Brayon

An interesting SciFi tale. Had a good plot idea. A little over the top in the drama, but was still good.

An excellent short story that holds a message that is relevant for everyone.

1. One bright morning in December, I rode the train to Central Park. 2. Under the crumbling overpass, it was trashed with bags and boxes littered about. 3. Betty waited impatiently for David to arrive for their power date. 4. It was a new house just built for the small family moving in. 5. The techno music playing from next door was loud through the open window. I'm not a good editor. C-c-c-c-combo-break!

An interesting dramatic story about an older man who falls in love with a college-age man via online. The pacing was good, was well thought out, and had good visuals. My only con was that things moved really fast at the end.

Thank you for explaining this, and for being open on how it works.

An interesting SciFi story about the future, and two teens that meet via a football game.

From me: I've never seen the movie, nor have I read the book it was based on. Recently on the forums, there was a discussion of BBM and it turns out the Author didn't like the Movie Adaptation, nor all the gay men making FanFiction of the story, because they turned it into a "happy ending."

I normally don't intentionally put messages into my stories. Having said that I've done it in three, and it was pretty in your face. In two the MCs were disowned for being gay, and in one they were killed for being gay. I fully admit that is was a political commentary and one that is very relevant, if people would take their Ideology blinders off and see.

This week's topic is something I find a bit hard to do when I go to publish a story on GA: Tagging. GA has 118 story tags, and each story can currently have up to 8 tags on them. But what tags do you use for your story, in order to get someone interested in your work? We've all seen stories here on GA with very few to no tags. The Admin has even asked us to help them, by reporting those stories with suggested tags, so that they can go in and fix them. If you find that GA is lacking a tag, you can even suggest one, and the Admin might add it to the system. I've mentioned two that I've found that GA didn't have, and now we have the "Death" tag, and the "High School" tag. Both of those tags were missing, but we had a number of stories that had those elements in them. Now stories set in a High School, or has a character's Death in them, can be tagged as such to inform the reader. Informing vs. Enticing This is the part that I find to be a little hard when I'm trying to inform the reader, entice them, and trying not to spoil the story. Some tags are absolute by the rules, such as when you have Rape or Incest in a story. This is to inform the reader of the subject material in your story. Others are more subjective. But when do you use what tags? What tags would you use for this story? Well, first off, let's look at the list: https://www.gayauthors.org/storyoptions/storytags/ . This page has all of GA's story tags in both ordered by use and alphabetical order. By far the most popular tag is "Gay". Go figure... we're on a site dedicated to Gay Stories. Now the example story above, what should I tag it? Well, there are aliens, so "Aliens" should be a tag. I would use "Gay" because a Male-on-Male relationship does develop. It might be a bit of a stretch but "road-trip" could signify that they were on the run. For the mind-blowing Nifty Level sex-scene, "Anal" and "Oral" could be used. So that's five tags: Aliens, Gay, Road-Trip, Anal, and Oral. I've got three more tags I can use. Do I use them or not? That is up for each individual author to decide when tagging their stories. I could throw in "Military" because they are being chased by the Authorities, or "Alternate Earth" because it's in a different world than ours, but are they enticing the reader to read the story or making them shy away? Is less more? Again, that is what we each have to decide for our selves. Some might tag this differently, and go with Aliens, Young Adults, Love, Dark, Psionics, and Anal. Or even more different combinations of tags. With the exception of what is required by the posting rules, the skies the limit. So, what about you? When it comes to tagging your stories, how do you approach it? Inform or Entice? Do you use all 8, or go less?

Bleacher Stands... I'm currently writing a short for my Tampa Chronicles series, and the opening scene is after school at the Boys Baseball practice. I wrote: "Jadon moved to the bleacher stands, and sat down with a good view of the field." "Bleacher" didn't look right to me but wasn't throwing any autocorrect flags, so I Googled it. Seems "bleachers" means stands. I've heard them called "Bleacher Stands" all my life, so I know it's going to be hard to break the habit of saying both words together.

Did you hear? Also:

I have a story like that. But this guy has been around since the dawn of time. Primordial gods get a little randy after 13.8 billion years.

I have not read all of the official books in the Valdemar series. I've read the Herald-Mage Trilogy that dealt with Vanyel Ashkervon, and the events that surrounded him. This story is fantastic and fun read. It's built upon the lore of the series, and as others have said adds to the world lore that other FanFiction does not. The main character, Dalen Valdemar Ashkervon, is the descendant in Vanyel's family lineage. He fears history repeating itself, and even fears being chosen. Events in the kingdom conspire to thrust the latest Ashkervon Adept level Mage into the trials of history. I highly recommend the story, to anyone that likes High Fantasy, or the World that Mercedes Lackey created.

So damn true! The best advice I ever got about blogs... never read the comments. And if you own a blog, disable the comments.

I've been looking at a few different programs, but I keep running into the issue that the Free ones don't have the ability to track changes and allow comment boxes in the text. Both if which my editing team uses.

Yup. Running Windows 10. I'll look up the file history stuff. Thanks, Myr. I'm planning on upgrading to Office 365, just as soon as I can afford it.

I'm still using Office2007, so not sure if it has that feature or not. However, I am using OneDrive and Google Drive as backups. I have set OneDrive to keep most of my Word Documents there, and only downloading them as I work on them. A new feature I just recently learned about. The only downside was the last two days, our Cable Modem was dead, and I couldn't access my files.

*awaits with bated breath* I love your Psionic Corp Stories. I know you're an old gamer too, and they read as if they were part of a Role-Playing campaign.

This is a fantastic story full of love, and politics. Dale is a High School teenager who is asked by Cole to be his "Beard." Lots of character development, great dialogue, and fun scenes follow the offer, that turn this into a fantastic read. I highly recommend this story to anyone that like politics, sports, and teenage characters.

I got this quote from @Mikiesboy, and I think it also applies to when Readers want more:

This is my issue too. I've found what @Kitt suggested to be the best solution for me. I write according to which "imaginary friend" is talking to me at the time.

Under Glass was sad, and made me feel like a lab rat in isolation in some grand experiment. Only to be forgotten by the researcher. An Act of Self reminds me of the writer's perspective. A bit different from a poets, in some ways, where I look at the world I'm creating instead of the real world. I'm seeing it's beauties, and it's flaws. The rich history of the world I'm creating, and there is always a little bit of myself put in there from the experiences I incorporate into the story itself. After making this grand world, I find myself wanting to be more in it, than in the real world at times.