looking for feedback on my first TG/CD story

[AlexBailey]

First of all, thanks for taking the time to help a new writer!

(I'll paste a piece in the next post of this thread.)

I have written a story that is around 74,000 words. I think the title will be:

"A T-girl, a Tomboy, a Surfer and a Cheerleader"

I'm eventually going to post it under "Transgender & Crossdressers" but I would like to get some feedback on this small piece first.

I spent some time researching how to write dialogue and how to develop characters. Thanks to the tutorials on this site, I think I've got what I was looking for, I just feel a little too close to it to be objective.

Please don't hold back, (no need to be unkind) I am looking for constructive criticism so I can grow.

-Alex

 

[AlexBailey]

"A T-girl, a Tomboy, a Surfer and a Cheerleader"

This story is a fictional autobiography.

This is a small piece of a much larger story.

Background:

'Alex' is an 18 year old male, high school senior exchange student who has just returned home to Southern California from Australia. His older sister, Jess, is in college. Tonya is his twin sister. Both sisters are competitive athletes and their mother is an active supporter of all of their sports, especially the cheerleading squads. The squad mascot of their female-only school is the 'Fearless Girl'.


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[FilthyFantasy]

Hi, I'm noticing some things in your dialogue that could be improved. I would turn this;


After picking out a couple of shirts, I looked around at the women's swimsuits dejectedly, seeing which ones I would want to wear if it was socially acceptable for me.

"You’d look cute in that strappy onepiece.” A sales girl startled me, she’d caught me checking out a very fetish styled swimsuit. She looked like she was native Hawaiian, probably in her early thirties and had several traditional tattoos showing from under her blue and white sarong and store logo t-shirt. She had friendly eyes and really good energy. I was surprised that I didn’t feel nervous about being caught holding what was basically a body-harness pretending to be a swimsuit.

“You really think so?” I pretended I was joking and held the suit up like I was checking if it was my size. (It was.)

“Yeah Bruh, I get a lot of guys buying swimsuits for their ‘girlfriends’ but sometimes I think it’s really for them. We sell bikini separates if you want.”

Into something more like this;

After picking out a couple of shirts, I looked around at the women's swimsuits dejectedly, seeing which ones I would want to wear if it was socially acceptable for me. My eyes ended up resting on a very fetish styled swimsuit and I instinctively picked it up.

“You’d look cute in that strappy onepiece.” a salesgirl said behind me.

I spun around and looked at her. She appeared to be a native Hawaiian, she was probably in her early thirties and had several traditional tattoos showing from under her blue and white sarong and store logo t-shirt. She had friendly eyes and a really fun energy.

Surprisingly enough I didn’t feel nervous about being caught holding what was basically a body-harness pretending to be a swimsuit.

I held the suit up in pretense like I was checking if it was my size (it was.) “You really think so?” I asked jokingly.

“Yeah Bruh, I get a lot of guys buying swimsuits for their ‘girlfriends’ but sometimes I think it’s really for them. We sell bikini separates if you want.”


So what I did to your text was to remove some comments that are not neccesary such as 'she’d caught me checking out a very fetish styled swimsuit.', that should be obvious to the reader if you add which swimsuit you were looking at before she makes her comment.

Another thing I noticed was describing her energy as 'good', it doesn't really describe what she's like that much as 'good' can mean so many different things. I put 'fun' in there but if fun is not accurate for what you had in mind then you should use some other word that better describes her attitude.

I also placed a lot of the text describing the salesgirl on a seperate line as it becomes easier to read than if it occupies the same line as her dialogue.

I added some things such as her showing up from behind and you spinning around to have a look at her. The intent is for them to work as glue and tie one sentence together with the next smoothly.

The last comment I would make is to place more of your descriptions before your dialogue than after. It's something I just recently realized I was doing wrong myself and have begun to fix. This line for example;

“You really think so?” I pretended I was joking and held the suit up like I was checking if it was my size. (It was.)

Looks a lot better if you reverse the order in which you present the details;

I held the suit up in pretense like I was checking if it was my size (it was.) “You really think so?” I asked jokingly.

So those are my little tips. I hope I was of some use to you and that you understood what I meant, I wish you much enjoyment and success in your continued writing!

 

[CoffeeWithMonkeys]

You can't post that much of a story here, I think three paragraphs is the max you can post. A moderator will eventually come along and delete most of your post.

But
I read what you posted and didn't see anything glaring that I found wrong. Seems to be a nice start of a great story. I wish I knew stuff about surfing, a few friends have asked me to write some surfer stuff and I am clueless about it so I don't feel comfortable writing about it.

 

[ElectricBlue]

You can't post that much of a story here, I think three paragraphs is the max you can post. A moderator will eventually come along and delete most of your post.

But
I read what you posted and didn't see anything glaring that I found wrong. Seems to be a nice start of a great story. I wish I knew stuff about surfing, a few friends have asked me to write some surfer stuff and I am clueless about it so I don't feel comfortable writing about it.

Correct. Three paragraphs only.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Having flagged the policy, the first three paragraphs should go anyway. They're an unnecessary introduction, really - just back babble. Who cares?

Your story could start in a much more intriguing manner with the first conversation - that would immediately raise interest into exactly what is going on, because the context would be unsettling, turned on its head. Hang on, readers might say, what's the go, here? Jump straight in, and get your readers intrigued.

Only one small technical thing - you occasionally break the fourth wall with commentary that's a bit jarring, for example:

(It was) - that's a direct aside to the reader

No joke - again, that's addressing the reader

Be careful doing that - it can break the artifice of first person narration (where you want the reader to identify with, and be in, your lead character's head) because all of a sudden the "I" character is chatting to someone else.

I'm not sure I explaining myself very well - all of a sudden, there's someone else (the "reader") in the room, but you want readers to identify with the protagonist, not to be "the reader". That's a really bad explanation...

Also, be careful you don't go overboard with your dialogue. You're relying on it almost entirely, which makes it a play, not a story being told. I reckon you need a bit more narrative alongside your dialogue. Other than those points, which might just be my personal preferences, keep going .