AwkwardMD and Omenainen Review Thread

[vagrantx]

Terkkuja siipalle! Suomi rulaa!

Devinter är också svensk, om du visste inte. Jag är den ända finsk jag känner här på forums, men jag har sett några på berättelse siden.

Hade ingen aning! Trevligt att råkas @Devinter People write erotica in finnish? Searching for Finnish tags just shows a few Sauna stories, hah. If you know of any, I'd love to show them to my SO!

 

[MediocreAuthor]

I saw the beginning of this and went what, have I been reviewing in my sleep?

Non-con trumps Erotic Horror as a category. Here's a good "how to" on categorization:
Love Your Readers: Categories by TxTallTales

edited to tag @vagrantx too

I know that the common wisdom is that Noncon is the ultimate trump. In fact I said this:

If you read TTT’s guide on categories, he would have told you to place this story exactly where you put it. And so perhaps you did right.

I was referencing the exact essay you just did. That said, TxTallTales is not the Messiah, and so I feel that in this particular case the horror outweighs the noncon.

I mean, I'm a noncon fan, so perhaps I'm just jaded, but noncon IS horrifying, so perhaps there is some overlap there?

All I know is that I read this and ultimately enjoyed it more as horror than erotica.

 

[Omenainen]

Hade ingen aning! Trevligt att råkas @Devinter People write erotica in finnish? Searching for Finnish tags just shows a few Sauna stories, hah. If you know of any, I'd love to show them to my SO!

Nah, not in Finnish, just that I have seen people with Finnish account names. I have one story set in Finland (Midsummer in Finland, in case it’s too difficult to guess…).

Maybe we can have a Swedish thread at AH side, let’s not continue this here, good as it is to bump into neighbors.

 

[Omenainen]

I know that the common wisdom is that Noncon is the ultimate trump. In fact I said this:

I was referencing the exact essay you just did. That said, TxTallTales is not the Messiah, and so I feel that in this particular case the horror outweighs the noncon.

I mean, I'm a noncon fan, so perhaps I'm just jaded, but noncon IS horrifying, so perhaps there is some overlap there?

All I know is that I read this and ultimately enjoyed it more as horror than erotica.

Ah, right! I glided over TTT apparently. Shouldn’t read things bleary-eyed in the morning. Then I think you’d also do well to link to it going forward because those requesting haven’t necessarily heard about it.

Thanks for your input! The same goes to @AlinaX! Awesome stuff.

 

[MediocreAuthor]

Then I think you’d also do well to link to it going forward because those requesting haven’t necessarily heard about it.

I DEFINITELY agree. I have 3 defences for my choice.

1) That guide is legendary, and plenty of people have heard of it. Of course, nothing stops someone from asking about it if they haven't.

2) I'm lazy. I couldn't be bothered to look it up, unrequested, and my laziness paid off - because you looked it up for me Thank you for that, btw.

3) I am giving advice opposite to the guide. I was telling the author that her choice of category might have been wrong in spite of the most popular guide agreeing with her. I'm not going to link that article, because I disagree with it in this case.

---

Honestly, this gets to my most important point of noncon vs erotic horror. To me, noncon vs erotic horror come down to which one is focused on and eroticized.

The most non-consensual scene in the story (Alex being placed into the machine) was not erotic. It was horrifying and necessary (from a storytelling perspective), but definitely not in a sexy way. Her placement into the machine was certainly non-consensual, but it was not non-consensual SEX.

No one had non-consensual sex with Alex, throughout the whole story. The machine teased, edged, and tortured her, but it received no stimulation in return.

To me, putting this story in noncon is akin to putting every story that featured a homicide into NC/R. After all, basically no one gets consensually killed, right?

But, as previously stated, EH has a very small following, so the story definitely got more views in NC/R. Even though I think it's misplaced.

 

[vagrantx]

No one had non-consensual sex with Alex

She got fucked by the state!

