Story Feedback

[Sai_dias_29]

I decided that I'm going to revamp my first story, but before I do that I would like some good feedback on it. So that I can decide what to keep and what not to keep.

https://www.literotica.com/s/family-secrets-nights

 

[TheRedChamber]

Firstly, you've got a ton of comments on the story already - some of these are insulting and some of them contradict each other, but still there's quite a lot of information about what people who read in this catagory like and don't like. Here are my thoughts...

1) The start is quite effective, having Sai think his parents are having sex and then have it revealed its actually his brother.
2) It's general advice not to have two important characters start withe same letter - I didn't have too much difficulty keeping John and Joseph seperate, but its said readers often get confused.
3) The story lacks a strong perspective. It starts out as Sai story, and the central hook of it seems to be why Sai isn't included in the family fun, but quickly the 'camera' starts to follow everyone in the family and it's difficult to keep track of what Sai misses, what he half-hears or suspects, and what he overhears. It could make sense to have another family member (possibly the mom) be the perpective focus for sections to show what they are getting up to, but that needs to involve what they are thinking more and give the narrative text around them a bit more of their personality.
4) The sex seems to skip around quite a lot, they'll say they are going to do something, have a conversation about how much they love it and then start to do something else - it didn't always seem to build to a conclusion. Similarly, as they were always playing or fore-playing or messing around and there wasn't a lot of down time the piece ended up all being of the same intensity - it didn't feel like it built towards anything and the story didn't really seem to finish.
5) There's not a lot of information about the setting. Hints are dropped about it being set in India through the clothing, but this isn't really confirmed until the second page. There's no clear indication of where its set, if its urban or rural or how affluent the family is and so on. This may have bothered me more because India is far away from my own experience and so I found it harder to visualize (I don't know what a 'standard' Indian church would look like - gothic structure or modern, Methodist hall or Mega-Church) and I may be being hypocritical because checking my own stories I skimp on descriptions and don't always make the location as clear as it should be.

 

[Sai_dias_29]

Firstly, you've got a ton of comments on the story already - some of these are insulting and some of them contradict each other, but still there's quite a lot of information about what people who read in this catagory like and don't like. Here are my thoughts...

1) The start is quite effective, having Sai think his parents are having sex and then have it revealed its actually his brother.
2) It's general advice not to have two important characters start withe same letter - I didn't have too much difficulty keeping John and Joseph seperate, but its said readers often get confused.
3) The story lacks a strong perspective. It starts out as Sai story, and the central hook of it seems to be why Sai isn't included in the family fun, but quickly the 'camera' starts to follow everyone in the family and it's difficult to keep track of what Sai misses, what he half-hears or suspects, and what he overhears. It could make sense to have another family member (possibly the mom) be the perpective focus for sections to show what they are getting up to, but that needs to involve what they are thinking more and give the narrative text around them a bit more of their personality.
4) The sex seems to skip around quite a lot, they'll say they are going to do something, have a conversation about how much they love it and then start to do something else - it didn't always seem to build to a conclusion. Similarly, as they were always playing or fore-playing or messing around and there wasn't a lot of down time the piece ended up all being of the same intensity - it didn't feel like it built towards anything and the story didn't really seem to finish.
5) There's not a lot of information about the setting. Hints are dropped about it being set in India through the clothing, but this isn't really confirmed until the second page. There's no clear indication of where its set, if its urban or rural or how affluent the family is and so on. This may have bothered me more because India is far away from my own experience and so I found it harder to visualize (I don't know what a 'standard' Indian church would look like - gothic structure or modern, Methodist hall or Mega-Church) and I may be being hypocritical because checking my own stories I skimp on descriptions and don't always make the location as clear as it should be.

Thank you so much for your response, it means a lot.

This was my first story about an idea I had in my head, I tried to see if others would want to write for me. But almost all of them turned it down, and I ended up writing it myself. The idea itself was suppose to be a snowball type of story, where one thing gets revealed and other informations gets revealed in the process. Since I've never written an actual story before this one, I had a lot trouble writing it. I couldn't figure out what is too much, too little, or unnecessary--I didn't have much help either. Now coming to your helpful feedbacks.

1) I actually appreciate this, a lot. Thank you!

2) In my original Idea, I wanted the oldest son and father to have similar names. Mostly because I wanted to use it for later.

3) This is where I had the most trouble, I genuinely couldn't figure how to put my idea into words. The first version of the story was in first person, then I revised it to third person. Later, after I read it again, I didn't fully enjoy the story, as a reader. I felt there was something missing and I couldn't figure out what it was. I wanted to have the shock of Sai seeing what he saw, and keep that shock throughout the scene. But I couldn't manage it.

4) I struggled with this a lot as well, I couldn't figure out how to weave the sex scene with conversation. Or figure out what to leave in or leave out.

5) The setting was suppose to be in the US, but for whatever reason I thought people would figure that out. I'll be sure to fix that for the new version.

