Eka's Portal Writing Group - Aug 2009 - All Submissions In!

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Re: Eka's Portal Writing Group - August 2009

Postby Jacquelope » Fri Jul 24, 2009 6:40 am

ABOUT YOU:
Your name: Le Jacquelope, aka Le Jacq, aka Blacque Jacque Shellaque (hahah just kidding)
Your writing library URL(s): http://aryion.com/g3/showgallery.php?id=155866
Have you read the rules and guidelines, and do you agree to them? Yes
Have you proofread your own story? Yes, this is actually a revision.

YOUR POST:
Title/Summary: The Many Journeys of Ian Scranton, Chapter 1: Out of the Frying Pan
This story was chiefly inspired by 4OfSwords' "The Many Deaths of Samish", but with an extra soft vore twist. Ian Scranton is a refugee fleeing compulsory military service, seeking to avoid certain death in some alien's belly. Instead, he winds up in an alien woman's stomach... the first of many. The good news is she has no desire to digest him. This story is my first experimental venture into the nonfatal subgenre.

Word Count: 14279, so far almost twice as large as subsequent chapters.
At 2000 words, he encounters the first Grue... a pair of mermaids trying to eat him. Alas, the woman who does swallow him is the one who saves him in that same scene. Down the hatch #1 happens by 2800 words.

Rating and Classification: This was my first extra soft vore story. There are also other forms of vore going on, but mainly freshly killed animals and such. There's a plant woman in the story who gets eaten. Essentially: FF/M, fairies and plant women as preds with one human male as prey; soft vore, extra soft vore, unbirth, plus some hetero and lesbian sex. I dunno if this qualifies as scat but Ian is made to relieve himself into the ground. It gets very little mention and no *details*.

Type of Critique Preferred: Sock it to me!

Questions for the Readers: If you were put off by extra soft vore, is this still a compelling read? ETA: Where do you think I could make my descriptions of things more... colorful?

YOUR READING LIST:
Rating and Classification Preferred: I prefer human/elf/fairy female preds but will tolerate furries. I absolutely avoid stories with underaged participants. I prefer to avoid scat and yaoi but if I have to choose between that and underaged stuff I'll read the latter.

Critiquing Style: I'm a big picture guy. I tend not to bother with spelling errors unless they're way too numerous or really distracting. I reserve 6 (out of 5) star-status for stories that invoke controversial discussion, LOL.

The story can be found at: http://www.aryion.com/g3/showitem.php?id=171519
Last edited by Jacquelope on Wed Jul 29, 2009 1:39 am, edited 1 time in total.
Experiment: Will a grenade kill a giant naga by exploding in its belly?
Test #1: Inconclusive. Grenade exploded in naga''s mouth.
Test #2: Inconclusive. Grenade exploded in naga's throat.
Further tests delayed until another live specimen can be acquired.
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Re: Eka's Portal Writing Group - August 2009

Postby Shadow_Walker » Fri Jul 24, 2009 3:40 pm

ABOUT YOU:
Your name: SW
Your writing library URL(s): My one at Deviant Art
Have you read the rules and guidelines, and do you agree to them? Yes
Have you proofread your own story? (Yes is the only good answer!) Yes

YOUR POST:
Title/Summary: Running Wild This is a simple story of a kid trying to figure out what's wrong with his life. Basically, it's two stories in one, the first one being a kid who's worried his life is stagnate, and an auto mechanic who's trying to hold it together for his sister. It's a story that relates to me. Breaking my own number one rule (don't make a character based on yourself), the main character is based on where I felt like I was at at the beginning of my senior year of high school.
Word Count: 11,886 Easy Mode: To the end of the first scene. Normal mode: To the end of the third scene. Hard Mode: To the end of the seventh scene. Insane mode:To the end of the story.
Rating and Classification: It's really more PG-13, but there is one instance of nudity but you don't get to see anything. It's a furry story with implied furry sex and furry vore. There's M/F and F/M vore and alcohol use. Also, I've censored any mentioning of French Canadians.
Type of Critique Preferred: This is sort of like a second draft for me. People who read this here before I edit it the second time are reading it before I ever put it up on my Deviant Art and Furaffinity. Rather than using editors for this one, I thought I might run it past y'all to make up for putting forth a story that I made clear wouldn't be rewritten.
Questions for the Readers: What places do you think I can cut? How can I smooth the story over those sections? Does it feel like all of the characters have different personalities? Finally, do you have any better titles?

