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 Review #4085145 |
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| (3.5)    Official Judges' Review Hi Vixey Todd  -I had a chance to read your item today as a judge for the "Paradise Cove Writing Challenge-On Hold" , and have enclosed the following review on behalf of "The Talent Pond" for your consideration. Please keep in mind that these comments are only my own opinions.CONCEPT/PREMISE You did a good job coming up with a creative premise based on the prompt. I was intrigued and interested the whole way through the story. STORYLINE I really liked the idea of the lounging around and subsequent New Year's Eve competition, although there were a few parts that were unclear. Even though it's a New Year's Eve party, the description of the balmy weather and the visibility of everybody being able to see one another made it seem as if the story took place during the day. I would suggest trying to find a way to hint at it being nighttime even more than mentioning it's a New Year's Eve party; perhaps you could describe the fluorescent lighting of the pool area, or other details to key the reader in that this pool party is definitely happening at night rather than during the day. There was also no resolution to Mike's "winning" of the game. Even though it can be implied that his whole plan was to get Aaron and Jill together, I think Aaron should have either won outright, or the story should have focused on explaining how Mike proceeds with his "victory." CHARACTERIZATION I had a difficult time understanding Jill's motivation. Earlier in the story, it's mentioned that wearing a clingy sundress is the closest Jill's gotten to being nude at one of these parties... and suddenly she not only strips down at this party (which is an acceptable stretch), but then quickly concedes to not only being completely naked and participating in a hot tub orgy, but also engaging in public sex with an ex. Without any real explanation, it felt like a stretch that someone would go from prim and proper to full-on gratuitous exhibitionist without the slightest hesitation or reservation. I think Jill needs a reason to shift so quickly into a more assertive sexual role. I also felt like there were too many characters to keep track of in the story. I know that it's a party scene and needs to be populated with multiple characters, but twelve characters felt like a bit much, and when characters need to be listed off at the beginning of a story, the reader can feel disconnected from them and not feel like they're separate individuals. As I read, for example, I repeatedly forgot who was who, and several of the characters (pretty much everyone except Mary, Mike, Jill, and Aaron) were only mentioned in passing less than a half dozen times each in the entire story. I think this might have been a stronger narrative with more compelling characters if you had limited it to Mike & Jill, Aaron & Mary, and one other couple for the purposes of making it seem more like a party and giving us a couple to be eliminated from the competition early on. DIALOGUE The dialogue was effective and moved the story along nicely. Well done! STRUCTURE Other than the details mentioned in the Story and Characterization headings above, I thought the narrative moved along at a nice pace and your rising action was excellent.  TECHNICAL TYPO: She made some progress before Mike allowed her ex, Aaron, to join in their [reindeer] games. TYPO: She turned back to the group in the hot tub and was greeted by masculine cheers and. Both groups encouraged her to continue. (It seems like a sentence fragment or as if the sentence is missing a word at the end... or perhaps the second sentence was meant to be part of the first?) TYPO: Mike and some of the older men closed their eyes to [alleviate] the visual stimulation of bouncing wet breasts. TYPO: "Think of things [non-]sexual; a chair, linoleum flooring, baseball.” OVERALL Overall, I really enjoyed your take on the prompt and I think this story has a lot of potential. Unfortunately, the execution left something to be desires. It could have used a thorough proofread to catch all the minor technical errors, and some revisions would have helped the "too many characters" issues and some of the story structure. I did think it was a good effort, though, and with some work this could be a very exciting erotic New Year's story. Nice work! Unfortunately there were not enough entries to award any of the prizes in the last round, but I'm enclosing some GPs with this review as a consolation prize. I hope that you've found my comments useful. Thank you for the opportunity to read and review your material; keep up the good work and keep writing! Jeff Please check out these items: "The Screenwriting Group" "Unofficial Erotica Newsletter Group" "The Dark Society"  My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
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You responded to this review 02/10/2015 @ 8:48pm EST