I used to run a series a blog ago called Random Story Encounters. The premise was ripping terrible stories, and... yeah, they were bad, but ripping stuff doesn't really do anything. There's a mild moment of catharsis I get from how upset the story made me, but even so, what does that do? I don't really want to shame authors, and when someone figured out it was their story from the ripping I gave them, it sorta set me back a little bit. What was I actually doing here?
So I may do a semi-regular series critiquing a story across the net. As with RSE's, the author and story will remain anonymous, and if you figure out this is your story, well... here's some critique for you, so I hope that this helps you improve your writing. Because honestly, I really just want to see better writing in the fandom, but people can get squirrelly with a random dude telling you how much your story can be improved. Hell, I got burned by it once, when a random fan started attacking me and my writing because I deigned to find his (assuming, here) favorite author lacking when they are clearly better than I gave them credit. I... respectfully disagreed, but when he went on about how good it actually was and I just didn't see it, I took my leave of the discussion. But yeah, I want to read good stuff. And with that, we begin.
What I Liked
There's very little technically wrong with the story. Author shows a good grasp of grammar and spelling, which doesn't seem to happen as often as you might think. Either that's through the author themselves, or through somebody that at least beta read if not edited the story. Conceptually, I dug that the story was about somebody who's somewhat older than typical, as it's explicitly stated that she turns forty during the course of the story. As this is an adult story, this doesn't happen often (something I'm actually guilty of, too) though the fact that she's older seem a little fetishized. The story seems to aim for "How Stella Got Her Groove Back" but Stella in this case has a daughter and she doesn't go off to an island paradise to rediscover her beauty or whatever (Full Disclosure: I haven't seen nor even read a synopsis of 'How Stella Got Her Groove Back'). And while we don't discover exactly what it is she does, the main character does have a "high-paying job" though this is apparently supplemented by alimony payments, so she has the luxury of being extremely well-off. I also liked how 'Stella' seems to grow in confidence over the course of the story, up to and including the climax. Early on, she probably could have had "justification" to go man-hating lesbian there.
Nitpicks
At one point late in the story, Stella's daughter asks Stella why she's wearing her dress. And considering the gobs of money Stella apparently has, what with her job and alimony, it's a very, very valid question. Stella does not need to poach her daughter's wardrobe for clothing since she can just buy her own, so the fact that she does it unexplained doesn't make much sense to me. This COULD have been a great chance to flesh out Stella's character a little more as she could have been really conservative with her money, so I would encourage the author to think on that when they either write another story or perhaps return to this one. Speaking of Stella's daughter, the spelling of her name abruptly changes once, then changes back and is never referred to again. It was odd.
Also, the title. The title is the weakest bit of the story, but also one that is easily changed. Earlier I likened the story to "How Stella Got Her Groove Back," and there's no reason not to appropriate the title and instead substitute "Stella" in for Stella. It fits quite nicely.
I really do think that the entire beginning could be scrapped, its information used later in the story. I mean, I get that the goal is to establish Stella, Stella's daughter, and the fact that they're both down on their luck in terms of relationships, what with Stella's ex trading in for the new, younger model and Stella's daughter's beau cheating on her. The entire section seems like an info dump, which could have been written a bit more cleverly to hide that.
There were some periods (or full stops) that were used where a comma would have been much better. The sentence otherwise ends up hanging there, looking for something to attached to but denied said attachment due to punctuation. Speaking of punctuation, ease up on the ellipses.
Adult Nitpicks - Maybe it's me, but the incest tag seems to be overselling it a bit. The most mother and daughter do is rub up on one another and kiss. Everything else is taken care of through the plethora of anonymous dicks. I suppose the author should either have the mother and daughter do more with each other or take out that element entirely. I would lean on the side of take it out, as the tag itself and the actual content almost seems like clickbait.
Bro, Are You Kiddin' Me Right Now With This?
...How did they get home? No, really, how? I ask this because apparently they get home, stumble into bed, and wake up with "drying but still quite sticky cum" all over themselves and their sheets. That would only make sense if they walked home, and home was not a very far distance from the club, and they walked home with the sun either rising or about to rise as they stumbled into bed. Semen is part water, and water dries. It does not take hours to do this, so them waking up with still wet stuff on their bodies and sheets makes little sense. In general, the ending was the weakest part of the story outside of the title, with the two lionesses running off (together?) with no apparent stakes set for why they suddenly wanna get away. It was basically "Oh shit, we had an orgy in a club! ...Time to go to [exotic locale here] right the fuck now!"
Wrap it Up
In general, the story was alright. Didn't do the job (ahem) for me, but I would imagine I was an outlier. I really dig the concept, the execution could have been better, but there's a pretty damn good foundation here. I would definitely encourage the author to write more.
If for whatever reason you want me to critique your story publically, drop me a line at [email protected]
