Requesting Critic of Story

[John988]

Several months ago I published a group sex story called "A Weekend in New York Ch. 01". It received a lukewarm reception (3.93/5 over 71 ratings), and I would like to learn why. Please let me know where you think I could have improved--with that story specifically and my writing in general--and don't hold back. I believe that honest, constructive criticism is the best way to grow.

Thank you in advance for your help!

 

[lovecraft68]

Posting a link will help, people generally don't like to have to go searching

Here you go

https://www.literotica.com/s/in-hot-water-1

 

[Bramblethorn]

Thanks LC!

OP: I don't read Group much, so I don't have a good handle on what the readers there like, but I'll offer a few thoughts.

- You posted "Ch. 01" almost a year ago, and you haven't followed it up. Generally not a good idea to promise more unless you're in a position to deliver.

- It's quite short, just one page. Longer stories tend to get higher ratings, partly because people who aren't enjoying them will drop out before they get to the voting box.

- Partway through the sex it turns into BDSM. I don't know how enthusiastic Group readers are about BDSM. (OTOH, it wouldn't work well in BDSM either because the BDSM element is too brief. Some stuff's just hard to categorise.)

- The writing is mostly good, but there were some things that bugged me:

"While not exceptionally tired, the plodding shuttle service from her home to the Las Vegas airport..." - unless you want your readers wondering why a shuttle service would be tired, this should be "While she wasn't exceptionally tired..."

"Unfortunately, her job had been directly interfering with her greatest passion, lately." Shift that "lately to the beginning and kill the "unfortunately" altogether. Trust your readers to figure out that having something interfere with your passion is bad.

"Beneath them, Sarah writhed in pleasure; her moans getting louder and longer, her cries becoming more frequent and more exultant as the pressure between her thighs built." The semicolon isn't appropriate there; that should just be a comma. The main use of a semicolon is to separate two phrases that are each structured as complete sentences.

"wrapped around a virulent man" - I suspect the word you're looking for here is "virile".

 

[blin18]

Okay, full disclosure: I'm a girl, and I don't like rough sex, so I'm doubly out of your demographic. My feedback may not be helpful as a result.

I sense you're a little hurt at the low average and lack of comments. It doesn't make sense to you, because - not being an idiot - you know you can write. Why would a well written FFM story fail to launch in a popular category like Group Sex?

Because writing is different to story telling. You're a good writer but you need to hone your story telling.

What you have here is a Stroke Story, not an erotic story. An erotic story has engaging, multi dimensional characters we can love and a plot that makes us keep turning the page to find out what happens next. A stroke story is a porno set to print. The key features of the characters are that they are hot and they fuck.

Don't get me wrong, there's NOTHING wrong with writing strokers, but you WILL see it in your score. If you imagine it marked out of a maximum 4.5 rather than 5, then it gives you a better idea of your story's performance within the Stroke category.

Its short - like a stroker should be - but you used half of it in the set up. The setup of a stroker is used to get your reader hard, then the sex is to make him cum. So the setup needs to be sexy. Debbie arrived at a hotel, changed into a bikini, walked downstairs and broke up a couple kissing. That's all fill. You need to lace that with the promise of sex; Debbie getting changed slowly in front of the mirror, touching herself, reflecting on past adventures. That kind of stuff.

At the halfway point, here's what we know
- Debbie is in sales
- She doesn't like it overly much
- She caught a plane
- She caught a taxi
- She checked into a hotel
- She has a nice body that guys find attractive
- She puts on a sexy bikini.
- She goes to the hotel pool

Here's what I WANT to know by the midpoint of a stroker
- Debbie has a nice body that guys find attractive
- She once had a wild and unexpected sexy adventure on a business trip
- As a result, traveling now makes her feel sexy and adventurous
- Debbie is traveling! (Yay for us!)
- She packed a sexy bikini and planned to masturbate in the hot tub in front of the jets.
- She got herself excited getting changed slowly
- She can feel a little wet spot in her bikini as she talks to the concierge, and wonders if he has noticed.
- She's so excited walking into the hot tub she's touching herself and doesn't notice the couple in there.

Some other stuff:
- Its written from a female POV, but it doesn't sound feminine. Lots of guys write female parts well. Keep practicing.
- The dialogue in the middle didn't feel natural. Not bad, but not good either. Try reading it out loud to yourself.
- The transition from Hi Debbie to Let's Fuck was too sudden. A sexy buildup will mitigate this, but you need a more plausible transition than a tattoo.
- In the erotic scene, we mostly read WHAT HAPPENED, not what it felt like or what Debbie thought about it. Try to write in couplets or triplets: describe an action and pair it with a resultant emotion or sensation.

