Unusual Feedback Request

[MMisterEE]

Hello-
I've posted the first two parts to a novel-length mind-control story, "Dreams To Come", http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=433262 and http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=433828 . The third and last part is still being tweaked, and will soon be posted.

The current stats: With 59 votes, Part 1 has a score of 4.86 (after being troll-slammed with one zero for being "too long, thus not worth reading"); Part 2 has 24 votes and is a 5.00. I only bring up these stats, which will surely change, to indicate that it is a reasonably conceived/crafted story for anyone who might volunteer to take a look.

The feedback I get is along the lines of "this is great, please continue!". Which is gratifying, but does pretty much nothing to help me identify weak spots, see particular storytelling strengths that might be further developed, etc. I'm not a writer by trade — I do other creative work, and this is definitely a hobby for now. Could it someday become more? I might make that effort in the future, or I might not. But I do know from my other creative endeavors that insightful feedback is crucial for growth — we all have our blind spots, and there are times when we must rely on others to see what we cannot yet see for ourselves.

I recognize that for anybody to respond to this by offering some nuts and bolts feedback would be an undertaking — like I said, it's a novel-length story. So I'll leave it there, hoping that someone with some enthusiasm/tolerance for a mind-control meets science fiction theme might give the story a look. Highly developed editing skills and keen reader's eyes (tempered with a somewhat diplomatic spirit) are a plus. Perhaps, for the right person, the story can be enjoyable enough that a crit won't be drudge work, but an enjoyable experience.

Thanks!
MMisterEE

p.s. Just to be clear, this is not a coded way of saying that I'm a masochist, and seek a word or vote-spanking. Just a crit, pure and simple.

 

[ClimbHi]

Hey!

Saw your post and, 'cause you asked so nicely, I read the first two chapters.

I'm likin' this tale, and gave you high marks.

FWIW, I can't fathom why somebody would give low marks to a story that obviously has at least two chapters, with 11-15 pages each, on the premise that it's "too long". Hey, if you don't want a long story, don't even start one that's over two pages. Ah, but that presupposes the moron can count to two, I guess.

Personally, if the story is good, the longer the better. I feel that I've made and "investment" in the story, learning the characters, etc., so I want to get as much in return for my investment as I can.

As for constructive criticism, I would only say that I got a bit confused here & there by the levels of dream state -- Character has a dream self, who has a dream self, dreaming of the character. Phew! Who's on first?

I don't mind a bit of initial uncertainty regarding what's real and what's dream, but the layering got so deep in a couple of places that I never could figure it out and found it distracting from the story. (I kinda got used to it after a bit though.)

OK, you got me to read it and to respond. Now return the favor and keep going! The sooner the better. ;-)

ClimbHi
Pittsburgh, PA

 

[KillerMuffin]

Well. You did ask.

First of all, it's too long for a Lit Chapter. I do agree with the negative comment that said it's too long, I'm not reading it. Not because the story is bad, but because you failed to understand your target audience. If you've got more than 3, maybe 4 Lit pages, then you're going to have people back clicking out of your story and looking for something else. Actually it's long for any kind of chapter, if you think about it. Novels have an arc. Conflict - rising action - crisis - climax - falling action - resolution. Each scene has its own mini-arc. Each chapter has it's own arc, too. It opens and then it closes in a place that makes sense. If your chapters are running about 42,000 word processor words, you've got a huge problem. 42,000 words is almost the length of the average serial western or Harlequin romance. Those skinny books. (That's about 55,000 words.) I got this number by pasting the first lit page into Word, doing a count, rounding, and multiplying by 12. How long does it take to read a Louis L'Amour book? And that's a book you can carry around with you. People are going to have problems reading your first "chapter" as it is. You're better off if you break it up into smaller parts in the actual chapters, and posting each chapter as a separate story on Lit. The story isn't too long, but the amount you're asking a person to read in one sitting is. Yes, they can go and come back, but that would require bookmarking and there's a lot of people who prefer to not keep track of their porn site browsing activity.

