Yowser Yelps

[yowser]

Grammie's Secret Letters

@dmallord


This is a tale of two 'eighteen year old' twins, Jared and Janet, who discover letters of a highly salacious nature written by their grandmother, stored on an ancient Macintosh computer in the attic, which leads to their own incestual sexual explorations.

I have been puzzling as to exactly why this story does so little for me as a reader.

Any written story has two main elements: the story itself (plot) and the characters who make it all work. A decent erotic (or for that matter, mainstream) story needs at least one of these elements to be strong enough to engage readers and pull them in. Obviously the best writers demonstrate excellence in both arenas, but often ability in one aspect is enough for success. For this story, both the plot and characters are mid-level, as both elements are competently handled but are blandly executed and the overall effect lacks any real sparkle.

The 'found' letters are a decent enough plot device, but the timeline poses some problems. We (the readers) assume the story is a present-day tale so the '18 year old' twins thus were born in 2006. And they are reading their grandmother’s love notes, written in 1989. Okay so far, although the churning reader mathematical calculations are starting to get alarmed at the improbabilities present.

But no, the timeline is different:

"March 1989. Hell, that's..." she muttered, trying to calculate the years in her head. She closed her eyes and tilted her head upward in thought, trying the closed-eye approach, expecting it to help the math process somehow...

"...Thirty-seven years," Jared answered, amusedly, without batting an eye.

So it appears the story is actually set in 2026, not something the reader expects (or is told).

Thirty-seven years for two generations is not theoretically impossible, but in a developed nation it is so unlikely that the belief-elastic stretches to an unhealthy point. Grandparents, and then parents of the twins, would have had to birth children at an absurdly young age (both generations) for the grandkids to be reading the letters '37 years' later.

I realise you are trying to work the 'nifty new technology' of the attic-find computer into the present day world, but the math falls apart. This is hardly a fatal flaw but ideally you’d prefer your audience not puzzled or distracted by this sort of detail. Changing the timeline or just explaining it more clearly and all’s well.

Anyway, the writing mechanics, all of them, although not flawless (more below), are way above average, a sound platform for this and future works. I appreciate that you don't waste any time outlining your characters and setting the scene, although the introduction is a bit melodramatic.

You capture the thrill of finding old written material well, and the always dicey uneasy feelings of discovery of the sexual aspects of close family relations.

The kids are a bundle of hormones, with a little curiosity thrown in, but otherwise aren't developed much. We hear that Jared is the math whiz, but aside from a couple cursory demonstrations, this is left fallow. We are told that university beckons but not much more than that. What else governs these kids' lives? We know from the start that they are destined to have intimate contact but don't know enough about them to care all that much.

The tropes are overused, lazy and tiresome (a cheerleader character, really?)

Here's one paragraph with multiple issues.

Perspiration rivulets trickled from long strands of hair; usually, it would be curly with carefully coffered swirls if she were in school. The damp-limp look was from an hour of work in the hot attic. Her flushed face wasn't the only thing dampish; her thin T-top clung to her ribs, form-fitting and tight as a pair of latex gloves. The moisture from her slicken breasts had drenched the fabric around them. The semi-translucent top clung to her like a wet T-shirt contestant. Jared had watched her descend the stairs with a light grin at how the moisture made the curves of her breasts look semi-nude with a pinkish glow upfront from nipples flattened by the tight-fitting summer garment. He shook the wet tee shirt contest thought out of mine as she reached the landing, tried to act his age, and even feigned curiosity about the box.

coffered - maybe coiffed?
slicken - slickened
consistency: both 'wet T-shirt' and 'wet tee shirt' are mentioned
stairs 'with a light grin'
mine – mind

You use semicolons correctly (good) but way too often. They are fine in technical or academic writing, although even there can appear pompous, but they are unnecessary and look absurdly out of place in fiction.

You did take some time developing each of the twin’s relations with the other, and that is worth a mention. (As a side note, I suspect the story would have worked better with the choice of category being IT - the IT bar for 'feasibility' is set fairly low, and you would clear it with plenty of room to spare. IT readers are famously indulgent of loopy/precariously held-together plots and placeholder characters. (See recent thread on IT Appreciation The eighteen year old mind is a strange and fickle place, high on confidence one moment, exceeded by naivety at others. So even though the theme is 'found letters' and L&T is a logical choice (although a rather barren micro-climate in Lit), I think your readership numbers and perhaps reaction would have been much greater in IT.)

Sexual descriptions are mostly overdone, over-the-top, typical of most Lit-tales but I expect you can do better than this. These are not so out of place in the found 'letters' where the reader doesn't expect much subtlety out of the racy grandparent epistles, but they get wearisome in narration elsewhere:

glistening pussy
Adonis-like twin.
primordial upward thrust
rock-hard abs
surging cock
touching a pendulous breast with a proud pink nubbin.

I am unnaturally sensitive to adverb overuse, but you didn't need to work hard to trigger my reflex.

especially
affectionately
briefly
lightly
brotherly
unintentionally
gently

All of these are crammed into one 60-word paragraph – an out-of-sight adverb density index number.

Further:

petulantly
amusedly
quizzically
Seductively
playfully
wickedly
Awkwardly
pensively

the list goes on...

Here is a possible course of action:

When you discover an errant adverb, try to figure out what flavor you are trying to convey. To pick an example – 'quizzically' – perhaps you can take a sentence or two and describe what makes the character ask or speak 'quizzically.' A raised eyebrow? Furrowed expression? Body language that suggests puzzlement, a questioning demeanor? If you can do this, two good things happen: you ditch a lazy word and at the same time paint a picture, perhaps suggest something else about the character.