YOUR READING LIST:
Rating and Classification Preferred: Will do: M/F and M/M as long as it's furry, and F/M and F/F regardless. I don't like scat or cock vore and I don't enjoy hard vore much. Also, Anal vore is iffy for me. Lastly, I will probably end up bashing any fanfic you put in front of me as I'm strongly biased against them.
Critiquing Style: Harsh as hell. I've been trying to stop this as it's usually seen as arrogant, but if I see something wrong, I point it out. I am trying to get back into telling people what they did right as well.
Last edited by Shadow_Walker on Wed Jul 29, 2009 7:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Eka's Portal Writing Group - August 2009

Postby KavenBach » Mon Jul 27, 2009 11:57 am

ABOUT YOU: Perverted Damseldangerologist
Your name: KavenBach, K-Bach, or "Wierdo feeding women to monsters"
Your writing library URL(s): http://aryion.com/g3/showgallery.php?id=70290
Have you read the rules and guidelines, and do you agree to them? Si
Have you proofread your own story? Y'know, technically, NO! I wrote it in about two hours this morning. I'll proofread it and upload any corrections long before the August 7th deadline though. ^^;

EDIT: Yeah, re-read it now. I should probably post a version with extra spaces between the point-of-view changes, but I actually didn't see any typos for once.

YOUR POST: The Snake Stripper
Title/Summary: A tavern/showbar owner receives a Warlord passing through, and tries to keep things civil. However his main performer decides to use the dangerous circumstances to blackmail him. He has other plans.
Word Count: 5820 (that is FREAKING short for me!)
Rating and Classification: Snake/F vore, sex, sensuality, betrayal, constriction, barbaric/drunken soldiers molesting barmaids, "public" vore.
Type of Critique Preferred: Say whatever you feel you should.
Questions for the Readers: Er... I dunno...!
YOUR READING LIST:
Rating and Classification Preferred: Preferably non-furry, best ?/F or M/F. F/F or F/M maybe, M/M no. No Scat (maybe the barest hints are acceptable), I don't mind pain or graphic digestion though, UB, CockVore, Soft vore, Hard vore, I'll read an awful lot as long as it's a female prey and non-gender (plant, beast) or male pred. F/F or F/M my tastes are a little more limited but should be passable.

Critiquing Style: I'll probably start by the negatives, after typing out my responses even as I'm reading. Hopefully I'll then remember to continue with what I DID like. Bad grammar and spelling REALLY bother me, to the point of ruining a good tale, and I will say so. On the other hand if you have a good entertaining tale and it reads well I'll probably read it even if it ends up non-vorish. If I see continuity or logic errors I'll probably comment on them. I try not to be too brutal and this month I'll pay more attention to the questions and critiquing styles asked for. ^^;

Don't forget to attach your writing!

Yep:

http://aryion.com/g3/showitem.php?id=174612
"Lady, I WARNED you that my plants wouldn't tolerate tresspassers, either! NOW look at you!"
"Mmh! Mmh!"

https://www.patreon.com/KavenBach
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Re: Eka's Portal Writing Group - August 2009

Postby Tobedumped » Tue Jul 28, 2009 9:22 pm

Here is my free review of Andrew London's This is wrong, paying him back for his wonderful critique of my submission. Sorry I took a little bit of time with it-- I had some unexpected weekend plans. Here are my thoughts after having read the story twice.

Andrew London's This is wrong
What I liked:
It’s something different; even within the soul vore subset. It doesn’t follow one of the predictable vore story formulas, and that alone is an accomplishment. There’s a lot of different ways to explore soul vore and this is an interesting one.
One image that really lasts with me from this story is the potential terror of the narrator exploring the hellscape of a deteriorating dream as he starts to “lose it.” This can definitely be milked—the more detail that goes in to the description of a fading world, the more terror.
I also like the concept that as the narrator gets distracted by the blue Subaru he loses the girl. I was actually frustrated by this the first time that I read it—“damn it, we don’t get plot progression because he got distracted.”—I wanted to yell at the narrator to focus, so this obviously put something in me. You might even be able to play this kind of frustration up a little bit more… after all the narrator has to be frustrated by his limitations as well.

