Invisible Story?

[sr71plt]

I wouldn't blow this horn, but a Halloween Story Contest entry of mine has posted on the contest board but not on the "New" list and I hope it isn't missed by readers altogether. (This is the fourth time I will have had to note that a story wasn't posted on the "New" list).

"Passion Is Blind" at http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=332059 (I hope the hyperlink worked--never tried that here before)

If you check this one out, I think you'll find it's unlike any other story that will be submitted to the contest. For one thing, it purposely stretches to cover as many off-beat story categories as possible (which was the main writing "device" I was exploring)--and I had to be very careful on choosing a category to post it to so as not to be too revealing of the "hook."

It also is more (or is trying to be more) biting social commentary than eroticism.

As happens sometimes, my muse dropped this one on me at midnight last night just as I had cleared time to start working on an entirely different Halloween contest story that was forming in my mind--and this one was finished and submitted by 2 am. I know what the inspiration for the story was; I just don't know how it fully formed in my mind before I was aware it was there. I had just finished editing a chapter in a literary criticism of William Faulkner and images in southern writing encompassing Darwinian thought for a mainline publisher. The chapter was about his use of miscegenation, incest, and the postbellum dryrotting of plantation culture in the south (set against Darwinian "survival of the fittest" concepts) as illustrated in such Faulkner works as Flags in the Dust, Sartoris, and The Sound and the Fury.

Anyhow, I hope the story isn't completely lost by not appearing--or appearing late--on the "New" list.

And, of course, feedback is welcome.

 

[MarshAlien]

I wouldn't blow this horn, but a Halloween Story Contest entry of mine has posted on the contest board but not on the "New" list and I hope it isn't missed by readers altogether. (This is the fourth time I will have had to note that a story wasn't posted on the "New" list).

"Passion Is Blind" at http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=332059 (I hope the hyperlink worked--never tried that here before)

If you check this one out, I think you'll find it's unlike any other story that will be submitted to the contest. For one thing, it purposely stretches to cover as many off-beat story categories as possible (which was the main writing "device" I was exploring)--and I had to be very careful on choosing a category to post it to so as not to be too revealing of the "hook."

It also is more (or is trying to be more) biting social commentary than eroticism.

As happens sometimes, my muse dropped this one on me at midnight last night just as I had cleared time to start working on an entirely different Halloween contest story that was forming in my mind--and this one was finished and submitted by 2 am. I know what the inspiration for the story was; I just don't know how it fully formed in my mind before I was aware it was there. I had just finished editing a chapter in a literary criticism of William Faulkner and images in southern writing encompassing Darwinian thought for a mainline publisher. The chapter was about his use of miscegenation, incest, and the postbellum dryrotting of plantation culture in the south (set against Darwinian "survival of the fittest" concepts) as illustrated in such Faulkner works as Flags in the Dust, Sartoris, and The Sound and the Fury.

Anyhow, I hope the story isn't completely lost by not appearing--or appearing late--on the "New" list.

And, of course, feedback is welcome.

It's tenth from the top on the new list, between "Careful What you Wish for" and "13 Hours 'til Midnight." Sometimes they are late getting onto the new list. But you get very few reads at this hour of the day. I will give it a look. Good luck in the contest!

 

[MarshAlien]

As promised...

I thought it was a fascinating idea, an interracial cross-dressing historical romance. As you said, a real category-crosser. It may have been a gay male story, as well, if the narrator was male (which I assumed just because I couldn't posit the existence of a friendship like that between Beau and the narrator in the post-War Mississippi delta if they were of opposite sexes).

I was troubled by some of the ambiguity. For example, in the early paragraphs you kept referring to "they" as being in charge. At first I figured you meant Republicans, although I'm not sure they had taken over state governments as early as October of 1864. Then, with your use of "they" and "them" several paragraphs later, I figured you meant African Americans, although once again I wasn't aware that they were that powerful at that point, either. After all, Louisiana, like most southern states, passed onerous "Black Codes" in 1865, I think, something that I can't imagine happening in a state controlled by former slaves.