Doing this may add some words (at the expense of the 'pare down' mantra) but can serve to deepen the character, reveal something of an inner emotional state.

The inclusion of another Lit author's name/persona in a story (while unlikely to be noticed by the general readership but surely spotted by the AH crowd) lends a sophomoric flavor to the whole affair.

The 'bro' and ‘sissy' terms of endearment between the teens gets tiresome quickly. I've no recollection of siblings of any age at any era using these words save occasionally (or ironically) when addressing each other.

This is a middle-of-the-road story, a bit short on imagination and over-written. My main suggestion for the future is cutting sentences and paragraphs unnecessary for moving the story forward, doing more with less, tightening up descriptions, curtailing florid prose, and striving to limit confusion. Making your writing leaner and more muscular will provide a better pace, increase involvement for your readers. Deeper editing would not be amiss.

You will need to concentrate on your plot or characters and put some effort into one of these areas if you want to elevate your game.

 

[dmallord]

Grammie's Secret Letters

@dmallord


This is a tale of two 'eighteen year old' twins, Jared and Janet, who discover letters of a highly salacious nature written by their grandmother, stored on an ancient Macintosh computer in the attic, which leads to their own incestual sexual explorations.

I have been puzzling as to exactly why this story does so little for me as a reader.

Any written story has two main elements: the story itself (plot) and the characters who make it all work. A decent erotic (or for that matter, mainstream) story needs at least one of these elements to be strong enough to engage readers and pull them in. Obviously the best writers demonstrate excellence in both arenas, but often ability in one aspect is enough for success. For this story, both the plot and characters are mid-level, as both elements are competently handled but are blandly executed and the overall effect lacks any real sparkle.

The 'found' letters are a decent enough plot device, but the timeline poses some problems. We (the readers) assume the story is a present-day tale so the '18 year old' twins thus were born in 2006. And they are reading their grandmother’s love notes, written in 1989. Okay so far, although the churning reader mathematical calculations are starting to get alarmed at the improbabilities present.

But no, the timeline is different:

"March 1989. Hell, that's..." she muttered, trying to calculate the years in her head. She closed her eyes and tilted her head upward in thought, trying the closed-eye approach, expecting it to help the math process somehow...

"...Thirty-seven years," Jared answered, amusedly, without batting an eye.

So it appears the story is actually set in 2026, not something the reader expects (or is told).

Thirty-seven years for two generations is not theoretically impossible, but in a developed nation it is so unlikely that the belief-elastic stretches to an unhealthy point. Grandparents, and then parents of the twins, would have had to birth children at an absurdly young age (both generations) for the grandkids to be reading the letters '37 years' later.

I realise you are trying to work the 'nifty new technology' of the attic-find computer into the present day world, but the math falls apart. This is hardly a fatal flaw but ideally you’d prefer your audience not puzzled or distracted by this sort of detail. Changing the timeline or just explaining it more clearly and all’s well.

Anyway, the writing mechanics, all of them, although not flawless (more below), are way above average, a sound platform for this and future works. I appreciate that you don't waste any time outlining your characters and setting the scene, although the introduction is a bit melodramatic.

You capture the thrill of finding old written material well, and the always dicey uneasy feelings of discovery of the sexual aspects of close family relations.

The kids are a bundle of hormones, with a little curiosity thrown in, but otherwise aren't developed much. We hear that Jared is the math whiz, but aside from a couple cursory demonstrations, this is left fallow. We are told that university beckons but not much more than that. What else governs these kids' lives? We know from the start that they are destined to have intimate contact but don't know enough about them to care all that much.

The tropes are overused, lazy and tiresome (a cheerleader character, really?)
...
You use semicolons correctly (good) but way too often. They are fine in technical or academic writing, although even there can appear pompous, but they are unnecessary and look absurdly out of place in fiction.

You did take some time developing each of the twin’s relations with the other, and that is worth a mention. (As a side note, I suspect the story would have worked better with the choice of category being IT - the IT bar for 'feasibility' is set fairly low, and you would clear it with plenty of room to spare. IT readers are famously indulgent of loopy/precariously held-together plots and placeholder characters. (See recent thread on IT Appreciation The eighteen year old mind is a strange and fickle place, high on confidence one moment, exceeded by naivety at others. So even though the theme is 'found letters' and L&T is a logical choice (although a rather barren micro-climate in Lit), I think your readership numbers and perhaps reaction would have been much greater in IT.)
...
When you discover an errant adverb, try to figure out what flavor you are trying to convey. To pick an example – 'quizzically' – perhaps you can take a sentence or two and describe what makes the character ask or speak 'quizzically.' A raised eyebrow? Furrowed expression? Body language that suggests puzzlement, a questioning demeanor? If you can do this, two good things happen: you ditch a lazy word and at the same time paint a picture, perhaps suggest something else about the character.

Doing this may add some words (at the expense of the 'pare down' mantra) but can serve to deepen the character, reveal something of an inner emotional state.

The inclusion of of another Lit author's name/persona in a story (while unlikely to be noticed by the general readership but surely spotted by the AH crowd) lends a sophomoric flavor to the whole affair.

The 'bro' and ‘sissy' terms of endearment between the teens gets tiresome quickly. I've no recollection of siblings of any age at any era using these words save occasionally (or ironically) when addressing each other.

