Lady Winter. Feedback please!

[Lien_Geller]

Heya folks! I've just finished a new story called Lady Winter. It's a sci-fi/fantasy entry and as usual I'm eager to hear what folks think of it.

http://www.literotica.com/s/lady-winter

There's the link. It has elements of romance and nonhuman with some sprinklings of erotic horror, mature and lots of straight m/f sex. I hope you like it and I hope you'll share whatever thoughts you might have on it. As a forewarning I think there are a few typo's and grammar errors because I still lack an editor and i'm not perfect. It's a flaw I'm aware of but so far it hasn't seemed to dull people's enjoyment of my stories so I hope you can overlook it. Then again if you think it really is very jarring I'd like to hear why. Anyhoo that's enough from me! I hope to hear lots from y'all!

Thanks!

 

[nicecthulhu]

Hello.
Unfortunately I only got about two pages in before I had to stop (time constraints).
It's well written, but I don't really feel for William and I really think I should within the first paragraph or two. The story begins with describing Christmas and then the first paragraph with the protoganist (paragraph #3) seems negative. I almost thought he would be an anti-hero at that point.
The second paragraph addresses the reader, which doesn't fit in with the rest of the story.
Your descriptions are good, especially the Lady. Your description of her reminded me of the styles of older SF and fantasy stories, which I found particularly enticing.
I noticed I didn't have much of an emotional reaction to William's murder.
The story is good enough that I'll probably come back another day to finish it, so please don't think I'm trying to shoot you down.
If this little critique is of help, great! However, you seem to be getting good comments, so maybe I just don't know what the hell I'm talking about. It could be the Nyquil taking over...

 

[Lien_Geller]

Thanks for the feedback! I hope to hear what you think of the whole thing eventually. I'm sorry about William not being likable. I dunno what I did wrong there. He was supposed to be likable. Oh dear. I guess I put too much focus on the Lady herself. This story just started out as an image of her in my head and William's character was formed along the way. Normally i'd have done a few revisions but I did rush this one a bit more than I usually do. I think it's up to standards of course but maybe that's why Will didn't get fleshed out as much as you'd have hoped :/ I hope so. It's either that or i'm clueless about character relatability.

Anyhoo, thanks very much again for taking the time to reply! I hope more people do.

 

[CWatson]

The first thing I noticed in reading was just an interesting quirk of your writing style: you almost never use commas. The typical writer averages perhaps one comma a sentence. You average like one comma per paragraph. This is by no means a mistake or an error, but it's something I noticed.

You also don't use hyphens to elide words, which is more of a... Well. Okay, that's not true. It's not really wrong, but it could be more right. When you compare "provided an able enough defence" to "provided an able-enough defence", or "The pure whiteness of the lightly laying snow" versus "The pure whiteness of the lightly-laying snow", you'll notice that the hyphenated one is a lot clearer in its meaning. That's because this is what hyphens are for: to show that two words are connected and clarify the sentence. It might behoove you to consider their use.

Next: "Slay" is a verb, meaning to kill. The snowbound transportation device Santa Claus rides around on is a "sleigh". (The funny thing is that you spelled it correctly the second time.)

The reason Will comes across as potentially unlikable is that he's lonely, cold and grumbly as he goes off on his errand of mercy, in stark contrast to the idyllic scene you painted in your first couple of paragraphs. The fact that he's hit the age of "You darn kids, get off my lawn" or "When I was your age, we walked to school uphill in the snow, both ways, and we liked it" doesn't help things. You set him up as someone who deliberately avoids the festivities, but don't lead us to a sympathetic understanding of why he wants to do this, so he just comes across as a humbug. And while you eventually set up some motivation for him later, by then it's too late and a lot of people have jumped ship. Next time you need to drop more hints in the opening set-up.

Your comma lackage is biting you in the ass once the dialogue starts. If you have a dialogue attribution rider ("he said" "she said" "Bill said" "Monica said") after the dialogue itself, you need to end the dialogue with a comma, not a period, and the rider should not be capitalized. This:

"I don't know what I'm supposed to do." He finally admitted.
"I'm not sure what to do with you." The Lady conceded.

should be:

"I don't know what I'm supposed to do," he finally admitted.
"I'm not sure what to do with you," the Lady conceded.

This is not a personal-preference thing like your previous comma boycott, this is a legitimate error. It's even true when the dialogue itself ends with an exclamation point or a question mark. This (made-up example):

"Are you going to fuck me now?" She asked.

is wrong. The rider needs to be lowercase. ...Of course, that looks wrong to some people's eyes. One compromise, thus, is to not use a rider after question marks or exclams, and instead just move on with the story:

"Are you going to fuck me now?" She gave a wriggle of her hips to emphasize.

