Stories

[cheryl_wants_it]

If you would like to change my frowning face to a smily one then post some of my stories that I have submitted and lets get off of the subject of tying men up. I really have a hard time appreciating having a whole day of nothing but stories about that, It is all fun but I think that most of us, anyway me, might like a more varied assortment instead of one subject offered by the same author.

Here is another one of my stories

I was over at Ashley's house this last weekend and after every one went to bed or I thought they did I went down stairs to get a drink, I had on my usual night shirt which is a XX large t shirt. Nothing else under it. Well my Ashley's dad was in his office and I decided to see what he was doing. He was reading stories from Literotica. I quitely walked in to see what he was reading, then after I saw what it was and relized that he was jerking off while reading it I backed up to just outside of the door and coughed. He quickly turned around to see who was there and when he did I got a good look at him, he had on a robe and it was open in front. His peter was hard and so big. He closed his robe real quick and asked what I wanted. I said excuse me but can I have some milk? He got up and took me by my hand to the kitchen. He got me a glass and the milk out of the fridge and poured me some. I took the glass and it slipped from my hand and fell to the floor, it was a plastic glass so it didn't break but milk went every where. I told him that I was sorry and he said no use crying over spilled milk. I offered to help clean it up and he handed me a towel. I got down on my hands and knees and started wiping up the milk. He moved around behind me and just stood there watching me. My shirt was short enough that with me on my hands and knees he could see my butt and as I cleaned up the milk I made sure to pull it up even more and to spread my legs so he could see my pussy. When I turned around towards him I know that he could see right down my shirt and see my titties. When I looked up at him he had opened his bath robe and his cock was sticking straight out at me.
He immediately pulled his robe back together when he saw that I was looking at his erection and said " my but you are growing up so fast, your body is quite nicely developed". Then he thanked me for cleaning up the milk and poured me another glass. He said be more careful with this one as he handed it to me. As I took it I held on to his hand and moved the glass to my lips. I licked the edge of the glass and smiled at him. He asked me if I had seen what he was doing on his computer. I told him that I only got a glimpse of what was on the screen and asked if we could go back and look at it. He took me by my hand again and led me into his office. On the way he moved his hand to my back and as we walked into his office he moved his hand down my back to my butt. Where he squeezed my cheek lightly and pushed me gently into his office. On the screen was a man touching a woman's pussy and I asked him what they were doing. He told me that the man was masturbating the woman. He told me that he could make a girl have an orgasm that way. Then he asked if I would like for him to try to make me have one. I said I don't know, should we be doing that sort of thing. Really he is older than my Dad and besides his step daughter is my best friend. He told me as long as I didn't have any problems with it that he didn't but that we should keep it to ourselves. I said sure if you think that you can make me have an orgasm then I guess it is all right with me. I didn't tell him about me and my Daddy. He told me to come and sit on his lap. As I climbed up on his lap his robe moved out of the way and his bare legs were against mine. He pulled my shirt up around my waist. He slowly started rubbing my legs and pulling them apart. He worked his hands up my legs until he got to my pussy. He played with the little bit of hair that I have for a few seconds and then ran his finger up and down my pussy. He reached over and opened his desk drawer and there was a bottle of baby oil and some Vaseline in there. He took the baby oil out and opened the lid and then poured some on my pussy hair. He started rubbing it all around and eventually he got back to my pussy. He let his finger slide up into my pussy a little and then he started rubbing his finger up and down on my clit and in and out of my pussy. He was making me feel so good, I just leaned back against him and I could feel his hard cock under me. He worked his finger in and out of my pussy and really started rubbing on my clit. He worked another finger into my pussy and damn he was making me feel so good. I told him that he was making me feel great and he said it was going to get even better. He slid another finger into my pussy and then with his thumb and his little finger he really started working on my little clit. I sat back and watched as his fingers went in and out of my pussy and his thumb and little finger rubbed my clit. It only took a minute or so before I started to feel like I was going to faint and then my orgasm started to cum. He kept fucking my little pussy with his fingers and rubbing on my clit all the time I was cumming. He made me feel sooooo good. After a couple minutes I just couldn't stand it anymore and pushed his hand away. He moved his hand up to his mouth and licked and sucked on his fingers. Then he asked me if I would like to masturbate him. I told him that I didn't know how but he said that he would show me. He had me stand up and then he told me to cup my hand around his prick. It was huge, my little hand barely went around it. He poured some of the oil on it and in my hand. He held my wrist and told me to let my hand slide on his cock, but to grip it lightly. He started moving my hand up and down on his hard shaft. Then he told me to just keep doing that. I started running my hand up and down it and then he told me to gently squeeze his balls. There was oil all over him and his balls felt so neat. I gently squeezed them with my left hand as my right hand moved up and down on his cock. After a minute or so my arm was starting to get tired and I told him so. He said that I should sit down on the floor between his legs and jack him off that way. He slid his ass right up to the edge of his chair and I sat down between his legs. Sitting on the floor jacking him off his cock was at the perfect height. His balls were hanging there and I played with them and squeezed them as my right hand pumped up and down on his hard cock. His cock was right in front of my face and as I jacked him off my hand kept it pointed right at my face. I kept looking up at him and asking if this was what I was supposed to do. He said yes just keep doing it. There was some stuff seeping out of the end of his cock and as I ran my hand up and down on his cock it got mixed in with the baby oil. It started turning a frothy white and then I felt his cock start to get harder and the sack that his balls are in started getting tighter around his balls and then the stuff started coming out of his cock. It shot right out and hit me right in the face. It shot five or six times and he told me to let it hit me in the face, he liked it and it wouldn't hurt me. I pumped on him until he stopped shooting his cum at me and then squeezed his cock right near the bottom and squeezed it all the way to the tip. More cum came out but it just kind of slipped out, it didn't shoot. He told me to taste it so I put my fingers to the stuff that was on my face and then stuck my tongue out and licked it off of my fingers. It was salty but tasted OK. He handed me a towel that was over the back of his chair and told me to clean my self up. After I had wiped all of his cum off of my face he said thank you to me and told me that I had better go to bed.
He said we could do more the next night if I wanted too.

