Workshop: CWatson

[KillerMuffin]

CWatson brings us a new workshop for your review. You guys make this place great for authors!

The Concerns:

The usual author questions are posted after the story, as he would like readers to go into it with a clear mind and no preconceptions!

The Story Itself
(no working title, I'm TERRIBLE at titles)

With a final groan, Max pulled out of me and came onto my chest and stomach, his stringy semen clinging to me like frosting. I made appropriate cooing noises, coming down (at least in theory) from my post-orgasmic bliss. Lovingly, I scooped up his cum and delivered it, strand by strand, into my mouth; and then sat up and went down to his cock, which I licked and sucked as clean as I could make it.

"...And... Cut, that's a wrap," said Dave.

I spat his cock out of my mouth and went to find something to rinse with. I don't know what that guy has been eating recently, but his cum was foul.

I went back to my dressing room. It was pretty easy to find, because of the name on it: Sally Dakota. You know that joke that goes around about how you take the name of your first pet and then the street that you were born on, and you get your porn-star name? That's pretty accurate. No, my first pet was named Sally. She was a golden retriever. And Dakota Lane was the street my family lived on when I was born. And yes, I am a porn star. Sally Dakota, rising star of the adult film industry. They're saying I might get nominated for something this year. And if not, there's always quickies for the websites. They pay pretty good money for rising talent, because it draws in the crowds.

I put on a robe. I'm not ashamed of my body; I couldn't be, not and do what I do for a living. But today I was just in a bad mood. Probably had something to do with how I had midterms today that I wasn't exactly ready for, because instead of studying, I was here in this studio in San Francisco, being plundered by a flabby forty-year-old cuntivore. It would take me an hour to get back to San Jose State. People might come in, or I might have to go out; I wasn't in the mood to flaunt.

The director, Dave Billingsley, stopped in afterwards. I love working with Dave. He's in his early thirties, and I think of him almost like a big brother. He's got great vision, but he also has class--I've worked with directors who talk to your tits, but Dave doesn't do that. It's quite a mercy on these sets.

"Sally, I just wanted to say, that was a great performance. I know you're missing classes, and I really appreciate your willingness to, you know, to buckle down and get these things done. I'm sorry Max was such a monster. I'm not sure what was up with him."

"More like what wasn't up," I said humorlessly. Max Rodding, as his name was, (Rodding Ave.?) had enormous trouble getting himself into physical readiness for his part of the festivities. I'm not sure why. Dave once described me as having the face of an angel and the sexual appetites of a devil; it's a strange juxtaposition, but it sells. Evidently people like cute, kinky girls. But it didn't sell good ol' Max. There were a lot of Viagra jokes bandied about. But when the man isn't up and running, guess who's supposed to bring him up to speed?

"You're a trooper, kiddo," Dave said, giving me a sideways hug. "Thanks a ton."

Sometimes it's hard to remember why I got into this business. With Dave around, it's always a lot easier.

Well, it's also pretty easy to tell you why I got into this business. I love sex. I was one of those inquisitive kids; I've been masturbating for so long that I can't even remember when I discovered I could do it. I was that young. I don't know what my parents thought. Mom probably didn't notice at all. She's been drunk basically every day since my little brother Tommy was born. He's fourteen. I'm twenty.

All the scholarships I could get my hands on, wouldn't put me through college. So when I needed to make money, my boyfriend at the time suggested I see if I could get into adult movies. It sounded like fun. I'm a good lay--and I'm good for the same reason people become good tennis players, or good at video games, or good cooks: because they like what they do, and want to do more of it. And it was fun. At least, for a while. Now I'm twenty, and I'm starting to feel worn out. But I have a year more of college to go through, at absolute minimum; I'll probably need to go to grad school. What do I want to be? A sex therapist, of course. I'm a psychology major with emphasis on sexuality. That got me a lot of looks when I declared. Face of an angel, remember; and I know how to dress so that people don't notice my body so much, but then I can be very direct. I don't mince words. There's not much that scares me. They see my face and then hear me candidly talking about clitorises or blowjobs and it completely contrasts with that chaste, virginal girl image in their heads--they figure I'm some complete pervert. Once they realized I was neither, though, they basically left me alone.

So that's my life. It could be worse. I love my brother Tommy, and he loves me--not in that way; God, that's too kinky even for me!--and I enjoy my classes and I even have some friends. So... Why am I so lonely?

Maybe it's because there's not one person in existence who realizes that I'm Sally Dakota. Sometimes, on my better days, I feel like some modern women's-lib version of Batman: mild-mannered college student Robin Marie Stanton by day, depraved and sensual Sally Dakota by night. But at other times it just drives me to despair. I feel like I'm lying to everyone in my life, except maybe myself. And I want to be honest with someone.

Yeah right. Honest with someone. Who won't be scared off or instantly turned on if I tell them I'm a porn star? Talk about Prince Charming. That sort of person just doesn't exist, hon, so stop dreaming, Sleeping Beauty, and get back to the real world.

I parked my car and squared my shoulders. Midterms. Real life, here I come.

* * * * *

Will Chambers wasn't the most observent of people, so he didn't notice the hot girl until the day of the midterm. It was true, he had other girls to look at--particularly his friend Alicia, who was dropping broad hints in his direction almost every day now. Nonetheless, with such a striking face, one would think he would have noticed her before.

She was sitting about halfway down the auditorium-like lecture hall. The first thing that caught his eye was her hair--a curly blonde mass that enshrined her face. The second, as he drew parallel to her, was the intense concentration on her face. She was poring over her notes--last-minute studying--biting her lip, furrowing her brow, glaring down at those notes as if she could make them obey her by sheer force alone. She had a smooth, rounded face, almost childish, with a sense of eternal innocence about it. Angelic, maybe that was the word for it. And, very clearly, it was quite an expressive face too. He liked it.

