Would like feedback for "The Healing, Part 1"

[scorpiosting]

I am currently in the process of writing and rewriting "The Healing, Part 2"

However in the meantime, I would love some constructive
criticism for "The Healing, Part 1"


http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=98228

Thanks
Scorpiosting

 

[Chicklet]

re: Feedback

Hey Scorpio, (I'm a Scorpio too...so I know how you're going to take criticism! lol)

First off let me say that your story was good. It was fun to read, it was heart-felt, it had a good rhythm going that made me want to read on. There were very few things that bothered me. Okay, only one thing really: the commas.

I knew the first time that I read your mind beneath your cold icy stare lie a venerable shy woman, who could never trust again, whose innocence had been used up when she was a child, who had endured the indignities of a mean oppressive father who saw his daughter as an albatross around his neck after a night of drunkenness with a stranger, your mother, a distant self serving vain women of privilege.

This is what we call a run-on sentence. If you try to say it out loud, you can really tell what you're doing. You're writing this story like poetry, and I understand, but sometimes you can achieve the same effect with a period.

I knew the first time that I read your mind, a venerable, shy woman beneath your cold icy stare. One who could never trust again, who's innocence had been used up when she was a child. One who had endured the indignities of a mean, oppressive father who saw his daughter as an albatross around his neck after a night of drunkenness with a stranger. Your mother, a distant, self serving, vain woman of privilege.

I twisted some of the words around to keep it making sense, but do you see what I did? I'm not saying that what I did was right - I just feel that the beat stayed the same, but the periods were there.

More examples can be found in almost every paragraph:

How did two lost lonely souls, who could never trust, never reveal our true selves and speak like a normal man and woman sit in silence, and not act upon our desires, our animalistic nature to reach out and consume each others soul?

Four commas.

How I gazed upon your being, drank in your essence, lost in a trance as the very presence of you pulled me in, transfixed, you took me back, took me back to the time when I was a child, when I had seen you in a dream, how you had helped me, healed me, took away the pain that was always present in my heart ever since that one fateful day in the barn when an older boy had spilled his milky white seed upon my face after forcing me to take him in my mouth.

Nine commas!

Your story was good, don't get me wrong. Your story had emotion. I liked it. But it needs some work.

What I suggest for you to do in the future to keep your sentences for doing this to you is very, very simple. Read the story out loud to yourself. You wouldn't believe what you'll find if you try to read it aloud. You'll find mistakes, you'll find places commas should be that they aren't, you'll find that you've run on for longer than Chicklet could even imagine...I think one of the best things to do for yourself is to read your own work aloud. If you can't get through the whole thing without starting over, then you need to stop and do some more work.

Chicklet

 

[Chicklet]

re: poll

ps.

I voted for "I would not buy this story at all" because it's not my style of erotica, it's not something I would go looking for, and what's more I wouldn't want to pay for erotica...Why should I when I have literotica??

-Chicklet

 

[Rainbow Skin]

Sentence structure

Your major problem is that you use long sentences that go on and on without clear structure. The topic constantly changes, and you pay no attention to what went on before.

Long sentences need to have structure and clarity. You can make them indefinitely long, provided it's always clear to the reader how they fit together. But if they don't fit, if they just ramble, you need to chop them up. Make yours much shorter. The reflective effect you're trying for doesn't work, and you need to make the images clearer.

First example:
I knew the first time that I read your mind beneath your cold icy stare lie a venerable shy woman, who could never trust again, whose innocence had been used up when she was a child, who had endured the indignities of a mean oppressive father who saw his daughter as an albatross around his neck after a night of drunkenness with a stranger, your mother, a distant self serving vain women of privilege.

1. Ambiguity first. Is her mind beneath her cold icy stare, i.e. does he read the mind by delving underneath the stare? Or: Does he read her mind and thereby know that beneath her icy stare lay/lies a vulnerable woman?

