Requesting feedback on my new story

[christo]

Howdy. I just published a story a bit different from the others I've written and I would greatly appreciate any feedback from you kind and generous people. It just posted today (my goof, I don't think Saturday is a good day to get a wide readership) and it's in the Romance category. There's not really any steamy sex in it, it's more a romance, a confessional, if you will.

It's a bit more ambitious than my other stories, and it's long--about 16000 words. So if anyone out there has, oh, an hour of their life to waste, I would appreciate your commnets.

It's called "My Twin Loves", about a man who begins dating a girl and then begins to suspect that she and her twin sister are switching places back and forth. A goofy premise, but unlike most of my other stories it's not meant to be funny.

Well, you can figure that out for yourself. Here's the link:

http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=34765

Thanks!

 

[MaxSebastian]

Well I have to say, this is one of the best stories I've ever read on literotica, and I've read more stories than I can remember.

You say that there's not any 'steamy sex' in it, but actually the story is extremely erotic.

The theme has been done before, of course, which initially made me think 'hang on, we've been here before', but the way in which you've written this story blew apart the cliches and came at the idea from a new angle. Fantastic.

For a guy, the idea of having twin lovers who actively want to share is a very enticing idea, and to some extent, the fact that your protagonist was having a hard time dealing with it made me start thinking: "what, are you nuts?" but you went through his feelings well, and made them believable to the point at which I thought: "yeah, actually that's probably what I might feel like." This is always a good thing for a reader to be thinking.

It actually got quite dark, and you introduced concepts that really made the mind reel. Halfway through, in fact, when Michael was thinking of slightly darker ways of solving his problem, there was a sense of dread in my stomach not unlike the kind you get when reading Edgar Allen Poe stories. Part of that Poe-like quality of this story came because although we suspected what the outcome might be (and because your characters were well-rounded and likeable, we ended up hoping what would happen would turn out well), the way you structured the plot meant that we couldn't be sure what would happen. There were many possibilities opened up, some of them frightening.

And when all was said and done, it was very, very satisfying once complete.

One sign of a good writer is that he or she can bring new life to old ideas (after all, arguably there are no new stories, just new versions of old ones) and you have certainly done that. It is stories like these that keep me visiting literotica time and again.

all the best,

Max

 

[christo]

Just wanted to give this a bump and let everyone read the brilliant and insightful commentary posted by Max. Inspired criticism such as his should be given as wide an audience as possible, I think...

 

[P. B. Walker]

One of the best

christo,

I apologize for dragging my ass on this. I told you I would give you feedback on this story after I sent you feedback on another one of your stories in the Feedback Circle Redux. Just been a busy couple of weeks for me, plus I've been trying to finish two or three stories while I have the gumption to do them lol. Didn't want to let that creativity streak pass.

Anyhoo... I finally read this new story, "My Twin Loves", and DAMN... I thought it was very good. Definitely one of the best stories I've read on this site. It's very obvious you put alot of time and effort into this piece. I had to print it out because I didn't think I'd have time to read it all (it's kinda of a long story folks, about mmm.. 30+ pages when printed out) in one sitting, and let me tell ya... I couldn't stop reading it once I started. Talk about pulling the reader in!

I actually thought the story/theme/plot was actually pretty original. I'm sure it's been done before, but you actually put some thought into it. Just how would a man deal with that situation? And, yeah, you have to wonder if this doesn't happen sometimes in real life. LOL.. gawd if I could only be so lucky.

I thought the characters were very well written. Especially the main character. His thoughts and feelings were passed onto the reader very well. I will say... ya did get a bit morbid at one point, but I didn't really mind that at all.

Mechanically, the story was very good. 5 stars! I don't think I hit one awkward sentence in the entire story, which is amazing considering it's shear size. I liked how you just made it flow so well. It was actually a quick read which was surprising.

The sex was more than I was hoping for. Since it was in the romance category I thought you'd just gloss over the sex, but you did much better than that. I would have liked to see more sex and in more detail, but that's just me. I think that's about the only thing negative I can say about this story.

I was expecting a bit more from the ending, but in the end you resolved the conflict of the story, so it was a good ending. It was just such a build up during the entire story that I was expecting something... I don't know... something that would blow my mind. LOL. I was expecting too much. The ending was very good.

Overall, I would give this story a 4.9 out of 5.0. Great story!!! Hope to see more just like it in the future.

- PBW