Joking aside, I do think there's something to that thought. Alex wasn't being sexually abused directly by a person, but the events did happen, and they were set in motion by people. Imagine a person tied up and being abused directly by a person, that's clearly non-con, yes? Now what if that person used a dildo; still non-con. Put that dildo on a long stick and have the abuser on the other side of the room; still non-con. Now replace the stick-do with a complex system of laws and automated machinery, still non-con? Maybe. Where does one draw the line, somewhere between the person being in the room, and just issuing the order?

I don't have the answer. I'm still not sure if I categorized it correctly. But it's food for thought, no?

 

[MediocreAuthor]

She got fucked by the state!

Joking aside, I do think there's something to that thought. Alex wasn't being sexually abused directly by a person, but the events did happen, and they were set in motion by people. Imagine a person tied up and being abused directly by a person, that's clearly non-con, yes? Now what if that person used a dildo; still non-con. Put that dildo on a long stick and have the abuser on the other side of the room; still non-con. Now replace the stick-do with a complex system of laws and automated machinery, still non-con? Maybe. Where does one draw the line, somewhere between the person being in the room, and just issuing the order?

I don't have the answer. I'm still not sure if I categorized it correctly. But it's food for thought, no?

You are absolutely looking at this the right way! If her punishment had been less horror, I would be arguing for noncon all the way!

Basically until the machine broke, I was thoroughly in the NC/R camp for this story. But when she spent 13 months in unimaginable agony, I think the horror officially overshadowed the NC/R.

 

[AwkwardMD]

@alohadave
link

First of all, thank you so much for coming back to us with this one. It’s not often that we see an author take our advice into consideration and come back with something to demonstrate how it helped.

Huge improvement. Love the growth. Love the characterization. Love the depth you gave everyone. This story has a nice little cast of characters, each of whom feel like fully fleshed out people. The lunch scenes with Simon’s sister were a great little framing device to keep things moving forward. It also made the ending perfect, like tapping a triangle and leaving the one, clear note to linger.

Honestly, I’m not sure that a lot of criticisms we have would be meaningful because the story really gains a lot of momentum as it goes and we interpreted that as reflective of your own growth. It was like you were improving in real time, over the course of the story. Every so often we’ll get a request for a review and the story will be older, but we won’t realize that. We’ll go through, give honest thoughts, and then the author will respond with “Yeah, I already learned all this, and the next three stories I wrote were much better,” and then I feel like we’ve wasted our time.

All the weakest parts were at the beginning. The first lunch scene was the most stiff, and the first photo shoot was also stiff. Those parts, though, are very close to the original version of the story (updated for various story elements). The more you got away from the old, with different and new characters, and new motivations, the better it got. The dialog got better, the motivations got more complex but stayed grounded.

You took our suggestions, improved this story, and you’ve clearly grown as an author.

I like that you removed the focus from the sister. I think you could have easily removed Amanda as a love interest and kept it as an incest story, but for my money what you wrote is the stronger version. The premise lends itself more easily to Amanda.

The expanded lunch scenes between the siblings feel really authentic, and boy… lemme tell ya…

"I know what you're thinking, and you can stop right there. I'm not telling you my username."

This is a dynamite line. It’s a single line of dialog, and it contextualizes a lot of the way Kelly talks (specifically about sex and sexuality in a kind of… open and casual way). It lets her be her own person. She’s got her own power. This one line, above, makes all of that true on its own terms, regardless of what she did in the previous story.

I talk all the time about being purposeful, and what we can achieve when we’re trying. This is a fantastic example of that. One line can do so much.

***

If I had to pick one thing that was maybe weaker than the rest of the story, I would say that it’s the pacing. I think it’s too quick. I think that with a little more room to breathe this story goes from good to great. Simon’s at other jobs and Amanda calls him to read some of the feedback he’s getting. We get a scene demonstrating why he is with his girlfriend in the first place, what’s good about their relationship. We get a chance to see one of the other fights Simon’s girlfriend picks, which helps us feel a little more comfortable later when he says “If it wasn’t this, it was gonna be something else.” That’s true for Simon, maybe, but we didn’t see it, and I think ‘not seeing it’ is more related to the pacing than it is to, say, your ability to write a scene that might convey this.

