Plantation life and other such stories

[jesswedel]

Dear editors HELP I understand that getting your first story published can be hard so I am asking for help before submitting its not long and I hope to do a second chapter if this is any good
The story is about plantation life in the 1700s and the exploits of the mistress of the house after she is taken prisoner of 4 Negro slaves. I hope someone is willing to help on this project and others in the future
Yours Kindly JW

the story can be found @ http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=841597

 

[sr71plt]

Dear editors HELP I understand that getting your first story published can be hard so I am asking for help before submitting its not long and I hope to do a second chapter if this is any good
The story is about plantation life in the 1700s and the exploits of the mistress of the house after she is taken prisoner of 4 Negro slaves. I hope someone is willing to help on this project and others in the future
Yours Kindly JW

the story can be found @ http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=841597

I looked at this because the premise was interesting, but, sorry, I think it's not very good in multiple dimensions. The grammar, spelling, and punctuation are bad, but they can be fixed. However the language is both cliched and absent of any flavor of the 1700s (and it fails to provide the atmosphere of that time period in all other ways too), and the plot is all "telling," with no "showing." Everything, including the sex scene, is in a rushed shorthand. This is more a summary of what you'd like to write than a story. I suggest you do more reading of stories similar to what you want to write and some practice writing before asking for help. I don't think this one can be "helped"; it would have to be rewritten from ground up by someone else, I'm afraid And that someone else might as well be doing his/her own writing.

 

[jesswedel]

I looked at this because the premise was interesting, but, sorry, I think it's not very good in multiple dimensions. The grammar, spelling, and punctuation are bad, but they can be fixed. However the language is both cliched and absent of any flavor of the 1700s (and it fails to provide the atmosphere of that time period in all other ways too), and the plot is all "telling," with no "showing." Everything, including the sex scene, is in a rushed shorthand. This is more a summary of what you'd like to write than a story. I suggest you do more reading of stories similar to what you want to write and some practice writing before asking for help. I don't think this one can be "helped"; it would have to be rewritten from ground up by someone else, I'm afraid And that someone else might as well be doing his/her own writing.

thank you for taking the time to look at it and and i do agree with you regarding the summery i was hopeing that somone could give me guidence on the stucture and punctuation. not sure what you mean by not very good in multiple dimensions? i didnt think it an episode of doctor who.
thankyou anyway happy new year

 

[sr71plt]

I think I mentioned about six dimensions. But Happy New Year to you too.

Maybe someone else will think it's just what they've been waiting to work on.

 

[PennLady]

thank you for taking the time to look at it and and i do agree with you regarding the summery i was hopeing that somone could give me guidence on the stucture and punctuation. not sure what you mean by not very good in multiple dimensions? i didnt think it an episode of doctor who.
thankyou anyway happy new year

By multiple dimensions, he meant the punctuation "dimension," grammar dimension, etc.

I skimmed what you'd written and have to agree with him. This isn't a story so much as it is the summary of a story. It sounds like you'd need to do some research to make sure you get your historical context and terms correct.

For punctuation, you can find various websites and books for that. This is pretty basic stuff, and not every editor is going to want to teach you that, or correct it. Spelling as well -- that's why there's spell check. If spelling is more than normally difficult for you -- e.g., I had a friend who has dyslexic -- then you should tell that to any editor so they know to look for it.

The structure is fine, I guess. You've laid out a pretty linear story, so you could just write it that way -- start at the beginning and follow it through to the end.

 

[CWatson]

The best way to learn punctuation is "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" by Lynne Truss. It's available cheaply on Amazon. It's not only a working textbook, it's also engaging and entertaining. You'll find yourself reading it for fun.

As to editing, the best thing you can do is sit on the story for a couple of days after you've finished writing it. Then come back and try to read it as a stranger would--since, after all, every reader is a stranger. This will not only help you catch misspellings and such, it will make you question what you meant by this sentence or that one, and whether you communicated it properly.

Remember, spelling, punctuation, grammar, all the annoying "details"--well, they're details the way traffic signals are "details". Sure, you don't have to comply with stop signs or traffic lights, but if you do, you'll get where you're going much more safely and with fewer fatalities. Even worse, as a writer you are a taxi driver, and The Reader is your passenger. The more erratically you drive / write, the more likely The Reader is going to jump out of the car / story for their own safety.

