What do you think of this...

[Jenny _S]

This paragraph is driving me nutz!

"As she worked the blusher and sponges over her cheekbones her mind built a mental image of the evening to come. Dancing before her eyes she could see Lance at her door, flowers in hand, telling her how beautiful and alluring she looked. His dazzling smile would leave her giddy, unable to even speak. Then in his arms, lips touching in the first tentative kiss she knew this was not going to be like the others. She would play the little seduction game, hands touching, inadvertently brushing her breasts against him, and getting wetter by the moment. Finally, back at her apartment they would consummate their love in orgasmic explosion after explosion."

Pretty sucky, huh?

 

[MathGirl]

Pretty sucky, huh?

Dear Jenny,
Well..... now that you mention it ..... that last sentence.......
In Critical Condition,
MG

 

[The_old_man]

A bit of re-write is indicated.

 

[Jenny _S]

Re: Re: What do you think of this...

Dear Jenny,
Well..... now that you mention it ..... that last sentence.......
In Critical Condition,
MG

Yeah, MG
That's kinda what I thought too.

 

[destinie21]

This paragraph is driving me nutz!

"As she worked the blusher and sponges over her cheekbones her mind built a mental image of the evening to come. Dancing before her eyes she could see Lance at her door, flowers in hand, telling her how beautiful and alluring she looked. His dazzling smile would leave her giddy, unable to even speak. Then in his arms, lips touching in the first tentative kiss she knew this was not going to be like the others. She would play the little seduction game, hands touching, inadvertently brushing her breasts against him, and getting wetter by the moment. Finally, back at her apartment they would consummate their love in orgasmic explosion after explosion."

Pretty sucky, huh?

I'm taking liberties as usual. I would re-word it a bit as follows


As she worked the blush over the arch of her cheekbones her mind built a mental image of the evening to come, she could almost see Lance at her door, flowers in hand, telling her how beautiful and alluring she looked. His dazzling smile would leave her giddy, unable to even speak. Then in his arms, lips touching in the first tentative kiss she knew this was going to be a night unlike the others. She would play the little seduction game, hands touching, inadvertently brushing her breasts against him, teasing him, teasing herself and getting wetter by the moment. Finally, back at her apartment they would consummate their love.

just my worthless two cents do with it what you will

 

[Quasimodem]

In the opening sentence I still don't like "worked." It sounds too much like she's applying elbow-grease.

Maybe "shaded" or some other term borrowed from art.

And her mind building mental images, makes me want to stop and ask her if building physical images is optional.

Course, what do I know?

To me a compact is a slightly smaller automobile.

 

[Guest]

Hey Jenn. I'll be blunt. It's awfully trite, especially the last sentence. Too much verb tense acrobatics. Reads contrived and effortful. Don't know the whole story but this would as much as I'd read. Sorry.

Perdita

 

[Jenny _S]

Hey Jenn. I'll be blunt. It's awfully trite, especially the last sentence. Too much verb tense acrobatics. Reads contrived and effortful. Don't know the whole story but this would as much as I'd read. Sorry.

Perdita

No, it's alright, perdita. I said it was sucky. The last sentence has already been reworked. The paragraph IS trite, intentionally so. This is a woman who LIVES a trite world. Her love affairs never work out. In fact, at 30 she's still a virgin after many tries. But she doesn't give up even though she's stuck in a cycle of hope followed by failure.

But yeah. It sucks pretty bad.

 

[Jenny _S]

Re: Re: What do you think of this...

I'm taking liberties as usual. I would re-word it a bit as follows


As she worked the blush over the arch of her cheekbones her mind built a mental image of the evening to come, she could almost see Lance at her door, flowers in hand, telling her how beautiful and alluring she looked. His dazzling smile would leave her giddy, unable to even speak. Then in his arms, lips touching in the first tentative kiss she knew this was going to be a night unlike the others. She would play the little seduction game, hands touching, inadvertently brushing her breasts against him, teasing him, teasing herself and getting wetter by the moment. Finally, back at her apartment they would consummate their love.

just my worthless two cents do with it what you will

As always, Des...
You write much better than I do.

 

[Jenny _S]

LMAO

In the opening sentence I still don't like "worked." It sounds too much like she's applying elbow-grease.

Maybe "shaded" or some other term borrowed from art.

And her mind building mental images, makes me want to stop and ask her if building physical images is optional.

