Romance Story - 3 pages

Hi!

So, I've been writing a bunch of dark stuff lately and I needed a mental palate cleanser.

Contract Extensions is in the Romance section. It's supposed to be short (it is), a little slow, a little romantic and a little sweet.

Whatever feedback you have would be appreciated. Positive, negative, neutral - it's all good.

My next story will also be in Romance and it's at least twice as long, so I'm enjoying dipping my toes in the waters with this one.

https://www.literotica.com/s/contract-extensions

Thanks!

It's a lovely, heartfelt story. I did not find it slow at all, at every point I wanted to know about these well drawn characters.

Thanks. I appreciate your taking the time to read it.

I respect your opinion, especially considering your character and world building skills, so thanks for the input.

In the past month (?) I've seen you request feedback several times. None of us are getting paid to give feedback. We do it out of a desire to help others.

You should consider giving back.

AwkwardMD said:

In the past month (?) I've seen you request feedback several times. None of us are getting paid to give feedback. We do it out of a desire to help others.

You should consider giving back.

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This is the second time I've requested feedback. I've also created a thread where I gave feedback about three writers and their work. Additionally, I've done beta-reading and given feedback and input on numerous stories via email and pm with other writers.

I'm not trying to be defensive or picky here. If you seriously think that I've been abusive in not reciprocating, I'll keep that in mind.

Okay.

I'm not a Romance reader and your story has a great rating, so take my criticism with a grain of salt
* Way too much narrative summary at the beginning
* Your story should start before something interest happens. I think the family moving into the brother's house was where you should have started the story
* To me, one way to get the reader to scene two is to have something mysterious in scene one. By having so much narrative summary at the beginning, you tell us too many answers. I think it would have been better to have hinted at things. If you had started the story with:

The breeze coming down from the hills was cool for once. Beautiful weather, an ice cold Shiner Bock and a comfortable chair made my porch a perfect late spring oasis. It was my daily routine to relax before supper and read any new tech articles. As I skimmed through something about problems with Google's corporate culture, the moving van pulled into the driveway at my brother Jerry's house. I immediately realized that I would have to stop calling it that, even if it was only in my head. I put my glasses on the table next to my chair and watched as the men moved box after box into the house.

About twenty minutes after the movers arrived a large sedan pulled up with a woman and three kids. She popped the trunk and they all started hauling boxes and some bags into the house. I found them annoying. They didn't fit in the neighborhood, I could tell that right away. She was beautiful but seemed snooty and the kids would be a loud annoyance. Her husband probably wouldn't wait a week before trying to borrow some tools.

Yeah, I wouldn't be thinking any of this if they moved into a different house. I knew that but I didn't really care. I was annoyed and I wanted to indulge my anger and self-pity. My brother was taken from me. The rest of my family were ingrates. Screw these people. I closed the laptop, grabbed my glasses and beer and went inside.

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I would have very interested in what happened to his brother Jerry, why he felt so strongly about his brother and why did he consider the rest of his family ingrates
* Probably just me, but I didn't like the repeated discussion of her body with no mention of her face. Describe her facial gestures. What's her expression when she comes home as Mark is ordering the movers around? I'd be paying for more attention to that than her body in that situation. What are her facial expression as she bargains with Mark? By not discussing her face, you give the impression that she's just a body to Mark
* I kept wondering - shouldn't Mark have been the executor of Jerry's estate? Should he had been the one to sell the house for the first time? Shouldn't he have met Maria at the close?
* I thought your negotiating scene was a flop. Why would Mark offer more than what she countered with? That's not how negotiations work. I felt it came across as slightly insulting
* I read to the top of page two and lost interest

Edit:
* Also, since Obamacare went into effect, someone with cancer could buy medical insurance for the same price as anyone else his age. It isn't clear how long it's been since Jerry's death, but it seems relatively recently. Pancreatic cancer isn't something that lingers on for years
* I get that the brother and sisters move away, taking the nephews and nieces with them. Why didn't any families move back in to take their place? You make it sound like those homes are standing empty

Thanks, 8Letters. I appreciate the feedback. All good points and I'll keep them in mind when I revisit the story.

Everything that 8letters said. Everything. And I double down on the lack of face descriptions.

Separately, you use too much details, sometimes unimportant blather and sometimes jarring as they cause issues. Example:

“In an era of bangers like Duran and Hearns, he was a pugilist” Okay, got it. You’ve set the time, and now we know Jerry would have been like 65. Then “The few times I stepped into the ring with him, his punches felt like I was getting hit by a car” so now we know this guy is like, what, 60? And then later we find out he is 41. Something doesn’t add up here. Would a boxer box a brother 20 years his junior? Not likely. Just say Jerry was a boxer and leave it open.

“…he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.” Pancreatic cancer is a quick killer, like a 6 month life expectancy. This would screw up your timeline with brothers and sisters moving away. Just say cancer.

“he bought me a house on the same block he had purchased one for each of our two sisters, my other brother and our mother.” We find that the sisters and brother moved away, but only much later find out that Mom died.

What is the deal with the age difference? He is 41. Assuming Maria and her husband met in college and are the same age, he would have finished Med school around age 30, then did some work, then adopted, then had Julie who is now like 6, then died…so Maria is at least 37ish. Or did he pick her up out of high school?

“You disappeared into your head for a while after Christine” and ”Did you tell her about Jerry and Christine?" Stated like this, without any context, is confusing because we haven’t met a Christine yet.

“He worked for Doctors Without Borders.” Then he would have had a life insurance policy.

“… I was thinking that she could put half away for college and use the other half to pay for things for you guys, but that's none of my business.” WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK? YOU’RE GODDAMN RIGHT IT’S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS!!!

Anyway, overall a good read. Good characters, plausible plot development.

astuffedshirt_perv said:

“…he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.” Pancreatic cancer is a quick killer, like a 6 month life expectancy. This would screw up your timeline with brothers and sisters moving away. Just say cancer.

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I think a slow wasting disease like ALS would have worked much better than cancer.

I don't personally have experience with resolving the estate of someone who died with large outstanding medical bills, but I can see that taking a long time to resolve as the debtors would want to squeeze every penny out of Jerry's estate. That would have given the brothers and sisters time to move away.

That being said, as I read the story I kept having the feeling that the timeline of events in the story was out of whack with how long these things would actually take.

8letters said:

That being said, as I read the story I kept having the feeling that the timeline of events in the story was out of whack with how long these things would actually take.

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It's funny, but I don't really pay close attention to things like that as a reader, but as a writer, I had a conniption when I used a real restaurant as a setting, then after submitting the story, realized that it is closed on Mondays, so my characters couldn't have eaten there that night.

MelissaBaby said:

It's funny, but I don't really pay close attention to things like that as a reader, but as a writer, I had a conniption when I used a real restaurant as a setting, then after submitting the story, realized that it is closed on Mondays, so my characters couldn't have eaten there that night.

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Melissa, I reckon that's an important point. If a writer doesn't include what I call "moments of truth" into their writing - some genuinely observed thing, no matter how small - after a while it starts to add up and if the tiny details are missing, the whole story can fall over.

I'm not sure I'd sweat the Monday close thing, though, but I'd certainly write the restaurant - even if it was just the shadow of a plant by the door, or the chef in his black chequered pants.

There has to be an essence of truth, I think, for stories to really work. Like 8letters wanting to know if Disneyworld hotels stream movies.