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

Bitch, Bitch, Bitch

I am a virgin (well here anyway), tee hee, and like any other board I have belonged too there is always fighting, calling names, slamming each other, etc., etc., etc., (oh god, grammar)

BUT, NEVER - I MEAN NEVER - seen a board where so many people really do care. I got, what for a virgin, is fairly straight forward critique. I ASKED FOR IT!!! I don't have to agree, I love to write and nothing will stop me and the fact that there are people who have been doing this longer means they have learned from their own "hide under the desk" critiques. KM is the toughest so far but I even read in one of her posts that it would kill her to go back and look at earlier work.

Get a grip, folks. So many someone writes because of a hidden agenda - who gives a shit - there is still maybe something to at least think about. I intend to be a writer - a real writer (i.e. published somewhere) and I've gotten more ideas and help right here than in a years of classes, teachers, and friends reading material. This is my frist try at erotica but thought it would help me since I am so stuck on what I am currently writing.

You can post and not ask for reviews or even votes.... just post. I for one will hope that those that have been at this longer than me (myself, I/??? GRAMMER AND i DO HAVE STRUNK, LOL) will keep thowing ideas at me. My feeling is that if they did not at least find my work somewhat interesting - they would not even bother with a reply.

Alice, you are correct. Everyone that has written something on my little story has gotten a thank you and always will. Isn't that why we write? For someone to read? Hell, I read the damn thing. Not enough, obviously, but I did read it many times. I want others to read it --- AND COMMENT.

So fuss and bitch and discredit - I don't care - as a virgin, not even taking to heart --- there is passion here and that is all I want. Well................

Comment from a humble Virgin
Panther:)
 
For the Sandman

I would have to say that you've cleaned up a lot of the extra words. You're flowing more naturally now. You're still having a problem with extra stuff that doesn't need to be there, but I didn't find it something that got in the way of the story like it did for me in Mrs. Doubtfire.

The first four paragraphs, for example, were boring and unnecessary. Why were they that way? I asked myself that a few times. Why was it boring? It was all detail. Telling not showing. You told me details about Angel, where she worked, what she looked like, what kind of person she was. You told me about her inner sensuality.

I guess it might seem contradictory to be nagged to show not tell and to not use so many words all in the same breath. When you show us that she's a seething cauldron of sensuality inside you're going to use more words, but the words that you are using are necessary to 1) get your point across and 2) advance the story. Your problem with wordiness wasn't in description or otherwise, you have a thing for what I call "authorisms" which are words or turns of phrase that don't mean anything but really feel authorly when you write them. Passive voice is an "authorism" but that's another color of dog. I didn't see much passive voice at all and if I didn't I didn't notice it.

The problem with telling, which does make it shorter than showing, is that it's boring. People don't like being told, it's like reading VCR instructions. You'd rather have your first grader show you how to program it. This is also where something really important comes into play, the hook. You've got about a minute to get people hooked into your story. For those who've skimmed past all the stuff until the sex starts, this doesn't bother them. For those who read the whole story, it's a back click or they start with a feeling of "maybe it gets better." This doesn't mean it applies directly to your work itself, just that it applies to bad starts. It's also one of the things that goes from being "good" porn to "great" porn. An example of a magnificent hook is Dirty Old Man's story Two Bags for the Bride. "I hate my fiancée's clocks. I can appreciate her sense of humor, but it's just so damned hard to figure out what time it is in her house." It makes you want to read more, it makes you like/dislike the opening character, it makes you interested in the story.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you do like to go on and on KM. What's the point?

What's the prime problem with the story? You've done a bit of telling, not showing. From the entire tone of it, particularly all the clues you left at the end, I would guess that the author asked to write a story for someone was true and you wrote a story for someone.

You probably discovered the inherent difficulties in doing it. Mrs. Doubtfire had little by way of problem with the characters, but this one had some trouble with them. You didn't really know them so I think that may have caused the problem with telling rather than showing. You know she works as a nurse and that she's a BBW, but you don't know how to show it because your experience is limited. Is that about right?

You've got a handle on words, characters, pacing, and plot development. It was interesting despite the "telling" bits and you've definately got the sex down. Now if you can show more and tell less you'll be great, not just good.
 
Two more cents, if I may be so bold...

A good way to approach the whole 'show don't tell' thing is to eliminate, as much as possible, the use of adverbs.

"He slammed the door loudly."

