New GM story, if anyone is interested.

[Cruel2BKind]

http://www.literotica.com/s/eyes-like-winona

It's the first chapter of a series about a poor young man who has to become a rent boy to support his family. He eventually falls in love with one of the other boys working with him.

Tell me what you think!

 

[sr71plt]

OK, I'll take a crack at this since you asked, since you have more than once criticized my stories on the forum without me asking, and because Elfin is blowing so much gas about what I critique and what I don't.

The storyline looks fine and you are good at description. Your writing is fine, if too verbose for my tastes. More than a bit beyond plodding for me in this regard, but there are readers who like this much detail--and quite possibly irrelevant information--in background and rambling about and needing constant beating over the head to "get" the situation. Anyone willing to settle in for a very long description without much movement should like this one fine. That said, I hope you plan on moving the plot along faster and with more complexity in auxiliary plot threads in coming chapters (which I won't be reading, though, as it moves much too slow for me). I gave it 4 stars because the writing is good (and would be better with a meat cleaver taken to it.)

Question: Are you British? Because you use a lot of British rather than American style.

I made editorial notes just through the first section, which is about a third of a Lit. page. If you ran this through an editor, he/she wasn't doing you any favors--which may tell you something about the wisdom of tossing bricks at the stories of others.

The grammar and punctuation issues, by the way, didn't bother me in a read. If they had, I'd have given it less than a 4.

- - - -

Adjectives of equal weight are separated by commas. Thus, “limp, wrinkled member,” “scant, wiry pubic hair” “limp, little three-inch nub,”

“Grey” is British English. “Gray” is American English.

I cradled it up to a normal height. What’s the normal height of a ball sack? I don’t think ball sacks have height. Also, “ball sack” is two words. If a combined noun isn’t listed in the dictionary, it’s not a combined noun.

“semiturgid” doesn’t take a hyphen. the only “semi” prefix word you’ll find in the dictionary that takes a hyphen is one that would double the “i.”

“Forwards” is British English. “Forward” is American English.

I had to muffle a frustrated sigh of relief when he finally got hard. When he finally started to bump his skinny hips, a sure sign that he was ready, that he was almost done. The second element isn’t a sentence. It lacks both a subject and a verb. It can be fixed in various ways by including it in the preceding sentence.

gas station/convenience: Convenience what? “Store” seems to be missing.

The sign said 'Back in 5'. and 'Out for lunch': The American system always uses the double quote for the first level of quotes. And the period goes inside the quote mark.

It had a crack in the glass and the second-hand was broken. No hyphen in “second-hand.” It’s two words.”

"You can head home Neil." It needs a comma before "Neil" (direct address).

I sighed and took off my plastic name-tag: “name tag” is two words. Like combined-element nouns, if you don’t find it in the dictionary hyphenated, it’s not hyphenated.

“12-pack” should be “twelve-pack.”

“wont” should be “won’t.”

Concerning content. Since you have that loooong section on the protagonist's homelife after that brief prolog where you have him giving Mr. Browning a (rather disgusting--but appropriate to the story, if a click-out signal for those coming to read fantasy) blow job, it would have been a good idea to give a bigger hint that Neil was doing it to get money off his grocery bill. The transition is so abrupt that you undoubtedly will have lost some of the reader's attention on new material until they are satisfied with the "why" of the blow job, which doesn't come for a while.

Also, despite your disclaimer up front that everyone having sex is over 18, your protagonist doesn't convince me that he's over 18. He acts and talks younger.

There were a whole lot of family members being dumped in there in the second section. Every time I turned around there seemed to be another brother and I would have needed a pencil and sheet of paper to map out that family tree. By the second page, I was mostly skimming because I felt it was plodding, so I don't know if the data dump was continued with other characters.

(I assume that the "me and Ben" was on purpose to show that Neil isn't highly educated. If so, that's fine. But putting the "me" in front in that construction is a sure sign of lack of a good education.)

 

[lovecraft68]

I won't read this as I don't read GM, but want to make one quick point on Pilot's detailed critique.

Don't get caught up in overly wordy or drawn out or to "verbose" If that's your style stay with it.

There are many like Pilot who write a lot of one page "bare bones" kind of stories. These do well here and honestly I need to learn how to get "quick and dirty" if for no other reason than to say I can.

But there are many people who do enjoy a slow detailed read. Most of my stories go 5+ pages and they do well my last entry here was 7 pages and got a great reception.

I would also expect a first chapter to be the more detail packed chapter of a story as you're obviously setting a lot of things up, so again, no worries.

