"Proclivities" - Looking for feedback

[Mastered_again]

After a long absence (last story is 2004 under author lil_elvis_lover), I am back and writing again. New moniker, as old email address is long gone.

We had some financial issues owing to the great recession and spawn attending college, so I had to step back for a while. Things did get sorted out and I retired in 2021. The writing bug returned and after many months and even more revisions, I submitted part 1:

https://literotica.com/s/proclivities-pt-01

I'm hoping a few would give it a read and offer constructive criticism (or glowing praise, ha-ha)

Parts 2-6 are in the pipeline

I'll gladly return the favor, just point me in the right direction.

Thanks in advance

 

[TheRedChamber]

Congratulations on your first story after the break. I was fairly similar in that I published a couple of stories in 2014 and nothing again until last month. Hopefully now you've got enough time to make regular posts here. There's a few caveats before I give my feedback - firstly, I'm a man and I got the sense that this is a more of woman's story - not just in terms of who the main character is, but more in terms of what is considered sexy. Therefore, what I'm looking for might not be what you're trying to write at all. Also, it's can be dangerous critiquing the first part of a story because you don't have all the pieces yet and things which don't seem important might be, or revelations might reconceptualized what's written her. Finally, I'm not always good at focusing on the positives when giving feedback, I find it more productive for focus on areas for improvement, but sometimes take it too far (and obviously not all of my criticism is going to be right). With all that said, this is my feedback:

1) You start the story with a short character biography and then two short not-quite-scenes (Betty inviting her to the work event and her going home to change) Your story is about 10,000 words long and your taking about 1,000 words to get to the start of what I would consider the first scene. You could probably integrate a lot of the information from those 1,000 words into the bar scene and this would make the story get started a bit faster. For example:

Finally, I saw Betty Thomas, the office manager, frantically waiving me over to the bar, which ran the length along the back off the room. She was the one who'd insisted I come tonight. She'd been at OTP since its founding. Although I did not know her well, I was aware of her reputation as being very influential with the owners. I'd hadn't wanted to come, but when she told me the owners would be dissapointed if I missed the first event since joining the company, it had sounded like a threat maybe even a malicous one. I snaked my way over to them, where to my surprise, Betty had saved a stool for me. I didn't sit down, but placed my purse on the seat and laid my sweater across the back.

Similarly Linda has conversations about her new degree, working in the library, and even her clothes which is essentially repeat of information we already have.

2) I had some questions about the nature of her company and her role in it - perhaps I'm being pedantic here because I've worked with both big and small IT companies before, but I wasn't sure about how big it was supposed to be - which is important because Linda is at the bottom and George is at the top. They 'all' go out for work drinks and the CEO chats naturally to the new hire, but it's also large enough to have clear departments. If Linda's a programmer and George is the first programmer, then is he her direct boss and are they going to be working together on the same project (and how will them getting together influence this) or is he just in the excutive suite all the time and their paths will only occassionally dramatically cross at work? This had a big influence on how I viewed the story - I kept thinking it would turn into the whole Fifty Shades ordinary girl meets billionaire with kinks, but reading more closely it could also just be a case of 'twenty-somethings hook up after work'.

3) The story is about proclivaties, but it's not 100% clear what these are at the moment. You've got the story in Non-Consent/Reluctance which is usually a lot rougher than what's currently here. There's an element of voyeurism with the photos and an obvious element of domination, but, apart from the dirty talk and deep throating, a lot of the sex at the end isn't that extreme. Probably you're building to something, but there are some fairly distinct audiences on Lit and I'm not sure who you're appealing to at the moment (except yourself which is often the most important thing). The dirty talk was a bit of a sudden shift from what was a fairly sensitive and romantic story up to that point. Once it begins, you style changes a bit and we get a lot less description either of the action or of feelings - just a fairly repetative set of 'Say you want to be fucked.','I want to be fucked'. In fact, for the last thousand words of the story or so there are hardly any paragraphs of signifant length. I'd have liked to know a bit more about how she felt the first time he called her a bitch and how she felt the fifth time he called her that.

4) A couple of the more erotic moments could have been fleshed out more. He asks for her panties, she takes them off, he gets them from her - each of these are dealt with with one single sentences in paragraphs quite a way apart. Why did she agree to this? What did he do with them once he had them? Similarly, her following him in her car with her skirt pulled up and no panties on is the most original and erotic idea in the story, but isn't really dealt with in any depth.

