Need help with first story.

scorpio1121

Really Really Experienced
Joined
Sep 2, 2007
Posts
364
I had the imagination to write it, just cant get the hang of editing it.

Jack slowly opened his eyes and grumbled as the alarm clock made its annoying noise. He fumbled around on the night stand and finally found the button to turn it off. He slid back the sheets and headed for the shower. Looking down he notices his "morning wood" and grins to him self. "im 40 and it still works just fine" he thinks to himself and looks over at his wife still sleeping. She would actually like it if he woke her up and made love to her but he didnt want to disturb her sleep. He continues to shuffle off to the shower and start the morning routines. He finaly gets into the shower and rests his head under the hot stream of water and just stands there for a moment. Slowly a few immages float into his head and as he is washing his hair a cute coworker comes forward in his mind. He dosent know her name just really likes looking at her ass as she walks through the office. Suddenly the warm shower is replaced by his cubical and he is sitting in his office. He looks around and sees it is empty and it is dark outside. He must be working late again. he turns in his chair and sees the coworker sitting next to him going over some reports. He looks her over and notices the top two buttons are undone on her blouse. " Thank you" he thinks to him self. He shifts a little in his chair to get a better look. "Nice" he thinks checking out her breasts and looks up slightly to see if she is looking. "Busted" he says to himself. She is sitting there with a slight grin on her face staring directly at him. "Can I help you?" she says to him. He decides to go for broke and says back "Actually I was hoping for a peek up your skirt, But I like what I saw" he says flatly, smiles at her and turns around in his chair. That wasnt the answer she was expecting.

The warm water from the shower was waking him up and the thoughts in his mind were reawakening Jr. He looked down at his now hard cock as he soaped himself up and scrubed away to wash away the sleep. He washed lower and finally reached his cock and wrapped his hand around it. He groaned slightly as he felt the slickness of the soap in his hand against the tight skin. He stroked himself up and down slightly and dreamed a bit more about the cute blond in his cubical.

After a few moments The woman spoke up and said" I will be back, I have to go to the bathroom". Jack grunted an acknowledgment to her and looked over at her out of the corner of his eyes. As she stood up and turned, his eyes settled on her shirt and he could have sworn her nipples were hard. "Nah", he thought, Just his imagination. He glanced over again as she left and enjoyed the view of her leaving. A few minutes later she returns and sits down and clears her throat. He looks over at her and notices her skirt had ridden up a bit and her legs were slightly parted. "Is that what you meant? " She asked with a smile on her face.


(More deleted by Mod)

Any help you can give me to get my story posted would be greatly appreciated.

Michael
 
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Hi and good luck.

First -- you'd be better to post a small excerpt here and then ask for some help. But, moving on...

Your paragraphs are too long; they are and will end up as big blocks of text that turn a person off. It's hard to read big blocks like that on a screen (and it's not always easy on paper, either).

Jack slowly opened his eyes and grumbled as the alarm clock made its annoying noise. He fumbled around on the night stand and finally found the button to turn it off. He slid back the sheets and headed for the shower. Looking down he notices his "morning wood" and grins to him self. "im 40 and it still works just fine" he thinks to himself and looks over at his wife still sleeping. She would actually like it if he woke her up and made love to her but he didnt want to disturb her sleep. He continues to shuffle off to the shower and start the morning routines. He finaly gets into the shower and rests his head under the hot stream of water and just stands there for a moment.

Lots of errors here. Morning wood does not need to be in quotes; people know what it is, especially on a site like this. "Him self" should be one word, himself.

Also in that sentence, you switched from past tense (opened, grumbled, etc.) to present tense (notices, thinks, grins). This is something really seems to annoy readers, given what I've seen in comments and forum posts. A good general rule is to pick a tense and be consistent with it.

I'm is the contraction of I am, not "im," as you have. Numbers should be spelled out, so 40 should be "forty."

You left the apostrophe out of "didn't," and "finaly" is misspelled (missing an L).

I also had to wonder -- his wife would love it if he woke her up to make love but then ... he doesn't do it?

This is mostly just copy-editing stuff and some of it could be dealt with by spell check and even a bit with grammar check (although that's not the best for fiction writing). You could presumably fix some of it yourself if you know some basic grammar and punctuation rules; if you don't, they're easy to find online.

I didn't read past the first paragraph, because as I said, those blocks of text were just too much on my eyes.
 