What I would suggest:
Some things struck me as “not quite right” as I read. The narrator describes the door having a keypad as being “weird” whereas teleportation across town didn’t seem to bother him in the slightest. I’m not sure that a single key would create a “cold weight” in his pocket. Since everything else seems to be three-dimensional, I don’t know why he calls the playground 3D. After the narrator says that there’s no wind rushing past while flying, he describes it also as travelling as fast as he can remember.
I’d like to know a little bit more about the girlfriend and their relationship. If he has to travel to the village he grew up in to reach her house, is this a current girlfriend or a childhood girlfriend? What are his goals that he refers to his fantasy as being “unobtainable”? Does he want something specific? Is she not putting out in real life? How far of a departure would “appallingly slutty” be for her?

Your Questions
-I think that the growing sense of panic from the narrator should start earlier and should grow noticeably throughout. As soon as he realizes that he doesn’t have full control over his dream there should be concern. As it stands, even two pages into the story—where the narrator has already stated that “this is wrong” twice-- he’s dismissing the danger of nightmares. If he has a lot of lucid dream experience, I would imagine he would be concerned even by things like not being able to work the door keypad.
-I wouldn’t necessarily call it a loose end, but I have some questions about the repeat at the end of the story. To me, the implication of this is that the narrator has been now banished to this dream world, and that he is about to cycle through the story again. I think it would be either cooler or more accurate (I’m not sure which) to keep this implication, but show that things have changed for the narrator. Keep the throwback to the beginning of the story, but show that he has even less control over the dream world now.
-The middle sentences in the first paragraph didn’t scan right for a variety of reasons. The narrator says that he’s “not outside his house anymore,” even though it wasn’t established that he was outside of his house to begin with (I thought he was at a bus stop.) The word “still” at the beginning of sentence three threw me. Once sentence talks about rubbish trucks, the next sentence only cites a single truck.
Another place where scanning could be improved is the sentences beginning with “They call this lucid dreaming. I’ve done it before, and as I look around me…” I’d connect “I’ve done it before” to the first sentence and let the description of detail be its own sentence. Also, then, the later sentence of “This isn’t my first time lucid dreaming, which is really just conscious dreaming” is redundant.
On page 3 the narrator mentions that the figure is wearing “the same white wedding dress.” While I eventually assumed this meant the same white wedding dress that the girlfriend had been on the previous page, clarification would have made it smoother. Also, since the narrator spins around in the sentence before, it’s confusing or misleading for him to refer to the figure as being “behind him,” I felt.
Some other things that didn’t read quite right were “lucid dreamed” (maybe dreamt lucidly?) and “I set down in the garden.”
-I don’t think the breakdown in punctuation either adds or subtracts.
-The information about lucid dreaming was good and could be one of the highlights of this story. The idea of lucid dreaming gives the narrator farther to fall—it allows him to be under the woefully inaccurate impression that he is in control at the beginning of the story. I really liked this part of the story. What I would do to strengthen it is give a complete description of the strategies and exercises he has learned. Tell us how the spinning helps and introduce the “test” exercise from page three earlier and clearer. I think that making it clear that this character is a dreamscape explorer and showing us his tools and experience only makes it more terrifying when things start to turn south for him.
-Like I said at the very beginning, I like something that challenges traditional vore formulas. This isn’t what I imagine when I think of soul vore, but I think that’s a good thing. I also have a different interpretation on soul vore than many others and I might go ahead and share it in a future story.

Overall
I enjoyed reading this story—it breaks up some of the tediousness of reading “same old” vore stories. With revision and clarification (and probably a little bit more) it can become a very interesting read.
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Re: Eka's Portal Writing Group - August 2009

Postby Sehnsucht » Wed Jul 29, 2009 5:54 pm

Tobedumped wrote:Sorry I took a little bit of time with it-- I had some unexpected weekend plans. Here are my thoughts after having read the story twice.

Thank you very much for the comments! There's a lot wrong with it, and with your comments I hope to churn out a much tighter version. I wrote it almost in one sitting, so some things are there because they came out in that order, not because they work best, and you've done a good job in challenging the things I wasn't ambitious enough to question during my own reviews.

It’s something different...

Cheers :) I'm also gratified that you use the word "terror" during your review, as that's certainly the feeling I get when I contemplate this subject!

I wanted to yell at the narrator to focus, so this obviously put something in me. You might even be able to play this kind of frustration up a little bit more…

Good idea---will do this. I'll also look out for similar times where I might have made the reader feel that the narrator was acting/thinking/feeling unreasonably, as they tend to distract.

