Specific review

[cawastedyouth]

Hi,

I'm very grateful for all the people who have viewed my story and even more grateful for those who have reviewed it. I need to move on though and get into the meat of what I'm trying to achieve as an amature author.

http://english.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=271307

There's my first story. If anyone could please tell me what they thought did work for them, or didn't work for them or could have been added.

I am going to give you all hope, that the afformentioned story is only one in a series I've been working on for over a year now (three segments have been posted about these two in the story here in Lit already), but since I have crawled inside my character's lives, and been living and breathing them, I need others to begin to poke holes into my stories.

Thank you for your help.

 

[kylewhitney]

Hi,

I read your first story, and to be honest I had a difficult time with it. I can see that you have a very clear concept of these characters, and an intimate understanding of their interior lives, but I believe taking a step back and looking at the structural elements of your story could help you communicate these characters in a much more powerful way to your audience.

To start with, it might help to look at it as a scene rather than a story. Scenes are a bit like mini-stories within a story, but the goals and structure of the two are slightly different. In order to build an effective scene, one element to consider is the emotional arc of the scene. If it starts positive it should end negative, and vice versa. If it starts negative and ends negative, there’s no “movement” in the scene and it can feel static (even if the reader doesn’t know why). In this case you might want to think in terms of hopeless/hopeful or pulling apart/coming together (only you know exactly what you want the theme of your scene to be). The scene begins with a difficult question from Julia, and Lauren’s extreme reaction looks like it could destroy their relationship, but by the end of the scene Lauren is able to accept Julia’s nurturing and there is hope for their relationship to remain intact, and possibly grow. Consider using this concept to re-focus the action at either end of the scene, and the “movement” needed in between to get from one pole to the other.

Next, I would recommend that you select either Julia or Lauren as your point of view character for the scene. As it stands, the perspective switches between the two. For example:

Julia’s POV: Julia didn't regret asking the question, knowing that they would have had to address this question one day.

Lauren’s POV: Lauren took a sharp breath, wishing she were wearing a shirt to cover the scars.

With the reader being inside both character’s heads (Julia knowing and Lauren wishing) it is more difficult to follow the flow of the story, and, more importantly, to know who we are supposed to identify with. You can switch POV from one scene to the next, but I would strongly suggest sticking with playing out the scene from one character’s perspective in order to have a more consistent emotional impact. Your instincts led you to start the scene from Julia’s POV, so my gut feeling is it might be best to stick with her perspective (we know her thoughts, feelings and physical reactions, but only see Lauren’s through Julia’s eyes).

This is obviously a short scene, and I can see that you are jumping right into the conflict (Julia asking about the scars), but I would like to have had at least a paragraph where I can get to know the characters. I found it a bit difficult to keep track of who was who at first, and I feel that if I had a stronger image of each character before the drama kicked in, I’d be able to follow along better. For example, I would like to have seen a more logical build up to Julia suddenly asking about the scars. A series of thoughts, or memories, that lead her to the unspoken subject and especially her motivation to finally break the silence (which she must know is likely to cause a stir). We need a chance to care about or empathize with these character (even just a little), before we can become emotionally engaged in their problems.

If you rework the scene with these structural components and characterization techniques in mind, I think you will find that you will end up with a much more effective piece of writing, that delivers more precisely what you are trying to communicate.

As they say, all writing is rewriting! You’ve got a good foundation here, and with some fine tuning and crafting you can develop it into something even more special.

If you do a re-write and would like some help with the nits (punctuation, grammar and word choice (taffy is a mega-mood killer!)), let me know and I’ll be happy to help with proofreading. If you want to discuss anything else in the meantime, feel free to email me at kwhitney@usa.com.

Good luck and keep at it!

-Kyle

 

[cawastedyouth]

Thank you, I'm working through your suggestions right now and trying to see where it will take me. I actually do have a reason for the way Lauren and Julia begin, but that defeats the purpose of trying to get unbiased opinions...

 

[Darkniciad]

Thank you, I'm working through your suggestions right now and trying to see where it will take me. I actually do have a reason for the way Lauren and Julia begin, but that defeats the purpose of trying to get unbiased opinions...

Not necessarily. For me, clarifying the reasons for things I do when someone edits or proofreads my work usually leads to more specific critique that could bring across exactly what I'm aiming for - while maintaining my author "voice" and the original concept/flow/etc.

 

[cawastedyouth]

Taken into consideration....

Thank you for your take on putting up my bias. By nature I am a very character-centered author. I have entire files on all of my characters before I even get beyond anything that looks like the first chapter.

Originally, this particular piece did not begin so openly and together. The Hardest Answer was written as a Questioning piece and even had much more balking by Lauren as she started to take her first steps. But that history that bubbled up as our open piece and suddenly all sorts of other parts of this story that I wrote began to look very different.

This chapter became the direction that added another layer to the entire relationship because it meant that Julia and Lauren had shared that past together. A chapter coming to posting soon will explain that point even further.

 

[kylewhitney]

Well, it sounds like you have a rock solid understanding of your characters, along with a firm idea of how you will present them, and don't really need any outside input in this regard.

I wish you good luck with this and future projects.

-K