Looking for a bit of feedback regarding an I/T story.

[wintextwriter]

Hello!

Would anybody mind checking out my newest story "The Un-niversary" and give me any feedback you may find appropriate? Anything you think I could work on.

I'm worried about a bunch of things within my writing--and within this story in particular--and I'm sure there's several things I could do much better, but I'd rather not mention them so as to not bias anybody who would like to take the time to check out my work. Hopefully any criticism you guys offer will help me confirm or deny some of my suspicions and diagnoses. It would really be a ton of help.

Finally, and about one of those things I'm already aware of: there's the stupidest leftover from an early draft in the second paragraph that of course I missed at the time of submission, despite triple and tetra checking every story I write. Please do your best to ignore it.

Thanks a ton!

 

[joy_of_cooking]

I don't know how this happened or what might fix it, but I'll report my experience as a reader: I saw it was ten pages long, read the first page, and didn't feel motivated to click the next button nine times. I wasn't aroused, I wasn't curious, I wasn't concerned.

Well, I was a little curious what Bordeaux had noticed about this town, but not enough to spend the next 30-60 minutes finding out.

Sorry, I realize this isn't exactly constructive criticism.

 

[TheRedChamber]

I don't know how this happened or what might fix it, but I'll report my experience as a reader: I saw it was ten pages long, read the first page, and didn't feel motivated to click the next button nine times. I wasn't aroused, I wasn't curious, I wasn't concerned.

I read this post before the story and initially thought that JoC was being unduly dismissive. Then I started to read and saw exactly what they were talking about. I struggled through the first three or four pages. If I was reading normally, I would have given up too. I continued only because I was in analysis mode and trying to work out what exactly the issue was. The story did pick up significantly by the start of the 'date' and I read the rest genuinely interested in what was going to happen. Looking at the comments at the end, a few people felt like me and JoC and a few really enjoyed the story.

Here are my thoughts:

1) Part of the problem with the beginning especially is that (IMHO) you are not composing scenes very well. The first 'scene' is Corrine and Eren on the phone and every single line is dialogue (or a couple of loose paragraphs about sighs and interruptions). We don't get any sense of where Corrine is or who she is (except she's sister to a brother). Then we get a conversation between Corrine and mom/Natalie - now we discover Corrine is in a house, but we still don't get any details about it (it turns out later that the family is incredibly wealthy, but we get no indication of this here) and it's just another conversation. Then we have a phone call between Corrine and Boudreaux. Then we get a phone call between Eren and Alex.

2) Then we have a 'scene' with Natalie being unable to sleep being up - nothing actually happens in this scene except we get some description about how hot her body is and some back story about the therapy sessions. We get a similar scene on page 3 (1250 words) where Gabrielle is working late at night and just pontification on the family's case.

3) So by the end of page 1 we've had perspective switches between four characters - Corrine, Gabrielle, Natalie and Erin. And nothing particularly has happened. As a general rule, I'd expect longer gaps between shifts, just to help establish the characters properly, but here it's a particular problem, because...

4) On the first page especially the reader is trying to get a handle on what the story is. And there are two hooks given - firstly, why are neither dad nor brother attending the wedding anniversary - secondly, why are the inhabitants of Primrose Bay so statistically-abnormally attractive? There's clearly a problem in that JoC was interested more in the second one than that first one, and yet you don't really address issue two at all in the story (my guess is this is just a pornification trope built across your stories?). The wedding anniversary mystery is a good one to build a plot around - the problem is that we are head-hopping into three different characters all of whom presumably know the answer and are withholding it from Corrine. You can pull this off, but it's difficult without the reader feeling jerked around.

5) But talking about the 'mystery' - there's another problem here. If this was an Agatha Cristie style murder mystery, we'd expect some basic facts to be laid out as our detective starts the investigation - who was the victim? why did he have two train tickets to Inverness in his top pocket? why had he not spoken to his brother for twenty years? and so on. We'd have a shape of a mystery. In this story, in the first few pages, we don't get enough pieces soon enough for our attention to be grabbed by trying to piece together what happened. We also know very little about each of the characters to be able to put events into any kind of context.

