The Devil Has The Best Tunes, my first story attempt! Feedback sought!

[Quimpossibility]

Feedback wanted!

https://www.literotica.com/s/the-devil-has-the-best-tunes

It's not perfect. There are still a few errors that made it through the net, but criticism is invited and welcomed. Please enjoy!

Thanks

 

[lovecraft68]

Left you a comment.

I really enjoyed this. Simple and to the point. The minimal description of the devil works well, some people get carried away with it. You just said here he is, and he gets down to his mischievous fun. I thought you painted a vivid scene of debauchery, enough detail to get some "oh" factor, but nothing lingering as you moved about the characters.

Not sure why exactly, but the story had an old time feel to it, like it would have been written years ago. Felt like watching a classic 70's movie that has that certain vibe to it.

Only nitpick is to break up your paragraphs a little better, a few of them were large walls of text. Lit formats funny and you have to split the paragraphs into smaller chunks or this happens.

Great first effort.

 

[Quimpossibility]

Thanks a lot, Appreciate the feedback!

It's a learning curve ofc. Copy and past from google Docs is always problematical, so lots of things can slip the net

Thank you

 

[filthytrancendence]

I also liked it a lot. Lots of good ideas and the meat of it is solid. My main thoughts:

I love the concept you had of using descriptors as proper nouns. I wish you'd committed to that harder. It is very strongly done with Birthday Girl. Pretty much everyone else is spotty, and that makes for some confusing passages. Here is a passage that illustrates this:

The distracted woman is hungry now, she looks around to see what is happening, sensing a movement in the crowd of people. A male and female couple in the next booth, separated by a mutual male friend, are kissing hot and heavy. The impatient woman reaches for her crotch and starts rubbing herself against the fabric of her sexy ghost dress. She watches as the woman reaches to the jeans of the man in between and slowly rubs his cock. She sees her reach inside to fish it out. It is erect. He howls from inside his cheap werewolf mask. She watches as the woman points the cock toward her lover and breaks the kiss allowing him to take it into his mouth. He does so eagerly. She, in turn, leans in to kiss the werewolf, after peeling off his mask. As his cock is sucked by another man, his hips widen. He is getting into it, and the woman can feel his arousal as their lips and tongues dance.

Distracted moans in pure lust and is met with desire from the man next to her, who pulls her in for an awkward tongue-heavy deep kiss. He then stands her up and lifts her onto the table, spilling drinks. No one cares. Her legs splay per her need and his hands are over her tits.

So, is she 'the distracted woman' or is she Distracted? Distracted, obviously. That's a lot better. However, the inconsistent use makes the first words of the second paragraph almost incomprehensible. Distracted is suddenly used as the name, as a proper noun, but is also the first word of the sentence, and you have not used it as her name so far, so the brain tries to parse 'distracted moans in pure lust' and the brain reels from the sentence fragment because distracted is parsing as an adverb instead of the noun you intended. That would be a risk of using these regular-type words as names either way, but it would have been significantly mitigated if you had been calling her Distracted consistently up to this point. Ideally several times. Replace a pronoun or two to reinforce it before you get to the confusing sentence and then it's a payoff instead of a confusion.

I would say any character you depict more than once gets a Proper Noun, and that is their name. That would be fun but also help us keep track of who is who when you're flitting between so many unnamed people.

I also agree with lovecraft about the unwieldy paragraphs. Especially with something as busy as this scene, do your reader a favor and give them a line break every time you change subjects, at least.

Finally, I have strong feelings about the use of present tense the whole time, and I'm having a bit of trouble putting my finger on them. I admit part of that is personal preference, which I am not trying to burden you with, but I think there is more to it than that, so please bear with me.

On one hand, I see the value. It could give the story a specific, urgent cadence which would work very well. But I don't think it actually does, at least not consistently. Part of that is the too-large paragraphs, I think. The urgency is lost because you often get bogged down trying to understand which pronouns go to which person, etc.

On the other hand, my brain rebels against it because of the disembodied, third person PoV. The present tense wants to lend the story a kind of urgent perspective that is compellingly human, as if there is someone walking through your crowd observing these things. But there is no character actually doing this, so it ends up making everything feel less visceral than it could? If it were me, I would try locking your perspective to the devil and having him walk around. I have a feeling that would be stronger, but it's hard to say for sure without trying.