5) I didn't think there was very much dramatic tension in the story so far. One issue is that George is initally presented as dangerous, but then this is very quickly undermined with about 2,500 words about his prior relationships and it's all perfectly understandable and fine. Linda comes across as a total 'yes' woman throughout the story - a lot of it is him saying 'Do this' and her thinking 'That's crazy. I'm I really going to do this? Oh, what the hell.' The only real time she comes close to saying no is when she asks to go inside because she's chilly. This could have been a point when we get to see some of this example of 'things needing to be done his way or else' over a relatively minor matter, but instead he immediately agrees. Even if Linda is saying yes to everything, I felt her inner monologue needed to be stronger - either his behaviour should be everything she secretly craves, or else she's never thought about that kind of relationship and is scared, but something is awakening. Noticably, during the relationship conversation, she doesn't ever really challenge what he is saying (or even mentally challenge it but wimp out of saying anything).

6) Linda is a bit of a blank character at the moment. This is fairly common with main characters where you want the reader to be able to insert themselves into the story, and so maybe a conscious choice, but even so, I think she needs to be fleshed out a little bit more. I'm not sure what defining traits she really has at the moment - she's a programmer, but not seemingly nerdy, she worked with children but doesn't seem to be particularly interested in settling down and having some, she's not a party girl but she's not a nun either and so on. Regretfully, I have to say that I'm not that sure what George sees in her except that so far she's literally 'easy' to get into bed. He doesn't really even spend any time flattering her. George on the other hand is presented as the perfect high-status male - rich, intelligent, senstive (with dark side), attractive and even cooks - but so far Linda isn't having to work hard to catch his eye.

7) Another minor point, but I thought it was a little strange that she said she'd never done doggie position before. It's made clear that she's had a number of different hook-ups before and hasn't given the impression of being that sexually inexperienced before. You also have the guy coming three times within about 1,500 words with not a lot of downtime between sessions. Again, it's fantasy, so superhuman stamina is fine, but I'm reminded of the old not quite compliment of 'You make love like a Japanese meal - small portions, but so many courses'

8) Finally, there's no real cliffhanger to this part and thus no real draw to keep the reader excited for part two. The story ends one sentance after they come together. So what are we to expect next? She hooked up with the perfect guy and they had great sex. What problem is going to appear to destroy this idyllic situation. How are his procivities going to mess with their relationship. It's not entirely clear.

Anyway, those were my thoughts on it. Again, perhaps it comes across as unduly harsh, but it shouldn't, there was a lot to enjoy in the story. If you are willing to give feedback on stories, I'd be happy for you to be equally critical of anything I've written.

 

[Mastered_again]

Congratulations on your first story after the break. I was fairly similar in that I published a couple of stories in 2014 and nothing again until last month. Hopefully now you've got enough time to make regular posts here. There's a few caveats before I give my feedback - firstly, I'm a man and I got the sense that this is a more of woman's story - not just in terms of who the main character is, but more in terms of what is considered sexy. Therefore, what I'm looking for might not be what you're trying to write at all. Also, it's can be dangerous critiquing the first part of a story because you don't have all the pieces yet and things which don't seem important might be, or revelations might reconceptualized what's written her. Finally, I'm not always good at focusing on the positives when giving feedback, I find it more productive for focus on areas for improvement, but sometimes take it too far (and obviously not all of my criticism is going to be right). With all that said, this is my feedback:

1) You start the story with a short character biography and then two short not-quite-scenes (Betty inviting her to the work event and her going home to change) Your story is about 10,000 words long and your taking about 1,000 words to get to the start of what I would consider the first scene. You could probably integrate a lot of the information from those 1,000 words into the bar scene and this would make the story get started a bit faster. For example:



Similarly Linda has conversations about her new degree, working in the library, and even her clothes which is essentially repeat of information we already have.

2) I had some questions about the nature of her company and her role in it - perhaps I'm being pedantic here because I've worked with both big and small IT companies before, but I wasn't sure about how big it was supposed to be - which is important because Linda is at the bottom and George is at the top. They 'all' go out for work drinks and the CEO chats naturally to the new hire, but it's also large enough to have clear departments. If Linda's a programmer and George is the first programmer, then is he her direct boss and are they going to be working together on the same project (and how will them getting together influence this) or is he just in the excutive suite all the time and their paths will only occassionally dramatically cross at work? This had a big influence on how I viewed the story - I kept thinking it would turn into the whole Fifty Shades ordinary girl meets billionaire with kinks, but reading more closely it could also just be a case of 'twenty-somethings hook up after work'.

