Jdonley75

Ok. Haven't tried this prompting stuff before but it did shake a story loose out of my head.

My only encounter with gay characters has been Dragon Age: Inquisition. There are plenty of them if you know how to romance them. Obviously, Dorian was available but so is Iron Bull. But, other than those I haven't seen any. Although, I'd swear Prompto from Final Fantasy XV has to be a little queer.

Of all sad words of tongue or pen the saddest are these, "It might have been..." - Unknown I don't remember the source. It was in a book I read back in high school and that was a couple days ago. 😉

I knew there was a reason I woke up so #%$&ing early on a Sunday.... Awesome way that all went down. Luke deserves worse than what he got. It'll be interesting to see where Nate ends up. I sincerely hope someone stops Dustin from doing whatever the hell he's got planned.

Yeah. Just a little bit.

Maybe in the near future, Dustin can talk to Brett about his murderous dreams....

I like using dialogue to help establish a character's personality. It's easier than writing two or three paragraphs of a character's inner thinking all the time. Having them speak and express themselves can go a long way with less effort. If I were to add anything to this article, it would be that no character stands in place and delivers their lines. They're usually sitting or doing something. If it's dialogue taking place in the kitchen between two characters, it's a good hunch that they're doing something at the same time they're speaking to each other. Weaving their actions, words and the tone and expression on their faces can paint a vivid picture that if done well, will put the reader right there in the room with the characters. And unnecessary dialogue (stuff that isn't important and would slow down the story) could be boiled down to a paragraph giving the general idea of what the characters discussed. And what exactly is it? I say it's like porn. You know it when you see it. Love reading your articles. Always looking forward to the next one.

IF Dustin's test comes back negative... Been reading this long enough to know better than to assume. 🤣

Well done. That last line is ominous, though...

Heh. Yeah. Read it now before I finish the next installment. 😜

Having known a couple people who are HIV positive, it's true that you can go on living a normal life (the concept of "normal" with one of them in particular is harder than pinning jello to a wall). Dustin, however, is in the middle of having a bit of a breakdown. And when that happens, logic and reason fly out the window. I'd bet my last nickel that Luke probably has a horrible poker face and had Dustin not immediately jumped into panic mode he would have called BS on Luke's story.

Exactly. He saw a possible light of hope and was just starting to get comfortable with the idea of reaching for it when it was suddenly snuffed out. Cold, dude...$#%&ing cold.... 👍

Kind of makes what I put you through with Jacob and Kyle seem pretty tame now, huh. 🤣

Yeah. I got the same feeling too. Didn't really shock me because I saw that as a "simple" solution but at the same time, that really screwed Dustin up in about three different ways.

I, ah... Wow. Ok.... A lot happened there in those 3,000 words! One second. I need to settle down a little more. First off, brilliant writing. I can't imagine any of that was easy to write. Though, maybe you're a madman and you enjoy this kind of gut twisting prose that keeps readers on edge. You do you! Secondly, I can't properly describe what kind of future I can only pray that the gods will deliver to Sarah and Luke. Luke, especially because what he did just shows how morally delinquent he is and he deserves any retribution the Fates (i.e. you) give him. Oh, and I ain't even gonna touch that Brett & Joey @#$% right now. Not assuming anything until I know for sure. That though? What you did there? That's cold AF. Keep that up. Looking forward to the next installment. 👍