Now, we know that when a door slams the sound, in all likelihood, is less than quiet - so here the adverb is redundant. It's more than just a regular slam, you say? OK then, maybe he slammed the door and stormed down the hallway, the window still rattling in it's frame.

I like to let a 'finished' story rest for a few weeks, then go back and, among other things, delete every evil adverb or replace them with something more descriptive. At that point, the one or two left behind have a greater impact.

For what it's worth...
 
Okay KM, I feel like having my Christmas ruined...

Since I've finished the sequence since you started this thread, perhaps you'd be so good as to run your eye over the Magic Lessons set before I get into too much trouble with the sequels.

Here are the links:
http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=27993
http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=29347
http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=30004
http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=30581

Four parts in order, the first is fairly long. I suppose I could ask you to be gentle, but you won't be anyway.

Ravenswing

PS. I love your new Avatar picture. Now that's a real Killer Muffin :D
 
whack away

Hello. I am a virgin to the boards and a newbie on the site, and I'm interested in hearing what you have to say about this. I have not written very much poetry, but I'm struggling with it to enhance my prose (rhthym, word selection, imagery, etc.). Feel free to be as brutal as you need to be. I like your style, and, in any case, I'm probably harder on myself than anyone else could be. Thank you.

karmadog


The New Sneaker Blues

She drives through the dark,
Coppery guilt lies complacent on her tongue.
The chrome bumper crushes the wind and
White noise edges through
The window slit.

A mile and more away,
The boy is wakeful in his bed.
Once he flew with new-sneaker grace,
Now his shoes
will never show wear.

On the breeze that
Shivers the sheer curtain
Comes one unending chord:
Truck tires trombone and car tires cornet
Along the highway.
 
Doing Redwave! Finally

This was a hard one to do.

I didn't like the story and it took me a while to figure out why. Content isn't generally a problem for me, unless it's pedo or snuff. Though I must admit that some of cymbidia's stuff made me feel squeamish and it took a couple of read throughs to get comfortable enough to actually sit down and read it. Content wasn't a problem here, though.

One thing is that I felt like the narrator was mocking Duane through the entire story. The words he used, like espied, were things that I couldn't imagine a character like Duane hearing in his entire life, let alone understanding. I didn't form my own opinion about Duane because it was already there with the subtle sarcasm.

This brings me to the next point. There were three characters in the story and only one of them had any development. What I mean by development in this instance is that only one character in the story had a third dimension. Duane and Sylvia were pretty much cardboard and I got nothing from them beyond they did this they did that. I believe that the "Sylvia was aghast" and phrases of this type were the only method used to expand the two main characters. The narrator, on the other hand, was a definite character. His feelings on the matter were pretty well defined.

Generally, I don't like third person stories that have a narrator as a solid character that I can get a sense of. I like to get a feel for the characters themselves. Most readers will get the same feelings that the narrator has for the characters, but some won't.

You mentioned my Acidic Tiger story. Most readers felt the same way about the father character that I did. Most readers didn't feel the same way about the daughter character. I didn't like her and I feel that she perpetuated the cycle of rape by passively accepting it and even making the father character think that's what she wanted. I didn't feel sympathy for her because there are resources to get out of it. Most of the readers who wrote me felt sorry for her. Shockingly, there was one person who found it highly erotic and thought the father was a great guy. I suspect a joke.

In writing that story my main goal was to keep my personal voice out of it. What I think and feel about the whole thing isn't nearly as important as what the characters think and feel about the whole thing. They are the ones telling the story, not the writer. Narrators are effective and useful in certain situations, but in third person they usually aren't.

Anyway, the point is that I have problems, in general, with your characterizations; not only in this story but some of the others of yours that I have read. They're flat to the point that the narrator is a main character and it's his opinions that I feel the strongest, not the characters themselves. That makes the story-telling flat, being told not shown.

It took me a while to figure it out, but there it is. I didn't like your story because you told it to me. You didn't show it to me. "Sylvia was aghast at the situation she suddenly found herself in..."

That and the dashes. You really need to do something about those dashes. Dashes, ellipses, exclamation points, all caps, they're all things you should use sparingly.

You have the plotwork, you have the ability to talk to a reader without talking down to a reader, and you've got a good, natural flow in your words. You also have a good way of taking the same ol' same ol'-- dirty old man captures young girl for sexual slavery-- and making it fresh. The only real problem I think that you have is your characterizations.