Will Chambers wasn't one to shirk from risk, but he felt strangely intimidated by this girl. She was (in his eyes, at least), very beautiful, and probably out of his caliber. But at the same time he was drawn to her, tugged by the look in her eyes, the cast of her features, that childlike simplicity that was strength and vulnerability all by itself.

He moved down the row and sat next to her.

She seemed startled by his entrance, and for a moment he wondered if he had done something wrong. But, still a little wide-eyed, she returned to her notes, and in moments was lost in concentration again.

He took another look at her while she was busy. She had eyes of clear, sparkling gray, and a small, delicate mouth. She dressed in plain, pastel-hued clothes that leant her dignity and brought out her pale colorings, but up close he realized that she was deceptively deep-chested. Her arms were dusted with downy hair.

The innocence of that face drew him.

"Ready for the midterm," he asked conversationally.

"Oh God, no," she replied without looking up.

"Not enough studying?"

She sighed. "Didn't have time." Of course, I can't exactly tell him why, but I didn't. "No lunch either. Too much to do this morning."

"Sucks," he said. "Anything particularly bothering you?" Will wasn't a math whiz by any means, but basic Statistics were within his grasp.

"Yeah, I don't get the difference between these two t tests," the girl said.

"It's pretty simple," Will said.

And Robin found herself confronted with a real, honest-to-god expert in Statistics. She was glad she had arrived early for the class; otherwise, she might be going into this midterm completely lost. Math was just not her thing, but statistics was a required course for psych majors, so here she was. And, thankfully, here was this smart fellow who could explain to her the things she didn't understand.

"You should teach this class," she said. "You do a better job of explaining it than the professor does."

He smiled at her. "He's old and boring. The material itself is not that hard. Sure, it's weird, but once you get your head around it..." And then, realizing that he still didn't know her name: "Hi, I'm Will."

She shook his proffered hand. "Robin."

The professor came in, then, and the entire class went quiet. Dr. Westin came down to the front of the classroom in complete silence. Will glanced at Robin once and found her attentively focused on the professor.

Dr. Westin put his bag down and adjusted his spectacles. "Hello, class. I, ah, can see that you're all enthralled by my presence." There was a bit of nervous giggling, but it died down quickly. "I imagine you'll be glad to know that I did some thinking last night about our progress this quarter, and realized that perhaps we're moving too fast. How many of you would like to delay the midterm until Friday and spend today in review?"

Suddenly the classroom was a seat of bristling hands. Will was one of the few dissenting opinions. Robin gave him a questioning glance, to which Will shrugged and grinned. It wasn't that he wanted to take the midterm, it was simply that he was ready to, and why delay what you can do today?

Nevertheless, the classroom democracy had spoken. The next hour was a fascinatingly clarifying review of statistics in general, and at the end of the hour, Robin realized that, barring unforseen disaster or act of god, she should probably be able to do well on the midterm on Friday. But when Will Chambers caught up with her after class and said, "You know, if you still need help, I've got time tomorrow."

What the hell. He was kind of cute.

They met on Thursday to go over the material for the midterm. She found he was wise and canny, always patient, with a good grasp of the material and a strong sense of humor. She was attentive, asking pertinent, intelligent questions and picking things up quickly. She liked his simplicity, his calm, unaffected demeanor. It was as if he had risen above lesser concerns. He loved the unabashed play of emotions on her face; he could tell at an instant whether she was concentrating, whether she was distracted, when the proverbial lightbulb turned on in her head. That expression he particularly loved: her wide gray eyes, her mouth turning slowly from startled gape to brilliant smile. She was really attractive, and he wanted to get to know her.

The problem was that once the studying closed up, so did she. Attempts to elicit personal information were quietly but unequivocally deflected. If one were to trust her noncommittal answers, she had no friends or family, did not listen to music, had no interests or hobbies--was, in fact, a bland and antisocial person, remarkable only for (one) her unremarkability, and (two) the non-hostile yet focused way she steered the conversation away from herself. Where she got this sort of self-possession in the first place, he didn't know; her face would lead people to expect an innocent, charming, perhaps naive woman, not this jaded, lidded-eyed ice queen. But sometimes there was a charming, unashamed woman there; he had seen her come out in the throes of studying.

That was who he really wanted to see. And to find out what made the other one, the ice queen, come out of hiding.

It took until after the midterm on Friday for him to get his courage up. Though he had learned to fake it, courage was a foreign thing to him, especially around someone who could be as standoffish as Robin. He thought she might suddenly up and smash his head off at any given moment. So it was with a little trepidation that he approached her after class.

"Hold on," she said after he had stammered through something awkward and unplanned. "I've had a long day, I can't stand all these verbal gymnastics. Are you asking me to go out with you tonight?"

"Uh," said Will. "Yeah, I suppose I am."

"Sure," Robin said, and they arranged to meet in several hours.

So Will got to go back to his apartment that he shared with his friends and tell them he had gotten a date. They cheered him and congratulated him and plied him with condoms. All things considered, though, Will was pretty sure he wasn't going to need them.

Robin was an enigma to him. He picked her up at her house, opened doors for her, drove the car, but she took charge. Except when she didn't take charge, and seemed to be zoned out. It was all very strange and very awkward, and Will had no real idea if he was screwing up or not. Sometimes she was lethargic, staring off into space; sometimes she burst into direct opinion, almost giving orders. Will felt dizzy, but he tried to take it all in stride. He wasn't entirely sure if it worked.

They ended up in one of the local malls, Valley Fair, at the food court--still remarkably busy even though the place was closing in an hour. They had gotten ice cream. Will's was gone. Robin's was melting. So, for the most part, was Will. He felt wrung out.

"Hello," he said. "Earth to Robin." He was wondering how to suggest that it might be time to go home, without insulting her or suggesting that she was supposed to come home with him. He wasn't sure it was possible, but he had to try. He wasn't sure he could take much more of this.

"Oh," Robin said, "what?"

"Your ice cream's melting."

"Oh, that," Robin said.

"You've been preoccupied all night," Will said. "Did I catch you at a bad time, or...?"

