Story Discussion: June 05, 2011. "The Away Day" by Shinzon and Barenecessity

[Shinzon]

Story Discussion: June 05, 2011. "The Away Day" by Shinzon and Barenecessity

Introduction

Greetings and salutations,

Thank you for the opportunity to submit The Away Day for critical critique. The Away Day is the second story that Barenecessity and I wrote depicting an growing relationship between a manager (Dan) and his secretary (Rachel). In time and space, The Away Day follows our first joint story, The Awakening. Depending upon the definition used, The Awakening and The Away Day could be classified as short stories with 3,807 and 6,132 words respectively. Both stories attempt to successfully blend two different writing styles from two geographically different locations, mirroring the characters in the story.

By way of background, Dan, a married American businessman (i.e., a manager) has taken an assignment (i.e., a secondment) in the United Kingdom on a whim and is now in a strange but fascinating country during a very challenging time in his career. Fortunately for him, his secretary, a lovely, single British lady named Rachel has been instrumental in getting him grounded in the English culture over the last 18 months. She has certainly been a godsend.

At some point during those 18 months, Rachel began to play a larger and important part in Dan’s life. In fact, she was disturbing his concentration on a regular basis. He found himself subconsciously finding opportunities to spend more time in her company. Maybe it was that eventful meeting in the warehouse the triggered it; Dan couldn’t be sure, but a point was reached where he knew he wanted her. Afterwards, he wasted no time in staking his claim. Nothing direct or threatening mind you, but he made his presence know to her nonetheless, giving her ample time to relax in his company. He sensed there was so much passion hidden away under her guarded and highly controlled exterior and worked subtlety to destroy those raised barriers. Now she appeared to be waiting, waiting for the right signal from him, waiting for something to fall into place.

Regards,

Shinzon

 

[Shinzon]

Work to be discussed

The work to be discussed for this critical critique is The Away Day.

The precursor, should you choose to read it for background information, is The Awakening.

 

[Shinzon]

Conclusions and questions

In addition to the standard critical critique, we'd love to know the following:

Does the American/British thing work or detract from the story? Was it too American, or too British? Did the combination of cultures confuse or intrigue?

Was there enough balance between background, description and erotica?

What suggestions could you offer to help us improve as a writing team?

Neither of us is thin skinned, so no need to hold back with your assessment.

Many thanks and best regards,

Shinzon

 

[Grimfalcon]

So, where to start. I found it a hot, sexy tale, better written than most I’ve read on LE, but there was something missing for me and I found it hard to get into. I think a lot of it had to do with not reading the precursor to it. You made it sound like it was optional to do so, but I felt lost from the very beginning.
Guess I’m trying to say that I wasn’t ‘hooked’ by it, either. I think if your going to do a multi chapter story revolving around these two, there needs to be some sort of brewing suspense or conflict, internal or external, other then Rachel questioning herself about him being married, yet anxiously jumping in the sack with him at any opportunity. Just my take on the over all plot, unless I missed something in the translation.

A few technical notes about the writing itself that stood out to me:

I was a bit thrown off by Rachel talking to herself, or in her head, near the beginning. I personally like to put thoughts of a character in Italics during a third person narrative to make them stand out as such. Not sure if this is correct or not, but what I do through the course of my writing.
Maybe they could have been spaced within third person story telling better, instead of all grouped together in three or four short paragraphs. Just a suggestion.

There was also a lot of head hopping between POV between Rachael and Dan from paragraph to paragraph. Once again I found this a bit awkward. Maybe try splitting up the POVs a little better, make one of the primary character per scene or something. More work but easier on the reader to keep track of.

Noticed some minor punctuation, but over all it was good. Also numerous wordy sentences and over stating the obvious, i.e:

She quickly showered then grabbed a towel from the rail. After rubbing a small towel through her dripping dark hair, she wrapped a bath towel around her body and returned to the bedroom to get ready.

Just think sentences like that could be worded differently or better. You said towel three times and described it like a play by play announcer. I guilty of the same thing at times; readers aren’t stupid, let them envision the scene while guiding them in the process.

Another thing I noticed that you do a ot of, but so do other writers, is to use the dashes in a sentence as a pause. Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but they’re used to signify an incomplete thought, not a pause. I was guilty of this one myself in the past. i.e.

'Tonight ... maybe tonight I won't sleep alone,' she sighed.

I suppose this is just a personal quirk that annoys me when reading erotica. The over emphasis on words or syllables during sex talk; you use a lot of it during the course of the story. Nothing on you, lots of writers do it, but it just seems ridiculous in my opinion. i.e:


"Fuckkkk," she moaned softly as her fingertips brushed lightly over her clitoris.