Once you get that down, then I think the social commentary you're trying to make with you stories will be more effective. Right now, I seriously doubt anyone notices it.
 
JustGem, you can leave your hat on

Not bad for a first shot.

The thing I liked the most about it is that you didn't give into the urge to throw a detailed description of the sexual reward the lover was going to give her. You ended the story at its natural ending point rather than throw sex in there just to have coitus. That's commendable because a lot of people, including me, stick sex into a story where it doesn't belong.

The choreography was pretty well thought out, or so it seemed to me. Most writers don't take that much time to think about those things, fighting, dancing, sex, whatever, they just gloss it over or write contradictory or impossible things.

One thing you could stand to forget is the ellipses (...) that you're fond of.

This is what you wrote:

The music ends in a crash and the cheers raise as the dancer on stage finishes.....oh my....what a finish....I turn back to watch her being helped up from her stool by the MC, see her catch her breath and gather herself... she has just made herself cum onstage in front of everyone.

This is what I read:

The music ends in a crash and the cheers raise as the dancer on stage finishes. I turn back to watch her being helped up from her stool by the MC, see her catch her breath and gather herself. She has just made herself cum onstage in front of everyone.

When I see that many periods, I skip it because it's too much trouble. A common misconception in pornographic writing is that the ellipses make a pause or give a breathy feeling to the writing. Perhaps it does. It's also a gimmick and lazy writing. Like Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooohhhh I'm cummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmming instead of showing the orgasm with real words.

Ellipses are actually pretty hard to read because they mean different things to different people. They aren't natural punctuation and you don't see them in everday use. The definition of ellipses, supplied by Webster, is three periods used to indicate the omission of words within a quoted passage. Use four when the omission is at the end of the quoted passage.

Omission, not pause. Pauses are punctuated with periods, commas, semi-colons, exclamation points, and question marks. Use ellises in prose when the character omits something.

"I felt like...."

The point is that you should use words to give the feel you want, not punctuation. Punctuation is not a part of the story, it is only there for to clarify to the words to the reader.

Another problem is bad grammar. Run-on sentences and sentence fragments abound. This may or may not be kosher in this story. You've got a present tense, first person account that's completely stream of consciousness. People don't think or speak grammatically. They butcher the language. You have to decide what kind of feel you want your readers to have from the character and choose your sentence structure accordingly. My impression was that it felt like a phone sex monologue.

The thing about grammar is that you can break the rules in prose. You just have to know what the rules are and break them judiciously.

I would say that your grammar was effective for this story.
 
Mistress Panther...

Ooh. I read it several times over the last few days.

The story isn't finished yet, is it.

Okay, let's begin with mechanics. I'll skip punctuation and all the whatnot and just jump feet first into you main difficulties, run-on sentences and sentence fragments. First, definitions.

There are two kinds of run-on sentences. A comma fault and a run-on. Comma faults are my favorite ones to do, I do them them all the time. <-- Comma fault error. A comma fault is joining two independent clauses with a comma. Can't be done. An independent clause is a group of words with a subject and a predicate that does not depend on anything else for it's meaning. In other words, it's a simple sentence. A run-on is joining two or more independent clauses without punctuation. I don't do run-on sentences very often unless I feel a need to make the prose feel more juvenile but I see a lot of different stories where run-ons are the thing and I can see that the author either doesn't recognize a run-on or thinks it's proper grammar. <-- Run-on sentence error. You do both as well.

I think comma faults are forgivable only because I do them almost every other sentence and I have a complex about thinking I'm perfect. They actually aren't, but anyway. Run-ons aren't forgivable in your story for the simple reason is that they are juvenile. Pre-pubescent girls at an N'Sync concert speak breathlessly in run-on. That is not the impression you want to give.

Sentence fragments are a pain in the rump. Most people do them, including myself. I firmly believe there is a place for them in prose, however they should be used-- like an exclamation point-- sparingly. A sentence fragment is a group of words punctuated like sentence that is incomplete. A sentence reflects a complete idea. A subject and a predicate that stands on it's own. A fragment needs explanation from a previous sentence to be understood. "A very tricky proposition for her to negotiate." The only understood subject is "you."

Fragments hide, they're tricky little suckers. Since I felt tired. Therefore my mother ate spinach while I ate the ice cream. But no one would figure it out. Because I said so. They've got a subject and a predicate. They're just not complete sentences because they fail the primary test, they aren't complete ideas. You don't have many, but you've got a few.