6) The thing is, part of this is quite clear. We know from the incest category that some members of the family are going to get it together but it's not clear at all if its going to be brother/sister, mother/son or even mother/daughter. Some readers have particular pairings that they like, but assuming that the reader is willing to go along with whatever, it could be effective. But I spent a lot of my time feeling that I couldn't guess because of the way the story was structured/told, rather than the good kind of not being able to guess because I can see all the possibilities clearly.

7) Once the date starts things become more conventional but easier to read along with. To some extent the set-up with sister and therapist works, as it adds an extra dimension to what could be a typical mother/son hook-up. Neither of these quite pay off by the end though. Boudreaux's actions at the end are, let's say, a gutsy therapy move, but don't seem to me to make sense in the context of the build-up to the story. I see where you were going in terms of leaving the sister dangling at the end, but it seems a little anti-climactic.

8) It's a matter of taste, but I would definiately tone the sex down a bit. Too much long extended leeeeeeettttteeeers and CAPITALS, and Oh God! Oh God! Oh God! the repetition. The sex seemed like it came from a different story, a lot of the emotional build-up went out the window to be replaced by the porn-star workout. Things got cranked up to 11 immediately and stayed there.

9) There's a key part to the story missing - what exactly Boudreaux said to Corrine in their therapy session. We get a lot of build-up with Corrine showing the videos, but we don't get the key part about what is actually said - we're told she reassured her that it's fine. But this doesn't quite add up, Corrine has specifically wanted to know why Eren was sent away - the key mystery set up at the beginning and this isn't addressed with the reader. There's a huge gap right before Bordeaux make a baffling decision and again I felt things were being kept from me.

10) Early on especially, I feel like you don't wring the full drama of potential scenes. A young girl bursting into a therapists office demanding to know the details of her parents' councelling sessions - an over protective brother worried about his friends hittting on his sexy sister (only to realize she's there for him). These things happens, but the tension often seems to fizzle out about halfway through each scene and the characters are left chatting.

To conclude, the story is all kinds of frustrating to me because there is a good story here and (as I noted before) it becomes a lot better once it settles down a bit. I've written a lot but my inner editor is still trying to rearrange and recompose scenes and trying to elimiate at least one point of view (Eren I think).

 

[wintextwriter]

(…)

Thanks for taking the time for such an in-depth response. Needless to say, I disagree with most of your analysis, but I’m not about to start defending my story or my choices. So I’m coming up short on what to answer.

Anyway, I’m sure some of your input will be on my mind next time I’m writing something. So thanks again for taking the time.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Thanks for taking the time for such an in-depth response. Needless to say, I disagree with most of your analysis, but I’m not about to start defending my story or my choices. So I’m coming up short on what to answer.

Anyway, I’m sure some of your input will be on my mind next time I’m writing something. So thanks again for taking the time.

If it's "needless to say" that you disagree, why did you bother seeking feedback?

 

[wintextwriter]

If it's "needless to say" that you disagree, why did you bother seeking feedback?

Ah, it just didn’t touch on the kind of things I was hoping it would. But I didn’t mean to be dismissive or rude about it; so I apologize if it came across that way. As I said, I genuinely didn’t know what to say, exactly. But I also didn’t want to say nothing, since he took the time to read my story and write a well-considered response.

 

[TheRedChamber]

Ah, it just didn’t touch on the kind of things I was hoping it would. But I didn’t mean to be dismissive or rude about it; so I apologize if it came across that way. As I said, I genuinely didn’t know what to say, exactly. But I also didn’t want to say nothing, since he took the time to read my story and write a well-considered response.

What were you worried about? I was possibly a little more direct in my criticisms that I'd usually be because you'd said there were specific things you'd identified and I thought maybe that's what I was covering in my post.

 

[wintextwriter]

What were you worried about? I was possibly a little more direct in my criticisms that I'd usually be because you'd said there were specific things you'd identified and I thought maybe that's what I was covering in my post.

Well, if you missed them then maybe they’re not something I should worry about. That’s part of the exercise, for me.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Ah, it just didn’t touch on the kind of things I was hoping it would. But I didn’t mean to be dismissive or rude about it; so I apologize if it came across that way. As I said, I genuinely didn’t know what to say, exactly. But I also didn’t want to say nothing, since he took the time to read my story and write a well-considered response.

It's best to tell folk what kind of feedback you're after, to help focus a discussion on your writing.

