Second story ever, first try at anthro

[Jaunty_Menace]

I just posted the second chapter of "Co-op Mode", a story about a nerdy bunny girl who's been in love with her human roommate for six months, trying to get up the courage to tell him.

It's my first foray into the anthro category, and I'd love not only any feedback from an erotic romance perspective, but also from an anthro storytelling perspective. (My hope is that it will also appeal to people who don't usually read anthro stories.

Thanks for any feedback!

https://literotica.com/s/co-op-mode-ch-01
https://literotica.com/s/co-op-mode-ch-02

 

[anthrodisiac]

Edit: Hopefully this isn't too long for feedback. Didn't see anything in the guidelines about it, but having just sent it, it feels excessive for a thread Damn my excitability about anthro stories and someone allowing me near a computer at 1 in the morning!

I read chapter 1 when you first published it, but I wasn't reading with an eye on feedback, so it might be kinda sparse compared to if I was reading it with that in mind. But I can provide what I remember about it. Haven't gotten around to chapter 2 yet, though.

So, keep that in mind. It's possible some of my feedback won't apply because you already handled it. If I had time to read chapter 2 this weekend, I would've waited, but I probably can't get to it until Monday and I wanted to give you some reinforcement because, well, anthros

I want to preface my feedback by saying that it's going to seem as though the improvements massively outweigh the good, because (in my case, anyway) feedback on good parts tend to be fairly short and straightforward, whereas improvements tend to come with more specific advice on possible avenues. This is also in part because I'm an overexplainer and tend to get into the weeds of dynamics, especially when providing feedback with an eye for improvement. However, you have a very wonderful story and have done a great job with it so far. I gave it a 5 when I read it back when you first published it. I'm giving this level of depths to my feedback out of respect for your work and out of respect for the anthro niche as a whole.

Remember that when you get to my 500-page dissertation

Second thing: As with all feedback, you're perfectly free to take what helps you and ignore the rest. Nothing I say is definitive gospel truth. So if I give feedback you don't think will help you, don't use it. Feedback, when not on things like spelling and grammar, is entirely subjective, and what works for me or others might not work for this story. You are in the best position to decide what's best for the story, so parse feedback with an open mind, but also be sure to keep your story true to yourself and your vision.

All righty, onto the actual feedback.

General Good:

• Your characters are very solid, especially Willow. Her characterization is incredibly strong.
• You've thrown out a ton of pop culture references, which readers love and is a great way to characterize Willow, Jonah, and their synergy.
• Story and set up are good. While a pretty standard setup (roomate for a while > feelings > relationship), it's executed very well and never feels tired.

General Improvements:

• Not a lot you can do about this one since you already published, but you rushed to get Willow and Jonah together. I would've liked to see a bit more of the dance, the slow circling until they finally hook up. Stories like these benefit from the buildup and slow burn, so having it already happen in the first chapter leaves less of a "will they, won't they hook" (despite the fact we all pretty much know they will, readers still like that inherent tension).
• Jonah doesn't seem to have a super solid base character. What do I mean by that? His personality seems to be in flux. He's flustered, then smooth, then really smooth, funny, charming, mild insecurities, but not a lot. He feels a bit more generic in that sense, where his personality seems to be whatever is required for the scene. Which isn't necessarily a bad approach, but when I see that it indicates the character is more device than character, and I'm very big on characters being their own thing. A scene can influence how a character reacts, but a scene should never dictate what a character ought to feel — i.e. character actions should be internally motivated, and not dictated to by the narrator because the story requires them to feel that way. Characters are their own creatures that exist outside the story, and trying to wrangle a character's feelings and actions to fit a story even when they go against the character's core personality is a red flag that the character isn't a good fit for the story, or the story isn't a good fit for the character. I don't necessarily see Jonah as a red flag yet, but he's creeping toward yellow, so you'd benefit from nailing down his motivations, drives, core personality. What's he like outside the written scenes? What were his formative experiences? What's he going to do after the story? These are all good questions to consider in order to make sure your characters have a high level of depth and dimensionality to them.
• Sex scene was pretty short and kind of rushed. Similar to my first point, give it a bit more of a slow burn. Yes, they're eager to hop into bed (pun half-intended), but some trepedation would've been nice on her part. You have a couple lines about her fantasizing about it, but some self-doubt about if she would be good enough wouldn't've been out of place for her and might've served to help build up the intensity and satisfaction of the sex that she's been thinking about for months. The elements for all that exist already, so it's not as though they're absent, but we're kinda hurried past them instead of letting them sit and breathe for a moment.
• Once again, not something you can do, but more for future reference. Dropping "I love you" this quickly, especially for roommate stories like this, never sits right with me for two reasons, one internally motivated, one narratively:
  • Character-driven reason: Even if you've been pining after someone for months, years, and it's reciprocal, it's still a big leap with someone you slept with once. Unless someone is very free with saying it, then most people hold it back. And if someone is very free saying it, it doesn't have the same emotional weight and impact.
  • Narratively: When doing longer stories/series, pacing is key, so you want to make sure you're not hitting too many big emotional beats at the same time or in close proximity. Collapsing the will they won't they into "they did" is a major emotional beat. Saying "I love you" is another one, and you have both in the same chapter and scene. Because of this, the emotional impact of "I love you" is dwarfed by the emotional impact of finally consumating the feelings.
  • Issue this causes: You've put two major highlights in chapter 1. You've already sorted out the will they won't they, they've already said I love you, and that's two major plot points resolved before you get too deep into this series. It would've had a bigger impact if you waited a couple chapters at least. It's not unsolvable: you can certainly have one or both of them realize that when they said "I love you" that first time, they didn't truly understand the depth of the love, and when they say it again, they can emphasize that this is different.

