Hello all, I would really appreciate some feedback on my story, ENGL 469: Erotic Writing. I just finished posting my initial set of chapter (14 chapters, ~ 20k words) that establish the base premise for the story and my thread, but here's the SparkNotes without giving too many future things away: The story primarily follows Dr. Chelsea Garner, the professor for the course, as she guides one of her students to express the complex feelings he has about his mother through his writing. Through the course of this, Chelsea herself will have to come to grips with some uncomfortable feelings she has about her own son. The inspiration for this came from a story I read on Literotica, where a son submitted a incestual smut piece as a creative writing assignment in his mom's English class. From there, the idea of a class dedicated to erotic writing, with the teacher serving a sexual guide for the class just took off in my head. Although I'm taking things the incest route, I do think the premise of an erotic writing class can be used in a ton of different ways. Does it make sense to possibly recategorize the story to get more involvement from other writers wanting to add their own spin on thing?
I read the first couple of chapters, and skimmed the next half dozen or so. I really like the first chapter, but the introductory section of the story drags quite a bit, even for a slow burn incest story. I feel like the story could've done with some more excitement in the first 15000 words. It definitely shouldn't go from 0 to "and then they fucked!!" in one chapter flat, but... for a story arranged around an erotic writing course, it's remarkably sexless.
Yea I may have shot myself in the foot a little bit there. Hindsight 20/20, but at the time, I thought it made sense to first intro the 4 main characters, and then move onto the sex (which I finally get to in chapter 14). I have a lot of sex planned, and a lot of story planned, so I'll be sure they are more evenly distributed going forward. Thanks for the feedback! I'm glad that you liked the first chapter! That and the Dorthe fashion show have been my favorite to write so far.
Hi SubmergedCannon, After chapter 10, it was hard for me to follow with the flow of the chat format, "Dan" and his story, and Dr. Garner's thoughts and reaction. A lot of this has to do with formatting, but I think a mix of narration/summarizing could help as well, particularly in between a submitted story to place more importance on her thoughts and feelings as she reads. Have you considered using blockquotes? I think would be good for pieces of the chat and student stories. Code: > `Dude`: Sup! > `Woman`: Hello > `Dude`: How's it going? Other than that, I overall liked the direction and introductory chapters, but I felt Dorthe's backstory pushed and could've been recalled more gradually somehow.
I realized at some point today that I'd been a lot more negative than I meant it to be. I always try to balance criticism with praise, and there was almost nothing of the latter in my previous post. Thus, an apology, and a correction: your prose is great, and I enjoy the dynamic between mother and son, it's not too heavy, a bit playful even, and that playfulness will also work well when (and as) their relationship becomes more sexual. There's a lot here to like, and that will really come to the fore when you get around to leaning more into the 'erotic' part of 'erotic fiction'! Keep up the good work, and I look forward to reading more.
I have not thought about blockquotes, but did think my current setup was a bit too clunky and have been experimenting with some other formats. Thanks for the tip! And yea I do have a bit of a habit on info dumping (Dorthe's story being the extreme example of that) that I'm trying to break. As I mentioned in response to LowKing, I'll be working on balancing the pacing of the story better going forward. No offense taken! I appreciate everyone's time reading and leaving feedback on the story.
