Would be grateful for feedback

[Basin City]

http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=159924


This is my first ever effort, I'd be glad of some feedback.


Thanks.

 

[lyricalcandy]

Isabelle

The thing I noticed right off the bat is the use of her name ... it is mentioned a lot. Mr. Mcarthy speaks it in dialogue with her every other sentence, which I think is more than people commonly call someone by name ... then in the description of the story the name is used a lot. It's a little rough on the eyes.

The name is the most obvious, but there are other places where words or phrases are repetitive. I would suggest when writing, if you notice yourself using the same word in consecutive sentences, try to mix it up with synonyms.

Also, avoid redundant phrases. Example "She replaced it back behind her ear"... to replace is to put something back, so you wouldn't need both words.

I felt like there should have been more to the story. The teacher character and the guy at school were introduced but not really developed. What is the relationship between Isabelle and these characters. We don't know what was going on between the father and the daughter that caused such hard times. Why is she stressed out? Why are her grades slipping?

I'm guessing that more will come in chapter 2 ... but its important that each separate story have its own legs.

I hope that this has been helpful feedback.

 

[Basin City]

Thanks for the response Lyricalcandy, your feedback was helpful.

I guess the reason I used her name so much is because I got a little tired of writing SHE THIS, SHE THAT, Her name was the only replacement I could really think of.

I definately know what your saying with the repetition of her name by McCarthy at the start. Maybe its a little extreme but it was done purposely to create a sense of claustrophobia for the character. He is only talking to her, there is no one else around to protect her etc etc. I was trying to set up a sense of dread for the act that immediately followed while conveying the slimeyness of McCarthy. (A damn poor attempt I know.)

I wanted to keep everything about her past and problems under wraps for the first chapter and develop it as the story progressed.
Both Jimmy and McCarthy return later, particularly Jimmy.

Do you have any tips on realistically developing relevant side characters?

Thanks again for your feedback.

 

[BlackShanglan]

The definition of "ambiguity" ...

That would be my feelings about this work. I mean by this that I am not a fan of the incest category and generally do not enjoy such works. However, that said, this was a well-written story and actually managed to suggest a disturbingly sane sense of eroticism that - I confess - quite unsettles me. On that basis, I voted it high; it lured me in enough to intrigue me with an action I normaly find quite distasteful. What really did it for me was that you gave emotional underpinnings to that relationship - although sadly, I felt that the last line really rather undercut that. I know that many people find dirty talk erotic, and so indeed do I. However, this particular situation, in my mind, derived much of its eroticism from a sense that it was, in fact, erotic and intense rather than simply pornographic or sexual. That last line worked against that sense and took me back to many of the things I don't care for in the typical incest genre conventions.

For the most part, I find the story well told. The main elements I found challenging to my enjoyment of the story:

1) Like Lyricalcandy, I found the repetition of her name in the beginning awkward and distracting. I see what goal you hoped to accomplish, but I don't think that this method is achieving it.

2) Comma usage is rather happenstance. I understand that not everyone notices such things; I happen to.

3) I liked the way that you suggested the old "teacher/student" scene and then subverted that expectation by having it fail. Very nice job managing tensions and playing with audience expectations. However, the ending of it felt a little off. I am thinking of this part:

“ISABELLE!” He gasped, his face contorting in anger.

She scrambled frantically to get to her feet and upon doing so bolted straight for the door, tears streaming down her cheeks. She fled out into the empty corridor and to safety. Mr McCarthy stood up, still looking at the door, where he had last seen the fleeing Isabelle moments before. He smashed his fist on a desk. “FUCK.”

I recognize that he is frustrated, but I can't help thinking that fear would be a much more likely response at this point. Surely the average adult man would now be terrified that she's about to run to the headmaster and have him fired and/or arrested.

4) Descriptions like these:

Isabelle’s hair finished two inches above her shoulders and was of a striking, naturally shiny crow-black. Her hair perfectly framed her youthful, feminine face, only her dark oval eyes, beautiful seas of sadness betrayed her true feelings of despair. Her gaze lowered down her body-her long neck slid down to greet her small round shoulders which set the trend for her petite, perfectly proportioned frame.

The dim light only accentuated the perfect, smooth curve of her hips from her narrow waist. She stood at 5 3” her slim, toned legs were remarkably long and slender for her height giving her a graceful beauty not common among girls of Isabelle’s height.

Everyone who knows me is now running for cover from the Black Shanglan Hobby Horse Complaint of the Decade: descriptions of the focal character that have no logical source. Isabelle is looking in the mirror. No one else is looking at her. Who, then, is the source of these lingering descriptions of her beauty? Isabella? If so, she is rather incurably vain, and I don't think that's the image you want us to have of her. These impressions are yours - that is, the author's - but you aren't in this story. You haven't made yourself a character, nor have you offered us a warm, Austen-esque narrative voice that boldly admits its presence and bias. Rather, these comments come either - inappropriately - from Isabella, or from nowhere.

