Anthy's Authorial Advice - The AAA Review Thread

[anthrodisiac]

Welcome to yet another review thread! Be sure to also check out Joyful reviews and Yowser Yelps, they both offer wonderful feedback.

In this thread, I’ll be taking requests for feedback on stories. My qualifications are that I’ve been writing for 25 years, spent 10 years on-and-off mentoring writers (providing an average of a critique a day for almost all of that between the groups I was part of and the people I took under my wing), and have also beta read dozens of books. I was mostly forged in a cutthroat critique environment. Don’t worry, I’m nice! But that experience taught me about the importance of feedback and critiques in developing our craft. It is one of my great pleasures and privileges to beta read, critique, and mentor writers, especially newer ones.

My goal is to help you identify what is working and what isn’t in your stories. This thread will primarily be mid- to high-level focus, not the nitty gritty of line edits. I may pull out lines to illustrate larger points, or if I see something particularly wonderful or egregious.

While I might not engage in the brutal, radical honesty of my upbringing (such things are best done face-to-face with people you know, not randos online), this is by no means a place to expect a gold star and a pat on the back. If you’re submitting something here, it’s because you want honest feedback and are open to improving your craft. You come to me, I expect you to be open to what I have to say. By no means does that mean you have to agree with it, but you do have to want it. If you’re just looking for affirmation, go show your mom your T/I erotica. I'm sure she'll bake you cookies and everything. I, on the other hand, will not bake you cookies, but will provide critiques and feedback to help you become a better writer, help bring out the best in your story, and provide you tools and insights to use moving forward.

Note (4/16/2026): As I'm easing into this and trying to figure out roughly how much work this takes, I'm starting with only standalones and stories under 10k.

If you’re just popping in and want an idea of my review style, here are some stories I've previously reviewed:
Second story ever, first try at anthro (by @Jaunty_Menace)
Suited for Love - My first literotica story (by @easyglow)
First Story - A Change of Perspective (by @Annabelle1990)
I did a short superhero story. (by @AmbrosioMonk)
Hoping for Comments on my "Vintage" Pony-Play Romance (by @benfan)

I also recommend that you check out all these stories by these fine new authors. They all deserve further exposure.

Note the following:

• I will not review whole series. I'll look at the first chapter, maybe two if they're short/combined < 15k, but my preference is standalones.
• I won’t review anything over 10k (I’ll expand out to 20k if things go well, but I’m easing into this). The longer the story is, the more time required. Not just because it's more words, but because the complexity increases, so it's not a purely linear amount of effort on my part.
• I only take on one project at a time. The order and priority of feedback is primarily first come, first serve, but there are other factors that may move that around. (Ex: level of writing experience, how old a story is, if you suck up to me by five-starring all my works, length of story.)
• Turnaround time will vary based on how much free time I actually have. I'll plan to keep it within a week unless it's on the longer side or I'm pretty swamped. If you're looking for fast turnaround time, I recommend posting in Story Feedback.
• You want legitimate feedback; re: "Mommy gives you cookies, and I am not your Mommy."
• If I do leave a comment on your story page, rest assured, it will not contain critiques. I'm not a big believer in leaving a lot of critiques as comments on people's stories unless they specifically ask for them in the story's author note. Asking for feedback here isn't the same as asking for people to leave comments with critiques on their actual story page.
• All feedback will be provided in public.
• Only stories that are already published will be up for consideration. I will not be beta reading as part of this thread.
• It will be a single review per story. I’m not going to go back and forth or workshop the story with you.
• I may provide suggestions on what I think could work better in some cases, instead of simply pointing out something that isn’t working. Like all feedback, you should weigh it against what you think is best for the story. Nobody knows your story better than you, so you’re free to take or leave anything I say. Take what helps, chuck the rest. I’m not offended easily, and especially not by somebody deciding against advice I provide. I'm simply here to give it, what you do with it after that is up to you.
• For the most part, I will not engage in back and forth. If something requires clarification, or I misinterpreted/misread something, that’s fine, I’m happy to elaborate and/or reevaluate, but I’m not up for a volley of “Yeah, but-” Per previous point, if you disagree with the feedback and don’t think it’ll help you, you’re welcome to chuck it in the trash, no hard feelings.
• I'm not a squeamish person, but there may be some topics that I don’t want to do too deep a dive into. Not as a judgement on those kinks/fetishes, there just happens to be a few things that I personally struggle with. I’ll let you know privately if that’s a potential reason for rejecting a feedback request.