I also get the impression that maybe you’re taking “show, don’t tell” a little too seriously. It’s okay to slow down the pace for example by making remarks on how much time has passed and how the protagonist’s feelings have changed over that time. This is an extremely tight 8k words. You can afford to let a story be a little looser.

Compared to the first one, the dispute with Amanda felt less important. From what I remember, in the original there was more bickering and animosity between them in the beginning. You imported their bad relations to this story, and added the backstory explaining why, but you didn’t import the actual animosity. As this story already gets tension from the girlfriend’s jealousy, I’m not sure you even needed to pose them as enemies. Adding enemies-to-lovers adds complexity, and you did handle it well and resolve all the loose ends before the finale, but maybe you didn’t display the arc as sharply as you could have. Loosening the story might help with this too.

 

[Bazzle]

Can I ask a question...This story is very conversation heavy...very little scene setting.

Is that what people prefer?

 

[alohadave]

Can I ask a question...This story is very conversation heavy...very little scene setting.

Is that what people prefer?

It's a weakness in my writing. It's not that I prefer it, but it's something that I've internalized after reading way too much advice on the internet.

 

[vagrantx]

[...]

There's no right or wrong answer to this question. See this recent thread for a bit deeper discussion on the topic. Some people prefer all sex all the time, some people enjoy 20 chapters of build up. Some times people enjoy variety. Write what you enjoy, and the readers will follow!

 

[AwkwardMD]

Can I ask a question...This story is very conversation heavy...very little scene setting.

Is that what people prefer?

Generally speaking, that's a matter of style, and there are a broad range of approaches.

In the previous review we gave on this story, we specifically mentioned a lack of narrated action and description, and this version has more. In other words, before, we felt like it was too little to the point of detraction, and now the story is closer to the broader range of "it's fine".

Given enough time, an author's style on matters like this will weed out the readers who don't like it AND attract the readers who do. The answer to what people prefer is, simultaneously, yes, no, sorta, maybe, probably not to this level, could be more, could be less, and close enough that I got off anyway

 

[alohadave]

First of all, thank you. I really tried to take what you said before to heart.

The expanded lunch scenes between the siblings feel really authentic, and boy… lemme tell ya…



This is a dynamite line. It’s a single line of dialog, and it contextualizes a lot of the way Kelly talks (specifically about sex and sexuality in a kind of… open and casual way). It lets her be her own person. She’s got her own power. This one line, above, makes all of that true on its own terms, regardless of what she did in the previous story.

I talk all the time about being purposeful, and what we can achieve when we’re trying. This is a fantastic example of that. One line can do so much.

It's funny, I kind of threw that in as a joke. I wanted her to get a rise out of her brother, as siblings do.

That it works on a deeper level just makes it better.

I'm really happy with how she turned out.

If I had to pick one thing that was maybe weaker than the rest of the story, I would say that it’s the pacing. I think it’s too quick. I think that with a little more room to breathe this story goes from good to great. Simon’s at other jobs and Amanda calls him to read some of the feedback he’s getting. We get a scene demonstrating why he is with his girlfriend in the first place, what’s good about their relationship. We get a chance to see one of the other fights Simon’s girlfriend picks, which helps us feel a little more comfortable later when he says “If it wasn’t this, it was gonna be something else.” That’s true for Simon, maybe, but we didn’t see it, and I think ‘not seeing it’ is more related to the pacing than it is to, say, your ability to write a scene that might convey this.

Pacing is something I know I have to work on. I get impatient and want to get to the action, plus I don't tend to be very verbose (forum replies to the contrary), so scenes tend to be fairly short.

