These are some of the things I mean when I say that Kailee doesn't always provide context. She explains certain aspects of the story or her past, but she doesn't say what they mean to her--and, as such, what they are supposed to mean to The Reader. As a result, I am interested intellectually in what she does, but my emotions are not involved. I'm not edge-of-my-seat excited, I'm looking up the plot summary on Wikipedia out of boredom.

To quote John Rogers, showrunner of Leverage: "The three main rules of all storytelling: Who wants what; Why can't they have it; and Why do I give a sh**." It's on this last question that your story drops the ball. It's vivid and extraordinarily well-told, but the simple fact is that I don't care, because you haven't told me enough about Kailee as a person to allow me to bond with her. Strangers are having sex right now, and I don't care. (So is my housemate and his girlfriend, if the noise from the other side of the closet are any indication, but frankly I don't care about that either.) Your story's job is to turn Kailee from one of those strangers into someone I care about--someone whose emotionall well-being I am invested in; someone whose problems affect me; someone whom I want to see achieve a happy ending. And it kind of... doesn't.

Anyway, that's all I got. Hope it helps some.

 

[RuzieD]

Cwatson,

That very much did help. I'm sure that will help in any further drafts of this story, as well as continuation of the next two. You mentioned the "technical problems" can you provide me of specific places where it the changes were jarring? Also, if you know of any resources that I can read through that will help.

Thank you again, very much, for what you mentioned here.

 

[CWatson]

You mentioned the "technical problems" can you provide me of specific places where it the changes were jarring?

There's one--there ought to be SOME sort of punctuation mark after "problems".

Kailee being the motormouth she is, I'm not sure that this will help, but let's give it a try: if you go back through the history of punctuation marks, the first time you'll find them is in ancient Greek plays. These were, of course, written in metered verse, similar to Shakespeare, and those very first punctuation marks were there to indicate when the performer should take a breath--and, as the marks themselves evolved, how long that pause should be. Punctuation is about rhythm, and you need to use it whenever there would be some sort of gap in the cadence of a sentence.

The best guide I can suggest to you is, unfortunately, not free, but it's also not expensive and absolutely worth its weight in gold: Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss. It is a short, memorably funny and absolutely perfect guide to punctuation. It will teach you everything you need to know, and if it does not, then you cannot be taught. If that's more money than you're willing to spend, I can also recommend the TVTropes article on Wanton Cruelty to the Common Comma, created by the wiki's members (myself included) to catalogue the various mispunctuations they have seen in the world of fiction, and in many cases explain what to do differently. It's a little bit harder to parse, though: there's no particular organization, many examples are self-demonstrating, and TVTropes specializes in in-jokes to at least a certain extent.

As to examples from the story itself, I will send you an e-mail for there are quite a few of them.

 

[RuzieD]

Le Sigh.

You know what? (question mark) ... I haven't paid attention (apostrophe) to punctuation since I was in graduate school (period).

It is also hard to pay attention to grammar, when you wrote this ramble talking character, who doesn't understand when to slow down and stop talking for a minute, also I never really like proofreading anyway.

I got your e-mail. It was very kind and thoughtful. I'll look into into the rest of the story.

Regarding the paragraphs breaks and dialogue here's this: I originally drafted it so there was a line break at every line of dialogue Exemplia gratiae:

"Why did he just write in Latin?" the character asked.
"I don't know," said the supportive friend, "but maybe he's possessed by a demon."
"No, that can't be right. That only happens in movies." the first character said.

However, my volunteer editor smushed all these into paragraph blocks. It came out largely the way that you read it the draft. I actually broke up some of the blocks.

Also, I'm taking your advice on getting to Kailee as a person better. I actually want why she pulls away from Ade to be a mystery, but I wanted to hint at it enough that the reader might get an idea. Clearly, I missed the mark on that one.

I feel that the "why should I care" issue is my weaker area in my writing. I have some ideas that I'll bounce around a bit.

 

[soflabbwlvr]

I enjoyed your story. There is a freshness and energy to your writing that compelled me to continue reading, even though the technical problems nearly forced me to stop.

I liked your attempt to place the story within a philosophical framework. You started out strong in this regard, but I didn't feel that you followed through on the premise. Still, the mere attempt to do so places you head and shoulders above most other authors on this site. If you choose to continue the story (and I urge you to do so), then I would hope that you spend a little more time tying the theme into the story. A one sentence reference at the end isn't quite enough.

I especially enjoyed your development of the motivations behind Kailee and Clara's actions. You do a good job of describing the thrill that exhibitionists and voyeurs get when they practice their "art." I also like the way that you depicted the interchangeability of their roles--they are two sides of the same coin. The thrill is not the same in both cases, but the type of people who enjoy them often are.

I won't spend a lot of time talking about the grammatical problems. CWatson already covered that ground in sufficient detail. The only thing that I will add is that your editor did you no favors on this story. The punctuation and grammar seemed to get worse about half-way through, so it appears to me that he quit editing around the mid-point of the story. I urge you to find a new editor, and to also spend a little more time polishing your draft before sending it off to someone else. Do what you can to make his job easier.

Overall, an impressive first effort. You have the potential to be a bright new star on this site.

And to CWatson-- Kailee believes that Johan is cheating because after the party Clara explains that part of her excitement in letting others watch is the trophy aspect--everyone knows she is the only one who gets to fuck him he is the only one fucking her.

 

[RuzieD]

Thanks. Sofla,

I will comb and recomb for grammar and tenses changes problems. Yes, there will be a little bit more of a story and "premise" to this. That will be in future continuations.