This is a middle-of-the-road story, a bit short on imagination and over-written. My main suggestion for the future is cutting sentences and paragraphs unnecessary for moving the story forward, doing more with less, tightening up descriptions, curtailing florid prose, and striving to limit confusion. Making your writing leaner and more muscular will provide a better pace, increase involvement for your readers. Deeper editing would not be amiss.

You will need to concentrate on your plot or characters and put some effort into one of these areas if you want to elevate your game.

Thank you for reviewing the story. It is insightful and gives me plenty to work on for future stories.

So adverbs are killers and semicolons are taboo... didn't know that was something to avoid in Lit writings. I'll work on that and make a checklist to look for them in future works.

'Bro' and 'Sis' references came from another source. That source, as I recall, noted that those were frequent 'trigger' words in incest stories. You disfavor them. I'll add that to my knowledge bank for future writing and try toning down the usuage.

I did attempt to plot a timeline to see if the ages and shifts from grandparents to child to grandchildren worked out. However, it looks like I missed that. Your mathematical mind works much better and seems to need that to be comfortable and accepting of the story timeframe. I don't think about the math calculations when I read other authori's stories to validate or fact-check an author. I find that I accept a writer's take on dates. I 'work' on the old government adage: close enough for government work. Are you certain readers actually take the time to validate such precision when they read? I'm inclined to think otherwise, but then, as I noted, I'm not mathematically inclined. I had to go to a spreadsheet to validate the numbers. You are right, I was off by two years. But the possibility of the rate of births is not an absurdly young age: being eighteen and pregnant for grandmother, mother, and her teen's births works if I had backed the years up by two. Otherwise, one of them had kids at sixteen! You didn't mention the other historical data as references, so I'm assuming those didn't give you any angst or fact-checking issues. So that's good to know as well.

I agree that Incest and taboo are appropriate categories for the story. It certainly has a wider audience. But that was not my targeted audience. I selected letters and transcripts as the genre because the story fulfilled a man-on-a-mission journey of attempting at least one story in each Lit category. It check marks another genre on that mission. I figured mixing genres widens an audience, so I bridged both genres.

My reference to another author was an acknowledgment of that author's prior communications about writing. I alerted the author that I would use the name as a nod of appreciation for those communiques. It was not meant to be sophomoric. Is that called an 'Easter Egg?'

I appreciate your diligent work in pointing out things to improve. I'll rework the story as an exercise to find the points you noted. It should help me up my game, though, for an eighty-six-year-old guy, the game isn't long at this point in time.

Don Mallord

 

[dmallord]

@yowser

I searched for ‘ly’ adverb words. Yikes, 78 of them sprinkled throughout 6,200 words. That’s a 1:79 ratio of one adverb per 79 words. Searching for ‘ly’ and scrolling through the pages, you see the pattern on each page–like dandelions in springtime.

I found the paragraph with your list of adverb-triggered words:

Janet also liked the warmth and comfort of his hugs, especially in troubled times. Jared affectionately returned the gesture by briefly wrapping his arm around her ribs. His fingers lightly grazed the edge of her ample breast, quite unintentionally—a brotherly acknowledgment of their closeness before gently squeezing, holding her while absorbing the sensations of skin-on-skin contact before letting go.

Restructured:

In troubled times, Janet also liked the warmth and comfort of his hugs. Jared smiled at her gesture. It was a sign of shared feelings as he returned the hug by wrapping his arm around her ribs. His fingers grazed the edge of her ample breast—a brother’s acknowledgment of their closeness before gently squeezing, holding her while absorbing the sensations of skin-on-skin contact before letting go.

There is a long way to go–starting by fixing the adverbs first. Does the second paragraph meet your lowered adverb trigger list?

Found this on prowritingaid.com

The most common (over)use of adverbs is to modify the verb said, e.g. "I'm leaving," he said angrily.

By reducing these adverbs, the author allows the characters to convey the emotions of the dialogue themselves. Instead of telling the reader, they are able to show them. e.g. He thumped his hand on the desk. "I'm leaving."

As a general rule, writers should use no more than one adverb per 300 words.

You can either replace the '-ly' adverb with a stronger adjective or verb or remove it if it is obsolete. It is not necessary to remove every adverb, but limiting them will help strengthen your writing.

~~~~
July 20th - Making progress with the editing. Looked at stats today. The story has ten new votes that are probably attributed to this thread. At any rate, the score changed from 4.63 to 4.71. That's worth noting.

~~~~
July 27th—After much revision, I've cleaned up the adverbs, removed most of the semicolons, and removed some cliches. Also modified the dates to allow for birth progressions with 18-year intervals. Hopefully, it is a better version. I am waiting for your reply before I send the edited version.

 

[yowser]

Thank you for reviewing the story. It is insightful and gives me plenty to work on for future stories.

A couple points before I respond further.

I am working under the assumption that anyone wanting a Yelp review is interested in improving their writing. All the writers I know operate under this principle: that any piece of work they've produced can always be done better.

Also, that putting your work out there is an act of courage, which I applaud and respect, and there is risk of getting some feedback that stings and that maybe you don't want to hear. I have had many coaches and teachers over the years who have kicked my efforts (sometimes me) hard. Sometimes they were off but most of the time there was at least some benefit to the boot in the rear. All of them thought I could do better, and wanted me to try.

Here's what he said in the Coffee Corner:

I asked Yowser for a story review a few days back. Got his reply yesterday. He tells me it was a mediocre story at best, filled with too many adverbs and semicolons. [Now, that's not a teachable moment approach.]

