All Comments on 'Nazanin'

I was almost put off by the length, but I’m glad I persevered. Hard to put into a few words.

Engaging. Deep. Funny, yet horrific. Definitely not an easy read, but we’ll worth five stars.

Tc

Sorry you removed my comment. I do like your work, just not this story. As l said Ingrid is a far better tale and l sincerely hope you complete it.

It's an imperfect piece, Wargamer, to be sure. I intend to pull it, polish it, and republish it. Thank you for following up. If you want to go more in-depth with some of your criticisms/disappointments/hopes for revision, please know you're welcome to reach out to me via the Lit forums. I might take a sec to respond, but I always appreciate earnest feedback.

Well. I finished it.

First off, 5 stars. Was it perfect? No. Was it very good? Yes. Am I impressed by the quality to length ratio? Highly.

Incest isn't really a fantasy for me. But I found my way here from one of your forum posts. Clicked on a random snippet around page 3 or 4, where Naz was itchy, and ended up starting from the beginning to read the whole thing.

This story is the kind of thing a I like in amateur long form erotica. In fact, I'll go a little harder. This story is the kind of thing amateur long form erotica should be. Let me elaborate...

The plot is insane.

The pacing is all over the place.

And it's incredibly smutty.

All of this is good. If I want formula, clean three act structures, and tasteful sex scenes I'll go read something broadly published, with mass appeal. Authors doing it for the money have to drive between the lines. Amateurs can take risks. And so, it's right to do so. This story takes risks. Some of them pay off. And I love it for that.

I think there are two things you did really really well that work in harmony here.

First, the Naz and Leo relationship is drawn well, and serves as an anchor. Whenever Naz and Leo were dialoguing, I was enjoying myself. The few parts of the story that didn't work for me; I endured them because I wanted to see more Naz and Leo.

Blunt women are hard to write. Society generally encourages women to communicate agreeably and circumspect. Now, we all know women who break this mold. But, let me assure you, those women have learned the steps to a very delicate social dance. A dance with enough subtle complexity that it's hard to capture on the written page. So, women written with these traits often fall into the Madonna/Whore phenomenon.

Naz, to me, does not entirely avoid this trap. But with Leo, her familiar little brother, her straightforwardness seems more natural and believable. The older sibling relationship smooths over a lot of the hard edges that otherwise poke through when the social dance is not perfectly captured.

You wrote their dialogue heavy scenes very well. Witty and believable sibling banter that kept the tension up with their mutual rudeness. To my mind, you have just the right amount of action interspersing the dialogue. Which is, a lot. There is a good bit of scenery chewing and the characters talk in circles sometimes. But I think that works, both for your prose style, and the nature of your story. I'm reading because I'm enjoying Naz and Leo interacting. So I'm happy when you give me that. Even if a traditional interpretation would probably be that the you're lingering.

Here's the second thing I think you did well...

So you've written a pair of characters that the reader wants to see interact. Bam! You've done the hard part. Lots of options from here. You chose to plunk them in a totally bonkers plotline. And I don't just mean content wise. The pacing is crazy too. Half way through the story we transition comparatively rapidly from a steady when-will-they escalation to a full family sex orgy. Hell, I'd practically forgotten the Dad and Mom and then they're naked on the page. And, this isn't really treated as the climax of the story. If anything it's the second act complication.

This madness is all good. I like it.

Again, you've got two characters I'm enjoying spending time with. How do you maximise my enjoyment? By letting me spend time with them in interesting situations of course!

If your fever dream unexplained-mysticism plotline the most elegant way to do this? Honestly, no. It leaves a lot of unanswered questions. And not the satisfying kind. The kind that feel like they probably don't have answers. But that's okay. Small potatoes. Because while it's not elegant, it's effective.

Naz and Leo need something to react to. Something to push their dynamic in a new direction each scene. Something to recontextualize them. And you're doing that. Plus, you're doing it in a way that makes it clear to the reader that the next backdrop could be anything. That's fun. Sure, you sacrifice some of the satisfying anticipation and engagement a saner plot might bring. But I'll make that trade here. Your style lends well to it.

Phew. Okay. I figured your novella deserved a lengthy comment. Hopefully I delivered.

A few minor notes that didn't fit cleanly above. Some of them quite subjective:

- I liked the way you played with "ick" as a running theme. Sweaty/smelly bodies. Incest. Cum. Even just the natural biological ick of sex. For me, it was usually the right balance of gross and sexy to be interesting.

- I thought Naz and Leo's transition into their physical relationship was reasonably paced. That many pages it I appreciated that the last few steps happened rapidly. However, I struggled a little bit when they started really playing with the incest kink in their mid-sex dialogue. Its not that I didn't believe Naz would address that particular elephant, but I think I would have believed it more if it had been more of a she's-teasing-Leo-about-it and less of a it's-hot-that-I'm-you'r-sister. At least initially.

- Loved all the cum play. Big kink for me. Not much else to say there.

- Vaginas being described as having rings kept throwing me off. As a vagina haver I think of it more tunnel or tube like (though tube in particular is not such a sexy word). Yes accepting a wide penetration is more of an exercise for the first few inches. But when compared to like anal play, where "ring" is commonly employed as a descriptor, there's a lot less of a once-it's-in-it's in reality.

- I thought the anal penetrations happened too easily. A lot of just slipping digits into butts. I dunno, a pet peeve of mine I think. Probably purely a preference thing.

- Loved Naz inspecting her nipple and trying to figure out if/where the bug bite was on it. Can relate.

- I saw you on the forums getting into some debates on unusual formatting and dialogue tags. I have this feedback to give: I noticed some of that in this story, bit it was not distracting. You're heavily reliant on italics, but it's working well. They're adding a lot of punch to some key dialogue. I would not suggest leaning any heavier into creative formatting than you're doing here. But also, I think what you're doing is adding to your prose. I'm trying to say that I think you're right on the line and should stay here.

- I should probably mention I'm a woman (in my 30s). I imagine that fairly may color how you view my critiques.

That's all I've got tome for. Thanks for the fun read. Keep writing!