Touched By A Goddess

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I found it very unfocused. The abusive driven masturbation fantasy aspect could be funny in an extended gag sort of way if it wasn't played so straight. The protagonist, somehow, seems to win this confrontation, in that he doesn't learn anything (as evidenced by the apple-shaped ass comment) and appears to enjoy the beating and humiliation, which makes Eris essentially useless. She's objectified more through that than she is by being described as some statuesque stripper, because she is only actually there to serve.

If you want to go ahead and argue that Eris wouldn't bother changing her form for the protagonist, whatever, but here she lacks the power to affect even a self described loser. Why does it need to be Eris at all, if you're going to use none of her actual traits? She's just some self help dominatrix with no subtlety.

I think you kinda put your finger on it, there.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Other thoughts:

Who the fuck is the random guy who picks her up supposed to be, and what is he adding to the story?

Is there a reason Eris is bucking mythology in order to be beautiful, other than gratification of the male gaze?

People do that so they don't have to feel weird about wanking it to a terrifically old lady with blood up to her kneecaps.

Well everyone has their hang ups I guess.

There are in fact unexplained plot reasons for Melvin happening to be blessed with a vision of Eris 'with her face on'. In my mythos she has cultivated the old hag look for some centuries true. The better to not have to deal with unnecessary bullshit, also Greeks be talking some scandalous shit.

Altering a corporeal vessel is exhausting work and she wasn't about to mess up her look just to deal with a little stain like Melvin. Time is money.

So she's weak, useless, ornamental, and basically only exists to serve men? That's kind of what I'm getting from all this.

Something I used to tell aspiring poets who were spending a lot of time defending their work from critiques is that if you find yourself spending a lot of time explaining or defending your writing, one of two scenarios is probable: either you have presented it to the wrong audience, or it's bad. Either way, your time is more productively spent either figuring out who your audience is, or rewriting, and you can pretty much never go wrong with rewriting.

I also warn against the allure of retreating to people who reassure you it's good. They're the literary equivalent of friends who won't tell you when you have something stuck in your teeth.

[Doktor Howl]

Other thoughts:

Who the fuck is the random guy who picks her up supposed to be, and what is he adding to the story?

Is there a reason Eris is bucking mythology in order to be beautiful, other than gratification of the male gaze?

People do that so they don't have to feel weird about wanking it to a terrifically old lady with blood up to her kneecaps.

Well everyone has their hang ups I guess.

There are in fact unexplained plot reasons for Melvin happening to be blessed with a vision of Eris 'with her face on'. In my mythos she has cultivated the old hag look for some centuries true. The better to not have to deal with unnecessary bullshit, also Greeks be talking some scandalous shit.

Altering a corporeal vessel is exhausting work and she wasn't about to mess up her look just to deal with a little stain like Melvin. Time is money.

So she's weak, useless, ornamental, and basically only exists to serve men? That's kind of what I'm getting from all this.

Something I used to tell aspiring poets who were spending a lot of time defending their work from critiques is that if you find yourself spending a lot of time explaining or defending your writing, one of two scenarios is probable: either you have presented it to the wrong audience, or it's bad. Either way, your time is more productively spent either figuring out who your audience is, or rewriting, and you can pretty much never go wrong with rewriting.

I also warn against the allure of retreating to people who reassure you it's good. They're the literary equivalent of friends who won't tell you when you have something stuck in your teeth.

Wrong audience, I think.  The 50 Shades of Grey junkies are about due for a fix.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Other thoughts:

Who the fuck is the random guy who picks her up supposed to be, and what is he adding to the story?

Is there a reason Eris is bucking mythology in order to be beautiful, other than gratification of the male gaze?

People do that so they don't have to feel weird about wanking it to a terrifically old lady with blood up to her kneecaps.

Well everyone has their hang ups I guess.

There are in fact unexplained plot reasons for Melvin happening to be blessed with a vision of Eris 'with her face on'. In my mythos she has cultivated the old hag look for some centuries true. The better to not have to deal with unnecessary bullshit, also Greeks be talking some scandalous shit.

Altering a corporeal vessel is exhausting work and she wasn't about to mess up her look just to deal with a little stain like Melvin. Time is money.

So she's weak, useless, ornamental, and basically only exists to serve men? That's kind of what I'm getting from all this.