I'll respond to this and also to his concerns in the above post: First of all, there is nothing wrong with adverbs and semicolons (and I noted that the latter were used correctly, never a given these days.)

It is overuse, particularly of the first, that makes for tortured reading. My objection is not pedantic (you may argue this) but that a paragraph full of adverbs makes for awkward reading at best. If you look at writers like Jhumpa Lahiri, Elif Batuman, Nabokov or Barbara Kingsolver, you will see they find ways to make their scenes flow with an extreme paucity of adverbs. Their descriptions sizzle with simplicity, their verbs are what move things along, their writing is vivid without being flowery (okay, maybe except Nabokov.) My view is that most of the time adverbs are lazy (and they make for clunky sentences and paragraphs.)

Also from the AH:

The more difficult things are plot and character development. Can those really be taught or is an innate talent? I'm sure some mechanics can be pointed to but I'm wondering about the other elements of good writing. Is is just time on task that makes one better. Write, write, and write and that makes one improve? I'm inclined to say no.

For myself, and a lot of folks I know who write professionally or otherwise, I think that my writing doesn't get better without working on it. Which means writing, writing, and writing some more. After that, maybe even before, I think the best single thing to do is reading. Reading good stuff, seeing how good authors handle descriptions, pacing, their characters, build the story.

Here's a quote from Rick Rubin (The Creative Act) when talking about the value of reading quality literature:

The objective is not to learn to mimic greatness, but to calibrate our internal meter for greatness. so we can better make the thousands of choices that might ultimately lead to our own great work.

Also, as an aside, I likely won't respond to DMs after a review, I'd rather have the discussion out here. That doesn't mean you cannot DM me, just that I may not answer.

I've got another review coming shortly.

 

[StillStunned]

For myself, and a lot of folks I know who write professionally or otherwise, I think that my writing doesn't get better without working on it. Which means writing, writing, and writing some more. After that, maybe even before, I think the best single thing to do is reading. Reading good stuff, seeing how good authors handle descriptions, pacing, their characters, build the story.

I've been listening to lots of audiobooks lately on writing fiction and, more usefully, editing it. There are all kinds of tips and tricks, but mostly what I've learned is to be aware of what pitfalls exist and how to watch out for them.

I probably have as high an opinion of my writing as anyone. I write stories as I'd like to read them. But if people who've successfully written, edited and published dozens of books highlight a potential weakness, it seems foolish to think I know better.

I might not have improved as a writer over the past year, but I'm certainly more aware.

 

[Bazzle]

I think my work has improved from being grilled, flambé and pulled apart.

It's a competitive community on here, but ultimately we want what is best?

 

[yowser]

Any Port in a Storm

@Bazzle

This was a tough one.

The good news: an intriguing tale, high on the imagination index (and its improbability doesn’t detract from the telling), with a cast of amusing characters.

At the macro level you have some interesting things going on. A female police officer, charged with unraveling a missing person(s) report, coping with conflicting desires to do the right thing (her job) and indulging in the lure of the addictions that pull at the rest of her life.

The police dialogue is a bit overdone, yet the boss gives the info on the second missing person but not the first. Wouldn’t the detective be given the brief portfolios on both subjects? We only get info on Trish. First scratching of the head.

Scenes shift rapidly, sometimes jarringly, back and forth between the detective and her mission and the missing folks. The reader gets a clue early on what the missing people are into (ha) and you sustain some interest in letting the reader figure out just what the predicament is, but in general there is a fair amount of confusion, probably intended, but handled more awkwardly than makes for a good story.

I won’t handle the ending for reasons of spoilerhood, but it is most confusing, the transitions making hurdle-work for the reader.

I have some understanding of your motives in writing, and your topics will likely be part of everything you create, but I would like you to consider the story aspect of writing. This is a mood piece. You have some characters with potential, but there is no real movement in their mindsets or understanding from beginning of the tale to the end. They don’t change. You don’t have to make the reader LIKE your character, but they need to be invested enough in them to care about how everything plays out.

At the brick-and-mortar level of the writing, here’s the bad news: this is really hard to read. There is so much wordwork in the path of the story it is a bother to know where to begin. A full analysis would be tedious so we’ll examine top-of-the-iceberg stuff.

Starting up front:

First sentence: good, we get an excellent first aspect of the MC with a good visual action verb.

Second sentence, disaster. An awkward sentence fragment, the first of many. A verb minus a subject.

Good writers can use sentence fragments for effect, but always sparingly. There are some stylists who can use them a lot, but in general they make for awkward reading. They can be effective as a rhetorical device: ‘Hero did this. And this. Then this!’ (Where ‘this’ is a fragment, but the subject is understood.) You have a ton of them in here, starting right from the beginning, but I doubt you are using them for rhetorical purposes. Some paragraphs are a quarter fragments. This is fine in dialog but terrible in narration.

Fragments interfere with clarity, they read awful (try saying them out loud), and they stand out like the unpleasant relative you’d rather not encounter at a family get-together.

I think your story would improve immensely just by cleaning up (eliminating) sentence fragments. I’ll toss a few in at the end as examples.

A second issue involves antecedents, especially relating to the pronoun ‘it’.

You employ ‘it’ a great deal, and frequently there is confusion as to what the ‘it’ refers to, or the word next to ‘it’ turns out to be an out-of-place piece of word furniture.

Do a word search on ‘it’ in your story and check the clarity of what’s being referred to.

