SimonDoom Review Thread

[SimonDoom]

By the way, consider recruiting a Garfunkel maybe. It would halve the load and in some cases, it would be good to have two opinions rather than one.

All right, to be completely honest, I am mostly suggesting this because the name of the thread would be quite cool

No, I'm definitely going to do it solo. I have some clear ideas about how I want to do it and I don't expect others to see things the way I do.

 

[Jackie.Hikaru]

Ooh @SimonDoom has a review thread??

 

[yowser]

Ouch!

Sorry, I did not intend this as a personal dig, just a top-of-the head riff on the S&G theme.

If there's any secondary harmonics, it's an observation on the relative quiescence in this forum region, which has much untapped potential.

 

[SimonDoom]

For my first review, I’m going to discuss Al Steiner’s story Miss Darling, published at Literotica in 2008. Miss Darling - Erotic Couplings - Literotica.com

My approach to reviews:

I will first give a brief overview of the author and story, then dive into my analysis of the story. My method is to seek to understand what the author is trying to accomplish with the story and to evaluate how well they accomplish it, considering the elements of the story such as the themes, plot, character, setting, tone, etc. I will evaluate the story’s grammar, punctuation, spelling, and prose style. I will attempt to say just enough about the story so the potential reader knows what it’s basically about, knows its tone, and understands my appraisal of the quality of its writing, but I’m going to try to avoid spoilers. I won’t give away the ending.

In general, I will NOT offer a moral or political critique of the work. I think such critiques tell the reader more about me than about the author or their work, and I’m not interested in doing that, and I don’t think most readers are interested in that. I don’t judge stories by whether I think they are ethically responsible or not. Instead, I hope to say enough about the story that the reader can make an informed judgment on those questions.

I’m going to try as hard as I can to maintain a constructive tone and approach to evaluating the story.

My critiques will be addressed to the reader rather than to the author. I think it’s a little less confrontational that way, and the author can read my critique as though the author is confronting the story as a reader for the first time. I hope that this approach will give the author some additional perspective. I won’t give scores or stars or ratings for stories, and I’m not going to reveal whether the story did or is likely to make me orgasm. Again, that tells one more about me than about the story, and I’m not interested in doing that.

About the Author:

Al Steiner has been a very popular and prolific writer of online erotica for over two decades. One wouldn’t know that just by looking at his limited output here at Literotica—just five stories, all published at Literotica in 2008—or his followers, which total only 143. But he has a large body of work elsewhere. Steiner is best known for writing long, complicated, multi-chaptered stories that aren’t erotica per se but are based on interesting concepts, sometimes based on fantasy or science fiction, and involve a lot of erotic scenes. His stories sometimes include content that violates Literotica rules, and I assume that’s why one won’t find most of his work here. I’ll violate my own rule against self-revelation a little here by saying he was one of my early favorite online writers, 20 years ago, and his works drew me to reading a lot more online erotica. He reminds me a little of Stephen King in that he has a great imagination and a talent for spinning stories about ordinary people in extraordinary situations. If one reads this story and likes it, I recommend reading his other stories here, and seeking his works at other sites and giving them a try.

About the Story:

Miss Darling is a 12,000+ word story that was published in the Erotic Couplings category in 2008. It has accumulated over 190,000 views and its score currently is 4.75, with 89 favorites.

Review:

Miss Darling is a cat-and-mouse seduction story told in the first-person point of view of a third-grade teacher, Tom Baker, who has recently started work at a new school and seeks the affections of a fellow teacher, Amy Darling. Tom is smitten by Amy’s considerable charms and beauty, only there’s a problem (for him): she is religious, and her scruples forbid her from having sexual intercourse with any man before marriage.

Tom is informed of this “problem” early in his tenure at the school by another male teacher. Apparently, Amy has acquired a long line of frustrated suitors, who eventually give up when they realize she won’t give it up.

But Tom is so smitten by Amy that he cannot resist trying where others have failed. So, the seduction begins. He has this going for him: Amy likes him, too, a lot, and we learn fairly early that while her heart is saying “No,” her body’s saying, “Let’s go.”

