Zuri

I wish, everybody would be a little more like you, @Mancunian. Sounds like your father was a bit like Uncle Ben from Spider-Man (not the guy with the rice). Unfortunately, many have a blind spot for their own privilege.

Thanks for posting this! This is indeed an important topic and I hope, enough people read this. And of course thanks for doing what you do!

Halloween-themed? No problem:

We hit a pothole which reminded me of the state’s highway not being its top priority. From one moment to the next, I was fully awake after being quite dizzy for god knows how long. May usually maneuvered them better, making the ride mostly quite comfortable. He should have become a chauffeur. In the corner of my eye, I caught Rhys taking a hand from the steering wheel and putting it down his cargo pants for a few seconds, probably adjusting his dick. For some more minutes, we continued driv

I checked the battery level of the power bank and threw it in my backpack between some clothes, I put in there earlier this afternoon. Then, I went to the bathroom to grab my body wash for the trip. When I returned to my bedroom, my phone vibrated. I checked and noticed that Rhys had sent me a picture. The pixelated photo was still loading, but after a few seconds, I saw skin. A lot of skin. In fact, he wasn’t wearing a single piece of clothing. “A little something to make sure, not j

I like to think of them as snacks 😂 Thanks for the picture of literal chapter devouring readers ^^

Rhys hadn’t texted me since then. After a week, I felt like I had to take initiative now. So I decided to pay him a visit to the university where he studied. He must have already written all the exams and essays for this semester, so I figured, he might have some time for me during lunch break. I knew, he studied mechanical engineering, but when I arrived at the campus, I realized that this knowledge was not of much help on its own. From some signs, I could tell, there was a mechanical engi

I have to disappoint you: They are about the same length, but—if that makes you feel any better—I'm probably just as disappointed as you are about that. I tried to make them longer, but this story definitely had its own mind … ^^

Rhys wasn’t a complete stranger. I had carefully picked him specifically. We’ve known each other for a couple of months. Well, known might not be the right word to describe our relationship—acquaintanceship. We bandy words now and then when we meet each other—mostly at parties like that one. The blocks of buildings passed the windows on my way to work while I was thinking about last night. There was no denying that Rhys was good-looking—not a model or something, yet still everything but ugl

I thought so, too. When writing this, I knew equally few about them as you reader(s) do. That made it both interesting and complicated to move on from ^^

I grabbed the boxers from the floor, and put them on, sitting on the edge of the bed. Then, I scanned the room, trying to figure out, where the rest of my clothes had gone. It was all fuzzy, and the hangover definitely didn’t help with that. Finally, I spotted my trousers on the chair. Whatever happened last night, I must have been sane enough for some order. “You want some coffee before you leave?” asked a voice from behind me. I almost forgot. That wasn’t the most romantic way to put

They are both very inexperienced when it comes to topics of love and sex, however, they belong to a generation of a lot of exposure to the theoretical part. Coincidence brings them together, and they are eager to make it work. But that means, they have to overcome some sciolism. Can they do that and where will that lead them?

Ah, sorry, I guess, I didn't create a new story since the new sub-category system 🤦‍♂️ I considered this button a "Proceed" button that would also go through the steps, despite its label indicating, it would directly submit the contents. Stupid me. 😬😅

Hello there! When I tried to create a story, I wondered: Shouldn't there also be sub-genres below fiction, not just below FanFiction? Anyway, I chose Fiction for now to go on, but there, I encountered an error which frankly puzzled me a bit. When I clicked on "Submit To Moderation", the error message on top showed up. So far, so good. But shouldn't one form field be marked with an explanation what I should change in it? Since that is not the case, everything seems fine, yet, I can't continue. Can you help me with this? Thanks in advance!

Oh, okay. Honestly, I never worked with that, only with PHPBB and Discourse. So, nevermind.

On a different note (and at the risk of sounding stupid): Do you only have one programmer? Probably not helpful, but I'm taking my chances: If you need any help with that, I'm working with PHP 8 in my job. But I know, the logic behind a specific software is more than just the programming software, so that's easier said than done for sure. And you probably have either reasons not to have more programmers/take new ones, or a certain process if you do. In that case: Don't mind me 😅

Ah, okay. Thank you for the explanation. I guess, you are probably way more bugged about it than I am

It's 16 days since the update, and I'm still getting this every now and then. Do you have any idea what causes it and if not have you considered—if that is possible—to roll back the update?

