Okay, I feel like sinking my claws into something substantial, who wants feedback?

[VeraGem]

RS,

I love the situation you've created here, panic causing two people to fall into one another's arms, the urge to mate in times of crisis. I'm also feeling something for Steve: dislike of a guy who takes advantage of a woman who's run totally out of self control. My dislike is driven home by the fact that he's so concerned about not having a condom; not concerned for her, only for himself. He's annoyed by her, but he's still fucking her. He's an asshole. Good job!

That having been said I agree with KM. I wanted to be inside the heads of the characters a bit more. I wanted to feel her panic. You might try writing down everything she could possibly be thinking and later deleting whatever you think is too much.

For what it's worth,

VG

 

[ShamelessFlirt]

Comments?

Shamelessflirt - I'll comment on your's if you'll comment on mine.

Hey, Black_Bird still looking to hear your comments!

 

[mmumbles]

daughter, your poems

daughter, I just read a few of your poems. I really find them sensual. Your use of smell and taste strikes chords in me. Keep up the good work. Try my poems "woman" & "an ode to your pussy"......they're short. If you were a man you might have written them.

 

[Black_Bird]

Re: Comments?

Hey, Black_Bird still looking to hear your comments!

First page... its there! A comment on both stories you mentioned in this thread.

 

[ShamelessFlirt]

Re: Re: Comments?

First page... its there! A comment on both stories you mentioned in this thread.

Dude! How the hell did I miss it??!!

Thanks loads, I like your twist for my first one (Chance)

Dialog, eh. Mental note and thanks again.

 

[KillerMuffin]

Shameless Flirt, you're up!

If you think it's a good thing that is.

I do believe that you've spent a lot of time writing poetry or thinking about it. I skittered over a couple of your poems, but went to your prose.

You have a severe problem with sentence fragments. Artful fragmentation is a must in poetry. In prose, you just don't do it on a regular basis. I read three stories and I do believe that I counted no less than one fragment per paragraph. I think that aside from the first sentence in one particularly long paragraph it was mostly fragments. So what's the problem? A sentence fragment is not a complete thought and it leaves the reader wondering what s/he is missing.

"I love to take my time, languish over every inch of newly exposed flesh. All the while, silently communicating desire. And sometimes not so silently, a moan here a sharp intake of breath there. I wanted to explore her desires, share our pleasure. Hard then soft, fast then slow. Listen and gauge my actions to her response."

Okay, see when I'm reading along in this, it's very much like having Captain James T. Kirk of the USS Enterprise entering one of his infamous logs ad infinatum only this time he's getting sex instead of getting killed by the gorgeous alien princess. A well timed fragment can add wonderful impact to what you're trying to say. Too many fragments over-dramatizes the prose and makes it feel very heavy. Ready it out loud the way someone would read it in their mind.

"I love to take my time, languish over every inch of newly exposed flesh."

Full stop, heavy breath.

"All the while, silently communicating desire."

Full stop, heavy breath.

"And sometimes not so silently, a moan here a sharp intake of breath there."

Full stop, heavy breath.

A period is a very deep stop in any kind of writing. It signals to the reader that you're transitioning from one full thought or idea to the next. When you don't have a full one, it means that you're carrying over from the previous sentence. It makes it feel very heavy. The writing itself is very good. You're characters are, for the most part, lush and different people. In some places the turns of phrase are more poetic than actually warranted, but that's just my taste.

I take bits of my stories and cut out all the unnecessary words and turn them into poems. It feels like you took poems, added a few necessary words here and there and turned them into stories. I don't think that taking prose and turning into a poem works any better than it does the other way around. I don't think you did, I believe that you set out to write a story, however, it didn't exactly work that way. Your mechanics are really shot. You have to watch for fragments.

The hard part is that fragments will disguise themselves as complete sentences. Since I felt like running outside in the rain. That you were a hog at dinner. They both have full predicates and full subjects, right? Not quite.

I think I would have enjoyed the stories, but the consistently bad mechanics murdered it for me. I can't help it, I'm really picky.

 

[Guest]

Hey, would love to get your opinion, damning or not, but I'm a newbie here and I have no idea how to post the addy here to my stuff. If someone could help me out with that, I'd be much thankful

 

[Black_Bird]

Hey, would love to get your opinion, damning or not, but I'm a newbie here and I have no idea how to post the addy here to my stuff. If someone could help me out with that, I'd be much thankful

It is simple.

{url=http://www. put-url-here.com}Put Text Here{/url}

Simply put the address of the story where it says "put-url-hear", and put the name of your story where it says "Put Text Here"... change all the {} into [] - and walla, you have posted a link.