Hope this helps. Like I said, you write well, so you're a LONG way ahead on authors who can't construct a paragraph.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I lasted 2 paragraphs before boredom got the best of me. You don't know how to write or tell a story.

 

[robertreams]

Since you asked I won't bother with the good stuff. Ill give you some examples from the beginng and perhaps you can carry them through. Your writing is difficult to read. It seems bent on slowing down comprehension and filled with unnecessary detail.


For starters you have the shuttle, et al, being 'not exceptionally tired. An introductory clause must always refer to the subject of the sentence, usually immediately following. e.g. "Tired after a log day, I. . ."

Lots and lots of dead wood clogging up things. here's an example:

QUOTE "Debbie stepped into her hotel room breathing a heavy sigh of relief. While not exceptionally tired, the plodding shuttle service from her home to the Las Vegas airport, the five hour flight to New York, and the hair raising street race to her hotel (also known as a Manhattan cab ride) had pretty well fried her nerves. She was in the Big Apple attending a conference for the top sales representatives in the company she worked for.(77 words)


Debbie had come to "The Big Apple" for a conference of her company's top sales executives. She slipped into her hotel room with a heavy sigh. While she was not particularly sleepy, the plodding shuttle, Manhattan cab ride and five hour flight had fried her nerves. (46 words),

She enjoyed her job. It paid the bills, and the people were interesting, but sales wasn't among her passions. Lately her job had been interfering with her greatest passion. (I don't think there is anything to be gained by being "cute" about what that passion is). The convention gave her the opportunity to rectify the situation.

"She got to work with some interesting people" sounds as if it were written by a high schooler. Don't be insulted it is where we all learn to do the wrong things, (like fill our compositions with meaningless phrases to fill la certain word or page quota.) A" top sales exec", doesn't "get to work with", but "has the opportunity to", etc.

Get to the point. Say something quick and early to grab your reader. A the very least Start with her filling this sexy swim suit with her luscious body, something. . . to get us going. skip the cab ride and the shuttles and the endless explanations and qualifications. This is porn! In porn NOTHING IS "ALMOST" ANYTHING! We need character development, which you seem good at, if you wold only skip all the attempts to make a style (like the "road race") I am not sure I can explain. Talking about the mad road race of a taxi drive is you, the writer telling us your opinion (or what you think is your opinion) of a New York taxi ride. If you want your reader to make it harrowing, if it is important to the story, then have Debbie go through it , and SHOW us how she feels, don't tell us. same with the swim suit. What are her emotions when she slips he fine body into the suit.

Most of that stuff is totally unnecessary and should be replaced by in-depth character development. Who she is shown to us by what she thinks and how she acts.

 

[sr71plt]

For starters, if I saw a chapter one posted ten months ago and no chapter two within a week of that, I wouldn't open the story. So, to some extent, I think you didn't get interest because you didn't show you were sticking to the story.

Also, synergy--if you want to establish an interested/rewarding readership, you have to feed it. Don't expect consistent high scores until/unless you pick up readers who will look for your stories because you deliver for them. You do have to deliver good stories (or stories that hit specific reader buttons) to boost the reads and scores, but you also have to deliver a volume of them on a steady schedule. Three stories dropped nine and ten months ago won't get you far today--and there's no reason why it should win you an appreciative readership.

I didn't lose interest until the abrupt transition to the sex. I didn't lose interest in the sex then; I lost interest in the storytelling. I rolled my eyes at the tired technique of giving description by looking in a mirror, but I forgave that and read on. I also thought I was going to have trouble with the grammar and punctuation, but other than some misused commas and lack of needed hyphenation at the beginning, that didn't bother me either. (In "the five hour flight to New York, and the hair raising street race," it should be "five-hour flight" and "hair-raising street race.")

The storytelling is OK, but not great. (There seemed to be some extraneous description, but it sort of was alluded to later, I guess.) I thought you were going to shift into the sex well, but then it got too intimate/raw too fast to be believable. The technicals are fine. The carry through is the pits. Either a 3 or a 4 would be justified overall, I think, so a 3.93 seems generous enough. Since you asked for help, I gave it a 4, but if you hadn't asked for it to looked at, I never would have opened it. I see no reason to invest reading time into a series that was abandoned..

 

[John988]

Thank you all for your comments. I will be sure to incorporate the criticism into my future writings.