Comma faults, run-ons, and fragments are your grammar killers.

The punctuation problem that would solve some of these is understand the use of the semi-colon. I despise the things, which is why I write in comma fault errors. Just a quick run down of semi-colon uses.

1) Use it to separate independent clauses closely connected in meaning, but no coordinating conjunction is used. It cures comma faults.
2) Use it to join coordinate clauses whey they are joined by transitional words and phrases such as accordingly, likewise, afterwards, and as a result. Transitional verbs is what you're looking for.
3) You should use a semicolon in place of the comma between two independent clauses when a conjunction is used when there is internal punctuation in the clauses.
4) Use the colon in place of a comma in lists when it's unclear.

Stick the spork in the mechanics are done.

Let's talk about elements of storytelling. Style, pacing, characterization, romanticism, authorisms, point-of-view, passive/active voice and judicious chapterization.

The biggest problem I had reading this was figuring out what was going on. I spent a lot of time figuring out which point of view was used, hers, his, or the narrators. I couldn't always tell what the author meant with a sentence, it was confusing. Normally I would have backclicked after the first paragraph.

I think you have a nebulous plot in mind, but it's not quite finished. You know a few things you want to include in the story and some idea as to how you want it to end, but you aren't exactly sure. It makes it very difficult to get from the beginning to the end if you don't know what the ending is. Happily ever after is a character goal, not a plot goal. She accepts him as her slave and moves into his place? Well, that's been done and everything after that is overstory. Where are you going with it? What needs to happen to get there?

This also gives a problem to chapterization. If you know four important things must happen to the characters, then you know you have four chapters. For example, they make love, she begins training, he proposes marriage, they move to Italy and join a convent. I think the first chapter is rightly two chapters. Your pacing is off, probably because the plot isn't defined to you completely.

Character development is a big problem as well. This comes mostly from your propensity to tell rather than show. "This man, the first in a long time, wanted more than a Mistress, he needed to be a total slave but also wanted a woman to love and still be a man." This is one of the most important concepts in the entire story. How should it be presented? By the narrator or by the character himself? The narrator is telling us what he wants. Most people are afraid of what they want and they don't know how to define it. The character doesn't go on to expand on this sentence at all. The narrator does that. Can you see the problem with this kind of storytelling? The credibility of that statement is completely lost in non-essential details that the character does and says.

What are the characters motivations? Why are they doing this? Who should be the one to tell the reader? Them or the narrator? How should they tell it? One of the most effective tools in writing is the use of a character's body language. There was none in the story. When a character is frightened, nervous, angry, happy, lying, or whatever it's in their body language, not in their words. As people we use another person's body language as a primary indicator to another's feelings, not what they say because we know people lie and their bodies don't.

Passive voice is a bit of a problem for you. It's using a conjugation of the word be-- which literally means to be in the state of being-- as part of the predicate. It also has the distinction of putting the object as the subject of the sentence. The ball was hit, not he hit the ball. There are some instances where you have no other choice beyond a "be" word. Quite a few, actually. But if you're linking it, try to avoid it. "Isabella was always amazed..." Rather, It always amazed Isabella that..." for an example.

Point of view was a big problem. Who was speaking, the narrator, Isabella or Darcy? I couldn't tell most of the time, the switch happened frequently and without warning. Usually in the middle of the paragraph. In generaly, you should remain pretty steady with whose POV you're in for the reader's comfort. This doesn't mean you shouldn't either. However, if you want to give a firm picture of the character, you need to stay in their POV for a little bit and let them experience. I am also of the belief that the narrator has no place as a character in a third person story. That's for fairy tales and aesop. If you want a fairy tale feel, then it needs to be consistent.

It's hard to tell if there is a narrator character or not in your own writing, I think. It's easy to read it in others. My rule of thumb is that if I can feel the author in the story as a separate character, then the narrator is a character. The first three paragraphs are a fine example of an intrusive narrator. It's easy to editorialize in a story, particularly if we feel strongly about some point of other. That isn't the author's place, it's the characters'job. If you want me to hear you the most effectively, I shouldn't recognize your voice. Odd isn't it?

