Looking for feedback: Teasing You

[byr0n69]

Greetings,

I'm looking for feedback on my first story submission, Teasing You

http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=472322

It's not so much a story as it is a couple of scenes. But still, I'd be interested in any feedback anyone might offer.

Thanks,

Byron

 

[byr0n69]

Sorry. I should have mentioned it falls under the category "Erotic Couplings".

 

[polynices]

Hello ByrOn,

To be honest, I wasn't actually expecting to enjoy this, because 'Erotic Couplings' isn't really my thing, but in the event I did. I think I got interested from the second paragraph onwards, when you revealed the vibrator on the table - And I'm not playing fair ... , and so on. That added a touch of spice.

Although I initially thought the writing was a little 'distant' (a bit 'telling' as opposed to 'showing', to use the jargon), I soon came to the conclusion that it works. Given the subject matter, it would have been easy to fall into complete 'gush' as well, but you didn't. The tone seems well-judged, in fact.

I also think you handled the point of view well. It's difficult to describe one person's sensations (the woman's here) through a different person's consciousness, as you have your narrator do - but it seems to work. My only hesitation was over this:

All the while, the hands of the clock advance, though you scarcely can tell whether it's been minutes or hours.

In that sentence I think you overbalanced. The narrator is telling me something he can't really know (you scarcely can tell whether it's been minutes or hours). As a result, I drew back from the story at that point. But that, for me, was the only really wobbly moment. (And I did get back into the story soon after, by the way.)

I liked the intensity of the ending, too - the moment when male lust finally asserts itself after the earlier restraint. I thought you caught that well.

You said in your post here that It's not so much a story as it is a couple of scenes, and I suppose I agree with that. Nevertheless, I think this piece would make a good opening to a longer story. We meet these characters through sex - when, perhaps, character itself is submerged in eroticism. It would be good to see them emerge as full personalities after the sex, to reveal other aspects of their relationship. And that, perhaps, would throw up contrasts with the opening. There might, in fact, be an ironic twist or two to come.

- polynices

 

[byr0n69]

Thank you for your thoughtful comments. I see what you are saying about first person vs narrative perspective. I'll have to watch out for that.

 

[elfin_odalisque]

Hi,

I think Poly is right but I think you make some avoidable errors in storytelling. I think new fiction writers should avoid first person, it is hellish difficult to wrote. Others disagree.

Certainly, second person is a recipe for disaster. It works in songs, but not in writing. It seems like IM sex chat.

Again, present tense is a bit odd. You're telling a story, surely this is in the past tense?

Who are these guys? Why have I got any interest in them? Give me some character stuff (not 'I am 50DD and wear size 1) to make me relate.

This is said not to deflate you but because I think you write well but need to take on board the style of fiction writing.

 

[sr71plt]

I think it was quite good and that both the voice and the tense were sustained well and worked for what it is (and claims to be)--an extended sex scene, not a story. Nicely polished overall. The "hook" of remotely controlled stimulation in a public place was quite interesting and drew me into the scene.

I'm reading an advance copy of a teen novel now (a parallel book to Catcher in the Rye, about a teen experience life in the last year of his bout with leukemia) that was written in the first-person, present tense throughout--and has been selected by Amazon.com for one of its first releases by its new print house that flows out of an annual contest of "undiscovered" works. Probably the best book I've read this year, and the neither the voice nor the tense intruded in the read whatsoever.

 

[bwallard]

Echo the comments about person and tense. Once you've mastered 3rd person past you can experiment. But why bother, really.