Yowser Yelps

[yowser]

After an enjoyable Trial Month of reviews, I’ve decided to put up a shingle and continue more permanently here on the Story Feedback side of Literotica.

Any writer obsessed with improvement usually also wears the mantle of a keen reader, and I am an increasingly fussy, voracious, and demanding reader. In this past trial month, by doing reviews I’ve had a chance to survey stories I might not have discovered otherwise, and would like to contribute, as best I can, to the improvement of the writing here on Literotica (there are many tales here that could benefit from a more thoughtful, leveraged effort.)

If you would like another pair of (critical) eyes to take a look at one of your tales and can accept some honest feedback, I will take you on.

There are other threads here, notably AwkwardMD and Omenainen’s collaboration, devoted to providing excellent reviews. I don’t want to (and cannot) duplicate their efforts but aim to provide another avenue, a different perspective, one oriented towards the use of the language in creating an erotic tale. Writing has a craft element associated with how words are stitched together to make sentences, sentences aggregated to make paragraphs, and ultimately all assembled into a unified entity to result as an arousing story. There are many ways to go wrong in the process.

Vladimir Nabokov maintained that a good writer should be three things: a storyteller, a teacher, and an enchanter, the last representing the most important aspect. The best stories here show excellence in all three arenas.

My background and a sample of reviews can be seen in the March Reviews thread.

A few qualifications to this offer: the only category I won't do is Non-Consent (if your story leans more to the ‘Reluctance’ angle, I am game) and I reserve the right to decline a review (and I’ll tell you why in a private message.) 20k words is my ‘soft’ limit on length, anything greater just takes too long for a proper digestion.

I’ll promise you a comprehensive read and an authentic reaction. I’ll suggest areas that need work and ideas for increasing quality in your future endeavors. While I am keenly aware of how difficult it is to write (even substandard work takes effort) and will keep in mind the time and energy you may have put into your story, I won’t be kind if I think your story merits a beating. As a reader of erotica, I am hard to please. I encourage other authors to chime in in this thread as well IF they have also read the piece presented.

I welcome your offerings.

 

[AG31]

I'm a little confused about the purpose of this thread compared to "March Reviews Thread." But I'm always happy to find people willing to read my stories. I feel like I may have asked you for a review before, but I can't find it if I did.

a different perspective, one oriented towards the use of the language in creating an erotic tale.

This is my favorite kind of feedback, apart from feedback that catches errors and points of confusion. All of my stories have been revised multiple times on Smashwords (too cumbersome here, and I don't like to clog the input). Sometimes I re-read my stories and lie awake at night trying to come up with better wording for this or that. So, yeah, I'd like that kind of feedback.

I'm particularly interested in that kind of feedback because I write "simple erotica." I don't spend time on plot and character (see other posts from me about that), and that's what interests a lot of reviewers.

I've reflected on my stories and I don't think any involve pure "non consent."

Please pick the one or ones that interest you. They're all short. These are listed in the order written, and get slimmer and slimmer as time goes on. I'm leaving out my 3 vanilla stories.

Twelve Maxbridge Street - First and longest and best (in my opinion).
A young man signs up for an evening of sexual surrender.

Naked This is an outlier in my ouvre because it involves plot and character. There are some problems with quotation marks that I've fixed on Smashwords, but not here.
A man discovers he has a need for sexual surrender.

The Recurrence - Follows Naked
A police detective seeks out degradation.

Submission
A young man commits to an evening of sexual surrender.

An Enigma This is a takeoff on a scene from Gabaldon's The Outlander
To save his wife a man submits to pain & sexual humiliation.

After the Idyll This follows the vanilla Idyll, which I'm not listing here.
Scott's gay experiment leads him in unanticipated directions.

Vignette 1
Connor craves sexual surrender and Rachel obliges.

Vignette 2
An officer volunteers to become a slave to save a village.

and can accept some honest feedback,

No problem. Fire away.

 

[RBeemer]

I look forward to your review of one (or more!) of my stories.

 

[yowser]

I'm a little confused about the purpose of this thread compared to "March Reviews Thread." But I'm always happy to find people willing to read my stories. I feel like I may have asked you for a review before, but I can't find it if I did.
...
No problem. Fire away.

The March thread was an experiment/trial run. I didn't know whether I would get a hundred requests (which would mean I could not continue) or none (ditto.) Instead there was some interest, and I gained some sense of whether this would be at all valuable and if my commentary would be useful.

I've decided to continue indefinitely, so this thread is just announcing a change in status and a welcome for contributions, and I'd rather be clear about that up front.

I have reviewed one of your stories off-line, but am happy to take a look at another. I'll get one out to you here shortly.

 

[yowser]

@RBeemer
Sight is Overrated

I've got mixed reactions to this one, probably why it has taken so long to post my thoughts.

Writing second person POV is a huge challenge, it really only works for certain types of stories. I give you credit for a try, which is modestly successful. And your story is true 'second person' not the first person business often mistakenly regarded as second.

I like how you immediately set the scene, we know right away what is going on and who the characters are, although they are never named or even identified very clearly.

The 'instructions' are a bit over the top, but work, and are appropriate to the story.

Besides the second person narration (more later) the major issue for me here is that it reads like a man writing a woman's perspective. (I'm taking the 'male' self-identification in your profile at face value, apologies if this is not the case.) As a male who frequently writes female POV, I am keenly aware of the pitfalls inherent in doing this. You mostly handle matters well, but there are enough times that the male POV shows through that the narration is compromised.

The first real clue is the make-up-in-the-mirror business. Doing the MC's face 'to perfection.' Sounds like a restaurant menu description.

The assertion that the MC decides she looks 'pretty damn sexy' would be plausible, but only if preceded by a few paragraphs of some self-doubt in front of the mirror. All the women I know confess to some appearance insecurities. If your MC had made a couple self-critical observations 'sure wish my shoulders had a tighter curve to them,' 'never liked the gap between my eyebrows'-- even a 'the cat suit does a nice job of tightening the ol' tummy' observation would have make the 'pretty damn sexy' phrase snap into place and work marvelous well.

