I shared the Una story with a friend and below is his response. Thought
it might be of interest to the group.
I have not had time to work any of these suggestions into the next version,
but wanted to share the 'process'.
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Thought: The chain from collar to rings ... found myself wondering if it
would really work that way. If it would get more painful as he got more
aroused. Yes, it's a technical detail, but in a way SM erotica is like
Science Fiction in that some of why we read it is for the cool gadgets.
They draw attention because the genre is about fetish which is about
objects. This means a couple of things:
1) Like with a Phillip Marlow detective story, if you have a loaded gun
on the desk in the first Chapter, something needs to happen with it by
the last. Usually it goes off. Sometimes it's put away. But if it's
there, then you mean to use it. The reader expects that. (Part of the
contract with the reader. Strongly recommend reading "Fenimore Cooper's
Literary Offenses" by Mark Twain. Whether you're familiar with "Last of
the Mohican's" Cooper or not, doesn't matter, Twain did an excellent job
of describing in a humorous way how stories need to work by how they
don't work. I think I have an e-copy somewhere and can mail it to you.)
2) If there is a device or gear that's part of the story and integral to
the story, it will get attention. So the descriptions need to be very
clear or very vague. That sounds like a dichotomy, but it isn't. There
are two ways to describe something: directly and by inference. Some
writers use both for extra emphasis or greater effect. Either clear so
the reader gets the picture clearly and can carry the template into
other scenarios in the mind's eye or vague so the reader's imagination
is engaged and they take care of the details.
3) With the chain I found myself thinking "I don't know if I got aroused
with a chain from PA to collar if it would hurt more. I think it would
pull less and relieve the discomfort. Might have to try it." That isn't
all bad except for that I wasn't thinking about your story anymore. The
suspension of disbelief failed. You either have to make the chains and
piercings and collar clear enough that I accept that it would work as
represented or you need to get more vague. Yes, sounds like a cop out,
but if the point of your story is something else "vague" can work. The
same way in the first Star Wars movie (I'm assuming you've seen it) we
don't really know much about "The Force" but Alec Guinness waves his hand
and raises and eyebrow and stormtroopers start to do his bidding. Not
much there, but since we aren't *given reason to disbelieve* we believe.
That's what the reader gives you in reading, part of the contract, all
you have to do is not give them a reason to take it back. Sometimes just
saying "there was a chain that connected his piercings and collar
arranged so that his erection increased his pain." works. "arranged so
that" shifts it enough out of focus so that a reader is less likely to
hang up on it.
Suggestion -- again it is "merely" descriptive. You tell. Things need to
be shown more. That concept might seem a bit mysterious ... but work on
it and there are huge benefits, not least of which is that it gets more
immediate. (The more immediate, the more engaged the reader, the more
engaged the reader the more credit you have in the "suspension of
disbelief bank" which means you can take things farther.)
There is a feeling of simply inventorying sensations. To take it a step
further (and make it more active and interactive) make your language
more immediate.
"As the slave completed sucking each of her ten toes, she basked in an
hazy orgasmic afterglow."
Becomes
"The slave completed sucking the last of her toes and she basked in the
hazy orgasmic afterglow."
Or
"The slave finished the last of her toes. Before his lips left her skin
she commanded him to continue from toes to feet and legs. His well
trained mouth prolonging her hazy orgasmic afterglow."
These are still a bit flat, me simply reworking what is there and
working to remain faithful to what is there. Extrapolating a bit from
what I've read I might venture:
"There was no hiding the profound orgasm as it coursed through her. Her
mask returned as the hazy, orgasmic afterglow suffused her. Hungry to
prolong it she commanded him to continue from toes to feet and up her legs."
It is entirely possible that the foregoing describes a completely
different character, but my purpose is to attempt to illustrate an
evolution into showing. The physical actions and reactions remain the
same, if only a little less detailed. Using "hiding", "mask" and
"Hungry" moves the passage from a description of what happened to a
description of what happened *and* how she felt about it. It begins to
imply and tell some things about her character. Her appetites and their
strength, her willpower, her insecurities even.
Change "Her mask returned as the hazy, orgasmic afterglow suffused her."
to "As the haze faded from the orgasmic afterglow, her smile of
satisfaction widened into a feral grin of renewed appetite and she
commanded the slave to continue." and the woman's character transforms.
"A smile crept across Una's face as she watched the eager but doomed
struggle of the slave. She enjoyed watching the way he continued to
strain to please her when every millimeter he moved toward her caused
him increasing pain as the chains pulled cruelly on his nipple and pa
rings. The exertion was obvious from the marked increase in his
breathing, the sweat beginning to show on his chest and shaved head.
Una extended a beautifully manicured hand to caress a rivulet on his
chest, letting her fingers graze the slave's nipple."
The foregoing does a good job of showing. Making the voice more active
would make the visual more focused. Often you can do more with less.
Consider:
"A smile crept across Una's face at the eager but doomed
struggle of the slave. She enjoyed the way he strained to please her
when every millimeter he moved toward her increased his pain. ...."
How you describe the action can amplify the characters. The woman is a
paper doll as the story is. A two dimensional cut out in a Barbie bed,
lots of silk/satin, lots of comfort, and perfect hands and toes. It's a
stock image.
There is *nothing wrong* with stock images. However they aren't very
engaging. A reader tries to "grab on" and they get a paper cut. And the
reader *wants* to grab on. For a story to get interesting there needs to
be at least one character the reader can relate to at some level. The
more you move a character from two dimensional into three and four
dimensions (yes, four, "time" as well ... if you get a character into
that then they are "alive" in imagination) the more the reader can
relate and the more the reader is *in* the story. Some call this a
"window into the work".
Not every character needs to be that way. In fact which ones get more
fleshed out determines how your story works. As it stands the woman is
more fleshed out than the slave. She is the clearly defined point of
entry into the story. So the big criticism is that she is too flat.
There is no room in her for me to get into her too.
There are some interesting hints and potentials, however, which is
really good.
A story has to have tension, "Conflict" is the text book term. And your
reader has a reasonable expectation that the conflict will be resolved.
It's sexual: tension builds to a pitch and is released. (Part of why
thrillers are so popular is that the imagined tension has a physical
manifestation in sympathetic response.)
This is her favorite slave. She's excited by him even when he isn't
there. There's a relationship implied. She is aroused by details of him
even when he isn't present. You establish that early on ... and having
established that ... is like the gun on the desk ... if you put it there
you have to use it.
As the story progresses, there is very little of the slave "shown". If
he's an objectified creature and her bent is about *using* and getting
off on *use* then the setup is wrong. But you've set things up so that
we're expecting that it's not just any mouth on her toes but *his* mouth
that's *really special*.
Now a reader isn't thinking this stuff very consciously ... but it is
working on them. There will be a kind of disconnect going on "if he's so
special, why is he so flat?" will kind of lurk below the surface.
As is there is tension in the fact that there are these two people who
have a relationship that we're expecting to be expressed in these kinky
terms but there is a flatness that could be aloofness. Is that where
this is going?
I like the depth you create. The sense of previous encounters that makes
me eager to understand what seems to be a depth of relating that could
be going on in a kind of aloof formal scening. The visual contrasts of
the opulent bed and the shaved, chained slave ... hardness of steel
in/on flesh and the sensuality of the woman and the setting are a nice
contrast that suits the genre well.
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