Sex work series. My first story.

[AllTheBetterNamesWereTaken]

Hey Hey WineDarkSea,

So, only read the first one and...Its actually really well written. Top 10% of what I see around here, easily.
I read the first sentence and thought "Ah- this is a writer", not in the "Writer being clever" sense, but in the sense that you had picked a particular PHYSICAL detail to draw us into the story, and by the end of the second paragraph we have a picture of what is going on... but laced with details such as the type of wine Dani is drinking, and her past, but told in a way that feels natural.

Very nicely done.

I liked that Mike was a regular, an old client, someone with familiarity, as it made the jumping straight into the interaction and then the action feel far more reasonable. This scene is something I can imagine happening.

As far as sexiness goes? uhhhhh... honestly I ended up reading it with more of a literary eye (what can I say, trying to improve my own technique)... so I might not have been in the mood to follow that.
I liked the sense of power Dani Exudes. I was a bit put off by the drugs, but this is less a comment on story, and more on my own tastes. The descriptions of smells and physical sensations are vivid and detailed... perhaps my only criticism would be that reading back through, at some points it feels like we have too much description too much.... how to put it....
I end up feeling at points as if we are an audience to what is happening, as opposed to living in Dani's head. Living in her head it feels weird to have such good track of all the details, the positioning... but then again she is a proffessional, so maybe it is justified.
But still, the level of detail makes me feel like I am slightly outside the characters, watching which... can still be sexy, but doesn't quiet mesh perfectly.

Thanks for writing- I'll catch the other one next time I'm in the mood for some bloody well done erotica.

 

[MelissaBaby]

I think you owe us a story. There's not just the possibilities of the woman's determination to conquer a new skill. As a guy, I've found myself thinking of what it would be like to be on the receiving end while she struggles. And then there's kissing someone who tastes of lubricant and spermicide (ew, or not?). Curse you, MelissaBaby, curse you. Gone are my innocent dreams.

I think maybe I will use that in a story.

 

[thewinedarksea]

We're up to part three now: https://www.literotica.com/s/dani-in-the-city-pt-03

BetterNames, thank you very much for reading my story and for your detailed feedback. I really appreciate the effort you went to and your enthusiasm for the writing and for the rating (if you rated it). That's the kind of response that makes me want to keep improving.

And you're right, I do need to improve many aspects of my craft. I have noticed the issue about Dani's consciousness being very detailed (bordering on omniscient) and am trying to venture a little deeper into her thoughts, imagination, and perceptions rather than allow her to be a full participant and audience to everything. It's a very valid criticism of my style. Although I think I know how to do a lot of the basics, these are my first ever stories and I'm hitting the learning curve pretty hard, I think.

Anyway, thanks a lot. I will be sure to read some of your work now.

One unrelated gripe I have, and I wonder if anyone else shares it: the site seems to be editing my in-text story headings. All of my submissions have an identical heading in the text: Dani in the City Pt. 0x: [Title] — not in the header/footer section, just typed in at the top of the piece.

But on the site, the first one says "Chapter 1", the second story follows my convention, and the third story just has the title in bold. Also, one of my one-sentence paragraphs has been moved to the end of the preceding paragraph, and without a gap between the period, and a line of dialogue — by a different character(!) — has been attached to another character's dialogue!

I spent a long time editing the piece and it's frustrating to see errors introduced at the publishing stage — particularly errors that will reflect on me. I've double-checked my copy and they are not there. I submitted in plain text, so it's not an artifact of my file. Why is the site making these random editorial changes? Is this normal? I'd kind of rather they didn't, although I suppose it doesn't matter too much.

 

[gunhilltrain]

We're up to part three now: https://www.literotica.com/s/dani-in-the-city-pt-03

One unrelated gripe I have, and I wonder if anyone else shares it: the site seems to be editing my in-text story headings. All of my submissions have an identical heading in the text: Dani in the City Pt. 0x: [Title] — not in the header/footer section, just typed in at the top of the piece.

But on the site, the first one says "Chapter 1", the second story follows my convention, and the third story just has the title in bold. Also, one of my one-sentence paragraphs has been moved to the end of the preceding paragraph, and without a gap between the period, and a line of dialogue — by a different character(!) — has been attached to another character's dialogue!

I spent a long time editing the piece and it's frustrating to see errors introduced at the publishing stage —*particularly errors that will reflect on me. I've double-checked my copy and they are not there. I submitted in plain text, so it's not an artifact of my file. Why is the site making these random editorial changes? Is this normal? I'd kind of rather they didn't, although I suppose it doesn't matter too much.

First of all, my experience with the site is that it can be a bit "glitchy" or buggy at times. From what little I know about web programming it can be a real bear to get a site this complicated to work correctly. Also the site itself is pretty old and probably has been patched with fixes like the bondo in a rusty old car body.

Do you upload your file or do you paste the text into the box? I do the latter because I know a little HTML and I can have a bit more control over what happens to it (I think).

The title box: I always thought everything in there becomes the title. It seems the administrators may have this convention that a chapter number is the end of the title. You can try a note to the administrator in the box near the bottom of the submission page requesting that your full title be used.

