Feedback Request: Her Forest Bloom

[anthrodisiac]

Heyo, me showing up hat in talons to politely request feedback on my latest story: Her Forest Bloom. It's about a forest spirit giving a dying trans woman the chance to be cured and have her body finally align with her spirit.

The comments have been positive, but it's receiving more mixed reviews in the score. Since I did a few things differently for this one, I'm curious if there's something in particular that might be contributing to that.

• I put it in Transgender, a category that isn't one of the Big Three for non-human stories (Non-Human, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Erotic Horror)
• The prose is more flowery than my normal style
• It's my shortest non-750 story (6k)
• It's the first transformation story I've written in almost 15 years

I appreciate any and all feedback and critiques. Thanks

 

[Duil2]

Heyo, me showing up hat in talons to politely request feedback on my latest story: Her Forest Bloom. It's about a forest spirit giving a dying trans woman the chance to be cured and have her body finally align with her spirit.

The comments have been positive, but it's receiving more mixed reviews in the score. Since I did a few things differently for this one, I'm curious if there's something in particular that might be contributing to that.

• I put it in Transgender, a category that isn't one of the Big Three for non-human stories (Non-Human, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Erotic Horror)
• The prose is more flowery than my normal style
• It's my shortest non-750 story (6k)
• It's the first transformation story I've written in almost 15 years

I appreciate any and all feedback and critiques. Thanks

Hi,
While I feel a bit underqualified to give you feedback, because you're obviously a very talented writer and a master when it comes to giving feedback, my motto is 'ask and thou shalt receive' (within reason) so here goes. Make of it what you will, but I hope it's useful.
I've taken the four points you've made and responded.

• I put it in Transgender, a category that isn't one of the Big Three for non-human stories (Non-Human, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Erotic Horror)
  • In my opinion this is likely the cause of any down voting. The story has such a strong Fantasy feeling that its natural home probably would have been that category. It may also be the fact that while the struggle of the main character was still basically about being born in to the wrong body for the gender they felt they should be, when they became 'their true self' they weren't even human. This is quite a divergence from what I believe would be the usual identity positions of male/female/neutral associated with Transgender. It's possible that this didn't appeal to those who like this category and its usual rules of engagement.
• The prose is more flowery than my normal style
  • It may be more 'flowery' prose, and excuse my tongue in cheek response here, but she is about to become part of the forest and a deer person, so 'flowery' would be the order of the day. For me, without this type of prose you likely wouldn't have achieved the mood and tone of the story which I thought was perfect. You balanced it well and it never became difficult to read or follow, although I will admit to some words making me stop and think for their meaning, but they were always spot on. My pet peeve is repetition to the point of an obsession I fear, and so I had begun to write here about where I thought that had happened in the story. I then went back to try to find examples of it, and to my surprise, I realized that the instances I had in my mind were actually a repetition of an image, rather than a repetition of the words used to describe said image. E.G. 'her skinny backside', 'her bony butt'. They conjure the same image but you didn't use the same description. I've never experienced that before, but it left an impression so perhaps it's still worth noting.
• It's my shortest non-750 story (6k)
  • I feel the length was perfect as otherwise the transformation would have been dragged out or perhaps the preamble before the transformation. It ended in a natural break and, as desired I'm sure, left me wanting more, but not necessarily immediately as there had been quite a bit to process both in terms of imagery and emotion. This is definitely a case of less is more. You tackled so many tough subjects but I don't feel like you diminished any of them by being a little more brief than normal.
• It's the first transformation story I've written in almost 15 years
  • Not having read what you wrote 15 years ago and so not being able to compare, I can't really comment except to say, that I would imagine your writing skill and life experiences in those years set you up to handle this subject well.

I know you've written in your review thread before that you don't want to just stroke someone's ego when giving feedback. I know my feedback above has been mainly positive, but please believe me when I say that ego stroking ( or any other kind of stroking) was not what I was doing here. This is my honest opinion, and while I'm sure there were minor items that might have been done differently by another author, I haven't found any glaring fault with this story, which I think is borne out by the overall scoring it has received.
Maybe people were looking for 'more sex' or 'some sex' but, as discussed before, what's erotic and not erotic is very subjective to each individual and so you'll never please all of the people all of the time... isn't that what they say?
I hope this was a little helpful.

 

[anthrodisiac]

While I feel a bit underqualified to give you feedback, because you're obviously a very talented writer and a master when it comes to giving feedback, my motto is 'ask and thou shalt receive' (within reason) so here goes.

I legitimately believe nobody is "underqualified" to give feedback. People have different levels of experience with giving feedback, but you're perfectly qualified and capable, and this was wonderful feedback, thank you!

I try to put stories in categories where the main theme aligns. It's funny, I didn't really see this as that much of a fantasy piece. I also wanted to expand out to some of the categories that don't normally get non-human, just to expose more people to it. I knew it was a risk going in, I guess I shouldn't be overly surprised that some people wouldn't like having their TF/TG "ruined" by having her turn anthro as well.

You absolutely hit the nail on the head about why I chose to write it more flowery. The tone and emotion almost required it to be a gentler, more flowy, flowerier type of prose. It's just not a style I normally write in, but I do believe in tailoring style to the feel of a story, even in third person. Also, you make a good point about the pseudo-repetition.

Thanks for your feedback