So don't worry about being long winded, if people get bored they'll click off.

Also if this story is along the lines of most of your work you have no worries your scores speak for themselves.

Length, like a lot of stuff here is subjective.

SR likes his stories briefer so that's his take and style. Others like myself enjoy long reads so just go with your flow.

If nothing else lit is known for providing something for everyone so the site needs both types of stories.

 

[sr71plt]

Yep, I said that there would be readers for such "full" stories at Lit., and that's fine. That isn't where the publishing world is, of course. If this came to me in the mainstream to edit, it would come with the instruction to look where it could be trimmed. But this is Lit.--and if you want to discount my opinion/advice on that, that's perfectly fine with me.

It isn't the number of words in the work that's the real issue, though. I write full-length novels too. It's how full and complex the content of the work is, given the number of words used. Tedious isn't good no matter how many words are involved.

 

[lovecraft68]

Yep, I said that there would be readers for such "full" stories at Lit., and that's fine. That isn't where the publishing world is, of course. If this came to me in the mainstream to edit, it would come with the instruction to look where it could be trimmed. But this is Lit.--and if you want to discount my opinion/advice on that, that's perfectly fine with me.

It isn't the number of words in the work that's the real issue, though. I write full-length novels too. It's how full and complex the content of the work is, given the number of words used. Tedious isn't good no matter how many words are involved.

I'm afraid I'm about to find that out. I just handed over the manuscript for my bdsm novel to my editor who worked at Simon and Schuster for a couple of years and I was lucky enough to stumble across at one of my wife's boring work functions. It was 272k on my first draft after going through it once myself I have it to 261k.

The wife and I are taking an over under on how much she's going to slice I'm thinking a pretty fair amount, I'll know in thirty days I guess.

 

[sr71plt]

Yes, I saw the thread you opened up on that. I didn't comment, though, because you have slam-banged self-promotion on the forum before (albeit very selectively).

 

[lovecraft68]

Yes, I saw the thread you opened up on that. I didn't comment, though, because you have slam-banged self-promotion on the forum before (albeit very selectively).

I've only "slam-banged it" when you bring it up and that's only because you have no call to say a word with that gaudy sig of yours.

Besides, let's be honest. You didn't comment on that thread because you don't like me and could care less what I do, which I'm fine with, but at least own up to it.

 

[sr71plt]

I've only "slam-banged it" when you bring it up

Bullshit.

and that's only because you have no call to say a word with that gaudy sig of yours.

You really want to be talking about provocative sig lines? And this brings us back to highly selective slam-banging anyway. My sig line includes some independent reviewer's comments on my books (and I fully understand why that would be a sore point with you). There are others here with multiple covers in their sig lines. A recent poster has them running down the page knee deep. And yet you only comment on mine. Gee, I wonder why that is.

Besides, let's be honest. You didn't comment on that thread because you don't like me and could care less what I do, which I'm fine with, but at least own up to it.

No, honestly, I didn't comment because you were being laughably and typically two-faced. Just another of your humongous hypocrisies. I enjoyed you being so, though. And I just know that when you posted it, you were wondering if I would comment or not. You should have known it would be "not," though, I don't follow you around with my nose up your ass like you do with me (even on this thread--you had to dig really deep to come up with something to post after me on this thread; but you had too post something, so you did). I actually had no reason to comment on it--certainly not attack you for it as you do me. I think that promotion on Lit. is just fine and dandy--including yours.

 

[Cruel2BKind]

SR, thanks. It's good to have an editor who knows what they are doing. The few times I noticed mistakes in your work they were always misspellings, and those are hard to catch when you are reading your own work. I overhyped them because I was annoyed with you at the time.

I tend to use a lot of british spellings because they always seem right to me. Grey seems more correct than gray, and so on. I'm not british, but I'm at fault for using their spellings. I even used to spell 'metre' and 'litre'

I use apostrophes out of a personal taste. I used to be an italics girl, but I couldn't figure out how to make them translate onto Lit so I use apostrophes. Not correct, but they get the job done. I hate using quotes when I'm just emphasizing things; it always makes me feel like people are going to get confused and think that it's dialogue instead of an internal thought or emphasized point.

The only other thing I can think of that I'll keep is the dangling modifier. It's wrong, but they've always been part of my personal style. I had an English teacher once that said, "Rules are there for a reason, but they can be broken if you have the skill." I like to think that I have the skill to make a couple of subjectless and directionless modifiers work.

I'm going to try the TxRad approach from now on. Live and let live?

 

[lovecraft68]

Bullshit.



