What is your highest quality story at a literary level?

[AG31]

I've read a number of stories on Lit that impress me with their pure literary accomplishment, never mind whether they push my erotic buttons

And I've followed innumerable threads about the craft of writing with lots of stimulating posts.

I wouldn't mind reading some more outstanding literary accomplishments. If you think you've got one, would you tell us about it?

I don't think I've got one, but the one that comes closest, I think, is Twelve Maxbridge Street. It's my first and longest. My peculiar life as an author has the stories getting progressively shorter and thinner, as my hormone level diminished.

 

[YDB95]

It's a long one, but The Senator and the Student is probably the champ in my catalog.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Literary, you say? Or at least nicely crafted:

Wheelchair Bound? is possibly as close as I've got, given the story has conflicts and resolutions as well as kinky lesbian sex in its structure. Or Gas Station Guy for analysis of queer theory and feminism.

Turkish Delight for nicely-structured gay pornographic travelogue. For practically a classic heterosexual romance (albeit with more sexual thoughts before A and B get together), Homesick Halloween.

Most of my other stuff is long and rambling and only edited until I get bored, or a bit experimental and unpolished - some works better than others.

 

[MelissaBaby]

In my opinion, Queen of the Roller Derby. It is, in any case, the work of which I am most proud.

 

[ElectricBlue]

For me, some of my shorter pieces are my literary favourites. Stories that @holliday1960 called my "literary jewels":

A Girl on the Bus - a 750 word story that often gets a mention.

Songs of Seduction - Water - written quickly, my betas at the time both said, "Do you realise what you've got here?" I didn't.

Their Summer in France - a collaboration with @stickygirl. Some of our best sentences.

 

[12oclocktales]

I haven’t started it yet, but when I’m done with it and it’s posted on Lit, if someone comments on it, a rare occurrence for me, and it’s something like “Pretty good, I’ve seen worse,” that just might be my pick.

 

[OnlyHappyEndings]

Someone described this as my triumph.
https://www.literotica.com/s/between-better-and-worse

 

[PapaRomantic]

I think mine would be End of an Affair. It's by far my lowest rated story because it's in LW and the cheater gets away with it. But it's a look into her thoughts when she learns that her illicit lover is killed in a traffic accident on his way home from a cheating session with her. She can't mourn openly, because it would raise suspicions of her affair. Even though it has a low rating, I take solace in the fact that several writers whom I respect had very favorable comments.

 

[XerXesXu]

I wouldn't mind reading some more outstanding literary accomplishments. If you think you've got one, would you tell us about it?

Not sure what you mean by 'literary accomplishments', but this opening chapter I find to be more literary in tone and more classically novelesque in plausibly describing 'true' events than anything else I've written for Lit.

Sex Tourist Ch 1

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

Going to offer up three;

Savage Daughter is, I believe, my overall best literary work.

Love is Where You Find it is my highest rated, and overall, a very good story

Living up to the Legacy, based on comments, is the most emotionally moving.

Enjoy.

 

[AwkwardMD]

I've had push back from readers on this take, because two of my other stories (one co-written with @Omenainen ) are longer and more intricate, but I always think the most recent thing I've written is an improvement over everything I've done before. Out is the culmination of everything I've learned and everything I've tried to do, and I fucking love it.

 

[onehitwanda]

Tears of Salt is and will likely remain the one I am most proud of. I created a small, intimate part of a world for a small, intimate story that didn't need to go beyond hints, and the result is, I feel, all the better for it. I hate info dumps, I prefer allusion, and I think I did it well here.

 

[Rollinbones]

I couldn’t publish it here.

 

[StillStunned]

I should probably say The Countesses of Tannensdal: a deliberate attempt to recreate 19th century Gothic horror and combine it with Ruritanian adventure, with a handful of literary references.

But other stories seem to be appreciated more for their literary qualities: Fairytale of New York and Love at First Sight for evoking very different emotional responses, and Upstream and Life and Death of the She-Wolf for the language and imagery.

