Joyful reviews

[MediocreAuthor]

After posting you a link to my Findom Howto, I decided to re-upload it here. Findom: Is It Right For Me?

Thanks for reminding me about it!

I also resubmitted a dark, non-erotic story, which got a good review from AwkwardMD when I first posted it. I wonder what you think of it:
Body and Soul

Okay, I read "Body and Soul" first, and regrettably I didn't enjoy it much. I really wish I could offer a more detailed critique, but I honestly felt like I didn't get it, which seems more like a failing on my part than yours. It was mildly amusing in places, but I never laughed once, and again, that is a big strike when it comes to humor, at least in my book.

I enjoyed the style in which it was written, but I didn't actually enjoy the story as a whole. I did not rate it, because as I said, I feel like the shortcoming might be mine as a reader.

---

Let me contrast that with the follow-up short review of Findom: "Is it Right For Me?"

That was a really, really funny. I laughed at several parts. My favorite two were:

'you must be sic' [sic].

and

drop hints about heroin, gambling, booze, and Pokémon card collecting

Both of these here hilarious. I gave this story a well deserved 5 stars.
I don't know how much of this essay was true to life, and how much was written for humor, but I kept both ideas in mind as I read, and the essay was interesting and humorous all the way through.

Normally I try to be more helpful with my reviews, but our these two selections are so dissimilar from my writing, I think I would be entirely out of my element.

 

[nice90sguy]

Okay, I read "Body and Soul" first, and regrettably I didn't enjoy it much. I really wish I could offer a more detailed critique, but I honestly felt like I didn't get it, which seems more like a failing on my part than yours. It was mildly amusing in places, but I never laughed once, and again, that is a big strike when it comes to humor, at least in my book.

I enjoyed the style in which it was written, but I didn't actually enjoy the story as a whole. I did not rate it, because as I said, I feel like the shortcoming might be mine as a reader.

---

Let me contrast that with the follow-up short review of Findom: "Is it Right For Me?"

That was a really, really funny. I laughed at several parts. My favorite two were:

and

Both of these here hilarious. I gave this story a well deserved 5 stars.
I don't know how much of this essay was true to life, and how much was written for humor, but I kept both ideas in mind as I read, and the essay was interesting and humorous all the way through.

Normally I try to be more helpful with my reviews, but our these two selections are so dissimilar from my writing, I think I would be entirely out of my element.

FYI This was Awkward's take on it (when I was someone else):
https://forum.literotica.com/threads/awkwardmd-and-omenainen-review-thread.1516126/post-93504571

A lot of my stuff is true to life - Body and Soul was written shortly before my divorce. The scenes and protags' behaviour were pretty close to reality (minus the pregnancies).

The Findom HowTo was written primarily for fellow addicts.

Self-deprecation and mockery are useful weapons against anger, jealousy and self-pity or self-disgust. I actually write most of my stories with a didactic or cathartic purpose. That's why they're rarely "hot". As I said in "Body and Soul", your brain really needs to disengage before you can get turned on. The last thing you want when you have your dick in your fist is to be intellectually challenged (unless you're into that kind of thing, I guess).

 

[MediocreAuthor]

FYI This was Awkward's take on it (when I was someone else):
https://forum.literotica.com/threads/awkwardmd-and-omenainen-review-thread.1516126/post-93504571

A lot of my stuff is true to life - Body and Soul was written shortly before my divorce. The scenes and protags' behaviour were pretty close to reality (minus the pregnancies).

The Findom HowTo was written primarily for fellow addicts.

Self-deprecation and mockery are useful weapons against anger, jealousy and self-pity or self-disgust. I actually write most of my stories with a didactic or cathartic purpose. That's why they're rarely "hot". As I said in "Body and Soul", your brain really needs to disengage before you can get turned on. The last thing you want when you have your dick in your fist is to be intellectually challenged (unless you're into that kind of thing, I guess).

I read Awkward's review, and it helps me see what I didn't get about it.

