Up Your Game: Advice From Your Peers.

This thread is sort of like Story Feedback, except it's not on any one of your stories but your writing style as a whole: where, in the opinion of your fellow authors, are you doing well, but also, what can you improve?

To participate you will have to edit your forum signature to include links to at least three stories that you have published or made significant contributions to. If you are a newer member with less of a body of work to show, links to individual chapters are also acceptable.

Please also be aware that this is supposed to be a place for constructive critique and feedback, NOT name calling, noob crushing, trolling, or other anti-social behavior. When someone comes here looking to up their game we are to treat each case as distinct and new, even if they are making the same noob errors we've all seen a thousand times. The anti-social behaviors mentioned previously should be reported to the mods Post-haste if/when observed.

If you desire Critique on your style, put the words "Up My Game!" at the bottom of your post, this can include editing your signature to have those words at the end if you are always looking for critique.

Thanks for reading, and I look forward to hearing from all of you!

Up My Game!

 

Nemo,

I think this is a brilliant idea, I do wish there was more on the main site, I get a lot of favourites and a good amount of views and likes but no real feedback (Only a few authors that are genuinely interested in my Jessica’s Choices character)

I have only added links to the stories in my signature, which I would love additional feedback on where possible.

@Nemo of Utopia, I know your tastes and would only recommend The game and Another Life.

Up My Game!

 

Ok, I haven't read very far, but I've got a couple goods/bads for you to work with/on:

You're pacing is nice and zippy, you can convey a sentiment or idea quickly, that's good.

However, your word choices/phrasing get repetitive in places, not so good. It's a valid literary technique to have a "leitmotif" for part of the story, but you have to be extra careful not to reuse any stock phrase other than the leitmotif.

Your characters don't start off with clearly defined personalities, this can be good or bad depending on how its played later.

Lastly, you have a good ability to tap into your feminine side to draw out appropriate, or at least believable, emotional reactions to various everyday situations: which is key.

 

What sense does it make to require three stories when the exception would be to link some chapters (of one story)?
Furthermore, if someone has three stories, they might not want feedback for some of them as they already know that there is a need for editing. (e.g. my story Succession To The Throne)

I'd recommend noting which story you're talking about.

 

@Nemo of Utopia

As far as critique goes, I would say that I like your conversational tone in many stories, you do a decent job of letting the characters interact through dialogue. Your style is fairly linear, but well-paced. I'd like to see what you would do with slightly shorter chapters with more options, if you ever choose to experiment with that in a current or future story.

My one real piece of constructive criticism is to do a little more showing and less telling. For example, this passage in Inside the Game:

It's a lot of detail, but it's all exposition. This is the kind of description that it might be nice to see spread out a little, for example:

Just to give an idea - make the description part of a process of discovery, details revealed as the reader would see them. It might help it flow a bit.

@Doadventures.10

Given the nature of the Jessica stories, bad things happen to your poor heroine - which is fine! That's the theme, and there's an audience for that. I like that you showcase her reluctance, the visceral reaction she gets sometimes when she's forced - she doesn't turn into a raging slut just because somebody whips their dick out. Stylistically, the short paragraphs are great for quick reading.

There are two bits of constructive criticism I have to offer: 1) you have a tendency to cut off letters at the ends of lines of dialogue, for example:

This reads sloppier than it is; if you use an em-dash ("Fucking hell you cu—") it looks much more planned and deliberate, like his words were cut off by what she was doing to him. Likewise, commas, periods or other punctuation mark at the end of a line of dialogue read a lot better.

2) This particular transition feels really quick:

She just goes from trying to avoid any more sex to being incredibly aroused within a paragraph. This isn't unworkable and maybe not even out of character, but it would work better if you got into more detail - what's going through her head, how does it feel to her, etc. Was she getting more excited than she planned? Did it feel better than she expected? Does she secretly like to be dominated/rough sex? Etc.

I think in general you might give a little more attention to the internal life of the sex scenes and really bring out some of the physical and emotional turmoil which make the Jessica series fun for so many readers.

UP MY GAME.

 

Nice rewrite suggestion.
I also find it somewhat difficult to read the lengthy sentences in Nemo's original snippet.

I like that... on Windows systems, you should be able to insert the em-dash with ALT+0151

 

Thank you, you're right, I have a problem with that, and I'll see about finding various instances of it and editing them.

I will see about sending you a response as detailed as what you've given me in the next few days...

 

Hi Zeebop.

1) I do have a tendancy to write like that and reading that feedback I will go through and fix those / resolve moving forwards as I agree nd on this guidance, it looks sloppy. (Wasn't the intention)

2) it was something I thought I'd try - my idea was to make her a bit of a slut in that branch and not as reluctant as the other branches. Perhaps it was too quick, I had planned to delve into her psych in the following chapters that would allow that scene to make sense but it's taking me a while to get it right.

I'll be honest my grammar isn't my best attribute, it is something I'm working on but that I'm afraid is a long work in progress.


I will have a proper chance to read your work tomorrow

 

Hi Nemo,

I absolutely agree - my repetitive words have got on my nerves and to the point of re-writing whole chapters to remove that particular annoying itch. I will and have tried to get better at this.