So I suppose it depends on what how you define "literary". In all my writing, I make an effort to use language to enhance the story. And in most of my more serious stories, I try to inject a degree of symbolism in the subtext. I doubt many readers actively pick up on it, but I find that it ties the story together more effectively.

Even so, I doubt that fifty years from now Literature professors will be telling bored first-year students to analyse the Complete Works of StillStunned.

 

[Duleigh]

My peculiar life as an author has the stories getting progressively shorter and thinner, as my hormone level diminished.

I'm going in the opposite direction. My early stories were all short strokers but as life catches up, I find myself exploring the story more than the moment. Andi's Dream - 665,000+ words in 23 novella size chapters... probably less than 30 sex scenes. The story is the thing now, the characters are bigger, fuller, they're doing things with their clothes on. There's even pets and children.

The work I'm proudest of is the Enchantress Octalogy - 415,000 words in 8 novellas, and each word an homage to author I loved the most, the late great Terry Pratchett. I have a love/hate relationship with that story. I love it because every sentence is in honor of the creator of the discworld, Sir Terry Pratchett and I'm told that I successfully captured his humor and whimsey. I hate it because it's a fan fiction containing copywritten material and I can't sell it!

My best received stories:
Saturday Evening, a 750 word story that got re-written into a 42,000 word murder mystery (which got re-written into a novel length murder mystery)
Friend Zoned, a 27,000 story of a lonely man finding love and romance on a South Korean fighter base (semi-biographical too!)
The One that Got Away - 27,000 word story of separation, depression, and redemption in a town of 66 people on the North Dakota prairie

 

[MelissaBaby]

Even so, I doubt that fifty years from now Literature professors will be telling bored first-year students to analyse the Complete Works of StillStunned.

Hey, nobody studied Melville until thirty years after he died.

 

[StillStunned]

Hey, nobody studied Melville until thirty years after he died.

People probably saw "dick" in the title and thought he just wrote smut.

 

[lovecraft68]

I couldn’t publish it here.

Same boat, but for me its more 'wouldn't' put it here. Its nothing rule breaking, but the content doesn't fit completely in any one category and many readers don't like peanut butter in their chocolate, so why bother?

On another note, I need to stop using the peanut butter reference, I'm dating myself.

 

[StillStunned]

On another note, I need to stop using the peanut butter reference, I'm dating myself.

I dated myself for most of my teenage years, but I'm not sure what it has to do with peanut butter.

 

[lovecraft68]

I dated myself for most of my teenage years, but I'm not sure what it has to do with peanut butter.

 

[Rob_Royale]

I think my fantasy story A Ruckus in Riverwood, is the one I like the most. I think I successfully blended sword and sorcery fantasy with erotica and it's pretty entertaining. My wife even liked it.

 

[AG31]

Same boat, but for me its more 'wouldn't' put it here. Its nothing rule breaking, but the content doesn't fit completely in any one category and many readers don't like peanut butter in their chocolate, so why bother?

On another note, I need to stop using the peanut butter reference, I'm dating myself.

I'm really curious. What, short of rule breaking, would seem inappropriate for here? Nothing appeals to everyone. Maybe what appeals to you also appeals to a few others. Can you give us a reason? You, too, @Rollinbones.

 

[yowser]

Stylistically, I'd offer up An Infernal Folio, which also gave me an excuse to talk about Cambridge and an obscure 15th Century abbot who dabbled in the occult.

 

[SimonDoom]

Hey, nobody studied Melville until thirty years after he died.

If, 50 years from now, Ivy League professors are teaching their students about the mom-son works of SimonDoom, we're all "doomed." Societal collapse will be imminent.

Seriously, I have a hard time picking a story for this thread. I feel like I'm too close to my stories to judge.

 

[Erozetta]

Seriously, I have a hard time picking a story for this thread. I feel like I'm too close to my stories to judge.

I feel the same way, but I know it would be one I can't publish on here.