For starters, I have no close interactions with cheating. I've never cheated, never on a boyfriend or my husband or anything, and I've never been cheated on either (at least as far as I know! ) so I have no frame of reference concerning it, so any subtly would be lost on me.

Also, to me at least, the entire story contains an air of what I might refer to as atheistic (or perhaps agnostic) pessimism. I'm not inferring that you are actually an atheist or a pessimist, it is simply how the story read to me. Very nihilistic, although humorously so.

Yes, spiritual things happened within the story, but they were ultimately as pointless and unimportant as the things done in the physical realm.

Just the same, I can't discredit your talent, even if I didn't fully enjoy that story.

 

[nice90sguy]

Different people cope in different ways with infidelity, and do so differntly at different stages of their lives, of their loves. My way of dealing with it at the time was to write (and drink a little too much too).

Re-reading stories one wrote a long time ago reminds me that although we may feel as though our identity is constant, it isn't. The self is like a tornado, not like a stationary tree which remains firmly rooted to its ground.

I posted that story here because this was my goto place for releasing my emotions safely and not destructively. On re-reading it recently, I decided it might ring true with some others, and reposted it. It's defintely not "me" anymore.

 

[TheseLegs]

Hello @joy_of_cooking. I just wanted to thank you again for reading my story on the AMD thread and giving it a fair and helpful review.

As I said over there, I agree that my explanations are too sparse in the story, and it's too easy in transition from conversation to the business. I super disagree that it would work in the real world (You didn't say that, they did, but I'm still mad about it!) because for me, the plot and every interaction hinges on Evan's ability to read minds and be what they want/need him to be. My biggest failure in writing is deciding how much detail and when, and in these sex story spin offs from my novels, I try to keep things simple. Even after reading all the words in my story, you still thought information was missing and let me know what, and yes, that's very helpful! Thank you!

 

[joy_of_cooking]

the plot and every interaction hinges on Evan's ability to read minds

Ohhhh this makes so much sense now. I do remember thinking it was odd to mention this ability and then make no use of it. I guess I missed that you were using it the whole time. Anyway glad I could help.

 

[Helgamite]

ok, i'm gonna give this a go. this is the first part of my story series.

https://literotica.com/s/company-woe-and-rebirth

man cheated on by his wife, catches her without her knowing and later finds himself embroiled in a bit of company cheating scandal.

always interested in constructive criticism. I'm currently writing part 2 of it as well. part 2 will be a bit more emotional would enjoy a female perspective as well as male on character development as well.

 

[THBGato]

Hey @joy_of_cooking if you fancy reviewing https://literotica.com/s/eve-and-lucy-ch-01-the-audition I'd be grateful! (I'm struggling with the rest of the series, so it might be helpful going forward to get your input.)

Fairly certain you've read https://www.literotica.com/s/love-is-a-place-ch-01-the-puzzle already, so the spoilers won't matter.

 

[joy_of_cooking]

Company Woe and Rebirth by @Helgamite

I'm going to start this review not with the story you requested but with the comments on the first story you posted:

Good start, lots of possibilities

Good beginning!

Very interesting premise. The only suggestion I can make is to watch out for verb tense inconsistency...

All of this agrees with my first impression of "Company Woe and Rebirth":

1. You set up an interesting premise.
2. You left us hanging!
3. And you're leaving readers on the table because the text is rife with low-level mechanical issues including exactly the verb tense stuff that was pointed out to you earlier.

A quick word about the "leaving us hanging"---I think you should finish a story before you post it. If you look at my author page you'll see that I made the exact same mistake with my first series. I wrote Clothes Make the Masochist, people liked it, I wrote three more chapters...and now it's in limbo as I wrestle with some plotting and pacing issues. Oops. Don't be me. Nobody likes me.

I understand the appeal of getting something out there, though, and seeing the feedback. If you don't want to finish entirely, at least outline the later chapters so you have an idea where you're going? And consider participating in the 750 word challenge next year. It's a fun way to pump out a bunch of stories.

Okay, on to mechanical issues. This is the low-hanging fruit for you as a writer. Learn a few rules, apply them mindlessly, and let readers judge your plot, characters, and setting instead of your punctuation.