 

[KillerMuffin]

Sorry, can't make ya smile.

In case you did not know, they are currently revamping the scripts that run the site. Since the owners are not computer programmers, but ordinary schmoes like the rest of us, they have to wing it. This takes time.

They also have jobs, this site does not support them. Its a free site, you know?

Hahyuhtun, because of the problems with the scripts and the necessity of reformatting everything all over again, they have developed a tremendous backlog, last time we checked it was running 5-6 weeks. As soon as the new scripts are in place, the backlog will cut down to 24-48 hours or so.

Patience is something Literotica authors have developed lately, simply because its better for everyone in the long run. Some authors have even held back on submissions, to give Laurel more of a break, though she still enthusiastically welcomes them all.

Last time I heard, she received over 50 submissions a day, it takes time to read through all of them, correct glaring grammatical and spelling errors, format the stories, then post them. Not all of the stories make the cut. Laurel posts quality stories, something we all greatly appreciate from her, and something that makes us keep coming back.

I have a story thats about 6 weeks old and unposted, she probably lost it in the sea of work thats drowning her. My plan is to wait until the scripts are up and running, the backlog has washed away, and then resubmit.

I do agree with you on the men tied up business. Gets old.

Feedback: (This is the story feedback board)I didn't read your story much farther than the first paragraph. The formatting was difficult, the punctuation needs a little help and you could use a little help grammatically.

 

[cheryl_wants_it]

Thanks for the reply, I thought my story was fine, but that's my opinion, I did run spell check with grammer check, I guess Microsoft's software is not as good as you think it should be.

 

[KillerMuffin]

Grammatiks and Spellchecks are never what they're cracked up to be

Normally, I don't give out this sort of advice unasked, because its just an awful way to behave, and people generally don't appreciate the intrusion. You probably won't, but since you rely on Microsoft, you should be aware of a few things. Take the first sentence of the first paragraph, and that will be where I stop pestering you with this sort of business.

I was over at Ashley's house this last weekend and after every one went to bed or I thought they did I went down stairs to get a drink, I had on my usual night shirt which is a XX large t shirt.

or I thought they did is not actually a part of the sentence, even though its necessary. Its an additional thought that has been introduced to expand upon or describe some point in the sentence. It requires commas to set it apart.

this last weekend is a redundancy. This and last both refer to the same chronological description of the object, the weekend. It would as redundant to say this past, even though its done all the time.

I had on my usual night shirt which is a XX large t shirt. Because you neglected to include a comma after night shirt, the adjectival clause, which is a XX large t shirt. is no longer an adjectival clause, its part of the main sentence. You have to set it apart, or keep the tense from shifting.