Each lit page will only be so many lines long. I forget exactly how many, though I did know at one time. You had 3,535 words on the first page, according to Word 2003. Those numbers will vary depending on how words are counted. About 6 3/4 word processor pages, as Lit formats the story. Keep that in mind when choosing length.

Anyway, if you'd like to edit the story, to break it up into smaller chapters on Lit for easier reading, here's a link to the FAQ on editing: http://www.literotica.com/faq/05235347.shtml#05313767, but for that, it might be easier to PM Laurel directly from the bulletin board here and tell her that you're resubmitting "Dreams to Come Ch. 01" as separate chapters to make it easier for people to read so she'll know, and then put EDIT in each chapter's title, so she'll know how to deal with it. Of course, how you present the story is entirely up to you.

I'm normally immediately against present tense when I see it. The tense has issues because it doesn't mean "right now" in narrative time. Past tense is the present in narrative time. Present tense give a sense of wrongness to any narrative, particularly one in first person. The use of present tense should be a deliberate one, a choice made because it adds a dimension to the narrative. It should be because it's comfortable for the writer. There are a lot of reasons not to use it, the least of which being that most everything is written in past tense and writers tend to lose track of the tense without noticing. The more important reasons have more to do with subject matter, plot and character development, and the relationship the writer is trying to get the reader to develop with the narrative. A reader will immediately be uncomfortable with the tense and notice it more than the writing, without even realizing it. It's jarring. Now, did you make the right choice? I'm going to go with yes. I think the tense adds to the story, not detracts from it. There's something going on and the tense makes that something more intense. Most of the time, this will not be so. The fact that this story has a sense of surrealism does make it an appropriate choice. Past tense will work just as well. Present tense works nicely.

A pet peeve: the ellipses. Knock it off. You're using them wrong. Go learn the rules and then apply. Punctuation books abound. Also, dashes have no spaces.

Dialogue tagging is annoying. You fill it full of adverbs. Adverbs are like Arc Light. Use sparingly and for a damned good reason because they kill everything. It comes down to show, don't tell; imply, don't explain. You have to trust your readers to get it. If she "asks sheepishly." Don't write she asks sheepishly. If it's important for people to know she's sheepish, have her behave sheepish. Have her peek up through her eyes, or dig her toe into the carpet, or something. Telling and explaining = setting up the VCR directions. Showing and implying = good story. There are times when you use adjective and adverbs in place of actions. It's necessary for the reader to know that bit of description, but to show it would take the story on an unnecessary tangent. For example, the pizza delivery guy shows up and he has no place in the story, other than to deliver the pizza. You don't need to develop his character and he doesn't contribute much to the development of anyone else's character, so showing his actions is unnecessary. Adjectives and adverbs work well for him. In dialogue tagging, there's more to adverbs than -ly words. There's adverbial verbs. Like admonishes, comments, exclaims, agrees, replies, bellow, etc. I got these all from you. They do double duty. First, they're verbs that provide speaking action. Secondly, the describe the action. Sounds like they'd be great words to use, huh? They suck. A lot of times, you don't even need them because they're accompanied by some other action.

First, let's look at the purpose for tagging dialogue. It has ONE purpose. To let the reader know who is speaking so the reader doesn't become confused. As such, dialogue tags are the most unnecessary necessary words in the entire story. They do nothing to further the character or plot, but they're needed, because otherwise the reader would become confused.

Now, good writers don't like words that do not develop plot or character, but just sit there. "She says" or "I say" just sit there. It's not good enough. Now, if the writer can make dialogue tags do a little extra work, like maybe show something about the character's state of mind or actions, then it's developing character and not just sitting there. "She yells" and "I cry" tells the reader something about the character. The problem is that it tells. You're better off with said words. Why? Because the reader has been well trained since "See Dick, See Jane" to ignore said words. They don't exist any more than "a" and "the" exist. You never see them, unless they're not there. Use too many adverbs, though, and people start noticing and the good story, but something's not right starts to add up. I feel like I'm kicking a dead horse now, but I'm actually working in a labyrinthine way to a point.