One of the things that irked me the most when I read it was the romanticization of the whole thing. It read like bad poetry at times and euphamisms for several words felt unnatural. When you write, you should write like you speak. It's natural and it flows and people are attracted to it. They like it because they feel like the author is speaking to them not at them. Authorisms is what a term those words and turns of phrase that feel good when you write them but suck when you read them. Flowerly language, beginning a lot of sentences with as, passive voice, unnecessary words, adverbs, and using big words when a little one is as good are all authorisms. Here's one "The shower finished, he ever so delicately and dabbed her dry as if she were made of fine porcelain and would break."

I think it's important that the characters touch the reader. When they do it brings them along for the ride, sweeps them into their world, and makes the story superb. When Darcy pledged to be her sub, I skimmed it the first few times. I felt that was very important and should have been something I lingered over.

All in all, just a little more work and I think you'd have a fabulous story.
 
emptyhed, most certainly not empty

http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=30994

This one's a doozy. It's one of those stories where the content overshadows everything. Probably because it's well executed.

The grammar is perfect for the story. It should be good grammar that's warped for effect. The run-ons and fragments give the feeling of disrupted thoughts and fragmented ideas. Grammatically speaking, the word choice was excellent. No bad subject~predicate kind of things. No lazy speaking.

Where was the difficulty? I think it was in the middle and it's content based.

The whole paragraph marked "Don't get me wrong..." is out of place. The denial enforces the appearance of addiction, but I didn't think it was worth the price you paid jarring the reader.

For the majority of the story the character isn't cohesive in thought, then bam, he is for a few sentences, then back he goes. It's rather like someone rambling on for a while, sticking in a few minutes of spanish for no good reason, and then continuing with their tale. It makes no sense and it sticks out like a bare toe in a shredded sock.

A short primer in HTML italics. Instead of parentheses, use italics. I bet you wanted to. It should look exactly like this:

<I>in the beginning god created heavens and the earth</I>

the I can be capitalized or not. The first one tells the page to make it italics, the slash tells the page to turn off italics. It has to be exactly like that or you screw up the formatting of your words.

Tense is also a problem. There can be some shifting in tense to denote a divorce from reality, however the way you shifted it was ineffective. You used past through most of it and suddenly decided to use present somewhere toward the end. I can see what you were trying to do, make the ending scene "now" and differentiate it from the begging which was "then." If you can do this without distrubing the reader so that s/he has to think about the words themselves instead of the story, then go for it. It didn't work in this case. The transition from one to the other didn't go very smoothly for me.

And other than some wrong words like "laid," I can't think of anything else.
 
KM - Tough but sooooooo good

LOL - obviously I need to work on the grammar. Drastically.

It will take me a while to digest and use what you have written but thank you so much since all of it made perfect sense to me.

One thing that is funny --- I did write like I talk... ROFLMAO - I had a friend here read it and she said it sounded like I was across the table... Maybe it is my darn southern upbringing that makes us use too many words and several of them always flowery and overdone tending to drip like butter on hot cornbread. After seeing your comments, I read it again looking for those things and nearly fell right out of my chair as if some unseen ghost had whacked the back of my head.

Thank you, KM, and all of you. I am reworking this story and hopefully you will see wonderful improvement when it rolls around again.

Panther
 
I want feedback

I would like some feedback if you are still offering. My link is listed below.

http://www.literotica.com/stories/memberpage.php?uid=56459

I am very insecure, but it is something I need to get over if I ever plan to make it as a writer. This forum is perfect for me. I cannot see your face and you cannot see my reaction. If you can help me, I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks,
urprvtjoy
 
A Dream?

urprvtjoy,

I read only one po'm. My tastes in and knowledge of po'try are puerile compared to the serious critics on this forum. So, bear that in mind.

First, and most important, this ~sounds~ right to the ear. As with a song on the radio, if it doesn't sound right, who gives a rat's rear end what the lyrics are. You passed this test.

Second, you have rhythm. The meter and rhyme pattern are pretty well maintained without apparent stretching. I think you (re)worked on this. One line would I change to maintain the rhythm;
"but, alas, here comes the morning light."
to
"but, alas, comes morning light."

The rhyming, which some on this board seem not to appreciate, works to contain each stanza. I didn't even mind the couple of stanzas that the pattern failed in the detail if not the spirit.

Third, the lyric itself paints a picture that even an old curmudgeon like myself can view.

