Eka's Portal Writing Group -- July 2014 -- Closed

[Marked]

The July 2014 round of the Eka's Portal Writing Group is now open!

The EPWG is a casual monthly topic for authors to post short stories or portions of larger stories and get guaranteed feedback. Everyone is welcome to participate! Authors who submit a story any given month are asked to read and comment on the three stories that are assigned to them that same month, but you don't have to be an author to read and give feedback, and authors don't have to limit their feedback just to the stories assigned to them. You can check out the guidelines for participation here, and you can participate in the discussion surrounding the EPWG here, if you'd like.

Authors of all skill levels and interests are welcome (see the guidelines for details); please just make sure you do your best to proofread your submission, and make sure it in some way is related to vore or endo, given the nature of this site.

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DEADLINES:
All submissions for July must be posted in this topic by 11:59pm, Sunday, July 13th.
All critiques for July must be posted in this topic by 11:59pm, Sunday, August 3rd.

[Marked]

To enter this month, just read the first post to make sure you know what's going on, and fill out a copy of this template in your own post!

Instructions: Quote this post when you post your submission. Everything in bold should stay, and everything not in bold should be deleted or replaced. Attach your submission as an .rtf or .doc or .txt or .pdf, or post a link. If you link off-site, make sure it's publicly accessible (no password-protection) and isn't swarming with ads or is poorly-formatted. If using open office, make sure you save as a .doc rather than a .odt file.

ABOUT YOU:
Your name: Answer with how you prefer to be called in posts. (Example: 4ofSwords)
Your writing library URL(s): (Example: http://aryion.com/g3/showgallery.php?id=102910)
Have you read the rules and guidelines, and do you agree to them? (They're only 1127 words. Consider them good preparation for your reading assignment.)
In particular, have you read the part about providing meaty comments (at least two or three good paragraphs, and try to answer the author's questions, if any) on the three stories you're assigned, and do you agree? (This is the heart and soul of the reading group - it's important.)
Have you proofread your own story? (Yes is the only good answer!)

YOUR POST:
Title/Summary: Let us know a little something about the story. Make this part compelling to help you get readers! (Example: Spider Woman. She's a science experiment gone wrong. He's from some shadowy government agency. He … err, the other 'He'... is dinner! Lust, intrigue, and plenty of spidery vore and cocooning!)
Word Count: Give an accurate, discrete, positive integer. There is no hard limit to word count, but stories assigned readers aren't responsible for more than the first 2000 words or so, and stories over 5000 words should be considered for breaking into smaller chapters.
Rating and Classification: Let us know what kind of vore and how much. Be sure to let us know if there is sex, gore, scat, digestion, etc., since those tend to be the major touchpoints. (Example: Rated “R” for descriptive nudity, sexiness, and naughty words. Contains F/M spidery (oral/vampiric) vore.)
Type of Critique Preferred: Do you want it harsh or gentle? In-depth, or impressionistic? Are you looking for the reader to pay special attention to technique, or to grammar, or to style? (Example: Harsh/honest critique is preferred. Tell me what you liked or didn't, or what took you out of the reading experience. Specific examples preferred.)
Questions for the Readers: If there's anything in particular you want the reader to think about or answer, here's your chance! (Example: Was her monologuing a bit much?)

YOUR READING LIST:
Rating and Classification Preferred: Tell us what you'd prefer to read or not to read. (Example: I like sentient female preds. I dislike scat, pain, and cockvore. I will read anything from Pokemon fanfic to the scenes that make Larry Flint blush.)
Critiquing Style: What kind of a critic are you? (Example: I'm a pretty harsh critic who is easily hung up by bad spelling and punctuation. I'm handy at suggesting alternative wording/plot points, etc.)

Don't forget to attach your writing!

Summary of previous Chapters If you need a summary of previous chapters OR key back story, Please insert it via this spoiler area.

Spoiler: show

Quote this post to call up the HTML tags that produced this.

