Story discussion: May 2, 2011. "No Ordinary Assignation" by MissOh

[MissOh]

Hi,

This is my first BDSM story.
It's a one-off short story, about three thousand words. Short stories are the format I tend to stick to. It involves corporal punishment, nothing too extreme, and centres around a woman who has been having an affair. It discusses briefly her feelings about her lover and gives a short background to their relationship. She is going to meet him at his flat following an argument they had. He punishes her but it is always obvious that that is what she wanted and she has manipulated him into doing this to her. At the end of the story the reader is unsure whether this culimination of events signifies the end of their relationship or if it will continue along this twisted path. Or at least that was my aim when I was writing it.

Here's the link:
http://www.literotica.com/s/no-ordinary-assignation

What I would like to know is whether this piece effectively portrays the protagonist's desires for corporal punishment. Everyone who has this kink has different and often quite complex reasons for craving it but I want to make sure that her motivations seem believable.

I feel it important to stress that she isn't supposed to be a sympathetic character, she's just supposed to be human and that means being flawed. I haven't discussed why she started the affair because she didn't need a reason beyond blind lust. She loves her boyfriend but she's cheating on him purely for the thrill of it. She's supposed to be selfish and manipulative, not because I want readers to actively dislike her but because it made her seem more real to me. People cheat on their partners for no good reason all the time. I would like to know how readers feel about reading about a character they aren't necessarily supposed to like. How does that affect the overall eroticiam of the piece?

Also I am worried that there may be too much plot/build up to this. I am writing erotica rather than porn so having some sort of plot and character motivation is important to me but the piece is still supposed to be sexy and I would like to know if the build up detracts from that.

These are the main points that I would like readers to focus on as they look at the story. Feel free to go and vote for it if you like it. I understand that these discussion threads are about criticism but please try and keep it constructive and not just plain critical. If you're not into BDSM or corporal punishment don't read it. It's not that extreme but if you're not into you won't get it.

Thanks very much for having a look at my work. I hope you like it.

 

[okatty35]

i liked it!!

 

[Penelope Street]

Hi Miss Oh,

Thanks for sharing your work with us.

Your command of the language is fine, I didn't find any moment totally beyond belief, and kudos to you for incorporating a flawed protagonist. Tension was a little on the light side, but I think this was partly because I'd read the bit before the link that revealed much of the story.

I believe you may have hit the proverbial nail on the head here:

Also I am worried that there may be too much plot/build up to this.

I'm not sure about too much plot, but there's way too much exposition. It's almost always most effective to develop characters by showing them to the reader instead of just telling the reader about them. If you'd just dropped us right into the first real action, I think it would have worked so much better. I can go on about this if you don't understand what I'm trying to say- so feel free to ask- but I don't want to be beating a dead horse, you know?

There are a few other quibbles, a clunky sentence here, an extraneous adverb there, but they really are quibbles compared to the exposition issue.

Take Care,
Penny

 

[MissOh]

OK, that was kind of the response I was expecting to the exposition problem. I was aware as i was writing that there was just too much background to the whole thing but for me that is part of my writing process. I write all that build up so I can get a better feel for my characters and see where the story is going to go, if that makes sense. I actually cut out a load more background stuff but I felt like I needed some build up to it. However I do agree with the point you made about developing characters by just showing them to people. If I'm going to continue working in the short story format that's a rule I need to remember. Some of the best erotic lit I've read plunges you right into the action and shows you the diferent facets of the characters through their actions rather than lengthy descriptions. I am still kind of cutting my teeth on this writing thing though so it might take me a while to get my style fully succinct.

Thanks for complimenting me on including a flawed character. I actually found it really interesting to write about someone I didn't really like that much. Readers always want to identify with the protagonist so they feel like they should like them but I felt it added a new dimension to the story to have a character that people would most likely dislike or at least not warm to but still identify with.

Also I appreciate you letting me know that the scenario seemed believable. I am still a bit unsure about my portrayal of coporal punishment though and it's really important to me to get this right. If anyone has any further critique on that part of the story, or any advice on how to improve writing about this kink, I'd really love to hear it.

Thank a lot!

 

[Corpse_rider]

I agree with Penny, you need to edit the first third of the story, so the reader goes straight into the action. A strong opening of a story should hook the reader, with background information threaded into the story rather than all up-front in one large block of text. There's some really strong descriptive writing within your piece. Definitely worth doing another draft.
Good luck.

