I need some feedback

[Lustin Kink]

Another of my stories has been approved by Lit. It's called Old Friends, New Excitement. It was written many many moons ago for a lady friend who shared a piece of one of her fantasies with me so I turned it into a story for her. I've received some good feedback already. It's a pretty quick read. Check it out and let me know what you think.

~Lustin

 

[Penelope Street]

Lustin,

There's nothing wrong with the concept; old or would-be flames getting a second chance is a classic favorite in eroticism. The major shortcoming that stands out to me is simple telling instead of showing.

For any who don't know what this means, please see:
http://www.customline.com/wordware/showing.html

Simple example:

Each room was extremely beautiful but very comfortable. Her taste was impeccable.

Better to show the reader the décor, rather than just pronounce it beautiful, no? If this information is worth mentioning, show the reader a leather sofa and some abstract art, whatever the characters would deem beautiful.

Another:

Her stomach slightly protruded out above her waistline. Christian found this to be very sexy.

This, imo, is a better example because the first sentence is showing where the second is telling. What about having him lick his lips as his eyes linger on her puffy paunch?

There are plenty of additional examples of telling; not surprising if this was one of the earlier works- it's an easy trap for a novice writer to fall into and it even grabs professionals with regularity. This presentation left the characters under-developed in my mind, thus I didn't understand their motivations or feel their emotions.

Since this story was written for someone in particular, perhaps character development was not a priority since the reader was expected to transplant themselves into one of the roles and someone else into the other?

Aside from the showing versus telling issues, the story works, as does the erotic scene- after all there are only so many things two humans can do sexually. A few of the things these two do seem to be, shall we say, unsanitary, which I found a turn-off. Still, far more important than what they do is why they do it.

Hope that helps.

Take Care,
Penny