For almost the first time that night, Robin looked at him directly. She had pale skin and whitish blonde hair and light gray eyes, and under the harsh neon lights of the mall she looked strangely anemic.

"No," she said after a moment. "Not a bad time. At least, not any worse than it could have been. Sometimes I think all I have are bad times."

Will was intrigued despite his weariness. "What do you mean?"

She blew out explosive breath. "Well... You know how, on some days, everything just goes wrong?"

"Yeah."

"I think today was one of those days."

Will kept silent, implying for her to continue, wondering if he counted as one of the things that had gone wrong.

"It's not like... I mean, I think I did okay on the midterm," she said, "and it wasn't half as bad a morning as Wednesday's; I didn't even have to work today. But... I've been just out of it, and confused, and not thinking straight, and... Wrong. Today was a good day. Today was a great day. But I guess I just got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, and it ruined my day for me."

"I'm sorry," Will said, feeling bad for her. "I guess I don't have that problem as much. My bed's up against a wall, there's only one side I could get out of it on."

"Ah," Robin said. "But what if the proper side changes from time to time?"

"Does it?"

"Probably, because my bed's up against a wall too," Robin said. And then she did something unbelievable: she smiled. Will realized it was the first time he had ever seen her do that. She had white teeth and her fog-gray eyes were joyful.

They were a little hesitant after that, unwilling to break the moment. But they felt as though a lot of the walls between them had gone down.

"So, tell me about yourself," Robin said.

Will wasn't sure what to do; personal information was one of the things he had tried throwing at her to wake her up. Should he repeat himself? Should he refuse and risk offending her? "Well, I already did," Will said, smiling, "but I'm not sure you were paying attention."

"No, I heard," Robin said. "I wasn't listening, but I heard." As if to prove it, she ticked off points on her fingers. "You're nineteen years old, you were born here, you don't have any siblings, you like watching basketball, you rent an apartment off-campus with two friends, you don't like Mexican food, you..."

Will was laughing. "Okay, Ms. Photographic Memory, you were listening."

"So, go on," she said. "Tell me about yourself."

"Why," he asked, grinning. "Sounds like you could write me an autobiography."

"Yes, but facts don't mean anything," she said. "Everyone has different faces, everyone has things they hide sometimes. Tell me some of those."

Will gave her a raised eyebrow. "That's a pretty big request," he said. "Some of that information you could use against me."

Her eyes narrowed. "Do you really think I'm going to?"

Uh-oh, quicksand. Tread carefully. "Well... Robin, you're not exactly single-faced either. Sometimes you're... You're warm, and outgoing, and friendly; and then sometimes I feel like some sort of bug you're eyeing and thinking about squashing." With a refreshing burst of honesty: "I'm never really sure which side I'm going to face next."

"Well, look, you," she said darkly. "The nice, sensitive part of me wants to know who you really are. The sharp, insulated part of me doesn't give a damn. It does, however, have a tendency to get what it wants. The soft, happy part of me, however, keeps its friends safe from the sharp, mean part of me. So you have nothing to fear. Unless you don't start talking."

"Fine, I'll start talking," Will said, "you scare me."

The fearsome expression on her face fell away into blank astonishment.

"You just... Waltz in and get what you want. You intimidate me. You confuse me. I have no idea how those two sides of you square away with each other, they're almost like polar opposites. I don't even know where you got that side. You're a beautiful girl, Robin, and you're a nice girl. But then you start putting up the ice and it freezes people. You don't need to do that. So why do you?"

For a second, Will thought he had frozen her--she stayed with that blank, uncomprehending stare for some time. Then it melted, and she withdrew a little. And yet... "I do it because..." And yet he didn't feel like she was pulling away. "I do it because... I've been hurt. In the past. I've had to do things to survive that I wouldn't've done otherwise. And... I've had to protect myself. From what I'd feel about those things. It's dangerous for me to trust people, so..."

"It's not dangerous to trust me," he said quietly.

"But can you promise that," she asked him. "Can you guarantee that you'll never-- God, I dunno, that you'll never hurt me or betray me or anything like that?"

"Of course not," he said, "no one can."

She sighed. "Then I guess I can't trust anyone."

"That's a harsh way to go through life," he remarked.

"Yeah..." she said. "I guess I just have to come out of my shell and trust somebody."

"You could do worse than choosing me," he said, feeling like the world's biggest showoff.

But she gave him a wry, speculative look and said, "Yeah, I could, couldn't I," and made a small smile for him.

"So," he said. "We'll trade. You tell me something about you, I'll tell you something about me."

"Something embarrassing," Robin said, with a sudden, bright grin.

"Why embarrassing?"

"It's more fun that way."

"Fine, fine," Will said. "You go first."

She gave him a saucy look. "Fine, fine... Hrm, something embarrassing about me... Well... I love sex."

Uh.

"Oooooh," Robin said, grinning, "that got your attention. Your eyebrows almost climbed into your hair." Her grin turned seditious. "And I wonder if it got a rise out of anything else."

"You know," Will said, blushing furiously. "That's really not something I was expecting."

She rolled her eyes. "No one does. I don't see why it's such a big deal. I mean, yeah, people tell me I have the 'face of an angel' or whatever, but that doesn't mean I am one. It's the new millenium. Women are allowed to enjoy sex. I'm just not embarrassed about it, is all."

"That's true," Will said. "I guess it does make sense."

"Yeah, I wish people would stop to think it out sometimes... Your turn."

Will thought for a minute. Fine, if she wanted to play sexy... "I'm a virgin."

Now it was her turn to wide-eye. "I wasn't expecting that either."

"Why not?"

"Well, you're a really nice guy. You're good at statistics, you're fun to talk to... You've put up with a lot of shit from me tonight." She gave him a beautiful smile. "You'd think someone would've noticed by now and gotten her claws in you permanently."

Will shrugged. "I'm not the noticeable type."

"Why not?" She gave him a piercing, direct stare. "If you want something, you go out and get it."