Here's how I do it:

1. Rolling edits: every time I sit down to write again, I read and revise what I have so far. For longer works I might only edit the last couple thousand words. In addition to catching mistakes, I find this editing phase also reminds me what was going on and gets me back into the swing of things.

2. Automated tools: Google Docs would have caught half the mistakes I found in your author's note. I suspect MSWord, Grammarly, and ProWritingAid would have caught even more. Use them!

3. Reading backwards: For my final pass, before I submit, I put it all into the Lit submissions form, get the preview, and read that one paragraph at a time starting with the last paragraph. The backwards reading breaks up the reading experience enough that I actually pay attention to the words on the screen instead of remembering what I meant to write.

Other techniques I've heard people recommend:

1. Text-to-voice: There are many tools now that can read English text out loud to you. This makes some errors really obvious. Missing or duplicated word, certain kinds of misspellings that look similar but change the pronunciation, etc.

2. Proofreaders: I see you're getting your stories proofread, but are you using your proofreader like a spellcheck or like a teacher? Here's how I recommend you use proofreaders. Ask them to flag the first instance of each kind of error. Read up on that error if you don't already know it, or ask them to explain it to you. Then go through the rest of the story yourself and try to catch all further instances of that error. When you're done, ask for another proofread. If you get back more of the same kind of error, you're not making the best possible use of your proofreader.

I'll do this for you, as an example. Your author's note has sixty-seven words, but I immediately found seven errors. (I'll say this bluntly: if I were reading for fun, I would have given up.)

AN: This is the first episode in a series,(1) it involves cheating spouses, sex within a company(2) and harem building. It Is(3) (4) second serial submission and I welcome constructive criticism.

I would like to thank Elayne_Hawke for proof reading.(5)

I will will(6) be updating both stories as well. I hope you enjoy them, I try to make them as realistic or close to it as possible.

1. comma splice
2. missing Oxford comma (unless that's a stylistic choice)
3. unnecessary capitalization
4. probably a missing word? Did you mean "it is MY second..."?
5. "proofreading" has been the preferred spelling since about 1930
6. duplicated word

The seventh error is another comma splice. Can you find it?

I'll keep picking at the spelling, punctuation, and grammar for one more paragraph. There are two more comma splices here and a missing comma but also a couple of more interesting errors:

Well I'm all finished up here, maybe I should head home and surprise the wife. I should stop by the flower store and get her favorite flowers, I know she loves those yellow roses they have at that little floral shop, I thought to myself as I look over my desk. My wife is currently home, getting ready for this conference in NYC. I'm not happy about it as it takes place during our 10-year anniversary, but even the boss said she has to go. I was irritated but tried not to show it.

First, some part of that was the narrator's thoughts being quoted. I would have used either quotation marks or italics to delimit the thoughts explicitly. E.g.,

"Well, I'm all finished up here. Maybe I should head home and surprise the wife. I should stop by the flower store and get her favorite flowers. I know she loves those yellow roses they have at that little floral shop," I thought to myself...

Or, better, let the reader know immediately that he's thinking this to himself rather than speaking out loud:

"Well, I'm all finished up here," I thought. "Maybe I should...

The other interesting error here is the inconsistency of the verb tenses, just like @WantingToWriteGood pointed out with "David's Journey Pt. 01":

I thought to myself as I look over my desk.

I can't tell yet whether you're trying for past tense and slipping into present or vice versa. I find past comes to me much more naturally than present.

To summarize: You're leaving readers on the table for mechanical reasons that have nothing to do with the story you want to tell. It's a crying shame, and one you can fix.

 

[joy_of_cooking]

Hey @joy_of_cooking if you fancy reviewing https://literotica.com/s/eve-and-lucy-ch-01-the-audition I'd be grateful! (I'm struggling with the rest of the series, so it might be helpful going forward to get your input.)

Fairly certain you've read https://www.literotica.com/s/love-is-a-place-ch-01-the-puzzle already, so the spoilers won't matter.