At one point you wrote:

"No, it has nothing to do with pizza. It's something else," Sophie comments, taking my hand.

And I couldn't help but wonder why you did that. Why did you not write:

"No, it has nothing to do with pizza. It's something else." Sophie took my hand.

This is a single paragraph, there is no one else in this paragraph. The reader would have known who was speaking. The reader would have known that the person speaking after Sophie was David, even though that bit of dialogue was not tagged (and rightly so, as that tag wasn't necessary).

A few paragraphs later, you write:

"I'm dreaming!" I exclaim. "This is all a dream!"

It's bad form. You're using the adverbial, again. You're telling me and in a flat way. I'm not getting anything from him. Reading it separately from context makes it even worse. It's like listening to Ben Stein. First of all, the exclamation points let me know that David is exclaiming. That's the meaning of exclamation. You don't use exclamation point gratuitously. Secondly, I don't necessarily need to the dialogue tagged. I know who is speaking without it. Now, since I already know who is speaking and that he's exclaiming, the "I exclaim" is pointless. However, you put it in there for a reason. You wanted the reader to know either he was crying out with strong or sudden emotion or he was speaking loudly and vehemently. Without the dictionary, I went straight to "he yelled." What did you want me to learn about his character? Was he strongly emotional or was he loudly vehement? Crying or angry? The best way to show me his character is to show me how he acts. Either that, or trust me to get that he exclaimed from the exclamation points.

Okay, no more belaboring the "quit expositing through dialogue tags" thing.

The italicized thought thing. Everything in the narrative occurs inside the narrator's head. The narrative is his thoughts. So why are you italicizing some of his thoughts? Take this particular paragraph:

I have a sudden chilling thought: Could I be dreaming again? What if I wrecked my motorcycle, and I'm unconscious on the side of the road? I will myself to float out of my body, but nothing happens. This is waking life, I'm sure of it.

The italicized portion is specifically thought, in terms of words that are moving through the character's mind. But so is, "This is waking life." The logic is off and it happens frequently with the italics. Now, it could be argued that he didn't specifically think, "This is waking life," but did specifically think about dreaming and wrecking. However, the context of the words and the fact that it is a conclusion and not action means that it is a product of the mind, and therefore a thought. Because it's in first person, the italics are unnecessary to delineate thought. In most cases, the places where you write "I thought" or "I think" as a sort of thought dialogue tags aren't very necessary either. In this situation, yes, use "I had a sudden, chilling thought," because it develops the plot. The rest of the time it poses a redundancy. It's that point when you don't trust the reader to get that we're inside the narrator's head. And seriously, when we're in first person, if the reader can't figure it out, you're either a really, really, really bad writer, like you don't have opposable thumbs bad, or the reader is in diapers. Anyway, the problem I'm having with italics is that when I see it, I apply more meaning to what's in italics and a lot of times, it's just not there. Because most thoughts aren't in italics, the ones that are must be super special, and if they're not, I go looking for that specialness. And if I don't find it? I spent a few moment out of the narrative, looking at the words themselves, before moving back into the story. This is not good.

Another note on the present tense thing. I notice that as I get farther into the story, the tense gets more and more grating. Sometimes I'm fine with it. Sometimes it's annoying. I'm noticing a pattern. Sex scene = okay with present tense. Non sex scene = not okay with present tense. Since I've gotten to the point in my life where I find sex scenes pointless, and tend to skim, then the pattern is establishing itself in my head as present tense is okay as long as I don't actually read it. Do with this personal reaction as you will.

"I don't know why, and it's like a house built on sand, but Christ —"

This, well, I laughed for a while. I don't know if you actually intended to make this unfortunate religious allusion, but you did, and at the end of a sex scene, in a sentence full of hummers, too. Don't think many people's minds will go there, but at least you didn't mention a rock.