The story is not a stroker, exactly. It’s all about the build-up and the tension between the two characters’ mutual desire for each other and Amy’s religious scruples. One of the nice things about the story is that the attraction is mutual; it’s not a one-sided “he wants it/she doesn’t” story. Tom’s attentions to Amy, and his efforts to take the relationship to a place at which Amy is not initially comfortable, are welcome, and even sometimes reciprocated. To my reading, although there are elements of reluctance, the story does not give off a “reluctance” or “non-con” kink vibe. But there’s enough reluctance to give the story a delicious erotic tension between scruples and desire, and that tension is what fuels the eroticism of the story. Some readers, especially younger readers who've come of age during the #metoo movement and an age that views consent issues with closer scrutiny than my generation did, may see the push/resistance dynamic between Tom and Amy differently from the way I see it.

To be clear, the author is not heavy-handed about religion. He doesn’t go into it much, and he doesn’t treat Amy’s religious principles with derision or judgment. They are what they are, and both Tom and Amy must deal with them even while their desire for each other grows.

At 12,000 plus words, the story is well-paced: long enough to build tension but not so long as to wear out the reader. But again, as I said, it’s not a stroker, although it gets pretty hot, and there are a couple of scenes in the second half that will satisfy many readers, if you know what I mean. The erotic scenes are well-written and erotic within the context of the whole story, but they’re not drawn out as much as they are in some stories. The author keeps things moving along briskly. One of the skillful things about this story is the way the author uses dialogue in sexy scenes. The entire relationship, and the ratcheting up of its sexual activity, date after date, is an ongoing conversation between the two main characters. Sometimes that dialogue takes fun, sexy, unexpected turns.

I won’t say how it ends, but I WILL say that if the reader is hooked after the first few thousand words, as I was, the reader is likely to enjoy the ending. Let’s just say the characters find a way to a satisfactory end that somehow manages to navigate Amy’s scruples from a different direction.

Prose and Grammar:

Steiner has a straightforward, uncomplicated, easy-to-read, conversational and casual style. His greatest strength is as a storyteller, rather than as a prose stylist, but his prose style is still a strength: it avoids annoying mistakes, and it never intrudes upon the story by calling attention to itself. He sticks to standard conventions of punctuation and spelling. The narration seems consistent and true to the first-person narrator's character. Steiner adroitly mixes narrative and dialogue, and he’s particularly good at using dialogue to handle exposition, so the story avoids annoying and boring info-dumps.

Steiner does not appear to be involved in Literotica anymore and is unlikely to read this review, so I’m not going to go into any further detail about, or give examples of, his prose or grammar, as I probably would do in the case of an author who solicited my critique.

Summary:

Miss Darling is a fun, brisk, skillfully told seduction story about two appealing people with an overall romantic feel but plenty of enjoyable sexual tension, and a fun sexy “twist” at the end.

 

[amberlynch]

Hi. I would certainly appreciate your review (I agree with the criteria you established). Here is my story:
Shadows from the House of Scent

thank you.

 

[SimonDoom]

Hi. I would certainly appreciate your review (I agree with the criteria you established). Here is my story:
Shadows from the House of Scent

thank you.

Thanks for the interest! Since I just got started and have a backlog of requests, I must go back through them, reach out to those who requested reviews a while ago to see if they still want them, and then figure out the order for the reviews. I'm going to try to do at least one review per month, but not guarantee anything more than that.

 

[amberlynch]

Thanks for the interest! Since I just got started and have a backlog of requests, I must go back through them, reach out to those who requested reviews a while ago to see if they still want them, and then figure out the order for the reviews. I'm going to try to do at least one review per month, but not guarantee anything more than that.

Ok. that sounds good. Thank you.

 

[joy_of_cooking]

I will NOT offer a moral or political critique of the work...Instead, I hope to say enough about the story that the reader can make an informed judgment on those questions.

Given this stated goal, I was surprised to read the following in your review:

the story never gives off a “reluctance” or “non-con” vibe

Nearly every single escalation has Amy telling Tom to stop at least once, and Tom continuing anyway because she doesn't physically resist or because he doesn't think she says no with sufficient "conviction." E.g.,

"But we shouldn't be doing this," she said, without much conviction.

"No," she whispered. "You can't." But she didn't pull my hand out.

"We have to stop," she said..."No," she said, shaking her head. "That's too far."

Honestly, it got to the point where I scrolled up and checked whether I was in NC/R.