Also, while doing this, see how many different ways you might handle usage as ‘it’ often makes for clunky reading:

It was a delightful sight. It was and it was an amazing feeling.
They were drinking large glasses of red wine, which Pam thought had been really inviting and had nodded along with it.
It was then
It was noticeable
It was going down very easily.
It really should have been coffee.
She may have had to have several of each, but it works.
It was fun.
It was obvious people were giving her a wide berth.
It was nice.
She liked it when it did that.

Almost all of those sentences/beginnings could expressed with more active verbs, more creative descriptions.

Other general remarks: you could cut this story down by a huge amount, I think even by half, and have a much more appealing tale without eliminating anything of importance. There is a lot of repetition, and I would suggest going for more hinting/subtlety than straight description.

Your drunken character Trish is way, way overdrawn. Writing a drunk poses problems, and even good writers have drunks who veer into caricature, but Trish is impossible. One ‘hic’ is plenty, but you go overboard. I suspect you want her to be annoying, and you succeed over-well. Slurred speech gets tiresome to read, especially if your reader has to think about what maybe the character is saying. I’d suggest letting your other characters’ reactions to the drunk do the heavy lifting, they can note behavior, slurred speech, physical effects like balance and clumsiness and their reactions will inform the reader. You may want to explore options on this such as: https://bookmakingblog.com/how-to-write-drunk-dialogue/

The ending was fairly predictable, but not aggravatingly so, and if handled with a lighter touch would have worked fine.

Here are some fragment samples:

Then with an intense stare looked at her own bright blue eyes reflecting back in the blotchy mottled mirror.
Instantly regretting not taking her hat and coat.
As was the pretty woman serving her.
Then touching her now naked body.
A move that surprised herself with.

If you can focus on these few issues with your next stories, there will be marvelous improvement.

 

[Bazzle]

Thank you ever so much!!!!

I have also picked up on "it" I've found it a lot of my stories!

I am a waffler. I know it. But yes I totally understand cutting it would be better. I have really got to work on my sentences. Grrrr. Thank you for all this information.

B

 

[yowser]

Convention Connection
@RBeemer

All right, this is a clever little rom-com tale, told with snappy talk between the two characters, scenes that move along nicely, although at times everything is overdone/overdrawn, but an easy read with an amusing twist at the end, which I won’t reveal, and which ‘got’ me. So overall, well done.

My first question, and you may have a perfectly sound answer, but will likely still puzzle me, is why not just name ‘Star Wars’ right up front? Seems to me it would not detract from the humor or cuteness of it all and might even snap readers' interest more quickly and efficiently.

The initial setting is well drawn, and even for someone who has never gone to a fan-convention, the setup is clear and vivid (crazy, over the top, completely appropriate for the tale.)

Your handling of your protagonist straddles the fine line between making him too clueless and dopey to be relatable, and yet having some endearing qualities – he’s recognisable and human, so well done.

I think the one part of the story that might have improved with a little more care is your female counterpart. I suspect you could have handled her and her reactions with more subtlety to heighten the inherent tension in the story and thus result in an even more appealing climax.

She’s one-dimensional until close to the end – even a little bit of cross-hatching around her silhouette (done with your MC’s reactions to her actions and behavior) would have increased the inherent drama.

Your mechanics are sound, pacing is good, but like what I say of most tales here applies here as well (to my own writing as well): you could whittle this down a bit, eliminate some parts or shorten some descriptions, and you’d have a better, crisper tale.

(A friend of mine was working on his second novel, using a writing group for feedback and support. After the group dissolved for various reasons, he ran into one of the members a couple years later. ‘Good news’ says my friend. ‘That manuscript you read and critiqued, I’ve gone and made it at least 10 percent better!’ The friend responded, ‘Oh, so you’ve gone and cut 10 percent out of it then?’ The moral is obvious.)

Couple good parts:

I turned and was surprised to see the pretty Jedi again. I guess I didn't scare her away with my witty repartee.

"I'm partial to scoundrels, myself."

Sweet touch.

One scene puzzled me, and probably just a sentence of explanation would have done the trick.

Just as I was about to grab her and give her a long, hard kiss (she could use a good kiss!) a fussy dude in a gold suit tapped me on the shoulder.

Presumably this is someone-in-authority? A gold suit could mean anything in this setting. But why would he care? An easy to fix confusion.

Here’s another part that I don’t think furnished the effect you were hoping for:

my cock instantly hardened to carbonite.

This gets a rather unfortunate reaction from this reader (petrified cock? Turned to carbon? Burned, hardened mess? ) I get it, but it pratfalls as a metaphor for me.

There is a bunch of description that is over the top, and maybe deliberately so for humor’s sake, but if not, dialing it down a little would read much better:

dark, sensual pleasure.
hot wetness
fantastic pussy
beskar-hard cock
throbbed with intense desire

I’ll end with a couple observations so minor, they can easily be tossed out, but you might want to consider.

The passage below (which serves the story well) would read better without the paragraph breaks, but instead just line breaks. (I don’t know how you submit, and lots of stories end up getting mangled because word documents or .rtf creations get submitted as a file, and then some of the formatting goes wonky in translation to Literotica standards. But if you do the cut and paste from one of those files, and can see the preview, it’s easy enough to substitute paragraph breaks with line breaks <br> which would make this section look much nicer.

"Peace is a lie. There is only Passion.

Through Passion, I gain Strength.

Through Strength, I gain Power.

Through Power, I gain Victory.

Through Victory my chains are Broken.