Okay, some things I’ll need from you when you put in a request:

• Link to the story, obviously.
• Brief description of the story and major kinks (or tags).
• Your level of writing. It can be in the amount of time you’ve been writing for or number of stories you’ve published (here or otherwise). This helps me figure out how to tailor the feedback and make priority determinations.
• If you have anything specifically you’d like me to take a look at, whether it’s a specific section, plot, subplot, character, style, device, what have you, let me know so I can pay extra attention to it. It won’t stop me from reviewing the rest, but it does bring it to the fore so I can maximize the benefit to you.

I know, barely any jokes in that, very unusual for me. I'm not a very serious archaeopteryx on principle, but I do take critiquing very seriously. It's one of my joys and privileges, and something that I recommend other authors do as well, as the simple act of reviewing others' works can help you improve one's own craft. If you're a more established author and come here looking for my feedback, I'd like to gently encourage you to pay it forward on one of the other threads here. It's not a requirement, nor will it impact your priority, I just think it's nice to give back.

Righty-o, guess that means I'm open for business. Once again, welcome to madness this review thread!

Edit: Okay, I might be a bit of a wordy monster. Please understand you may be getting multiple responses and that you are prepared for potentially a deluge of information and feedback. Potentially an overwhelming amount...

 

[colette_wilder]

Hello!

What a lovely thread to start! Since no one has taken you up on your offer yet, and I have a recent, short standalone work to offer for critique, I shall be the one.

• MILF Superior
• An otherwise pious and well-behaved novitiate pines after her Mother Superior, and her pining is eventually rewarded.
• Tags: lactation, breastfeeding, ff, nun, lesbian, big tits, age gap, fingering, mature + younger woman
• I am an experienced writer (both op ed and investigative work) but I am an inexperienced writer of erotica. The stories on this site so far are my only erotic works, and I'm still in a very experimental phase.
• I am particularly interested in feedback around my tone and style. Adapting my "writerly voice" into the erotica space has been a fun challenge, and I'd love your thoughts on how well I'm crafting something truly erotic vs. something that is simply sex-filled.

TYSM!

 

[AlinaX]

Since it has been over five hours and anthrodisiac has still not got around to a review, I will say that this is an unusual but fun story, well written but so wildly improbable in the second half that I struggled to finish it.

 

[AG31]

It looks like I don't qualify ("This thread will primarily be mid- to high-level focus, not the nitty gritty of line edits."), so I made my own thread requesting reviews, not offering them.

 

[anthrodisiac]

Review for @colette_wilder's MILF Superior.

First off, kudos for putting yourself out there. It's not an easy thing to do, to subject yourself to such a public review, especially as a newer writer (of fiction). Second, thanks for being my first victim participant.

It's very clear to me that you have a very solid writing background. Your writing is technically (as in a technical sense) good. You have a very clear command of language, which you use with good effect as a very solid base for your foray into fiction. I like this concept a lot (being a lover of corruption and psychological turmoil); it has a lot of potential to be a very interesting story about sexual compulsion, temptation, and faith.

There are definitely some things that need work, however. Let's get the elephant out of the way first: characters.

No, hang on. I need to preface this because I can see this being massively disheartening and/or overwhelming. (Writing this after I finished.) I'm about to deluge you. Hard. Real hard. Keep one thing in mind: I genuinely think you have a lot of talent and your stories are worth telling. Take it for what it is: constructive criticism. I'm going to point out things that aren't working, then explain to you ways in which you can improve, with both generalizations and specifics. I'm going to bang the first drum loud and hard, because it's one of the most important elements of writing.

Okay, you ready? Let's do it!

Neither Hayley/Agnes nor Mother Superior/Cecilia are very well defined. For Hayley, you listed off events that happened to her, but really not much beyond surface-level detail about her life. Here's what's clear prior to the introduction of Mother Superior:

• She kinda had a thing with a few guys on and off.
• After five, she gives up and devotes her life to God.
• She's quite devout, impressively so.