Gonna have to split this into two parts because I wrote a fucking essay

 

[anthrodisiac]

Anthro time!

I'd characterize this as an anthro-lite story. Which, to clarify, is not a criticism, simply the category of anthro story this falls under. I'll get into further detail about what this means on a practical level shortly.

I love me some anthro stories where it's incredibly understated how integrated anthros are in the world. In most of these stories, anthros have been around for donkey's years (definitely intentional that time), and it's not weird or strange at all. You did a good job with that.

Writing female anthro in an anthro x human story is pretty rare; normally it's the guy's POV. Massive kudos for that.
Your ratio of human-to-species anthro is good, typical for the anthro-lite style. I'll dig a bit more into this in a couple bullet points.

Your anthros seem very human, which is good, they live in a world that's probably very human-centric. That said, part of what makes anthros so appealing, and what really sets good anthro characters apart from okay ones is the subtle things that distinguish their specific species from a human or any generic character. Doug is great, but Doug could've easily been a human and I wouldn't've blinked twice (I actually had to go back and check that if Doug was human or not). Toss in a couple horse things, neighs, whinnies, whickers, annoyed tail flicks, something. Doesn't have to be much, doesn't have to be super obvious, but make sure your anthros are anthro. Especially side characters. It's easier to do this with main characters, since we see them more, but for side characters like Doug, having a couple of those extra touches make them come alive as anthros.

One thing I like to see is if anthros are treated any differently than humans by both humans and anthros. The world I have, I have racial parallels, and you'll see that in a not-insignificant chunk of that in other authors' anthro-human integrated worlds as well, where anthros tend to be exoticized/fetishized or discriminated against in some way. Not saying you need to include it here. It's possible your world is one where that never materialized or it was dealt with a long time ago, but if you haven't considered it already, might be something to think on.

One thing to watch for, especially when writing stories where the MC is anthro: make sure that her being an anthro is part of the story. It's a small distinction that separates the great pieces in this space from the decent ones. By that, I mean that her anthro-ness is almost a character in and of itself. Sometimes anthro characters are written in such a way that they could be easily swapped out with an equivalent human character and the story would have absolutely nothing different about it except for some minor description changes.

To me, Willow is very close to being in that category of easily swapped out for human woman. Nothing really changes if you swap out bunny girl for human girl in this story (again with the caveat that I only read chapter 1 so far). I really think you'd benefit from making her anthroness a bigger part of the story. If it sounds contradictory to me earlier saying that anthros are integrated into the world and thus have a lot of human traits, I'd understand that. So let's dive a bit deeper.

Yes, anthros in worlds such as these have assimilated to human culture. So they will come across more human than a world where anthros and humans are segregated or anthros are newer. That pushes them more toward the human side of the spectrum. However, they are still, at their base, the species that is mixed with human to produce them. Which means some of those instincts and species traits are part of their personality. So maybe she's a bit jumpier (not intended this time), a bit more nervous energy, other characteristics of her base species.

However, and this is a big, giant, neon-flashing however, you want to also avoid going too much in that instinctual direction for this world. Certain types of anthros are more on the beast side, but your anthros don't appear to be that way. I'd recommend about about a 30/70 beast/human split for yours. Currently, you're closer to 10/90.