I have never lain with a virgin before, but I am told that the hymen is across the very mouth of the vagina, not halfway down inside it. That you might've gotten away with--so few writers actually experience hymens anymore--but it sounds like Will has penetrated her fully before he even discovers it, and it's definitely not down in front of the cervix.

Lastly, a story of this length I would have chopped up into multiple segments and submitted serially. The Reader gets intimidated when they see a really long document awaiting them; plus, multiple instalments is a good marketing ploy to get more views and votes. (I'm not sure if the contests here require you to submit as a single document, though.)

That's all I got. It's probably enough to be going on with.

 

[Lien_Geller]

Awesome feedback there CWatson. Just the kinda thing I was looking for. The reason I don't use commas enough is perhaps because when I started out I tended to, over, use, them, a, tiny, little, bit. So now to avoid the habit I try to make my sentences work without 'em. I'll try to be less fearful of sinking back into my old ways in future!

Thanks for the tip about hyphens. Something I haven't been able to crush out of my writing is an overuse of adjectives and adverbs so hyphening up some o' those bad boys to some nouns will probably make my writing a bit clearer.

Slay/Sleigh. *Slams head on desk*

I'm a bit of a humbug around christmas time. I don't like it much at all. Still, I thought that some repairman in his sixties taking the time to drive through a blizzard to fix an old lady's central heating would buy my protagonist a LITTLE good will. I see your point though and I could think more inclusively when considering people who actually do like the christmas season.

That thing with the commas in dialogue makes me genuinely want to recoil. Every writing instinct in me says that when you finish a sentence there should be a full stop. Thanks for bringing it to my attention, it's something i'll research a little more.

The hymen thing is also a wee bit embarassing. I just re-read the part you're referring to and I see your point. No excuses, that's just me getting carried away with myself and sacrificing clarity for heat.

Finally this is a winter contest entry so it has to be in one part. I'm not sure about splitting it up into chapters though, even if I could have. I do it with some of my ongoing stories if I know they're going to take me a while to finish but for stand alone pieces like this I don't think splitting up is a good idea. I say this mostly because when i'm reading a story on the site I don't get intimidated by big page numbers. Again, I see your point but it's the one thing i'm gonna have to respectfully disagree with.

Thanks so much for the feedback. I know it takes time but It's helped a lot and I hope it'll improve my writing in the future

 

[PacoFear]

LG,

Hurray, plot and character development! Kudos to you on both fronts. As critical feedback goes, CW has already done the heavy-lifting rose: CW) so I'll chime in with a sort of case study on one of your paragraphs that caught my eye early. IMHO, you're overwriting a little.

For me, it's the sort of split-second action moments like the one you described below that are the most interesting. I think they're often the hardest to capture. It might be why I'm most attracted to them as both a reader and a writer.

The momentary distraction was all that the storm needed. It was only a split second but as his eyes looked back to the road he saw the low stone wall too late. His hands clenched on the wheel, violently twisting it to one side as the thunderous inevitable impact wracked his body with shock. The front of the van buckled as steel twisted against stone and Will was flung hard against his seatbelt. His jaw crunched down against the steering wheel making his vision blur and his tongue taste the coppery warmth of his own blood.

From here in the figurative backseat (where it's far comfier and all-too easy to criticize) the paragraph above could use some more crafting. To me, it reads wordy, off-paced, passive, and out of synch with how I think the physics would work.

See if you like any of these suggested tweaks...

The distraction was all the storm needed. When his eyes darted back to the road, he saw the snow-capped top of the low fieldstone wall. Though he knew it was too late, he gripped the wheel and jerked it to one side.

The hood of the van heaved upwards on impact, its young steel yielding to centuries-old stone. A sickening second of weightlessness later, Will flew hard into his seatbelt. In the melee of twists and squeaks, his chin crunched down against the steering wheel, blurring his vision. His mouth began filling with warm, thick copper.

Do as you wish, though. Your story, yada-yada. You're a fun read, Lien. I've popped into a few of your posts and always been entertained.

Cheers,

-PF

 

[Lien_Geller]

Thankyou PacoFear! I do see your point but I think that's partially because I'm a dumbass and didn't get an editor for this story. Now that I have my competition entry out of the way I'm definitely going to get an editor for my next piece...I hope. So things like you mentioned should be trimmed down considerably. Do you think along similar lines or is this a much bigger problem in your eyes? It sounds like an editor could help me trim out such errors but if you think it's a more inherent problem with my writing style then i'll take a closer look at it.