As the story proceeds (you lead us along nicely, ratcheting up the actions and sensations confidently and clearly) you get a lot of sensuous detail described in detail. Sometimes a bit over the top, but all works towards the story's ultimate conclusion. Writing mechanics are largely sound.

But the writing gets sloppier as the sex ramps up, a not infrequent pattern here on Lit. The clichés start piling up, the feeling that we are reading a man writing a woman's story becomes more apparent, the deeper you get into the sex the less appealing it becomes. Verbs get botched, the picture feels like the camera-hand is shaking. A keen editorial eye, and some ruthless pruning would do the last third of the story some real good.

'pleasure sleeve'
'magnificent meat stick'
'silky slit'

Oh please.

Here are a couple clunkers:

Even though you weren't sure you could at first you were able to slip right in to trusting this man one hundred percent.

His hot mouth returns to your pussy lips and he begins to lick, suck and probe you while his thumbs massage around the area and stimulated your hot button.

Even worse, we get the 'you feel him guide the tip of his hammer into your mossy cave.' Wait, I thought she did the total shave thing right at the beginning? What 'moss' might be left?

You did end on a sweet and satisfying note, and I appreciated the deft way you handled the pair's relationship and expectations for more in the future.

I don't know whether second person is a perspective you want to pursue in future work, but if you haven't read one thread on this topic, you might benefit from a look. I think it's an approach that puts off a good chunk of readers, if that is a consideration for you. The best effort with this perspective I have read here is by @AlinaX, called Swallow.

 

[intim8]

I really liked the review you did for my Christmas story last month. If it's OK, I'd love to get another one, but I don't want to hog the line.

This is a story in a different style than my usual, also a little over the top, but in a different and much less extreme way. It's 1P and has a really casual, conversational narration style, sometimes addressing the reader directlym and some humor. I really enjoyed writing it and would like to do more like it (though not all as wild as this). And this one has a good guy/bad guy plot to it, which is also unusual for my stories here. It was my On The Job entry last year.

I'm aware of the punctuation issues and a few typos. I'm putting more effort into that in my more recent work.

Nudio's Pizza (Exhibitionist & Voyeur, 11K words). (includes anal and cucking, but isn't focused on it) (and there's an Easter Egg reference to an 80s song)

If you'd like to do it, I'd appreciate it. But if you'd rather not do repeat authors, I understand.

 

[RBeemer]

@RBeemer
Sight is Overrated

I've got mixed reactions to this one, probably why it has taken so long to post my thoughts.

Writing second person POV is a huge challenge, it really only works for certain types of stories. I give you credit for a try, which is modestly successful. And your story is true 'second person' not the first person business often mistakenly regarded as second.

I like how you immediately set the scene, we know right away what is going on and who the characters are, although they are never named or even identified very clearly.

The 'instructions' are a bit over the top, but work, and are appropriate to the story.

Besides the second person narration (more later) the major issue for me here is that it reads like a man writing a woman's perspective. (I'm taking the 'male' self-identification in your profile at face value, apologies if this is not the case.) As a male who frequently writes female POV, I am keenly aware of the pitfalls inherent in doing this. You mostly handle matters well, but there are enough times that the male POV shows through that the narration is compromised.

The first real clue is the make-up-in-the-mirror business. Doing the MC's face 'to perfection.' Sounds like a restaurant menu description.

The assertion that the MC decides she looks 'pretty damn sexy' would be plausible, but only if preceded by a few paragraphs of some self-doubt in front of the mirror. All the women I know confess to some appearance insecurities. If your MC had made a couple self-critical observations 'sure wish my shoulders had a tighter curve to them,' 'never liked the gap between my eyebrows'-- even a 'the cat suit does a nice job of tightening the ol' tummy' observation would have make the 'pretty damn sexy' phrase snap into place and work marvelous well.

As the story proceeds (you lead us along nicely, ratcheting up the actions and sensations confidently and clearly) you get a lot of sensuous detail described in detail. Sometimes a bit over the top, but all works towards the story's ultimate conclusion. Writing mechanics are largely sound.

But the writing gets sloppier as the sex ramps up, a not infrequent pattern here on Lit. The clichés start piling up, the feeling that we are reading a man writing a woman's story becomes more apparent, the deeper you get into the sex the less appealing it becomes. Verbs get botched, the picture feels like the camera-hand is shaking. A keen editorial eye, and some ruthless pruning would do the last third of the story some real good.

'pleasure sleeve'
'magnificent meat stick'
'silky slit'

Oh please.

Here are a couple clunkers:

Even though you weren't sure you could at first you were able to slip right in to trusting this man one hundred percent.

His hot mouth returns to your pussy lips and he begins to lick, suck and probe you while his thumbs massage around the area and stimulated your hot button.

Even worse, we get the 'you feel him guide the tip of his hammer into your mossy cave.' Wait, I thought she did the total shave thing right at the beginning? What 'moss' might be left?

You did end on a sweet and satisfying note, and I appreciated the deft way you handled the pair's relationship and expectations for more in the future.

I don't know whether second person is a perspective you want to pursue in future work, but if you haven't read one thread on this topic, you might benefit from a look. I think it's an approach that puts off a good chunk of readers, if that is a consideration for you. The best effort with this perspective I have read here is by @AlinaX, called Swallow.

Yowser -

Thank you so much for taking the time to read and review my story Sight is Overrated. I accept your compliments and criticisms with equal gratitude.

I write my stories for an "audience of one" so some things just will not work with a wider, more diverse readership. However, it is great to know how my stories land for someone with the experience and intelligence to put together a thoughtful review.

I knew that my attempt at a non-traditional narrative perspective would be challenging but I had hoped to be able to pull it off better than I apparently did. It was NOT my intention to write from the heroine's point of view. I don't think I would ever attempt a female POV. My intended POV was that of the male telling the female what he hoped and dreamed for her experience to be. I was apparently unsuccessful in this attempt.

Sometimes I’m too META for my own good.