[SREDISKRAD]

I have something for this months that I'm not posting to my gallery until saterday July 12 (that's a late starting date, why so long?

[User1205952]

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[Marked]

that's a late starting date, why so long?

I quite like it. Gives me time to actually prepare something worthwhile this month, which I'm definitely gonna do.

I was late in posting the group this month, but I still wanted everyone to have time to finish their stories. Notice that we will spill over just a little into August, but we will still have three weeks to complete our assigned critiques like always.

[SREDISKRAD]

Will that effect the August group though? I'm not complaining much about the timing, it means I won't forget the deadline busy focusing on making time move faster until I get to watch How To Train Your Dragon 2...

[SREDISKRAD]

ABOUT YOU:
Your name: SRED
Your writing library URL(s): Writing Gallery.
Have you read the rules and guidelines, and do you agree to them? How many times have I been here?
In particular, have you read the part about providing meaty comments (at least two or three good paragraphs, and try to answer the author's questions, if any) on the three stories you're assigned, and do you agree? Again, how many times?
Have you proofread your own story? Yttrium

YOUR POST:
Title/Summary: Playing Roles 1: Some strange things are happening, and now, all of a sudden characters designed for role play purposes are coming to life? What will this lead to in future instalments?
Word Count: 3142
Rating and Classification: Tame, vore scenes are from the preys perspectives and so the detail varies from scene to scene. Swearing and cursing as well as mild threat. First elf pred scene, there is also a Wyrm pred (much more my style.). Willing and unwilling prey and setting up for a series.
Type of Critique Preferred: I want you to be as harsh or as nice as you want, but I want a lot of critique over what questions you are left asking so I can tell you which ones are intentional and which ones are me being bad at picking them up (because I know what I meant).
Questions for the Readers: The Elf pred scene, did I do it well? I don't want to go over it much but I want you to give me some feedback specifically for that. Also, I want to know if you're want to see more of that in the series.

YOUR READING LIST:
Rating and Classification Preferred: I'm just going to say nothing with alternative vore types unless you're Rimentus, and no sex unless it can be avoided.
Critiquing Style: I'm not really sure. I try to pick up things that I think would make things better and point out where things may have gone wrong. Grammar doesn't really annoy me unless u speek lyke ths...then we have a problem and I will tell you.

Don't forget to attach your writing!
Playing Roles 1: two worlds collide...violently

[User1205952]

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[SREDISKRAD]

I'm just going to say nothing with alternative vore types unless you're Rimentus

I'll write a story that includes transsexual cock-vore played by a human pred and a macro whale prey--just for you.

Aww thank you, how considerate. XD

[User1205952]

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[SREDISKRAD]

I wondered when we were going to see those two back, nice to see they're still remembered.

[ScrambleandClick]

ABOUT YOU:
Your name: Saph
Your writing library URL(s): (Example: http://aryion.com/g4/gallery/SapphiraArmageddos)
Have you read the rules and guidelines, and do you agree to them? Yes
In particular, have you read the part about providing meaty comments (at least two or three good paragraphs, and try to answer the author's questions, if any) on the three stories you're assigned, and do you agree? Yes
Have you proofread your own story? Yes (on my own, w/4oS, and w/SRED). There are some other edits (due to SRED's feedback) that I wanted to get in for this, but I'm not sure if I can get them in in time. I'll add questions regarding how effective the edits I'm thinking of would be to the questions unless I get in those edits before 2014-07-13.

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YOUR POST:
Title/Summary: Kinship (<- click for the story) is about a young haustian named Novi who is attending a school on the main planet of Alphe-Terra during Era 1. He's wary of the people attending school because of how people treated haustians in the past, but starts to overcome this with the help of Henry, a young venator. A young wolf named Ivan is also wondering what is up with that device Novi's wearing...

