Did someone light the Peach Signal for writing critique?
Thank you! I might need to get Peach spotlight installed in my backyard. 
I appreciate you first for taking the time to read this piece as well as for your valuable feedback.
When I wrote this, I really only intended to write the first two scenes as an exercise. It was one of those times when I didn’t have anything in particular in mind so I just started writing.
The third and fourth scenes was really more of experiment to see if I could write something else similar to the first. So if I decide to turn this into a full story, this will not necessarily be the start, or even in this order.
I have never taken a creative writing course so I don’t find simple as being insulting. All of what you’ve said is valuable to me, I take is all in a positive tone. In most of recent writing, I’ve made a conscious effort to avoid using a narrator as much as possible. Griff advised me on this, it’s much better to show than tell a story.
Thank you
I agree on not having a narrator.
1 Unless your narrator has a very distinct voice, a narrator is essentially another layer of removal between the reader and the protagonist. With erotica, you usually want to be as close to the protagonist as possible. There's a reason First Person is so common in romance novels, after all!
What Griff was (probably) suggesting is you go for invisible narration. The "narrator" is essentially nothing more than a "camera" right behind the protagonist, without any opinions or voice of their own. This let's the protag's voice shine though and makes us feel closer to them. The other way to feel closer is to show (not tell) how they feel. They can't do that on TV. Well, they can, but they do it with a close up and really good acting. We can see the emotion on the actor's face, be it confusion, happiness, or what have you. In fiction, we can do that even easier. With TPL (Third Person Limited) you're with one character the whole time, so it doesn't feel jarring to dip into their thoughts, and you want to do that as much as possible. Especially when emotion is high.
The woman screams, unnerved by the pattern. The rhythm is off.
I called this out for a comma splice earlier
2, but this is also a great instance of dipping into the protag's head. This is the kind of thing you want to do a lot of (and another example of Free Indirect Discourse). For real, I really like this sentence! More of this! The only issue is it feels jarring when we haven't been so in their head previously. Earlier we were in the guard's head at the beginning, and even when we switched to Lindsey the narrator felt distant:
Lindsey drops her phone into her handbag, her expression becomes blank. She turns to her left and walks towards the building in front of her, She enters the pub and spots her target sitting at the bar.
Here the narrator describes her
expression. We
see her blankness, we don't
feel it. Then she "turns to her left," describing her moves very clinically, again giving the narration a very detached voice. Imagine the line was something like:
Lindsey goes blank, dropping her phone into her handbag. She turns and walks into the pub to her left---her target is sitting at the bar.
We feel a lot closer to Lindsey when it's phrased this way. Neither is
wrong, of course. But switching between the two styles gives the reader narrative whiplash.
1. Technically all stories have a narrator, but you know what I mean.
2. This is how I would do it. There does need to be a comma, just in a different place. 😁
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