That's it. I don't know why she broke things off with those guys, why she thought joining the sisterhood was a good idea, whether or not she was always devout, if Christianity played a big part in her life, the things she likes beyond God, anything.

This is ultimately a story about temptation, and the most successful corruption/temptation stories give us a good baseline to judge the struggle and descent again. That is where the erotic nature of these types of stories comes from: the struggle. If someone has lusty feelings, goes from 0 to 100 for no real discernable reason, it's not erotic, it's just a flimsy plot wearing the disguise of a "good girl gone bad" story, but really, it's about someone who we were told was a good girl gone bad, not someone who actually was a good girl tempted by her lust. The persona we were told was just a mask, like bad play acting, and so it feels less like an actual character and more like someone roleplaying a good girl.

I feel like I’ve been banging this drum a lot lately. I’m a huge fan of corruption stories, so to me, the best part about these stories like this that involve temptation or struggling against corruption/control is the battle of wills that happens in a person. This requires two things:

1. A good sense of the initial mental state and personality. We need to know who they are as a person prior to the corruptive influence showing up so that we can see the contrast against the both the temptation/corruption in progress, and post-temptation/corruption.
2. The initiating event. In cases of corruption, it’s usually a little easier because it’s some form of magic/science/mind control. With temptation, it’s a little trickier, because it requires there to be something about that specific temptation that has to overcome a person’s will; not a drug or mind-altering substance, but something so powerful about the person or thing that it overrides their moral judgement and forces them to give into that temptation.

Both of these are doubly important to your story, because it's not a case of someone who is already kind of sexually aware/comfortable, it's two people who have devoted their lives to celibacy and God, one of whom has been doing it for decades, the other who is newer, but has the appearance of rabid devotion. So, we really need to understand what underlying personalities exist that allow this to take place, who these people are, and why they struggle with this at all. As I mentioned before, I have an okay sense of who Agnes is, mostly that she’s devout, possibly always had been? It’s not a great sense, it’s more a sketch of a person than it is a full picture. For corruptive/temptation stories, the main focus is on the person and their mind, so it’s incredibly important to build that up ahead of time so you can really show the angst and struggle as they fight against the corruption or their id.

We also really, really, really need that instigation to be as clear as possible. I’m not sure what is so enticing about Cecilia that would have Agnes break her vows and go against her entire religion. It's not brought up even a little bit, even during the scenes where Hayley is in awe of this mature woman's body after stripping her. Is it the power? Is she hot? What specific aspects of Cecilia push Agnes down and let a sex-crazed Hayley rise up to the surface? We're talking about breaking vows of chastity AND breaking those vows for a woman, double whammy of sin that requires even more compulsion to justify. We've been given no indication that Hayley was ever sexually attracted to women. In fact, it's stated that she had felt this kind of heartthrob for the men. Is this a lesbian awakening of some sort? If it is, I can't imagine that Agnes would be so unphased or horrified by the realization. She takes it all more or less in stride, with only "she resolved to recommit herself to the order through solemn prayer that evening." to give us any indication that she felt all that bad about it.

With Agnes/Hayley, I can at least kind of understand that, okay, she's young, apparently freakishly attracted to older women if I really, really try to suspend my disbelief. But with Mother Superiorr/Cecilia, no amount of suspension of disbelief can get me to understand her actions. She shows genuine concern for Agnes, quickly realizes Agnes is lusting after her, and almost immediately goes, "Well, I can 'purge' these sinful feelings by engaging sexually with her, even if it damns me to hell, so I guess I have to."

What?