Actually, I haven't! I marked it favorite so I could find it in the Literotica Android app, then I read your author's note about "Love Is a Place" spoiling "The Third Date". So your review is going to be delayed while I read "The Third Date," then "Love is a Place," then "Eve and Lucy," because I want to get the full experience, unspoiled.

 

[THBGato]

Fair!

 

[Helgamite]

Company Woe and Rebirth by @Helgamite

I'm going to start this review not with the story you requested but with the comments on the first story you posted:





All of this agrees with my first impression of "Company Woe and Rebirth":

1. You set up an interesting premise.
2. You left us hanging!
3. And you're leaving readers on the table because the text is rife with low-level mechanical issues including exactly the verb tense stuff that was pointed out to you earlier.

A quick word about the "leaving us hanging"---I think you should finish a story before you post it. If you look at my author page you'll see that I made the exact same mistake with my first series. I wrote Clothes Make the Masochist, people liked it, I wrote three more chapters...and now it's in limbo as I wrestle with some plotting and pacing issues. Oops. Don't be me. Nobody likes me.

I understand the appeal of getting something out there, though, and seeing the feedback. If you don't want to finish entirely, at least outline the later chapters so you have an idea where you're going? And consider participating in the 750 word challenge next year. It's a fun way to pump out a bunch of stories.

Okay, on to mechanical issues. This is the low-hanging fruit for you as a writer. Learn a few rules, apply them mindlessly, and let readers judge your plot, characters, and setting instead of your punctuation.

Here's how I do it:

1. Rolling edits: every time I sit down to write again, I read and revise what I have so far. For longer works I might only edit the last couple thousand words. In addition to catching mistakes, I find this editing phase also reminds me what was going on and gets me back into the swing of things.

2. Automated tools: Google Docs would have caught half the mistakes I found in your author's note. I suspect MSWord, Grammarly, and ProWritingAid would have caught even more. Use them!

3. Reading backwards: For my final pass, before I submit, I put it all into the Lit submissions form, get the preview, and read that one paragraph at a time starting with the last paragraph. The backwards reading breaks up the reading experience enough that I actually pay attention to the words on the screen instead of remembering what I meant to write.

Other techniques I've heard people recommend:

1. Text-to-voice: There are many tools now that can read English text out loud to you. This makes some errors really obvious. Missing or duplicated word, certain kinds of misspellings that look similar but change the pronunciation, etc.

2. Proofreaders: I see you're getting your stories proofread, but are you using your proofreader like a spellcheck or like a teacher? Here's how I recommend you use proofreaders. Ask them to flag the first instance of each kind of error. Read up on that error if you don't already know it, or ask them to explain it to you. Then go through the rest of the story yourself and try to catch all further instances of that error. When you're done, ask for another proofread. If you get back more of the same kind of error, you're not making the best possible use of your proofreader.

I'll do this for you, as an example. Your author's note has sixty-seven words, but I immediately found seven errors. (I'll say this bluntly: if I were reading for fun, I would have given up.)



1. comma splice
2. missing Oxford comma (unless that's a stylistic choice)
3. unnecessary capitalization
4. probably a missing word? Did you mean "it is MY second..."?
5. "proofreading" has been the preferred spelling since about 1930
6. duplicated word

The seventh error is another comma splice. Can you find it?

I'll keep picking at the spelling, punctuation, and grammar for one more paragraph. There are two more comma splices here and a missing comma but also a couple of more interesting errors:



First, some part of that was the narrator's thoughts being quoted. I would have used either quotation marks or italics to delimit the thoughts explicitly. E.g.,



Or, better, let the reader know immediately that he's thinking this to himself rather than speaking out loud:



The other interesting error here is the inconsistency of the verb tenses, just like @WantingToWriteGood pointed out with "David's Journey Pt. 01":



I can't tell yet whether you're trying for past tense and slipping into present or vice versa. I find past comes to me much more naturally than present.

To summarize: You're leaving readers on the table for mechanical reasons that have nothing to do with the story you want to tell. It's a crying shame, and one you can fix.

for the proofreader, that was actually a friend I made on here. she did it for free and for fun to help out.