"Yeah but, see, I can't think like that," he said. "If I try to get something I want, I always figure that it'll go completely wrong, or crash down on my head or... Something. I dunno. It scares me off."

"So..." Robin squinted. His way of thinking was completely foreign to her. "You keep yourself off the market because you're afraid of..." She raised her eyebrows, punctuating with a question mark.

"I dunno," Will said miserably. "But whatever it is, it keeps me off the field."

She gave him a look. "Then," she said softly, "how did you manage to ask me out?"

He gave her a watery smile. "I dunno. I just... Closed my eyes and did it. Didn't let myself think about it, just blurted it out before I could get a chance to panic."

"You should do that more often," she said, smiling at him.

After he had dropped her off, and the obligatory good-night kiss (which he liked, even though it was nowhere near smoldering, because it promised things to come), he went home to his apartment. He was tired and really wanted to just get to sleep, but from the number of cars parked nearby, he immediately knew that either Steve or Marc, the other co-renters, was having friends over. It was Steve, and, of all things, they were watching porn.

"Steve," Will said, "isn't this the sort of thing you're supposed to watch privately?" Steve could be quite the horndog at times, but there weren't many other people Will might want at his side during a crisis.

"Naw, man," Steve said, "there's some awesome oral at the end of it. Stick around, you ought to see it."

"Uh," said Will. He had gotten used to Steve's habit of sharing porn; as other friends might pass on the news about good movies or point out hot chicks as they passed, Steve kept AIM windows ringing with porn recommendations. He also held home viewings, as he was doing now, on a fairly regular basis. Will called these, "Voyeur sessions." What it meant, though, was that Will had seen more cumshots in his four months as Steve's roommate than for the rest of his nineteen years. And Will was getting pretty bored of them. It was the same thing, always. How dumb could you get?

"No, actually, it's the guy going down, for once," Steve said. "You gotta see the girl's reactions. She's new to the industry, but she's hot."

"What's her name," Will asked. He took a closer look at the chick being nailed by the typical hairy, flabby-gut mid-thirties grunter. Why did porn sell those sorts of guys? Part of the fantasy was to pretend that you were the guy. Who wanted to pretend to be a balding thirty-five-year-old with a premature beer belly?

The chick, on the other hand, was pretty hot. She didn't have the watermelon boobs of some women in the industry; in fact, they were pretty small, but they were shapely, and weighty enough to jiggle when she was nailed from behind, as was happening now. She had a beautiful ass--and Will wasn't at all an ass person, so that was saying something--sweetly curved without being excessively rotund. She had a bushy corona of pale golden curls and clear white skin, and her face had an innocence to it. Even now, bent over with her tits brushing the bedspread and her ass presented in the air, there was a hesitation about her, a demureness; and yet she was clearly enjoying herself, from the way she bucked against her partner, the turn of her hips, the arched back.

"Dakota," said Steve. "That's her name. Sally Dakota."

Will watched for a while, saying nothing.

"Oh boy," said Marc, who had also wandered in to watch--with, of all people, his girlfriend. "Will's falling in love again."

Steve's friends clamored for gossip.

"It's this thing he does sometimes," Steve said. "He thinks she's cute."

"Well, she is cute," Will said.

"She is," Marc said. "But you're not supposed to like her face, you're supposed like her ass. She's just a porn star."

"That's not fair," Will said. "How about if you get drafted into the NFL next season and you have fans, but everyone tells you, 'He's just a football player'? Say you get injured or something, and people are concerned for you. Or your girlfriend's concerned for you. But everyone tells her, 'Don't worry about him, he's just a football player.'"

Marc had the grace to keep his mouth shut.

"She's a person too," Will said. "She has good days and bad days. Sure, she has big tits--"

"Actually, not quite," Steve said, and everyone laughed, including Will.

"All right," Will said, "sure, she has tits--" More laughter. "--But that's not all there is to her. I just look past the tits."

"What, down at the pussy," Marc teased. His girlfriend, a tentative, willowy blonde, poked him in the ribs, and Will said, "Yeah, shut up," grinning.

By now they had gotten to the part with the vaunted oral sex, wherein the man went down on this Dakota Sally person. The camera mostly focused on the man-guy's tongue and the girl's slim, delicate pussy lips. She had a slight down of pubic hair, which Will thought was pretty rare in porn. Every now and then, though, the camera slid back up to the girl's face, or zoomed back to show her entire body as she bucked and weaved, presenting herself for more. It was sexy. But Will was somewhat bored, and his eyes drifted back to her face.

That was when he saw it.

The man on screen stood up and slid himself in again, and the girl's eyes opened wide, and her mouth made an O of surprise--and then melted into a smile of delight, and she moaned and sighed and pressed up to him.

Her eyes were gray.

It was the same expression.

No. It couldn't be.

"Whoa, Will," Marc said. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

All the pieces matched. The hair was the same--that short curly mane--it just looked different on screen because of all the sweat. Her body--yeah, he could see those tits as being under the cream-colored sweater. Her elfin face, her yearning innocence, the color of her eyes--

"Yeah," Will said, his mouth moving by rote. "Maybe I just did."

Everyone looked at him.

"Uh, say, Will, I think I uh hear your phone ringing," said Steve, who could be sensitive when he wanted to be.

"Yeah," Will said woodenly. "So do I. I'll be right back, guys."

It couldn't be. It couldn't be. Was it? It was impossible.

In his room Will went on Google and looked for Sally Dakota. It only took three pictures to confirm it. Sure, he had never seen Robin Stanton naked before, but there was no question in his mind.

My God, he thought as the night wore on. I'm friends with a porn star. I'm teaching statistics to a porn star.

And then a strange, wry thought: Well, Marc, how's that for looking past the tits?

From the Author

1) The opening 1st-person segment clearly gives away the plot twist. Should I remove it, or does it provide enough insight into Robin's character to justify keeping it? (There IS a Ch. 02 coming up; perhaps could prefix that with the segment.)