She's barely shocked, stunned, horrified, or anything other than weirdly ready to fuck Agnes. We get a bit of her backstory in that she used to get a lot of male gaze, and she found the best way to deal with it was to embrace it and fuck them. It's slightly insinuated that she used to be promiscuous and had gone to a convent in order to deal with those feelings, but I can't imagine that after decades she hasn't gotten ahold of it somehow. Especially since she's doing this not from a place of wanting it, but from a place of wanting to "heal" Agnes, which, again, I don't understand how this heals her in any way. If Cecilia is using "healing" as an excuse to indulge in her sexuality, that's fine, but it doesn't come across that way at all. She gives in far too quickly for someone who used to do this (presumably, it’s slightly unclear how she “purged it”; I get the gist, but it would probably help to both be more clear about what she did and how she felt about doing it; is it something she saw as God’s work, even back then? Did she enjoy it? Why would she think giving into the gaze would make them stop?). She considers this work healing, but healing what exactly? It seems strange that she’s under the impression that engaging in sexual acts with that person would… cleanse them? Make them less lusty? Crucially, we see Cecilia clearly enjoying it sexually given that she's almost immediately wet, really before all that much happens to pleasure her. So, if Cecilia is seeing this as an obligation, why is she wet?

Likewise, once we kick off the sex, the dialogue feels very off for both their characters. Hayley wasn’t portrayed as a very aggressive, dominant, or sex-forward person prior to the scene where she’s talking dirty to Cecilia. Cecilia saying anything dirty at all is totally at odds with her personality despite the fact it’s fairly contrived in the first place.

That was a lot, I know. Characters and their motivations are one of the most important things in writing anything; it's what turns something from words on a page to a story that feels lived in. Let's sum it up and give you something useful, I don't want you to feel I'm just ragging on you for having contrived characters.

At present, your characters are puppets (meat vehicles) for the author, you. They are doing the things you wrote them to do because you told them to do it, you pulled their strings and made them do the dance you wanted. However, the best characters are ones who don’t need the author, whose motivations and personalities are the driver of the scene. Think of them as if they were their own entities, living in the real world. Would either of these characters do what you have them doing on their own? I can’t see either one being even remotely like this, even with the minimal amount of information provided (or perhaps because of it). The best approach to writing characters is to construct characters in a way that their every action doesn’t feel like it’s coming from the writer, but coming from themselves. What are their motivations? Their hopes, their dreams? What do they care about? Who are they? I’d invite you to really sit with your characters, get to know them and understand them, get in their heads. If the characters you create wouldn’t be likely to do the things you want for the story, shape them in such a way that their actions match their personhood.

 

[anthrodisiac]

Here are some things you can do to give Agnes some more depth:

• For the guys she dated, it might be nice to give a couple reasons why she didn’t see things working out with them. It adds a bit of flavor about what kind of person she is by contrasting against the things that put her off. Doesn’t need to be all five, two or three would suffice. Pick a couple things that speak to who she is as a person. If she was religious prior to joining the sisterhood, maybe one of the guys was an athiest. If she has always had a thing for more effeminate bodies, maybe she rejects a guy for being too "manly" looking. Things like that. What puts her off says just as much about her as what she finds attractive about these guys. Maybe you can do a "he was sweet and kind and caring, but she couldn't deal with all the muscles and beard," sort of thing; both the positives of the person and the negatives, double up on personality definition by her likes and dislikes.
• Why she chose to devote her life to God. This is a biggie, probably the biggest of them all. Was she religious prior? Was she more of a secretly sex-fiend type, and it concerned her, so she thought joining a convent would do her good? Was there a precipitating event other than, "Meh, I dated five guys, not for me. Can I be a nun?"
• "After the fifth proposal (and subsequent break-up), she had accepted that there was only one marriage she could see herself devoted to: a marriage to God." This line gives us the only motivation for her choice to join the sisterhood. Five guys isn't a lot, unless they were all long-term relationships or full-on engagements. If that's the case, maybe it makes a bit more sense, but we really need to have that clear, and we especially need the reasons why she ended things (or they ended things). Could be that five guys rejecting her after long-term dating did a lot of damage, she was put off by men, joined the convent and found being around women much more to her liking. Maybe she even had a crush on one or two of them at times, but batted them away. That would help set up Cecilia stirring something in her not as a bolt from the blue, but as something a long time coming.
• How long has she been a novitiate? This is going to play a big role in showing how long she's devoted herself to the cause. If it's been a while, then it makes the fall from grace and temptation all the more potent, but also more difficult to square. If she's new, then the fall is less, but more believable with less information.

