Looking for feedback

[AwkwardMD]

I am looking for some constructive criticism of my story A Midautumn Night's Dream.

Fair warning: this story contains a crossdressing character.

www.literotica.com/s/a-midautumn-nights-dream

 

[Iceprincess12]

I am looking for some constructive criticism of my story A Midautumn Night's Dream.

Fair warning: this story contains a crossdressing character.

www.literotica.com/s/a-midautumn-nights-dream

Interesting. My thoughts are a bit jumbled when I think about where to begin. There are so many themes you reveal which add to and suggest a deeper, darker story but they are not explored.

I'll start with a few critiques. Even though the back and forth dialogue should have been easy to follow, I found myself not quite sure which person was speaking. It didn't make a difference in the end, but adding in a "Gill whispered, choked, shouted or Eve..." would have made the dialogue matter. The "yanno" was grating after the second one and I scanned pg 2 hoping you didn't use it excessively or I may have stopped reading. Those were the negative critiques that stood out to me.

The story presents as something very superficial. A guy in a convenience store who gets a free pop and a blow job. It becomes much more interesting and by the end I find myself thinking back to the beginning. Is this really just a superficial story or did you want it to be more? When I think of him taking the free pop, I now question his character. Not judging, but wondering who he really is inside. When he looks at her license, after the fact, I understand you need to include it to conform to the rules, but what difference does it make to him now? None of his thoughts seem to go beyond looking at her. I don't feel he is a pervert or a bad person. In fact he seems very empty. I don't know why Eve did what she did at that time. In the end I can see her anger, but not the reason she chose that moment to do it. Those are a few themes I read, not all, but I'm typed out.

I call it interesting because the characters seem empty but the way you unfold the story made me think you had a lot more to tell. The sex had the right words but I didn't feel connected during the blow job. The sex in the end I was distracted by how much more the story seemed to be about. I think I would enjoy it more if I read it a second time.

I did like it.

 

[AwkwardMD]

First of all, thank you. Sincerely.

I experimented with a few things in this story. I definitely went too far trying to differentiate Eve's speech patterns. Her penchant for 'Yanno' and for dragging out words for emphasis (prooooooooooobably) didn't translate as well as I had hoped. I worry sometimes that my characters sound the same from one story to the next, but I think I took it too far this time

The other thing I really experimented with was taking 'show don't tell' as far as I could. I tried to do the least amount of explaining possible for the characters' backstories to see how that affected pacing. I wanted to see if making the backstory less explicit affected the characters' relatability. Does not knowing which particular fight Gill had with his dad reduce the empathy for him, or does it make it easier for the reader to insert their own fights with their fathers?

The scene with the license was to get some information across (age and name), but also to show how distracted Gill was once you get to the end of the story. The license would still have said Male, but Gill was in a fog after the blowjob and missed it.

I'm glad you liked it, but more than anything, I'm grateful you gave it a chance.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I experimented with a few things in this story. I definitely went too far trying to differentiate Eve's speech patterns. Her penchant for 'Yanno' and for dragging out words for emphasis (prooooooooooobably) didn't translate as well as I had hoped. I worry sometimes that my characters sound the same from one story to the next, but I think I took it too far this time

FWIW, I didn't mind that.

The other thing I really experimented with was taking 'show don't tell' as far as I could. I tried to do the least amount of explaining possible for the characters' backstories to see how that affected pacing. I wanted to see if making the backstory less explicit affected the characters' relatability. Does not knowing which particular fight Gill had with his dad reduce the empathy for him, or does it make it easier for the reader to insert their own fights with their fathers?

I noticed this in the story and I thought it worked really well. Uncertainty and ambiguity are powerful emotional forces IRL, and letting the reader share in some of that ambiguity helped relate to the characters.

All in all, this was a really good story and proof that you can fit a lot into a couple of Lit pages. There were a couple of minor spelling/grammar issues e.g. use of "it's" vs "its" and use of "shrugged" as a dialogue tag (see recent tedious argument on this issue) but I was happy to give it a 5.

I did raise an eyebrow at the story tag "trap". I don't know whether you included that or if it was added by the moderator, but for a lot of trans women that's an offensive slur; it'd be a bit like tagging an Interracial story with the n-word.

Also re. tags, to me Eve came across more as transgender than cross-dresser, although there wasn't enough information to be sure of that.

 

[Iceprincess12]

First of all, thank you. Sincerely.

I experimented with a few things in this story. I definitely went too far trying to differentiate Eve's speech patterns. Her penchant for 'Yanno' and for dragging out words for emphasis (prooooooooooobably) didn't translate as well as I had hoped. I worry sometimes that my characters sound the same from one story to the next, but I think I took it too far this time

I didn't mind her dragging out her words. It contributed to part of her playfulness. One part I forgot to mention that I really liked, was how she flirted with the car. It's been done before, but I didn't feel as if it was a show. I didn't feel the elbow jab, har, har that can sometimes happen with scenes that are almost set up.

The other thing I really experimented with was taking 'show don't tell' as far as I could. I tried to do the least amount of explaining possible for the characters' backstories to see how that affected pacing. I wanted to see if making the backstory less explicit affected the characters' relatability. Does not knowing which particular fight Gill had with his dad reduce the empathy for him, or does it make it easier for the reader to insert their own fights with their fathers?

I didn't feel with the characters or even for them. There was a sense that Eve wanted something, but I couldn't tell if this was intentional or not. Gil seemed normal, not downtrodden or needing sympathy, but when you're a Dr. Pepper fan, do we really know anything about you?

The scene with the license was to get some information across (age and name), but also to show how distracted Gill was once you get to the end of the story. The license would still have said Male, but Gill was in a fog after the blowjob and missed it.

Would he have stopped if he had seen it? I didn't sense regret, remorse or even a lot of emotion with finding it out. I know there was a little bit of dialogue after Gill saw Eve's picture, but she never picked up on it. It didn't seem to affect him enough to even get angry. Perhaps he is all bottled up, eeks.

I'm glad you liked it, but more than anything, I'm grateful you gave it a chance.

No problem. I thought it was a good read. Thank you for being open to my opinions!

 

[AwkwardMD]

Thank you both, so much, for your feedback. It was wonderful to hear on all counts.