I spent extra time on this, and @EmilyMiller was a great help pointing out things that I missed, and I revised parts of the story from her comments.

I also get the impression that maybe you’re taking “show, don’t tell” a little too seriously. It’s okay to slow down the pace for example by making remarks on how much time has passed and how the protagonist’s feelings have changed over that time. This is an extremely tight 8k words. You can afford to let a story be a little looser.

As much as I think that "show, don't tell" is poor advice most of the time, I seem to have internalized it.

Compared to the first one, the dispute with Amanda felt less important. From what I remember, in the original there was more bickering and animosity between them in the beginning. You imported their bad relations to this story, and added the backstory explaining why, but you didn’t import the actual animosity. As this story already gets tension from the girlfriend’s jealousy, I’m not sure you even needed to pose them as enemies. Adding enemies-to-lovers adds complexity, and you did handle it well and resolve all the loose ends before the finale, but maybe you didn’t display the arc as sharply as you could have. Loosening the story might help with this too.

There was more animosity between them in the first story, and you said that the characters were telling me something that I should listen to. The past history was originally a bigger part, but I thought that the girlfriend being jealous felt realistic and created tension.

 

[AwkwardMD]

There was more animosity between them in the first story, and you said that the characters were telling me something that I should listen to. The past history was originally a bigger part, but I thought that the girlfriend being jealous felt realistic and created tension.

We agreed with this, that the girlfriend drama was stronger as a backdrop for the rest of the story. A lot of the choices you made paid off. It was really rewarding to see the changes.

 

[Bazzle]

It's a weakness in my writing. It's not that I prefer it, but it's something that I've internalized after reading way too much advice on the internet.

It's okay, conversation is my weakness! I'm useless at it. The less my characters say, the happier I am!

 

[MelissaBaby]

My latest mini-campaign is to get the Feedback forum woken up. (Aroused from sleep, not made politically correct.) I realize that AH gets way more traffic than Feedback, but may I suggest putting a short post in AH with a link to your Feedback post.

I'd like to see more serious discussion about writing in both, so how about if I link here to the thread I just posted in the AH.

What I Wrote and Why:The Adventures of Ranger Ramona

 

[Devinter]

As someone who grew up in that part of the world at the time, hanging onto dads coattails as he commuted between Vientiane and Bangkok, and then gone on to be a part of a major sex workers rights organization in Sweden, I still had no idea about this part of history. HIV/AIDS is not talked about enough in gay women's circles. Thank you for talking about this, I know what I'll be reading up on for the rest of the night.

Hade ingen aning! Trevligt att råkas @Devinter People write erotica in finnish? Searching for Finnish tags just shows a few Sauna stories, hah. If you know of any, I'd love to show them to my SO!

I am indeed Swedish, and not only that, I am potentially involved with the same organization you mentioned earlier. Though there is a few different ones. But I do not want to derail the thread so that is all that I will say for now, and if you want to chitchat further, best to PM me!

 

[EmilyMiller]

Pacing is something I know I have to work on. I get impatient and want to get to the action, plus I don't tend to be very verbose (forum replies to the contrary), so scenes tend to be fairly short.

I spent extra time on this, and @EmilyMiller was a great help pointing out things that I missed, and I revised parts of the story from her comments.

Very happy to have helped in a few minor ways, here and there.

Emily

 

[Omenainen]

@joy_of_cooking
Her First Foot Boy

You write extremely well. Your prose is effortless and fluid and flows well. You introduce elements that you later come back to, in a seamless and natural way. As a disclaimer neither of us has a foot fetish, so we can’t evaluate how well this hits the kink. Usually with something like this, we default to an assessment of the comments, and the comments section seems like a ringing endorsement of that aspect. The one wishy-washy comment seems to wish that the major kink was about feet rather than shoes, and that’s just their preference. As a story, this is very believable and coherent. Not a very complicated one, but more than enough for a basic smutty encounter.