You are missing commas after the words weekend, bed, and did.

This entire sentence is a run on sentence, by the way. You have too many subjects and predicates, it gets bogged down, despite the punctuation. What you were wearing that evening has nothing to do, really, with the subjects of your presence at her house, everyone sleeping, and you going down to get a drink. The lengthiness of the sentence can be confusing to the reader. Mostly, I would consider this entire sentence to be "bad English." Not bad writing or creating, just bad English.

Also you should consider the use of quotation marks.

Anyway, thats my take on the ins and outs of grammar. I'm sure you disagree with me completely, as will some other people. You can take it or leave it, free advice is worth the paper its printed on isn't it?

 

[Isabella Thorne]

last time we checked it was running 5-6 weeks.

I have a story thats about 6 weeks old and unposted, she probably lost it in the sea of work thats drowning her. My plan is to wait until the scripts are up and running, the backlog has washed away, and then resubmit.

... just want to let you know Buffy that I submitted my two stories on July 11 and one was posted on September 15 and the other on September 16 ... so that is longer than a 5-6 week wait ... more like 9 weeks ...
___________
The waiting is the hardest part.
~Tom Petty~

 

[KillerMuffin]

Awww, hope to see them soon!

Hmm, the first part of the 3 parter was posted a weekish or two ago, but the other 2 weren't. I'm not too concerned about it, Laurel is up to her ears in work, so I'll wait til later and resubmit those two parts. Thats how I came to the conclusion they were drowned in the Submission Sea.

But 9-10 weeks sounds right, so thats probably how long it took for the first on to get posted.

 

[Isabella Thorne]

I hope to see them soon too, Buffy!

Could you please tell me where to find the posted first part story now?

 

[ANiceGuy]

Be Patient Cheryl and it will cum! Laurel and Manu are very responsive.

Cheryl I had the same problem. I had submitted several stories and a poem and was ultra eager to see them with the other pics. I have several sites of my own (Couch Potato James and Real Nice Girls ) I can post to but it is different when others like your work enough to post it. I posted a members profile and was really getting itchy to see my stories. I wrote Laurel and Manu a real nice letter asking when the stories might get posted. (Having worked in customer service I know you can get more done with honey than salt.) Laurel answered back in a few days that the first story and poem would go up in 24 hours and it did. It looks like Laurel and Manu watch the site very well and do a lot of behind the scenes work to make the site look like it is perfect. Because I run quite a few sites I know it is very hard to do. You can run spell checker a hundred times but it won't tell you that you should have placed to where too should go. The page can be up for several months before some one tells you about your "goof". Then you wonder how many others saw ot and didn't mention it!

I'm sure Laurel and Manu love reading all of our stories> I assume they (or some one they appointed) has read or scanned each and every story. There are lots of legal issues on an erotic site that a regular site doesn't have to deal with. Sometimes ther is a fine line over what is legal and what is not. Under 18 is absolutely illegal in the US while 16 is in lots of other countries. So they have to watch for that. I know on my sites I want to give viewers the maximum enjoyement and maybe push the envelope graphically but certianly don't want to push enough to go to jail for.

I do feel when our society as a whole pushs violence on our kids as most main stream movies do and then tell them two people sharing lustfull love is taboo something is wrong with our priorities. That's why I try to do my part to promote heathy sexual attitudes.

Cheryl keep writing and posting. Good stories will get published. Also the volunteer editors are real helpfull with advice and information. I used up a whole box of Puffs tissues reading your stories. I can't wait to read more!hehehe

ANiceGuy

aniceguy@literotica.com

 

[Whispersecret]

Good God, don't count on grammar check to edit your stories!!!

It's not a matter of what KillerMuffin thinks grammar check SHOULD be. I highly doubt anyone will ever be able to create reliable grammar check software. I just don't think it's possible.

Use the volunteer editors. When it comes to writing, a human being is better able than a computer program.

I wonder if there are high school teachers out there saying to their classes, "Where will you use this in real life, you ask? I'll tell you! When you want to write an erotic story, you'll be down on your knees thanking me for teaching you grammar!"

 

[Gus]

What Software are you running?

...I did run spell check with grammer check, I guess Microsoft's software is not as good as you think it should be.