In fact my "audience of one" also scoffed at some of the heroine's reactions to the situation. I told her, "Hey. This is MY fantasy. Not yours."

My sloppy euphemisms for privates is a problem with which I struggle constantly.

All of my other stories are written from a first-person perspective. This one is an outlier in that regard. I'd love to get your take on my other stories but I know you have many other authors clamoring for your review.

Thank you again for your kind attention.

 

[AG31]

I write my stories for an "audience of one" so some things just will not work with a wider, more diverse readership.

Here, here! (Hear, hear????)

 

[AlinaX]

The best effort with this perspective I have read here is by @AlinaX, called Swallow.

Thanks for the shout, and thanks @intim8 for the nice comment!

 

[RoperTrace]

@RBeemer
Sight is Overrated

I've got mixed reactions to this one, probably why it has taken so long to post my thoughts.

Writing second person POV is a huge challenge, it really only works for certain types of stories. I give you credit for a try, which is modestly successful. And your story is true 'second person' not the first person business often mistakenly regarded as second.

I like how you immediately set the scene, we know right away what is going on and who the characters are, although they are never named or even identified very clearly.

The 'instructions' are a bit over the top, but work, and are appropriate to the story.

Besides the second person narration (more later) the major issue for me here is that it reads like a man writing a woman's perspective. (I'm taking the 'male' self-identification in your profile at face value, apologies if this is not the case.) As a male who frequently writes female POV, I am keenly aware of the pitfalls inherent in doing this. You mostly handle matters well, but there are enough times that the male POV shows through that the narration is compromised.

The first real clue is the make-up-in-the-mirror business. Doing the MC's face 'to perfection.' Sounds like a restaurant menu description.

The assertion that the MC decides she looks 'pretty damn sexy' would be plausible, but only if preceded by a few paragraphs of some self-doubt in front of the mirror. All the women I know confess to some appearance insecurities. If your MC had made a couple self-critical observations 'sure wish my shoulders had a tighter curve to them,' 'never liked the gap between my eyebrows'-- even a 'the cat suit does a nice job of tightening the ol' tummy' observation would have make the 'pretty damn sexy' phrase snap into place and work marvelous well.

As the story proceeds (you lead us along nicely, ratcheting up the actions and sensations confidently and clearly) you get a lot of sensuous detail described in detail. Sometimes a bit over the top, but all works towards the story's ultimate conclusion. Writing mechanics are largely sound.

But the writing gets sloppier as the sex ramps up, a not infrequent pattern here on Lit. The clichés start piling up, the feeling that we are reading a man writing a woman's story becomes more apparent, the deeper you get into the sex the less appealing it becomes. Verbs get botched, the picture feels like the camera-hand is shaking. A keen editorial eye, and some ruthless pruning would do the last third of the story some real good.

'pleasure sleeve'
'magnificent meat stick'
'silky slit'

Oh please.

Here are a couple clunkers:

Even though you weren't sure you could at first you were able to slip right in to trusting this man one hundred percent.

His hot mouth returns to your pussy lips and he begins to lick, suck and probe you while his thumbs massage around the area and stimulated your hot button.

Even worse, we get the 'you feel him guide the tip of his hammer into your mossy cave.' Wait, I thought she did the total shave thing right at the beginning? What 'moss' might be left?

You did end on a sweet and satisfying note, and I appreciated the deft way you handled the pair's relationship and expectations for more in the future.

I don't know whether second person is a perspective you want to pursue in future work, but if you haven't read one thread on this topic, you might benefit from a look. I think it's an approach that puts off a good chunk of readers, if that is a consideration for you. The best effort with this perspective I have read here is by @AlinaX, called Swallow.

Are you sure it wasn't a muddy cave? Hey, I think I'm onto something.

 

[lc69hunter]

Thanks for the shout, and thanks @intim8 for the nice comment!

Just read your latesthttps://www.literotica.com/s/summer-wine-2 . A great fantasy. gave it a 5.

 

[AlinaX]

Just read your latest Summer Wine. A great fantasy. gave it a 5.

Thank you I started out planning a daft gameshow and ended up with an interesting throuple romance.

 

[yowser]

@AG31
Twelve Maxbridge Street

This is a longer and more complex work than anything I have read of yours before (conversations offline). As you have noted, your main theme is surrender, of a Male MC. I also recall your assertion that you don't write with 'plot' or 'character' in mind. This naturally poses problems in making improvement suggestions, since without these two elements, you don’t really have a story.

I understand that you are writing fantasies, for your own purposes, so will focus on the use of language to do so.

First of all, good news, this is a far better effort than the work I have provided feedback on before (offline), An Enigma, and you should be pleased at the differences, apparent and tangible in your prose.

Sentence structure is more varied, word choices better, the overall descriptions and story arc far more nuanced and developed. All good.

I am aware that your goal is setting your fantasies down and exploring your theme to the best of your ability, and that improving is a significant desire. I am going to suggest an approach you may want to consider:

Think of your reader.

Perhaps your main reader is you. Maybe that is the only reader you care about. But if you are able to put your awareness into the mind of another reader, you may find that your own written fantasies become better and more exciting. If you can do this, I think you’ll find ways to make your stories more enjoyable, immersive, and satisfying. And to me, the harnessing of the language to tell a tale is one of the most important activities an artist can accomplish.

(Clarification: think of your reader after writing your story. Not sure of your writing process so might be draft No. 2 or 8. But somewhere in your edit/revise cycle, try to imagine how a reader is getting your words/sentences/paragraphs/descriptions and consider how you might improve their experience. But get the meat of the story out first, for yourself. I think @NoTalentHack says it well elsewhere in the AH: ‘write for yourself, publish for your readers.’)

So I’m going to give you my reactions as a reader - not necessarily one who fits your interest bracket (I understand the appeal of surrender, and what it can do with the ways of pleasure in sexual situations, but it is hardly a main interest of mine.) But surrender - giving oneself to another, to others, in situations that eliminate one’s will and agency, and force one into a position of receptivity: alive, sentient, aware of what is being done to you and how you are reacting – this can be powerful stuff.

