writing critique

	I'll start this off by saying that you should take everythitng I say with a grain of salt, because I'm not a professional, and probably not even a better writer than you are. Still, I can try to offer some advice based on my opinion of your work as a reader and my limited experience as a writer. I'll start by talking a bit about your prose style and then go into characterization and story structuring and so on.


	Your prose is generally quite smooth, and I think it's improved noticeably since your earliest stories. Early on you had more stilted constructions, and now it's hard to find anything that really seems wrong, although I sometimes disagree with your use of semicolons over other forms of punctuation (namely commas or periods). You excel at both normal description and figurative language, which is hugely important in fetish writing. However, I feel your use of those tools is also your downfall sometimes.

	I was thinking about anon's comment -- that your stories had too much exposition -- and I realized that it wasn't the actual amount of background information presented, but how it was presented. Keeping the highly detailed style you use for fetish scenes throughout the whole work can make the non-fetish scenes seem labored, and weighed down with details that are not important enough to justify their inclusion. Using a simpler, more direct style for these parts might help the overall story flow better, while still allowing for properly juicy smut.

	The other advantage of going with a more direct style is that it can make emotional moments more impactful. Cutting away from flowery description to deliver hard, short statements communicates meaning with the structure of the writing as well as the words themselves. I think you did this fairly well in two of your recent stories (Two Princesses and Terror against Tenderness 2) but it could use some refinement.


	Your characters have always been one of the strongest parts of your writing, so it's hard for me to offer advice here. I appreciate how you use appearances as part of your characterization and your decision to blend narration and internal monologue in your more recent works. Most of your stories have been written in fairly loose third person omnicient perspective, and I think sticking to a more limited perspective with changing POVs might help to get into the character's heads a bit more. It can also force you to show the emotions of the non-POV characters in more creative ways because we don't always have a direct window into their thoughts.


	While your exposition can seem long because of your style, I don't think your actual story structures are an issue. You're good about setting up the conflict early (as early as the first paragraph early, which is never a bad thing for a short story) and you don't frontload expository narration like a lot of noob writers do. I think more use of "flashbacks" or non-linear storytelling could be helpful, though. Cutting back to Elizabeth's memory of the statue in Two Princesses worked wonderfully to set up her final mind-break, for example. Using flashbacks can help to flesh out characters and settings a lot, as another form of showing instead of telling, and it allows you to deliver those revelations where they'll matter most.