I won't do the same breakdown for Cecilia. I invite you to do that on your own. Sit with her, figure out ways to build her so that her actions feel internally motivated. Understand who she is as a person, what she wants, she craves, her hidden desires and dark secrets. How does she go from worried Mother Superior to MILF willing to damn her soul to "cure" a young nun of her rampant sexual desires? Is it something specific about Agnes? A superiority complex? There are a lot of ways to approach it, to make it feel real and earned. That's your job as a writer: to build characters who navigate the world not because you tell them to, but because they're making active choices about their own lives.

All right, I beat that to death and then some. Take a breath. It probably feels overwhelming, and it might be, I've been accused of such before. But the only reason I've dumped all this on you is because I want to give you tools and a clear understanding of how to build and write believable characters. It's one of the most important skills for a writer, and now you have (probably way too many) tools you can employ. You don't need to try to do it all at once. Pick one or two, give it a shot, see how it feels. Once you get the hang of that, pick a couple more. Writing is about building muscle, approach it like that, don't overwhelm yourself by trying to do everything all at once.

 

[anthrodisiac]

Okay, let's dive into some other things.

You have a penchant for asides. I suspect due to your background, as that type of writing lends itself to making little off-hand remarks. In fiction, these ought to be used sparingly. I counted at least 10 asides, that's one roughly every 200 words. If you have details you need to convey, they shouldn't be asides, they should be front and center. Additionally, you started off by using parentheses, then switched to em dashes. You'll want to make sure you stay consistent (I'm personally not a fan of parentheses in fiction, but that's just me). Some of them aren't really asides, but are due to the style in which the information is conveyed:

• After the fifth proposal (and subsequent break-up) > After the fifth proposal and subsequent break-up (no need to frame it as an aside).
• As Sister Agnes, she completed the horarium with such absolute consistency that even some of the more experienced members of the order (those who had taken their temporary vows, even) were in awe of her. (As an aside, it provides no useful information, as it's simply repeating the "experienced members of the order"; additionally, for someone not steped in the lingo, "temporary vows" might make them seem like they're actually less experienced, when in actuality these are women who are further along in their devotion than Agnes).
• The new Mother Superior--who had been given the name Cecilia at the time of her novitiate for her beautiful singing voice--joined the order in their community prayer on the fourth day of June. (Information that provides nothing, has no value, and doesn't come up later, and doesn't add anything to who Cecilia is as a character. Treat information about characters as ways to provide insight into them, not as little tidbits for background flavor. They should be doing work beyond telling us a little bit about them on a surface level, it should say something about who they are or what their personality is like.)

When Agnes first sees Cecilia and excuses herself due to "sickness," this serves as the precipitating incident for Cecilia calling in Agnes out of concern. As such, making a bigger deal out of it, such as saying that Agnes had fought through worse illnesses to attend prayers, or her actions or so strange and out of character that it prompts Cecilia to call her in to make sure she's okay. (Especially because Mother Superior says, "To lose you alongside their last Mother Superior would surely shake some of them out of their devotion..." Just walking out isn't akin to being on death's door.) Just excusing herself isn't really enough to draw attention. I'm pulling out this example as a way to introduce show vs. tell.

Show is a powerful tool, because it puts us in the trenches with the characters. It's the difference between watching a play in person and reading a review of it. You get to see the nuances and live the details, and you let those "tell" you what you need to know.

Take, for example, a guy getting angry. You could simply state: "He got angry." Which is fine, the reader sees it, understands, moves on, but there's less emotional connection. However, if you show us HOW he got angry (clenched fists, set jaw, red face), then you don't even need to state that he's angry, because you've shown us all the cues. It's more visceral, raw, and builds better connection with the characters.

A more minor thing: Singular possessives for names that end with S should have ’s. So Agnes’s. Literally was just talking about this a couple hours ago with someone else, weird.

The lactation really strains credulity. At that point, I started to lean toward this story somehow being supernatural, as it’s the only way I can make any sense of the action, events, and characters. If it is supernatural, it really needs to be much, much clearer. You can be obtuse about it being potentially supernatural and you never have to resolve if it was or not, but you need to sow those seeds early, before any of this kicks off. That way, you put the reader in the mindset that things are not as straightforward as they seem.

