Krista

His own damn self! I am well behaved.

I have a full time job, I cannot babysit him all the time. I see that I've been lacking and let him run wild. *Sighs* He'll be dealt with.

I've seen it in hindsight thinking after the relationship dissolved into nothing. I struggle with poetry. It is an interesting concept. In the perspective of someone who knows they've done someone wrong, irreparable damage really, because that's what it is. People don't get that time back, those feelings magically lifted, there was once a time in that person's life when they were wronged so deeply that it 'changed' them for a time, if not forever. So, writing from that perspective, interesting. I don't know that I could do it justice. I also meant to thank you and @Bill W for taking the time to review the poem. It was a nice surprise for me.

Yes, there is fun in imagining things for characters long past the writing. Phil asked for his ball schedule, so maybe Phil will travel to see his son play a lot of his games. Baseball in the timeline is far into their future though, I think they start practice and then start playing exhibitions in late February? If I'm remembering correctly, a lot of teams take trips during that time. That would also be an interesting write... Joel, Davin, Gavin in the wilds alone, so to speak. I don't see Celia being the chaperoning type for them, probably would be for Lacey, although having "three" kids on the team would give her good reason to go. But yes, I can write hundreds of small scenes and portions of chapters, but with no underlying main conflict driving the narrative, all we have are scenes and wants with little connection. I don't like to do short stories, my short stories are hardly ever short really, most hitting between 20 - 40k. All of this is food for thought. I don't want to do this or a sequel. To me this story is finished for now. By the time I get interested in approaching the subject, there will be a lot of time passing. More since I'm struggling with Ellis. Time makes victims of things, so I'll probably forget too much of what I wished to cover in any sequel, writing it down would help... we'll see if I do.

Yeah, I'll never have your body count in stories. lol.. 😮

Yeah, some things are left a bit open-ended, but they're pointing to good things, linear, how life moves on if given the time to do so. The most unknown would be what happens at the Benton household after Joel's father stood up for himself and his children, but yeah. Thank you for reading, I loved these characters and still think of them often.

Yeah, I tended to change my mind a lot when I had darker opportunities. I know I'm not that sort of writer really. Some of the themes are baseline on the edge, but I tend to stay on the 'lighter' edge of that, if that makes sense.

No truer words have been spoken, especially since I've not written a word of, "Ellis," for over two weeks, I'm thinking. Not of any significance anyway. I don't want to call it dead yet, I hate to think me being almost 40k in and 6 parts in, for it to be 'dead.'

I think washing his hands of them and showing himself to be 'different' from their nature is better for his character than someone that grows to put it get his revenge. Although, they definitely needed it with everything they did to their own family, and how they did business to be fair. They're not good people.

I think part of that was that Jason, as healthy as their relationship seems to be, did begin it being a but codependent on Adam. People who are slightly codependent do forgive easier, but it is one of those things that can still be 'healthy' if both people are stable and equal within the relationship and there aren't any abuse or underlying things that goes alongside the dependency. But, I'm saying this not remembering exactly what happened in this late stage of the writing either or how bad Adam messed up. I still can't believe I called him Adam. In my head when you started reading this story, it was Rhett or Brett, but then I remember "Roommates" has a similar dynamic going on with the two main characters and I'm thinking one of those characters names are Brett. You would think since I wrote every word to these stories that I could remember such details, but I can't. Mind you, I'm decades removed from some of these stories, and by removed from them I mean completely. I don't think about them, I don't discuss them with people, they are essentially 'buried' in my mind as long distant memories. My favorite projects I remember, but some of these have fallen to the wayside. I enjoyed writing this story, but I know it isn't the strongest story I have, and if I am being critical, then I tend to avoid it, because I don't like to affirm my critical nature.

When you put it that way, it sounds ominous? Slightly.. lol. "To do what needs doing..."

Ellis, Elias is the "ghost story/light mystery," story I wrote shortly after 'Ridley.' I am seriously going to have to come up with a new Title for that story. I have confused multiple people. *Sighs* I hate naming stories. Ellis I like the name, and the name for the character and the story came before Elias was even a thought. So, my stubborn mind is telling me that Ellis cannot be changed. His name won't be, but the title of the story most definitely can be. I need to wrap my head around that and get over it.

Yeah, I tend to do slice of life stories. They come in out of nowhere, and they leave after those initial main resolutions are 'hopefully' resolved within the writing itself. I'm remembering how I ended this story. I think it is slightly different than how I typically end these writings of length that I do. I honestly forgot and didn't check how many chapters this story had. I know this story began as an Anthology that went too long and got too wordy, so I decided to keep going. Story of my life really... Ridley, this story, Learned to Lie, Elias all were born of failed Anthology attempts. That is why I don't participate in them often, it gives me 10x the work I expected.

