Can someone explain Todd172 to me?

[Tomh1966]

He wrote before I wrote my first story. He seems to have had a massive following. Started with stunningly high scoring stories and ended with them. He owns the top 10 of Loving Wives. Then he disappeared.

I've tried to read some of the stories but they didn't click for me. I know I'm the mutant as the scores are over many thousands of votes and I can tell the writing is very good meaning lack of errors. This is not a critique but can someone help me unpuzzle this?

Can someone explain this like I'm 5?

 

[THBGato]

I've only read his St Clair series (and the prequel), which is superbly observed rural noir/Police procedural. I think he's popular because he has well-plotted, credible storylines, and sympathetic, realistic characters that are diverse without offending more conservative readers.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

I haven't read any of his stories, because in my opinion, his story list is a incomprehensible mess of which stories relate to which, and which are unrelated.

 

[feel_the_beast]

He wrote before I wrote my first story. He seems to have had a massive following. Started with stunningly high scoring stories and ended with them. He owns the top 10 of Loving Wives. Then he disappeared.

I've tried to read some of the stories but they didn't click for me. I know I'm the mutant as the scores are over many thousands of votes and I can tell the writing is very good meaning lack of errors. This is not a critique but can someone help me unpuzzle this?

Can someone explain this like I'm 5?

Can't help with your question, but thanks for bringing to my attention a possible source of high quality stories.

 

[SimonDoom]

I don't think there's a sensible way to "explain" another Lit author's success that everyone will understand. There are many Loving Wives stories that don't appeal to me, but they obviously appeal to many other readers. I'm not familiar with this particular author's work, but I quickly scanned the beginnings of a few of his stories and they appear to be competently written, with fine prose and pacing, so if you like his sort of thing it makes sense that his sort of thing would be the thing you like. I'm not sure it can be broken down more finely than that.

 

[lovecraft68]

Not my type of stories, but hat's off to the guy because he's rocked the shit out of LW.

 

[ElectricBlue]

He wrote before I wrote my first story. He seems to have had a massive following. Started with stunningly high scoring stories and ended with them. He owns the top 10 of Loving Wives. Then he disappeared.

I've tried to read some of the stories but they didn't click for me. I know I'm the mutant as the scores are over many thousands of votes and I can tell the writing is very good meaning lack of errors. This is not a critique but can someone help me unpuzzle this?

Can someone explain this like I'm 5?

His taste in story content is different to yours. It really is that simple.

 

[feel_the_beast]

... so if you like his sort of thing it makes sense that his sort of thing would be the thing you like.

Can't argue with that logic.

 

[Actingup]

He owns the top 10 of Loving Wives. Then he disappeared.

I can only speculate that one of the loving husbands finally caught up with him.

 

[joy_of_cooking]

Oh that guy! I love that guy. Specifically, I love this story of his: https://www.literotica.com/s/relentless-4

It's got a few things going for it:

1. A cyclical but progressive structure where she gets off her plane or out of jail, going home to discover some new provocation, doing some increasingly unhinged but always totally relatable things on response, and getting thrown back into jail.
2. Great verisimilitude. He's really good at these larger than life but still plausible characters. The construction workers, the auto shop, the side pieces, the weary cop, the cheater. Also, the world building of how the criminal system works, what she can and can't get away with.
3. The emotional payoff of an apparent underdog winning on (mostly) merit and a thorough villain getting his just desserts.

I want to write like him when I grow up.

 

[lovecraft68]

I haven't read any of his stories, because in my opinion, his story list is a incomprehensible mess of which stories relate to which, and which are unrelated.

This is probably what drove him off. You not being happy with his story list was more than he could bear.

 

[ThatNewGuy]

Can someone explain this like I'm 5?

I've read 7 or 8 of his stories and consider him an early influence. It's been several years since I've revisited one of his stories, but I'll give you my short answer and then a longer one.

Short answer first. He writes compelling characters with emotional depth. He has a terrific ear for dialogue. He often writes fast-paced, action-filled plots with engaging twists and turns. Humor is notoriously hard to pull off, and he does it really well. He has a minimalist writing style that paints a picture with a few carefully chosen details; it doesn't draw attention to itself and doesn't get in the way of the story or its characters. He does his research and knows how to make use of it to create verisimilitude without bogging down the reader in minutiae. He does just about everything really, really well.