Word Count: 2007
Rating and Classification: "G" for hints of predation that's never followed through. Also, Novi's adorable. At least to me.
Type of Critique Preferred: Nitpick me over my writing mechanics and rhythm. Sometimes they fly over my head. I also want to know if any mistakes in the grammar highly interfered with your ability to understand the plot. Finally, please include some commentary on the plot. There are also places in my typing that involve some long sentences, so if there's way to chop those up, do let me know. Some important exposition bits might also sound dry, so suggest ways to spice those up.

Also, if there is stuff that could be shown instead of told, please let me know. Dialogue flow checks are also vital here.
Questions for the Readers:
Just on the story itself

• What impressions do you get from Novi? (eg: he's a wimpy little brat because ${reasons}) Same for Ms. Concordia, Henry, and Ivan.
• Was the plot self-contained enough? I'm hoping to make the stuff on Novi a series of short stories instead of chapters.
• There's a mana level count repeated throughout the story. Even without an explicit statement saying how mana is the life force, do the mentions give an ominous vibe?
• What were the most interesting parts of the story to you?

Possible edits

• The first edit I'm thinking of is inserting a scene where Novi spots a viltal who forgot to bring some plants to school to keep themselves nurtured and accidentally lashes out at another student due to low mana levels. The viltal student gets handed a plant from the emergency stock to hold while the other student is taken to the nurse's office to get his mana restored.
  
  I hope to show that mana is important because it's the life force (might've been implied, but not too strongly, in the description of the viltal) and that viltal (and by extension, haustians) are able to deal with mana fluctuations in their bodies more easily. However...I feel like that inserting such a scene might derail from the plot unless the human student that was accidentally drained and that viltal student become permanent characters. Does anyone else think such an edit might have the same effect?
  
• The second edit I'm considering is showing some more of the lunch scene (in particular, Novi trying to sit with some anthros). The next story I plan to write (it's kind of there, but I still need to sentencize it) is about Novi's first encounter with bullies (they're all anthros) from the school while he's going back to the space port. Novi saw the leader of them earlier. This is still true, but I cut out the short glance he had because it was connected to a lengthy explanation of the school's policies and how Novi didn't feel like the school was living up to them. Expanding the lunch scene would allow for Novi to recognize the bully leader from the office, give Henry more screen time (as in dialogue), and set up the foreshadowing for that specific bully to encounter him just after school.
  
• The third edit I'm considering is specifying Novi's mana level at the spaceport. It'd show how sensitive mana can be to an individual's thoughts (especially to the more magically sensitive haustians and viltal) by having those mana levels drop by more than 1% each time Novi checks. That and it's probably raising questions like, "Hey, why is Novi allowed to roam around with such a small level of mana now?" Was anyone else thinking that question while reading?

Important BG info:

Spoiler: show

Aeon's Peak Middle School is a middle school in Lia Fail, a cloud city in Alphe-Terra. Cloud cities are important because they serve as midway points for travel between the moon and the main planet. Because of the enormous amount magic required to make the cloud cities hospitable, some of the equipment the school SHOULD be having (like mana fountains for the viltal) would detract from the magic keeping the cities afloat.

The school is also participating in Benevol's anti-speciesism program by trying to equalize education among species ('cept for PE and ME (magic education), which is still tailored on a per-species basis). The staff's trying their hardest to provide this, but even they are having problems with living up to the standards Benevol set. Some of them make sense, such as always arranging the desks in a circle so that way everyone has view of the teacher and making EVERYONE wear uniforms (yes, even the teachers). Some of the policies are kind of *cough*weird*cough*, such as not having backpacks because they "discriminate" against winged people and tail-packs because they "discriminate" against people without tails.

Some of you may also be wondering, "Hey, why aren't there vending machines for the haustians to get those cat heads to nom?" Putting those in can't be done yet because Benevol was still cautious about putting such things in public because he knew they wouldn't be accepting of it yet.

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YOUR READING LIST:
Rating and Classification Preferred: Strong preference for same-size soft vore where at least one of the participants is unwilling. Macro/micro is okay to some extent as long as the predator still has to put effort into eating their prey. Scat and watersports are a huge no for me. Gender and species don't really matter except if the partners involved are not sentient or are plants (love demi-human and human preds though). However, if I were forced to sort gender preferences in some order, I'd say M/F, F/M, M/M, then F/F.