Yes, you did write characters. A lot of this story had to do with characterization. Lily more than Benjamin, but this aligns with the fetish so some imbalance is probably expected. Writing characters is to some extent inevitable. It doesn’t have to be heavy handed, with lengthy backstories and descriptions, but more often than not, it is there. It’s in the way characters react to certain stimuli, it’s in the way they interact. It’s in what excites or appalls them. It’s what brings a story to life.

What’s needed for characterization is that you know your characters. You obviously do. Your characters come alive in their interactions with each other. Every little gesture and detail. Every observation Benjamin makes tells us something about both Lily, that the thing is there to be observed, and Benjamin himself, in how he interprets them.

I think one clear example in how character oriented this story is, is the ending. If we were only interested in the encounter itself, there would be no need for the misunderstanding and reconciliation and promises of repeat encounters–or you could bypass all that with some sort of “this was great, hope to do this again, bye”. But you’re invested in your characters, so you’re interested in their relationships. You want things for them. That’s also the dilemma with writing “standalone” stories with recurring characters; you as the author see what all they’ve done, where they’ve come from and where they’re going to, and you have plans for them, and so it’s very tempting to include things that don’t necessarily need to be in that particular standalone. This is not a fault, at least not a serious one. Every little piece of fiction doesn’t need to be streamlined and pruned to only include the most necessary information. You’re allowed to indulge a little.

I tried to find examples of what I mean with good, subtle characterization, but it’s difficult to pin down. It’s a lot like a spider’s web; it isn’t anchored by one or two monologues that give us all of the information, but instead has dozens of small tendrils. Instead, I think it would be good to compare and contrast.

For the most part, HFFB does a lot of good subtle characterization. I want to talk about The Clothes Make The Masochist, for contrast. This is not a critique or a dog piling on TCMTM. I am merely expanding on what we said last time on behalf of the current topic. I’m also doing this from memory, so if I get a detail wrong that’s my bad, but I think the larger point is still made.

For example, in the original story, the characters don’t have names, but here their character names are very quickly able to help us build a picture (especially for Lily). In the original story, the couple was already married and knew each other. They would have no reason to have conversations about what they do (in life) without messing up the flow, whereas in HFFB Lily and Benjamin are just meeting. They can have conversations about what they do and what they like. Lily and Benjamin can’t interpret each other from a raise of an eyebrow the way a married couple could, and this need for negotiation benefits the reader too. We get in on it.

In TCMTM, the couple is exploring something new together, with no prior knowledge. This tells us nothing about their history except that they have had vanilla sex before (which is as descriptive and specific as saying “They have breathed air”). In HFFB, though, there’s a more complex dynamic where Benjamin knows some things but Lily has questions. They have exes, and friends, and have had conversations outside of the story that impact the story in important ways. We’re clearly only seeing part of the whole story, and the implications of that are these people lead varied, complex, and interwoven lives whereas the characters in TCMTM live in a bottle.

Lily living in a building where the footman refers to her by her last name, and the details you used to paint the picture of her apartment, all dovetail at the end when Carlotta is talking about how rich Lily is. There’s nothing even remotely like this happening in TCMTM.

The argument could be made that TCMTM is more pure, and tightly focused on the kink, and while that is true it comes at the cost of characterization. These are both valid approaches, but good characterization is more important for storytelling (which is the thing we prioritize here). Even in kinks that necessitate some level of objectification, or dehumanization, we feel the story benefits from starting with well rounded characters who are then reduced to something less.

Contrast is an amazingly powerful tool.

 

[Omenainen]

Backlog at the moment:

The Demonization of Humberstone Road / TheRedChamber
Shadows from the House of Scent / amberlynch
Encased / vagrantx
Passion's Journey: Helpful / TheseLegs
Phantom Flings / Bazzle

 

[joy_of_cooking]

Thank you for these comments!

their character names are very quickly able to help us build a picture (especially for Lily)

How did Lily's name help characterize her?