Something I used to tell aspiring poets who were spending a lot of time defending their work from critiques is that if you find yourself spending a lot of time explaining or defending your writing, one of two scenarios is probable: either you have presented it to the wrong audience, or it's bad. Either way, your time is more productively spent either figuring out who your audience is, or rewriting, and you can pretty much never go wrong with rewriting.

I also warn against the allure of retreating to people who reassure you it's good. They're the literary equivalent of friends who won't tell you when you have something stuck in your teeth.

Wrong audience, I think.  The 50 Shades of Grey junkies are about due for a fix.

[Doktor Howl]

I hate to discourage writing, and I think Joe's got the ability to write.

But I'd be interested in seeing something a little less Thornley Pron.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

On a serious note, I seem to recall that you mentioned somewhere that you want to be a writer. The best way to make that happen is to keep on doing what you're doing -- writing -- and showing it to people who will mercilessly shred your writing again and again and again, while you rewrite and rewrite and refine. Some of your stories -- the majority of them, in fact -- will just be straight-up shit that you will later be embarrassed for having written. That's OK. Nobody is a good writer out of the gate. Some of those shit stories will end up providing kernels of future stories that will be good. Some of them won't. But keep on writing, and keep on showing your stories to people who are critical. Preferably people who will have  the time and patience to go through them line-by-line and brutally tell you what's wrong with every single sentence. Those people seem like assholes now, but they are giving you a gift that you will eventually appreciate deeply, when you are able to write stories that have only minor flaws.

I highly recommend that you read Stephen King's "On Writing", which is a stunningly good book. Best thing he's ever written, by miles and miles. I also liked Anne Lamott's Bird By Bird, and somewhere, there is at least one excellent article by Octavia Butler on writing. One of her pieces of advice that I've never forgotten is that to be a writer, you must write. That seems incredibly obvious, but one mistake I see from a surprising number of people is that they're always "going to write" instead of actually writing, and you don't become a good writer by thinking about writing.

So you're doing exactly the right thing by writing, even if your story sucks and nobody likes it. Keep doing it (and listening to criticism) and you will get better. In the meantime, I will share with you two critical pieces of wisdom I have had better writers tell me again and again and again and again: 1. Show. Don't tell. Whenever you are tempted to add a sentence like "she was stunning" or "various dazzling jewelery", ask yourself whether it's necessary and whether it adds to the story. If the answer to both of those is no, which it almost always will be, delete it. 2. Murder your darlings. If there is a phrase or a sentence or even a paragraph that you're particularly proud of, perhaps even rereading it to yourself with a bit of pleasure at how clever or excellent it is, it's probably the worst bit of writing in the whole thing. Take it out. Save it in a special file if you must, but get it the fuck out of your story.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I hate to discourage writing, and I think Joe's got the ability to write.

But I'd be interested in seeing something a little less Thornley Pron.

Yes, this. I also want to point out that we aren't saying any of this because we don't like you. The opposite, in fact, is true; when you first posted it nobody would be bothered to give you feedback. But that was then, this is now, you've shown yourself to have potential, and it is my suspicion that I am not alone in the fact that I'm criticizing your story because I like you and think you are a promising writer.

[Don Coyote]

I second Nigel's first point of "show don't tell" which is probably part of the root of the overabundance of adverbs and adjectives.

I strongly second MURDERING YOUR DARLINGS. Hack them out. Put them in jars. You can always massage them back in later.

[The Wizard Joseph]

Ok, so this is just a scene in a larger work that has nothing to do with Melvin outside of this scene? I think that perhaps it may be losing some of its intended meaning out of context from the rest of the story.

It surely does. This little piece was something I just started writing spontaneously here on PD. As Melvin's Stockholm Syndrome like obsession grows so does his knowledge of the dark supernatural corners of the world. Of course his state sponsored councilor merely believes Melvin to be slipping into a schizoid delusion.

I've not fully fleshed many of my stories to print, but this bit resides here because this is where it was inspired.

By the way good to see you around Twid!