You really want to be talking about provocative sig lines? And this brings us back to highly selective slam-banging anyway. My sig line includes some independent reviewer's comments on my books (and I fully understand why that would be a sore point with you). There are others here with multiple covers in their sig lines. A recent poster has them running down the page knee deep. And yet you only comment on mine. Gee, I wonder why that is.



No, honestly, I didn't comment because you were being laughably and typically two-faced. Just another of your humongous hypocrisies. I enjoyed you being so, though. And I just know that when you posted it, you were wondering if I would comment or not. You should have known it would be "not," though, I don't follow you around with my nose up your ass like you do with me (even on this thread--you had to dig really deep to come up with something to post after me on this thread; but you had too post something, so you did). I actually had no reason to comment on it--certainly not attack you for it as you do me. I think that promotion on Lit. is just fine and dandy--including yours.

I comment on you bunky, because your lame ass has got something to say about everyone else, I enjoy being the one who says it to you.

And no, I could care less if you post on anything I say. I have come to notice though that you rarely post on anything "fun" no matter who started the post, but that's just another sign of your elitism, no problem, it just has to suck to be that pretentious.

And I was not insulting your critique only adding that I don;t see length and detail as an issue, but more something that will appeal, or not appeal, to different people.

You're looking for me to attack you, which I wasn't. I didn't mention any of your other points because I'm figuring they're valid.

Except, now that you want to get me going. Telling her Dont is Don't is just you being snarky. That is not a grammar mistake, but a typo, I'm sure she knows its don't.

But enough of this. I'm not going to jack the kids thread, only one of us picks on little girls and its not me.

Now go ahead and reply and have the last word, I'll let you have it, because I'm going to have it where it counts and very soon.

 

[Cruel2BKind]

Boys, calm down.

I'm fine. He edited my piece because several authors on this site have commented that he doesn't do a lot of critiquing and he wants to change that. I thank you for it SR.

But you two are going to scare any other potential readers away

 

[sr71plt]

I comment on you bunky, because your lame ass has got something to say about everyone else

*shrug* Ah, well, you obviously aren't going to give up shoveling such lies even when others than I suggest you do, so, there it is then. That's just you. It's you who are wallowing in the rot.

 

[PennLady]

I use apostrophes out of a personal taste. I used to be an italics girl, but I couldn't figure out how to make them translate onto Lit so I use apostrophes. Not correct, but they get the job done. I hate using quotes when I'm just emphasizing things; it always makes me feel like people are going to get confused and think that it's dialogue instead of an internal thought or emphasized point.

To use italics in a story, just put the HTML italics tags around the words you want to emphasize. So when you're typing in Word or whatever it would appear: <i>italic words here</i>. Then it will look like this on-screen: italic words here. This works best when you copy and paste the story into the box on the submission page.

When I'm writing a story, I use those tags and italicize the text in Word as well. This works for me because I can then save that file as text for some sites, or I can do a search and replace on the tags (replace with nothing) for other sites. Much easier to remove the tags at the end than to go through and insert them.

Also, give your readers some credit. I can tell when something is dialogue or not.

 

[sr71plt]

Italics aren't appropriate for the quote issues cited. This was just a very "British style" text--in quote, punctuation, and word usage. Sort of leads to the question of whether they have Brits teaching English composition in Minnesota.

 

[PennLady]

Italics aren't appropriate for the quote issues cited. This was just a very "British style" text--in quote, punctuation, and word usage. Sort of leads to the question of whether they have Brits teaching English composition in Minnesota.

I was just giving some general advice to one thing C2BK noted.

Yes, she should have used double quotes in those instances. I found the objection, that people might get confused, a little confusing myself. I'm sure I've used double-quotes for non-dialogue purposes; I'm sure a reader can figure it out.

 

[sr71plt]

Yes, well, everything she said she did because she liked it that way is fine for Lit., but would be changed in the U.S. market world. Some of them would be fine for the British market, though.

 

[Cruel2BKind]

Yes, well, everything she said she did because she liked it that way is fine for Lit., but would be changed in the U.S. market world. Some of them would be fine for the British market, though.

But I hate it when people spell it gray It just looks so WRONG

 

[PennLady]

But I hate it when people spell it gray It just looks so WRONG

Gray/grey is one of those pairs that does not bother me. Guess I've read enough British stuff that I'm as used to the latter as the former. And as SR says, for Lit, it's certainly fine. If you ever wanted to try to publish it, however, a US publisher would likely change it.

There are various things I like to do as well -- mostly use italics for a character's thoughts -- that aren't the way things are done in the real world, so I change them.