Is it great po'try? Hell, I don't know. I liked it.

g
 
g

thank you. I am glad you liked my poem. The one line you mentioned is a bit off from the rest of the poem, and I did struggle with it. As far as working or reworking my poem, I am one of those unfortunate souls who cannot edit my own poetry. I have only reworked one of my poems since I have been writing. Sounds strange, huh? Anway, I just write them and leave them--one night stand poetry; go figure.

Thanks for the feedback all the same. Again, I am glad you liked it.

ENJOY,
urprvtjoy
 
shug, it's Hobbes & Flush!

Hobbes is in there, what about DuBois? Sorry.

Ahem.

Seriously. I'd like to talk about authorisms, advancing the plot, unnecessary words. Essentially tightening up the story so that you've got good "flow." Flow is a pretty word we writer persons like to throw around so that we sound smarter than we are. "Oh yeah, she's got flow." It's also a little important.

Flow is the way the words move a reader through a story. Like a river, good flow carries the reader from start to finish smoothly so that the reader only notices the story and not the words themselves. When a reader has to stop and pull himself out of the story to figure something out, that's disruption of flow. We get into a comfy haze when we read, you're familiar with the feeling, and when we stop the story to do something like skim past an irritating sentence structure, we've been startled out of the story and we've been irritated.

You don't really flow well. You've got a good plot and you've taken another one of those "job interview turns to hot sex" stories and made it feel like it's never been done before. You've also got some bits of really good character development. I particularly liked this part: "With a half-smile, she realized he'd caught her staring at his butt, but somehow she couldn't bring herself to feel embarrassed about it. Shit, he had a cute butt. Was that supposed to be her fault?" The next bit about thinking is completely unnecessary, but we'll get into that later. Those three sentences told me more about her, her feelings, and her personality than the entire three paragraphs that started the story.

One of the big problems with your flow, and I'm speculating as usual here, is the authorisms. Those are using words, phrases, and sentence structures that are unnecessary, extraneous, or complicated just because they feel like something an author would write. Like most of the entire first three paragraphs. Watch for passive voice, words like began or started, and any sentences that just defy being written. There will be one or two of those in life, probably more, but if they're that hard to write, then your reader isn't going to understand them either.

I think the thing that gave you the most trouble was the beginning and figuring out where to start. You wanted to communicate her nervousness and the importance of this job to her, so you started her on the elevator. I think that was a mistake. I think it would have been better off if you'd started with Calvin's opening interview lines that you had written down. Her nervousness, the fact that she took relaxants, and her desire for the job are in the depths of the story already anyway. The first three paragraphs just re-iterated. The bad thing is that they were a little boring because they didn't do what you wanted them to. They weren't a good hook.

Trimming down some of the language a bit would make it an easier read as well. Write it more naturally, like you're sitting around a table telling the story. Once you got going, the story smoothed out a great deal and got really good. It's the build-up that was a little less than it could be.
 
wheeeee!

hey, thanks! that's some really good feedback and trimming advice. i looked at it right after reading your response, and immediately the first three paragraphs jumped out at me like neon. duh!

i find i write the story to myself first, and have a lot of backstory and information dropping that the reader could do without. rewriting for me = paring down.

thanks for the read!
--shug
 
request for comments

Hi KM

Great to read your reviews. You clearly put a lot of thought into them. I trust they're helping you with your writing and reviewing of your own stories as much as they're helping the author's you're giving your time to.

This story I'm really very happy with, and have gotten some good feedback. Always hoping to improve though, so please tear it into little pieces covered with virtual red ink for me.

http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=24892

Many thanks,

Drake
 
ravenswing? Ouch?

Didn't know you'd written a book!

Okay, I read the whole thing. I do have some trouble with it.

Let's take the whole dreamer premise. It's a good one, but when you introduced it, it was a little too much of a shock. My first thought after she explained it to him was "Oh, one of those stories." That's not what you want me to think. This means the foreshadowing was a little less than it could have been.

I also think that the first few pages of story section 1 were entirely too condensed. There needed to be a great deal more between the Miss Calvin and Michael before she introduced him to the lucid dreamers concept. It's very fantastical. Even more fantastical is that he would even talk to her about it when there was no clue that he suspected her of anything.

Yes, I just said that it wasn't long enough. Um, are you going to, er lay on the floor for a while? Do you need some ice?

The main problem I had with the whole story is that you didn't take your time writing it, particularly in between the sex scenes. It felt rushed to me. I think that you were in such a hurry to get to the good bits, or what you thought the readers would prefer to get into that you missed out on the really good bits.

