Tar-baby: Help fixing up lesbian SF tale

[peterpan]

I tried this in the feedback forum, but no success so far..



I have submitted a tale that I am really not happy with, because I am hoping to find someone that can look at it more objectively and help me crop it down to about half its current size and make it more effective at the same time.

I am intending to reedit and resubmit this, but I am stuck in the same way I always get stuck on tales recently: A simple tale bloats as I try to connect the relevant plot points seamlessly. because I was too worried about bloat, there was no room for fleshing out so currently it is both bloated AND crammed.

http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=75770

ps: it is not really a ch.2, but should be a distinct tale

 

[Couture]

The beginning was really difficult to read. It was choppy and there was just so many things thrown in there.

Problem is -- I don't know what is necessary and what isn't.

Me, I would start off with her coming to in the tarbaby. It's dark, she can't move. Toys is licking her.

Toys says something like you like it. You know I can tell.

Something like that. A good hook.

The rest was excellent. Very creative and it drew me in. I liked the part about the dad. Good suspense.

The end kind of threw me though. A dream? I don't know. I'm not really sure what happened at the end. I think you might consider tweaking it a little and give me something to remember so I will want to read the next chapter.

 

[peterpan]

Don't worry about the Ch.2 busness. I intend to reclarify this as a totally stand-alone story. I will either call it The Tar Baby or Little Black Satin Heart.

Yes, you are right about the choppyness. I left too much in, lines I was in love with etc, and the main thing I intend to do is cut it down and make it much smaller.

The plot, hmm. well here is my summary. It is pretty long and tangled even in note form.

It starts off with the last thing Satin remembers, her capture.

She wakes up in a darkened bed.

She is surrounded by 'psykers', and she hates them in an all-consuming way.

They don't hate her though. They know how dangerous she is and yet they insist on treating her without malice (or atleast Toys does) They treat her with this strange familiarity, as if she is part of the crew.

As the reader becomes aware of how psychotic Satin is, so does she, on some level. In some sense she has fallen in love with Toys, and does not want to have to kill her, allthough she still would do so if the least oportuntity arose. In a way she is glad of her captivity, because it prevents her from hurting anyone.

A big part of her psychosis and her fear of psykers (and especially Displacers) is personified in something she calls 'the wolf'. This has something to do with her Displacer dad who was a particularily nasty peice of work.

She is about to reveal this to Toys, when they are forced to reveal that she is in fact a Displacer. She absolutely does not want to be her father. The crucial moment is when she sees her own reflection (staring eyed, wearing the breather mask, and her hair all floating around her) and realises that she is the 'wolf', and she is the murderous predator that she most fears.

She cannot cope with this, and either in a simple psycological break down, or to do with the god-like powers she momentarily gains in the warp pool (as she is used to displace the ship to another part of the galaxy) Satin reverts her personality to before she began to understand herself, ie to the instant she was captured.

Then the tale becomes from Toys point of view. It is revealed that this has happend many times already. Toys loves Satin, and is continually bringing satin to the point where she loves Toys, but after each starship-displacement satin reverts to her original rabid self and has to go through the process of just about maybe begining to forgive herself and healing all over again.

Its meant to be sad and angst-ridden, but it is also meant to be about an form of unconditional love... also at some point Toys will probably learn enough about Satin that she will be able to heal Satin enough that she does not decide to revert, and from then on Satin will continue to get better. (thats only implied though, this isnt a continuing tale)

 

[peterpan]

I will also have another quick go at that beginning. Having submitted it and had time to thing about it, I think I can have a stab at telling the bits I was in love with from the bits that worked..