2. Compound clauses:
beneath your cold icy stare lay a vulnerable shy woman, (a) who could never trust again, (b) whose innocence had been used up when she was a child, (c) who had endured the indignities of a mean oppressive father
So far so good. She is a woman who could never..., and a woman whose innocence..., and a woman who had endured... . But after three relative clauses there immediately comes another, who saw his daughter as an albatross.... This naturally reads like a fourth parallel one: She is a woman who saw his daughter...

But it isn't, and you've now switched to describing the father. It's okay to do this, but it's not okay to write 'who... whose... who... who...' and suddenly have the fourth 'who' jump to someone else.

Within the same sentence, you then switch again and use another paralleling construction: with a stranger, your mother, a distant self serving vain women of privilege. By itself, this triple description would be fine; but not after you've given four parallel descriptions to a different woman in the same paragraph.

Next paragraph:
I remember most of all the beauty of your very being, the piercing blueness of your smoldering eyes as they read my soul, your waist length raven colored hair, as it cascaded down over your shoulders, the ends licking at the subtle delicate curve of your hips as you sat, obscuring your voluptuous breasts which were hidden safely away from prying eyes beneath a soft cashmere sweater.

I remember most of all... probably only one thing. 'Most of all' should pick out only one, or two, things, not a whole list of everything you remember. But let's look at that list. It starts: I remember the beauty of your being, the blueness of your eyes, your raven hair, the ends licking at... You see? Stripped of the additional words, this is a list of things separated by commas, all of which you are remembering. Inevitably, the ends licking at the subtle delicate curve reads as if it's fourth item on the list, because you haven't done anything to separate it from the rest. It's just words, comma, words, comma, words, comma...

Now you've done another switch, and yet another is coming up. The sentence began 'I remember A, and B, and C...', then you started describing C (her hair). Her hair is (a) waist-length and raven-coloured; (b) cascading over her shoulders; (c) with its ends licking at something; (d) obscuring her voluptuous breasts; and (e) hidden safely away from prying eyes. Except that (e) isn't about C, it's yet another switch to a different object of description. And (e) is itself a parallel compound, because her breasts are (i) hidden safely away, and (ii) beneath a sweater – beneath a cashmere sweater – beneath a soft cashmere sweater. You're piling description upon description, straying further and further away from how it all began.

Every single paragraph needs to be untangled like that.

 

[Rainbow Skin]

Word choice

There are a lot of word problems here, mainly clichés, but also poor choices for other reasons.

the piercing blueness of your smoldering eyes as they read my soul
Her eyes can be blue, can be piercing, can be smouldering - does it really add anything for them to be all three? Can they both pierce and smoulder at the same time? Do blue eyes smoulder? Piercing as they read your soul makes sense, but smouldering as they read it? (Okay, read my soul makes no sense: read what exactly?)

the electricity of wanton desire to taste each others flesh
Desire can be electric, but can wanton desire be? Isn't it electric when you're restrained, tingling, just sensing on a threshold? Can you do this wantonly? You can desire to taste each other - but taste each other's flesh? That's so physical. I don't think that specific desire would feel electric.

two lost lonely souls, who could never trust
As opposed to two lonely souls who are quite comfortable where they are - or two lost lonely souls who are at ease trusting other people?

another round of poker to the other participants in the game
to the other players

our friends and I bid you farewell, and thanked you once again for an excellent meal
I envisage you dressed as the Lord Mayor, with chains of office, and a prepared speech, bidding her farewell and godspeed.

stepped over the threshold of your humble abode
Door. House.

the cold icy frost
Her stare was 'cold icy'. It makes even less sense for frost. What are you trying to tell us about this particular frost?

Every paragraph is full of unthought-out words like this. You need to go back and throw them all away. Make everything much simpler. Stop throwing every single word you know into the mixing-bowl.

If you want to describe her eyes, fix on something salient about them. Is it their deep blueness, or their air of mystery, or the penetrating glances she gave you? Decide on one. Don't give her penetrating, mysterious, smouldering, glacial, tormented eyes. It doesn't tell us anything.

 

[Chicklet]

re: rainbowskin

rainbow, I learn more and more with each post you submit = )