The Force shall free me.

I think it looks better as:

"Peace is a lie. There is only Passion.
Through Passion, I gain Strength.
Through Strength, I gain Power.
Through Power, I gain Victory.
Through Victory my chains are Broken.
The Force shall free me."

I also think you could have done without the ALL CAPS wording in the beginning. It feels like something from an early nineties email or listserv. I’d suggest italics or even just an initial capital. But both these are thoroughly minuscule as complaints.

Nice work, active imagination, smooth delivery. Carry on.

 

[RBeemer]

Thanks, Yowser! I appreciate you taking the time to read and critique my story.

I'm very glad you liked it. It was a lot of fun to write.

BTW: The Fussy Dude in the gold suit was a clumsy reference to C-3P0 interrupting Han and Leia's moment in ESB.

Thanks again.

 

[yowser]

https://www.literotica.com/s/metamorphosis-33
Metamorphosis
@al55

Okay, I know you are itching for feedback, and I’ll give you some, although you probably won’t like most of it.

The good news is writing mechanics are mostly fine, your brick and mortar constructions are sound, you stay consistent in your approach, your voice is stable and sustainable. The nitpicks I’ll save to the end, so you can skip them if you like, and they are not lethal, all fixable given the time and effort. I will note that mistakes proliferated as you went along, growing far more frequent as the tale emerged, but that is not uncommon either.

“As the tale emerged...” This is long, by nearly any calculation, an impediment all by itself, and in my estimation your tale would be much better, all the way around, by cutting a third or more. I often say paring is a good idea in general, but more in the 10-20 percent range – you could do way more and have a tighter, more focused story.

I’ll assert right up front that this particular wrinkle on the mermaid fantasy doesn’t do much to me by way of an arousal trigger, but there is no reason why it might not for others. It sure feels like a hetero-male domination kink, however, which perhaps limits its appeal in the broad view.

First couple notes on the beginning, and then more general comments. I did not read 100 percent (every word) but did get all the way through, and I think what I will say works for most of the story.

I had some initial confusion up front, which could have been easily avoided. I am a big advocate (unlike many writers here) of establishing location early and clearly. On many beginning details you set the stage well (Mediterranean, okay, on a cruise, clear enough) but then I am kept scratching my head longer than helpful or necessary after the first dialogue launches the action.

You’d mentioned the cruise ship so at first I thought they were on the ship, but no, it’s an island. What island? (You identify it later, so there is no reason to be coy or unclear in the beginning.) Big difference between off the coast of Spain or the Cyclades (and it turns out to be Greece anyway. Why not say so right up front?)

This is also a tremendous opportunity to give the reader some nice visuals to hook them in: the arid nature of the hills, how the olive trees look so striking on the rocky vistas, the color of the water, etc. etc. You do a little, but more would be a bonus.

The characters are introduced clearly enough, thanks for that.

But that brings us to one of the major flaws of the tale:

You feel the need (a common weakness) to Tell. Us. Everything.

As a reader I don’t need to know Everything. At least right off. Your mileage would improve immensely if you let the details dribble out (preferably between some action events) or perhaps in dialogue with your characters. But we get way, way too much backstory straight away. Your first three pages (in Word, not Lit pages) could be condensed by a half.

Other drawbacks:

Some continuity/story logic issues up front:

The two friends talk about boyfriend Hunter and life back home, as if that’s where he is, but no, he’s on-board the cruise too.

Your characters are largely two dimensional. (Your FMC sounds like she is written by a man, which I am guessing is accurate.) Doesn’t ring true. We perhaps travel in different circles but none of my female acquaintances would refer to their breasts as “her puppies.” The rich evil antagonist is strictly cardboard in construction. You could get away with this if you had a better MC but Sarah is limited, and frankly daffy much of the time.

You’re inconsistent with the use of cum/come, both verb and noun.

Dialog could use some reworking, a lot of it is flat, unrealistic and unconvincing. A couple examples:

"Don't forget how this relationship works Sarah, I am your owner. You are a sex slave, granted you are an augmented one but at the end of the day let's be realistic here -- we both know what the situation is, you are a smart woman, I wouldn't try to insult your intelligence by pretending anything else," said Robert.

"I suggest," said Robert, "that you forget these fanciful notions of escape. I'm smarter than you and have more resources than you. Trust me, your life will be much easier if you just accept that you are my slave and stop resisting."

One possible avenue to pursue: give your characters verbal quirks or a unique sound. By reading out loud can you clearly identify each voice even minus the ‘he said’ ‘she said’ identifiers?

I will give you some credit for imagination, I wasn’t sure how you were going to pull off this plot, and what you did was not what I expected, so good for that

But the twists and shiftings are told in far too much detail, flat repetitive detail at that, to work well. Endless discussions of the passworded gate, over-emphasis of the prison-like details, your readers are smart and don’t need to be reminded over and over, once, maybe twice for emphasis, is good enough. Transitions take forever to explain, we don’t need to know everything. (On the other end of the spectrum some transitions are far too abbreviated. The swiftness of boyfriend Hunter’s switch of affections was astounding. It takes all of what, two paragraphs, to be going from MC’s boyfriend to getting into the shorts of Sarah’s best friend Laura?)

[Couldn't post the whole thing, will resume with Part 2 below...]