I'll add an additional cavet that the beast/human ratio is very preference-dependent. Having anthros that skew heavily human allows the characters and story to have a more broad appeal and you'll pull in readers that normally wouldn't go near anthro or non-human. Whereas the further toward beast you get, the more you'll start to shed readers who aren't as into anthro, but the more you'll really please the anthro niche readers. Anthro niche tends to like their anthros a bit more animal and deeply appreciate anthros that couldn't easily be swapped out for humans.

So if your goal is basically: "Story, but MC is bunny girl because I like it" then you're probably only looking at a 15/85 split, which means you don't have to add much, just a little bit. Even if you want to appeal to a wide audience, I still think you could stand to add a bit more animal to Willow's personality and quirks.

If your goal is: "Story, but the fact she's a bunny girl is more than I like bunny girl" then you're looking to move closer to that 30/70. Do these numbers mean much? Are they hard numbers? Not at all. It's more to give you an indication of where I think Willow is at and where Willow should be for different scenarios. How you interpret that mix is entirely up to you, and is part of what distinguishes anthro writers from each other. Each of us has our own preferred ratio, and sometimes it depends on the worlds we create, and sometimes it's simply writer preference.

So, depending on whether you want this to be anthro-lite (10-90), integrated anthro (30/70), beastman (60/40), or near-feral (90-10), you'll want to adjust how human the characters, and Willow in particular, will act.

Whew!

I know that's a lot, especially considering I only read chapter 1, but as you may have surmised, anthro stories are what I love on this site above anything else, and I'm always happy to see more writers join our ranks, especially if they can pique the interest of readers who otherwise wouldn't think to look at our stuff. One of the highest compliments non-human writers can get, in my opinion, is to pull someone over to the dark side have a reader realize that maybe they actually like non-human and are now willing to read with more of an open mind.

All in all, a very delightful story. Looking forward to reading chapter 2. Keep up the good work!

 

[anthrodisiac]

Okey doke! I had more free time than I thought, so I read chapter 2!

The Good:

First off, nice job addressing most of my comments prior to me making them It was a good pivot, you shifted Willow's level of anthro-ness in a much better direction. I still think you could stand to nudge it a couple more points toward the animal, but your current mix is pretty spot-on for anthro-lite.

I like the financial tension of him making more than her, and her guilt around that. I think it was touched on in chapter 1, but having it come up again makes it feel like it could be a real internal relationship tension point down the line. I'd definitely consider having it come up in a larger way if you're looking for relationship stressors — which you should be, as that's going to add a level of depth to the relationship and allow the tension in the relationship to keep it from getting stagnant lovey-dovey.

Jonah's personality is a lot more sharpely in focus. He feels more well-rounded, grounded, and has more depth than chapter 1. The punch did feel a bit more like it was for narrative purposes than something inherent to Jonah, but only a little bit, and that's not a problem, since it serves the story.

Overall, very nice chapter. I was worried that there wouldn’t be a lot of places for further tension, but you shifted the relational tension from the internal of the relationship to the external forces pressing on the relationship. Moving forward, I’d like to see additional points of tension that are both internal and external.

Improvements:

Honestly, not a lot. There's one big one that I'll dip into at the end, but for the most part you handled this chapter very well, especially the anthro elements.

There were some formatting issues on the first page with regards to how the texts were placed. Try to make sure that you treat each text as a separate paragraph so it's easier to read (like you would for dialogue).

Section where Jonah explains his emotional state is good. Since you had a break going into it, there should have been a break coming out as well.

Personally, I’m not a big fan of parentheses in prose. It’s more a stylistic thing, but I recommend em dashes over parentheses for fiction. Parentheses tend to be more for non-fictive work: papers, informal writing, emails, etc. When it's used in fiction, it reads more as author intrusion than it does character voice.

All right, now the biggie... POV.

For the most part, this story is told from a third-person limited from Willow's POV (at least in my interpretation, since we're too much in her head for it to feel like third-person omniscient). THe POV does slip a few times.

Jonah had put sweatpants on, and was already headed down the hallway towards the kitchen, but hearing Willow choking, he dashed to her.

We've now switched to either Jonah's POV or to a detached narrator. This kind of thing plays into another point I'll bring up later about providing information to the reader.

There are a couple places where you jump into someone else's POV. The first is when Jonah is explaining why he's the way he is, which comes across more as flashback/info dump than a scene in and of itself. Most cases, I'd be against it, but you handled it pretty well here. It's not a tool to lean on heavily, however, as it can start to undermine the narrative consistency when you're doing too many flashbacks in a story that isn't using them as a plot point/constant device.