I pasted the first sentence into 'Word', used the check and came up with four 'errors'.
KM posted a thread about reading aloud and gaining your punctuation from that. I think that it would help you here.

I would suggest that you withdraw your story(ies) and go through it/them critically.

Remember the rules about sentences - must have a verb etc.
Short sentences are usually better than long ones.

Lastly, when you think that your work is as good as you can make it, use one of the volunteer editors.

Keep writing.

 

[Kymberley]

Grammar checks and editing

Well Cheryl,

As you can see, these folks really have a lot of thoughts on editing and software to do it with. I asked once for someone to review a story and tell me what they thought. (Remembers making a mental note to be careful what you ask for) I got just that. Thanks to Whispersecret, I now wait a few days after I write something to read it over and check for errors.

Get out the old highlighter marker and print the story. Then when you have a few days between writing and reading it again, you will not have the words so fresh in your memory about what you thought you wrote and what actually made it from your brain to your fingertips.

Then when I have spent a few different times reviewing and revising, I send it off to a trusted friend who does the same thing. After about a week of doing just what I have done, she sends it back with all the corrections I missed.

Putting the ideas to paper is the easy part. Making it something that flows well enough for the reader who does not have the same insight to your thoughts is why editing is so very important.

Once again, Thanks Whispersecret. That message you gave me has really been a great help.

Kymberley

 

[Whispersecret]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I have a horrible memory. Kymberley, I don't remember giving you specific advice, please forgive me. But you're quite welcome anyway. I am happy that something I said helped you feel stronger as a writer. Did I critique something for you? (I don't call what I do editing anymore, because I offer far too many opinions along with the technical corrections.)

Kymberley offers good advice. I know it's sometimes difficult to sit on your story once you're finally finished with it, but you'll find it's worth it. Patience is a virtue, after all. Weird Harold swears by this too. Step away from your story for a while and look at it a week later. All sorts of things will pop out at you and your story will likely improve when you fix them.

Happy writing.

 

[Guest]

A matter of style

 

[Guest]

No offense Muff

 

[KillerMuffin]

No fense Indy, but the only problem I have with her story is the grammar and punctuation. If they didn't suck, then the story would be a good read to me. I only picked apart the grammar on the first sentence to illustrate why I didn't read it, not why I didn't like it.

Normally, when I am asked to edit, I do a more thorough job of it and explain what and why I don't like about the way words are strung together. In other words, I do both at the same time. It is up to the author to decide whether what I say has merit and exactly how to change it. She didn't ask me to edit and I felt it necessary to explain why I did not read her story. I have a feeling she has absolutely no interest in my encouragement or opinions.

Again, no offense, but I think it's far worse to start off with style. Grammatical errors on such a large scale tend to kill a story before it can even start. Not to mention they butcher an author's style. They present the author as a juvenile, unread person. Once the grammar is out of the way, then it makes it much easier for them to see how they can improve their style on their own. They can see how to manipulate the words without the vague sense of wrongness in the way. You know the feeling, when you write a word and just know it's spelled wrong, or you write a sentence and just know something is wrong with it, but not what. It's hard to expound on a sentence that is confusing because the grammar sucks. Style just seems to naturally follow. Honestly, I don't see how you can separate the two. That's just me though.

As for taking the wind out of an author's sails, editing, no matter how it's accomplished, does that nicely all on its own. Why? Because editing is nothing but criticism, constructive yes, but criticism always hurts. Personally it would hurt worse to be told I don't like your style rather than your grammar sucks. Style is more intrisic and grammar is just grammar. It feels better to be told I like the way you write, rather than you have excellent grammar skills. The opposite is also true. At least for me.

Some authors want a more grammarian minded editor, some authors want a more style minded editor. It is good that they have a choice. I always forewarn people who ask me to edit that I am prissy about grammar. I also ask them if they want me to look at the grammar or just tell them what I think. I am not a professional editor by any means. I have no formal training and have never earned a penny by doing it. I know what I like and I am insightful enough to be able to explain why I like something, or why I don't like something.

As far as her piece goes... it's a story about sex, not a relationship, so the characters aren't developed. There isn't going to be any depth unless she revamps the whole. She would need more of a plot and conflict to make it interesting. As a story of sex, I think it's good.