Some things struck me as “not quite right” as I read. The narrator describes the door having a keypad as being “weird” whereas teleportation across town didn’t seem to bother him in the slightest. ...

Some of what you quote are just badly written---thanks for catching them.

I think the opening para can work much harder. It's meant to be ethereal and stream-of-consciousness because the dream isn't yet lucid, but perhaps intentionally confusing the reader in the first para is a bad gambit :) What do you reckon to starting the story with I'm dreaming, and have him not quite wake up until after the first para? Perhaps she approaches him, but he casually does the hand thing and when he goes lucid she's gone... that means in the closing refrain, when he doesn't go lucid, she's right there in front of him. Sounds better to me!

I’d like to know a little bit more about the girlfriend and their relationship.

Ah, this is something that's clearly half-baked, and you're right to call me on it. I originally wanted him to attempt to meet someone he knew well, but who wasn't as deep in his mind as his family. Currently, though, she's a bit of a cipher. I could expand on their relationship a bit, or I could make her a symbol of something. Careful use of symbols could make this a far better story, I think. (For instance: what the hell does the wedding dress mean? I don't know. Careless of me.)

What are his goals that he refers to his fantasy as being “unobtainable”? Does he want something specific? Is she not putting out in real life? How far of a departure would “appallingly slutty” be for her?

This was meant as a kind of playful nudge to the vore audience. If it's really that distracting I'll do something with it. A vore reader might assume that this is a hook I'll follow through on, since it's, you know, a vorish story.

I think that the growing sense of panic from the narrator should start earlier and should grow noticeably throughout. ... where the narrator has already stated that “this is wrong” twice-- he’s dismissing the danger of nightmares.

I'll look into starting earlier. I also meant the italics to be a voice that came from him, but wasn't his thoughts. This was something that didn't come through so well---it's what she was referring to in the end when she says his body held on to him.

I would imagine he would be concerned even by things like not being able to work the door keypad.

In my own experience, no matter how lucid I've been the bloody light switches never work. I'll see if I can make this clear with a comment.

I think it would be either cooler or more accurate (I’m not sure which) to keep this implication, but show that things have changed for the narrator. Keep the throwback to the beginning of the story, but show that he has even less control over the dream world now.

Excellent idea---this is the kick up the arse I needed. See above comments---it'll be a lot better next time around.

The middle sentences in the first paragraph didn’t scan right for a variety of reasons. ...

Lazy writing, will fix.

Some other things that didn’t read quite right were “lucid dreamed” (maybe dreamt lucidly?) and “I set down in the garden.”

The former is a bit clunky, but I think of "lucid dream" as a noun phrase so it's unnatural for me to split it as you suggest. A quick reword will fix it. "To set down" is colloquial, and I wondered if it would be confusing. Will alter.

I don’t think the breakdown in punctuation either adds or subtracts.

In that case I'll leave it for further review. I half considered going batshit crazy like Danielewski in House of Leaves by breaking down the formatting of the page...

The information about lucid dreaming was good and could be one of the highlights of this story. ... What I would do to strengthen it is give a complete description of the strategies and exercises he has learned.

Will do---sounds like good advice.

Like I said at the very beginning, I like something that challenges traditional vore formulas. This isn’t what I imagine when I think of soul vore, but I think that’s a good thing. I also have a different interpretation on soul vore than many others and I might go ahead and share it in a future story.

For a long time I've hated picturing things from the receiving end, so perhaps what I did in this story was splat down some images I've had in mind for a long time, with little concern for telling a good story. As I say, there's no reason it can't be catharsis and a good story, if I'm capable of telling it. I'd be interested to hear more of your interpretation in future---this subject has always been taboo to me, and it's fun now to talk about it :)
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Re: Eka's Portal Writing Group - August 2009

Postby Tobedumped » Thu Jul 30, 2009 8:43 am

I like your ideas for changing that first paragraph, except for beginning it with "I'm dreaming." It becomes clear soon enough that it's a dream.

This was meant as a kind of playful nudge to the vore audience. If it's really that distracting I'll do something with it. A vore reader might assume that this is a hook I'll follow through on, since it's, you know, a vorish story.


See, I picked up on the nudge the first time through. "Got an unobtainable fantasy?" "Yes I do!" I guess I was just thrown off by his later reference to wanting her to become an appalling slut-- it made it so that when I read it the second time I thought that I had misinterpreted it. I thought it was a really fun "nudge," but I also feel like I want a small hint as to what the narrator's actual intentions are. If it's something that's unobtainable in real life it makes the reason for lucid dreaming more clear. If he's just looking to get some then it adds depth to the story in leaving us to wonder why he's not getting some in real life.