So as a reader, here is how it goes for me, I’ll take you through my understandings/reactions:

Setting, the ‘Association’, fairly explicitly a club sexual in nature. Our hero (named but the name is almost irrelevant, and although he remains nameless for a lengthy first section of the story I am glad you find a suitably satisfying way to give him an appellation by including his co-workers into the drama) leaves his office (down the stairs to the street) and goes to the club, symbolically down (again) a flight of stairs from the street and into a large and fairly undefined room. We’re doing the ‘down’ theme here. So far, so good, although I am annoyed that you need to mention ‘perfect’ so frequently. (Four times in the first three paragraphs. Understood.)

I do like how you introduce his physical sensations along the way, not too much, although often too much ‘telling’ and not ‘showing.’ Mostly you handle this well, stretching the sensations out with writerly intent and purpose.

Once in place our MC is commanded to masturbate and does so, with some hints of pain provided at the end, with various boots applied to genitals and the threat of more to come hovering in the air.

Then we get odd mysterious costumes added, and more mysterious people enter the scene in ones and twos, partners in crime as it were. Various mechanisms and tools of torture are added. I know the effect intended, but it all does get a bit complicated and confusing as time goes on, with increasingly complicated mechanisms and apparatus introduced into our hero’s passage through the humiliation labyrinth.

(One suggestion, when complex apparatus is introduced, instead of trying for a clinical third-person narration, perhaps frame it all from the MC’s perspective. You won’t need to get all the shiny bits of detail right and the physics of it all, and ambiguity can be understood in the natural way that the MC is experiencing the new tools of torture. This will heighten reader attention and draw them into the MC’s head, making a clearer picture in general. The reader will appreciate this.)

Various persons are introduced into the journey, each with some sort of torturous role for our hero, and while you attempt to keep individuals distinct, I suspect you could do a better job of this, even if the throng of dozens are just bit parts. Some descriptions (‘callow youth’) don’t work all that well, and things get more confusing as the cast grows and the reader has to keep track of them all.

(You likely have a clear picture in your head of all the complexity, but readers are poor mind-readers and need real clues from the author.)

Hero is put through the paces (not sure the segment subtitles ‘punishment,’ ‘bondage,’ etc are necessary or even a good idea, it might perhaps be more effective to have the ‘officials’ announce them rather than just inserting them into the narration as subheadings.)

Many of the descriptions are handled in a flat impersonal tone, with none of the sentence structure variation you managed in earlier sections. It all begins to read like some sort of manual. This person does this. That person does something different. And some of MC’s reactions are flat out B-movie stuff:

They're playing me like a bass fiddle, Faranger thought ruefully.

Dialog similarly is flat. Perhaps you are intending to introduce an element of ‘formality’ to the proceedings for effect (inspiration from old-style French erotica is mentioned in your meta-musings), but I suggest a more realistic approach to the participants’ speaking parts.

Here’s an example:

"We are the most scientific and practiced of the groups in The Association. We've studied whipping strategies, and we know what works and doesn't. The goal is to bring you to orgasm without resorting to any other method than pain. We're always successful."

Surely you can have them do their spiel in a more authentic and natural fashion? It all is monotone. Even suggesting the hint of delivery (Supercilious? Overly practiced?) would give some flavor and provide some depth to the speaking parts.

Words emerge from the mouths of your various characters, but there is no register difference between them in the slightest. No way to identify a character by the way they speak, and since you have so many individuals in your scene, you leave the reader with no dialog clues as to who is who, no variation amongst the speaking parts.

The closest you come to a sense of human speech is here:

"Pity," she said again, with a rueful twist of her lips.

My only suggestion is observation: amongst real live humans engaged in conversation, reading writers who handle dialog well (Barbara Kingsolver comes to mind.) Review your old erotica if that is the flavor you seek. An easy step to take that will enliven your tales.
So our hero is whipped and forced to climax over and over, thrown in a cage, given some healing ointments and so forth and inexplicably is settled into unconsciousness with a person who is is appointed caretaker alongside, Sandra, and who then proceeds to inhabit the last, post-event, sections of the story.

What? Why? Was this planned by the Association? You end up with an explanation for Sandra and her continued interest but as a reader I am jarred by the suddenness of it all and it feels like her arrival was tacked on to the tale out of the blue. The couple do movies and sports events and dinner together without much development and it all is so remarkable.

At the very least, I think you need more work on a transition and how their connection grows, it’s quite wooden as is.

Another fairly major issue that is going to trouble anyone reading this who has experienced anal penetration:

Zero lubrication. That’s just not how it is handled in the real world. Things just don’t get shoved into position without some sort of fluid to ease things along. You can still get pain and blood-stains on towels and pure hurt, but without some sort of fluid application, folks are just going to scoff/tune out or worse.

Here’s a couple examples of awkward phrasings, about as far from classic French erotica that you can get, anachronistic and glaringly divergent in tone from the rest of the tale:

Faranger was too wiped out to really absorb the terror of that thought.

By this time Faranger was not sure at all that the punishment station was a good idea. But there was nothing for it but to hang in there.

For better stories in the future, here’s what you can do:

Court your reader. Caress your reader. Let them know you care. Fine to surprise them, but don’t let them be stumped. Make life as easy and exciting for them as possible, their reading an enjoyable excursion.

So there you are. I appreciate your ambition, your focus, your generally good command of language at the mortar-and-brick level, but your main goal of improvement will I think prove difficult until you try to look at your work from the reader’s perspective. Second oldest dance in history, writer and reader, make it a good one.

 

[AG31]

Thanks for one of the best reviews I've gotten (not "best" in the sense of "great story," but "best" in the sense that you accurately recognize what I'm doing and what I'm intending to do, whether or not you approve.

Here are a few comments on your comments.

I understand that you are writing fantasies, for your own purposes, so will focus on the use of language to do so.

THANK YOU!

Think of your reader.