Otherwise, it can become a, "Well, I didn't like it" response, which is sorta kinda what you've got here.

 

[wintextwriter]

It's best to tell folk what kind of feedback you're after, to help focus a discussion on your writing.

Otherwise, it can become a, "Well, I didn't like it" response, which is sorta kinda what you've got here.

Yeah, I guess. But this approach can be a good way to scout out things to work on—or not—as well as different perspectives.

 

[dmallord]

Thanks for taking the time for such an in-depth response. Needless to say, I disagree with most of your analysis, but I’m not about to start defending my story or my choices. So I’m coming up short on what to answer.

Anyway, I’m sure some of your input will be on my mind next time I’m writing something. So thanks again for taking the time.

Friend, you received an excellent response from TheRedChamber. It was thoroughly written and pointed out numerous points that could have made your story better. "... But I'm not about to start defending my story ..." was really a condescending approach to thanking someone who took the time, read your story, and honestly reported exactly what you requested.

Joy_of_cooking attempted to read the story and told you that after the first Lit page [which is really long in terms of a standard 8x11 Word document.], that he/she bailed out due to a lack of sparking an interest in the content.

Having two readers report back to you that your writing is in need of improvement seems like a yellow flag on a racetrack sign. Slow down, pay attention to the feedback, and do some reflection. At least don't bitch-slap the fella offering some sound advice; especially after stating, "I'm worried about a bunch of things within my writing ..."

What you could have politely said was, "Thanks for taking the time for such an in-depth response. I appreciated that. I will follow up on your analysis and take that into consideration for my next story. I might look into shorting the story taking note of your observations. Anyway, I’m sure your input will be on my mind next time I’m writing something. So thanks again for taking the time."

See how much better that sounds? Think politely before brushing off someone in the future. And you might keep this dialog in mind the next time you raise your hand for advice when you log in here. Think about what that next call for help might get you if anyone remembers your name or the contents of this thread.

 

[AlinaX]

Just from the very beginning, I find it both confusing and overexplained. It's a phone conversation, but the POV is with both of them somehow. (Not to... well, to mention Natalie in the second paragraph.)

That's the confusing; the overexplained is things like:

"Well... that I'm not coming. I'm staying in Cape Haven." Eren clarified, with a sardonic sigh.

which isn't really a clarification, and sardonic seems inappropriate, and:

"Wait... what do you mean dad isn't going to be there?" Eren answered back, almost immediately after really listening to what she had said.

This just feels really clumsy. You could delete everything from Eren to the end of the sentence and it would work better. There's a rhythm to good dialogue, and adding clauses should be done very sparingly.

"What do you mean you're not coming? It's our parents' anniversary week."

Eren sighed. "Well... that I'm not coming. I'm staying in Cape Haven."

"But what about your tickets? I know you have return tickets," Corinne insisted.

"Ah. No, I- I-" Eren stuttered, then confessed, "I don't have any..."

His sister gasped, and Eren recognized it. She did the same exact gasp every time her rapid-fire was about to come in. "Are you sure? Did you check? Because I'm pretty certain that -"

"Yeah, no, I'm -" Eren interrupted. "I just don't have them, all right? Forget about them."

Corinne relented. "Well, I guess, if you say so..."

"Yeah," he said.

Add in grammar issues and I'm quickly losing the will to read on.

 

[wintextwriter]

Just from the very beginning, I find it both confusing and overexplained. It's a phone conversation, but the POV is with both of them somehow. (Not to... well, to mention Natalie in the second paragraph.)

That's the confusing; the overexplained is things like:

which isn't really a clarification, and sardonic seems inappropriate, and:

This just feels really clumsy. You could delete everything from Eren to the end of the sentence and it would work better. There's a rhythm to good dialogue, and adding clauses should be done very sparingly.



Add in grammar issues and I'm quickly losing the will to read on.

Which grammar issues do you mean?

 

[AlinaX]

In and around dialogue. Minor, but distracting.

"Yeah, no, I'm-" he stuttered again "I just don't have them, alright? Forget about them" Eren insisted, sounding exasperated.

"Well..." his sister relented "I guess, if you say so..." she trailed off, not really buying it but letting go. Her brother never stuttered, but if he didn't want to say anymore, she wouldn't push it.

"Yeah" he finished. Too eager.