 

[ANiceGuy]

As usualy Killer Muffin hits the nail on the

I have tried to read some stories (Not on literotica) where basic errors were sooo bad I couldn't get into the story. If the basic grammer/spelling/punctuation are ok even if the story is weak I can enjoy it some what. I did enjoy this story but with just a little work in the direction that Killer aludes to it could be awesome instead of interesting. I give it a one Puffs rating with five Puffs potential. Speaking of SPEL check I wish this form for posting replies had it! hehehe We are so lucky Laurel and Manu have made this venu and all these tools (volunteer editors etc) available and on a FREE site too!!!

ANiceGuy

 

[Guest]

Good point

 

[Kymberley]

Whispersecret you answered a thread I posted on May 3rd regarding feedback on my stories. (Bourbon and Ice, Sharon's First Lesson) By the way, I just re-read those comments again and they don't bite at me the way they did the first time I read them. I guess now when I finish the stories, I really am looking for the opinions just like yours, for help in making them work for anyone that selects that story to read.

Thanks again!

(still waiting to see one of my next stories posted, but I am patient)

 

[KillerMuffin]

(hope the Puffs scale goes up to 10...)

You're right as well Indy, she could use some help with her style, like you said, it has no depth or development that would take it from a good read to a great story. I hope she made use of a volunteer editor. That would help her alot.

 

[Closet Desire]

Perhaps a different view...

I thought long and hard before replying to this thread because I recognise and respect many of those who have commented and wouldn’t want to be seen as having a dig at them. However, I also think Cheryl has gotten a pretty rotten deal. As soon as I read her work and the criticisms that followed I was aware that we were dealing with opposite ends of the literary spectrum. On the one band, raw and primitive expression in a suitable language, and on the other, a band of logic and order in the form of predicates, pedantics, and so forth.

I too was brought up in American schools where year after year we were taught to dissect the language and categorise it into its elemental parts. Page upon page of sentence diagrams which came to look more like computer schematics than a language which had evolved over history by mostly oral tradition. The odd thing was that following high school I went on to earn an undergraduate degree and two post graduate degrees (including a PhD in literature from a prominent British university) and not once heard words like predicate, subject, verb, etc. In fact, I have learned that is it only the Americans who do this to their language. This seems to coincide with the American penchant to put everything into an appropriate specimen box. (Don’t worry…I have a long list of digs for the British as well)

I would argue that it is impossible to embark on any study of literature and apply the lessons learned in high school because even the academic literary canon does not conform to what our high school teachers taught us. The lessons in we learned in English were intended to train us to earn high marks on English tests and to provide tools for the less literary inclined to communicate with effectiveness later in life. Following high school, multiple sets of rules emerge depending on your discipline. If you are publishing academic papers in language it’s the MLA manual. If you are psychologist it becomes the APA manual. If you are a writer of fiction or popular books you rely on the Chicago Manual of Style. If you are a journalist it might be the small, concise Strunk and White guide. If you’re a high school English teacher it might be the St. Martin’s Guide. But, if you are a writer of poetry or creative prose—rules don’t necessarily apply.

Nobody, not even academics, like reading academic papers, but from a technical standpoint of language many are as near to faultless as possible. None of us wants to watch a movie where Mel Gibson or Bruce Willis speaks like “Data” from the old (new) series of Star Trek. Data’s speech was perfect, but not very interesting. Why would we want to read it? Mark Twain’s Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer stories are great reading because they convey the living language used by the characters. I couldn’t imagine Jim saying to Huck: “Sir, I do not understand what spirits may vex you tonight, but perhaps we might enquire of the holy hairball and be graced by its wisdom.” To which Huck might respond: “Quite right Jim, my humble slave. That is a capital suggestion which may benefit us all!” Instead it went more like this (as Jim prepares the hair-ball):

“I told him I had an old slick counterfeit quarter that warn’t no good because the brass showed through the silver a little, and it wouldn’t pass nohow, even if the brass didn’t show, because it was so slick it felt greasy, and so that would tell on it every time.”

English teachers would cringe if a student wrote this way, but turn around and applaud it as excellent literature.

We have to remember that our written language and the education to read it, write it, as well as print it was controlled by the church for many centuries. From that came a long list of rules about the “right” way to do it based on the authority of the men who controlled the church. If current studies, including my own, are reasonably correct it may have dealt a double blow to women who write. Do remember that the novel didn’t really come into existence until just after the French revolution and that the number of books published each year in England numbered fewer than a hundred a year for much of the 19th century. Women were seldom taught to read and when they finally were it was to allow them to read the Bible during the new leisure times the middle-classes were acquiring. It was clear then, reading the criticisms of women authors, that women tended toward a different writing style which started to emerge in the 19th century and then promptly receded in the late 19th and early 20th century as public education became widespread. Women who continued to write in inappropriate ways, i.e. Kate Chopin, were censored and drummed out of the canon (Chopin was exiled in about 1897. Her word didn’t really reappear until the 70s).