I have an editor who is working on editing my other story, but I think i may need a second editor tho for this one as he is backed up. so I'll be looking for one here soon to work on Company story exclusively. the first one didn't have an editor to it so I can understand where your coming from there.

as for the verb tense, it's an ongoing issue I have that, not sure if its from lack of education or I'm just not able to see them myself.

2. Automated tools: Google Docs would have caught half the mistakes I found in your author's note. I suspect MSWord, Grammarly, and ProWritingAid would have caught even more. Use them! I use exclusively google docs for my writing. and I do change when it is recommended. as for Grammarly, I've seem ALOT of people using it only to get rejected for Ai use, so I'm leery of using that. MSWord I don't have that and don't really have the computer for it.

"1. Rolling edits: every time I sit down to write again, I read and revise what I have so far. For longer works I might only edit the last couple thousand words. In addition to catching mistakes, I find this editing phase also reminds me what was going on and gets me back into the swing of things." As for this one, when I get done writing about 500-1500 words I go back and re-read what I wrote, either to change the story or paragraph or check what google docs recommends. I also use this method to help progress the story,

I do have Microsoft 365 office, not sure if that would be better, It keeps wanting me to upgrade and irritates me lol.

thank you for the review and i am trying to improve. I do think tho, that I need another editor for company alone to help me get stories out quicker. I try to get them out in a 2-3 week period, just medical and wife got in the way this time lol.

 

[Madd_Maxxine]

In the spirit of putting out into the world what I would like to receive from it, I am offering to review people's stories.

I don't have any real-world credentials or even a particularly illustrious career on this site. But you can check out my previous reviews here: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

What I promise is a thoughtful response that addresses some aspect of writing, explains my reasoning, and cites both specific snippets of your work and also relevant external sources where I can muster those.

You may notice that I tend to dwell on what can be improved. In other words, the negatives. That's the kind of review I like to get, when I'm looking to get better rather than figure out how I measure up to some standard.

You may also notice that I'm not always right (to the extent "right" means anything here). Consider Eldritch Pact by @MediocreAuthor. My review was lukewarm and mostly negative. Meanwhile, @AwkwardMD and @Omenainen loved it. Who are you going to believe?

To summarize: ignorant, pessimistic, probably wrong. Who's in?

Edit:

Shorter works are easiest to fit into my schedule. This got started when @AlexBailey suggested we swap reviews on 750 word stories. Probably anything under 10k is fair game.

I think there's nothing on this site that's so unpleasant I'll decline to read it, but there's always a first time. I will gladly refund every penny you paid if I am unable to complete the review.

Edit 2:

I'm starting to wonder if I pay more attention to world-building, and to the consistency between world-building decisions, than most readers. Maybe this is an area in which I can be particularly valuable.

I would love some feedback on the beginning of my story, if you are willing. I have not posted it yet, because it has now turned into a novel and I'm still making minor adjustments to the beginning as I get deeper into the story. If you are willing, how would I send it to you and what format do you prefer?

 

[joy_of_cooking]

I would love some feedback on the beginning of my story, if you are willing. I have not posted it yet, because it has now turned into a novel and I'm still making minor adjustments to the beginning as I get deeper into the story. If you are willing, how would I send it to you and what format do you prefer?

Sent you a direct message.

 

[PrincessArianrhod]

I'll take a flogging if you're up to it. Might encourage me to start writing again.

 

[joy_of_cooking]

I'll take a flogging if you're up to it. Might encourage me to start writing again.

Sure, pick a story.

 

[PrincessArianrhod]

Sure, pick a story.

Your choice. There's anything from 6k words to 37k.

 

[Turnedonbysharing]

Sure, pick a story.

What story did you choose?

 

[joy_of_cooking]

What story did you choose?

If you're asking which story of PrincessArianrhod's I chose, I haven't done one yet. Queue is THBGato, then her.

