My first story! Please drop a review.

[milfylata]

Hi everyone, I just published my first story. I'd love some reviews, positive or negative, so that I can improve and continue writing! I've been reading for years, and thought that I'd dip my toe in the pond and share some of my experiences and thoughts. Thanks in advance!

https://www.literotica.com/authors/milfylata/works/stories

 

[AlinaX]

The first two paragraphs of Ch. 01 are awkward and unnecessary, and really get in the way of the story, which starts nicely with:

It was a rare sunny day in June, a welcome change from the unrelenting Mumbai monsoon.

Good. Evocative. Gets the reader into the story.

Exclamation points (and question marks) outside of dialogue should be used with extreme caution. Same paragraph (Murali finally broke the silence…) you have dialogue between two characters, which is something else that should only be done with extreme caution.

Murali finally broke the silence after what seemed like an eternity. "We were about to head to Gokul for a few drinks, care to join us?"

I looked at him for a second. What was the harm. Maybe some ice could be broken; perhaps I could be broken… "Sure, I'm free for a bit."

"Great," said Kartik in his deep, alluring voice. "Let me call a cab."

Unsurprisingly, I was in awe of him

Why ‘unsurprisingly’? It only adds confusion. You were in awe of him.

When I caught my breath after what felt like forever,

You just spent a whole paragraph calming down. This is repetition.

Final remarks:

• These above are all minor complaints. You write well, and you just need to be a little more careful.
• I don’t know anything about Mumbai culture and don’t know how realistic (or not) any of this is. The fault is my ignorance, but it takes me out of the story a little.

 

[RP_Goals]

Hi everyone, I just published my first story. I'd love some reviews, positive or negative, so that I can improve and continue writing! I've been reading for years, and thought that I'd dip my toe in the pond and share some of my experiences and thoughts. Thanks in advance!

https://www.literotica.com/authors/milfylata/works/stories

I really enjoyed this story.

 

[anthrodisiac]

I did a quick skim, because I like helping newbies but am also cognizant I have obligations toward people in my queue, so apologies for not being as in-depth as I normally would.

@AlinaX is right to point out your dialogue, it was one of the first things I noticed. Each speaker should (generally) get their own paragraph. It helps break the paragraphs up into more easily understood pieces (primarily because that's the convention readers expect). I'm on the fence about exclamation points within the narrative. Normally, I'm wholly against it (with very rare exceptions), but in a journal-style story, they can add a bit more to the voice in the moment and make it feel more journal-y. The key is not to overuse them, because then they lose their impact. Save them for when it matters.

I'm kinda torn on this

It was about a week since my 19th birthday and college was about to begin. I had just begun to step into my sexuality. After a few awkward encounters in my school life, the last year had been quite eventful. I finally was with a steady boyfriend and was learning the ropes of how to pleasure a man, and I daresay, how to be pleasured myself. But alas, the breakup was inevitable. It wasn't anyone's fault. He was off to study architecture in Ahmedabad and I had just been admitted into business school in Mumbai. It just wasn't going to work out.

In any case, before I go on a tangent and drone on about my first heartbreak, let me get back on track. I'm Lata, now a middle aged woman with a big appetite for sex and kinks. The kink part, I didn't know at the time, of course. I discovered myself along the way, and this was one such day of discovery. When I look back at it now, it seems so surreal, and I'm so glad that I've always maintained a journal. I can look back at these time capsules and almost relive each moment, even if the memory has faded and the writing is garbled.

It was a rare sunny day in June, a welcome change from the unrelenting Mumbai monsoon. I had just received my admission letter from the Government Law College and was on top of the world! It was a dream come true for me. I stepped out of the campus and started walking towards Churchgate station when I heard a familiar voice shout out. "Lata, wait up!" I turned around and there was my school-mate Murali running up to me.

You already set the premise that these are your journals in your author's note. Rather than have this tangent in your second paragraph (the current-day bit is actually the tangent, not the rest of the story), I think it would've been better to keep it up in the author's note so as not to interrupt the flow of the story. However, these "looking back" bits also help sell the authenticity of a "I found my journal and am recounting it" type deal. So, I think you'd either do well to not do it at all, or rely on it as a device from time to time, but judiciously. Too much and it becomes a gimmick, too little, and it's, "What was the point of having it just the one time?"

I'd defer to AlinaX on the quality, she has a good eye for writing (being a great writer herself). It seemed well-written from my scan, if perhaps a little cliche at times. But a little cliche is hardly a bad thing, especially for a first story. Cliche gets a bad rap, and while it does mean the voice is a bit more generic, it also readily put readers into a headspace of something familiar that they've seen repeatedly, which means you can very quickly characterize scenes, people, actions, etc.

The other thing, and this is more something that you might want to keep an eye on moving forward, is I noticed your paragraphs are almost all exactly the same length. Story structure is a bit of an advanced topic I normally wouldn't broach, and I suspect that once you separate the dialogue into the appropriate paragraphs, that won't be so readily apparent, but having variable paragraph length helps dictate flow and speed of how a story feels. Shorter paragraphs tend to feel quicker, while longer ones feel more languid. Something to consider.

Overall, it appears to be a very solid first story. As you continue to write, I'd recommend that you consider deconstructing other people's stories. Read it once, take note of how things made you feel, sentence structures you liked, things that worked well, things that didn't. Mark them on your first pass, primarily focusing on how you felt in the moment, then go back and read it again. This time, try to figure out exactly why something made you feel that way. Not just the words themselves, but how they're organized. It can be a great way to both learn new techniques to enhance your writing, and also show you pitfalls to avoid.

Keep up the good work