Another thing to be mindful off, and yes, a lot of my writing is ‘purple,’ and flowery as well, but it’s still something that in many cases makes people laugh or cringe when they read it. i.e:

She needed him to fuck her again, and her vaginal muscles twitched in affirmation.

I’m curious, does that actually happen to women?

She dug her heels into his butt as the pent up tension released. Her anus clamped tightly around his finger and her vagina muscles contracted, squeezing his rampant member.

Rampant member is one that I’m sure most people would rather pass on. You also use the “looks deeply into his or her eyes” quite often.

As far as some of your particular questions, the switch of American/ British dialogue didn’t confuse me, but I’ve been to the UK several times in the past. You did a good job with it in my opinion.

I did notice a difference in the writing style between the two of you, but as a whole it meshed okay; might throw some people off, and I wouldn’t do it to such an extreme in a collaborated story. It jumbled the flow at times from my perspective. The male POV was more direct and to the point, while the female was centered more on the scene description and flowery writing. Not bad in either case, but observations I had.

That’s about as honest a critique as I can give, and take it all in stride. I’m not a writing guru. As far as suggestions to improve, I think I listed them above for the most part.

Thanks for sharing and take care. Like I said, overall it was a good story.
Grim

 

[atlanticgirl12]

I'd have to say after watching that I honestly felt turned on lol. Maybe it just me (im a horny devil).

Definitely short and sweet.

Well done,

Sandra

 

[Auden James]

Critique

First of all I want to express regret that I cannot write a rave review on your story. Quiet to the contrary, I must confess the fact that your story verified most of my (negative) premonitions against the general genre of romance. Nonetheless, I want you to note that one will only improve if one doesn't give up but continues trying, which I wish you to do.

Next to your questions:

Does the American/British thing work or detract from the story? Was it too American, or too British? Did the combination of cultures confuse or intrigue?

Since I'm not a native speaker I'm not sure if I'm sufficiently qualified a person to give an answer to this question. Anyway, I cannot say that the 'American/British thing' distracted me anyhow, though the reason for this is the simple fact that I didn't find any 'American/British thing'. The only thing that remotely evocated something like it where the passages in the text where there was talk of a "Yankee" (e.g. "'Okay, you heathen Yankee (...),' announced Rachel (...).") But these bits--at least to my mind--rather lend themselves to parody than to erotica.

Was there enough balance between background, description and erotica?

Well, I think the core of the whole problem with the story is evident in this question, for this question implies that there's nothing more to a story (on this site) but background, description and erotica. And accordingly there's nothing more to the story at hand, The Away Day.

There's no conflict, no tension, no try at building coherence or atmosphere, not a hint of ambiguity, no variance or use of language above an instrumental tool for connecting loose plot points in the narrative or enflowering it, and worst of all: the story involves, at best, merely one-dimensional characters.

I know, that's abstract brabbling but that's due to the story's key problem, which is itself manifest a problem of confusing what's to be balanced in a (good) story in general. There's description and there's erotic content in your story, yes, but the background, in fact, is already sought after to no avail, and of the indicated (necessary) beef to any (good) story can be said that in The Away Day it's only found in crumbs of minced meat. Hence the short, though unrevealing, answer to your question is a decisive no.

Let's go on to the next question to find some hints at improving that balance.

What suggestions could you offer to help us improve as a writing team?

I think the story first and foremost needs characters. The reader can only relate to your writing when he finds something that he can identify with. And it's characters with whom the reader identifies in the first place.

And because I think that's the most important point here, I want to illustrate it a little farther:

You can deliver beautiful descriptions of nature, astounding stylistic creativity, a plot chock-full of action, etc. but without characters it's all for the birds, for the reader will be left wondering what's the relevance of it all, why it's actually there, and what's to be made of it. Characters would give the answer. They are the key to an experience. They merge all the little parts into a coherent whole. They lend an end to the narrative, a vanishing point from which the reader can connect to any place anywhere within the story. For characters resemble human consciousness (of which, in fact, they are a product), which is our key to the world we experience. Without consciousness, there's no experience. Thus you have an experience reading a story only if the story involves characters. Without characters it amounts to little more than an assemblage of words, which, in some cases, may be pleasing at first glance, but in the end turns out to be lifeless, dull, and literally dead, for what means death but total absence of experience.