If horror was the goal, you definitely did some good things in this story. I think that "struggle for one's soul amid a deteriorating dream" has that intense-yet-whimsical horror that Tim Burton should adapt in to a movie.

I'd be interested to hear more of your interpretation in future---this subject has always been taboo to me, and it's fun now to talk about it


Always glad to share. I've got to say, the writer's group has greatly enhanced the enjoyment I get out of vore writing. It's hard enough to find a group of people who like the same thing that you do, so having a group that is willing to look at and discuss it interpretively and critically is something I've really appreciated. I look forward to sharing more with you in the future.
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Re: Eka's Portal Writing Group - August 2009

Postby Sehnsucht » Sat Aug 01, 2009 2:24 pm

I'm just about to update the story. It flows a lot better now thanks to your comments. There are still problems with it, but after seven hours of editing I'm sick of it and am happy to wait for the deadline to pass for further comments :)

Tobedumped wrote:I like your ideas for changing that first paragraph, except for beginning it with "I'm dreaming."

I decided to stick with that as an opening line---I'm ambivalent, and would appreciate others' comments. Plus it ties in nicely with the (pretentious) story-opening quote-lyric "Dream a little dream of me". A longer snippet from that song is perfect for this story, but I thought the beat was off: "Dream a little dream of me / Stars fading but I linger on, dear / Still craving your kiss"

I guess I was just thrown off by his later reference to wanting her to become an appalling slut

You're absolutely correct, and this has been fixed.

If horror was the goal, you definitely did some good things in this story. ... The writer's group has greatly enhanced the enjoyment I get out of vore writing.

Thank you very much! And yeah, it's pretty much started me writing again---and exploring completely new ground at that.
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Re: Eka's Portal Writing Group - August 2009

Postby 4ofSwords » Sun Aug 02, 2009 11:13 pm

Whew! I was starting to worry I wasn't going to get this entry re-written in time for the deadline. When you see the wordcount, you'll see why. You'll also see that I'm a right bastard.

ABOUT YOU:
Your name: Some men call me ...4ofSwords?
Your writing library URL(s): http://lilsveyl.wordpress.com
Have you read the rules and guidelines, and do you agree to them? Yes. Yes I have.
Have you proofread your own story? Yes. I finished my third pass tonight. However, in a chapter this long, I imagine there's a lot of typos.

YOUR POST:
Title/Summary: The Many Deaths of Samish, Chapter 3. In which Samish finds out that when one invites over a sexay alligatress who says she wants to eat the said one, she, in fact, does want to eat the said one, no matter how sexay and flirtatious she is about it. Poor Samish. He misses out on the most basic points of logic.
Word Count: 21,072. That's right. I suck to hell. It actually used to be much longer, before the edits, both in word-count and period of time covered. I'm interested in suggestions on what can be cropped to make it even shorter. However, in order to suck to hell a little less, I've put some bolded "A Good Place to Stop" markers at about 1/3 and 2/3 of the way through, in order to let folks off the hook that aren't having a good time. Also, if you'd like to read the minimum 2500 words, you should find it around page 4 where Allie begins to set the scene for their role-play.
Rating and Classification: This one is rated XXX for inter-species sex, for potty mouths, for idle minds (a devil's playground, don'tchaknow?), and of course for the softly-hard vore. Wait, did I lose you on inter-species sex? That's right, she's an alligator and he's a human dude, and they spend about 2/3 of the story having sex or talking about having sex or remembering having sex or getting some rest so they can have sex some more. But it's NOT bestiality, because she's a sapient creature. It's... scale-iality?
Type of Critique Preferred: Hit me with your best shot. I prefer details to vague responses, but I prefer vague responses to non-sequitur insults. I understand if you're so tired from reading 21k words that you can only manage to type a random string of aavsddsdd's where you fell asleep on the keyboard.
Questions for the Readers: If you read only the first 2500 words: What could I have done better to keep your interest? Where did I lose you? If you read to the first break, what did you think of the online role-playing? Was it believable as role-playing, and was the format distracting or did you move past that quickly? If you read to the second break, how was the sex scene? Did you pick up on the differences between their cybersex, the phone sex, and "reality"? Was it just too much sex, or were any details "too much"? If you read to end, bless you and to what address should I send the cookies? Did you actually like it, or were you just a trooper? Were the two more "stories" too much, or did they cement the theme of this chapter?