Significant character development is usually enough to sway my usual preferences. I also prefer it if I don't read things that make assumptions like angels == good and demons == bad without some creative interpretation and want preds to actually require having to eat sentients to live.
Critiquing Style: I'm usually gentle on punctuation, grammar, and spelling except if it interferes with understanding the plot. This is kind of strange given how nitpicky I am outside of creative writing about it. I tend to focus more on plot issues.

[User1205952]

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[User1205952]

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[User1205952]

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[SREDISKRAD]

ABOUT YOU:
Your name: SRED
Title/Summary: Playing Roles 1: Some strange things are happening, and now, all of a sudden characters designed for role play purposes are coming to life? What will this lead to in future instalments?
Word Count: 3142
Rating and Classification: Tame, vore scenes are from the preys perspectives and so the detail varies from scene to scene. Swearing and cursing as well as mild threat. First elf pred scene, there is also a Wyrm pred (much more my style.). Willing and unwilling prey and setting up for a series.
Type of Critique Preferred: I want you to be as harsh or as nice as you want, but I want a lot of critique over what questions you are left asking so I can tell you which ones are intentional and which ones are me being bad at picking them up (because I know what I meant).
Questions for the Readers: The Elf pred scene, did I do it well? I don't want to go over it much but I want you to give me some feedback specifically for that. Also, I want to know if you're want to see more of that in the series.

Hey SRED,

Jasmine came down hard on Jimmy

Given that this is a fetish site after all with plenty of stories about sex, that’s not the best way to start the story. Unless it was intentional but…just saying.

Actually, I hadn't noticed that and had a right good giggle when you pointed it out. XD It was unintentional to say it like that, but hopefully it still made sense when it was put into context.

I have gotten used to your writing style, and I found this piece quite entertaining to read. The concept was interesting, but I’d like to know how exactly these computerized characters manage to slip into real life. A proper reason, that is. “Foundations of space-time falling apart” seems a bit weak.

you're just going to have to wait and see, aren't you then this is a series afterall.

Jasmine wasn’t designed to be the same as Jimmy, so is the elf really capable of making her internals safe for Eyrin? Eyrin isn’t a vorarephile so she wouldn’t have given Jasmine the ability to do so, unless of course Jasmine and Jimmy have developed a sort of realistic sentience that allows them to do things as they please.

Ok, this is a plothole, so now I can either neglect it, or have her spit up a very burned Eyrin...which one would be more fun to me though XD. (Poor Eyrin)
[quoteThe elf vore was interesting, though was a little short compared to the wyrm vore. Not that I’m complaining but I’d expected something much more lengthy that includes descriptions typically seen in vore scenarios with humanoid preds. [/quote]
1) I'm not a huge fan of human vore and never really dabble in it it as it's not "appealing" to say the least, 2) they were in a bit of a hurry anyways, so, perhaps next time.

Timothy unplugged his keyboard and smashed it into his sister, Eyrin’s, face.

I have to admit that sounds pretty damn painful. Keyboards aren’t made of biscuits. You could knock someone out if you smash a keyboard so hard it broke into two.

again, minor plothole, I'm ignoring it and saying that keyboards are made from paper mache and wood.

He was inquisitive, but intelligent

You made it sound as if intelligence is a bad thing by using ‘but’. Is there a reason why?

I meant to make inquisitive sound like the bad thing instead, making intelligence the good thing.

“Right, I am James and it’s nice to meet you all. It’s going to take me some time to learn your names so sorry if I don’t remember them at first.”

I’m with James on this one. There was a lot of name dropping and I’m finding it hard to remember them all. Most of them don’t even appear in the later part of the story either.

padding for the sake of padding...also, characters if I need more edible fodder.

I giggled, “And you are fucking perfect.” He laughed, “I didn’t know perfect had a vagina.”