You can solve this in different ways. My gut instinct would be to go with giving the POV from another character, since this is in the third person and you could easily expand or shift that limited omiscient viewpoint to someone else long enough for him/her to look at Isabella and give us some (suitably voiced) observations.

5) This passage left me uncertain:

Isabelle began to wipe away the stream of tears that had trailed down from her eyes like a waterfall over her high cheek bones, when the door opened and her father stepped into the room. Isabelle recovered in a second from the moment of initial alarm. The sound of the door opening, the first real sound she had heard since entering her room, late in the afternoon. Isabelle made no attempt to cover up her exposed body but simply stood there, her enormous eyes looking up at her father for him to say something. Anything.

Just as his daughter made no attempt to cover up her body, he made no attempt to avert his gaze to the wall or floor. He looked at her body, once, upon immediately entering the room but then settled on her eyes. It was his voice that broke the deafening silence.

It established the sense that the father had a sexual connection with his daughter, but the silent stare of the father and the submissive, "I don't dare cover myself" actions of the daughter seemed to bespeak violent abuse, especially when so much of the rest of her life seems to work this way. If that's not your intention, I would suggest something a little softer. If you do want that implication, I would say that it goes oddly with the story's ending.

On the whole I thought that the father-daughter relation was well formed at the end and had depth, despite being one that I personally find very offputting. The teacher was thin and I think his dialogue and reactions need work. The bully made more sense, although like the teacher he seemed to be a little too totally confident and unaware of any possible negative consequences to his actions. I realize that they are meant to have power over her, and they do, but I felt that it would have benefitted from a bit more realism on their own tenuous positions.

Oh yes, that last one. This:

Isabelle looked up at Jimmy, the typical high school jock. Tall, broad, clean shaven with a cropped dark hair. His only distinguishing physical feature that segregated him from the other popular, faceless, clones, was an unusual set of eyes.

Phrases like "typical jock" and "popular, faceless drones" fail to characterize the character. Rather, they tend to make the writer sound rather reductive and bitter. Careful there. The odd-colored eyes were a much nicer and more intriguing touch.

Shanglan

 

[lyricalcandy]

Side Characters

I am by no means an exepert on side characters, but I will tell you what I try to do in my writing.

First I ask myself what purpose they serve. My first posting to Literotica dealt mainly with the two focal characters. The only side characters were the main characters family, and they were there to establish the type of life Lyric was leading. Once they served that purpose, they faded into the background.

You introduce the characters when they have a purpose to serve and then you let them fade. If you have later development in mind, you give the reader a little hint ... one that they don't think about too much, but when it comes back again later they think, "Oh, I remember!"

I would say with your characters in chapter one you either did too much or too little. I got a sense of too many different things going on at once, and none of them being resolved at all.

I must also say, however, that in an actual book the first chapter is often like that ... introducing everything all at once and developing it later. That being said, its one thing when you have the whole book at your fingertips and another thing entirely when you have the suspense of waiting for one chapter at a time.

Did you see the Matrix Trilogy at the movie theaters? If so I have an example that could work. The first Matrix was a story all its own. It had a beginning, a middle and an end. The second and third movie were really like one big 4 hour film that they decided to cut in half. When I was sitting in the dark theatre at the end of Matrix: Reloaded and the credits started to roll almost mid scene I was highly upset. I had enjoyed the movie thorougly, but I was mad that I had to wait months to see what happened.

I don't know if all my rambling made sense. (This is the type of thing I end up editing out of stories ... I tend to be long winded)

 

[Varian P]

Isabelle Ch. 01

Hi B.C.

This opening chapter has me intrigued. The story between Isabelle and her father promises to be an interesting one, and your clues have me curious to learn what's happened to make them so sad, and, of course, to learn how they've come to be lovers. I haven't read many incest-themed stories, but this one seems different from the few I have read in that there's more to their sexual connection that a momentary fit of lust.

You do a nice job in places of conveying feelings, and you also evoke some lovely images:

As she stepped towards her reflection she could see shadows playfully sliding in and out of the contours of her body in motion.

A faint smile tugged at the corner of her full lips.

She rubbed her bare feet into the carpet vigorously while she sat, her hands massaging her folded arms.

I do think, as others have pointed out, you ought to watch for being overly repetitious. I read your comment about using Isabelle's name to avoid an avalanche of "she, she, she" and that makes sense, but you do it in dialogue, too, where it doesn't serve that function:

Isabelle, you look worried

“The truth is Isabelle, I’m quite concerned about you. Your grades have been consistently falling. You’re a very quiet student Isabelle. You never ever speak unless your spoken to. I’d like to think that you could tell me if something was the matter.”

“Is there anything the matter Isabelle?”