 

[Auden James]

Constructive Criticism

I understand that these discussion threads are about criticism but please try and keep it constructive and not just plain critical.

What I'd really like to know is where this preconception that plain criticism isn't constructive stems from?

To state it squarely, I think it's simply false. It's anything but true. I think this preconception is, in fact, a misconception concerning what it means for a judgement to be constructive. Indeed, I think reasonable criticism is as constructive as it gets. And at this point I want to try to make clear why it's false to presume a paradox in plain criticism being constructive.

I hope my reasoning is lucid enough to be widely understandable:

First, the criticism we are speaking of here is really some kind of judgement of some object. Since on LIT this object is literature, one could add that it's an aesthetical judgement, but this addition won't invalidate or alter my argument in any way wherefore I'll omit this addition deliberately.

Furthermore it's clear, I hope, that to be constructive means to help improving. Now, in any case, if you want to help to improve something you first and foremost need to know what's wrong with it, i.e. what's not right with it, the flaws of it, the reasons why it's not doing as good as it could/should, etc. Thus to know the shortcomings is the basis needed to help improve. Without this basis there'd be no help and no improvement because help wouldn't know where and how to start.

Hence the following accounts:

Some judgement x (like plain (reasonable) criticism) of some object p (like your story No Ordinary Assignation) is constructive if x provides the basis to improve p.

And since the basis to improve p is to know p's shortcomings, x must name the flaws of p to be constructive. Now take a look at the x of our context: plain (reasonable) criticism. I think, you'll agree that all that (plainly and/or reasonably) criticizing really means is to name the shortcomings of the object that is to be criticized.

Thus plain (reasonable) criticism provides the basis to improve p, the story, and therefore it is constructive. In fact, plain (reasonable) criticism is the root of improvement. It gives the clues to eradicate what we didn't do right in the first place. Without criticism there were no improvements at all. It's our first aid measures if something is in need of help to improve.

I hope that my brief account is making sense, especiially to those of us who were inclined to adhere to the false preconception outlined at the beginnng, and that you'll be now forearmed to evade the unreasonable trap of so-called 'not constructive' criticism. (Before long I may add as a rule that if someone is accused of failing to give so-called 'constructive' critism, the accusers usually just follow their acquired habit of obscuring their own lack of ideas or imagination or discontent relating to the criticized work.)

*

 

[Auden James]

Critique

After my short discussion of constructive criticism let's go on to your questions, MissOh:

What I would like to know is whether this piece effectively portrays the protagonist's desires for corporal punishment. (...) I want to make sure that her motivations seem believable.

When I look at the text and it for itself then I find two distinct motivations given for her actions: a) why she has an illicit affair in the first place and b) why she may desire corporal punishment.

Considering a) there are the following suggestive passages:

"There were so many things she hated about this relationship but she had never been able to get over the pure thrill of it."
>> 1st reason: She simply likes the thrill (whatever that might be in concrete terms) she gets out of having an illicit affair.

"He [Paul, her affair] teased an orgasm for her in seconds, her jagged cry of pleasure startling the taxi driver."
>> 2nd reason: Her affair partner is an icredibly talented lover. This is quiet clichéd, isn't it? The affair as the heroic lover who knows all the secrets and does push all the right buttons without uttering a word (e.g. "(...)f ew words were exchanged during their meetings (...)").

"When she made love with Martin he made her come because he wanted to make her happy. He loved to give her that pleasure, it was like a drug to him. But Paul did it to satisfy his ego. Ten more points to him."
>> 3rd reason: She prefers egomaniacal assholes over a caring parter to give her (equivalent) orgasms. Well, to my mind this looks like a skewed and contrived male-fantasy-like view of (heterosexual) female lust: it's all about the urge between the legs and the bad guy dragging her into his cave where en passant he takes this urge away. Though I'm not sure what to mak of the second sentence here: If giving her pleasure is like a drug to Martin, isn't he then as selfish as Paul? Because he'd do it only because he needs it? Perhaps to feel like the partner he's supposed to be, or whatever. In this light the 3rd reason might be reformulated: She prefers the frank egomaniacal asshole over the lying egomaniacal asshole.

I like this ambiguity.

"Martin had been away in Bristol for work (...)."
>> 4th reason: Her partner isn't there for her. Well, that's a true classic. He's simply working so much, and the itch between her legs can only be helped with a cock outside her partnership. Clichéd without question, isn't it?