Also on a side note, I only found few of the comments barely helpful. There was a lot of criticism but no explanation for it, some just hated the idea of the story itself and went on tangent.

 

[TheRedChamber]

Thank you so much for your response, it means a lot.

This was my first story about an idea I had in my head, I tried to see if others would want to write for me. But almost all of them turned it down, and I ended up writing it myself. The idea itself was suppose to be a snowball type of story, where one thing gets revealed and other informations gets revealed in the process. Since I've never written an actual story before this one, I had a lot trouble writing it. I couldn't figure out what is too much, too little, or unnecessary--I didn't have much help either. Now coming to your helpful feedbacks.

1) I actually appreciate this, a lot. Thank you!

2) In my original Idea, I wanted the oldest son and father to have similar names. Mostly because I wanted to use it for later.

3) This is where I had the most trouble, I genuinely couldn't figure how to put my idea into words. The first version of the story was in first person, then I revised it to third person. Later, after I read it again, I didn't fully enjoy the story, as a reader. I felt there was something missing and I couldn't figure out what it was. I wanted to have the shock of Sai seeing what he saw, and keep that shock throughout the scene. But I couldn't manage it.

4) I struggled with this a lot as well, I couldn't figure out how to weave the sex scene with conversation. Or figure out what to leave in or leave out.

5) The setting was suppose to be in the US, but for whatever reason I thought people would figure that out. I'll be sure to fix that for the new version.

Also on a side note, I only found few of the comments barely helpful. There was a lot of criticism but no explanation for it, some just hated the idea of the story itself and went on tangent.

2) That's fine - sometimes in a story you want what you want because it feels right or for a plot reason.
3) It might be worth reading a bit more about persepective. I've found this blog very helpful about this and other writing matters. Essentially, you might want to write in 'close third' perspective where, although you're talking about Sal by name (rather than 'I') everything is frames by what he sees and you have access to his inner thoughts and no-one elses. You have that at the beginning, but then it kind of detaches and follows random family members around without really getting inside their heads - a more detached style can work in some certain scenes but here because all people are communicating is happy horniness, you're not really getting much character/plot development out of some scenes - for example, if you stick with Sai in the car scene more and only describe the things he can see and hear but also make it clear that he's now aware that someone thing is going on that he'd have been oblivious to last week, then it makes the scene more dramatic.
4) Writing sex is hard. Connected with point 3, because we're 'detached', we're not getting any of the sensations of sex leaving just the actions and the dialogue. The sex works better when we have some reaction from Sai about what he's seeing and how he feels about it.
5) Yeah, I assumed America by default, wasn't familiar with the name Sai, but everyone else had Christian-origin/Anglicized names then at the reference to sarees, I wondered if it was set in India and the later characters bios seemed to suggest it was, but again, there wasn't a lot of information either way.

The thing I've noticed about Incest/Taboo is that the people there are very good at letting you know what they think should have happened, although their expression of this ranges from exthusiastic to insulting. Some of the comments I thought were relevant.

Four pages of a guy being actively excluded from the family fun, without any kind of explanation as to why.

not to much detail on why the mother gets jealous when girls flrit with her other son si but she doesn't want to bring him in to the secret

you drag out all this shit, there is obviously more going on than meets the eye, and you, "author" have to be Ssssoool OBTUSE a out all of it

You should include how the family reached into that point. I think it would be great

So, not very polite, but a lot of people wanting more information about what's going on in the story. You might be planning a part two and more which explains this, but you probably want more 'breadcrumbs' so people can start to work out their own theories.

But I think there's unnecessary sexual acts in it

Speed things up already

I want to like this story but Sai made no progress and it would have been better to make him withdrawn and family trying to figure out why.

It's fairly uncommon for people to complain about too mcuh sex, but again, people are interested in getting to the 'whys' of the story.

You made the main character a son-cuck and be stuck with a family that is filled with hypocrites that must not love him enough to bring him in. How utterly sad.

why make a story if your main character is on the sidelines just looking

nobody but weirdo's wants to read about a son cuck who is the main character

A lot of people on the site have an issue with 'cucks' and are not shy about mentioning it. Write what you want, but I think it is true that Sai comes across as a weak-willed character because he doesn't really do much and is largely oblivious for most of the story.

Fantastic story. Keep it up

can't wait for the next keep it up.

Damn the Mom is hot! Gave you 5 stars

And lest this post becomes too negative, remember there were a lot of people who really enjoyed the story.

 

[Sai_dias_29]

3) I've been messing with different angles of the story, like who is the central figure, etc. In the new version I have I excluded the scene of Sai witnessing the act entirely, so that I can reveal it later that he saw after he confronts them. But I still don't know. This version follows the mother, later it will pivot to Sai.


The top four are the only ones I found useful, somewhat. Others weren't very helpful to me, or anyone really.