2) Does this WORK? The premise itself is a little iffy, obviously, and Robin herself makes it worse; she's a tricky compromise between self-possessed ice queen, unselfconscious child-woman, and uninhibited sex maniac. I had to rewrite this almost completely, just to get her character down properly. Results? Thoughts? Comments? Do you even BUY it, or should this go in the pile of Unworkable Plotbunnies?

3) The story switches quite deliberately between showing and telling when I want to just get THROUGH something (specifically, the date) and not bore the reader or waste his/her time. Does it work? Is the shift too jarring? Is the summary too short? Is it too LONG? Do you actually WANT the nitty-gritty details, or is this okay?

4) Will's thoughts on porn, and reactions to Sally Dakota, are based on my own. (Though I'm not telling you which porn star(s) inspired this story. ) Are his reactions believable, or his he (am I) just some sort of freak?

5) Do people know enough about the porn industry that I'll actually have to do research, or will I just be able to make stuff up (which is mostly what I did here) and throw it in? SENSIBLE stuff, not like, "Oh, yeah, sometimes they paint a girl with barbeque sauce to make her look more tanned." Who's gonna believe THAT? (Actually, don't answer that.)

 

[KillerMuffin]

I've a meandering mind this evening, so please forgive me.

If I were to hack this story to bits and pin its body parts open, I would call this entire gig "exposition". Even if you're not ignorant, someone else might be scratching his and/or her head with a muzzy 'huh' floating around somewhere nearby.

Plot comes in parts (parts is parts!). The first part is exposition and means what it says. You introduce the reader to the characters, the setting, and the situation. It's also a natural place to end a chapter because you're gathering yourself to make this huge leap into the story-telling fray. (You're on the turnbuckle, don't worry, you can take the Undertaker down!) The other parts of the plot are (reciting time) rising action (where you build up the tension through events), climax (where the conflict is ended somehow), falling action (think resolution), and anti-climax (which usually mirrors the climax).

I'm hoping you have more invested in this tale than the whackfuck job you usually get 'round here so we can see the rest of the plot.

The beginning of rising action (and hopefully part two) is the introduction of the primary conflict or (what's his/her problem anyway?) You've got a really good lead on that. It's hard to tell--at this point--whose the protagonist and whose the antagonist so I can't venture to give you suggestions on how to set up the end of the exposition to squeegee the most out of the introduction of conflict.

The reason I'm bringing all of this up relates to question number four. Are his reactions believable? He didn't really react just yet. I can say that while his reactions don't seem odd to me, I think that his reactions are going to give you problems with plot later one. You know the complaint "I have a great story but I don't know how to end it!"? The culprit is usually that the conflict wasn't properly introduce or it was resolved already. It's like you're on a freeway and you missed your exit. The reason I foresee this as a problem is the way you've been setting up the introduction of conflict. Robin believes that her porn-star-ness is going to/has gotten in the way of ever getting what she desires: to be loved. <-- something to keep in mind whenst writing.

I'm assuming--because you've given her worries so much print--that she's the protagonist and Will is the antagonist because his worries were more normal and less worrisome seeming. Because I don't know what conflict you intend to introduce--if any--I'm running on pure speculation. I'm thinking that it's going to be something along the lines that either he can't accept her pornstarness or she thinks he can't. Okay, so what's the problem? The last line, really. I would chop it off completely. If you want him to be okay or even excited about tutoring a porno queen, fine, but I wouldn't do it before you've introduced the primary conflict.

Took me long enough to beat around the bush.

At any rate, the believability of his reactions is going to come from the way the other characters relate to him as he goes along and the plot itself. Anything can be within the realm of suspension of disbelief if you make it plausible enough. Plausibility comes from believable motivation. Good, believable motivation comes out from how the characters handle conflict. Keep in mind that there's usually lots of conflict (we call them subplots sometimes) in a story that doesn't necessarily require resolution, but you can if you wanna. It depends on how much print you give to a story.

1) Plot twist? I see nothing twisty about it. What do you consider a plot twist?

2) 'Course the premise works. Just give them plausible conflict to deal with and you're in like Flynn (whatever that means). What would you say if I had a plot that involved machines plugging human beings into a massive generator and using their bodies as a sort of a battery and that they kept them compliant by making them think they were in the normal world. Sounds iffy to me. Plausibility comes more from plausibly handling the plot and characters than from having a plausible premise.

3) Descriptive narrative is a necessary evil. If you have to relate information to your audience, then do it. Sometimes "telling" is the best way. Sometimes it's not. Just make sure the stuff you're "telling" is important for the reader to know. If possible, break it up between the action and dialogue.

4) See above. I went on and on and on and on and on.

5) I imagine that it would be difficult to do quality research on the porn industry for an erotic story that you're publishing on a site that doesn't pay you any money or give you sterling writing credit. My advice is to cut out as much detail as possible other than what's common knowledge (such as the existence of fluffers) and concentrate on the other parts of your story. For instance, you don't really have to describe the set or how the camerman gets his shot unless the set and the camerman getting his shot are pertinent to the plot <-- note the word plot. Detail is nice, but make sure the detail is important. Non-important detail bogs down and doesn't help out. I'm sure you've read the "I'm looking at myself in the mirror and this is what my body looks like" descriptions before. Yes, the detail is nice to have. Is it necessary? Read the story without that detail. It's not, is it? You're not doing a documentary. You're trying to get your protagonist to a believable resolution to the conflict.

 

[Pure]

Hi C Watson,

It's a tale well-begun, in many ways, and the premise does have some interest. You obviously put a lot of thought into it, and have the ability to get us into your story, as you choose to tell it.

It's in kind of rough state, and as KM said, one doesn't know exactly where it's headed, so it's hard to tell about justifying X amount of detail; that could only be answered if we were looking at a whole. Presumably her ice will melt, he'll lose his virginity and get more confident; there will be misunderstandings to work out. I would tend to expect a happy ending of great sex, in love, her trusting one man, at least, in the world.