[The Wizard Joseph]

I found it very unfocused. The abusive driven masturbation fantasy aspect could be funny in an extended gag sort of way if it wasn't played so straight. The protagonist, somehow, seems to win this confrontation, in that he doesn't learn anything (as evidenced by the apple-shaped ass comment) and appears to enjoy the beating and humiliation, which makes Eris essentially useless. She's objectified more through that than she is by being described as some statuesque stripper, because she is only actually there to serve.

If you want to go ahead and argue that Eris wouldn't bother changing her form for the protagonist, whatever, but here she lacks the power to affect even a self described loser. Why does it need to be Eris at all, if you're going to use none of her actual traits? She's just some self help dominatrix with no subtlety.

Actually Eris is a total psychopath by human standards, but not a sadist. In this sequence Eris has no time for subtlety and enters the scene expecting a predator about to lose life AND table. Finding sorry ass Melvin was almost a let down for her. Strife gets to know Melvin, judges him in moments, and finds him wanting but not malignant. She gets, perhaps, carried away and nearly undoes him entirely while 'correcting' him. The gods can be..  unkind.

The Deus ex from the Wizard is meant as a device and a revelation that at least some can hear the psychic assault going on other than Melvin.

In no way did Melvin enjoy his treatment and at the end is no longer the same from his trauma, but he is still a little creeper.

[The Wizard Joseph]

I hate to discourage writing, and I think Joe's got the ability to write.1


But I'd be interested in seeing something a little less Thornley Pron.

Happily. This is quite far from what I think is my best work. Or even important within it's setting as an event.


1 This really means something to me, thank you!

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

You keep referencing your other stories, but reality is that we only have this one. That's the context you gave us. That's what we're actually working with.

Your other stories are functionally completely irrelevant in this discussion. It's like playing a song to a crowd of people and then following up with "it's much better when you listen to the entire album". We don't have the entire album, we have the song. You cannot change the crowd's experience of the song by explaining that it all makes sense if they just listened to all the songs before and after it on the album.

Perhaps a good question to ask yourself is why you put this here, what you want us to get out of it, and what you want yourself to get out of it.

What do you want?

[The Wizard Joseph]

Every time I see this thread, I am filled with an overwhelming desire to say "please show me on the doll where the goddess touched you".

*looks grim and full of agonizing shame as he points to the top of the head and begins blubbering*

[The Wizard Joseph]

You keep referencing your other stories, but reality is that we only have this one. That's the context you gave us. That's what we're actually working with.

Your other stories are functionally completely irrelevant in this discussion. It's like playing a song to a crowd of people and then following up with "it's much better when you listen to the entire album". We don't have the entire album, we have the song. You cannot change the crowd's experience of the song by explaining that it all makes sense if they just listened to all the songs before and after it on the album.

Perhaps a good question to ask yourself is why you put this here, what you want us to get out of it, and what you want yourself to get out of it.

What do you want?

Whatever it is I want it's almost nothing like what I wanted when I wrote this. Perhaps it was less what I wanted to get out of it and more about what I wanted to get myself out of.

Being tagged into a Disco Group on FB provoked a distaste or certain dissatisfaction with how I had so far interacted. I posted the link here in an almost angry moment as though to stir things and see what happens as a consequence. Perhaps in some attempt to stir myself, I don't know.

So far so good... the criticism and encouragement so far HAVE surely provoked me positively.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

You keep referencing your other stories, but reality is that we only have this one. That's the context you gave us. That's what we're actually working with.

Your other stories are functionally completely irrelevant in this discussion. It's like playing a song to a crowd of people and then following up with "it's much better when you listen to the entire album". We don't have the entire album, we have the song. You cannot change the crowd's experience of the song by explaining that it all makes sense if they just listened to all the songs before and after it on the album.

Perhaps a good question to ask yourself is why you put this here, what you want us to get out of it, and what you want yourself to get out of it.

What do you want?

Whatever it is I want it's almost nothing like what I wanted when I wrote this. Perhaps it was less what I wanted to get out of it and more about what I wanted to get myself out of.

Being tagged into a Disco Group on FB provoked a distaste or certain dissatisfaction with how I had so far interacted. I posted the link here in an almost angry moment as though to stir things and see what happens as a consequence. Perhaps in some attempt to stir myself, I don't know.

So far so good... the criticism and encouragement so far HAVE surely provoked me positively.

Fair enough.

I would be interested in seeing what a rewrite would look like.