"Perfect" or not, what do you think?

[Elvenspell]

Greetings! I'm very pleased to announce that my first story, Perfect has been approved and posted in the Erotic Couplings category. Now, with a title like that, I know I might be opening myself up for trouble on my voting/feedback. However, once you read it, I'm pretty sure you'll see that it isn't so much an egotistical statement as it is a part of the storyline.

Enjoy! And don't forget to vote, and tell me what you think here!

Aldous (Elvenspell)

 

[rigged4dive]

I really liked the visual imagery. I could almost feel the stairwell and the basement. The hot wax thing was also a really nice touch.

The prose flowed pretty nicely in the bottom half of the story, but felt a little cumbersome up near the top.

e.g.
-----------------------------------------------------------
I let myself breathe again, and began to take the final few steps to what, in the meager light, I thought was likely to be the bottom landing.
------------------------------------------------------------

Maybe something more like this.

I let myself breathe again, and took the final steps through the meager light to what appeared to be the bottom landing.

Just an opinion, which is probably worth less than the grain of salt with which you should take it.

You might want to try writing more in the active voice than the passive, for more impact.

As for punctuation, loose the ellipses unless they indicate an incomplete thought, and watch the comma usage.

Here’s a link courtesy of KillerMuffin.
http://www.bartleby.com/141/strunk5.html

I would advise reading it cover to cover. I read it shortly after my first submission. If you spend as much time as I did saying, “Yep, I did that wrong,” strong drink might be a good thing to have on hand.

You’ve already got the ability to create really cool pictures in the readers mind. The rest is learnable. I look forward to reading your next story.

 

[Elvenspell]

I really liked the visual imagery. I could almost feel the stairwell and the basement. The hot wax thing was also a really nice touch.

Thank you! I just went with what came to my imagination at the time.

The prose flowed pretty nicely in the bottom half of the story, but felt a little cumbersome up near the top. <example snipped>
Just an opinion, which is probably worth less than the grain of salt with which you should take it.

Heh, friend, I asked for opinions, not yes-sirs. I respect and need your feedback. What's more, I'm grateful for it.

You might want to try writing more in the active voice than the passive, for more impact.

This has bedeviled me for quite some time, as no matter how many times I've seen someone try to explain the difference between active and passive voice, I just seem incapable of getting it. Active voice always feels (in the examples I've been given at least) of being uncouth or harsh passive voice. You don't happen to know of any good references on this, do you? I would like to improve on this one, but the link you provided is something I'd read awhile ago (and took away from it what I could, then). I'll check it over again, seeing as it's been a few years, and see if I can glean anything further.

You’ve already got the ability to create really cool pictures in the readers mind. The rest is learnable. I look forward to reading your next story.

Thank you again. I know I'm new to fiction writing, and that there's a ways to go here, but hey, this is encouraging!

Aldous

 

[Ray Dario]

This has bedeviled me for quite some time, as no matter how many times I've seen someone try to explain the difference between active and passive voice, I just seem incapable of getting it.

I'll read your story and comment on it. In the meantime you might check out

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/g_actpass.html

for a pretty clear discussion on active/passive voice

Ray

 

[P. B. Walker]

That's a great link RayDario... Thanks. I pretty much knew what the difference was, but I couldn't explain it to myself or someone else (my father asked me about it, and I pretty much drew a blank on describing the difference to him). That's a great link.

Thanks,

- PBW

 

[Ray Dario]

Feedback

Elvenspell;

Whew, where to start. Your imagery was very powerful. The story was interesting too. However, I felt you left a little too much unresolved at the end. You left me wondering if the encounter was real, a hallucination, or some para-normal event and I would have liked to have seen that tidied up a bit.

I didn't see enough passive voice to be greatly concerned, although there was some. Technically the punctuation could have used some cleaning up, especially the ellipses and several sentences that weren't really quite sentences.

Also you began a lot! It seemed that every time I turned around you began to do something. You might consider checking for repetition of words.

Overall I enjoyed reading your story. As I said before the imagery was vivid, perhaps a little flowery, but good and the story line was interesting.

Keep writing, I look forward to seeing your next story.

Ray

 

[Elvenspell]

Re: Feedback

I'll read your story and comment on it. In the meantime you might check out http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/g_actpass.html for a pretty clear discussion on active/passive voice.

That was a damned helpful article-- thank you! It also explained why I so often use passive voice-- my primary writing experience is in writing non-fiction scientific-style articles. The article noted that scientific writing often prefers passive voice to maintain the appearance of objectiveness. Egads!

Whew, where to start. Your imagery was very powerful. The story was interesting too. However, I felt you left a little too much unresolved at the end. You left me wondering if the encounter was real, a hallucination, or some para-normal event and I would have liked to have seen that tidied up a bit.

Yeah, admittedly that was somewhere between wanting to leave it up to the reader (thus leaving them wondering) and not having much idea where to go from there. One of the best pieces of advice I ever got about telling a story (mind you, this is for live storytelling) was that when you got irrevocably stuck, STOP. Better to leave the audience with their own questions that to answer them shoddily was the reasoning there. I might revisit this story someday and work on that, but for now, I've got a number of others I'm working on.

I didn't see enough passive voice to be greatly concerned, although there was some. <snip some very much appreciated technical observations> Overall I enjoyed reading your story. As I said before the imagery was vivid, perhaps a little flowery, but good and the story line was interesting. Keep writing, I look forward to seeing your next story.

Thanks, Ray! Wow, all this good advice and praise for my imagery and overall story! What more could a fledgling erotica writer ask for??

Aldous