StonedOrchid

Star stopped posting on it a month ago. The poll is a little on the skewed side since it doesn't cover all options of opinion so here are my answers. Interpret them as you wish: I am a writer. How do you let the author know you liked/disliked their story? I review it when I find one I liked, though, my reading time is very limited. As a WRITER, how do you go about getting your story out there? I post it. If the summary is interesting enough, and the writing good enough, people will read it. Which is your least favorite part of GA Stories at this time? Lack of feedback at all ... there is no "in general" to it. The view numbers show people are reading, but nobody seems to have the time to write a simple "I loved it!" or a "It's not my kind of story, but ..." or maybe even just a "you suck, go back to school!" As a READER, EDITOR or BETA READER, do you assist your WRITERS in 'getting their story out there'? I am none of these ... I am a WRITER. When I don't get feedback that is consistent, I assume my story isn't being read or it has taken a turn that changed how the readers felt about it. When that happens and there are still "views" being counted on it that are more than just a random click every few days, I remove it, rewrite it if there are points that a third party can spot, or move it elsewhere to get the feedback that anything creative requires. That's what I feel ... expect ... and do.

It's a little choppy and rambling, but the main points are there. I found the overall formatting hard on the eyes, and the flow was interrupted by paragraphs that seemed to be separated when they should've been together. Now for the good stuff: You have a talent for description and for showing the whole scene around the character. Just be careful to not let it overshadow the main actions going on. The overall feel of this was dark and depressing. Steve insisting that Tobias was using drugs was realistic considering his weight loss and the disassociation from reality. I beleive their would've been a little more concern in there, too, if he loved Tobias as much as is implied. This didn't really come through in the abruptness of their dialogue. I like Tobias and Steve both, but their personalities could've been more rounded out. Character development is hard to do in a one shot situation, but you handled it quite well here. The ending ... that was totally unexpected, and I loved it to pieces. There was no hints, but plenty of foreshadowing in the prior parts to indicate that Tobias wasn't in reality as closely as being described, and I caught those hints once I went back and reread the story over again. You did very well at keeping the reader in the shadows Tobias was in all the way through. WELL DONE.

Your Boo looks a lot like my kitty, Reno, except mine is a girl. Startled ... And annoyed mode ...

Ummm ... I don't know ... maybe because the idiots end up taking out those of us who have more sense? Personally, I don't want to be killed in a head on crash just because Suzie Cheerleader can't wait to tell her BFF that she has a date with this awesomely hot dude from the football team. The gene pool will be restricted to just idiots if those of us who have the ability to see the consequences of actions don't tell them they are stupid ...

Lol, that's a little frightening considering tub drains pull water from the top when the whirlpool effect starts ...

My phone is turned off from the moment I get behind the wheel to the moment I shut the engine off at my destination. I don't talk or text when I'm driving because it takes more than the average concentration to avoid all the idiots out there who ARE chatting and messaging with their buddies. I've had several people come across the yellow line on me and quite a few have just about hit me head on because they were yapping their mouths on the phone and not paying attention to what the rest of their body is doing. Texting and driving is banned where I live and I'm hoping they will push further and ban talking on the phone, too.

Good luck with it, Andy. I bet you end up with triplets, though, so stock up on diapers now while you have time to actually go to the store.

I'm slowly trying to be less antisocial, lol. It may take a while, though, before I'm a chatty, productive member. The word ECCENTRIC was coined with me in mind.

Lol. Spoken like a true writer of the unknown. I agree that it is fun to write "Revelations", but I don't believe I would want to live it, lol. :ranger: More information on it would make the decision easier, and quite possibly explain why the government feels the need to track everybody almost from birth. Fraud would be all but eliminated, but so would most of the things that make us free ... privacy would be a thing of the past since I could easily see that chip not only being a repository of information on the one its attached to, but also being a GPS beacon.

No way. Sounds a little too "Revelations" to me.

I use close to 52k texts a month, but I rarely go through even a quarter of my 250 minutes. Text is easier for me since I can moderate what I say to someone before I send the darn thing, which I can't do in a live discussion. I don't have my phone turned on in librarys, businesses, having lunch with friends, or when I am driving a vehicle. I can't very well tell my daughter that she can't use her phone in those situations if I am doing it myself, right?

I've been in there once and I knew hardly anybody well enough to chat with them. I'm not a social person so it really didn't appeal to me, but I'm sure it works well for others who don't have my antisocial attitude, lol.