Anyhow, I had a lot to say, it seems. Please take that as an outflow of how much I did enjoy it and a desire to help you improve. Good luck!

 

[Quimpossibility]

I also liked it a lot. Lots of good ideas and the meat of it is solid. My main thoughts:

I love the concept you had of using descriptors as proper nouns. I wish you'd committed to that harder. It is very strongly done with Birthday Girl. Pretty much everyone else is spotty, and that makes for some confusing passages. Here is a passage that illustrates this:



So, is she 'the distracted woman' or is she Distracted? Distracted, obviously. That's a lot better. However, the inconsistent use makes the first words of the second paragraph almost incomprehensible. Distracted is suddenly used as the name, as a proper noun, but is also the first word of the sentence, and you have not used it as her name so far, so the brain tries to parse 'distracted moans in pure lust' and the brain reels from the sentence fragment because distracted is parsing as an adverb instead of the noun you intended. That would be a risk of using these regular-type words as names either way, but it would have been significantly mitigated if you had been calling her Distracted consistently up to this point. Ideally several times. Replace a pronoun or two to reinforce it before you get to the confusing sentence and then it's a payoff instead of a confusion.

I would say any character you depict more than once gets a Proper Noun, and that is their name. That would be fun but also help us keep track of who is who when you're flitting between so many unnamed people.

I also agree with lovecraft about the unwieldy paragraphs. Especially with something as busy as this scene, do your reader a favor and give them a line break every time you change subjects, at least.

Finally, I have strong feelings about the use of present tense the whole time, and I'm having a bit of trouble putting my finger on them. I admit part of that is personal preference, which I am not trying to burden you with, but I think there is more to it than that, so please bear with me.

On one hand, I see the value. It could give the story a specific, urgent cadence which would work very well. But I don't think it actually does, at least not consistently. Part of that is the too-large paragraphs, I think. The urgency is lost because you often get bogged down trying to understand which pronouns go to which person, etc.

On the other hand, my brain rebels against it because of the disembodied, third person PoV. The present tense wants to lend the story a kind of urgent perspective that is compellingly human, as if there is someone walking through your crowd observing these things. But there is no character actually doing this, so it ends up making everything feel less visceral than it could? If it were me, I would try locking your perspective to the devil and having him walk around. I have a feeling that would be stronger, but it's hard to say for sure without trying.

Anyhow, I had a lot to say, it seems. Please take that as an outflow of how much I did enjoy it and a desire to help you improve. Good luck!

Very much appreciate the feedback. Fair points all.

There is a lot happening. My main goal was to try and orchestrate the wild shit pouring out my brain.

So it became apparent that I need a way to identify each of the actors without giving them proper names, which, I think, would have been confusing. But maybe not. So that could have been handled better.

I hadn't considered the length of the paragraphs to be fair, but is certainly something to consider for future reference.

Thank you

 

[filthytrancendence]

So it became apparent that I need a way to identify each of the actors without giving them proper names, which, I think, would have been confusing. But maybe not. So that could have been handled better.

That's what it seemed like, but IMO you stumbled into something great there. Happens all the time, sometimes you just have to see it an lean into your stumble.

 

[Quimpossibility]

That's what it seemed like, but IMO you stumbled into something great there. Happens all the time, sometimes you just have to see it an lean into your stumble.

Just a question of more proofreading I think. What matters to me is the flow. I think on balance it's coherent, which was my main goal.

 

[lovecraft68]

Just a question of more proofreading I think. What matters to me is the flow. I think on balance it's coherent, which was my main goal.

Keep in mind that you're new to this. The things @filthytrancendence pointed out are all valid and good food for thought for the future. But the best way to improve in all ways is to keep writing. There is no teacher like experience and I feel a lot can be learned by sheer osmosis and practice, you will get unintentionally better in all aspects just by staying with it.

 

[Quimpossibility]

Write. Moar. Porn!

Got it

Thanks though, appreciate the feedback

Now I just need some inspiration.