This is already too long so I won’t embark on a long argument about this, but suffice it to suggest that Luce Irigaray, in “This Sex Which is Not One” (1977), is pretty much spot on when she argues that women will write differently and break the “rules” because a woman experiences life, sensations, sex, and imagination in different ways from the men who “designed” the language we are all taught (she would also say I don’t understand anything she says because I’m a man! But that’s a different topic!).

Her words are what initially led me to study women’s erotica. I was astounded by what I found. In erotica there are seldom any taboos, including the grammatical ones, so it is an opportunity to study, in pristine form, how a woman might write if left to her own devices. This leads me back to Cheryl’s story because her story fits in quite well with some of the fundamental qualities that I’ve observed in women’s erotic poetry and prose. That includes the breathless run-ons, the staccato incomplete sentences, and the seemingly illogical punctuation. This matches what Irigaray calls a woman’s full-body experience where apparently minor details are of supreme importance.

If I was grading Cheryl’s work for a class I would flunk it. If I was an editor for a magazine or a book I would probably reject it. Yet, I may very well ask her to allow us to publish it in our next anthology of erotica because it is unique and effective and in that sense I like it very much.

As a final comment I would remind readers who have made it this far that much of the literature which surrounds us today—magazines, newspapers, and fiction—is tailored to about an 8th grade reading level (opinions vary) and structured so that those with a public school education to this level can understand and read it (that means BUY it!). Cheryl’s story will catch an educated reader off-guard and totally escape an uneducated one, but in fact it is no more difficult a read than much of what we consider “classical”. It should be possible, with a conscious shift of attitude, to read and appreciate what she has written.

My pence worth…well…okay a pound’s worth!

Well done Cheryl—it was a gutsy move to express yourself and put it out there for others.

Closet Desire

 

[Guest]

literature is my point

 

[KillerMuffin]

I have to agree with Indy on this one. Cheryl's basic plot is very engaging. I also think that if the grammar were cleaned up it would be a good read.

I think that grammar inside the quotation marks would get in the way. People don't use good grammar when they speak. Outside the quotation marks, however, I don't think you'll find Mark Twain using bad grammar. What my high school English teacher referred to as 'bad english' yes, because it was slangish rather than classically good grammar, but I'm willing to be his grammar was good.

People subconsciously know when they've misspelled a word or when a sentence just looks a little wrong. They may not know why, or what's correct, but there is that little feeling of wrongness. They may not use good grammar, but they know what it doesn't look like.

As a first person story, she could use the breathless staccato beats of runon sentences and the juvenile form of writing, to give the impression of a young girl, as opposed to a more mature woman. If that was her intent, then she did a very good job of it.

 

[Closet Desire]

ahhh...now that's interesting!

Good morning Indy,

I think you're spot on about Twain as well as a number of other authors. Putting the reader into touch with the characters and their environment is the "purpose" of many pieces of literature, but I the purpose is sometimes far broader than that. Creativity in its purest form is a very selfish act and may reflect a personal need of the writer rather than any concerns for the reader. This is often the case in some women's literature I've studied where critics, including some of my past mentors, felt it was too introspective to be good literature. True, we enjoy most those stories that draw us into the writer's world and that is a genuine skill.

I also agree that some of the images could be polished up a bit to be more consistent with the underlying thread of the story...the t-shirt you mention could be dropped in a bit differently. What fascinates me most about the story, warts and all, is the perspective of the language. I dare not speculate on the age of the actor (or the writer for that matter) but to me it gives the feel of a very young mind, a girl, not a woman. It reminds me of an exercise we did in a Creative Writing Club I lead for young women in their mid-teens where I asked them to imagine they were an animal and to write the thoughts that popped into the animal's mind as it progressed through its day (I think we had cats, dogs, hamsters, sheep and the best of all...a fox). The results were very interesting and great fun for all. Incidentally, the biggest battle I fight in this club (I'm a volunteer...not staff) is to prevent the English teachers who attend the club from trying to "correct" how the girls are writing. When left to their own they write some very spontaneous and exciting stuff that breaks all the rules.