I'm assuming that you are interested in telling a story. If you're just trying to get to the fuck scene, so you can answer every (male) reader's question "What's it like to fuck a truly horny porn star?" then the build up is a bit too much. Way too much.

As to the questions:

1) The opening 1st-person segment clearly gives away the plot twist. Should I remove it, or does it provide enough insight into Robin's character to justify keeping it? (There IS a Ch. 02 coming up; perhaps could prefix that with the segment.)

It's hard to say if it's a 'give away. I suppose it's like begining a story with "Superman was just tying the crooks in a long rope, but he was wondering if, at the office, 'Clark Kent' would be missed. He's better hurry back. What would he tell Lois?"

Well, IF the whole deal is her identity, sure you gave it away. If the whole deal is something else, like can she 'fall in love' or 'can she have any normal sexual relationship with someone she likes,' then no, not much has been given away *in respect of what's going to come out.* But there'd better be some interesting stuff left to come out.

2) Does this WORK? The premise itself is a little iffy, obviously, and Robin herself makes it worse; she's a tricky compromise between self-possessed ice queen, unselfconscious child-woman, and uninhibited sex maniac.

I'm not sure what 'this' is; I suppose it's the first person talk at the beginning. I don't think the premise is iffy; as KM said, it could work in theory, as much as any other (Jewel thief wants to quit, but needs the money from 'one last job').

Again it kind of depends what you're writing, because porn does not need so much character. Assuming you want to be judged as a story teller: I think some of the basic ingredients are there, a mixture of feelings, in her, pro and con. Perhaps making her such an "I love sex" person is a bit of a fantasy, from a male. Like "Unlike most prostitutes, this one really enjoys her work."

Again, 'looks like an angel, fucks like a monkey' is a kind of formula and male fantasy. Like the 'plain librarian' in the porn movie, who has great boobs and a red thong underneath her work garb.

I guess, you're kind of caught in a bind, and (it appears) you're giving us whackers something to get us a bit 'up'. For instance, the desire to be a sex therapist is a bit much (if it's to be taken seriously, not just her deluding herself.)

In all, you're on the right track, but she's too extreme, and too much is revealed, imo.


3) The story switches quite deliberately between showing and telling ...this okay?

Seems OK. Every story is a mix; 'show don't tell' is a cliche.


4) Will's thoughts on porn, and reactions to Sally Dakota, are based on my own. (Though I'm not telling you which porn star(s) inspired this story. ) Are his reactions believable, or his he (am I) just some sort of freak?

Well, he likes it; he's very surprised to see her; he sees her 'getting into it'. I don't find that unbelievable.

5) Do people know enough about the porn industry that I'll actually have to do research, or will I just be able to make stuff up (which is mostly what I did here) and throw it in?

Yes, it would help if you knew something. Curious minds want to know!

----
Last thoughts. Will's virginity. A bit much. There would be a lot of possible conflict without that, e.g., if he were a novice with the usual HS experience of a few casual fucks and some gf's that didn't work out, cuz he, innocently, picked some hard to handle ones.

All in all, and given the chapter is preparatory, and a first encounter, and assuming you want a story: Both characters are too extreme: she not only a porn star but a sex maniac; he, not only innocent but a shy virgin. Jack the Ripper meets Mary Poppins.

Overall: Yes, probably too much is revealed in the opening; it makes the whole story--if there's to be one-- revolve (first item of business) around his finding out things that the reader already knows. It would be sufficient to show her 'at work'; and having once loved sex for its own sake. Her family, her brother, etc. could better, imo,come out as she gets to know the Innocent. To a lesser extent, this applies to the guy, but it was good that you withheld his sexual experience untill the conversation.

To put it another way: Leaving it as is, you're going to have to work *very hard* to get a story out of it, since the issue "what's she like" is pretty much settled. That only leaves the issue, "When is she going to tell? and What are his reactions? in the short run. I agree that the apparent 'long run' issue; 'Can she get it on sexually with a guy she likes?' is not prejudiced. But in essence you make the story more dependent on him. The 'melting of her ice', imo, is probably just not that interesting, the way things are set up. It will follow a predictable course.

Well, those are ramblings, and lots of 'if's'. But that's the nature of the beast; you show a house 1/4 built, and say, "What do you think? Are the window big enough? Is the porch too small? Will it feel comfortable to its tenants?".

You seem to have a talent for story telling, but you have to make up your mind-- or maybe just show us poor readers more about it: i.e., give us a sense what is crucial to the story. Good luck.

J.

 

[CWatson]

Thank you both for your responses. As it turns out, this is not a great time for me and erotic fiction, so it may be a while before I have a second draft (in part, I'm starting to think that the only way to do it is to write it ALL first, and then moderate it as a whole). But I appreciate your responses, because you're both right about what I need to change, and you've given me some good ideas about how to get it where it's going. So, thank you again, and we'll see when and how I get this thing moving.

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

CWatson,

You've been a lot of help to me in the past so I'd like to be able to give you some sage wisdom and advice. But after the erudite critiques by KillerMuffin and Pure, about the best I can do is say, Amen.

How-some-ever, I'm going to risk revealing just how simple-minded I am by making an observation that is, at best, odd.

Your story struck me as the beginning of a 21st centrury version of a P.G. Wodehouse novel. He's the guy who invented Jeeves the perfect butler who worked for Bertie Wooster, the perfect fool. If you've read any Wodehouse books, you may know where I'm coming from. If you haven't, check out a few from the library. They're fun, light, English "drawing-room" comedy of errors.

His heroines were almost always cute, perky, common-sense gals, usually from a lower socio-economic background, maybe even in showbiz. His heroes were usually upper crust and well-meaning but confused and indecisive. Typically the hero would worship the ground the heroine's shadow feel upon but through some odd circumstance became convinced she considered him the scum of the earth. Thanks to Jeeves, the conflict would always be resolved.