Big thanks for taking the time to reply.

 

[CWatson]

That thing with the commas in dialogue makes me genuinely want to recoil. Every writing instinct in me says that when you finish a sentence there should be a full stop. Thanks for bringing it to my attention, it's something i'll research a little more.

Well, you can have full stops, you just can't follow them with a rider. Instead of

"Aren't you going to fuck me," she purred.

Put the rider in front.

She purred, "Aren't you going to fuck me?"

or use other bits of narration to establish dialogue ownership.

She sashayed over to him, her hips swaying with each step, and pressed herself up against him, knowing he could feel her breasts. "Aren't you going to fuck me?"

Or even just do lots and lots of dialogue in a string with no riders whatsoever, letting the alternations establish ownership.

"Oh my god, babe, you are so hot."
"Aren't you going to fuck me?"
"Well... If I'm late again, my boss said he'd fire me. Are you sure you want me to lose my job?"

It's just tricks of phrasing. You'll get the hang of it.

 

[PacoFear]

Thankyou PacoFear! I do see your point but I think that's partially because I'm a dumbass and didn't get an editor for this story. Now that I have my competition entry out of the way I'm definitely going to get an editor for my next piece...I hope. So things like you mentioned should be trimmed down considerably. Do you think along similar lines or is this a much bigger problem in your eyes? It sounds like an editor could help me trim out such errors but if you think it's a more inherent problem with my writing style then i'll take a closer look at it.

Big thanks for taking the time to reply.

Hrm, let me backpeddle to say I wouldn't call what I teased out "errors." CWatson caught those, the bright-line gaffs like punctation flubs, homophones swaps, etc. You can expect one of Lit's volunteer editors to catch them.

Nor would I call what you had already "bad" by any stretch, more like there were some chances to smooth-out what you had. There are volunteer editors who are willing/able to spot the usual composition issues like overuse of passive voice and repetitive sentence structure. They can also nudge you on word choice and economy. Hint: you'd be asking for a substantial time investment so coach your request accordingly.

You can get a headstart by picking up a copy of Strunk & White's ~twenty page book Elements of Style. I hated it in school--you may have too--but damned if it doesn't make sense now. Bastards were right, nine times out of ten I really can drop "that" out of a sentence.

G'luck,

-PF

 

[Lien_Geller]

Thanks guys! CWatson, i'll take that on board. Although I now have about a hundred pages of stuff in the works that needs going over to remove that mistake. I'll blame the delay on you. Thanks for the further clarification though. I'm definitely here to get better so it means a lot.

PacoFear, I actually have Elements of Style buried away somewhere I think. I'll go digging around for it. Thanks for the further reply! I was hoping what you said was more of a 'room for improvement' sorta thing and less of a 'this is outright annoying' deal. Paranoia was beginning to set in.

Cheers to you both for the help!

 

[nicecthulhu]

sympathy for William

Hi again. I really will read the whole story at one point in the next week or two. Time constraints, time constraints. I tend to spend my own free time writing as opposed to reading.
I just wanted to mention that CWatson described what I was trying to describe far better than I did, so much for me being an aspiring writer..
However, I don't think the problem was critical in regards to your writing style. Perhaps mentioning the reasons why he is out on the road (going to help an old lady) before all the negative comments about him not liking Christmas, etc., may have made him more friendly. That is, maybe moving paragraph 5 up to become paragraph 3 and Will suddenly becomes a nice guy who has a reason to grumble about Christmas.
I think most readers can like a negative character given a reason at the beginning to like him, whereas reading negativity and then being shown a reason for his negativity can sound like an excuse and not a reason.
I don't think it comes down to who likes or dislikes Christmas. It comes down to 'oh, I understand why the character doesn't like Christmas'.
I hope I've been more clear this time.

 

[Lien_Geller]

Hey nicecthulu! That's actually...an excellent point. I guess I was trying to distance the whole thing from a typical christmas story with those opening paragraphs. It was kind of my way of saying 'If you're looking for Santa, Jesus being born, presents under the christmas tree or Bing fucking Crosby then this isn't the story for you.' Then again i'm not sure what Bing Crosby would be doing in an erotic story. *Cough* But I digress...

What I'm trying to say is that in retrospect I think you're right. I was trying to establish the mood of the story and a quirk of my protagonist but in so doing I might have hurt the guy's relatability. First impressions are important and I forgot that here. So thanks for calling me out on it!