I think I would be quite happy to tweak a few things here and there, leaving the basic structure intact, and publish it on its own in an anthology of erotica. In many ways it reminds me of a number of pieces of lesbian erotica I've studied or read.

Finally, there is always personal taste. While I can definitely get into Twain as well as many other works, I also suffered through some truly dreadful stuff that still sends shivers up my spine (Chaucer comes to mind!) at the very thought of having to read them again! Some of it speaks to us, some of it is just mute.

I enjoyed your comments...have a lovely day!

Closet Desire
London

 

[Closet Desire]

missed you killer...

We were obviously posting at the same time so I didn't comment on your comment. Actually, in Huck Finn, because the story is told from Huck's point of view the grammar, subject/verb agreement, use of contractions, etc is consistent with how Huck would speak...which is to say...about what you'd expect. Lots of clauses that most of us would split into sentences and so forth. My only point, without become obscure and drawing on quaint English manuscripts (which is where most of my work is done), is that as long as it works anything is allowable (my opinion only). As a side note, a lot of the original manuscripts I've studied are awful and what gets used in most classrooms are the edited versions rather than authoritative editions. It kind of skews reality.

We get very used to the omnipotent narrator that most stories are written in and find ourselves a bit unsettled when we find out the narrator is illiterate (Finn), insane (Poe's Black Cat), or lying (Wuthering Heights). It makes it a bit more work and a bit more fun at the same time.

Later...

Closet Desire
London

 

[Weird Harold]

Re: ahhh...now that's interesting!

I think you're spot on about Twain as well as a number of other authors. Putting the reader into touch with the characters and their environment is the "purpose" of many pieces of literature, but I the purpose is sometimes far broader than that. Creativity in its purest form is a very selfish act and may reflect a personal need of the writer rather than any concerns for the reader. This is often the case in some women's literature I've studied where critics, including some of my past mentors, felt it was too introspective to be good literature. True, we enjoy most those stories that draw us into the writer's world and that is a genuine skill.

Your thoughts on women writers may help explain why most of my favorite authors are women. (I.e. Andre Norton, Anne McCaffrey, Elizabeth Moon, Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, et al.)

You also have some very good opinions on the grammar fitting the character or narrator. But I had to address creativity being a selfish act.

The purpose of writing something down, is to communicate something to someone. I the person you intend to communicate with is yourself, there are no rules. Cryptic sentence fragments in five languages written in shorthand are fine. As long as the intended recipient (you) can understand what is written as some later time, the writing accomplishes it's purpose.

On the other hand, posting a story or message on a public forum implies an intent to communicate with someone other than the author. To fulfill that implied purpose of communication with others requires some minimum level of common understanding such as that provided by grammar and punctuation that follow a commonly understood set of rules.

Probably the most common comment I make on stories is that "I had to spend too much time and thought on translation into common English to be able to get involved in the characters and plot."

To continue using Mark Twain as an example, If a present day author wants to write a story about and from the viewpoint of an illiterate pirate wannabe from the 18th century, then the character needs to sound like Huck Finn or Tom Sawyer. Mark Twain's version of that mud-poor Mississippi dialect is the de facto "common ground" for understanding that kind of dialect.

In more modern terms, Ebonics is an "official" dialect of American English. It is not however understood by many people who do not speak it every day. It would be appropriate for use in a story directed at Ebonics speakers, (a very small target audience relatively speaking,) or for a character to use in small doses.

The same sort of arguments can be made for and against regional slang, and technical jargon. Used judiciously, they enhance characters and set the tone of the story. Overused, they obstruct the communication that gives a writing purpose.

In the specific theater of erotic fiction, the thing most desired to be communicated is normally arousal. For that reason, deviating from the seventh or eigth grade reading level that is the standard for reaching the widest audience, should only be done on the low side. Grammar, punctuation and vocabulary should be used in such a way as to make them invisible to the enjoyment of the story. In other words, minmum translation time produces maximum arousal.

In an earlier post, you mentioned that grammar and punctuation were more relaxed in the field of erotica. That is a fancy way of saying "it's only an erotic story. What do you expect?"

I persoanlly expect an author to respect my intelligence and put forth as much effort to appear literate in an erotic story as they would for a job application or a novel they hope to make them famous. I expect them to try to communicate.