Jack slowly opened his eyes and grumbled as the alarm clock made its annoying noise. He fumbled around on the night stand and finally found the button to turn it off. He slid back the sheets and headed for the shower. Looking down he noticed his morning wood and grinned to himself. "I'm forty and it still works just fine" he thought to himself, and looked over at his wife still sleeping. She would actually like it if he woke her up and made love to her but he did not want to disturb her sleep. He continued to shuffle off to the shower and start the morning routines. He finally got into the shower, rested his head under the hot stream of water and just stood there for a moment. Slowly, a few images float into his head and as he is washing his hair; a cute co-worker comes forward in his mind. He did not know her name, but really liked looking at her ass as she walked through the office.

Suddenly the warm shower was replaced by his cubical and he was sitting in his office. He looked around and saw it was empty, and it was dark outside; he must be working late again. He turned in his chair and saw the co-worker sitting next to him going over some reports. He looked her over and noticed the top two buttons on her blouse were undone. "Thank you" he though to himself. He shifted a little in his chair to get a better look. "Nice" he thought, checking out her breasts. He looked up slightly to see if she was looking. "Busted" he said to himself. She was sitting there with a slight grin on her face staring directly at him.

"Can I help you?" she said to him. He decided to go for broke with his reply.




More removed by MOD


NOTES:
- Removing more than one "and" from a sentence and replacing them with commas and changing a few words makes it flow much better.
- Speech should start on a new line.
- I have taken the liberty of adding paragraphs in to break up the text a little for your readers.
- Contractions need apostrophes ... "can't" "shouldn't"
- Contractions should only be used in speech (or thought-speech). In normal text they wouldn't should be lengthened to would not, etc.
- "blonds legs" - the legs are a possession, belonging to the "blond" so it needs an apostrophe. e.g. Lara's Legs... Michael's book... the blond's legs.
- Punctuation denoting the end of a sentence in speech should be inside the speech marks. "She was hot." He said. The words after the speech should start with a capital as it is a new sentence.
- "She withdrew her finger and he could see her finger..." for example, is repetitive... changing it to "She withdrew her finger and he could see it..." Is easier on the eyes and sounds better.

This is my first go at editing so if you don't like it don't use it. I probably have not got everything right, but I defo changed a hell of a lot so i know it should look a lot better now. Hope you like it :)

Fly x
 
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had to go back and edit my edits... the tenses changed so much i got confused... i started in one tense and ended up in another. I have changed it all to one tense... I am not sure which one you aimed for but you wrote the majority in the tense i have used.

It might be worth getting a second edit done... My brain is fried to bits after that! lol.

Your content is good, but your writing needs adjustments. You know how to write it, i saw you do the correct versions in there too. Just look at what i have changed and you will realise where you went wrong and can start making those edits yourself before you give them to another person :).
 
Thank you!

I have to freely admit I am horrible at grammar and spelling. I appreciate each of you taking a look and pointing out what needed to be adjusted. When I wrote it quite a few months ago and it was more a stream on consciousness than a planed story. I will take care to reread it after I solidify the story and check the obvious dont's and such. Thank you Penn and Fly.

Fly, I liked what you did with the story. You did change bits and pieces and I was ok with it. But one thing that went missing was the fact that Marissa had fantasized about him as well. I kind of wanted to show that even though he perceived her as out of his league she had fantasized about him as well. Did it not fit? Too obvious or un necessary? I don't think it will be missed I just was curious as to why you cut it?

So do you think it should be worked on more or should it be posted?
 
Three paragraphs is the maximum amount allowed to post to the forum. Posts edited to comply.
 
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Edit

Looks like you got help but you can send it to me for a second opinion.
 
I hope you got that copied before the mod removed it, as i didn't save it anywhere! lol.

It was late and i needed sleep... So there's a chance i just accidentally deleted it and didn't notice. I don't remember any thought processes behind removing actual story line...

I went for only editing how the story flowed through grammar and spelling. If i changed actual plot points it was accidental!
 
I'd suggest just giving a summary and then asking for help in certain areas. You're more likely to find a willing editor that way rather than posting giant paragraphs.
 
oops

I didn't know that the story would be deleted by the moderator. I think you did fine with the story editing no apologies needed. Do you want to take a second crack at it and we can collaborate on polishing it up for submission?
 