I don't have any issues changing POV in a story, but when it happens, it should be clearly marked with section breaks. You did that when Jonah started telling his story, but when he finished and we went back into Willow's head, there was no corresponding break to delineate the shift. The way out of this would be to use an omniscient narrator, but in your case having a detached narrator undermines the emotionality of the story, so I would recommend sticking with third-person limited.

The other place this happens is when Willow goes for a walk and leaves Jonah and Liv to talk, which should have a section break. When you want to switch POVs, in addition to the section breaks, you also want to establish whose head we're in as fast as possible. With the scene with Liv/Jonah, it seems more like we’re in her head, so have that first paragraph show us we’re in her head. Some thought, action, emotion that shows the reader, "We're with Liv now."

Medium thing. Not quite as big as the POV, but still an important consideration. This pertains to giving the reader information.

Sometimes the dialogue is a bit stilted in favor of passing off information to the reader. Like I mentioned in my first posts, characters should be their own people, not vehicles for the author to convey things to the reader. What is conveyed to the reader is done through the characters themselves, not necessarily through the author puppeting the characters to give whatever info you want to pass off.

I notice you like to explain things to the reader quite a lot. Nothing wrong with that, but sometimes things are better left unsaid at that point in time. For example, why the Darwin has a thing against race traitors:

First day of sixth grade. A girl, in a pink checked dress. She's taller than he is, like most girls are. She's a cat girl, with soft grey fur and eyes that are a shade of blue he's never seen. He can't stop looking at her, partly because there have never been many animal people in his town, and also because his parents don't like being around them. And, also, because she's just so pretty.

She notices him looking at her, and smiles, giving a shy wave before running off to join her friends. There's a feeling in his chest that he's never felt before. She's just...so pretty.

Then, later, the taunts. The names. His friends, jeering at him. Calling him an "animal fucker". He doesn't even know what that means, but he still screams that he's not one, crying.

Then later, raining blows down on him. Kicking him. And even worse than the pain, the feeling of shame. It burns, so badly.

It's a nice touch to show that underneath the bigotry lies hurt and a human, but there are three issues. First: POV. We were in Willow's POV, and now we have a flashback of a side character. Two: Flashback of a side character can almost always be handled without a flashback. Information can be conveyed in many ways, and as I mentioned before, flashbacks are a device to be used very sparingly. Third: It ruins the tension. The guy's holding a knife, seeming to start to waiver as he remembers something. Telling us what it is ruins any of the tension that he might still attack them. He's become human, not a monster via this flashback, and so it's clear he's no longer a threat. Keeping him as a threat until the very last minute is better tension, and makes the relief of nothing happening to Willow and Jonah all the sweeter when he drops the knife.

Continuing on with this flashback, it highlights your tendency to load up the reader with explanations as to why somebody did something or is a certain way. However, readers don't always need to know why. Sometimes, things are better left unsaid and unexplained so readers can draw their own conclusions and form their own opinions and interpretations. And information doesn't always have to be given right away, it can be delayed, and often works better when it is, in fact, held off for a place that has a larger impact. When you have character motivations and explanations, consider how it serves the story as a whole. Is the information needed at that exact moment? Can it wait to come into play at a later date? What do you gain from having information now as opposed to shifting it to a later scene/chapter?

In fact, not explaining why this guy is a Darwin would actually have served you better, not just for the reasons mentioned above, but because Willow is going to go see him in a later chapter. When he reveals the truth about how he was radicalized to her, it's going to be informative to her, but the reader already knows, so we're just rehashing. If you'd waited to give that information, then the reader gets to experience the revelation alongside Willow, which deepens our connection to her and lets us see the moment where she realizes he's less monster, more hurt kid who took on the trappings of extremism to preserve his ego and shield himself from the pain he experienced. Obviously, that information will still be conveyed to Willow, but the mystery of it for the reader is gone, which will diminish the primary emotion and driver of the scene.

So, keep in mind the questions when you are doing info dumps. When? How? Why? When will sharing this information have the biggest impact on the reader and the story? How much information should be shared? How does that information serve the story? And, most importantly, why does the reader absolutely need to know it? The answer to that last one is: they sometimes don't. But as writers, the temptation to explain ourselves is great, and we all fall back on providing extraneous information because we want to share our worlds with the readers. It's not bad, but it's something that should be investigated when dropping lore and character motivations — especially character motivations. Not knowing someone's motivations can be just as powerful as knowing them.

Misc.:

You can have up to 10 tags on your story. For anthro stories in particular, the more tags you have, the better, since you're working in a niche category and niche readers rely on tags more than someone reading more standard erotica. I personally like to toss in species, so I'd probably add in "bunny" and "bunny girl," maybe "rabbit" as well.