Also, when you post a reply, below the message box you will see four little check boxes. They are your Options. One option says "Automatically Parse URL's". They automatically make any URL you post in your message a clickable link.

For more information, go to: http://www.literotica.com/forum/misc.php?action=bbcode

Or simply go HERE.

 

[VeraGem]

A Personal Critique

My S/O handed me a book yesterday, or rather, I finally picked up a book I've been handed before. It's called The Elements of Style, by Strunk and White.

I sat on my ass yesterday reading the section on punctuation; I read it at least three times, each time picking up my latest story and getting ill. (I like to print them out and write all over them, it's a personal mania.) At the end of the day I was much relieved not to have submitted it yet. I put too much work into this one - it's going back for revision.

Following my awakening to the fact that I'd been clueless, I began to browse the rest of the little water-stained book in my hands. With every section I browsed came a new realization that I had a lot to learn.

So, KM, your post really hits home for me. I'd been sitting in front of this screen telling myself, "Hey, you're an artist. You can fling out fragments, cute spellings and run-ons all day long and the average reader will just have to get it." Wrong. My opinion has changed. I still believe in breaking the rules, but I want to know when I'm doing it.

So, in short, I highly recommend the book to anyone who is of a mind to sharpen their skills. Yes, it's painful; and yes, I'm still paranoid and unsure of myself even now - but my confidence is returning, growing stronger, and ready for battle. I love a good battle - especially when I have the tools to win.

 

[KillerMuffin]

Blackbird, the new asshole you requested is ready

Let's start with mechanics, it always seems to be a lovely place to start.

My suggestion is that if you use a grammar checker in word, that you throw it out the window and find an editor who understand the mechanics of the language. You have tons of boo-boos that swam right past you. Here's a list:

Pick a tense. Is it past? Is it present? You can't have both.
Punctuation is a biggie. Specifically hyphens, semi-colons, commas, and ellipses. If you don't have a book on punctuation, you may want to invest. It doesn't have to be the Chicago Manual of Style, but something to help you along. You can rent one from the library.
Spelling is a problem as well. You have a few like strait instead of straight. Don't rely on a spell checker.

Okay, onto the rest of it.

I had a hard time getting into the story itself. The reason? I didn't give a fig about the characters. If you've ever read a cheesy Harlequin or one of those serial westerns, you'll understand. Now don't misunderstand, this doesn't make your story "bad." You should understand your audience when you're writing for them. You should keep them in mind. They want specific kinds of things, and that's generally to jack off and go read their stock report or send grandma pictures of the kids. You've done a pretty good job in that regard. Onward.

Your characters were cardboard. There was no tangible difference between the master person, michelle, or Alexia beyond their names. There were no words to describe how they felt that weren't either adverbs or naked feeling words such as afraid or hot. People do things to telegraph their feelings. If they refuse to meet your eyes, they're probably lying or ashamed. If they fidget constantly, they're nervous. If they pace and move violently, then they're angrily controlled.

Get an index card and write on it in big bold letters "Show it don't tell it." Mickie passed that on from whereever he picked it up and that's the best advice a writer can take. Adverbs are lovely, but don't use them often. They're the weakest way to bring your writing to life. Use adverbial phrases. Don't tell us your character is afraid, show that she's afraid. Don't tell us your character is angry, show us. Don't tell, show. Go and find the stories that you loved the most and thought masterful. Pick a short passage and dissect it. How did you know how the characters felt? Did the author tell you they were happy or did you pick up the clues from the character's behavior?

Another good thing is to listen to the people around you. How do they construct what they say. Not just the accents, but how they string the words together. No two people speak alike. Their patterns of speech and they way they string words together are unique to them. The differences are subtle and go beyond accent. My husband will refer to his grade school years as "Back in school when we was growin' up." I will refer to the exact same time as "When I was in school." We have the same accent, but different holds on the language. I know proper English, it should be "When I went to school," but I use the more colloquial phrases. You can make discernable differences in characters just by altering the way they use words to express themselves. In a masterful piece of writing you can take untagged speech and just feel the differences in speech. You can tell that two people are speaking, not just one.

Something that you have to give considerable thought to is the suspension of disbelief that you are asking a reader to do. In stories that are particularly fantastical, you are asking a reader to do quite a bit. I had less trouble believing the underwater world bit than I did with the whole bit about Alexia getting her cherry popped brutally against her will and then going on to enjoy it with no outside stimulation. This tells me that the author has very little idea about what makes a woman orgasm. There was no physical stimulation and there was no mental stimulation. Some women do get off on that exact circumstance, however there was no way for me to see that she was one of those women. It leaped from one cliche to the next.