I didn’t get that joke.

fucking: verb; to have sex (vulgar, slang). Fucking: secondary adjective; to enhance the meaning of the adjective (fucking perfect, fucking brilliant)

It's a pun.

Personally, I don’t mind seeing this develop into a series. Whether you want to include more elf vore is entirely up to you. I’d like to see a much larger plot in play, and I’m sure it’ll be a fun read.

Oh, there will be a larger plot, a better explanation as to the wheres and whys of the RP creatures coming to life.

[User1205952]

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[ScrambleandClick]

Hey Saph,

So I’ve read the story. Or to be honest, it was really just one classroom scene with a ton of backstory. It reads more like an intro piece to something much larger.

Also, if there is stuff that could be shown instead of told, please let me know.

My biggest gripe about this piece was the excessive amount of telling involved. It was interesting reading about the origins of the viltal, venator, haustians and antros, but I had to get through eleven paragraphs of infodump before we returned to the story, and by then I had already forgotten that the students were supposed to be reading their ebooks.

All of that infodump could be revealed elsewhere when the scene demands it. You’re missing out on creating intrigue by having to explain everything to the readers at the start. For example, that paragraph that started from “During lunch time…” and the two paragraphs that followed could be left aside for a proper scene of its own. The classroom scene will still work without it. It’ll make readers curious as to why Novi has a venator friend and why the anthros are afraid of him (which would all be explained when you write that lunch time scene later in the story).

@the infodump in the beginning: I could definitely remove the infodump about the anthros when I get the more in depth scenes for Novi, Ivan, Henry, and the lunch group written out (since this'll be important to show).

The background around the viltal and the venator is going to be important later in the story because of Henry (and possibly the viltal character that'll pop up with the introductory scene establishing the importance of mana). Should I take out the info dumps on those two and let the reader find out. Furthermore, this revision of it was written at a time I hadn't thought about Era 0 too deeply. Now that I do have a fair grasp of Era 0's feel, it should be easier to show the info on the viltal and venator instead of telling it (because those two have quite a history outside of Era 1).

I think part of the excessive infodumping was due to my own confusion on what the hell it meant to strike a proper balance between show and tell because there's a lot of vital information that'd take me forever to show ><;. The last time I tried showing without telling too much just fell flat on its face... The other solution I had to that was putting up some tech docs so I wouldn't have to repeat basic racial information every time I write something in AT (because that'd be a chore and incredibly awkward to write characterizing descriptions on the same racial data every time even though I feel like that's something I should probably muster the patience to do), but, well, that doesn't work either. It feels like I'll have to write from the very beginning when often, the ideas that come to me for stories in there are chronologically out of order.

I'm just at a loss at where to put all these basic bits of info because sometimes it feels like I'm ramming my head into a wall when it feels like I'm going to repeat information over and over again no matter what I do And the feeling that I just don't know how to write story beginnings when there's a lot of back info needed when I try to write at a faster pace. I think the best I've done on this is on this other project I've been planning to write, but it isn't as frustrating to think about because I don't have to cover and re-cover basic anatomical details.

I should be able to do it, but I think part of the reason why I can't seem to focus myself enough to do it when the narrator isn't someone from AT is that I tend to get irritable when I have to repeat information for more than three times.

What impressions do you get from Novi? (eg: he's a wimpy little brat because ${reasons}) Same for Ms. Concordia, Henry, and Ivan.

Novi seems a little naïve and awkward, which is interesting considering that he’s a haustian. Also a loner, perhaps? Though it’s not hard to imagine why given the way he behaves when his mana is low (and the fact that he’d let his mana levels get so low in the first place).

Ms. Concordia doesn’t seem to be very bright, despite being a teacher. I’m sure she’s aware of the special needs of some of her students, yet continues to take no notice when Ivan warns her that Novi looking at him like food.