In the original story, the couple was already married and knew each other. They would have no reason to have conversations about what they do (in life) without messing up the flow, whereas in HFFB Lily and Benjamin are just meeting. They can have conversations about what they do and what they like. Lily and Benjamin can’t interpret each other from a raise of an eyebrow the way a married couple could, and this need for negotiation benefits the reader too. We get in on it.

This seems to imply that it is in general harder to write characters in established relationships. Do you think so? What advice would you give for someone who did want to write a story with characters that already knew each other well? (Married couples are an interest of mine.)

Even in kinks that necessitate some level of objectification, or dehumanization, we feel the story benefits from starting with well rounded characters who are then reduced to something less.

Yes, that makes sense. It's right there in the name, right? Not an object fetish but an objectification fetish.

A lot of this story had to do with characterization. Lily more than Benjamin, but this aligns with the fetish so some imbalance is probably expected

Can you say more about the imbalance between Lily's characterization and Benjamin's, and how you feel this is inherent in a shoe fetish? Unless you mean that this is told from Benjamin's perspective, and the reader is meant to identify with Benjamin, so it makes sense to leave Benjamin less specified to make the self-insertion easier?

(This makes me want to write a shoe fetish story where you're meant to identify with the domme.)

You've mentioned that you wouldn't like your reviews to become a regular part of anyone's publishing workflow. Can you say more about your feelings on frequent fliers? I'm definitely learning something every time.

 

[AwkwardMD]

How did Lily's name help characterize her?

It helped paint the picture, for building a mental image. We've talked before, specifically in one of my earliest non-review rants (I think it was @MelissaBaby who mentioned it), about populating stories with non-white characters, and that sometimes it is just as easy as a name. In this instance, Lily's (Taiwanese? Chinese?) last name is more flavor text than it is a defining characteristic, but in our book a lot of small details like this, peppered throughout the story, flesh out who the characters are. They add up in aggregate.

This seems to imply that it is in general harder to write characters in established relationships. Do you think so? What advice would you give for someone who did want to write a story with characters that already knew each other well? (Married couples are an interest of mine.)

I actually just tackled this myself. Almost all of my stories have been about characters meeting for the first time (EDIT: or friends to lovers), but the finale to my Portland series featured a couple I put together much earlier. In that instance, I gave them both some need that their relationship was lacking, some reason for not having said anything up to that point, and some individual growth that helped them build something better.

That was what I did, and it took me like 40k+ words to do it. In a shorter story, I would say that a slice of life-style plot could do it. Lean in on the mundane details of a relationship but keep it grounded and relatable.

Can you say more about the imbalance between Lily's characterization and Benjamin's, and how you feel this is inherent in a shoe fetish? Unless you mean that this is told from Benjamin's perspective, and the reader is meant to identify with Benjamin, so it makes sense to leave Benjamin less specified to make the self-insertion easier?

This is maybe a perception bias. Benjamin is a service bottom, so he is more focused on Lily. Since he is our POV vehicle, we slot in and take his expectations as our own. I definitely felt like it was Lily-focused after reading it, but on reflection I'm not entirely sure that it was.

Lily was, definitely, uncertain about having all the attention on her (though she warmed to it over time), so there were moments where she was very interested in reciprocating, but I would be hard pressed to point out the details to justify our impression that the balance was 60/40 (maybe?).

(This makes me want to write a shoe fetish story where you're meant to identify with the domme.)

This would be as simple as writing a service top. You skipped the sex parts of Long Haul, but Wren was a service top. She didn’t orgasm at all until the 4th chapter despite repeatedly bringing Bonnie to finish.

You've mentioned that you wouldn't like your reviews to become a regular part of anyone's publishing workflow. Can you say more about your feelings on frequent fliers? I'm definitely learning something every time.