I take comfort in never doing that. I don't consider myself a writer, and the one time I tried to "create" a story, instead of just record it, I failed miserably and am thinkful it was caught by a beta reader before I submitted it.

Perhaps your main reader is you. Maybe that is the only reader you care about. But if you are able to put your awareness into the mind of another reader, you may find that your own written fantasies become better and more exciting.

I think this is an excellent suggestion, and will re-visit my stories with this in mind.

So I’m going to give you my reactions as a reader - not necessarily one who fits your interest bracket (I understand the appeal of surrender, and what it can do with the ways of pleasure in sexual situations, but it is hardly a main interest of mine.) But surrender - giving oneself to another, to others, in situations that eliminate one’s will and agency, and force one into a position of receptivity: alive, sentient, aware of what is being done to you and how you are reacting – this can be powerful stuff.

Thanks for this expression of what I'm writing about.

So far, so good, although I am annoyed that you need to mention ‘perfect’ so frequently. (Four times in the first three paragraphs. Understood.)

Half the people who have commented on this thought it was funny (as it was meant to be - that is, he's mocking himself). The other half get annoyed. It's one of the main points that have taught me that sometimes things work for people and sometimes they don't.

I do like how you introduce his physical sensations along the way, not too much, although often too much ‘telling’ and not ‘showing.’ Mostly you handle this well, stretching the sensations out with writerly intent and purpose.

Thanks!

I know the effect intended, but it all does get a bit complicated and confusing as time goes on, with increasingly complicated mechanisms and apparatus introduced into our hero’s passage through the humiliation labyrinth.

Yes, indeed. I really struggled to put the gadgets into words. I'm going to keep my eye open for the way other authors handle it.

(One suggestion, when complex apparatus is introduced, instead of trying for a clinical third-person narration, perhaps frame it all from the MC’s perspective. You won’t need to get all the shiny bits of detail right and the physics of it all, and ambiguity can be understood in the natural way that the MC is experiencing the new tools of torture. This will heighten reader attention and draw them into the MC’s head, making a clearer picture in general. The reader will appreciate this.)

Wouldn't I have to put the whole thing into first person?

Some descriptions (‘callow youth’) don’t work all that well,

Awww... That's one of my favorite inspirations! (See comment above on "perfect, perfect.")

(You likely have a clear picture in your head of all the complexity, but readers are poor mind-readers and need real clues from the author.)

Will keep this in mind for future revisions.

Many of the descriptions are handled in a flat impersonal tone, with none of the sentence structure variation you managed in earlier sections. It all begins to read like some sort of manual. This person does this. That person does something different.

One reader liked my "static" style. And I've recently re-read The Story of O, and it's clear that my inspiration was well founded. So I'll stick with it.

And some of MC’s reactions are flat out B-movie stuff:

They're playing me like a bass fiddle, Faranger thought ruefully.

Did I really right this???? I'll have to go check.

Dialog similarly is flat. Perhaps you are intending to introduce an element of ‘formality’ to the proceedings for effect (inspiration from old-style French erotica is mentioned in your meta-musings), but I suggest a more realistic approach to the participants’ speaking parts.

Bingo. "Formality" is it. @RainyDayPen described her own writing in this way and after about 3 years of wishing I could describe what I was doing to myself, that did it for me. And yes, classic French erotica.

Here’s an example:

"We are the most scientific and practiced of the groups in The Association. We've studied whipping strategies, and we know what works and doesn't. The goal is to bring you to orgasm without resorting to any other method than pain. We're always successful."

Surely you can have them do their spiel in a more authentic and natural fashion? It all is monotone. Even suggesting the hint of delivery (Supercilious? Overly practiced?) would give some flavor and provide some depth to the speaking parts.

Again, one of my favorite bits. But I continue to appreciate your peek into the mind of the reader for whom this doesn't work.

What? Why? Was this planned by the Association?

Here's where my psyche must be driving things. As I said, this is a fantasy that came to me. There's a different side of my psyche coming into view in this section.

Another fairly major issue that is going to trouble anyone reading this who has experienced anal penetration:

Zero lubrication. That’s just not how it is handled in the real world. Things just don’t get shoved into position without some sort of fluid to ease things along. You can still get pain and blood-stains on towels and pure hurt, but without some sort of fluid application, folks are just going to scoff/tune out or worse.

You're not the first to notice this, and I fixed it in the Smashwords edition. But it's just too cumbersome to try to edit here on Lit, so I've let it be.

Here’s a couple examples of awkward phrasings, about as far from classic French erotica that you can get, anachronistic and glaringly divergent in tone from the rest of the tale:

Faranger was too wiped out to really absorb the terror of that thought.

Good catch. Will change that somehow.

By this time Faranger was not sure at all that the punishment station was a good idea. But there was nothing for it but to hang in there.

Will work on this too.

So there you are. I appreciate your ambition, your focus, your generally good command of language at the mortar-and-brick level, but your main goal of improvement will I think prove difficult until you try to look at your work from the reader’s perspective. Second oldest dance in history, writer and reader, make it a good one.

Again, thanks very much. And even though I don't write for the reader, your suggestion of thinking about the reader when tackling tough stuff like describing gadgets is appreciated.

And, again, thanks for your perceptiveness about what I'm about.

 

[AG31]

(One suggestion, when complex apparatus is introduced, instead of trying for a clinical third-person narration, perhaps frame it all from the MC’s perspective. You won’t need to get all the shiny bits of detail right and the physics of it all, and ambiguity can be understood in the natural way that the MC is experiencing the new tools of torture.

When I first read this, I thought you meant to switch to first person. But, on reflection, you mean, I think, to continue in 3rd person to describe the MC's perspective on what's happening. Excellent suggestion. I'll give it a go.

 

[AG31]

(One suggestion, when complex apparatus is introduced, instead of trying for a clinical third-person narration, perhaps frame it all from the MC’s perspective. You won’t need to get all the shiny bits of detail right and the physics of it all, and ambiguity can be understood in the natural way that the MC is experiencing the new tools of torture. This will heighten reader attention and draw them into the MC’s head, making a clearer picture in general. The reader will appreciate this.)

