Revising an old story

[aesmael]

I think the opening paragraph of this story, so far titled "By The Window" needs a lot of work.

    Sometimes prospects in person grow thin and it seems necessary to turn to online realms for that freedom of self-disclosure without people taking immediate flight. So it seemed to Lucy, yet still most who found her from her profile were discarded for getting on her nerves. Or turning creepy. Or not actually reading her profile and then running.

As part of an introduction to Lucy, her relationships, and what she gets out of them, this repetition of people running or taking flight evokes images of self-satisfied "I am kinky and therefore too weird to handle" attitudes that I strongly dislike.
 

The main thing being communicated here is that Lucy has a relatively isolated off-line life - at least that she does not find sexual satisfaction there - and that she has also had difficulty in meeting people online who she meshes well with. Also the implication, confirmed right after where the quote cuts off, that she has met at least one person who she does get on well with.

This first scene overall serves as prelude to an IM conversation between Lucy and her friend that then leads to (of course) a scene of sexual exhibition. I think I ought to at least ask myself whether this introductory scene is necessary. Do the IM conversation and sex scene stand on their own, or does the context added in the introduction make them work better?

This post is itself an example of bad structuring. I'm posing questions about the overall worth of an introductory scene without having communicated anything of its content beyond the first paragraph.

If I want to keep the information in that opening paragraph and lose its smug tone the way to do so is probably to add more detail. Say something about specific people Lucy has had bad encounters with, online and off. My main model for this idea is the introductory sequence of Greta Christina's novella "Bending", which I suppose is amusing because this story largely owes itself to another of Greta Christina's stories.

[in fact my main disquiet about "By The Window" is it being a lesser echo of someone else's erotic fiction. if I can I would like to rework it into a state such that it can indeed stand alone, not excuse myself for being a beginner. this may not be possible given its heritage.]

Problem: will require inventing a few quick scenarios to describe, runs the risk of overshadowing the sex scene that is supposed to be the focus of this story. But let's try it see how it goes. Can always try another approach if it is no good.

Of the rest of the scene I have some more personal qualms [this excerpt contains a bit of sex description].

    Lucy trudged into her apartment, changed out of her sweaty clothes into something clean and collapsed into her armchair. She put the night's Funniest Home Videos on and slipped one hand under her pants. The show was usually too brief and choppy to get much out of, but still the best source on TV for regular pain and humiliation. Only sitcoms ever came close.

    There was a clip of a man attempting a cycling stunt, a jump, only to topple over head-first. She imagined how mortified he must be after that, failing instead of triumphing in front of family and friends, the pain of scrapes and dislocated shoulder... Lucy moaned, stroking herself, arching up in her seat until she found release. A much-needed cap to an overheated day.

Usually when I look at this part I want to get rid of Funniest Home Videos part because I disapprove of that show for precisely the reasons Lucy enjoys it. Another more important reason is I would like into my Unified Erotica Setting, and as that world is not our own, there is no such thing as Funniest Home Videos (I originally left of the nation name to leave it a bit ambiguous which Funniest Home Videos she watches, so the reader can imagine if ey likes that she lives wherever would suit eir fancy).

We do learn from this that Lucy is very much into humiliation of others. However, the following scene involves her participating in her own humiliation. Not everything needs to be set up, sure, and I don't think I would count that as a violation of expectations[1]. But expanding the first paragraph into a set of sketches of erotic misfortunes Lucy has experienced lends itself naturally to providing a fuller picture of exactly what she is into, and so this section becomes unnecessary.

If we really want to keep the brief masturbation element (and I think I do, so we get to see her enjoying herself on her own), the television element can probably be replaced by Lucy remembering someone's misfortune she witnessed during the day.

[1] There must be a place for expectation-violating erotica, but for this story I do not aim to create any (repeat ad nauseum on any future posts probably).

After I make these changes I should post comparison excerpts. That seems the appropriate way to follow up on the implicit commitment of having made this post.