We don't have a hard limit, and we would really like to avoid setting one. Mostly, we just don't want to feel taken advantage of since we do this for free, and it requires a lot of time and effort. We implicitly understand how hard it can be to get meaningful feedback, and how tempting it is to start mashing that button like a mouse who just found the sugar water trigger in an experiment, but we are wary of setting ourselves up as a repository for correctness. That was much harder when, for years, ours was the only opinion in town, but there are some signs that this might be changing and we are all for it.

I will say that I personally benefit from doing these. I am constantly refining my understandings or "What Works" and "What Doesn't Work". Even the stories I don’t like teach me something (like what not to do). I find value in reading critically rather than for content, so I would encourage others to do like we do. Read the other requests critically (even if you end up keeping your opinions to yourself).

 

[AwkwardMD]

Interesting side note: to my knowledge, only one reader ever noticed (and then said something) about Wren, as a service top, not orgasming. I was specifically writing around that detail, and I think most (nearly all?) readers inferred Wren's enjoyment and pleasure when the truth is that she didn’t feel very much. There's some insight there about expectations in specific dynamics (top/bottom, Domme/sub, etc).

 

[AwkwardMD]

@joy_of_cooking
So I’ve been rolling it around in my head for a few days. I didn’t feel good that I didn’t have a solid answer for you in regards to the disparity in characterization between Lily and Benjamin, but I’ve gotten there. I feel like I have an answer now.

There is a line that stuck with me from Firefly, Shepherd Book quoting a warrior-poet named Shan-Yu. The quote goes:

“…live with a man 40 years…share his house, his meals, speak on every subject…then tie him up and hold him over the volcano’s edge. On that day, you will finally meet the man.”

Now, I disagree that you need to put mortality into the mix to learn who people are, but I agree with the basic principle. Good writing shows who people are by showing how they react to things. Put a situation in front of them, see what they do.

With this in mind, let’s look at the context of Her First Foot Boy. Benjamin is the keeper of knowledge, who has done this before. He knows the shape of their encounter, what it will look like, to a point. Until very near the end, the plot is mostly happening to Benjamin (or at Benjamin), and he goes along with it.

Lily, though, is experiencing all of this in real time. We learn that she’s clever in the way that she responds to escalating circumstances. We learn that she’s caring, insisting on reciprocating on Benjamin and keeping his pleasure in mind despite the fact that power dynamic relationships can very easily slip into imbalance (or are predicated on that imbalance). We learn that, despite her wealth, she’s generous. We learn that she’s bold. In the vast and infinite multiverse, there is no version of my current self with the balls to walk up to a guy and say “Nice shoes, wanna fuck?” It’s just not in me to do, but it is in her. There are a lot of things in her, and the structure of this story gives her a stronger opportunity to show us who she is.

It is not a bad thing to have uneven characterization. Not everyone needs the same number of opportunities. Benjamin works just fine as a POV, but Lily shines and I think this is a big part of why that is.

 

[AwkwardMD]

@TheRedChamber
Link

The good reviews are always a lot harder to write, because how many ways is there to phrase “well done?”

This was too clever for this site by far, and placed in a category where stories go to die, but neither of those is a fault in the story. Which was excellent. Well done.

There were a few minor editing issues, like tense mix ups in one scene, and those only stick out because the rest of it was so well written that one learns to expect perfection. The letters did have a distinctive voice and that might have been even more pronounced, but I think they worked very well as is. This provided a delightful glimpse into what small town politics in Britain might be, viewed by the participation in “letters to the editor” of the local magazines. Good writing takes us places where we haven’t been, sometimes showing us the shape of things from the outside, like this does.

The ending was perfect. Absolute gold. Wonderful insight in the human condition.

We have nothing to add. Nothing to critique. This story works on every level we’re fit to speak on. The overall plot is interesting and complex. The individual scenes, those long enough to have their own internal plot, flowed well. The characters were interesting. The dialog was interesting, filtered through the lens of letters.

It all works. Everyone should read it.