Finally, the story itself. There are a lot of historical details you've thrown in that I, quite frankly, doubt. The idea of slaves being allowed to read and write... Well, the more educated a person is, the more likely they are to realize that their lot in life sucks and that they should--and can!--do something about it. This is why, historically, literate slaves were rare exceptions. The idea of hunting slaves is also ridiculous, the same way it is in The Hunger Games (which, for all its virtues, does not not present a society that is even vaguely plausible). To pacify a slave population, you don't want them fearful--you want them apathetic. You want them to be resigned to their lot in life. Knowing that they might be dragged out and slain at any moment, at the whims of their masters... Well, every slave lives with that knowledge. But if their master is smart, they don't exercise the option very frequently, so that it becomes a terrifying but rare punishment. Otherwise, the slaves fearing constantly for their lives... What's to stop the slaves from simply ganging up on the master and killing him? There are a lot more slaves than there are owners on this plantation.

And don't say that the plantation owner has more advanced technology; he doesn't. A muzzle-loading musket, of the sort used to fight the American Revolutionary War, took as long as fifteen seconds to reload, and a man who could get off five shots a minute was considered very speedy indeed. So let's say you have fifteen slaves advancing on the master of the house, who has a musket. He gets one round off and kills or wounds one of the slaves. Now what does he do about the other fourteen? The answer is, he doesn't: they grab his musket and bludgeon him to death with it. And that's what you get for using your slaves like prey animals.

Even things like names can have an effect. "Jessica" gets a pass because it first appeared in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, prior to the year 1600, though it didn't really become popular until the 1980s. In other words, it is not inconceivable for a Virginian in the colonial or early-nation period of America to be named Jessica. However, this gets less towards what is factually true and more to what The Reader thinks is factually true. Everybody "knows" that Santa Claus wears red and is fat, even though his size was only popularized by "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" in 1823, and nobody's actually sure where the red came from (its earliest appearances was the first few years of the 20th century). So if you get up and say that Santa is Greek, everyone's going to yell at you for being "factually incorrect"--never mind that St. Nicholas, the historical figure, was Greek. And if The Reader thinks "Jessica" is an unusual name for 1700s Virginia, then it is, regardless of fact or truth. Your only recourses at that point are to either 1) somehow work your research into the story, or 2) give up and rename her.

To extend our taxi-cab analogy, facts are less about traffic signals and more about general know-how. If I get in your cab and I say, "I need to go north," and you start driving south, I start wondering if you have the faintest idea what you're about. Getting facts wrong, especially visibly wrong, is doing exactly that. Now, if you're convincing about it, you can breeze over these problems--Dan Brown certainly has--but, with no offense intended, you are not Dan Brown. (And that's to the good. You don't want to be him. )

The sex is very summarized, as others have mentioned. When you write sex, do as much as you can with the five senses. Concrete details are the lifeblood of smut. Summaries of events are not. "She rode me cowgirl and then we did doggie and then I came on her tits" is not very hot. "She ground her hips against me, tilting her head back, her breasts proud and her nipples hard and free in the cold air. I reached up to cup them, feeling their liquid heft against my palm, as..." (blah blah blah) is, hopefully, somewhat more hot. It also helps pad your word-count. The sex scene is already twice as long and barely anything has happened.

Finally, I am confused by the geography. My understanding of the four slaves was that they were inside a cage. How then did they have their way with her? And how did they hide her for later? On second reading they were evidently cleaning the cage, but why? Who has cages? And why didn't Jessica scream when she was captured?

All right, that's likely enough to be going on with. Hope it helps some.

 

[jesswedel]

me being stupid

I thank you very much for your time and effort you have put in telling me that this is not a story.
I think I understand what you are getting at.

You can tell I am very poorly educated I live in England I am 42 and most of my life I have been in servitude of some sort or another but I am not going into that.

My GF has tried to encourage me to learn to write better as before a year ago I was not able to find a plumber in the phone book this is how bad I am. I think I am aiming very high and I don’t expect to right a best seller just something that someone will read and understand.
The name Jessica in the story is my own name but also the name of the woman whose thread I posted it on, so I guess I need to make it work some how Robert is one of my former Lovers and he showed me how to right his name but little else.

