Comments on: How to end a dry spell in style (L) https://nficstoryboard.com/content/how-to-end-a-dry-spell-in-style-l/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=how-to-end-a-dry-spell-in-style-l Short Stories, Novels, Series Sat, 01 Oct 2022 22:15:33 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.8.12 By: Cave https://nficstoryboard.com/content/how-to-end-a-dry-spell-in-style-l/#comment-4567 Sat, 01 Oct 2022 22:15:33 +0000 https://nficstoryboard.com/content/how-to-end-a-dry-spell-in-style-l/#comment-4567 Though I’m several months late to reading your contest submission, this was an interesting read. I saw the other’s comments about difficulty reading the changes of POV, and with the changes you made since then, I had no trouble with it at all.

Not a fan of BDSM, except for some light dom/sub themes.

Damn. If I had known that, I would NEVER have allowed Allisson to put these monsters on you. That could have gone all kinds of wrong!

Mistakes were made, and 20 minutes sounds way too long to me (as someone with no experience with it). Despite not enjoying this part of the story, I can still appreciate a story that’s very well put together. It even made me curious about Anne’s stories and where to find them. 😉

Thank you for sharing this with us.

]]> By: CountryMouse https://nficstoryboard.com/content/how-to-end-a-dry-spell-in-style-l/#comment-3781 Tue, 08 Mar 2022 19:23:31 +0000 https://nficstoryboard.com/content/how-to-end-a-dry-spell-in-style-l/#comment-3781 In reply to grumpyolddom.

You handled it well. Allan and Anne were comfortable talking about their kinks with close friends, who then arranged a pairing when they found someone with mutual interests. Nothing wrong with that, and very believable.

 

The bold type is an improvement. I wonder if you could put those sections in quotes so it has has a gray background. That might be even better.

]]> By: arthwys https://nficstoryboard.com/content/how-to-end-a-dry-spell-in-style-l/#comment-3780 Tue, 08 Mar 2022 16:23:02 +0000 https://nficstoryboard.com/content/how-to-end-a-dry-spell-in-style-l/#comment-3780

I consider it more a succes then a failure.

I think it is definitely a success. I like the idea with the podcast, and the bold sections are now better recognizable than before, when you just used italics. So I think everything is good now.

]]> By: grumpyolddom https://nficstoryboard.com/content/how-to-end-a-dry-spell-in-style-l/#comment-3779 Tue, 08 Mar 2022 11:20:57 +0000 https://nficstoryboard.com/content/how-to-end-a-dry-spell-in-style-l/#comment-3779 In reply to CountryMouse.

Yeah that’s no joke being outed against his/her will. I’m sure, there is a special place in hell for people who do that kind of shit.

What Allisson and Liam did wasn’t okay strictly speaking… ik could have gone all kinds of wrong, but it didn’t. Not every mistake leads to drama – thank god for that, because I make enough mistakes on a daily basis. They did it because they genuinly thought it was a good idea to get a fellow kinkster involved without any malice… and it ended good. Anne surely didn’t feel like complaining in the end. 😉

The outing of Allan by his girlfriend was probably some serious shit, from there his trustissues at the beginning.

]]> By: CountryMouse https://nficstoryboard.com/content/how-to-end-a-dry-spell-in-style-l/#comment-3776 Tue, 08 Mar 2022 06:33:13 +0000 https://nficstoryboard.com/content/how-to-end-a-dry-spell-in-style-l/#comment-3776

and it’s a sign of creativity to want to try bold new things. I also broke conventions in my story, switching suddenly to first person from third person. It’s all good. We are learning and that’s what’s important.

You could not be more right about this. We lose the ability to think abstractly as we get older. As children, we used to just accept the space-worthy sailship as cool and had fun with it. There is no right or wrong way to tell a story.

]]> By: ReaderMan https://nficstoryboard.com/content/how-to-end-a-dry-spell-in-style-l/#comment-3775 Tue, 08 Mar 2022 06:01:59 +0000 https://nficstoryboard.com/content/how-to-end-a-dry-spell-in-style-l/#comment-3775

I consider it more a success then a failure.

It certainly is. It’s not easy writing (I’m currently in a slump), and it’s a sign of creativity to want to try bold new things. I also broke conventions in my story, switching suddenly to first person from third person. It’s all good. We are learning and that’s what’s important.

]]> By: CountryMouse https://nficstoryboard.com/content/how-to-end-a-dry-spell-in-style-l/#comment-3774 Tue, 08 Mar 2022 04:12:17 +0000 https://nficstoryboard.com/content/how-to-end-a-dry-spell-in-style-l/#comment-3774 Hey grumpyolddom,

Let’s concentrate on the good. Overall it’s a fun read, with some snappy dialog, and distinct characterization. I can generally tell who is talking by their speech pattern, especially the difference between male and female speakers. That’s great.

