Please help.

[tristianc]

Reciently I posted a story and watched as it slowly climbed in score, but still not high enough for me to consider staying in this genre. The bad news is that I enjoy this genre and would hope to continue writing stories in it. So I'd like to know from other readers what's wrong with this story.

Any help would be apreciated,
Tristian.

Tristianc, Dinner at Jeff and Stacy's, NonConsent/Reluctance.

http://www.literotica.com/s/dinner-at-jeff-and-stacys

 

[PennLady]

I'm not going to read this as I don't care for non-con, but I would advise you to consider that not all categories score equally. Some are tougher than others, so a 4 in one might be "equivalent" to a 4.5 in another. If you're getting good feedback, I wouldn't worry about the score so much.

 

[shewantsmore]

i will read the story and see what its like

 

[Etaski]

[Note: Spoilers toward the end of this post about the story]


*scratches head* Well. Hm. I'm not sure how the rest of your stories are written and how they compare with others in the same category (though I see you've sampled a few different categories), but I could say the score is actually accurate for the level of skill that is generally expected in Non-Con.

This one has several basic story-crafting areas that need improvement to make it engaging, and the big thing about Non-Con is intensity/tension and understanding either of two things:

1) the motive of the dominant.
2) the feelings of the one being overpowered.

The essential problems:

The opening is not that engaging; it starts out like a teacher reading to a kindergarten class. It doesn't promise intensity.

The dialogue is pretty stilted in the set-up, though it gets a bit better once you get to the "action." You could, however, use much more appropriate punctuation (exclamation points where someone is "shouting" something, for example).

Characterization, or the lack of it: there is not much here that tells me who I should sympathize with as the reader: Jeff and Robert (as the dominants), or Stacy (as the "victim"). Without better characterization (not just telling the reader the motivation or feelings but showing it and maybe helping to understand it), the reader is bewildered (or at least I was).

The default setting for me? I'm a woman, so since I didn't know who to sympathize with, and thought the guys were sort of shallow jerks at the beginning, I started empathizing with Stacy. This actually upset me, as I thought her husband had broken a huge stake of trust and it made Jeff immediately despicable as a character and any eroticism went out the window (the "buddy chat" between Robert and Jeff at that point only made things worse).

When you "revealed" at the end that it was all just roleplay and she was really consenting to the threesome but wanted a force fantasy, by then it was "too little, too late." There were no hints on that note prior, and I thought that made the opening scene deliberately misleading on the author's part. This may not have such a good reaction with readers in the category, to feel they're being lied to or the author is concealing part of the story without giving much in return.

All in all....a 3.8 is an accurate score for the category of what most readers thought, and if it did start out even lower than that, then you definitely did "turn off" a percentage of your audience (likely more married female readers than anything, but I'm only guessing).


But most of this is flaws in the story-crafting, not the category or topic. Fix the story-crafting parts to tell a smoother story with better flow and pacing, with details that help the reader rather than hinder them, remember "Show, don't tell," and you can make the exact same scenario a much better story that would get a better reaction and score.

 

[tristianc]

Thanks Etaski

I have given lots of thought to your post. I as a male mostly went to the male point of view of this bound woman and not on what either of them felt as they dominated her. I would say that having her point of view brought up more in the story would ruin the ending I had planed, but I could see how it would help so that hopefully my readers don't feel lied to or mislead. I could see how it could be a little too talky and I could have just done more action in order to show how much Robert and Stacy enjoyed this scene taking place. I hope that next time I decide to tackle this genre I remember this lesson. Once again thank you for you input.

Tristianc

 

[Etaski]

I have given lots of thought to your post. I as a male mostly went to the male point of view of this bound woman and not on what either of them felt as they dominated her. I would say that having her point of view brought up more in the story would ruin the ending I had planed, but I could see how it would help so that hopefully my readers don't feel lied to or mislead.

Only for one reason: We couldn't relate to the male point of view, either.

A lot of stories in Non-Con have this "surprise" ending, and I'm not necessarily saying that you needed to reveal to too early, but that's why the two most important things about a Non-con story must be there to make it successful: proper intensity, and the ability to relate to either the dominating or the taken.

I could see how it could be a little too talky and I could have just done more action in order to show how much Robert and Stacy enjoyed this scene taking place.

It wasn't "too talky" in the action apart actually (even if the opening dialogue was stilted). It just didn't work quite as well as it could have here.

Nasty-talk in Non-Con is common and can be well done to heighten the tension in the scene. Why it didn't work here (for me) was for this reason:

More often than not, the nasty talk is directed at the overpowered to heighten their humiliation; it also heightens the intensity for the reader empathizing with the victim.

If the focus was supposed to be on the dominant men, not her, but I didn't know which one it was supposed to be, so chose the woman...you see the problem? The talk wasn't directed at her, because the focus wasn't on her, it was supposedly to be on the men. So it clashed and didn't help the tension but possibly made some readers feel "funny". When someone ends up feeling strange after finishing a Non-con story, they may not vote very highly.

I hope that next time I decide to tackle this genre I remember this lesson. Once again thank you for you input.

Tristianc

You're welcome. You should try to tackle it again. It's a balancing act and to do it well means you're improving your writing and are getting more adept with written language. Good luck!