Course, what do I know?

To me a compact is a slightly smaller automobile.

I think the elbow-grease is call "War Paint" Quas

Building mental images does sort of sound like a contractor
<Laughing>

 

[Icingsugar]

Two things jumped out and bit me:

"Then in his arms, lips touching in the first tentative kiss she knew this was not going to be like the others."

I read it once. I read it twice. Etill not sure who or what the others in this case is.

"She would play the little seduction game, hands touching, inadvertently brushing her breasts against him, and getting wetter by the moment."

Um...who is she gonna seduce? Herself?

And the ending sentence was a bit over the top. At lest for me.

/Ice - 8 in the morning

 

[Jenny _S]

Two things jumped out and bit me:

"Then in his arms, lips touching in the first tentative kiss she knew this was not going to be like the others."

I read it once. I read it twice. Etill not sure who or what the others in this case is.

"She would play the little seduction game, hands touching, inadvertently brushing her breasts against him, and getting wetter by the moment."

Um...who is she gonna seduce? Herself?

And the ending sentence was a bit over the top. At lest for me.

/Ice - 8 in the morning

There are a couple of pages that come before the clip I posted. The story tells you the "others" are all her previous failed loves. There are several paragraphs just before this that explain that.

As far as who is seducing who, you are right. In her mind he is seducing her but in reality it's the other way around. Again the story begins with her stepping out of the shower thinking about how the seduction takes place.

By the way. The story will be in the humor catagory. There's nothing serious here at all. This seduction will fail too, but the reader finds out why.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

She's having a daydream, and I think the source of the trouble is that there's too much concrete detail to seem like a dream. Concrete detail is very close-focus; it's how we make things seem real. It's out of place in a reverie like this. This is one time where you should use very soft focus and just tell us what she's thinking rather than showing the details of her vision.

Also, watch out for cliche traps. First you have her building a "mental image", and then you have him actually "dancing" in front of her eyes. WHich is it? In her mind, or before her eyes.

And now look: as she gets into her daydream, she starts dreaming about knowing that his kiss was different and dreaming of planning things. In effect she's now dreaming of what she'll dream about, so she's dreaming of herself dreaming. That's going a bit overboard.

---dr.M.

 

[Jenny _S]

She's having a daydream, and I think the source of the trouble is that there's too much concrete detail to seem like a dream. Concrete detail is very close-focus; it's how we make things seem real. It's out of place in a reverie like this. This is one time where you should use very soft focus and just tell us what she's thinking rather than showing the details of her vision.

Also, watch out for cliche traps. First you have her building a "mental image", and then you have him actually "dancing" in front of her eyes. WHich is it? In her mind, or before her eyes.

And now look: as she gets into her daydream, she starts dreaming about knowing that his kiss was different and dreaming of planning things. In effect she's now dreaming of what she'll dream about, so she's dreaming of herself dreaming. That's going a bit overboard.

---dr.M.

Yes, Dr. M. I see all that now. This woman is sort of a nut cast and I am trying to write this over the top. But it did go way too far. I think that's what bothered me in the first place.

Thanks to all of you

 

[MaxSebastian]

It's like premature ejaculation in fiction form.

 

[destinie21]

It's like premature ejaculation in fiction form.

Don't worry Jen it's perfectly natural it happens all the time

 

[Jenny _S]

It's like premature ejaculation in fiction form.

Yeah. That was the idea. But I think I may have killed her in the process

 

[MathGirl]

In summation..............

Yeah. That was the idea. But I think I may have killed her in the process

Dear Jenny,
I believe I can summarize and speak for the majority here: There's nothing wrong with that paragraph that can't be easily fixed by starting all over again.
MG
Ps. I have the same feeling when I read one of my stories. You have more nerve than I. I know better than to offer something of mine up for public criticism.

 

[ffreak]

OK, let me ruin it for everyone. When I read it, I thought of a woman I knew who also was probably a virgin at 30 - she'll never figure-out why. This sounded just exactly like she would describe a 'big' date with some poor sucker who lost the bet. She wasn't bad looking at all. But after about 10 minutes in her presence, most men went out to get cigarettes and never came back.

They do say truth is stranger than fiction.

Lance? He really is called Lance? C'mon, that must be an alias. Bet he tapes a pickle to his leg, too.

Point is, if it's humour, then sometimes overdone writing enhances the setup for the punch line.

-FF (?)