That's not to say that if you don't like his stuff you must be missing something. We all have our own tastes as readers, and he might not be up your alley. Totally understandable.

My slightly longer answer starts with Needles and Delaney, the central characters from the handful of The Shack stories that I've read. The father-daughter bond they build over the course of the series has a bit of a Joel and Ellie vibe from The Last of Us: angry characters with pain in their past who don't want to like each other but are drawn together and become family. Their bond is the beating heart of the story. Strip away everything else and that's what these stories are about. Building a new life and new family from the wreckage of your past.

If you're looking for a place to start in his, admittedly convoluted, list of stories, I'd recommend reading the three Lit stories that have been collected in the anthology that's published on Amazon: The Shack: An Angry Man, The Shack: An Unreasonable Man, and The Shack: An Implacable Man.

I think one of the reasons these stories have been so successful in Loving Wives is that they aren't what we typically think of when we talk about Loving Wives stories. Yes, there's a painful divorce and a horrible ex-wife mentioned in An Angry Man, but it's relegated to Needles' backstory. The story proper isn't about getting revenge on the ex-wife. Needles and Delaney get involved in various adventures that pit them against criminals and other unsavory types, and the part of the fun is watching the creative ways they overcome those obstacles.

The writer has also done the research to make the reader believe in his characters. You believe Needles has the skills and knowledge of a former Army medic. You feel like you've been dropped in the middle of the day-to-day operations of a salvage yard. In Vodka Sting, you feel like you're a fly on the wall within the world of street buskers, con artists, and former circus clowns. I love when a writer transports me to a world with which I'm not familiar and drops in all sorts of fun little details that make me feel I'm a part of that world.

I'll wrap up by mentioning a few specific examples. Todd172 writes action sequences exceptionally well. For example, I hate car chases. Hate them. Any time I'm watching a movie and a car chase scene comes on, I sigh and count the seconds until it's over. They bore me to fucking tears. But I found the car chase scene in The Shack: An Angry Man riveting.

There are two scenes from Vodka Sting that have stuck with me. The story is told from the perspective of a street clown named Sparkle. As I recall, she's a former circus clown who is a street performer and part-time con artist.

In one early scene, a police officer is patting her down after an altercation of some sort. With the crowd still looking on, she hams up the pat-down and makes it part of her street performance, drawing in the audience with her humor and getting a good payday as a result. She even gets the police officer (who later becomes her love interest) to play along. The scene is funny and well written, but it also does a great job of telling the reader who Sparkle is as a character. She's creative and quick-witted and fast on her feet. The fact that she risks the ire of the police officer by performing while he's searching her also tell us 1) she's committed to her craft and her audience as a performer, and 2) she's desperate for money to make rent and knows she can't pass up this opportunity to earn some extra cash (which, in turn, helps us to understand why she has also become a part-time con artist). It's a great example of effective characterization.

In a later scene, Sparkle is in a cop bar with her new police friend. Another detective is questioning her and trying to guess what she does for a living. While answering his questions, she surreptitiously dons her clown nose in a way that allows others in the bar to see it while keeping it hidden from the detective. She keeps the ruse going, using misdirection to keep the detective in the dark while everyone else in the scene laughs along with her. It's a VERY visual gag. The kind of thing that would work great on screen. But that same quality makes it VERY hard to write. Todd172 pulls it off perfectly. You feel like you're sitting in that bar with the other patrons, watching Sparkle pull one over on the hapless detective.

I'll give you one last example. As I said earlier, he has a minimalist writing style, but every now and again he'll drop what feels like a perfect detail or turn of phrase. The story The Low Road begins: "Peter Schnell was a loser." The next few paragraphs explain that he wasn't a bad guy, he just wasn't actually good at anything. Some effective examples are given. Then comes this:

• He had the bad haircut, the crumpled uniform, the hanging boot laces, the skewed crumpled "hat." He was "that" Soldier. It ran so deep in him that it made you secretly wonder if it was the Soldier that was wrinkled instead of the uniform.

It's a wonderful and succinct encapsulation of Schnell's character. In an instant, you have a feel for who Schnell is. I left a comment on the story five years ago calling out that sentence in particular because I was so struck by it. Maybe it's a common expression in some corners of the world, but I'd never heard it before and it made an impression.

Anyway, that's my answer. I realize that it's just one reader's perspective, but I hope it's helpful.

(Edit: corrected Sparkles to Sparkle)