 

[yowser]

Many of your paragraphs suffer from non-varying sentence structure and monotonous cadence, I’ll give you one example, and these tended to get worse as the story went on:

Sarah eventually grew tired of calling for help and exploring the pool. She was exhausted from the events of the day. She pulled herself out of the pool and sat on the edge. She groaned as gravity immediately started to pull her huge knockers back down to Earth, her breasts were so incredibly heavy outside of the pool. Sarah let the Greek sun evaporate the water from her body. Sarah then crawled across the paved area towards the room. She was humiliated as she moved the only way she was now able to: she would crawl forwards on her elbows and then drag her tail behind her, tits jiggling as she did so. It wasn't smooth but it got the job done. Eventually Sarah reached the bed and she pulled herself up onto it and sat on the edge.

Sarah this. Sarah that, She pulled. She groaned. Sarah let. Sarah crawled. She was humiliated. Finally a different first word (although it’s ‘it.’) Then Sarah reached.

As an exercise you could rework that paragraph, maybe varying short declarative sentences with longer more discursive ones, get away from the same sentence structure repeatedly.

One of the troubles with this sort of fantasy universe (true for Science Fiction and Fantasy in general, and certainly applies to mermaids) is you are up against the suspension-of-belief issue that is less of an issue with more realistic tales. My Sci-Fi aficionado friends tell me readers will give a writer one “Free Pass” (some science aberration, speed faster than light, non-world-like physics) but after that you’ve got to earn your readers’ respect so they’ll stay with you.

The surgery was your one free pass, and after that things deteriorated (not helped by the extreme belief-stretching nature of the surgery itself – cosmetic alterations AND genetic modifications AND a whole range of absurd details.)

The huge breasts business (I grew weary of counting the number of times you used “massive” as an adjective) of course was predictable. Even this might have worked better with a lighter touch however.

I could see you doing this tale with a shade more subtlety and even humor, and it would be improved. This is a fine line, however, and maybe impossible to do given the overall structure of the story. (There is a chance, however slight, that this whole thing is a bit of humor anyway, in which case the charm proved resistant to my humor-detector.)

And throughout we get a lot of brainless/witless observations from our persecuted Sarah.

She couldn't believe that that photo had been taken roughly twenty-four hours ago. In that period of time she had lost her humanity and been reduced to a sex-object, nothing more than a mere curiosity for the rich and the powerful.

she literally was like a fish out of water

I found the built-in extortion a bit forced.

I can arrange to have your sister's medical bills taken care of for the rest of her life, and in exchange all I ask is that you submit yourself to me fully and accept your new life."

The sex and sex-descriptions did nothing for me, but of course it was hard to be invested in the characters as presented. Not atypically on Literotica, too many oversized cocks, zipless fucks, two dimensional interactions.

Okay, almost done. I’ll append some of the more egregious errors at the end. (Late note: I looked at your catalog and this was your first effort. If later works has improved – excellent for you.)

You’ve got some good things going for you, both at the basic-building block level and in the imagination realm, but you’re going to have to pay far more attention to details of description and dialogue and particularly character development (especially on a long tale such as this, not so important in shorter works) to make an effective tale. The erotic sizzle will come with more approachable characters (although that may not be one of your goals), with features to draw the readers’ interest. If features like humiliation are going to work in a story, both human sides of the humiliation equation are going to need to be relatable sentient beings, with flaws and quirks and greater capacity for intelligent perception.

Takeaways: I suggest working on doing more with less, particularly on longer paragraphs. Vary sentence structure, work hard on crisp clear transitions. Good luck.


Sarah sighed and lowered herself into the water and sawm to the person who was calling her.

She could hardly breath

This resulted in her massive rack being stuck out more so than usual, a fact which did not seem to escape Alex as he removed his clothing and stood in front of her beside the pool. He positioned her on her knees, and she saw his cock. It was enormous, Sarah had never seen a cock so big in her entire life, granted she hadn't seen that many cocks before. She had seen more penises than in her whole life tonight.

"Call me master Sarah,

"I'm twenty-one years old and was a broke student, this is all I know how to make. If you were looking for a chief

A mand who wants to spend the rest of his life with you,

"Take of your skirt," instructed Robert.

 

[HaralLuhhan]

This is a great idea. I may ask you to review my 3 part story. I'm still writing the third part, so maybe not yet.

 

[joy_of_cooking]

Hi @yowser, how do you feel about reviewing a story that I meant to be Fetish, that Laurel decided to put in NC/R?

The King, The Cane, and The Throne

I tagged it dubcon because while he knows what he's doing and is totally on board with it, he doesn't know that he's not having vanilla sex. He thinks that bondage and impact play are just how sex works. I feel like his consent is still valid (how many people consent to penis-in-vagina sex without much knowledge of the alternatives?) but, of course, no worries if it's still not your cup of tea.

 

[yowser]

Hi @yowser, how do you feel about reviewing a story that I meant to be Fetish, that Laurel decided to put in NC/R?

The King, The Cane, and The Throne

I tagged it dubcon because while he knows what he's doing and is totally on board with it, he doesn't know that he's not having vanilla sex. He thinks that bondage and impact play are just how sex works. I feel like his consent is still valid (how many people consent to penis-in-vagina sex without much knowledge of the alternatives?) but, of course, no worries if it's still not your cup of tea.

Thanks Joy

Ah yes, the old 'category-reassignment' surgery, I am familiar with this.

NC is one of the few categories that don't tend to work for me, but it sounds like your story's edge may make it interesting.

I'm in the throes of wrapping up a tale right now, but I'll take a quick look in a few days and get back to you, either here or DM. It's been a quiet stretch and I'll be interested to see what you're up to.