 

[raphy]

This paragraph is driving me nutz!

"As she worked the blusher and sponges over her cheekbones her mind built a mental image of the evening to come. Dancing before her eyes she could see Lance at her door, flowers in hand, telling her how beautiful and alluring she looked. His dazzling smile would leave her giddy, unable to even speak. Then in his arms, lips touching in the first tentative kiss she knew this was not going to be like the others. She would play the little seduction game, hands touching, inadvertently brushing her breasts against him, and getting wetter by the moment. Finally, back at her apartment they would consummate their love in orgasmic explosion after explosion."

Pretty sucky, huh?

Err, can I be presumtuous and make a few practical suggestions. I'm not really very good with correct grammatical terms and suchlike, so I find it much easier to show by example rather than try and explain what I'm trying to say.. It's also quite a lot for one paragraph..

Also, there's just one sentence that I had to re-read, and I'm still entirely sure what you meant:

Then in his arms, lips touching in the first tentative kiss she knew this was not going to be like the others

Did you mean the kiss wasn't going to be like the others - Or that the kiss signified that her prospective relationship with Lance wasn't going to be like the others?

If it's the first, I think I'd probably write something like this:

Then she'd be in his arms, reaching for his lips in that first tentative kiss; a kiss that she knew would be unlike any of the others....

If the second, I'd probably change that line to read something like:

Then she'd be in his arms, reaching for his lips in that first tentative kiss; a kiss that she knew would show that this time, it would be different to the others

It's not an easy paragraph to write, that's for sure .. Kudos to you for attempting it, more so for sharing with us.

 

[ffreak]

This is the Harlequin thread, right? I mean, who do you expect to be your reader? From this group, as a tongue in cheek, I think over the top is hilarious. If you're talking the Lit masses (is that an oxymoron - or are we just talking maroons?) then posting it in humor is the best clue they have - and they may still take it seriously.

-FF (Repent, Harlequin, said the Tick-Tock Man)

ps. don't mind me, the knee acts up in bad weather - just waiting for Isabel to get over me.

pps. hope our members in the outer banks have all come inland.

 

[raphy]

Eff, you're making even less sense today than you usually do!!

 

[ffreak]

Thank you, cowboy.

-FF

 

[Jenny _S]

Well... you miss several pages that come before that clip... here :

She worked the blusher with sponges over her cheekbones as her mind wandered to thoughts of the evening to come. Lori knew Lance would show up at her door, flowers in hand, telling her how beautiful and alluring she looked. His dazzling smile always left her giddy, unable to even speak. Then she thought of being in his arms, lips touching in the first tentative kiss. She hoped with all her preparations this date would not end tragically as the others had. She knew how to play the little seduction games, hands touching, inadvertently brushing her breasts against him. Keeping his interest high while she became wetter by the minute.


That's the rewrite... The "this one"...really refers to her current opportunity to get laid...

This is better... and, I think, a little clearer. (Also the sucky last sentene is gone completely...

later in the story....

______________________________________________
But she was. The doorbell rang just as she was adjusting the double string of pearls so they fell seductively into her exposed cleavage. With a final quick look in the full-length mirror on the back of the bedroom door Lori went to greet Lance, stopping at the small kitchenette to double dose herself on the pills the doctor had given her.

As the door opened Lori began to feel a rumbling in her stomach. “Why, Lance. You’re right on time.”

Lance began to say something but was cut off by an unmistakable noise. BRRRRRAAAAAAAKKKKKKKPPHHHHH.

Lance took a step back. “What the fuck was that?”

Anxiously Lori looked around the room and spied a pillow with a dog embroidered on the cover. “Oh, the dog. He’s been sick, Lance. Please excuse him.”

______________________________________________

The problem with this story is that it is tongue in cheek but the story can't appear that way because Lori is in earnest. The funny part is in the action itself.

 

[MathGirl]

Lance began to say something but was cut off by an unmistakable noise. BRRRRRAAAAAAAKKKKKKKPPHHHHH.
______________________________________________
The problem with this story is that it is tongue in cheek but the story can't appear that way because Lori is in earnest.

Dear JS,
I like it. One question, though. Who is Earnest? Also, shouldn't Ernie be in Lori? I know it's nitpicking, but someone was eventually going to point it out.
Your fan,
MG
Ps. When in doubt, always blame it on the dog. Why else would anyone have a dog?