I've translated "heighten reader attention" to "get inside the MCs head and report his experience more fully."

This is an interesting point about my writing. As you know, early on I identified Pauline Reage (Story of O) as my model, but also, early on, I was aware that I was extremely explicit about the MC's perceived experience, whereas Reage tells us almost nothing about O's physical reactions. All we know is she wanted to give herself to whatever her lover required of her.

So when I write a passage like you identified, it's not just laziness. It's forgetting who I am as a writer and just slipping into Reage mode.

Is this the kind of thing you were talking about? Do you remember any other specifics where I could have shifted to the MCs perspective?

BEFORE

“OK, Mike. Time’s up,” said the woman in black.

“Now we’d like you to mount this frame,” she said. The handlers were rolling up a metal contraption that had a cross bar at the end closest to the table, a leather strap about a foot wide across the middle, and in back two fiber glass structures which were obviously for his knees, if they were spread apart as far as possible. The handlers helped him get his knees in place and to lay his forearms across the bar in front. It was padded and covered in leather and there was a depression in the middle that reminded him of the head rest at the ophthalmologist’s office. When he rested his ribs on the leather strap he could rest his forehead on the depression in the front bar or on his hands. The frame had him angled up enough so that if he tipped his head just a little downward he had the same view of his naked, splayed body as the people at the table. He closed his eyes momentarily to savor his exposure. The people at the sides and end of the table got up and gathered around so they could watch what was happening in the back. He could feel the beat of his heart in his penis.

AFTER

There seemed to be no more people armed with phalluses approaching. Faranger let his arms drop and stood relaxed, passive, but his flesh was alight with anticipation for the next touch, whatever it might be. He remained erect.

Presently an apparatus made of shiny stainless steel parts was rolled next to him. At first Faranger could make no sense of it, but then its use became clearer. He acquiesced to the unspoken command and grasped the side bars so he could place his knees in the obvious shapes. He shifted his hands to a bar closest to the table, and let his forehead and torso rest on the places provided. All of the points where he rested were padded, thus allowing him to focus on his exposure without the distraction of discomfort.

His thighs were pulled apart just short of pain and his genitals hung heavy and free, his erection declaring his willing participation to the onlookers.

He was angled to give the people at the table an unobstructed view and his body was flooded with an erotic flush, both humiliating and welcome.

The people at the sides and end of the table got up and gathered around so they could watch what was happening in the back. He could feel the beat of his heart in his penis.

 

[yowser]

Nudio's Pizza - On The Job Challenge
@intim8


This was a clever, amusing little adventure. Outlandish premise but deftly handled, never out of control, fits together like a well-designed jigsaw puzzle, well handled.

Okay, emphasis on outlandish. I do like that you provide a proper setting for the shenanigans, so many stories here are set in Nowhere USA and expect the reader to jump in without a thought as to 'where'.

But you've created a believable little Florida town on the eccentric side but consistent with the region's reputation, and you take the suspension-of-disbelief business almost to the breaking point but never quite exceed it, and keep the reader (me in this case) hooked in all the way to the end. (I do hope you did proper research however, on semen calligraphy/painting whatever you want to call it. 'Little hearts' might be tricky.) I appreciate that you described the physical attributes of characters without resorting to exaggerated or cliched terms.

And the inverted business on pizza delivery is audacious, in-your-face, and hysterical all at the same time.

Tone is breezy and conversational, no off-notes to get in the way of the telling.

Some of your sentences are delightful, to wit:

Fallsworth took advantage of a loophole in Florida law to declare public nudity fully legal. Full frontal, full backal, full everything. The full Monty, anywhere, any time.

It was no coincidence that the places my hands most wanted to explore were exactly the same places she most wanted explored.

She hardly spoke, but her face was so expressive that she didn't need to.

Mechanics are all sound and while I'll make some nit-picky observations below, you really don't need to work much on this aspect of your writing. I like your descriptions of people and events, doing enough to sketch personalities and qualities but not too much in any arena.

The drawbacks are few, and even if you followed all of them, I don't think it would improve your tale more than a few percent, so you might take them as just reactions and file them away for future stories.

In this sort of story, the sex is going to be a bit detached, since the characters are so oddly drawn. I would have liked a little more backstory/info on Patricia, which would have made the sexual encounter with her in the middle fuller and more satisfying.

I was afraid your villain would be a complete cartoon character, but you wove in enough 3-D elements of his nature in just the right amount of dribs and drabs for everything to hang together. (I did end up, at the end, thinking that your tale would make a wonderful backbone for a graphic novel type of story, and the illustrations would be a hoot.)

So here are the rare typos/missteps, really not many:

It didn't phase him one bit ('faze.')

Tony listened sympathetically as two other driver chimed in

and pled no contest (alright, I double-checked the manual on this one and either is fine, just 'pleaded' is used with greater frequency these days.)

However, I think you ought to explore hyphen usage. I'm at one end of the spectrum (lots, maybe excessive) and you're at the other, but at least some of the following will read better/eliminate-a-reader-stumble if a hyphen is used (I'll let you do the thinking/lookups if this sort of thing matters to you at all):

Lonely middle aged women
cross legged
you God damned sodomite!
seven year
four dimensional
eye crossing
body withering

In summary, nicely done. I loved the ending, the immortal coinage, and full marks for not mentioning pineapple as a pizza topping at all.

 

[intim8]

This was a clever, amusing ...

This was awesome, thank you. I believe all the praise, and your criticisms make perfect sense. I will definitely keep those in mind for the future. Making notes....

Made my week.

 

[Mogrem]

If you would like another pair of (critical) eyes to take a look at one of your tales and can accept some honest feedback, I will take you on.

This is a very generous offer and the critiques you've done so far are great. I'll throw one of mine into the ring for when you get a moment.

Lisa and Polly is a series in three parts, but only 8.4k long in total. As you will see the parts were written quite far apart and I changed as a writer somewhat between parts. I'm interested to get an idea of what has worked so far and what hasn't, so I make sure to grow it in the right direction. Or at least, in the more titillating direction.