That's another problem. It was very cliche. His member, the small piece of flesh that was her virginity. Cliche is what we authors fall back on when we set characters into places in stories that they don't fit really well into. If they don't fit perfectly, then they lose something and the words that would make them fit don't come so we fall back on cliche to shoe-horn them in.

Something else to think about is the opening lines. This is where you hook the reader. You are competing with around 13,000 other stories for a reader's time. It's nice to have a large database to read from, but it sucks if you have to compete with them. If the reader isn't hooked, back-click and surf. I can see what you were trying to accomplish and I don't think it worked really well. I didn't feel menace, care, preparation, study, or anything actually. One thing that killed it was the simple sentences. Another thing that killed it was the heavy emphasis on how much he knew about her and he didn't actually know jack about her beyond superficialities like her grades and where she went to school. Think hard about opening, unless it's a really good hook, make sure you retain an active voice. He hit the ball, not the ball was hit.

Stories seem to be either character driven or plot driven. I personally prefer character driven because it's more interesting to me. How to differentiate? Well in a plot driven story, it seems to me, that the circumstances and roadblocks for the characters are thought up first. It's the action that's thought out and planned and the characters are an afterthought. Plot driven stories can be successful, but I think they require more attention to character development than character driven stories. In characther driven stories, in my opinion, the characters are thought up first and then a plot is built to make them interesting. Roadblocks are tossed in for the purpose of making a character develop. The action is all geared to making the character interesting instead of the characters being geared to make the action interesting. But this is all my opinion. I think you came up with the idea for the plot and the action then crafted your characters to fit into it. I don't know if they did or didn't because the story isn't finished.

Another thing I've personally learned is to not post a story until it's finished. One, you get feedback from people who've got their pet fantasies they want to see in it that can distract. Two, you've got people who don't like it due to content and slam you for the second son of Satan, you sickie. Three, you can slam into that proverbial brick wall and it'll hang there for a while until you just straight force it to get the story finished. Four, you get negative feedback or disheartening criticism that you just can't shrug off and you quit the story because if no one likes it, why bother?

Please understand that I'm not attacking you, your writing skills, your story or the content itself. I'm only pointing out the things that I thought were problematic so you can maybe solve them to make your future writing more satisfactory to you. You do not have to agree with me because the Great KM is only Great in her own mind and that's the way it is with everyone. I would also suggest a perusal of cymbidia's BDSM question and answer thread on the How To board, it's a wealth of free information that may help you craft future installments in such a way that readers don't notice they've suspended their disbelief.

 

[P. B. Walker]

Re: Blackbird, the new asshole you requested is ready

I'd say it's a pretty gaping asshole now... LOL.

I am just teasing. I thought KM's review was very comprehensive. I hope she will review a few of my stories once I get them all fixed up and reviewed by a few of the volunteer editors. I've been spending a ton of time on my older stories, but am holding back posting them until I get feedback from volunteer editors.

- PBW
Remember friends, please use the KY...

 

[REDWAVE]

I'm such a smartass!

Killerest Muffin, O great one (and if you look anything like your avatar, I for one will agree you're great), "angry" in "Don't tell us your character is angry," etc. is an adjective, not an adverb. Don't make that mistake again, or I may have to respond "angrily"-- lol.


And I much prefer character-driven to plot-driven stories myself-- but either approach can work.

The "great" REDWAVE

 

[Black_Bird]

Youch!

A huge new gapping oriface. Thanks

But - you are right. It is actually the very first erotic story I wrote... I began it even before I knew of Literotica... did it show?

The funny thing is, this story happens to be the highest ranking out of the three I've written.

Please understand that I'm not attacking you, your writing skills, your story or the content itself. I'm only pointing out the things that I thought were problematic so you can maybe solve them to make your future writing more satisfactory to you.

Hey - it's what I asked for, right? I know I've got to work on a few things... (A few? More like: I have my work cut out for me) I just wanted someone to help me define what those things are.

But HERE is an interesting question: You said that "Member" is clique... but how many other non-vulgar words are there to denote "penis"? Dick, Cock, Prick, Meat tube - Although in this story, all these words would probably work better, in my other story, I'm trying to avoid using those words...

 

[Black_Bird]

Been trying to edit that post....

...but for some reason, I can't. <Grumble>

I wanted to ask another question" is it a good idea to go back and edit stories that have already been posted? What is your opinion on this?