So... It was 1994, summer time and I had graduated high school and started making real friends. High school in a small town (or any school before that for that matter) wasn't very kind for people like me, especially in that time when there was AIDS and everything else running around wild. But, I made some really good friends and we loved hanging out together and just had fun. And fun for us was card games, sodas and a lot of joking around. All harmless, no clothes were ever removed and they were going to a big university in town and were always inviting me to hang out in their co-ed dorm. Well, because of the real honest fun I was having for the first time ever when I could be myself and have people actually accept me, it was never easy for me to say, "hey, I gotta get home." I was usually coming home anywhere between 1am and 4 am on any given night. This was completely foreign to my single mother who was used to her youngest (and only child living with her in the past 7 years) almost never leaving the house except to go to work. For my mom, everything had to be on schedule, everything in its proper place, no changes because changes are bad. So, one night, I got home around 4 am, headed up to bed and it wasn't by the time my head hit the pillow that mom comes barging into my room (her house, so she doesn't need to knock) and starts screaming at me about how irresponsible I am. Mind you, I'm holding down a second shift job that I don't have to be at until 3 pm so I'm doing just fine. This goes on for about ten minutes of her just screaming at me when she finally says, "and I wanna know the truth. Are you gay or aren't you?" So, being tired and just wanting her to shut up and let me go to sleep I tell her I am. There was a long silence before she said, "I am so disappointed in you." Turns out, I actually didn't go to work the next day because I had a breakdown. And I ended up going to my friends' dorm because they insisted I come because I was an emotional mess. Ryan and Carrie (my friends) apparently told everyone in their dorm about what happened by the time I got there and I had about 20 or 30 people ready to offer me whatever support I needed. I ended up staying the weekend at the dorm and mom came to her senses and sort of apologized. But, she and I barely spoke to each other for a full year before she got up the nerve to want to sit down and talk about me being gay. As for my dad, I never did tell him. He kind of hinted around he was hoping for a grandson someday and would occasionally say something to me about my dating life or lack thereof (oh, if he only knew...) and my sister basically told me to never tell him because he would freak out worse than mom did. Plus, our relationship was estranged to put it in its best light. He wasn't really a part of my life so there was no real logical reason to tell him. Gotta give him credit though, he did attempt a reconciliation by the time I was 27 or 28 but at that point it was way too little and far too late. And it was all moot anyway when he died in a car accident 6 days before my 30th birthday (I'd almost swear he did it on purpose because he always disliked it when things weren't about him). My grandmother (mom's mom) turned out to be my real champion. We never discussed it outright but she knew. Me and my boyfriend at the time I lived with her would spend time there with her and she liked him (too bad he was a loser) and after she passed away, I discovered that she had a serious falling out with a friend of hers from when she was a kid about how gay people were immoral and going to hell. She made my grandma so mad that she never spoke to her again. And after what happened with my mom, my grandma let her know she wasn't putting up with that. "He's still the same person he was and I raised him to be a good person and nothing's going to change that!"

Awesome post. Can't stress that enough. Conflict is the bread and butter of any decent story. Moreover, it's the bread and butter of life, whether we want it to be or not. 😄 It's not a bad thing for characters to have a lull in their lives once in awhile. I dare say it enhances those precious, romantic moments when they are interrupted by some coming storm no matter what form it takes. Some conflicts should be solvable within a chapter. Some should take a little longer. Some should come as surprises or secrets suddenly come to light. And some conflicts should carry the story all the way through from beginning to end. The more the conflict(s) affect a character, the better the character becomes in my opinion. Conflicts urge us to rise up and be better than we thought we could be. Sometimes we win, sometimes we fail but either way, they change us in ways we don't always notice. And sometimes a failure can be than winning. We learn more from our mistakes and our characters should too. Or not... Sometimes they need to be kicked a few times until they get the message. Life isn't easy. Our stories shouldn't be either. Yeah, some escapism is nice once in awhile. Sometimes you need your characters to just be able to sit back and enjoy the victory they've worked hard to attain. But, you are right, if they stay in that super-sweet, happy, blissful nirvana, the less interesting the story becomes. I think one of the best things in my story I wrote was that there was no clear resolution to one of my character's problem. His life was better than how it started but he's always going to have that one problem that will never completely go away. But, the fact that he doesn't give up and has someone who loves him and is determined to stay at his side makes it as close to a happy ending as he could have gotten.

A very well crafted tale. Good job.

That was so beautiful.

I like to think if them as "imperfect" characters. 😉

Wow. I thought my characters had problems... Poor Dustin is screwed six ways to Sunday.

That was an awesome chapter. You do a great job of keeping Dustin's inner thoughts exposed to a point but not too much to give everything away. I'm looking forward to seeing where this goes.

The wine fridge is on back order. Should get here by Saturday. 😜

It's not like it's going anywhere. Get your stuff done and then you can come visit over in my corner sometime.

After a day of dealing with my screwed up characters it's so great to come here and read up on Kendall and Michael. 🤣 I smiled reading through this entire chapter. Excellent work!