Pile the bricks without the mortar Let me tell you this very exciting story real quick. You know what? I just tell you the payoff, so you don’t have to wait for it. Of course, this is exaggerated. We all know, that suspension is important, but this is not, what I want to talk about in this section. It’s about an often overlooked or badly handled element of storytelling: The filler scene. Filler scenes are boring, and you skip them as a reader, wondering why the author was such a fool to build them in? You, as an author, agree and don’t write them at all? Is your story still a joy to read? I hope so, but oftentimes, it's like forgetting the salt: It’s not the main ingredient but without it, you instantly know that something is missing. And guess what, filler scenes are not limited to being written by bad authors who happen to not know any better. Without a few exceptions (one of them being the show Orphan Black on Netflix), filler scenes are an integral part of the plot. So there must be a reason for them to exist and be deliberately placed where they end up to be consumed by us. One thing is often figuratively referred to as a “chance to exhale”. People who understand that can orchestrate their pacing remarkably well. But it’s more than that. What if I told you that filler scenes don’t have to be boring? Even though if they appear to be it on the surface, I would even go so far as to say, it shows some mastery if you know what to put, what to hide in filler scenes. If readers both get a chance to exhale and get little hints—even if they are more like metaphors—we might see these filler scenes in a different light. It’s like in a song: The loud instruments capture our attention, but you can easily hide little mistakes in a crescendo of thunder. When it comes to the soft parts of the song, even to solos, there you can see the little details, because nothing distracts you. The undeceived reader and the bilateral arc You have probably seen shows where they do a little flashback or flashforward as a cold opening and show you the exact opposite of what the character is currently heading to, which seems like an absolute contradiction. A child might go, “No! No! No! That’s impossible!” but we, as undeceived readers and watchers, “know” that it is very possible. We know, it’ll happen as promised. Even though, we have no idea, how this contradiction will finally be resolved. This is the first thing to get right as a writer: Create situations that are seemingly and convincingly impossible to escape. Don’t forget that we, as authors, are in control of what we show and what we hide to direct our readers' attention. Second thing is that we can’t go and resolve this straight. We have to mislead our readers first. This is called a “red herring”—a plot device, we already talked about in an earlier post, so I’m not going into details of how it works. Of course, the undeceived reader anticipates red herrings—even though they might not know the term or how exactly that works, but they feel it in their gut—so of course, there have to be multiple layers of deception just like in the movie Inception. Third and last thing is, how to resolve it. Of course, there’ll be a plot twist or an epiphany of sorts at some point, but it’s crucial to do it right. Otherwise, all the work we put into the first and second step doesn’t pay off. I have seen cases where it doesn’t work: Sure, you can say, the solution is something, the readers didn’t think of, but if it is something, they didn’t think of because it is impossible, and you can’t make it possible, you are lazy and that’s not how it works. That doesn’t mean, you can’t make things appear impossible from a certain point of view—because that’s what it’s all about: The reader’s perspective and the author’s perspective. They are not the same, and they aren’t for a reason. So, now we got a reason that doesn’t feel like utter nonsense after all after first reading the story. But what if we read the story from end to beginning, or just re-read it? Would it still make sense? Some lazy writers resolve stories in a way, that only works unilaterally—not full score, then. Object permanence—or are you an infant? I know, it’s the main character’s story, but that doesn’t mean, all the other characters have to be flat and boring. They might have things going on, the main character only catches peripherally. You don’t have to hide them, and neither do you have to elaborate on them in great detail. And who knows, maybe the story, the main character, and/or the relationship to the side character might benefit from that at some point. “is the moon there when nobody looks” — Albert Einstein It’s not a computer game where the gaming engine only renders what you see. Characters aren’t put into a puppet box when they aren’t needed at that time. You know, it’s the same with your friends, don’t you? Or are you anthropocentric? Love-hate relationships and hate-hate relationships On a side note, when you say “I hate this character”, have you noticed that it might not be clear what you mean by this? Okay, let’s make that a little more clear: On one hand, we have a side character, boring as hell, but they sneak into scene after scene for no logical reason until we freak out. On the other hand, we have a villain who does truly terrible stuff, and even if there is no reasonable chance to succeed with their evil plans this time, they manage to do so against all odds and cause even more misery which makes you curious on how they might have pulled that off. You probably feel that your two feelings towards them are not the same. Even though they both upset you in a way, the reasons are distinctively different from each other. While the first scenario is possibly bad writing, the second one is probably the very opposite. Although we hate to admit it, we love that villain for his ability to fuel hate in us like they were real. And if they were real, we’d actually hate them. In conclusion, we can say, these two feelings apply to different aspects of the story: Hating the boring character is more like a real-life feeling while hating the villain is more like a canonical feeling. People often confuse these two by harassing actors and actresses in these roles because they think, they must be evil in real life because they’d done that so convincingly on screen. On one hand, this is a compliment, but on the other, it’s nonetheless relevant to criminal law, and they don’t deserve that.

Thank you for sharing and being open about this! You are definitely not alone: I also suffer from mental health issues. Even though, mental health discussions are not always uplifting, in my opinion, they are important to have nonetheless—not only for those who are affected by it but also those, who work with them or are friends or family, to have a better understanding of what we go through. I'm very glad to hear, that you are getting better and didn't go through with committing suicide. Even though, I don't know you very well, I value your comments and posts as well as our discussions here on GA, and it would have been a loss to not having any more of them.

I'm glad about that, too Yeah, but can Trevor really be considered "underrated"? I mean, it's more or less known since the Trevor Project is a national institution. I guess, I have to check the other ones out. I like stories that aren't flat and aren't full-on love, peace and harmony. Thank you for these recommendations 👍

Also, the comments were written in the original context. By changing the text, it might be hard to relate to the original situation and envision it. If I were to rewrite my story, I'd like to do it as a kind of anniversary special or the like, rather than changing the text already posted.