 

[RBeemer]

I'd LOVE to know what you think of my stories. Here's a link to one of my favorites:

Colette, the Pirate Queen

 

[joy_of_cooking]

The Third Date 01: Clueless of Cotham by @THBGato

You didn't ask for this review, but I read it on my way to the story you asked me to review so I'll say a few quick things.

This was fun. I see why it's rated 4.91 stars. You show me the kind of cozy after-college living-with-friends experience I wish more people could have. The focus is Priya and Kate, but the others still feel like whole characters. I like how honest you are about the brutal economics of trying to build a career as a performer.

One of the ways I know I'm reading a good story is when I find myself noting things to steal for my own writing. Here are my notes for yours:

1. Waiting in a public place for a blind date. Neat device! So many possibilities! It gives her time to think and people-watch. If it's a first-person narration, we can sneak in a physical description if she starts second-guessing her outfit. We can learn a lot about her hopes and fears as she frets over who will show up. And she can meet someone else.

2. The arousal while playing the cello. I don't play the cello but I have a vivid memory of a tiny house concert where I was sitting on the floor maybe ten feet away from the cello. There was a moment when the cellist really leaned into her bow, and I realized I could feel the cello (just the cello) resonating through the floor up my butt. I have no idea if people actually get aroused when they play cellos, probably not as reliably as Priya does, but I can believe it! It's a memorable and unusual way to inject some eroticism into the story. I mean, it's a vibrating thing between her legs...Five stars for the originality.

3. Writing music for a loved one. It has the same effect as writing a poem, but, crucially, there's no question of quoting the music in the story. So you get to describe it however you want, and the little "quick, quick, glide, step, glide, step" chant is evocative.

Some things that didn't work so well, in my opinion:

1. When you describe the music, your paragraphs get really, really long. When Priya records her cello, that paragraph is 326 words. It doesn't even fit on my phone's screen. And there were obvious breaks too! It didn't even need to be rewritten.

2. I didn't understand Melissa's revelation in the bathroom with Kate. I guess she realized she was interested in someone? But I don't know who and I think I was supposed to know.

3. The repetition of "fam" on the last page was odd and felt intrusive. Maybe it's a quirk of Nadine's speech? Or maybe it's normal for the geographical region and social class etc.?

4. The ending left me wanting...something. A summation, some reflection, maybe a hint of what was to come. It felt like you reached a certain length and shipped it.

 

[THBGato]

Hey!

Thanks, that's awesome! Really glad you enjoyed it.

Funnily enough, my wonderful editor has started making me break up paragraphs in later stories, so good shout on that one.

Re: the ending. This was never meant to be a two part story. But when I tried to upload the file as .rtf I got a message saying it was too large. So I had to split it in two, so that was never a planned ending as it were. I hope the ending to Part 2 is more satisfying.

The use of "fam" and "trust" and "for real" are all ways to distinguish Nadine's origins (Londoner of BME background).Like the fact that Melissa swears a lot, I was hoping that such vocal tics would help readers keep track who was talking during conversations without having to constantly resort to "said Nadine" and "said Melissa."

As to Melissa's revelation, you'll have to read Coda (though you may guess way before that).

Honestly, if those are your only criticisms (all of them completely fair) then I'll take that as a win.

Thanks so much.

T x

 

[joy_of_cooking]

The use of "fam" and "trust" and "for real" are all ways to distinguish Nadine's origins (Londoner of BME background).Like the fact that Melissa swears a lot, I was hoping that such vocal tics would help readers keep track who was talking during conversations without having to constantly resort to "said Nadine" and "said Melissa."

Ah got it. It certainly did accomplish that.

 

[furiousdistribution]

I would love a review of any of my stuff, but my most recent two (and so reflect my continued learning as a writer) are Wolf in Syl's Clothing and Unexpected Arrival. Wolf is like 30k, but Unexpected Arrival is only 12k. My two series are Ruthless (50k total, superhero, semi-finished) and Fallen Princess (40k, dark fantasy, finished). Both have noncon elements. "Depraved Corruption" is the only one that's so old and bad I recommend against bothering to review it.