I didn't know that the story would be deleted by the moderator. I think you did fine with the story editing no apologies needed. Do you want to take a second crack at it and we can collaborate on polishing it up for submission?

The editor's forum is for discussing editing issues and finding people to edit, people offering services for editing, etc. It's not for posting entire stories. For one thing, the site has a story side, and the stories are vetted, so that's where they should go. But people are willing to help out.
 
The editor's forum is for discussing editing issues and finding people to edit, people offering services for editing, etc. It's not for posting entire stories. For one thing, the site has a story side, and the stories are vetted, so that's where they should go. But people are willing to help out.

Let's be serious. The Editor's forum is where editors bitch and whine and don't don't help anybody at all. We writers are left needing assistance but are not getting it. Think I'm kidding? Look at the thread I have posted below. SR71 Pilot sounds like a pompous ass, and others follow, and none are offering editing assistance. They just bitch and moan. No help at all. Check out the link. This is what's wrong with Lit. There's a disease running rampant, a disease of discontent.


Shouldn't volunteer editors know how to write?
 
Let's be serious. The Editor's forum is where editors bitch and whine and don't don't help anybody at all. We writers are left needing assistance but are not getting it. Think I'm kidding? Look at the thread I have posted below. SR71 Pilot sounds like a pompous ass, and others follow, and none are offering editing assistance. They just bitch and moan. No help at all. Check out the link. This is what's wrong with Lit. There's a disease running rampant, a disease of discontent.


Shouldn't volunteer editors know how to write?

Who said everyone posting on the thread is an editor? That isn't a requirement.

As for offering assistance, you have no idea who helps and who doesn't. It isn't a requirement to post on the forum when people help each other.

As for bitching and whining . . . it happens. Big deal.
 
Oh, I just sorta think LC expects me to bite on this one, ML. ;)

Why, sure, Luvtowriteerotica. PM me how long this first story of yours is and we'll see about getting it edited. You sound like you'll be real fun to work with. I wasn't aware that you had asked for help before. :)

LATER: Your only other post to Literotica other than these two was the text of a short vignette, "Visit With My Grandparents." You didn't ask for an edit of it when you posted it, you just posted it. (And received a compliment on it.)

Looking at it, I think it needs very little editing. But it's only about half as long as it would have to be to be posted at Literotica.

So, why don't you just complete it, if that's the story you're working on, and then ask for help without the dramatics. You'd probably be surprised at the help you got--especially if an editor here saw the original you posted. It doesn't need much work. You seem to be approaching this the wrong way--you seem to expect folks to offer you help without you asking for it. You do need to ask for assistance if you want it.
 
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Oh, I just sorta think LC expects me to bite on this one, ML. ;)

Why, sure, Luvtowriteerotica. PM me how long this first story of yours is and we'll see about getting it edited. You sound like you'll be real fun to work with. I wasn't aware that you had asked for help before. :)

Here you go. I found this on another thread.

I am halfway through writing an incest story. Was hoping I could get some help. But all I can tell from this post is that editors all fight and point fingers at each other and don't care about helping writers at all. So never mind. Keep fighting and calling each other names like you're still in high school or something. I thought this was someplace special. I was wrong. I'll find help someplace else.
 
Here you go. I found this on another thread.

Well, yes, but that didn't ask for help and it was posted 14 minutes before the posting of the posting on this thread. Luvtowriteerotica blasted us for not providing assistance that Luvtowriteertoica hadn't requested. Now I've called the bluff and did so without all the huffing and puffing. Will let you know if Luvtowriteerotica is ever heard from again or if this was just a run at the forum (and me).
 
Well, yes, but that didn't ask for help and it was posted 14 minutes before the posting of the posting on this thread. Luvtowriteerotica blasted us for not providing assistance that Luvtowriteertoica hadn't requested. Now I've called the bluff and did so without all the huffing and puffing. Will let you know if Luvtowriteerotica is ever heard from again or if this was just a run at the forum (and me).

Indeed.

Thanks. :)
 
primarily i would say, get rid of the 'and's the sentences you use them in are called run-ons. They make for laborious reading. Also many of them cannot be replaced simply with commas to create comma splices. There is no law against writing short sentences, especially in action scenes,'And' means plus and really should only be used to join two or more identical or similar things. eg First sentence: Jack slowly opened his eyes, grumbling...etc.
 
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