A lot of the work needs to be done in characterization, so when the characters speak there is a distinction in voice already. Although, most people write similar characters in one given story generally. Friend groups can be similar as much as they are different. But, distinctive voices help narrow the focus on who is speaking. With similar characters all talking at once, you will need to do what others have said, I believe it was @Jason Rimbaud and name drop more often than you would if there were just two speakers involved. You can do so by naming the character within the dialog, or you can do it outside of dialog. You'll probably be more understood with a slight increase in dialog tags as well. Another way to help when multiple characters are speaking is to bring in the environment around them. Give all the characters involvement around the dialog, movement, sensory things - touch, smell, taste, hearing. Give them action. It breaks up the dialog slightly and gives readers a chance to engage an entire picture instead of the words the speakers are saying. If you can visualize all the characters involved as you read, then who is speaking can become more clearly noted. Observations are important. Some of the main goals with writing is to tell an interesting story of your making and imagination. To entertain. But to also convey information correctly, easily, and creatively. In fiction there are constant information processes going on, that's how we comprehend what we're reading. So as a writer of anything, conveying the information as easily as possible, making it smooth, and understood is a goal one should have. If you muddy the information, you lose the audience. So, clarity is key in this.

Oh goodness me. That hurt my noggin. And stop feeding him, he is like a cat he'll keep coming back.

I'm seeing that I need to go back through and fix the hidden formatting bug. It has smacked this story it the face. Those large spaces between paragraphs are irking me and I'm not even actively reading. I think I said you're well in the middle of all these soap opera/fast shooting information chapters where a lot comes to light very quickly. I think this is where I lost some readers, because the story started feeling a lot less linear and more.. bomb after bomb, punch after punch.

It had to be something trivial, an inconvenience. Although any reason isn't a good reason, to be fair. Unless you absolutely felt like you couldn't handle the situation and you would be doing the child more harm than good. Someone as privileged as they were, could have learned. Or at least kept her in their lives. Seeing her being deaf as an impassable imperfection makes them rather cruel.

I guess you're getting into the meat of the "soap opera" portions of the writing where there's a lot of information and such coming out of the woodwork. The manipulating and selfishness was fun for me to write in these characters.

Hot you say? Hmm. I like the character dynamics between them. You made the connection I wanted them to have, to be honest.

Oh. If you read anything I've written you will quickly see that I do not do dialog structure well. I use 'Said' a ton, I do throw in a few 'counters' 'asked' or whatever. I'm self-taught in all this, so my opinions are also coming from a place that is self decided. So, that is as far as that goes with me. What I've learned most about writing is the more strict a person is about structure, stylistic choices, etc the less fun writing is. So I approach writing with bad habits just to keep the creativity there. Balance is key, as you've said. But as far as being correct all the time, not me. Definitely not me. If I were to pursue a publisher, I'd be editing/having my stories edited more thoroughly, and work on breaking my bad habits. Hush your face. That and dehydrated... hangry and thirsty.... different meanings for different people, mind you.

Oh.. sorry... tis what I get for getting on GA whilst on my lunch break and I'm both in a rush and hangry and dealing with husband shenanigans. I was genuinely confused. I thought you were cross at me for suggesting Talking Head Syndome at all. Woopsies.

Talking head syndrome has nothing to do with how many speakers, or the use of dialog tags, or absence of them. Although they do help in extended portions of dialog and with multiple speakers. Talking head syndrome is when a writer relies far too heavily on the dialog to the point you cannot see more than just two or more people conversing. There is nothing going on underneath the dialog to carry it forward. I honestly don't see how I struck a nerve, as it is a very common issue in writing and why most people become lost in dialog heavy writing. Dialog tags do play a part in helping the symptom, but it isn't the blanket band aide either. Edited to Add: Publishing companies adopt policies all the time. If they suggest Said and/or more dialog tags to be implemented, it more or less could be for a multitude of reasons. I gave an example. Talking head syndrome. They see hundreds of stories, if they can nullify most of their issues with the writing by suggesting more tags, then add more tags. Simple. Or move on to a different publishing company. They are the ones taking a risk on 'your writing.'

The first two episodes are a little bit of a chore, to be honest. The show finds better pacing and overall more enjoyable after Episode three, which I found middle, not bad, not good. It points to improvement heading into the next season, the show getting better as it went. Who knows though, it may regress and become unwatchable. I suck at television.

And she's mostly unapologetically blunt, correct?