Some feedback on my first storytelling attemps

[outdooryone]

Hello

I thought I would briefly share some of my fun on here. When I got into the writing, I really enjoyed it, and plan on sharing some more of my experiences.

I would be really keen on some feedback, having never written much creatively since school...!

I currently write first person, but wonder if I should try something different.

My profile is below, I have one more story submitted a few mins ago to make three of them.

https://www.literotica.com/stories/memberpage.php?uid=2305991&page=submissions

Thank you

outdooryone.

 

[NotWise]

I currently write first person, but wonder if I should try something different.

First person is a good way to start and some people stay with it with great success. You might want to stay with it until it limits you somehow. That tends to come up with longer stories.

My profile is below, I have one more story submitted a few mins ago to make three of them.

I'm not a great person so give you feedback, but your request has been here for a while, so I thought I'd try.

Your third story hasn't come up yet as near as I can tell.

I looked at your second story first. I was utterly confused by your second sentence; I've re-read it a few times and still don't know what it means.

This is my writerly response. I read on and there was nothing at all that pulled me into the story. For me that would mean some description of your characters that makes them more interesting, or events that makes their situation more interesting. As a result I was easily distracted after the first few paragraphs by shiny object and the like.

From a more readerly point of view. I read a few paragraphs and clicked away. Didn't even get to the sex. Maybe if I skimmed instead of reading it I would have gone farther.

I only took a brief look at your first story and I don't actually have a writerly response. From a reader's point of view there was just nothing at the start of the story that held my attention and I didn't go on.

Keep writing, but maybe try to put yourself in the position of your readers. Your readers have no commitment to your story, the don't start with any interest in what you have to say. You need to give them those things.

 

[GoldenCojones]

Feedback

Like NotWise, I didn't see your third story up. There might be a problem there. I read your first story. I didn't read your second one.

First off, you finished the story. That is something to be proud of. It takes more effort than most readers understand just to finish the damn story.

So now to the bad. You spend way to much time telling and not showing. Don't tell me she gave you "An absolutely lovely blow job", show me the blow job. Give me the blow by blow (pun intended) tell me where she licked, how she licked it, what she did with her tongue, all of it. I want the details, Man!

Second, give me a reason to be into your characters. NotWise touched on this and he is absolutely right. I've got to have a reason to connect or I won't connect and if I don't connect then as a reader, I won't read. So give me some emotion. Remember to show it to me, don't tell me about it. Your characters don't have to be good guys or bad guys they have to be real. And by real, I mean real in a fantasy fiction type of real. Please God do not give me real life characters {boring} I want believable larger than life characters. If you want to know how to do that, read Hemingway or Heinlein.

I think you have the writing mechanics down well enough. Work on "Show don't tell" and "Building Characters" and your writing will improve.

I hope this helps a little.

 

[PennLady]

I read over both stories and can only agree with NW and GC. The mechanics are fine, and that's nothing to sneeze at. OTOH, there's not much there. The stories were practically the same, too -- man meets woman in the Highlands and they have sex in a hotel room.

There was nothing notable about the man or the woman in either story. They didn't even have names, that I recall. That in itself is not terrible or anything; you can certainly tell a good story without naming the protagonist(s). But if you're going to do that, you need to do something to give the characters some depth, something that makes them stand out in the reader's mind. Because if you don't, there's no reason to care about them or what happens to them.

I'm not saying you need detailed back stories on all your characters. Plenty of readers like what you have here, a quick sex scene. But if you want to do more, you can take our opinions under consideration.

I find, for example, that whether an experience is true or not makes no difference to me. I don't know you, so you stating a story is true means nothing to me, in the sense of adding to the eroticism. Plenty of fictional stories are written with the conceit of being true, so that particular element doesn't matter to me as a reader. OTOH, others may find it adds to things.

More character development would help your stories, I think, if that's what you want to do.

Showing and not telling is always good advice, I also find. Being told everything (she felt X, he did Y because...) often makes a story read like a report. A balance between showing and telling needs to be reached but that balance is different for every writer.

Good luck

 

[BJwriter]

This might seem a little harsh, especially coming from another newbie. I'm also a new writer, but a pretty experienced reader. I concur with the other comments made above. I read the first few paragraphs of the first story and there was nothing there to make me want to read further, so I didn't.. Sorry. Also, when the first story I read, or attempt to read, by an author doesn't excite me, I'm not likely to read others by that author. Like everyone, my time is limited. Yes, show don't tell. I like stories that start off with a bang, that grab me by the gonads and pull me in. Have the characters do something interesting, something unusual, something erotic early on. Make the reader want to know more about them; then let them introduce themselves through their conversations and internal dialogue and interactions. That's my two cents. Hope it helps. Keep writing and reading and imitating and you'll get better.

Oh, one other thing, I wouldn't worry about voice. If you are comfortable with first person, write first person. You have bigger fish to fry.