I get that Amy is herself conflicted, and eventually does acquiesce, which is why I won't call this straight non-con, but this has got to be at least reluctance, right?

(As I write this, I wonder if I'm stepping into some huge generational minefield. I've heard that men used to be expected to be quite a bit more aggressive in initiating sex. Is this what that means? Yikes.)

 

[joy_of_cooking]

I should add, I'm not objecting to your approach in principle. I think this is a good goal to strive for, even if it is not actually achievable due to the wide disparity in reader sensibilities. You don't think it gives off any whiff of reluctance to have one character saying "no" and "stop" at every step, and I do. But I think we are both worse off if you give up entirely on making these judgment and try to give all the facts---because then I might as well read the story myself.

 

[SimonDoom]

Given this stated goal, I was surprised to read the following in your review:

Nearly every single escalation has Amy telling Tom to stop at least once, and Tom continuing anyway because she doesn't physically resist or because he doesn't think she says no with sufficient "conviction." E.g.,





Honestly, it got to the point where I scrolled up and checked whether I was in NC/R.

I get that Amy is herself conflicted, and eventually does acquiesce, which is why I won't call this straight non-con, but this has got to be at least reluctance, right?

(As I write this, I wonder if I'm stepping into some huge generational minefield. I've heard that men used to be expected to be quite a bit more aggressive in initiating sex. Is this what that means? Yikes.)

I stand by what I wrote, but I understand what you are saying. I thought a lot about this as I wrote this.

There is reluctance, of a sort, but I don't think there's reluctance that rises to the level of N/R reluctance.

Yes, I think there's a generational difference, and people today perceive these things differently from the way they used to. Until very recently it was just assumed that a woman would be more reluctant to have sex with a man, and a standard part of the pattern of seduction would be the man pushing and the woman resisting. That would not, traditionally, have been regarded as "reluctance" in the non-con sense. This story was written about 20 years ago, with characters who are around 30, so I think these characters would have been familiar with this pattern. They would not have seen it as cringey, in the way a younger, more modern reader might.

Plus, it's very clear in this particular story that, despite her protestations, she desires him, too. In fact, she sometimes offers suggestions to push things forward. So while there are elements of reluctance in this story, I don't think they make it a "reluctance" story in the kink sense.

Edit: I think I could have highlighted your point better, to make it clear that some readers might disagree and see things differently, putting them on notice that the story might stray into territory that makes them uncomfortable. For my next review I will be more mindful of that, because I think a key part of a review is to give the reader a fair idea whether they would want to read the story.

 

[SimonDoom]

I should add, I'm not objecting to your approach in principle. I think this is a good goal to strive for, even if it is not actually achievable due to the wide disparity in reader sensibilities. You don't think it gives off any whiff of reluctance to have one character saying "no" and "stop" at every step, and I do. But I think we are both worse off if you give up entirely on making these judgment and try to give all the facts---because then I might as well read the story myself.

I think the way I'm going to handle this in the future is not to pass judgment but to be more mindful that other readers might see things differently from the way I do, and say just enough about the ambiguity or the issues to inform the potential reader enough to let the reader decide, "That sounds like something I don't want to read." It's especially important with regard to non-con elements because many readers, understandably, want no part of stories with those elements.

 

[joy_of_cooking]

Yes, I think there's a generational difference, and people today perceive these things differently from the way they used to. Until very recently it was just assumed that a woman would be more reluctant to have sex with a man, and a standard part of the pattern of seduction would be the man pushing and the woman resisting. That would not, traditionally, have been regarded as "reluctance" in the non-con sense. This story was written about 20 years ago, with characters who are around 30, so I think these characters would have been familiar with this pattern. They would not have seen it as cringey, in the way a younger, more modern reader might.

Thanks, this makes sense and lines up with stuff I've heard from older friends. I don't think I would have thought anything of it if you had mentioned "to readers twenty years ago, although people today might perceive things differently."

 

[joy_of_cooking]

As an aside, this sort of difference is one of the reasons I find myself drawn to LW despite, well, all the problems of LW. More than any other category, it invites explorations of social and moral norms. A form of traveling to a different land, just like SF/F.

 

[AlexBailey]

Thanks for taking this on, Simon!

I'm amazed by the generosity of your effort.