The history of the slaves interests me because of my life all the facts were taken from http://library.thinkquest.org/03oct/00394/lifeslavelinks.htm maybe I did not understand them fully but it was aimed at school kids I think so I was able to read most of it, make sure you get your historical context and terms correct. The comment made by PennLady is just. I must point out I am very new to computers the internet is fairly new to me and I have only learnt this year how to send emails, so I think I am making giant steps.

Geography I think I understand what CWatson was saying about the 4 slaves but I think that they were cleaning it out as you said you noticed on second read. I don’t think I said they were locked in so a bit far fetched I guess but the door was open.

The comments made by sr71plt confused me but I also think this is just I guess I am looking for a teacher as well as an editor.

I thank you all for talking the time to help me in this way hope you have a happy new year.

 

[PennLady]

Jess,

I think it's great that you're trying to write a story, but I do wonder given you background if you shouldn't aim for something a bit simpler. Slavery is a very complicated issue, and not only are you trying to write about that, you're trying to write about it in a place I gather you've never been. For a story like this, you'd need the historical context of another country.

I do think you need some remedial help with English -- not speaking it, but how it works and how one writes. One thing that will help is reading. Read the type of stories you'd like to write and see how they are done. Writing a story can be a longer process than you think.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Dear editors HELP I understand that getting your first story published can be hard so I am asking for help before submitting its not long and I hope to do a second chapter if this is any good
The story is about plantation life in the 1700s and the exploits of the mistress of the house after she is taken prisoner of 4 Negro slaves. I hope someone is willing to help on this project and others in the future
Yours Kindly JW

the story can be found @ http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=841597

In the 1700s slaves usually had sexual relations with white, female indentured servants transported from Ireland. The Colonial records are full of bastardy prosecutions where the father is identified as a male slave.

In the 1800s white females sometimes eloped to Canada with slave servants when they were in New York City. White males/slave females usually eloped to Mexico.

 

[sr71plt]

In the 1700s slaves usually had sexual relations with white, female indentured servants transported from Ireland. The Colonial records are full of bastardy prosecutions where the father is identified

Source for that? I think that in the 1700s black slaves mostly had sexual relations with each other.

A new, controversial book out on Thomas Jefferson, by the way, Henry Weincek's Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves (http://www.amazon.com/Master-Mountain-Thomas-Jefferson-Slaves/dp/0374299560), quotes Jefferson's letter entries encouraging the breeding of slaves as his best business venture, with a 4 percent annual return.

 

[Sanidia]

Hi Jess,

Don't give up just yet, yes it may seem like all of sudden your walking a thousand miles but all it takes it to put one foot in front of the other!

I have looked through and i have to agree with previous comments. You may want to start small, yes keep this idea of a story i'm not saying to throw it away with the wind but don't focus on it just yet. Practice some more.

I'm also in England and their are free writing courses, literature courses, basic English courses which you can attend for free throughout England and the resources are there, libraries and online.

Why don't you start by reading some other's work and you will see how plot, characters, depth, scenery, historical facts all tie in perfectly together. Maybe go and read some classics, but of course this is each to their own and its up to you to do if you please.

Anyways all i am wanting to say is don't give up yet, start off small and work your way up!

Happy New Year by the way!

Sanidia

 

[jesswedel]

Rewrite of the opening chapter

I took all the comments of my attempt at a story idea so long ago, and though it is the same story Chapter one I think it now reads better please let me know what you think, please.

I will post it for comment elsewhere and add a link to this ok

http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?p=43370315#post43370315

think i have done it right this time

 

[sr71plt]

Just speaking to the first paragraph, the second sentence should be pulled up as the reason she's bored, as saying life is tiresome and immediately saying she now had a figure is a non sequitur (it doesn't logically figure). But, in terms of locating this in time, it doesn't fly from the beginning. Plantation owner-class girls in the 1700s weren't permitted to be tomboys. They didn't run around with boys and skinnydip. These concepts arose in the early twentieth century.

The grammar and punctuation are also off, but fixable.

And the opening paragraphs have to propell the reader into the story. A litany of a slave's clothing allowance, given when it has no meaning, just bogs a story opening down. This should only come up if and where it's needed. If you want to establish the time, it's far better to show it in what/how/with what they do actions and in their speech rather than tell the reader what the logistics of the time were.

For erotica, it would be better to start this story with establishing the foreshadowing of sexual tension between this woman and one or more of the slaves you apparently are eventually going to have seize her and fuck her.