Occasionally certain words are repeated with such frequency it becomes a distraction, as with the word “body” in this passage:

Her eyes left the mirror and looked down at her real body. She quickly slid her panties down her legs and kicked them gently off her ankles. A faint smile tugged at the corner of her full lips. She looked intently into the mirror once again, this time at her fully naked body, wrapped only in the occasional shadow playfully exploring her figure as she turned and swayed, exploring her own body with her eyes and hands. Isabelle slid her hands gently from one side of her body to another, running them sensuously down her sides.

There were a couple of passages where I got confused about what was happening. For example, here:

Isabelle nodded slowly, rubbing her cheek against his upper body.

“I guess you’d better get to school.” Her father said with another smile.

“Hey!”

Almost instantaneously a flood of adrenaline pulsated through her veins. Isabelle knew he was shouting at her, she could see him strutting ever closer through the corner of her eye. She felt as if her heart had risen up to her throat and was choking her to death.

Somewhere in there, I think, you need to show that they’ve moved apart.

Ooops! This is how confused I was. What needs clarification is that we’ve switched to a different scene entirely. Probably just some asterisks or a symbolic break is all that's needed. Gosh -- for a second there I thought daddy was going to have a split personality disorder!

Overall you do pull me in, make me interested in the characters and their story, and the eroticism is certainly there.

Hope that's helpful!

-Varian

 

[smoochypig]

Hi BC, I know others have already given you good advice and observations about repetition and points of view. I just wanted to add a few thoughts of my own.

First off, despite the underlying theme, this chapter at least did not strike me as a pure tale of incest. Typically, stories get told from a point of view of the parent abusing the child; coercing them to do acts and the child feeling nothing but upset and pain. It intrigues as to why Isabelle in this case actually seems to invite and welcome her Father. I'm guessing that the hints about them both having pain to overcome (I'm guessing the mother leaving?, his difficulty finding work) have led to some feeling of mutual despair where they take comfort in each other.

But what I did find in this piece, was that the way the emotion unfolds between the two could just have easily been between a boyfriend, lover or more conventional partner than a Father in this case. I think this is perhaps why it doesn't feel disturbing (yet) despite being a incest/teenager based story.

I for one, enjoyed the descriptions. I know BS talked about POV and who would be doing the descriptions. Personally, I didn't feel them out of place as with the 3rd party narrative there is always a 'looking in' view. Instead, I found your descriptions rather pleasing. I liked some of the simpler choices too that sufficed to conjur up an image of what was happening and let my mind fill in the details.

For example,

"a maelstrom of emotion"; "grasping at desk legs "; "electricity on the surface of her skin". (that last one is a real favourite)

Short and sweet but left me with a great image in my mind of what is happening.

Later on where you're describing Isabelle in front of the mirror, I would have to agree that there is a level of repetition that distracts a little. On the whole though I found it quite enticing and belieavable, but 'her long neck slid down' really made me cringe. I had a vision of a neck sliding around the place like a snake. I think I would have preferred stretched or reached. Maybe something even more static. This is probably more my expectation of how I'd describe things though so do take with a pinch of salt.


I'd definitely agree that a quick edit to put a clear scene change between her father smiling and the 'hey' at the school is needed. For a while I coudn't understand why the Father had jumped from smiling pleasantly to yelling 'hey bitch'. Either a short sentence to set the new scene or just a **** divide would work.

Dialog wise, the bullies statement "then you’re gonna help me…relax." didn't quite work. It's clear what he intends, but I found the use of the word 'relax' out of place. It made the bully suddenly feel rather more sappy and twee compared to the 'fucking understand' that follows. I'm torn what to suggest instead. For him to say anything sexually explicit there would also be out of place - it wouldn't leave Isabelle in a position to accept his demand. I'd almost just leave off the "...relax." and leave it as 'you're gonna help me." Letting it be unsaid I think still leaves the reader with the same end result, but more opportunity to fill in whatever act or horror they choose.

The rest of the dialog was believable. I did get a sense of different characters, the troubled and struggling single parent, the confused, but gentile daughter and the manipulative teacher. That said, I do agree with the others about a couple of the lines.

The last line of the chapter "please daddy..." I think broke the spell. It makes it feel that there isn't in fact any emotional connection after all between the two, but instead she is just coursely begging something to fuck her. To accept the story as incest and that the two of them interact as lovers, it stings to feel the emotion reduced to such coldness. Like this it becomes just another story of abuse (for myself, others may not agree) and the father has/is just taking advantage of her. Up until this point it feels mutual. They both seek comfort voluntarily and not because of having been manipulated by each other. Rather life's cruelty and their environment is what has led them to this.

I'm quite intrigued to read the next chapter to see just what the cause and destination of the story shall be.

Meanwhile, I'm going to nurture a nice mental image of my wife dressed in panties and vest

Thank you for sharing and the invitation to comment,
SP

 

[BlackShanglan]

This is probably more my expectation of how I'd describe things though so do take with a pinch of salt.

Sorry, are we still on the slugs? Gah SALT Aarrgrgrgrh.
Shanglan