Welcome, Pete! You can find everything you need to know here: Lugh's FAQ

If by "shape" you mean a stick. I lose weight quick when I hit a depression stage and have a hard time gaining it back once everything is back on track. My metabolisim is high and I'm considered underweight for my height. It doesn't help much that everything tastes like sawdust or copper most of the time except for coffee and cigarettes.

I saw your status update that you were doubting the verasity of this story so I decided to take a look at it and see if maybe there were some background problems keeping it from being as popular as you thought it would be. I am by no means an expert but, as a reader of all kinds of literature and a writer myself, maybe I can spot what is going on. The underlying plot and premise are really good in this, but the over abundance of unnecessary commas makes the flow seem choppy and hard to settle into. I suggest going back over it and rewording the sentences to get rid of most of the commas that aren't needed for readability and to take out the commas that don't need to be there in the first place. Such as: She worked very hard(,) holding down several jobs(,) just so we could escape. And: She finally got a great job, which led us to move to an upbeat neighborhood in California(,) about two weeks ago. Another thing ... the overall length of this chapter quite put me off, too. It's been proven that the average attention span of someone reading a story and absorbing the content is limited to 3500 to 4000 words before everything starts overwriting what was read before that. I would suggest cutting this one down and making two chapters out of it, maybe a prologue for the first part of Brandon and his mother and a complete chapter of his school exploits. Everything transitions so fast, too. It was hard for me to know when he left home and arrived at school because it was limited to just a single sentence to change the scenery. Detail can be your friend if you use it wisely. There isnt much at all in this to give the reader an idea of what Brandon is like, where he lives, what his school looks like, or what anything looks like really. We get a brief, generic view of the secondary characters, which is limited to hair color, eye color, and them being labeled as "hot" like Brandon is on the prowl for a bedmate right away. It's a very fast moving chapter and covers so much groundwork that it makes Brandon's thoughts and interactions seem like they pass in a lightning flash. My suggestion is to slow it down and let the characters get known by the reader. Keeping up with the multitude of characters thrown at me in this first chapter was daunting and I'm sure it would be for others, too, since everybody is just thrown into the mix without any time to intro them. I had questions popping into my head the whole time I was reading it, too. Such as: Vynse admitting to Brandon that he is bisexual and finds him hot. He just met Brandon and this IS high school after all. Why would he jump right in and say something like that? There seems to be a conspiracy by the author to underscore exactly HOW popular Brandon is, how hot he is, and how much everybody falls for him right off the bat. This is a turn off. Nobody is perfect, not even characters ... unless they are Mary Sue (Gary Stu in this case). Conflict can be your friend and put characters through situations that can cause them to grow, reflect, and become more than just single dimensional beings on a computer screen. This is not meant to hurt your feelings, nor is it meant to discourage you from continuing with the story. This is pure con crit and nothing more. You have a good thing going here and you have the potential to carry it off, but it could be better. :king:

I count 156 but ... who cares? LMAO! It's entertaining enough to watch them doing a repeating cycle and I think the dudes sitting down are having the best time of them all. That is so wicked! Great visual aid there. It made my day.

I always thought androgyny meant the person had the potential to appeal to both genders regardless of their own.

Great job with this, babe. Chase's reflections on his and Xander's relationship, such as it was, is both insightful and vague. I love that you left the identity of Xander's killer up in the air like that. It makes me want to reread the whole thing again to see if there were any hints I missed about Chase possibly being the one to do him in, lol. The ending was a bit of a surprise considering the beginning was enticingly of a sexual nature, and I believe that's what grabbed me.

I've never really paid much attention to the outside since I pretty much live in my own little world most of the time and it takes a very interesting conversation to drag me back into reality. Just going by the few times I've watched television, I would guess that society has a hang up on looks, but I've never really cared either way what a person looks like (unless they catch my eye as a possible descrip for a charrie that is) as long as they can hold my attention and have an intelligent discussion.

Interesting perspective ... Your Type is INTP Introverted Intuitive Thinking Perceiving Strength of the preferences % 6 71 21 22

My dad is Irish/German and my mom was French. I guess that makes me French/Irish/German.

Thanks, babe. You know how I am, though. Lol. I'll be all over the place like a rampant virus before you know it.

Thanks, Agaith. So far so good. I've just got to learn how to control my profile and all the other extras that popped up when I registered, lol.

I need to start searching sock drawers ... lol. I'm afraid mine would just be filled with socks, lint, and spiders, though.

Woody Woodpecker ... definitely Woody. That way all the headbanging I do when my characters won't behave would have a purpose besides brain damage.