YOUR READING LIST:
Rating and Classification Preferred: I have my preferences same as the next fella, but I'll read whatever needs reading. The only thing I like reading more than new authors to the EPWG are returning authors to the EPWG.
Critiquing Style: I'm usually pretty detailed in my critique, and while I try to cover what worked and didn't work equally, I seem to spend a disproportionate amount of time making suggestions on how to change things to satisfy my own predilections.

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Re: Eka's Portal Writing Group - August 2009

Postby ManyEyedHydra » Mon Aug 03, 2009 9:24 pm

Whoops, sorry for jumping in.

I followed a link to AndrewLondon's story from his comment on one of my stories and realised my response kind of missed the mark.

My first impression when I read this 'This is wrong' was that it had some nice description but suffered from one of my biggest bugbears with horror fiction, a maddeningly vague denouement. As a device the vague ending is an effective way of making a story seem more mysterious and more memorable because the mind is frustrated by the lack of any explanation and so picks over it. Personally, I think it's a bit of a cheap trick, sort of like the Emperor's (lack of) clothes, but it is effective.

On a second reading I realised I must have skim-read a paragraph or two somewhere, or not been paying close enough attention :)

It's fairly obvious what's going on, and it's quite a nice little succubus tale. The lucid dreamer beats the kiss, but the succubus raises the stakes with sex to force him back into the dream world/prison so she can feed off him.

The story made a lot more sense the second time around. It must have been too late at night when I read it the first time :)

It's an interesting choice to end it where you do. It's kind of a natural ending. His story is done, she's got him. Plenty of horror stories would stop here and leave the details of his demise to the reader's imagination.

You don't necessarily have to stop it here though. If you're aiming more for erotica then this would be the cue for the gratuitous sex scene. If you're pushing more for horror then it's more of his terror as she consumes him. Or you can run both to really screw with the reader (my favourite approach ;) ).

There's even scope for the 'just in case you didn't get it at all' ending with someone discovering the body on the bed afterwards.

Sorry for the drive-by shooting of a critique. I keep meaning to get involved in the writing group threads just as soon as I can kick my own writing out of the glacially slow gear I seem to be stuck in at the moment.

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Re: Eka's Portal Writing Group - August 2009

Postby 4ofSwords » Mon Aug 03, 2009 9:53 pm

ManyEyedHydra wrote:Whoops, sorry for jumping in.

No need for apologies! The EPWG is completely and officially open for comments and critiques from anyone and everyone, whether or not they post submissions. I was actually hoping to suck in a bit -more- drive-by commentary.

That said, I very much hope you -will- participate. Feel free to post one of your older stories if you're still open for critique on it; I think I've read everything you have on Literotica with the exception of your long-running succubus series, and I don't think any of it would be poorly received here.

But whether or not you pop in for a month or ten as a participant, feel free to comment anytime.

(That goes for the rest of you, too. You know who you are. (If you don't know who you are, if you're reading this far into my nested parentheses, it's you.))
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Re: Eka's Portal Writing Group - August 2009

Postby Elle » Tue Aug 04, 2009 1:03 pm

Hey, when do we get reviewing assignments again? I keep checking, but I haven't gotten any yet, it seems.
Just remember, no matter who you are, what you do, or what your interests are, someone out there would think you're sick and disgusting. All you can do is try your hardest not to be one of those people.
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Re: Eka's Portal Writing Group - August 2009

Postby KavenBach » Tue Aug 04, 2009 1:08 pm

The deadline for submissions is the 7th of each month I believe. Reviewing assignments are PMed thereafter.
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Re: Eka's Portal Writing Group - August 2009

Postby 4ofSwords » Tue Aug 04, 2009 1:24 pm

KavenBach wrote:The deadline for submissions is the 7th of each month I believe. Reviewing assignments are PMed thereafter.

Precisemundo!

