The Institute

Discussion in 'Story Feedback' started by Jenaus, Jul 18, 2021.

  1. Jenaus

    Jenaus Virgin

  2. Zeebop

    Zeebop CHYOA Guru

    Well, it's clear you have a vision for the world and an aesthetic for the kind of sexual activity you want to depict; that's all good. You're chapters have a good amount of length and detail to them, and you don't shy away from sex, which is no doubt a plus for many readers. As a nitpick, your story is described as being in the 3rd person but you're actually using 1st person throughout ("I..." "My..." etc.)

    At the moment the story is strictly linear - nothing wrong with that, however if you do plan on adding any branches later, it might be helpful to change the default "What's Next?" question to something a little more tailored as to how the story might zig instead of zag, so to speak.

    As far as suggestions for improving your writing, my main suggestion would be to use your character's names more often! When you have two women having sex in particular, "she" and "her" can get a little confusing as to how they're used. This is especially the case when you have long stretches of dialogue without any distinction between who is speaking.

    Also, and this is a minor gripe, it feels weird that you use "O" instead of "orgasm." If you're going for something specific with that terminology, no need to change anything, but you might want to play around a little more with the terminology for anatomy - it doesn't always have to be "pussy," it can also be vagina, slit, quim, gash, cunny, cunt, fuckhole, etc. Again, your particular aesthetic might call for a specific terminology, but a little bit of variation can help keep the text from growing stale.
     
  3. Jenaus

    Jenaus Virgin

    Thanks for your thoughtful comments!

    Heh, I didn't notice I used the wrong perspective, changed it to 1st person straight away!

    I don't have any ideas for branches right now, but when I do, they should split off from the main thread after a scene is completed... and since a scene spans several chapters (the second scene is still going in chapter 7 lol)... there might be a split off after the introduction which ends in the "Where is Lizzie" question, there may be different answers to that :)

    I don't really understand your "name" suggestion... since this is indeed 1st person, there's a clear difference between "she" and "I", no? You seem to have gotten confused at least at some point; do you remember where or how?

    Yeah, terminology can be a real bitch... for example, I deeply resent a pussy being called a "fuckhole"... but that's obviously very personal, and I guess I should figure out synonymswhich are more to my liking! Point taken, I'll work on that.

    Thanks again for your review!

    Jenaus.
     
  4. Zeebop

    Zeebop CHYOA Guru

    Keep in mind, the readers aren't going to be as intimately familiar with your characters as you are, so it doesn't hurt for you to use their names at least once per page, just to remind the readers of who everyone is. I got a couple chapters in and then had to backtrack to recall who was who.
     
    Zingiber likes this.
  5. Zingiber

    Zingiber Really Really Experienced

    I totally add name references to make it clear who's present, including the non-PoV character referring to the PoV character by name.