It is in non-consent/reluctance but with the emphasis firmly on reluctance. No rape fantasy's were ever fulfilled by the reading of this series. (Sex scenes in the mirror may appear closer than they are, your tumescence may vary, other caveats are available...)

 

[VerbalAbuse]

I have a little (7k words) story with a somewhat sci-fi premise, the first part of what should be a longer text.

The Man from Winter

Would you consider reading it and giving your assessment?

 

[yowser]

I have a little (7k words) story with a somewhat sci-fi premise, the first part of what should be a longer text.

The Man from Winter

Would you consider reading it and giving your assessment?

You're on. There's one in the queue ahead of you and I'm out of town for a couple weeks, but I'll get to it.

 

[yowser]

Lisa and Polly
@Mogrem

This story is a reminder to me why I am not so fond of the Non-Consent category (although I do have one story in there myself.)

Three short chapters, loosely related, with three main characters and a couple of peripherals off-stage. You indicated that these were written with wide gaps, and certainly the last segment has more to offer than the first (and as I'll note below, some of what is revealed there would have made the entire series better if introduced earlier.)

You insist that it leans towards 'reluctance' but from my point of view this is an academic assertion. The whole arousal factor here works only when you have someone imposing their will, and others who get some thrill about being imposed on, and in that respect, you achieve your goal. But I wouldn't call it 'reluctance'.

I admit that there is a lot to explore here, and sexual arousal is ultimately both simple and complicated at the same time, but this dynamic doesn't do a lot for me, which is my own issue and has nothing to do with you and your story. So take my reactions with a large helping of scepticism.

The three parts here are written more like fantasies or porn-scripts, there is no real growth to the participants, and the finish line is largely no different from the initial set of sexual interactions. There are a lot of physical descriptions of action, although nothing is especially gripping. The setting is fairly vague, rooms upstairs and downstairs, characters are roughly outlined, not especially easy to form any sort of visual image for the reader.

There are multiple areas for work on this, and I'll try to break them down.

The main one is just the characters themselves. The male MC remains both unnamed (surely deliberate on your part) and a conspicuously unappealing fellow he is. Plenty of libido and attitude, to be sure, but not a whole lot else is suggested. The first issue I have as a reader is wondering why this guy has such a hold on the women. (Closest we get is later: 'tall dark handsome stranger.' You can do better than that, although I give you credit for not making a point of his possession of an over-endowed member.) Towards the end we discover he's a sculptor, that info, or at least the hint of it, would work much better if introduced early on. I think your story would improve immensely if you developed the facet of attraction amongst your characters, everyone's motives in the tale feel paper thin.

The one area of interest, and how the series may differ from other Non-con types of stories, is the mother-daughter angle, but aside from some fairly superficial body comparisons done by the two [such as breast sizes], you ignore some potential areas of interest (and leave the reader wondering why and how these two got into this situation and stayed there. There are some further indications in the third chapter, again likely better introduced earlier.)

You start right in with the action, which is fine as far as it goes, and the roles come into play quickly and clearly.

One area to work on for the future is the dialogue. It is often not easy to tell who is talking, Polly or Lisa, and you would do your readers a favor by making their utterances distinct and separate. If you can get some tonal registers in there, some unique expressions that one uses that the other doesn't, tease out the different kinds of observations that each one makes, all of this will both engage the reader and help identify the characters and keep them differentiated.

The usual advice, 'show not tell' is worth considering. Right up front we get Lisa who 'loved to be chucked around, manhandled, shown her place.'
You demonstrate some of this as the chapters unfold, but an early more vivid description of how she 'loves' all this would help snap the reader into Lisa's mindset, rather than being told about it.

Consider introducing some more sensual suggestions: sounds, tastes, characters' visceral reactions to what is going on.

Mechanics will require some attention for future efforts. Commas added when unnecessary, omitted when they ought to be there. A couple examples:

He left her staring, and went back up.

That would be OK then wouldn't it?

You use a lot of semicolons (correctly) but in dialogue I think you are better off with a period/full stop, feels a little pretentious as is.

Fair number of clunky sentences, e.g.:

She probably hadn't known which herself, to start with, but now it was definitely both.

Polly moaned around his shaft and Lisa and sped up.

If there's any way to get another pair of eyes on your work before submission I think you'd save yourself a number of missteps. Early on, in the middle of some action, the entry '29th of April, 2018' appears, not sure how that intruded, but a more thorough edit surely would have caught it, and many other typos, punctuation errors and oddly constructed descriptions.

You're wrong on 'it's' and 'its' often, I think you'd benefit from reviewing a basic style guide (Chicago or the like.)

'Come' as a verb is fine but you have a good deal of inconsistency with that word as a noun (you use 'cum' as well.) Pick one approach and stick to it (perhaps take a look at this recent thread: https://forum.literotica.com/threads/cum-or-come.1590359/#post-97159094

Other inconsistencies: collarbone and collar bone.
hyphens: life sized or over-sized
punctuation: his or her's friends
"Fuck thats better,"

So good news, there's improvement as the series goes on. I wouldn't try to address all the points I've raised, just the ones that resonate, and perhaps focus on one or two elements in future efforts.

PS. With a last re-read, it seems more and more like this series is written backwards, or at least that the third chapter innards would be better presented first, providing context and a backbone for the rest of what goes on. But you perhaps have already grasped this ...

 

[Mogrem]

Thank you @yowser for taking the time to do such a thorough read-through and critique, especially given your distaste for the NC/R category.

I don't take issue with anything you pointed out and will certainly come back to this when I'm writing future stories. I won't go through it point by point here therefore, as its, "Yup, yeah, yes that too..."*

As you spotted, and as it fairly obvious, it started off as a cheap and quite minimalist stroke story (the first two chapters are really one chapter), which is the kind of level I was happy with when I joined Literotica (and hey, I'm still happy with it, so long as its better done). In the third chapter I belatedly decide to flesh it out a little. Now I've written a couple of incomplete further chapters which drop the NC/R angle and are much more interested in Polly.