There’s nothing much I can say about Henry and Ivan with the meager information you’ve provided about them. All I know is that Henry was raised by a milityman and has adopted his father’s habits, while Ivan’s a wolf who’s a little worried that Novi might have an appetite for canines on that day.

@about Novi: Not necessarily a loner, buuuut, yes. He's kind of socially awkward and being on the main planet where there's a bunch of non-edibles plus some background that I almost spoiled in an earlier draft, but chose not to, makes this worse for him. He'll eventually learn to get a hold of himself as it continues.
@about Ms. Concordia: There's some history to Ms. Concordia that'll explain why she's like this. However, I haven't outlined all of the necessary POV stories for her yet.
@about Henry and Ivan: Yeah, the way they were currently written made me think ><;. It would've been more interesting to see Henry mention the stuff about the military and have Novi cringe at the sound of the word until Henry clarified. As for Ivan, his personality's a little fuzzy on me, but I have a feeling he'll be much more important later in the story because of a mental image that popped in my head.

Was the plot self-contained enough? I'm hoping to make the stuff on Novi a series of short stories instead of chapters.

It works as a sort of introduction to your series of short stories. It feels more like a prologue than a story with an actual plot.

Mkay, that's what it felt like to me too, even after the first few proofreading rounds . There was an extra scene that would've been added to the end of it (even before the edits), buuuuut, it would've felt too rushed without the edits I'm now considering.

There's a mana level count repeated throughout the story. Even without an explicit statement saying how mana is the life force, do the mentions give an ominous vibe?

I guess it does.

Note to self: probably need to fix the center-aligned text to actually show center-aligned on EP. And to make those counts actually seem more worrying, but that'll probably by going through the scenes for the edits.

What were the most interesting parts of the story to you?

I do like how Novi’s character is being portrayed. He is an interesting choice for a main character. Of course, it would’ve worked better without the excessive telling, but I do find it interesting learning more about his character.

See previous bit about the excessive telling for why I'm at a loss of how to approach the excessive telling issue if I'm working with a limited 3rd person POV narrator that's a native of the world. Often times, they'd use specialist terminology (viltal, anthro, mana, key locations, etc.) that'd easily lose the reader if I don't put in info dumps like that s:. Is it all right to use that off the bat? Because I keep thinking that it isn't.

As for Novi's personality, I meant for him to be the "he's your average everyday haustian in Era 1" type of person because I felt it was important to write this series to show that the factories on the moon, while they may be pretty fucked up, did allow them to try to live somewhat normal lives. This will be further expanded upon when I get to introduce Novi's parents.

In regards to your possible edits, I have to wonder why didn’t you include them into the story itself as a way to show how things work in your story, rather than tell everything through your introductory paragraphs. As it is, I wouldn’t be too worried about derailing the plot, when there’s no actual plot to follow. I would’ve liked to see those first two edits in particular.

I didn't include those edits because I hadn't finished them in time for the deadline (though, considering how late we're holding these discussions, it wouldn't be out of the question to try squeezing similar edits into other entries the next time around if there's few people). Part of the interferences for getting those edits finished was IRL stuff ><;. And code. I code a lot on my free time too and writing code's often easier than toning down my patience for a native narrator.

As for me asking questions of my own, I do wonder what a tail-pack looks like, since you hardly describe it. I’d imagine it’d be strapped around base of the tail, but is it really ideal to have a pack on your tail, since the tail tends to move around so much? It’ll jostle the contents of the pack quite a lot.

I've been doing a few doodles (based on the mental images I was working with when writing the story) and they come in two variants. The first one straps to the waist and the length of the tail and hangs the contents off the bottom. The second variant has a series of packs lining the sides, but has the same strap setup as the first variant.

How do these wristwatches work, by the way? How do they detect mana levels within an individual?

The wristwatch models for the viltal interface with the mana tendrils on the outside. The models for the haustians need a special receiver that has to be ingested due to the peculiarities of their mana system (the inside tendrils). That receiver is small, indigestible, and transmits what it finds from interacting with the mana tendrils lining the stomach.

[User1205952]

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