 

[SimonDoom]

Thanks, this makes sense and lines up with stuff I've heard from older friends. I don't think I would have thought anything of it if you had mentioned "to readers twenty years ago, although people today might perceive things differently."

I appreciate your input. This is part of what I hoped to achieve with this thread. My "philosophy" of reviews is a work in progress since I'm new to this.

 

[StillStunned]

Yes, I think there's a generational difference, and people today perceive these things differently from the way they used to. Until very recently it was just assumed that a woman would be more reluctant to have sex with a man, and a standard part of the pattern of seduction would be the man pushing and the woman resisting. That would not, traditionally, have been regarded as "reluctance" in the non-con sense. This story was written about 20 years ago, with characters who are around 30, so I think these characters would have been familiar with this pattern. They would not have seen it as cringey, in the way a younger, more modern reader might.

Ooph, this takes me back 25-30 years to my friend with benefits (before that was even a thing) who liked to be "conquered". Never something I was really comfortable with, so there were fewer benefits than I might otherwise have enjoyed.

 

[SimonDoom]

Thanks, this makes sense and lines up with stuff I've heard from older friends. I don't think I would have thought anything of it if you had mentioned "to readers twenty years ago, although people today might perceive things differently."

I modified the portion of the review related to the reluctance issue. I added a sentence. I didn't want to go too far because I don't want to reveal too much about the story and I also don't want to undercut my own personal response to the story. Still, I appreciate your remarks, and I think the addition to the review is a good one.

 

[Rob_Royale]

I really hope this thread doesn't devolve into a thread of people reviewing Simon's reviews. The guy shouldn't have to justify his every opinion.

 

[SimonDoom]

I really hope this thread doesn't devolve into a thread of people reviewing Simon's reviews. The guy shouldn't have to justify his every opinion.

I appreciate that, but I don't mind if the comments are substantive and don't get personal. I like to delve into the meta-criticism/erotic story philosophy issues, and it might be more productive to do that in the context of a thread where I'm writing my own reviews and showing, not just telling, as opposed to barging in on somebody else's thread where my views are less welcome or less pertinent.

 

[joy_of_cooking]

Thanks for taking this with such grace, @SimonDoom . I'm really glad you're doing this. I've learned a lot from you elsewhere on this forum. I think it was you who told me to think of the story as my art and the title, description, and tags as my marketing. That's how I do things now.

Do you have a guess as to how long your backlog will be, in time? I'd like to submit a story of mine, but if you'll be working through your backlog for months then I'll wait until the line is shorter (and I might have something more recent to submit).

 

[SimonDoom]

Thanks for taking this with such grace, @SimonDoom . I'm really glad you're doing this. I've learned a lot from you elsewhere on this forum. I think it was you who told me to think of the story as my art and the title, description, and tags as my marketing. That's how I do things now.

Do you have a guess as to how long your backlog will be, in time? I'd like to submit a story of mine, but if you'll be working through your backlog for months then I'll wait until the line is shorter (and I might have something more recent to submit).

Thanks. I have no idea at this point. I gave myself a one review per month timetable, but my first review came together in just over 24 hours so maybe I can do better than that. I will try to get my first requested review done this weekend, and we'll see after that.

 

[Bazzle]

I really hope this thread doesn't devolve into a thread of people reviewing Simon's reviews. The guy shouldn't have to justify his every opinion.

Thing is...
It creates conversation?
It means that we read the story?
We have our own thoughts?
We all learn?

 

[Rob_Royale]

Thing is...
It creates conversation?
It means that we read the story?
We have our own thoughts?
We all learn?

All fair points and Simon has already replied saying he's cool with it, so it makes my opinion moot.

 

[KeithD]

My method is to seek to understand what the author is trying to accomplish with the story and to evaluate how well they accomplish it, considering the elements of the story such as the themes, plot, character, setting, tone, etc.

This is the professional approach. Not "Does it rise to agreement with my personal theme and content hobby horses?"

 

[Bramblethorn]

Thanks. I have no idea at this point. I gave myself a one review per month timetable, but my first review came together in just over 24 hours so maybe I can do better than that. I will try to get my first requested review done this weekend, and we'll see after that.

Perhaps @joy_of_cooking could book a review slot in the queue, with the actual story to be specified once you're ready?