I would have liked to play around with the blasphemous/sinful nature a bit more. We don't need to rush things so quickly. In fact, I think the story really would've benefitted from multiple encounters between the two women, rather than things kicking off the first chance they get. You could explore one or both their minds, up to you. Your POV tended more toward omniscient third-person, but you dove into their minds a bit so that gives you room to give us more insight into their thoughts. Each time, they get pulled in that little bit closer to sin, a little bit less able to resist temptation. The slow orbital decay of the ego finally crashing into pure id as one makes her move, and the other is helpless to resist after so expending so much energy trying to resist and it's too exhausting to keep fighting it.

Writing-wise, this is a great line (even if it plays into this abrupt personality shift):

She didn't even see Cecilia anymore, not really, but instead saw instruments she could use to excite her into ecstasy. She intended to play each of them until Cecilia let out a screaming symphony.

I have nothing to add to that, I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed it.

The sex itself is written well, but it’s primarily a description of actions, and that’s it. It’s not playing into the power dynamic, relationship, the blasphemous, or even really the temptation or corruption of either character. Which, I’d like to stress, is fine. Some people enjoy their sex scenes as just that, sex scenes, without any additional story, plot, character, or emotional development. I’m personally of the mind that sex scenes should be doing more work than titillating the reader, even in a stroker like this. Sex scenes are great drivers of mood and interpersonal dynamics. There are a lot of subtle things that can be added to speak to who characters are on both an individual level and also who they are in relation to the other person/people with whom they’re having sex. We get a little bit of this in that Hayley is shown to be a sex-crazed domme, but that doesn’t feel earned, it feels like she’s acting that way because the script told her she needed to act that way.

However, you mentioned wanting to focus on the erotic instead of just sex. Here's a few ways to do that:

Focus on the interpersonal dynamics. The give and take, push and pull, ebb and flow, other clever word pairs I can't think of.

Realistic dialogue. There are few things that kill eroticism for me than dialogue that doesn't match the characters' personalities or voice. It puts me back in the meat vehicle headspace, which can be sexually gratifying, but lacks the eroticism of witnessing two people engaged in something steamy and real.
War of the minds. For temptation stories, the will-they won't-they dynamic is the prelude. The focus on someone struggling with their desire, trying so damn hard not to give in. We're all pretty sure they will, but that doesn't make it any less enticing. Here, you have two different people both struggling against it. One giving in briefly, pulling back, the other unable to stop, make it a dance. As one tries to leave, the other ropes them back in despite herself.

All right, you've (hopefully) survived an Anthy review! It's longer than I intended (and longer than your story ), sorry about that

I had a lot to say because I see a lot of potential here. Not just in this story, but in you as a writer. You have a great basis from which to work from, and clearly some very fun ideas to play around with. I'd recommend starting with characters. If you have a WIP, sit with the protags for a bit and try to see them as fully realized people with their own motivations. Less your creation, more someone you're observing and getting to know.

Don't let any of this discourage you. I wouldn't have put in this much time and effort without good reason. You have a lot to study, a lot of lessons you can draw from, and several tools that you didn't before.

You've already done the hardest part. You wrote something and put it out there. From here, you just keep going. Keep writing, keep publishing, keep building those muscles and strive to pick up new tools. I can't remember the Author's Hangout enough. There are a lot of very smart, thoughtful people there, who enjoy talking about writing (perhaps a bit too much). If you're just looking to read up, this is a great thread to start with: A place to discuss the craft of writing: tricks, philosophies, styles. Lots of advice from writers across a huge variety of backgrounds, experience, knowledge, and know-how.

All of which is to say, keep doing what you're doing. You got this

 

[colette_wilder]

@AlinaX -- the improbability / plausibility note is helpful, and dovetails into many of the things Anthy mentions as well - thank you!

@anthrodisiac -- no need to caveat for me, I have gotten far more intense evaluations in the newsroom, believe me haha. I signed up for this thread expecting you to offer very direct, honest feedback and I appreciate you taking the time to do so.

I will not respond point by point what was helpful to me and why in each observation, but will say that I very much appreciate the depth of feedback you offered and the examples you supplied; all are very helpful.

Cheers to surviving my first review! Rest assured I am not discouraged. I feel very empowered to use this as I continue to hone my new craft. Hopefully all who take you up on your offer will feel the same!