 

[thewinedarksea]

The title box: I always thought everything in there becomes the title. It seems the administrators may have this convention that a chapter number is the end of the title. You can try a note to the administrator in the box near the bottom of the submission page requesting that your full title be used.

It's not the title box. That's fine. My titles are always "Dani in the City Pt. xx", but each part has a subtitle that I put in the body of the text, right at the top. For example, in my most recent one, on my copy it says this: "Dani in the City Pt. 03: Over the Edge" — but on the site, this has all been replaced by "Over the Edge". I submitted the story as a .txt file.

It's not the biggest deal, but the inconsistencies and the other more serious errors that have been introduced could be noticed by a reader. This is particularly unhelpful, as I edit for other people, and it doesn't look great if there appear to be basic dialogue formatting errors in my own work!

I'm sure I'm just being too precious. I don't want this thread to be a gripe fest so I will leave it at that.

Thanks a lot for all the feedback folks!

 

[gunhilltrain]

. . .
It's not the biggest deal, but the inconsistencies and the other more serious errors that have been introduced could be noticed by a reader. This is particularly unhelpful, as I edit for other people, and it doesn't look great if there appear to be basic dialogue formatting errors in my own work!

I'm sure I'm just being too precious. I don't want this thread to be a gripe fest so I will leave it at that.

For three of my stories I did submit corrected versions when it seemed that the site messed up line spacing and such. It took a week for that to get posted, but I guess I just felt that it was worth the effort even if I may have been the only one to notice.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I've just read your latest. Brutal. I found myself thinking, what a fucking animal, which made the tenderness between the two women so much more powerful.

You're very difficult to read, winedark, because you don't hold back from the ugliness and the bleakness.

And then you write this:

I see Bianca's little tits, more nipple than breast, rubbing stiffly against the creased white leather — she traces a finger across both puffy areolae, leaving a trail of gooseflesh behind. My mind's eye follows the contours from the nape of her neck down the smooth skin of her back, gliding over the rolling terrain of her buttocks.

And you put us right there. Which is sometimes uncomfortable, sometimes exhilarating. Right there. I can see the goose bumps. Fuuck!

 

[thewinedarksea]

I found myself thinking, what a fucking animal, which made the tenderness between the two women so much more powerful.
[…]
And you put us right there. Which is sometimes uncomfortable, sometimes exhilarating. Right there. I can see the goose bumps. Fuuck!

*jumps up and down on couch in absolute glee*

Thank you so, so much. That's why I write.

 

[MelissaBaby]

You nailed it. These characters are alive and compelling. I can't wait to read what happens next.

 

[thewinedarksea]

Let us know when it's published. I'd be interested in reading it.

Touch_type, here's the story with an STD storyline (it is a small part of the story, but significant) that I edited for another author.

https://www.literotica.com/s/meet-me-in-the-middle-1

PS: I am going away on vacation for a while, and the next part of the story will take two weeks or so to submit.

 

[AllTheBetterNamesWereTaken]

Hey Hey WineDark,

have now read second story and....
Its ummm... not sexy.
What I mean by that is that you took a whole bunch of moments that could have been sexy or realistic, and choose realistic every time. This isn't necessarily a BAD thing, in that if you are trying to write a story, you have written one that makes a whole lot of sense..... but it does put your story in an odd place as far as an erotica forum goes.


To give specific examples:

The hangover from the drugs- you Narrator wakes up feeling awful. Totally sensible result, but doesn't leave the reader feeling sexy.

Awkward puppydog Mike interaction. Sensible, real characters... actively sucks the sexy out of the previous chapter.

Marty.

The moment Bianca and Dani get seperated: A totally reasonable realistic thing to happen. The moment it did happen my brain was immediately hooked on: "oh gawd oh gawd oh gawd, I hope that Bee is alright."

The "Who will show up in the room"- I kind guessed it would be Rueben... but the worrying and listing off of bad options in advanced.... sort of hammered home that the job kinda sucks, and that what we see in this part of the story is in some sense an unusually good result (you get the "Knight" from earlier in the party)... leaving the imagination to think about the more usual results.

The level of "Performativeness" in the sex scene with Rueben- She's a hooker. Her job is pleasing clients. The fact that the sex is not fun for her is totally reasonable and predictable... and not sexy.

The fact that its unclear if Rueben himself is even enjoying the sex.
Seriously- it feels like he's going along with it because fucking girls is what makes you a "Manly man", and he doesn't know who he is or what he's doing.

You end up with a scene where two people fuck, and its unclear that EITHER of them want to be there, and the only other character we care about is nervous, has a traumatic past and has dragged away to service men unknown.... and the only man who has shown any sign of being decent isn't with her.

Great.



So.
The issue is that much as I would love that to be a critique, it really isn't.
This does sound like a reasonable and relatively realistic picture of what being a escort (or whatever the proper term is) at such an event would be like, and I'm not sure how I would suggest writing it differently, or even if I would.