And considering b) I think the next passage sums it up concisely:

"She'd done it because she was selfish, foolish, immature. She'd known what she wanted but instead of asking for it like the adult she was supposed to be she'd manipulated him into doing something that was beyond his sensibilities. She'd hurt him and she'd known what she was doing . She was a terrible person."
>> So the reason here seems to be that as an egomaniacal asshole herself she thinks she should feel a pang of conscience that could only be helped by oldschool bum basting. So, what to make of it? I don't know. I cannot see a reason, not emotional nor rational, why someone like her, pretending to be pissed by her affair partner's anger, should act in such a demeaning, in some sense autoaggressive way: if she really is as selfish as the story conveys (her thoughts in the bus, her behaviour at the tennis court, the narrators assessment of her), then it's implausible why she should turn into a totally submissive limp in a split-second decision at the door of her affair partner's apartment. Instead, it were far more plausible if a) she started a violent quarrel with im in his apartment, i.e. slapping each other and having extremely rough sex (to compensate all the hurt of their egos) or b) to simply dump Paul on the spot and find a new cock to satisfy her itch.

Bottom line: Hence, all in all, the motivation is there, but it's partially questionable, either on logical or on stylistic/innovative grounds.

I would like to know how readers feel about reading about a character they aren't necessarily supposed to like. How does that affect the overall eroticim of the piece?

I for one have no problem with reading about asshole characters and protagonists, as long as they actually are portrayed as characters and not just cardboards supposed to be bad. That your characters aren't nice guys doesn't affect the piece's eroticism negatively. In fact, bad guys have the potential for great conflicts, which can lead to even greater tension and excitation. Unfortunately, I think you don't really make use of this potential because you're too much pussyfooting around the eroticism. And this negatively affects to overall 'sexiness' of your piece.

I'll further elaborate this important point in my answer you're next question.

Also I am worried that there may be too much plot/build up to this. I am writing erotica rather than porn so having some sort of plot and character motivation is important to me but the piece is still supposed to be sexy and I would like to know if the build up detracts from that.

It's nice to hear that you're interesting in writing erotica. But I've got the impression that you might have been trying too hard. Thus, in consequence, you've suppressed the majority of eroticism's implications in your text, to make it as unpornish as possible.

I think that action of yours is grounded in a misconception that there's a categorial difference between porn on the one side and erotica on the other. I don't think this differentiation is tenable. In truth, (most) speakers are simply expressing their valuation of specific texts in those terms: what feels like good-quality is denoted as "erotica" (or to emphasize the speaker's highbrow taste as erotic literature) and what feels less good or even bad-quality is denoted as "pornography" (or simpy trash, smut, stroke stuff, a morally reprehensible thing, etc.). Please note that the quality I speak of here isn't of any literary or objective standard: it's just gut feeling, generic genre's standard, a commercial publisher's demand, etc.

Back to your text. Spoken frankly, to my mind your text, in fact, is a quiet conventional short story, which is still in need of shortening, about the (self-destructive) needs of sick people, equipped with a supposed to be arousing appendix (essentially the fourth-to-last paragraph).

Thus I think that it's not your protagonist but the overall structure of your story that's diminishing the impact of eroticism. Indeed, I feel inclined to question whether the story is still 'erotica' because from my point of view in (genuine) erotica everything is in relation to and ultimately driven by the erotic incidence(s). In your piece, though, each single part isn't lnked in this sense to eroticism, not even in the hotter passages like her musings during the bus ride, which only serve to show her trying to generate dissatisfaction with herself for thinking clichéd ideas, or the final belt whipping, which isn't driven for real by eroticism (her wetness and his erection are noted just as sidelines by the narrator, appearing to be byproducts rather than the aim of their act) but by the hurt egos of the two characters and their respective assignment of guilt.

And here we've reached the starting point, for he title you've chosen already anticipates this result. Indeed, it's no ordinary assignment, but it isn't an assignment of eroticism either. In my opinion it's an assignment of guilt; the guilt the narrator shows us that two sick people act out on each other.

In light of this conclusion the buildup you're speaking about in your question isn't even there; at least no (genuine) buildup of eroticism. The sex simply happens. It seems quiet out of place. That leads to the perhaps paradoxically sounding outcome that it's the sexy parts that distract from your story.

Hence, after reading it, I thought that it'd better ended with your (female) protagonist stating: "I'm so sorry." (What comes next is the above noted 'appendix'. And the dialog tag "she repeated but the words were strangled and meaningless" isn't needed, too, I think because it deprives the reader of drawing his own intimate conclusions by supercharging him with the narrator's truth.)

