Their Special Place

[mistertripps]

Newly edited story - looking for feedback on how to improve future submissions. Thanks!

Their Special Place

 

[writelove]

It's been a long time since your last story was posted. You wrote another story called simply "Special Place." It would be interesting to read it for a comparison.

I read 7 or 8 paragraphs waiting to be hooked, for the story to start. So I went back and studied the first paragraph more closely.

Describe to me the senses and exact descriptions of how this place makes you feel different. How does it make you feel alive. I don't feel what you are feeling. You haven't conveyed it to me.

And this place just had a different feel to it than any other place on earth for him. Here, he felt alive and free.

Quickly in the early chapters before I get bored, I think you need to have something happen that grabs my interest.

Maybe, say something like - It all started that night she broke her leg. We were out on a date, not much different than my usual bar pickup. We all said the right things, almost enough to get past the door when I took her home. Then she slipped on a napkin, and came crashing down.

That's probably not what you want to say, but you need to do something. Perhaps have a dialog with her after the first couple of paragraphs. Show me this magic through the conversation rather than just saying it exists.

You haven't convinced me that this girl is that special.

Now I skip to the section quoted below:

When she finally looked at him, there were tears in her eyes as she said, "You've never told me about this place."

"I have been saving it for a special occasion," he replied shamefully.

"It is beautiful. I don't think I have ever seen a more beautiful place in my life," she responded.

His response was choked with emotion, "I was hoping you would like it. I've never brought anyone else out here."

As they spread the blanket and opened up the picnic basket, two Canadian Geese flew overhead on their way to the lake.

"They come back every year," he indicated, "A wildlife expert told us it was probably the same pair. They tend to mate for life."

This is the first time that I actual feel anything for her or him. The conversation isn't even that special, just talking about how beautiful the special place is. I am still not convinced its that special.

The story does get better at this point. There is definite interaction between the two of them. However, I still think there needs to be a bit more plot than the two of them in this special place. Perhaps, he was forced to bring her here for some crazy reason. They are both caught in a rainstorm coming home from a magical date and he remembers the old house, the special place.

I am rambling a bit I know, trying to toss out ideas that you can take or leave as you see fit.

I do believe that you need to make a change. You of course need to think about it and decide what it should be.

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

ZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZ

 

[mistertripps]

It's been a long time since your last story was posted. You wrote another story called simply "Special Place." It would be interesting to read it for a comparison.

I read 7 or 8 paragraphs waiting to be hooked, for the story to start. So I went back and studied the first paragraph more closely.

Describe to me the senses and exact descriptions of how this place makes you feel different. How does it make you feel alive. I don't feel what you are feeling. You haven't conveyed it to me.

Quickly in the early chapters before I get bored, I think you need to have something happen that grabs my interest.

Maybe, say something like - It all started that night she broke her leg. We were out on a date, not much different than my usual bar pickup. We all said the right things, almost enough to get past the door when I took her home. Then she slipped on a napkin, and came crashing down.

That's probably not what you want to say, but you need to do something. Perhaps have a dialog with her after the first couple of paragraphs. Show me this magic through the conversation rather than just saying it exists.

You haven't convinced me that this girl is that special.

Now I skip to the section quoted below:

This is the first time that I actual feel anything for her or him. The conversation isn't even that special, just talking about how beautiful the special place is. I am still not convinced its that special.

The story does get better at this point. There is definite interaction between the two of them. However, I still think there needs to be a bit more plot than the two of them in this special place. Perhaps, he was forced to bring her here for some crazy reason. They are both caught in a rainstorm coming home from a magical date and he remembers the old house, the special place.

I am rambling a bit I know, trying to toss out ideas that you can take or leave as you see fit.

I do believe that you need to make a change. You of course need to think about it and decide what it should be.

Thanks for the feedback. The other story with the similar title is pretty much the same. I wanted to use it for the Nude Day contest as I've never entered a contest before and got such positive reaction to that story in 2005. But, this time it isn't getting quite the same reviews, so I thought I'd submit it here for critique.

I understand your comments about more development of characters and plot, but the story seemed so long anyway that I was afraid to add much more detail. I suppose it depends on the reader. Some like details, some just want sex....

 

[mistertripps]

ZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZ

So sorry I didn't give you the Wham-Bam, Thank you Ma'am version....

 

[007buble]

very nice!!!!

 

[_Lynn_]

Character, plot and dialogue.

You need them all to improve this. Define your characters and let them tell their own story. Use dialogue to keep it interesting and flowing well. Find a plot, some reason for this story, for the reader to keep going from one paragraph to the next. Give us some intrigue or suspense, maybe a twist or thought to lead us into the rest of the story. Let your characters have a voice.

This had none of the above. Just my opinion.

ML

 

[MarshAlien]

This was your best paragraph, for two reasons:

The property had been in his family since before the Civil War. He had been told that Jesse James actually watered his horses there once on his way to a bank robbery. No one had lived on the land for years until his father retired and built a log cabin and dammed up the old stream to create a private lake. How many summers since had he taken vacation to visit his dad and just sit on the bank of that lake catching fish?

The first reason is that it says something interesting about the "place." The second is, it's the only paragraph in the story with a name in it. Unfortunately, it's not really a name that has anything to do with the story. Naming the characters here would be a good start, because it would encourage you to describe them in a way that makes me want to care about them, and in a way that makes them believable. As it was, I spent the whole sex scene asking, "how old are these people? Sixteen?" (I know, I know, they can't be sixteen.) Why is she so scared? What else is so special about her? Why is this guy so excited that she thinks that she wants him to make love her soon? And why doesn't she want to make love to him? Bitch.

As readers, I think we want to be able to have some identification with the characters in a story, even if it's a whacky sci-fi story. And here you haven't given us anything at all to work with.

And they're Canada geese. They may also be Canadian geese, if they're very fortunate, but the species is the Canada goose.