Jdonley75

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.

Hm.... Villains.... I try to avoid the idea of there being a villain in a story. I like to think of them as adversaries that the other characters have to go over/around,/under. That said, there is evil in the world and the people who do those evil things can be painted with the label "villain" and no one would question it. No one but the villain himself, of course. Most of my experience comes from role-playing games and when I made a "bad guy," I more or less have to play the part for the other players which means I have to get to know him very very well before I can make it convincing. (It should be noted that most of the people who played in my games years ago feared a lot of my characters, not because of what they did but because of how they made the players feel.) I usually make him with his own purpose and goals. Sometimes the other characters come in conflict with him, other times maybe not. The question you have to ask yourself though is why is he there and what does he need to do to accomplish his personal goals? Does he need to make a Faustian deal which puts him on a collision course with the protagonist(s) or does he have something they want that he's willing to part with in order to secure a favor later. And does that favor end up putting our hero into a morally gray area? There doesn't always have to be a fight against the villain for him to be seen as evil. Just his methods. And they, of course, never see themselves as evil or villainous in what they're doing. They see themselves as the hero! Think Thanos in Avengers or Kingpin in the first season of Daredevil. Those guys have a purpose and a goal. They're not some tired old adage of the villain with the sinister plot to destroy the world with his deadly laser cannon who laughs like a maniac and twirls his mustaches. Those guys are boring. Make a guy who're interesting. Give him strengths and weaknesses. Show the reader that he is capable of feelings beyond selfishness, greed or spite. Get the readers to identify with him, even if they don't get to really see in his/her head. Make them question their own feelings about him and draw their own conclusions and then watch the debate rage in the comments section. I'm in the middle of writing a new book and I guess, in a way, there's a villain in it. We'll see what becomes of it. (just my $.02) 😜

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!

Wow, she's a manipulative little.... I foresee bad things in the future with this.

I'm really late to this game, but wow, what a page turner. Can't wait to see how this goes.

First off; awesome spell. As far as names go that used to be the biggest sticking point as far as creating a character is concerned so I just stopped putting effort into it let them name themselves. Where the characters come from for me is usually just asking a question to myself and see where it leads. "What makes a person suddenly change from an outgoing, caring person to a curmudgeon?" Poof, there's Kyle. Ready to tell his story. And from him came Jacob, Troy, Andy and Brian who themselves had their own stories to tell which just gets threaded into the narrative. I go with scenes that play out in my mind and then ask how it happened, what lead up to it and what happened later. That's usually where my characters and stories evolve. But, then again, people who know me think I'm crazy.

In my opinion, it's up to you and your characters if there is another story to tell or not. Maybe there is, maybe there isn't. Everyone wants a sequel and then sometimes it works (Star Trek II) and sometimes it doesn't (Highlander II). The story I'm writing now is going to be one story and then that's it and I'll be moving onto something new. I'm glad the readers like what they see so far, but once it's over, it's over.

Heh. I'm glad you enjoyed writing it as much as the rest of us enjoyed reading it. And you gave me an idea for something.

Twenty years ago it was "The Bone Collector." Now it's more like "Second Hand Lions."

No, I could definitely hear Chris's mindset change from giving up to, "I'm not going to let this be 'what might have been.'" He gave it one last shot and found the missing piece he didn't know about. That's kinda what made it good enough to read twice. To see him take that last chance before Paul walked out the door. As far as visiting them again, it's usually up to them if they have another story they want to tell you about. That's been my experience at least. 😊

I had to read this a couple times (a shame I can only like it once) to really appreciate the entire mood. It's beautifully written with the fast, almost frantic pace to it. It really put you into Chris's shoes where he was forced to act quickly to stop a potentially catastrophic mistake made on both their parts.

*sigh* Never changes that someone starts this topic and immediately goes right to Brady without really looking at the stats. Career Average passer rating is 97.6. Not bad. Aaron Rodgers is 103.8 Peyton Manning is 96.5 Drew Brees is 96.7 All of those are pretty good, Brady is about in the middle of some prime 21st century quarterbacks. Here's the thing, though. It's not just him doing it. It's the coaching and the other players making him look great. You can argue he's made some impressive passes in the past. I can also point out a few horrible moments of his like when he got a safety in the opening of Super Bowl XLVI and they lost that one and the Super Bowl before that XLII both times to the Giants. If not for a stupid call by Seattle in Super Bowl XLIX, he would be sitting at .500 on Super Bowl Wins. And that's taking into account New England going through receivers at a seemingly faster rate than most serious playoff contenders in the last two decades. I'm not saying Brady is good at what he does. He is, there's no doubt. But it's the New England system that makes him look good, not the other way around. In 2008 when he tore his ACL on the first game of the season, Matt Cassel took over under center and he ended the season 11-5 and a passer rating of 89.4 which if you take into account his dad dying that December, is pretty good overall. Put all of that together and add in all the shady business going in with the Patriots and Gillette Stadium (even someone as universally respected as Tony Dungy said he never had team meetings in the locker room because he knew they were bugged at New England) and it diminishes Brady overall to maybe top 5 or top 10 but he should never be number 1. There's my $0.02. Now, if we're gonna ask who's the best coach in the NFL, then absolutely, Bill Belichick wins, hands down. And this is coming from an Indy fan.

"That old dog won't hunt." Usually refers to a plan or idea or something that won't work out at planned or intended. I had to look up the meaning. First time I heard it was Ann Richard's keynote address to the 1988 Democratic National Convention.

I find that having the right music on tends to put your mind in the right frame. It also gets you out of your own mood and into the mood of your character (old RPG habit I picked up) but I rend to run old school and use songs from the 60's through to the 90's.

I'm hoping we get to see the next chapter soon... I've been kind of chomping at the bit to see what happens next.

I have a solution to that predicament...