Lastly I want to call your attention concering your use of adjectives and/or adverbs, e.g. taking an exemplary look at the third sentence of your story:

"The low hum of the engine buzzed in her ears like an annoying insect and she stared with faint disgust at a red-faced man dabbing his sweaty forehead with an already soggy tissue."

There are 7 (!) adjectives/adverbs in this single sentence (which in total counts 33 words, making it a 21% of adjectives/adverbs: that's every 5th word!). I think that's a little too much. When trimming down the text that's a good starting point: first mark all the adjectives, then go through the whole text and check each adjective. Most often they can be replaced by a stronger noun or simply left out. Next repeat this with the adverbs which can often be replaced by a stronger verb. Print the edited version and compare with the adjective/adverb-laden, so you'll have the best chance to find out which version is better (probably the edited one).

Also think about the paragraphs and their content: often in the first draft one writes one and the same thing in varying formulations in the same or different paragraphs. This redundant stuff can be easily deleted. In doing so your story will only gain quality. Redundance (in fiction) does nothing but deaden the reader's experience.

The same is true of superfluous information that doesn't contribute to the story's plot, themes, characters, etc. For example I may suggest that right at the beginning of your story the paragraphs are laden with imprecise formulations, i.e. beating around the bush of what there really is to narrate. At this point I may suggest to try writing in a more creative language, which could help at lifting up not only the beginning but the whole piece. Just for the purpose of illustrating what I mean, I want to give you a short example of how one could possibly try to edit the first few paragraphs as to make for a more substantial (with more "beef") narration:

"The hum of the engine, buzzing in her ears, and the perspiration of the fat man sitting next to her, assaulting her olfactory senses, played the lead in the undo-good-mood-squad that London had put together on her bus ride that day, featuring the afternoon heat of June, carpet-like upholstered seats saturated with sweat, and mad dogs of chuffed looking Englishmen wearing socks and sandals in the supporting roles.

Underneath her skirt a sudor bead tickled her.

She scrunched her face, peering out of the window, whilst the fluid new star of the squad wiggled its way to her pussy, making her first rub her thighs together before obligating her whole bottom to do the grinding job that, against all hope, failed to succeed but only fueled her snatching itch and the diffusing rate of the, by now, not only fat but also red-faced man’s perspiration next to her. His eyes all aflutter, not a particle peeping up the moist crotch of her lace thong, reminded her of how it all had started six months ago. Not in a shabby bus shuddering around the corner up the hill to the Common, but on the leather-scented back-seat of a taxi in Soho. When the breath-clouded windows obliterated to the people wrapped up in coats outside how, for the first time, she took a dick in her mouth her boyfriend was not endowed with; a dick that, though she was lashed up more than it seemed, she could by no means have mistaken for Martin’s todger."

Compare yourself what difference the editing makes. Hopefully, this clears up what I quibbled about prior to this (and doesn't undermine it).

*
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

 

[Pure]

i'm not sure you're around any more, but i liked the story in general.

auden made some point about overwriting which i agree with.

i think the motivations are reasonably clear (i.e. mixed) and interesting.

as to why the beating is a turn on, that's not really explained, but then again fetishes and kinky tastes often have no good explanation.
(of course it's a cliche that guilt is involved, though cliches are not totally false.).
==

as to 'constructive criticism', i don't want to quibble over a term. i didn't use it in describing what SDC does.

http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=304663

i think the essence of what's wanted is that the criticism be substantive and generally objective (not merely "i felt sad reading this piece") and delivered with civility and charity. obviously substantive, on-target points about alleged shortcomings may well be useful in "improvement," provided the critic and author are on the same wave length, and provided the author wants to improve (as i suppose most do). but a critic, here, is not obligated to be a 'good samaritan' or physician-healer of wounded stories or ailing authors.

 

[justlookingin]

I thought it was well written. Have you edited it since the comments about too much exposition at the beginning as it seemed to race straight into it.

I always quite like a bit of anticipation and build up in my stories so my main critique would be to include more of that. Some of the stories I have enjoyed the most have not ended up in the couple having full sex but the tension of will they/won't they I find exciting in itself. Maybe I'm a weirdo but I could would have been happier having her tied up but not getting what she wanted for much longer. Wanting it so badly but not sure she would get it. Her being forced to describe what she had done.. that sort of thing to build the tension. Him punishing her straight away was her getting what she wanted straight away. I did enjoy it though. Thanks for writing it.