Once again, fantastic work. Really looking forward to chapter 3!

 

[Jaunty_Menace]

First of all, thank you so much for taking the time to respond in such detail! You've given me a ton of insight, which is particularly great because these forums are really the only place I have to discuss this type of writing. I should probably try to find some beta readers before I continue posting - I just don't know how to go about that.

Your observations are spot-on. For example, when writing Chapter 1, I was very nervous about moving into the anthro space, and it occurred to me that I could easily rewrite Willow into a human. But every time I thought of her, she was a rabbit anthro, so I stayed the course. In retrospect, I could have leaned more into her anthro aspects in Chapter 1.

The same goes for Jonah's personality. In Chapter 1, he was really just there for Willow to pine over and eventually win. It wasn't until I started digging into his back story for Chapter 2 that he really became real to me.

The note about holding the Darwin's backstory until Willow and Sheila go to visit him is a great one too -- I wish I'd thought of it.

Another issue has to do with something I've been thinking about ever since I started writing for Literotica. It feels like readers are going to expect at least some sex in every chapter. If I were telling this story as a novel, I would have definitely started earlier, as you suggested, given a better picture of their day-to-day life, rounded out the supporting cast a bit, maybe even dropped a hint or two about how Jonah felt. But I felt like Chapter 1 had to have the consummation of their relationship. (Both sex and saying ILY.)

I'm a little worried about this moving forward, because I never want to just jam a sex scene in just to have one. I mean, they're a new couple who find each other very attractive, and they're working off six months of unrequited sexual tension, so I don't have a problem with writing them having lots of sex. But so far I've been able to write sex scenes that feel meaningful to the characters, and I want to keep it that way.

So...I have several ideas for new chapters (plenty of obstacles, both relationship-based and external), but will readers be disappointed if a chapter doesn't have at least one sexual encounter in it?

The same goes with the other parts of the story feeling rushed and "informational." I worry about readers getting bored, wanting things to hurry up and happen. I suppose beta reader feedback would be good on that score too.

Again, thanks so much. I'm not sure if Chapter 3 will be Thanksgiving, where they meet each others' parents, Willow's ex David returning, Chelle returning, or any of the other ideas I have. But I love this world and these characters, so more is definitely on the way.

 

[Jaunty_Menace]

Oh, and I forgot to mention the formatting issues. There actually were section breaks in the places you indicated, and some other formatting was fine in my original document but got messed up somehow in the upload. I need to see how hard it is to edit something that's been posted.

 

[anthrodisiac]

Totally get that. I don't really have anywhere I can talk to anybody about what I write either, besides here, so all the more reason for us to help each other out!

I think there might be a place to ask about beta readers somewhere. I'm newer to the site, so not entire sure. But maybe in Story Feedback or Editing? Don't quote me on that

First chapters usually tend to be pretty exploratory, especially here. In other settings, you'd have more time to establish the characters, play around with them, but you're up against reader attention and competing in a very large environment, so I totally get the instinct to jump right in. It was probably the right one, given you're publishing here, and given you're publishing in chapters. Better to get readers invested faster so they're more inclined to read the following chapters than to approach it from a more standard novelization approach.

I don't think you need sex in every chapter. In fact, I think you run the risk of forcing there to be sex scenes when there shouldn't be. If someone's reading chapter 3, they're probably invested enough to be focused more on the story than for the sex, so make sure when you include sex scenes that it's serving a purpose to the story and isn't there solely for reader titilation. For example: My current series has sex in every chapter because the point is for the guy to have sex with 10 different species. If the premise were something else, I wouldn't include sex scenes solely for the purposes of making sure every chapter had one. Just be sure to let the reader know it's a non-erotic chapter going in, either through tags or through an author's note at the beginning, so they are in the mindset to take the chapter as non-erotic, vs. if they go in thinking it will be erotic. It provides a different frame of context for the reader to appreciate the story that way.

As for information: The biggest thing is to make sure the information provided is relevant to the current scene. Unless you're writing sci-fi or fantasy, lore is best used as seasoning, not the whole dish. Tie it to something that's happening to give it meaning beyond "Hey, this is cool, right?"

The biggest thing to keep in mind moving forward is ensuring that you're telling the story you want. If you start trying to tailor a story on what you think readers want, the story begins to lose what makes it special — its heart. Bending a story to fit what you think people want tends to weaken it, because it's no longer your vision, your story, it's someone else's.

There are some threads in Author's Hangouts about how to Edit a story, they have the exact steps needed for that outlined.

 

[Duil2]

Hi, you can request beta readers here.
Beta Readers