In terms of actual writing etc....
I think I had a less vivid picture of goings on then last chapter. Bee is "Classically beautiful" and short and cute... but "classically beautiful" doesn't give me as strong of a picture as you might think (others may disagree).
I don't have a clear PICTURE of the setting like last time... partly because you were floating from room to room, so you couldn't afford to spend the needed time describe each person and each place... so I'm not sure how you dodge that one either.... but instead of having this sensation of "Oh, I can picture that", I could feel myself pasting together scenes from several movies.

The Waxing scene at the start was good. Nice way to introduce Bee to your audience, with just a little bit of sexy to remind them what genre they are reading.

The Reveal at the end of Rueben being the son was... a twist.... but not really one with any weight to it. It was foreshadowed nicely, but well... okay, so what? He isn't a tech dude, he's the son of some other character we saw for thirty seconds. Does this do anything storywise? .... I guess? It gives a sensation of realism, of community... but it doesn't really do anything as a "twist".

Also, I was a bit confused/weirded out by the level of confidence that Rueben displays staring Marty away (physical contact, taking hold of the situation), followed by how passive he is in the bedroom. We've seen the boy be confident! Maybe this is realistic, and that's fair, but I'm not sure what the story gains from having him being too passive later on (except maybe a demonstration of the difficulties Dani has to work with).


Hmmm... overall this response is more negative than I would like. Its worth re-iterating: it looks like you were forced to make choices between sexy and realism, and you choose realism, and I have no intention of claiming that was the wrong choice..... but given WHERE you are writing, it feels like an unfortunate position to put yourself in when sexy and realism are so often in conflict. Less a question of how you wrote this story, and more a question of if this was the best story to write given the conflicting story requirements.
... then again, given that the story made me consider and think about all those issues, maybe it did its job perfectly.


Also, Lenny is super cool.

 

[thewinedarksea]

Hi BetterNames.

Thanks for reading and writing a thoughtful response. I appreciate that a lot. I do like to hear about what works and what doesn't and why. Plus, I like the attention.

I didn't describe Bianca as classically beautiful, but classically cute. I then qualified the description with specifics. She is also described in vignettes throughout the sugaring scene. She is described further in part 3.

Yes, the story has concerns other than being sexy. I didn't know that would happen, but I am just following what I find interesting, and I'll keep doing that. I get that some people might be disappointed by that, enough to give me 1/5 scores (which has happened a few times), but I'm completely fine with that. I'm writing to get better at writing, and this is my first story, so I really don't expect it to be loved.

I'd be interested to know what you thought of the sex scene in part 3 — that is also not without realism and unhappiness, but I have received a surprising amount of feedback saying people found it hot (more than I expected to be honest).

Lenny is indeed cool. Thanks for noticing!

Note: The description of Bianca that I believe you are referring to: "But Bianca is already adorable: she’s maybe five-two, at least six inches shorter than me, and classically cute with plump, pouty lips and huge eyes. Her body is petite, small-breasted, and slim in the waist, but with the most gorgeous little bubble butt that pokes out just right."

 

[Touch_type]

I think maybe I will use that in a story.

At the risk of overemphasis, there is one other thing: the disposal of the used prophylactic. Difficult to imagine in a soft romantic story, but comedy gold in other contexts.

 

[LaRascasse]

So, I've read chapter 3 now and left a comment. I think this is your best chapter yet. It starts with a disarming calm with Dani gliding and then the darkness creeps up. There is a sense of foreboding, a lull before the proverbial storm when she tries to save Bianca from Rav. I was dreading the night to go *much* worse than it actually did, so kudos to your ability to create tension for a scene.

The dialogue between Dani and Bianca was the highlight of this chapter for me. Going from the argument at the start about how Dani should not have tried to withhold the high paying Rav from Bianca, to the eventual denouement where she comforts and helps Bianca through his brutality. At that moment, you captured the moment beautifully in words and "You were right" and "I'm sorry" were said without actually being said. It's one of the hardest skills of a writer to have imperceptible dialogue in a story and you nailed it.

Thankfully, there were no drugs this time, but I do have a very minor nit to pick just the same. Nothing to detract from your story or the 5 shiny stars I just gave it. The category was Anal, when it should have been Non Consent/Reluctance. I feel the themes explored in this chapter, particularly their interactions with Rav had NC/R overtones a lot more than being about Anal Sex. A reader looking for a consensual anal sex story might not be expecting some of the stuff that happens.

I reiterate that I loved this chapter and want to read more from you.

 

[thewinedarksea]

Thanks LaRascasse. I appreciate this type of constructive, detailed feedback.

You know I did originally have it down as reluctance, as the "consent" part of Bianca's submission was originally in much more doubt, but I changed it up to make it clear that she had decided to go through with it both for the money and to prove a point. After I made that change, I was concerned that non-consent readers might feel short-changed, so I switched to anal! Maybe I misjudged that.

Thank you for the rating and comments, also. I am currently writing parts 4 and 5 and you've spurred me on.

 

[LightningSeed]

Good read. Have now read I and II.
Dani is pretty well-drawn.