All Comments on 'Return from Jail'

Thank you for sharing your story! I appreciate you publishing your erotica for us to view. It can be a scary thing to lay it out there with the potential of it getting harsh critiques, so I wanted to add my own two cents in the hopes that you read them and continue your work with these tips in mind. I only say these will the purest of intentions. Please do not see it as me looking down on your writing. I am learning from you just as you are from me.

With that being said, I’ll pin point a few notes that would be important to remember for future reference. So, "Return from Jail," is a good title and the plot can work for a short story. Violent ex-boyfriend returns on parole, finds where you live, and fucks the shit outta you? I can roll with that, but here are some things that I think could’ve made it stronger.

1- Timeline

Within the first paragraph, you mentioned FIVE time periods, and I caught myself getting confused on what started when or how long one event lasted, etc. Just so you understand what I mean, this is what I’m referring to:

“It's been A WEEK since my ex-boyfriend was let out of prison. It's been THREE YEARS since I last saw him. He was jailed THREE YEARS AGO for theft and assaulting an old man. He was let out early on parole. We lived a very rough life, alcohol, parties, theft, drugs, we lived on adrenaline rush alone. But after he was jailed I moved away and turned on a new leave. I came back to the city A FEW MONTHS AGO and I recently found out he was let out on parole A WEEK AGO.”

I would encourage you to limit your usage of time as it can make your work look convoluted, and if all of those time stamps are imperative to the story, then spread them out throughout the tale instead of bunching them up in one block of writing.

2- Grammar/Punctuation/Synonyms

The first two are pretty self-explanatory. Please look over your work multiple times to make sure you have all the correct grammar and punctuation to your stories- crossing all your Ts and dotting your i’s as they say. I know we may miss one or two during the editing process, but it’s detrimental when there are so many typos that it throws me out of the story. I simply can’t look past it without questioning if this was ever corrected at all, or was it written in one sitting and sent straight to publishing. I believe there are editors in Literotica that help with corrections during PENDING, so you are not totally at fault. In my opinion, this should’ve either been cleaned up by them or sent back to you to change for yourself.

As for the “Synonyms” portion, I find that a lot of adjectives that are used are- in my personal opinion- exaggerated. By this I mean, the protagonist is written to have extreme emotions, there is very little build-up to her terror (and delight) of being forcibly taken by her convict ex.

Examples:

“I was moaning like a deranged woman”

"You deserve so much worse" he whispered and screamed”

“I kept screaming and moaning loudly like a crazy mad woman.”

Personally, I enjoy a little tension before the climax, something that still leaves you thinking, “Will it happen at all?” or that they will have sex, just not in the way you think. Frankly, it feels like you just wanted to get it out on your computer right away and that’s it.

Also, you said the word, "screamed/screaming" at least 4 times, most of them only a few sentences away from one another- in a short story, no less- so it stands out much more when it's overused. Whenever I struggle finding a new word to convey the same message, I have a separate tab on Google and look up synonyms. So, in this case, I would've searched up, "screaming synonyms," and you should definitely have a nice list to choose from.

3- Pacing & Depth

For the pacing, it would be to your benefit if you lead up to the sex a little slower. Like mentioned earlier, your viewers are reading this on an erotica website. They know for a fact your characters will fuck, but it’s HOW they get there that’s most exciting. From the beginning to the end, I figured Michael would return and violate your protag, I knew he’d somehow break in and be insulting with her hating/loving it.

That can still happen, but what if she opens the door expecting Michael, but instead it’s her mother? Or she watches the news and sees a breaking news story about an escaped convict and then Michael appears, obviously lying about being on parole? He assaults the girl and pressures her into going on the run with him, putting her life in jeopardy once more but she secretly enjoys that familiar thrill coming back into her boring, goody-two-shoes, life.

As for depth, the most I could see with your protagonist is that she was scared and aroused by her violent ex. There’s A LOT that can be done with that description alone. Did she come from a rough upbringing? Was she taught that violence solved problems? Is she herself a violent woman but tamed by a more violent man?

I’m not requesting a 3-part trilogy for this explanation, but at the very least a few tidbits that can grant your character more dimension so we could care about her more. She could be a totally innocent victim to her circumstances or just as deranged as her Michael.

For extra clarity, I took one piece of your writing and tried to add more exposition without it being too on-the-nose:

(Original) “I was always nervous and Scared, Micheal was a very violent and rough man and funny enough, that was what I loved about him. I hadn't gone to see him in three years and I'm sure he was pissed. Anytime I heard the doorbell, I freaked out thinking it was him. I just had a feeling that he would come to see me but it's been a week so I guess he won't.”

(Alternate) “I can’t believe it took me this long to notice just how toxic Michael was. I guess I was so consumed by the past, that I didn’t realize just how badly it affected my present. Michael wasn’t always so bad; we would have lots of fun together drinking, going to parties, and having wild sex. But the drinking for him turned daily, the parties turned into drug homes, and wild sex…well, that was still there, because if I didn’t give it up to him he would’ve beat the shit outta me. I’m sure he’s pissed that throughout all this time, I never visited him in jail once, and good riddance. So many people suffer without realizing it and that was me for over a decade. I’m tired of the pain and the excuses. I want to learn to live for myself. At least, that’s what I thought- until the doorbell rang. My heart raced, thinking it’d be him returning to finish what he started, but I cursed at myself for even entertaining the idea. “I don’t want him back!” I said aloud, running to the bathroom to splash water on my face. “I’m just used to it, that’s all…”

To conclude, you have a gem of a plot here that is primed and ready to be a diabolically sexy one-shot. My main concerns revolve around its originality and grammatical errors. One of the last things I want to see when reading an erotica is a story that feels like it’s a compilation of sexy words and the author assuming that’s all it takes to make something seductive.

Regardless of what one may think about erotica, it is just as important as a biography, mystery, or any other genre of writing. It must be handled with care- HAVE FUN for sure- but also prove to your readers that this was created with lots of love and attention.

Keep up the great work and take care! <3

"You deserve so much worse" he whispered and screamed - This is where I stopped reading. If I am 2 or 3 paragraphs in and the word "scream" has been used 3 times (and 1 of those three it was used and shouldn't have been used), I can already tell that the story isn't going to be entertaining to read.