However I'll really benefit from this critique because I knew I was building it on a flimsy start and just couldn't bring myself to polish any further chapters up. Hearing someone else tell me why its not working is always helpful, especially when I'd become attached to developing a character (Polly) who got fleshed out in my head but not on the page.

A fresh start with a different series will be called for I think, rather than trying to wrestle with a four year old stroke story.

____
* I'll address one very minor point: I have no idea how that date got in. I must have had it in the clipboard when I was pasting it over into the submission box. It was quite irritating.

 

[dmallord]

I appreciate you hanging up a review shingle and would ask you to look at the following 6,200-word story:
Grammie's Secret Letters
Paternal Twins Discover Erotic Love Letters.
06/11/2024 in Letters & Transcripts Stories

HOT 1 like 2.5k views 4.64 / 45 with 2 comments

It involves paternal twins Jared and Janet. Home alone for the summer, they discover an old computer in the attic with their grandmother's love letters sent to her future husband, a sailor overseas. The lusty letters set into motion events that lead to the twins acting out some of those letters.

As an old guy writer, I welcome feedback. And I'd like to see if the dialog and plot seem reasonable from that teenage perspective.

I really appreciate any help you can provide.

 

[yowser]

The Man from Winter
@VerbalAbuse


This is an odd tale. Sci-Fi, okay, we will be dealing with non-ordinary places, beings, warped realities of one sort or another.

But the setting and characters and events are so amorphous it is quite difficult for (this) reader to engage with the story.

We are introduced to 'Winter' which is a 'world' (presumably a planet yet we learn little about it other than that which can be deduced by the name - it's cold and obviously has sentient life forms.) It turns out 'Earth' also happens to have a region named 'North' - I should think there are more evocative names than these.

Although not particularly a SF fan I have no objection to exotic worlds, but one of the first requirements for a SF writer is to introduce the world in sufficient detail to make the reader want to know More about it. Some mystery and hinting often works better than straight exposition.

The first character is presented as a 'The man' and then gets a name in the second paragraph. I do not understand this, why not have 'Roland' be himself, and named, right from the start? I see no advantage to the approach taken here.

I do like that you take the time to describe the initial setting, reading about the windows and sunlight outside the building helps me visualise the place and get myself situated, something often neglected in a great many Lit-tales.

The present tense is jarring and although you preserve it quite well throughout (as in not slipping into the more typical straight past narrator tense), I do not understand why you made this choice. There is no more 'immediacy' to the tale when told that way, the reason usually given for present tense in a story. I think plain past would have worked just as well and would have made a reader far more comfortable.

Dialogue is contorted throughout. It makes sense that the 'Ambassador' might use stilted or awkward speech (new to the place he is visiting, unfamiliar with idioms etc) but for Roland to do so doesn't work. The dialogue patterns are undifferentiated, everyone who speaks here in the story sounds just like anyone else. Among other things, it keeps the reader from having strong clues about who is speaking.

Instead of straight description Roland studies the stranger's face, which he finds exceedingly seductive. Could we get a sense of what features, expressions, elements arise to provoke Roland's reaction? This facet of the tale is central, yet the reader never gets much sense of the nature of the attraction. Is it just physical? Something more subtle? And the attraction is static – it doesn’t grow or develop over the course of the story, there is nothing Roland notices about the ambassador that heightens his sense of attraction, we are left in pretty much the same place at the end of the tale as when we started.

The narration itself is also quite flat. Sentences are all the same, about the same length, and while I have no trouble with just employing simple descriptive words, I suspect you could vary both sentence length and structure, and word choices, and thus liven up the story.

Here’s a sample:

Soon, Theryn finds himself on streets too narrow, too steep, and with corners too sharp for cars to pass. They descend from the plateau above to the waterline. The houses that flank them are white and closely packed. They are two or three stories tall, with thick walls and flat rooftops that double as terraces.

After ten minutes on the winding streets, Theryn arrives at his home -- a small house overlooking the bay, situated on a staired alley. The interior is painted white, just like the exterior, and large windows are cut into the thick stone walls. The front door opens to a small hallway. To the left, downhill, is a small kitchen with a table at the far end, just under a window that opens over the house below. To the right of the entrance is the bedroom, and directly across from the main door is the bathroom.

First sentence has promise, a good clear visual. But what does the ‘they’ in the second sentence refer to? Then it is all subject-verb-short description, with some variation, but not enough and a lot of ‘being’ verbs (is, is, is.)

For practice, try writing those two paragraphs over again, see if you can get some more complicated sentences in there, vary the tone, cadence, see if you can make readers perk up their ears. See https://forum.literotica.com/threads/helpful-or-just-fun-guides.1612884/page-4#post-99081708
for an example of this in the AH.

I thought you might play with Winter’s eunuchs and their unusual dormant/rampant genitalia situation a bit more, all sorts of interesting ways to do this, and the SF crew would not only accept this, but enthuse over it.

You end with loneliness, surely a significant emotional state, ripe for all manner of overtones. Lots of room to explore this, tease out all the nuanced pieces, try to hint at the bottomless pit of it all, but all the reader gets is a couple wistful paragraphs, some vague sense of longing. I am a big fan of metaphors when dealing with these sorts of emotional conditions. If this is a common theme in your works I urge you to play around with a good deal more.

So here’s my big question.

What are you trying to do with your writing? I understand the lure of straight fantasies, the things that come out of one's brain you need to put down into some tangible medium, and there is pleasure that comes from creating. You end with some musing on a powerful emotional state, do you want to develop that sense more in further tales? Not having read any of your other work, I would like you to think about your motives, what you are trying to accomplish.

There is lots of room here for improved writing aspects: dialog, description, emotional involvement. But there is little seduction here, and as a writer I think it essential that you strive to interest the reader in your own story, get them curious about the participants, get some movement going to make a reader want to move on to the next section. You can certainly write for yourself, but if you want a partner (the reader) you need to spend some time thinking about their wants and desires as well. And how easy you can make it for them to follow you along.