You may want to consider, some time in the future, re-writing it, to make the characters feel more close to the reader and motivated in a way that's consistent with reality, and submitting it as an ebook.

Yeah, sorry it took so long for just this but damned that's a lot of words to sit and think about. Particularly since they're scattered on a few different pages.
 
whacking away at karma dog

The New Sneaker Blues

She drives through the dark,
Coppery guilt lies complacent on her tongue.
The chrome bumper crushes the wind and
White noise edges through
The window slit.

A mile and more away,
The boy is wakeful in his bed.
Once he flew with new-sneaker grace,
Now his shoes
will never show wear.

On the breeze that
Shivers the sheer curtain
Comes one unending chord:
Truck tires trombone and car tires cornet
Along the highway.

*********

I pasted it in here just cause, well, it's easier.

Wow.

I mean, just, well, wow.

I'm sure that UP or daughter could tell you a few things to improve the poem, but the only troubles I had with it at all were that the rhythm is awkward to the point of being practically non-existent. I read poetry outloud, not just sub-vocalize, and this one was darned hard to do. When I can't wrap my mind aroudn a rhythm in a poem, it's very difficult to read. The subject matter itself is hard enough to read without trying to wade through words that don't want to work together. The other problem was that it took me a few read throughs to understand what had happened, actually. Of course, that may not be a problem.

I liked it.
 
tn_8tiv iv you're ready to listen...

"I began caressing her breasts through her top and kissing her warm, soft body. Gently, I removed her halter top revealing her soft, firm breasts with the erect nipples." <-- This is pretty much the norm for modifiers in your writing. Oops, jargon again. Modifiers are adverbs or adjectives, words that describe or change another word.

warm, soft, gently, soft, firm, erect. One way to circumvent dry words is to use phrases. Let's take the second sentence since adverbial phrases are generally better than adjectival ones. "With the gentle care of a lover, I..." "With a touch as delicate as butterfly wings, I..." yada yada. Watch out for cliches and the overuse of the word "as" in these things.

I'm of two minds about something that's either a problem, or perfectly fine. That all depends on what you were wanting in the story. As it is, the way it's written, the entire tone, is like a penthouse forum letter. The reason why it's like that is because you told use what was happening, you didn't show us. Ordinarily this is a no-no, but you did use this in first person and at the end you made it clear that it was a factual incident so this came across to me more as a "confession" than a "story." After thinking about it for awhile, the confession method worked for this particular story.

Please understand that I go off the premise that all stories are entirely fictional and that "I" characters are not the author.

If you intend to write more stories in the future that aren't in this vein, then you need to show, not tell. One of the big problems with first person is that you can only know what's going on in one character's head, "I." Readers learn about other characters through what "I" experiences with them. This is normally dialogue and how "I" sees them behave. An important thing to keep in mind is that how one person views another person isn't how everyone else does. A shallow for instance would be:

"Did you sleep with Lissette?" I squeezed my fists tight, just knowing she had. I couldn't bear it if she had.

Mariah wrapped her arms around herself, her eyes sliding to our feet and then to the right. "No," I could barely hear her voice. "I never touched Lissette."

I felt vindicated in my trust, I knew she hadn't!

As an author you want the reader to see characters much like you do, not like one character does. Readers won't see characters the same as you, ever.

Dialogue wasn't a big thing in this story, which gave it the real penthouse forum feel. You just didn't do it. Dialogue is where the real meat, the real action in a story happens. This is where readers learn about characters and decide whether or not to like them. Usually. You did both methods of describing speech. You did the common, and preferable, "Hello," he said. speech. You also did the she told me she liked horseradish description of speech. That is passive because it relegates a character into a submissive role of having to be spoken for. This is why it's not preferable and generally not used. The thing here, though, is consistency. Don't rush through things that need to be done just to get to the good bits or to get it over with.

The first paragraph was a big problem. What was the point of it? It had nothing to do with the story, not really.

Your mechanics were pretty sound, grammar and punctuation was nicely clear. There were some typos, of course, but we all do that. Try to watch for them. Dialogue, when you use it, has a specific format. New speaker, new paragraph. That is a hard and fast rule.

You've got a pretty good feel for plot and pacing. This was a cliched story line, but it didn't feel cliched at all. I think that had a lot to do with the fact that you didn't vilify the brother-in-law or pound into the readers head how hot and needy the sister-in-law was.
 
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