I also found the narrator disappointingly too ambiguous, not in orientation but in outlook. He is "bitter" at Beau's treatment of his slaves, and yet he is overwhelmed by Beau's lost of his principles when he lusts after the woman. He realizes that "I would never have [Beau]," yet he is also overwhelmed by "the loss of all chances I might have ever had with him." His sudden impulse to burst in on Beau and the "little vixen" seems to have no real motivation, or any background in the narrator's earlier behavior.

Finally, although your writing is generally quite beautiful, there were some passages that grated on my (admittedly untrained) ear.

I could be for him; I could give myself completely to him. But she couldn't; she had no intention to.

The parallelism that you set up with the semi-colons is offset by the somewhat incomplete "she had no intention to," which I kept wanting to read as "intention of" in any event.

As I gazed intently at him, I saw his eyes flash and his nostrils flare up

I think perhaps the "up" is a word too much.

He was fingering the empty place on his ring finger, but I had no idea what he regretted the most—the loss of the symbol of his birthright or of his conquest of the mulatto beauty.

It seemed to me that he was more the conqueree rather than the conqueror in this setting, so that conquest "by" the mulatto beauty might have been a better choice.

Hope this helps. It was a very well-written story on the whole, and deserved the "5" that I gave it.

 

[sr71plt]

Thanks for the read and the feedback, MarshAlien.

I didn't really intend the gay male aspect to be more than yet another category inclusion--that wasn't the relationship I had intended to focus on. But I can see that it became major if for no other reason than it was the one the narrator was involved in. I meant to have that more of a voyeur thing but didn't spend enough coverage on the almost sex scene.

I agree that the "up" on the back of "flare" should be dropped.

The "they" at the beginning of the story was the whole carpetbagger/freed slave/nonplantation white segment of society that took control in most southern areas right after the Civil War in the Reconstruction period. If I'd spent longer with the story, I might have found a way to explain that better without intruding into the flow of the story.

The last bit is grammatically correct as I rendered it, I think. "loss" covers for both other "of" clauses. Loss of his birthright ring and lost of his conquest.

I'm sure an edit and more of a review would have toned the story up--as I noted in the post originating the thread, it's the story that just flowed out when I sat down to write my other contest story, "SwitcherooX2," and was all conceived/written/posted within three hours.

Thanks for the feedback that showed what did/didn't work for the reader in a completely independent read.

 

[Varian P]

I thought your story was thoroughly delightful! The prose buoyed me along in that different place and time, the characters were vivid, and the plot pleasantly twisted.

I'm genuinely envious that you managed to craft such a satisfying story in so few words. Not only did the plot come together beautifully, but you managed to create real sense of melancholy and disappointment, both with Beau's utter unworthiness beside the affection of the narrator, and the added little stab at the very end that, not only did Beau lose his ring and his conquest, but he's sitting there pining for something that he only imagined to exist, AND the narrator is forced to live with the knowledge that Dexter (another man) succeeded in getting a little bit of what he himself wants so badly, while Beau has no clue he's (sort of) been with a man.

Delicious!

I think I spotted a couple typos, but unfortunately I was reading last night and didn't make note of the little problems. Nothing, I think, another proof or editor wouldn't catch.

Good luck with the contest.

-Varian

 

[sr71plt]

I thought your story was thoroughly delightful! The prose buoyed me along in that different place and time, the characters were vivid, and the plot pleasantly twisted.

I'm genuinely envious that you managed to craft such a satisfying story in so few words. Not only did the plot come together beautifully, but you managed to create real sense of melancholy and disappointment, both with Beau's utter unworthiness beside the affection of the narrator, and the added little stab at the very end that, not only did Beau lose his ring and his conquest, but he's sitting there pining for something that he only imagined to exist, AND the narrator is forced to live with the knowledge that Dexter (another man) succeeded in getting a little bit of what he himself wants so badly, while Beau has no clue he's (sort of) been with a man.

Delicious!

I think I spotted a couple typos, but unfortunately I was reading last night and didn't make note of the little problems. Nothing, I think, another proof or editor wouldn't catch.

Good luck with the contest.

-Varian

Thanks, Varian--especially appreciated, as you seem to have quite a discerning eye