3) The story is about proclivaties, but it's not 100% clear what these are at the moment. You've got the story in Non-Consent/Reluctance which is usually a lot rougher than what's currently here. There's an element of voyeurism with the photos and an obvious element of domination, but, apart from the dirty talk and deep throating, a lot of the sex at the end isn't that extreme. Probably you're building to something, but there are some fairly distinct audiences on Lit and I'm not sure who you're appealing to at the moment (except yourself which is often the most important thing). The dirty talk was a bit of a sudden shift from what was a fairly sensitive and romantic story up to that point. Once it begins, you style changes a bit and we get a lot less description either of the action or of feelings - just a fairly repetative set of 'Say you want to be fucked.','I want to be fucked'. In fact, for the last thousand words of the story or so there are hardly any paragraphs of signifant length. I'd have liked to know a bit more about how she felt the first time he called her a bitch and how she felt the fifth time he called her that.

4) A couple of the more erotic moments could have been fleshed out more. He asks for her panties, she takes them off, he gets them from her - each of these are dealt with with one single sentences in paragraphs quite a way apart. Why did she agree to this? What did he do with them once he had them? Similarly, her following him in her car with her skirt pulled up and no panties on is the most original and erotic idea in the story, but isn't really dealt with in any depth.

5) I didn't think there was very much dramatic tension in the story so far. One issue is that George is initally presented as dangerous, but then this is very quickly undermined with about 2,500 words about his prior relationships and it's all perfectly understandable and fine. Linda comes across as a total 'yes' woman throughout the story - a lot of it is him saying 'Do this' and her thinking 'That's crazy. I'm I really going to do this? Oh, what the hell.' The only real time she comes close to saying no is when she asks to go inside because she's chilly. This could have been a point when we get to see some of this example of 'things needing to be done his way or else' over a relatively minor matter, but instead he immediately agrees. Even if Linda is saying yes to everything, I felt her inner monologue needed to be stronger - either his behaviour should be everything she secretly craves, or else she's never thought about that kind of relationship and is scared, but something is awakening. Noticably, during the relationship conversation, she doesn't ever really challenge what he is saying (or even mentally challenge it but wimp out of saying anything).

6) Linda is a bit of a blank character at the moment. This is fairly common with main characters where you want the reader to be able to insert themselves into the story, and so maybe a conscious choice, but even so, I think she needs to be fleshed out a little bit more. I'm not sure what defining traits she really has at the moment - she's a programmer, but not seemingly nerdy, she worked with children but doesn't seem to be particularly interested in settling down and having some, she's not a party girl but she's not a nun either and so on. Regretfully, I have to say that I'm not that sure what George sees in her except that so far she's literally 'easy' to get into bed. He doesn't really even spend any time flattering her. George on the other hand is presented as the perfect high-status male - rich, intelligent, senstive (with dark side), attractive and even cooks - but so far Linda isn't having to work hard to catch his eye.

7) Another minor point, but I thought it was a little strange that she said she'd never done doggie position before. It's made clear that she's had a number of different hook-ups before and hasn't given the impression of being that sexually inexperienced before. You also have the guy coming three times within about 1,500 words with not a lot of downtime between sessions. Again, it's fantasy, so superhuman stamina is fine, but I'm reminded of the old not quite compliment of 'You make love like a Japanese meal - small portions, but so many courses'

8) Finally, there's no real cliffhanger to this part and thus no real draw to keep the reader excited for part two. The story ends one sentance after they come together. So what are we to expect next? She hooked up with the perfect guy and they had great sex. What problem is going to appear to destroy this idyllic situation. How are his procivities going to mess with their relationship. It's not entirely clear.

Anyway, those were my thoughts on it. Again, perhaps it comes across as unduly harsh, but it shouldn't, there was a lot to enjoy in the story. If you are willing to give feedback on stories, I'd be happy for you to be equally critical of anything I've written.

First, thank you for your thoughtful reply as well as clarifying your perspective, and agree there is a distinct difference between male and female perspectives, both in reading and writing.

Indeed, I may be a bit wordy, but I look at it as setting up the main part of the story when George is introduced to Linda.

As to Linda's position at the company I did cover that she's in graphics and imaging, so not a programmer and, hence, not working for George.

I've never read 50 Shades, but am familiar with the story line, so there could be some parallels, I just don't know how much. What I write is drawn from personal experiences, albeit condensed to the timeline of the story.

The proclivities and Linda's character will become more apparent as the upcoming parts are posted and hope you will continue to follow them.

I'll definitely give one if your stories a read and post feedback.

Thanks again - M_a