I also didn't thank you for taking the time to give me some criticism I can use... You were harsh, perhaps, but in contrast to the help I get from others ("Oh, its great!" Uh huh. It sucks...), it's exactly what I need.

 

[KillerMuffin]

christophe, I gave it a try

I picked Hide & Go Seek because it was a one time shot and what can I say, I'se a lazy lil' Muffin.

A few bumps in the road, I think, very few. All in all I think this was a well polished effort and the whole thing was fascinating. The sex was hot and steamy and the fresh angle on the mutual masturbation was fabulous.

So the problems I had with it first. Get them out of the way. At times the language felt stilted, not at all like you were sitting down and telling me a story, more like you were trying to get all "authory" in places. You know the feeling when you read it. It's like the writer feels it necessary to use a fancy twist to the language to feel more like a real author. As I entered the house, I proceeded to open it, you're very, very fond of proceeded, by the way. In general, I don't like any sentence or phrase that starts with "as." It's like a cheap cop-out designed to get out of showing the action. Let's take the first two sentences as an example.

"I arrived home early one afternoon to an abandoned house. As I entered the house I found a small note from my wife: "

Okay, from sentence #1 we can infer one thing. He is going to go inside of the house. It isn't necessary to point out that he did. Since we already know he's going to go inside the house, the use of the word "as" becomes necessary to prevent the prose from getting dry. I arrived home.... I entered the house... yada yada. Instead try something like, "I found a small note from my wife when I dropped my keys onto the coffee table."

I wouldn't normally point this out, but this seems to be a theme. Pointing out whats already been made obvious in a previous sentence.

Okay, Weird Harold has a fabulous piece of advice that I have taped to the left side of my monitor right about the piece from Mickie about showing not telling. Write like you speak. It feels better to write in a more elevated manner, upon, proceeded, as, and all that authorial rot. But it reads very unnaturally. If christophe was telling me about this over a brewski at the bowling alley, the word proceeded wouldn't come up more than once if at all.

I keep having to explain all these index cards to the StudMuffin who thinks they're important but has no idea why.

Anway. Watch for words like "began," "started," and "becoming." They are passive. Passive is a no-no because it's boring. It feels like it's great writing, but it's actually bad reading. Another thing about words is that long ones are cool to use, but can suck to read. At one point the protagonist pulled his dick out of his pants. Well, he "instinctively withdrew his pants and began to massage" his cock. This doesn't sound like a guy who's getting seriously hot and bothered. It sounds like a guy who's worried about staining his trousers.

An elevated usage of the language is good and it shows a great deal of intelligence. However, it should also flow naturally and feel like it's comfortable to the reader and the writer. The use of passive voice and a few noted "authorisms" like "began" and "as" just makes it feel stilted. It appeared to me in several spots that you had to think pretty hard about the wording of a few sentences and you probably weren't really happy with them when you were finished. Some sentences are like that. They absolutely defy being written. I would suggest you first write them, then continue with the story. When it's done, reread it and see if you can change the sentence. I usually put those sentences in gray so I know which ones they are.

The characters were interesting, so I don't think plot or development is a problem. Your pacing problems will clear up with the minimization of your passive voice issues.

 

[KillerMuffin]

Vera You're a woman after my own heart. I have Strunk and White and I read it often. I have no less than four grammar books, the Oxford Companion to the English Language, 9 dictionaries, three thesauruses, two punctuation manuals, and an uncountable number of various treatises on how to write anything from plot, to character, to style, to creativity, to just how to be a neurotic egotist writer. They're the most read books in the house. I've also rented them from the Library. Yes, I rent because I always have to pay fines *sighs*

One bit of advice, once you have a story finished and ready to be submitted to someone, editor, the site, for publication, begin immediately on something new. The reason is that if you don't, you'll be too worried about what's pending to start on something new.

Redwave, you'll notice that a period generally signifies a transfer into a new thought. I write these things like I think so the paragraphs don't necessarily mean related thoughts. Did you buy that?

Blackbird, on editing, I generally don't do it because I consider it a waste of my time and Laurel's time. The one exception would be that the puntuation, grammar, and spelling errors are so glaring as to make it unreadable. You're presumably working on something new, so put your energy into that rather than hashing over the past. We've all got uglies in our past, you can see mine pretty easily. I never read them because they're bad enough to make me shudder.