Thank you

 

Using only [*Inside The Game*] as the main story I've read of yours and might I say enjoyed. You've done an incredible amount of work on this story, and I believe it should make SOW (If it hasn't already?) to quote Zeebop "little more showing and less telling" I couldn't emphasise this more either, your talent is evident but the description almost loses me through a chapter (May just be me) and secondly - your not the only one but a lot of your stories are fairly linear and Inside The Game is no exception.

 

Writing more is the best practice!

 

Have to disagree on that as you can't change anything if you don't know what to change.

I think occasional research of some grammar issues is necessary to improve on that.
Reading might also help a lot. (I guess, I'm doing too less in that regard) Though as a non-native speaker you can't quite judge the grammar of what you read... so :/

 

This is a wonderful idea. I need to bookmark this and return when I have more time. Great thread and exceptional kind and professional advice so far.

 

I am only working on My Submissive Sister, so

UP MY GAME

Be gentle, I am just a virgin. (look under my name for the terrible joke)

 

@Mordredaggrfall

To start off with, I'm going to admit I find your use of apostrophes (') in place of quotation marks ("), and "tho" instead of "though" in the earlier chapters a little distracting. I just wanted to get that out of the way ahead of time. You might want to consider going back and cleaning things up a little, if you get the time.

First off, I want to say: You've put a lot of work into this! I'd say it's mainly linear, but you do have a fairly substantial secondary branch. You might consider a couple of "side" options on some of the older chapters - add an option, let it run for a chapter or two, and then have it link back in - to explore a couple alternative ideas or kinks that don't detract much from the main thrust of your story. This is especially true since the lack of options makes playthrough in game mode a bit lackluster - you can see the variables accumulate, but if you're not really unlocking any particular scene or combination, it doesn't feel like actual progress - it feels like you started to make a game and then abandoned the variables. But there's nothing to stop you from adding on to what you've got!

You've got a fair amount of description - which is good! However, a lot of it is telling instead of showing. Take this example from You sit down at the table:

This could almost be an entire scene unto itself, if played right. While you describe the action ("you were stripped" "You tried on different lingerie") you're not really going into any detail as to what that feels like, emotionally or physically, except to say "Either way, you had no privacy when it came to your body." The act of being forcibly undressed is dis-empowering to many women - and the resultant feeling of vulnerability could be exciting or terrifying, depending on their personality. If they are ashamed or not confident in their body, or prudish, then wearing revealing underwear can cause them further embarrassment and tension, heightening their previous mood, building atmosphere - or it could excite them further to show off, to put on naughty things that show their bits, to feel parts of themselves on display, and knowing people will see them, have their eyes drawn to them, to think of them that way. The very act of putting on such clothes can almost be a ritual, the sensation of the different materials against their skin can be novel, uncomfortable, unusual, relaxing, exciting...the bits that are left uncovered might still be compressed, puffy, lifted, tucked away; the cool kiss of air on sensitive regions normally kept covered can be titillating or frightening, comfortable or uncomfortable. The very act of dressing up might fulfill some old dream, desire, or nightmare.

Okay, that's a lot of adjective-itis, but you get the general idea: I think you have some solid ideas for what you want to happen, but your description of events is a little too plain, a little too straightforward. Feel free to spice it up, to entice the audience, to give us a deeper glimpse into the inner psychology, to stretch out a scene and make something a little naughty more erotic. You've got a decent handle on the characters (the pictures are a nice touch), just explore their physical and emotional aspects a bit more, how it feels to be them.

I can't say I quite understand the "chapter" division, since it seems a bit random where things begin an end with that. If the game were done-up from scratch - not something I'm suggesting - then the "chapters" would make sense as main linear paths which various options would branch off of and feed back into, but that doesn't seem to be what you're going for here, and I'm not sure if it would be worth it trying to implement such a system when you're already this far along. You seem to have an idea of what you're doing, so keep at it - just keep that kind of thing in mind for your next story, how you want to format it.

 

You are talking about the texting part in the very start? I wasn't sure if it would be apostrophes or quotation.

The rest I'll try working in.

 

Yeah, the very start. Texting is usually easier to follow if you list it out as a separate conversation, for example:

Person1: Text text text.

Person2: Text TEXT text.

<inner monologue>

Person1: Text...text.

But it's just an odd bit of formatting, don't feel obliged to change it if you don't want to.

 

Your italics seem to be broken somewhere. (RTE does that in some cases. If there are problems, you could also use direct Markdown formatting.)

Um... I don't like that kind of formatting for dialogs...


"You can always add a note about who says something after the direct speech," gene.sis suggests and explains, "That way, you can add some additional information like how it is said."

I really prefer it that way! he thinks, still unsure if the quoted formatting is only meant for text messages.


Though, for text messages, I'd rather use indented text in italics:

Amy: so what do you say 10:56 PM
Jim: @}>-->-->-- 10:58 PM​

 

All formatting suggestions are just that: suggestions. Y'all do what looks best to you.

 

Oo! Oo! Do me! Do me!