Your story isn't dead. But the present characters are underdeveloped to an extent that cuts some vital portions out of the story. It already starts with characterization. For example:

"Rachel being inquisitive by nature (...)."
>> Simply stating her inquisitiveness isn't enough. I could attribute the abstract traits A, B, C, D, and so on to a character x, but that wouldn't lend x any concreteness, any habit, any action, anything akin to consciousness. I, who I'm also a reader, experience concrete habits and actions of other people as I see what they do and hear what they say, and that's what I relate to, also in my later, possibly more abstract, reflection, thus also in reading a story. The story needs to show the concrete difference it makes to character x that x is doing p in no other way than x does, says q in the way x says it, thinks it, and so on.

X's concrete acts make for x resembling a conscious being, which in turn is the key to have an experience as the reader, in contrast to a meaningless account of abstract traits.

This point isn't limited to traits. It applies also to other general statements about a character x. In the following I want to give some examples and short notes on this:

"Dan leaned back in his chair, stunned and perplexed by Laura's call."
>> What are the consequences of being stunned and perplexed? Any physical, habitual reactions, or the like?

"'That little lady needs a lesson on who's the boss around here,' he concluded and formulated a strategy for their upcoming meeting."
>> Concluded he from what in concrete terms ("undermining authority", as priorly stated in the text, is itself an abstract term again)? What strategy did he formulate exactly? The last question is unanswered even after reading the following dialog, for there he doesn't behave 'bossy' in any way (if perpetually uttering contrived heartfelt confessions counts as behaviour at all).

"In short order Rachel began to fidget as they talked."
>> Another missed chance to breathe life into the characters because they never do the talking. Thus the reader is deprived of the experience of listening to conscious beings he could relate to.

"As he gazed upon her near naked form, a flood of memories assailed him."
>> Memories of what exactly? Perhaps of his wife? That could've given something to Dan's character, the (married) reader might've shared with him.

Last but not least I want to note that it isn't necessary to put all these (exemplary) instances in concrete terms. Sometimes, on further reflection, one might find that this or that sentence/passage is simply dispensable and can be cut from the body of the text altogether. One would only be on the completely wrong track, if one left these instances of abstract death unchanged, for they don't add anything to the story at all. They are, in fact, blankspaces in the text, only deadening the reader's (possible) experience.

Finally there are only two remarks left I want to make. The first is about your story's erotic content, the second on its style. Let's start with the first: I think the following quote completely sums up what erotic tension there is in your text:

"Forcing his hand between their bodies, he pulled her G-String roughly aside and guided the velvety head of his cock to her entrance. She gasped as he thrust his manhood deep inside her, filling her completely with his initial plunge. As he fucked her hard against the wall, her eyes rolled back in a state of bliss. Rachel responded to his vigorous rhythm and ground her pelvis hard against his groin. Sensing their impending release, Dan slipped an index finger slowly inside her anus. The raw sensations from his probing finger sent her over the edge."

Eventually the story wholeheartedly leaves abstract grounds and embraces life and action, but sadly it seems to be only a spur of the moment because after this paragraph the erotic climax is already over. Given the whole lot of intangible stuff that filled the prior paragraphs that one doesn't suffice to inspire real excitation. Though, maybe apart from "state of bliss", there are no blankspaces in that paragraph, it boils down to a rushed play-by-play, i.e. a more or less trite enumeration of when who did what to whom. There are stories here on LIT that build tension to the erotic climax over whole pages by juxtaposing in opposition the characters and conflicting forces. This leads to an unpredectiveness that's essential to the erotic tension, even when the characters already start making out and so on. It's this tension that's missing here: the outcome is already known from the ouset (or almost: at least since Dan confessed his love to Rachel, for from then on there's nothing left that could yield any conlict: we know that he wants her, and she wants him, and that both care for no one else).

Lastly a short remark on some stylistic extravagances:

"When the world finally drifted back into focus, Rachel's head rested peacefully against his shoulder. Her hands wandered playfully over his chest, feeling it rise and fall as he breathed. Cocooned in his arms, she realized it had been ages since she had been this happy."
>> These lines unmistakably come from romance novel language: The world drifting away and back again, being enriched with superfluous adverbs and a formulaic time-transcending pathos. Well, only missing out one sentence to become storybook kitsch: And they lived happily ever after. Meh.

"The blood coursing through his veins boiled with passion, urging him on like a wild beast. Her frenzied cries were aphrodisiacal, fueling his desire to mate."
>> Don't know if the romance novel enthusiast likes this brutish (as well as kitschy) imagery, but to my mind it's way over the purple top. Cut, please.

