I just started re-reading one of my earliest bookmarks from Cryboy.org. As I read Jeff Allen's story "When Love Comes" part of his trilogy of stories, I realized why I started down the path of reading gay fiction and I can even now pinpoint something else, the balance of an erotic story and a gay fiction story. I will do an in-depth review on these three classic gems in a few weeks after I am done with the over 100 chapters, but for now, I just want to share something I rediscovered.

Like it or not, Nifty was the springboard for a lot of gay fiction at the turn of the century and Jeff Allen's stories got their launch there (I first saw it on Nifty, but went over to Cryboy to get access to it and discovered Brew Maxwell's Foley Mashburn saga, which got me into a lot of other stuff as the abused kid "rescue" genre was born);

I got into a bunch of stories as a teen browsing for things "gay" on my dsl modem. In its golden age, Nifty's sex appeal drew the reader into a story, but it was not what kept the reader interested in the story.

That's what separates a story like "Wilderness Survival" and "When Love Comes" or "Love of a Lifetime", both used explicit sex, but Jeff Allen's writing was self-conscious about his characters and the world they were living in. That piece of "realism" sparks the characters to develop and become truly fascinating characters over the length of multiple stories despite the one off sexual tryst or the cock size descriptions that keep coming (I still love Jeff Allen's stories, it turns out, despite his stories being over 14 years old now).

For me, the pinnacle of a good storyteller is a balance of elements, a focus of plot, and a timeless quality to their audience.