I can't really give out assignments until the submission deadline passes, but if you want to comment on a story now, feel free! I can't promise you that it will count toward your three assignments - I try to be blind to that when letting the assignmentification machine run its course, but it might!
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Re: Eka's Portal Writing Group - August 2009

Postby Elle » Tue Aug 04, 2009 8:06 pm

Hrmmm. o.o Alright. I haven't done this in a while, of course, so I guess I screwed up a bit on the dates. X3
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Re: Eka's Portal Writing Group - August 2009

Postby Tobedumped » Tue Aug 04, 2009 11:47 pm

Just downloaded the updated version, Andrew-- I look forward to reading it. I envy you for being able to do what looks like a pretty involved rewrite so quickly. I need months of stale time before I can look at anything objectively.

AndrewLondon wrote: Plus it ties in nicely with the (pretentious) story-opening quote-lyric "Dream a little dream of me". A longer snippet from that song is perfect for this story, but I thought the beat was off: "Dream a little dream of me / Stars fading but I linger on, dear / Still craving your kiss"


See, now you've conjured up the mental image of Zooey Deschanel performing that song. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ThRVUcmSa0

Dear lord, if that woman ever came for my soul, she could have it.
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Re: Eka's Portal Writing Group - August 2009

Postby 4ofSwords » Wed Aug 05, 2009 7:34 am

Tobedumped wrote:See, now you've conjured up the mental image of Zooey Deschanel performing that song. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ThRVUcmSa0

Dear lord, if that woman ever came for my soul, she could have it.

Amen!

In other news, three more days, including today, before August closes to submissions! C'mon, all you writers out there! I know you wanna!
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Re: Eka's Portal Writing Group - August 2009

Postby Sehnsucht » Wed Aug 05, 2009 4:41 pm

ManyEyedHydra wrote:I followed a link to AndrewLondon's story from his comment on one of my stories and realised my response kind of missed the mark. [... it] suffered from one of my biggest bugbears with horror fiction, a maddeningly vague denouement

Sorry, I uploaded a new version after TBD's comments, and that's probably the source of the confusion. The story was pretty vague since I think I wanted the imagery to tell it... but I'd need a lot more time to do that approach justice, and what I had was inadequate, as you saw :)

It's fairly obvious what's going on, and it's quite a nice little succubus tale. The lucid dreamer beats the kiss, but the succubus raises the stakes with sex to force him back into the dream world/prison so she can feed off him.

Thanks! Glad this version was more lucid. (Heh.)

It's an interesting choice to end it where you do. ... You don't necessarily have to stop it here though. If you're aiming more for erotica then this would be the cue for the gratuitous sex scene. If you're pushing more for horror then it's more of his terror as she consumes him. Or you can run both to really screw with the reader (my favourite approach ;) ).

I'm pretty squeamish about this subject, so this is about as direct as I can comfortably write. Honestly, I'm astonished I finished this one. That's why I enjoy your stories so much---the steamy writing keeps me reading, and the taboo thrill of SV (which I used to loathe) makes every one of them emotionally vivid. (On this subject, I love the way you describe the biology/functions of your various demons. Especially in Wrapdance. I cannot get enough of the line, '“It's over my lovely prey,” she said contently, rubbing a hand on her flat stomach. “Can you feel it? You're in my stomach,”' and how he got in there.) This story was written as a reaction to yours. I wondered what it would look like to resist the seduction. Even I couldn't write a happy ending, though: thank God I'm an atheist.

Sorry for the drive-by shooting of a critique. I keep meaning to get involved in the writing group threads

Not at all, I very much appreciate that you took the time to read it (twice) and write! I hope you get a chance to join in the future!

Tobedumped wrote:Just downloaded the updated version, Andrew-- I look forward to reading it. I envy you for being able to do what looks like a pretty involved rewrite so quickly. I need months of stale time before I can look at anything objectively.

I'm off to Canada in a couple of days, so no time to dawdle! Also, you're undervaluing your comments, which shortcut a lot of fluff in my mind and helped me to focus on what's important. I love the EPWG.

See, now you've conjured up the mental image of Zooey Deschanel performing that song.

Intense eyes...
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Re: Eka's Portal Writing Group - August 2009

Postby Shadow_Walker » Wed Aug 05, 2009 4:49 pm

Yo guys, two more days a'ight?
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Re: Eka's Portal Writing Group - August 2009

Postby 4ofSwords » Wed Aug 05, 2009 5:02 pm

Shadow_Walker wrote:Yo guys, two more days a'ight?


There's nothing wrong with them commenting now.
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Re: Eka's Portal Writing Group - August 2009

Postby 4ofSwords » Fri Aug 07, 2009 7:34 am

This is it! The last day in August to post! Where are those last-minute submissions?
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