*

This critique is written only with the best of intentions: to provoke thought on how to (possibly) improve the text.

I wish you only the best!

–AJ

 

[Shinzon]

Grim,

First, let me say thank you for taking time to share your thoughts and impressions regarding the story. This is exactly the type of candid feedback I was hoping for as it can truly be used to make our stories better in the future.

When we wrote The Awakening we never planned for it to be a major production and therefore never dreamed it could easily be chapter 1 of a larger work. We had fun writing it together and decided to advance Dan and Rachel’s relationship with the Away Day. Unfortunately, I was at a loss as to how to hook the two stories together (i.e., chapters 1 and 2) since the first had already been published as a standalone story. I opted to try for another standalone but your comments lead me to believe it was now necessary to have read the first one before reading The Away Day.

Your comments regarding how to capture the thoughts of a character are noted. I didn’t take the time to refresh my memory on the grammatically correct way to do this. Certainly food for thought! While I am at it, I’ll also check up on the usage of ellipses (...).

You are absolutely correct WRT your comments on blinding flashes of the obvious/play by play action such as the towel scenario. I should have caught these during the editing phase.

Clearly, the over emphasis on words or syllables during sex talk is grammatically incorrect.

Once again, thanks for the candid feedback.

Best regards,

Shinzon

 

[Grimfalcon]

Grim,


When we wrote The Awakening we never planned for it to be a major production and therefore never dreamed it could easily be chapter 1 of a larger work. We had fun writing it together and decided to advance Dan and Rachel’s relationship with the Away Day. Unfortunately, I was at a loss as to how to hook the two stories together (i.e., chapters 1 and 2) since the first had already been published as a standalone story. I opted to try for another standalone but your comments lead me to believe it was now necessary to have read the first one before reading The Away Day.

Best regards,

Shinzon

I hope the feedback and constructive criticism helped the both of you in at least some small way. I’ve noticed that people seem to be overly critical when leaving it at times, maybe unintentional, maybe not, but the thing that irks me is pointing out a writers numerous deficiencies, but not offering any viable suggestions on how to improve them.

I think you stated your own problem pretty clearly in regards to tying the two stories, or follow on ones, together into a series. Unless you have a well thought out turn of events with a strong character base, it’s better to just start from scratch then try to tie the two together with a quick patch. It only undermines the hard work you’ve put into it thus far.

Something else- don’t get fixated on the grammar and technical issues of writing; that’s all stuff that can be learned with time and practice, but having a hook while telling a good story in the process, can’t. I’m guilty of the same thing at times, coming up with an initial idea and starting a story, but not following through with it because it lacks substance. Unfortunately, that’s the case I see with this story, and was pointed out above in another post.
For example, when I sit down with my initial idea and brainstorm things through, I’m not thinking of the sex aspect; that will fall into place later as the story unfolds. Develop your characters, what makes them who they are, what is their motivation or personal quirks that makes them individuals? The reader has to identify with them on some level or you’ll lose their interest rather quickly.
Then there is your overall plot, what direction is it going to take, and what’s the conclusion and how are the characters going to get there? Suspense, mystery, drama, danger, adventure; these are the things you need to consider when developing your story. Plan things out, at least roughly, beforehand. Write your sex into the story, not a story simply centered around sex. The later is nothing more then written porn in my opinion. Nothing wrong with that, but if you aspire to anything more then just a simple ‘jerk off’ writer, things need to be kicked up a notch.

The both of you have the goods to make this happen, if you want it bad enough.

 

[GrimsPet]

She needed him to fuck her again, and her vaginal muscles twitched in affirmation.

I’m curious, does that actually happen to women?

Yes it does. At least it does for me and then the thoughts often trigger a nice throbbing of the clit and a mild rush of wet.

Onto the story at hand...
I quickly read through the story in question. I agree with the sentiments others have posted here regarding the story when it comes to the use of tense and punctuation. I'm no angel when it comes to that either, so it's something I try to watch for when I write.

 

[Shinzon]

Grim and Aj,

I certainly thank you both for taking time to offer your critiques of our story and suggestions for improvements. Sorry it has taken a while to get back here but real life just seems to have a habit of getting in the way of fun stuff. lol

The major take away that echoed throughout your critiques: focus more energy on plot and character development. The feedback and constructive criticism have been quite helpful and I am positive we'll benefit from it. Both of us write for fun and we get a lot enjoyment of writing together, so I am sure you'll see more from us in the future.

Once again, our thanks for taking the time to help. It is much appreciated.

Shinzon and Barenecessity