 

[yowser]

https://www.literotica.com/s/the-king-the-cane-and-the-throne
@joy_of_cooking

Fairy Tales, so classic, so universal, so evocative. A deep dive into the sub/unconscious. This story is an interesting twisted take on the Fairy Tale challenge, and I suspect you have largely succeeded in your effort.

Couple caveats (ubiquitous creatures.)

Number one, I am with you on thinking this rightfully belongs in the Fetish category, not NonCon, but it doesn’t really matter. Noncon as a quality performs some warping when it comes to classifying Lit tales, and that is likely the reason it got shifted.

The sexual behaviors included don’t pull my arousal much, although they don’t turn me off either. Thus my comments are on writing, the story and characters as a whole, divested from the attraction mode present for your intended readers. You probably hit your audience with a good aim and suitable results.

There are two ways to handle fairy tales and riffing off them. You can play straight or wander off into oddness. You’ve obviously followed Door Number Two, and I am embarrassed to say how long it took me to figure that out as a reader. An admission I make despite some clues in the form of anachronistic language fairly early on (that I took to be stylistic goofs on your part) to wit:

"Gonna marry you off, boy," the king whispered.

The writing mechanics are quite fine, with only a few stumbling places that I’ll outline at the end. You kept the writing mostly within fairy tale conventions (short descriptive sentences, straightforward words and phrases) and that works well for your intent.

Here’s where I think you could have made a more effective tale.

Pare it down. This could be cut by 20 percent and you’d have a punchier tale without sacrificing any story elements, mood or overall sense.

Pacing is good, but the characters would benefit with further definition.

The initial setup is fine, we get that the prince is a passive, bookish lad, uninterested in any sort of kingly duties or responsibility, devoid of ambition, all of this established early and made entirely understandable for the reader.

But couldn’t there be a little more life to him? Even in a fairy tale way? You get close when his excitement grows while relating bookish interests, I suspect you could haven done better with a few more examples.

The ‘queen-to-be’ Lisbeth is remarkably flat. Come now, even in fairy tales, especially in fairy tales, we should get a better description, however over or under the top you want to go? There’s a decent hinting early outline of what she looks like and her demeanor but little fleshing out as the story proceeds. Her motives, while clearly a part of her mindscape long before the betrothal business begins, come out of the blue in the telling. I think you could have presented her a bit better.

The events proceed at a nice clip, abuse added in satisfying welts, but surely our Prince has more thoughts about what is going on than he reveals? We get some sense of fear and anticipation, acceptance of his situation, but a few more emotional cues would round him out. The ending was unexpected, and I think effective.

After a second read, which was much improved from the first, I still regret not knowing more about both main characters. There aren’t quite enough limbs on the coat-rack to hang their clothes, and more would help explain their mutual attraction and needs/pleasures.

It’s a fun read, I won’t do the spoiler alert business, as others may enjoy seeing how it plays out.

There are a couple places however, where your descriptions fall a bit short, and make the reader work harder than necessary to get the scene straight in the mind. My guess is that you had a clear visual in your head, but in the writing left out a couple details that would have made it clearer to the reader just exactly was happening.

So:

There were many ways to secure a man to a four-poster bed. Spread-eagle on the mattress, or bent over the edge, or standing with the arms either stretched out to two separate posts or tied up overhead to the same post.
Four poster bed, got it, no trouble with imagination there, and there are multiple ways it can be used as a setting.

Fine. But then you launch in:

Tonight she put him over the footboard. It wasn't his favorite position.

So not his first time but there’s no mention or description of previous times.

My non-BDSM oriented brain can still imagine a couple different ways he could be ‘put over the footboard’ but I would appreciate hearing some more detail here. How is he secured? You mention hands and feet, but how are they tied and where? This is a bigger hiccup than necessary.

I don’t know if this helps or not, but when doing this sort of description in my own writing, I sometimes have to speak the passage as if I am reading it to someone on the street (and who maybe hasn’t been paying a great deal of attention to what I have said before.) Too much detail is a drawback, you don’t want it to sound overdrawn, but in this sort of scene it should be clear how the prince is stretched out, what is presented, almost a camera shot. (In this case, since we are told it isn’t his ‘favorite position’ it would easy enough to suggest why – back arched, knees at an odd angle, whatever it is that you have in mind. A quick thought from the prince ought to illuminate the situation and make it crystal clear what is going on.)

There are many droll and amusing phrasings:

"So," he said, "I suppose we're meant to do the consummation now?"

As well as quite vivid descriptions:

Christopher set his jaw. "I'm ready."

He was not. It felt as if a line of pure fire had cut his ass open to the bone. It hurt so much he couldn't even scream. All the air whooshed out of him. His mouth opened soundlessly. He was still trying to refill his lungs when the real pain hit him a moment later. He shrieked.

A couple other minor hiccups in description:

Lisbeth was polite enough not to remark on the awkwardness of his phrasing. She merely smiled and nodded and waited. This sort of thing had been happening more and more since the coronation.

What, exactly, sort of thing?

Later Lisbeth says, as if it has happened: "It's very common for young men to come too early."

But when? Did I miss something? I see no mention of any climax of the prince.

rod of some polished wood that grew in segments like a giant stiff reed.

Maybe ‘had grown’ would be better.

The drollery doesn’t work all the time:

"Now you're just fucking with me."

No, the prince you’ve established never would have said that.


Overall a sweet effort, following the fairy tale tradition and taking it down some dark and twisted passages. Best of luck in future works.