I found the nervousness of going on a date with someone who had read your erotic writing very amusing. Though on a negative note this happened to me in real life, my former partner took it upon themselves to talk to my friends about my turn-ons, and even yell it out in very public places. It was not so amusing. 

More than anything I believe there is a POV issue here that could be fixed by changing it to the third person instead of alternating 1st person. A bit of work but I think it would be worth it. Also…

…ellipses…

…are very effective…

…when used properly.

]]> By: grumpyolddom https://nficstoryboard.com/content/how-to-end-a-dry-spell-in-style-l/#comment-3773 Mon, 07 Mar 2022 17:08:11 +0000 https://nficstoryboard.com/content/how-to-end-a-dry-spell-in-style-l/#comment-3773 In reply to arthwys.

I changed my plan. You’re right… It can’t be a conversation… I would have to be a genius to railroad the reader so much that he/she asks the right questions, give the right comments just at the moment I need him/her them to make.

I changed the setting to a podcast. So that the two narrator-dynamic makes more sense.

It’s not the best stuff I’ve ever written, but as far as the experiment is going… I consider it more a succes then a failure.

]]> By: arthwys https://nficstoryboard.com/content/how-to-end-a-dry-spell-in-style-l/#comment-3767 Sat, 05 Mar 2022 17:46:14 +0000 https://nficstoryboard.com/content/how-to-end-a-dry-spell-in-style-l/#comment-3767 Thank you very much for your story, for taking part in the contest. Looks like the Light Side is winning, due to a lack of dark stories. Does nobody dare to write a dark one?
 
I have to admit, I also was a bit confused about the POV, but your explanation helped a lot. I like stories told from a first-person point of view very much. That’s why I kept reading, and after a second attempt, I had figured out who is telling what.
 
I am currently experimenting a bit with writing myself and especially with telling a story from two different first-person POVs. A dear friend helps me with the writing, and his advice was to always make it clear who is telling it. Not just by putting in a headline, but also by inserting some kind of “hints” right at the beginning, about who is speaking now. I completely trust his advice, so I changed it. And I have to admit, this way it improved a lot.
 
But in your case, this probably won’t work, because you have very regular POV changes within a relatively short story.
I think what makes this so difficult, is that it doesn’t really read like two people telling their story to a third person in a conversation, but what you have is mixing two different stories told from two different POVs (being told to the reader and not to this third person).
I am not sure if it is clear what I mean. So here is an example. That’s not how you would tell a story in a conversation to a third person. So you are trying to achieve something different.
 

“Quite, Honey… push your Elbows behind. Yeah… exactly like this. That’s quite a sight. Good girl!”
 
Oh… that word almost made me purr.
 
“Hmm… I like that you know your place, Honey. You’ll call me and Liam ‘Sir’ and Allison ‘Ma’am’, ok?”
 
“Yes, Sir!”, I beamed.
 
“Good girl!”

 
You set yourself quite a task…
 
To be honest, I am not a big friend of typographic gimmicks like different fonts or features like bold or italic, etc. I guess I am a bit of a purist here, a text should work on its own, without use of such typographic tricks. But in your case, it is the only way I can think of.
 
When the reader is confused, the risk is that he or she will just give up reading. And this would be a shame. Having said all this, I liked your story a lot (I really did!) and hope to read more from you!

]]> By: Dormouse https://nficstoryboard.com/content/how-to-end-a-dry-spell-in-style-l/#comment-3765 Sat, 05 Mar 2022 12:01:41 +0000 https://nficstoryboard.com/content/how-to-end-a-dry-spell-in-style-l/#comment-3765 I have to admit I gave up on this fairly quickly.  With my eyes, I had trouble distinguishing between plain and italic text in this font.  James Joyce did a similar thing in the Wandering Rocks episode in Ulysses, but he was a genius and he was more using stream of consciousness and third person.I have to say when I’m writing stories, I prefer third person.  I heard an author once warning budding authors not to write first person and talking about limited point of view characters – you get the character’s feelings but they are not telling the story.  This seems to be a recent-ish method and before you’d get the disembodied omniscient narrator.  (I’m sure we’ve all read The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe.  There’s a bit in that where two characters are in one country and suddenly you get a brief paragraph set in another – without even the extra line breaks that would be used today.)Mind you, I’m not into BDSM so I’d probably have given up anyway. 🙂

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