Member, it's cliche to me because every romance novel in existence refers to his marble hard throbbing pillar of manhood as a "member." I've yet to figure out exactly what it's a member of. Does it pay dues? Member, in my personal opinion, is cliched simply because of it's proximity to cheesy romance novels. Her "center" or "flower of womanhood" are the same thing. You can't say Cock in romance, so you call it a member. But that's my personal opinion.

 

[Guest]

She's just a hateful ass

For those of of you that were really pissed off by, Killer Muffin's reviews, but didn't want to show it, she told me two years ago to stop wasting my time.
But, I keep on, I get better with each new post, and have posted close to 50 stories here, and over 200 others on the net. I have been ask to send my work to New York.
Keep it up, don't let her hateful ass, knock you down.

upand cumming.

 

[KillerMuffin]

You cannot possibly be so afraid of me and my "hateful ass" that you feel you must hide your identity. Only liars do that.

 

[P. B. Walker]

Uhhhhh...

If her ass is anything like her avatar, hateful is not an adjective I'd use to describe it. Squeezable, yes. Pinchable, oh definitely. I better stop now before I get myself in trouble... lol.

- PBW

 

[smithpeter]

heaven forbid

I have looked at a couple of the "critic" forum posts and don't think I will ever ask any to read, let alone offer an opinion of anything that I have posted here. Lame to some may have been a great boost to the self feelings of the author.

Pray for peace,
sp

 

[KillerMuffin]

Fair enough. I don't offer criticism unasked or unwarned. You should also understand that anyone's criticism, up to and including my own, is only worth the paper it's printed on. Not everyone will have nice things to say about what's been written. Most of it is unwarranted and just plain cruel. I don't give criticism to anyone who I don't think has something to offer in their writing. It takes a long time to read and seriously think about what I'm reading. I don't just read it and throw up some words to make myself look smart because I just look like an ass no matter what I say. If I say something, I want to be able to back my opinion up with a firm ground for it.

These people are good writers. However, they are very, very close to the story and they just can't see where it might be weak. ALL stories have weaknesses. ALL writing can be improved. I firmly believe that if a writer gets an honest criticism from someone along with reasons why they feel that way, it will affect that writer's writing for the good. Not because they necessarily agreed with the critique or that the critique was even right. The improvement may only come because it made that writer think about they way they are writing from a different perspective.

Authors who accept no criticism because it hurts them will not only never grow, but they will eventually quit writing because in the world, everyone is a critic and most people won't have glowing things to say about any piece of writing.

The trick is to separate yourself from your work. It's very, very hard. You are not your writing, even though it feels like it. Criticism to your writing is not criticism to you. Criticism to your writing doesn't even mean that what you wrote was bad or not great. You may take my criticism of christophe's Hide & Go Seek story for example. I loved that story. I thought it was great. You'll also note that I had a lot of criticism for it as well.

If anyone wants to grow as a writer, then they must learn to accept criticism for what it's worth and to learn something from it. Even if the lesson is only that the writer is not the writing.

 

[smithpeter]

excuse me please

who are you? I am sorry if you took my post in a personal way. I have read some of your things and listenend to some of your audios. Very nice.
That is all I need to say.
I would like to know more of what that is all about and what it is like to do a broadcast. So be cool and chill baby.
Yours,
sp

 

[KillerMuffin]

I get excited when I talk about writing or any part of it. It makes me lecture. I wasn't hot'n bothered, just preachy. I hate it when I get that way.

People are always asking for feedback on this board. I don't know what kind of feedback they actually want, so I posted this to give feedback. It's one of those you ask for it things. I don't give constructive criticism without being specifically asked for it. Ever. Most people don't want that kind of feedback. They want to be stroked. Which is just fine, too. Oh boy, I'm getting started again. Shuttin up.

What'd you want to know, specifically?

 

[smithpeter]

I like to read aloud...

you must too, your voice is kinda spooky, I don't know if to feel threatened or seduced.
You could reply to my email rather than post in public. I would like to write an erotic story about the perils of web forums or erotic wav files. It would be a tragedy. LOL
You be well dear,
sp

 

[alice]

how about a thank folks who bothered

Where do folks get off thinking that they're work is sacred and ain't nobody ever going to say somethin' funky? It's a public forum. That means folks are free to say what they think. You don't have to listen nor like it.

UP is the only smartass and he admits it. Still, ain't nobody arguin' he doesn't make good points. And he ain't whippin' that sh--t out. Like KM says, indepth critiques take time.

One more thing, for all the whining about UP. There's a helluva lot more activity since he showed up and that top list that everyone claims they don't care about is far more interesting these days and many of you who wasn't gettin' any props are being read now.

What's up with that?

Alice