Now, I can't really get into the story on anything larger than a sentence level because I didn't get through the whole thing, so I don't have a full understanding of the plot itself. I get it enough, but not enough to offer comment. I wasn't attracted to the story. I don't like first person very much, and I especially don't like it in present tense. I don't think you pulled it off. The story was too self-absorbed and I didn't get a good feel for other characters. They felt more like objects than people to me. That may have had something to do with the premise and the fact that David could never tell if he was dreaming or not, so all of the women he encountered behaved in a highly stereotypical, one-dimensional way, that is, the women all behave in the way I expected them to behave. They were all shaped the way I expected them to be, with only mild variations in hair color and dress. They were pretty much interchangeable in personality, in that they had little. Their interactions with David were predictable and normative. By normative, I mean expected for the genre. Now, this does not mean "bad." For me, it's bad. I'm not interested in it. I like a little sex with my stories. For most people visiting this site, it means "great!" They like a little story with their sex. I don't come to Lit for the stories, I come for the bulletin board. I get into stories not to read them, but to crit them. So please don't take my lack of interest for more than what it is. I think you know what your audience wants in a story and you deliver it. Now, whether or not you appeal to females looking for sex stories v. males looking for sex stories, I leave to psychologists. Lit doesn't gather gender information. Could be interesting....

Anyway. The first paragraph, your hook. "Uh-oh, here come the boobs." It's got a lovely bit of tension in it that makes it interesting. Porn gives you the expectation of Yay boobies!, not Uh-oh, boobies. This is followed by a paragraph describing three swanning cheerleaders, one of the grandiose gazongas, and the narrator's lack of relationship with said gazongas. Had I been reading for fun, I would have left the story here. There's nothing in this paragraph that isn't cliche ridden. It's main problem, though, is that it's entirely exposition about people who have no bearing on the plot of the story. This exposition overshadows the opening line completely because it carries on so long. The third paragraph, which does bring the story back to interesting, introduces the characters and some tension. There's also a curious lack of foreshadowing, which is odd considering that the novel's primary conflict is going to be introduce less than 2,000 words in the same scene. The foreshadowing would have ratcheted up tension and made it far more interesting. Again, bear in mind the kind of reader that's writing this and the audience you're targeting.

Huhm. Lit audiences are an interesting beast. They're vast. Lit gets over 1.2 million unique hits a day, with the average stay lasting over 20 minutes. You can write for an audience as vast as you like, the general porn seeker (which wants to get to the sex pretty soon, but give me some interesting people, not just measurements, please), to as narrow as you like (discerning, literary tastes, who want character heavy pieces and don't mind waiting 40k words for three sentences of eroticism). I always wrote for people somewhere in between. So anyway, I'm sure you've got a picture in your head of who your average reader is, so that's the person that should be kept in mind when crafting and revisioning. (I deliberately use revision, rather than revise.)

So, back to your story. I like that the conflict came up right away. I also mostly like how introduced it and finally explained it. The mount was usual, the routine was shaky in the beginning, but developed confidence as it kept going, but you nailed the dismount. Even the German judges would be impressed. Well, other than the I exclaimed thing. Following the rising tension was difficult because, well, I skim sex scenes. Sorry, they're boring. It's both a combination of your writing (he has mental powers over women sex scenes all happen pretty much the same way, with the same realization of how irresistible he is and how great his cock is--read one, read 'em all), and my underwhelming lack of interest in the subject. So, I didn't keep track. It's a long story and I didn't make it all the way through. I read the last page and didn't find anything that seemed like a crisis or made it seem like a crisis had been reached, so you're still doing rising action in part two. Speaking of parts, you can submit an "edited" story and ask the editor to change the title to "Dreams to Come Pt. 01" and "Pt. 02" etc. since you have chapters inside. If you wanna. I'm a perfectionist, so it would keep me up at night, but other people aren't as uptight as me.

 

[minder4u]

erotic vs pornographic

I am incredibly cheered by your post. I too find sex scenes boring, because I believe that the truly erotic happens in the head (specifically the limbic system). Your points on good fiction writing techniques are also 'write on'. Now I have to go back and look at my own stories!

 

[MMisterEE]

I went away on vacation without my computer, and see that thanks are in order, even if belated. The detailed feedback is extremely helpful.

I've submitted the conclusion to the story —*should be up in a few days.