As KM pointed out, your ending doesn't give you a lot of room to cobble up any conflict. Here's a for instance-type suggestion:

Give them some moral issues (he could be a divinity student, John Ashcroft's son, or from an up-tight, old-money family, while she's looking for non-judgemental love, meaning to her life and a guy who doesn't need Viagra and "fluffing"). He might think she's "using" him and she decides he's an uptight prude. Remember the old formula, boy and girl meet--girl and boy become an item is an vignette. Boy and girl meet--girl and boy become an item, split-up, and then get back together is a story.

If you turn this into a novel, a second, related conflict could be introduced. They've more-or-less resolved their interpersonal conflict, but if his family finds out (fill in the blank). Just before graduation, her ID as SD is revealed and the school, pushed by (a femi-nazi dean, a gay faculty member, the Moral Majority, etc.) is about to expell her so the guy....

Sorry to be so rambling and disorganized (not to mention unhelpful). I hope you keep hammering away at this 'cause, IMHO, you're a good writer with a unique story that has real potential.

Rumpe Foreskin

 

[A7inchPhildo]

SORRY WRONG THREAD

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Ah well... I should have read the author's questions first. So this is just Chapter 1 of a longer work? Duh. I thought it was a stanbd alone story, and my comments were based on that premise.
I'll leave it stand anyhow. It took me a while to write, and maybe there's something of use in it.


First of all, I think it's safe to say the CW can write, so we don't have to worry about mechanics and execution and all that. It reads well (although draggy in the middle), the dialogue's good and done well, and there are a lot of good things in here. But I think you'er right to wonder if it even works as a story, because in my opinion it doesn't, and I think I know why.

The story is basically about a revelation this guy has that his girl's a pornstar. The climax of the story therefore happens in his head with no dramatic action to support it. It's "Oh My God! That's Robin!" and out.

Stories based on a revelation almost always support the revelation with dramatic action in some way. The revelation has dramatic consequences, either for the character, or the reader. (A common overused example of the revelatory ending from Lit is the woman who's assaulted and raped, and the rapist turns out to be her husband. The revelation puts everything that's gone before into a new context. More subtle and harder to do, the revelation causes the protagonist to re-examine his life, idea of the world, something. The imprtant thing is that the revelation have some dramatic consequences.

No one changes in this story. The revelation is without consequence, and that's why the story feels so unsatisfying. We also feel cheated of the most interesting aspect of the plot, which is: what will he do with this information? What's going to happen the next time he sees her?

So I don't know if you can save this story without making substantial structural changes. If you're willing to make them, there's a lot you can do with what you've got. Wouldn't it have been interesting if Robin as Robin decided to take his cherry? Then you'd have this terrific scene where the pornstar has to play the blushing ingenue and deflower him in such a way that he doesn't know who she really is.

Within the context of the story as it now stands, there are still some odd things. I thought it was odd to have the story open with her as Sally in first person, and then switch over to third person from Will's POV. We--or I, at any rate--expected her to come back and talk to us again, but she didn't, so it gave the story a lopsided, out-of-kilter feel. We get to meet Sally, hear about her interesting life, and then you whip her away from us, and we're introduced to Will, who's not a tenth as interesting as Sally/Robin. I really think that you could have told us she was a porn star in third person, and thus kept a consistent POV and kept us from feeling cheated.

I really felt like you kind of lost it in the middle, like you were hunting around for a handle on her or a way to get some drama into what is basically the static situation of them have a non-event date. I think one telling vignette or image would have done the work of all that hemming and hawing. You tell us that he saw her smile for the first time in the mall, but I'm sure you had her smiling for him before, no? Anyhow, her character seemed kind of inconsistent to me.

His character could stand some work too, in my opinion. I didn't understand what she saw in him. I think the lovbable nebbish male is becoming as stock a character as the 6'2-190-lb-not-an-ounce-of-fat-on-him stud. Wouldn't it have been nice had he been more of a sexual braggart, not obnoxiously so, but enough to give a little frisson to the ending when he realizes who he's been trying to impress? After all, as Robin she's appears to be very innocent.

The last thing I have to note is that for all the Porn star business, there's very little sex in the story. (Post this on Lit and I think you'll get a lot of people pissed.) Personally, I don't mind, but I'm surprised you resisted the temptation to throw in a little fooling around.

So that's my take. Now I want to go read what the other people said.

Best,

---dr.M.

 

[CWatson]

dr_mab, Rumple, thanks for your comments. Lots to think about.

Rumple, I haven't read anything by that guy (actually never HEARD of him), but yeah, that sounds about right. I write what I like reading, and that sort of story sounds right up my alley. And while I DO (did) have secondary conflicts lined up, they were just that--secondary. Stories don't read as well when Mr. D. E. Machina sweeps in and causes random problems for the sake of conflict. I should try for something more integral, or at least integrated. (Now that I think about it, an actual Mr. Machina would be interesting--what if she had a current boyfriend she cheats on to be with Will? That could have something to it. We'll see.)


dr_mab, brilliant as always. Why DOES he have to find out that quickly? Well, partially, because it'd feel like another Deus Ex Machina if it came out later, unless I was REALLY careful about the set-up, and I'm not at all sure how I'd do that. But the point was, I always ASSUMED that Will must know, and pretty quickly. I don't have any idea WHY I assumed that, especially if he's going to be so equinanimous about it. It adds NOTHING. And besides, you're right: it WOULD be an interesting scene for her to be his first experience while pretending to be as inexperienced as he is.

What he's going to do with the information, actually, is the "cliffhanger," if you will, of the episode. No offense, but I kind of WANTED readers to feel unsatisfied--it'd (hopefully) give them extra incentive to come back. And Robin DOES feel inconsistent; she has several different facets that don't mesh well. The scary thing is, she was even WORSE in the LAST draft.

As to Will himself... Well, it's always surprising how much writing is connected to personal evolution (and how I can feel so old when, in fact, I know so little). When they told you, "Write what you know," they should've added a caveat: "Make sure you KNOW something first." Will IS sort of a stripped-down model, but MOST of my characters are poured from much the same mold. Most of them, in other words, are about that boring. However, Will lacks definitive "hooks," if you will, to help disguise that--stripped-down model, as I said (unlike Robin, who at least has this interesting dichotomy to play with). And just earlier today I was discussing, with a friend, how hard it is for me to show empathy--like, I can understand another person intellectually, but never emotionally. The friend helped me refine the intellectual part, at least, but the rest of it comes back to haunt me. I'm not sure it's even something I can learn, and that worries me, because my characters are going to get very boring, very quickly, at this rate. To summarize: Will is boring on the surface because I forgot to make him interesting, and boring in substance because I CAN'T make him any more interesting. Thank you, please drive through.

A last note: This story was born partially out of the glass ceiling--not in the workplace, but in the way people sometimes look up at others, at their dream mate or whatever, and feel that said person is "above them" or "too good for them" or whatever... And then realize they were wrong, that said person IS within their grasp and, in fact, is NOT some angel or holy incarnation of perfection, but is actually human. (Cliche as it is, this has actually happened to me a couple of times, though not with a porn star.) Specifically, that's part of how Will looks at Robin. Don't feel bad for missing that; I missed it. It's not in there. I didn't even realize, until now, that it was SUPPOSED to be in there. So that needs to be emphasized more. It may help to throw things into sharper focus.

So, again, thank you both. This story itself is probably sidelined, as most of its primary elements have since been worked into my novel (and in much the same form), but you've made me think about the How and the Why, and that's always important.

 

[Nroleer]

CW,

First of all, I do not think my self to be much of a critic, but Ill do my best to give off points in your story that I liked and disliked.

The one thing I enjoyed seeing was the following

I spat his cock out of my mouth and went to find something to rinse with. I don't know what that guy has been eating recently, but his cum was foul.

and also this,

"More like what wasn't up," I said humorlessly. Max Rodding, as his name was, (Rodding Ave.?) had enormous trouble getting himself into physical readiness for his part of the festivities. I'm not sure why. Dave once described me as having the face of an angel and the sexual appetites of a devil; it's a strange juxtaposition, but it sells. Evidently people like cute, kinky girls. But it didn't sell good ol' Max. There were a lot of Viagra jokes bandied about. But when the man isn't up and running, guess who's supposed to bring him up to speed?

I think you captured true trials of the industry. Not that I work in that type of industry, but I can imagine from a male POV that getting physically prepared for something that you do day in and day out, as work, could be an issue.

I enjoyed your story, and look forward to the next part of the story. I can only imagine the steamy scene with a porn start taking a virgin. Oh the possibilities! This is a wonderful start in my opinion, with great potential for a very hot story.

Keep up the great work.

 

[The Swan]

Hello CWatson,

I had no problem with the way that you opened the story and I thought that it helped you develope Robin's character. The cold careful ice maiden character that you have developed for Robin has one large inconsistency. If she was as careful as you have painted her, and I can understand why one would be if they were in the business, would she give some guy that she just met her home address? It would seem more likely to me that she would either meet him somewhere or pick him up with her own transportation. How does she know if he is asking her out because he has seen her in a film or not?

The second observation I had is what would my feelings be as a virginal young man who had little self confidence and had dated very little, if I found myself dating a knock out woman who I was just beginning to develop a degree of comfort with, and then found out that she was a porn star! I am sure that I would have a real approach avoidance situation to deal with. I would be very concerned that with my lack of experience I might make a real fool of myself if I ever got her to bed. On the other hand Robin, if she finds out he knows, will need to reassure him, if she decides to have sex with him, that he should not be nervous about her previous experience and his lack of it. That problem is the most interesting one as far as I am concerned because it deals with all those terrible pangs of inadequacy we all have had since junior high that we slowly learn to overcome, or try to.

It will be interesting to see which way you take this. You have enough different possibilities to explore and I am sure it will result in a great story.

Best regards,

The Swan

 

[johnloren]

Hello CWatson

The draft version offers the potential of a good story, I believe. The comments and suggestions offered by the others, pretty much cover the thoughts I have on this story. Perhaps the best assistance I can offer you is to directly answer the questions you have at the end of the story.

The opening paragraphs I like. They are "catchy" to get me interested in reading more. You say it gives away the plot twist and reveals insight to Robin's character. It certainly reveals what she does to pay for school. However after reading the story I do not know very much about Robin's character. I started to wonder what is the "real" Robin like, we only get glimpes of her as the ice queen. Opening another side to her character may help develop the interaction with Will. As the author you can take that wherever your imagination wants to.

Does it work ? I believe you can make it workable, it has too much potential for the plotbunny graveyard. I do wonder about her not being recognized at a university and Will discovers her identity very fast. It's a stretch but who would notice an attractive girl that keeps to her self at a university ? That's why she is the ice queen, that seems to work.

The dragging date is what I have the most difficulty with. Robin makes an exception and goes out with him, why ? The date situation should start to generate some heat between the 2 main characters, even if it is only lustful thoughts and wishful thinking. I think you would gain more effect if it is Robin that realizes how inexperienced Will is, rather them a 19 year old university student confessing on his first date with probably the most attractive girl he's been with, "I'm a virgin". It would seem to have more of a twist value if that was revealed after they had developed some sort of friendship/bond.

His actions after discovering she is a porn star seem quite normal, either you accept it or have a moral outrage to it. Or justify it by saying she is an actress playing a part.

As for the porn industry, I would believe that anything you write, regarding the porn industry would be acceptable as part of the story. This aspect should not be a major concern, what ever works and sounds plausible.

Chapter 2 offers a lot of potential and answers to the situation you have created, it certainly would be interesting to read. Your comments about experiences and glass ceilings made me keep re-reading looking for "you" in the story. If you are writing about experiences and reality which reality ? The way you want things to be ? The way things should be ? Or the way things really are. As a writer you make all three into the reality of the story.

I do look forward to the completed version of this story and wish you luck with the novel project.

Thank you for allowing me to share my thoughts with you.