E K Stokes

So if I got this right, you wrote the lyrics, your bf translated the verses to Korean (Fire in the Rain ver.1) and the AI composed and performs the music and vocals? It was excellent, wow!

I found this event really good, I don't know how so many wildly different prompts produced such excellent stories from lots of different authors, but it did. I've almost finished the stories only a couple to go and they have all been great, in different ways, all well written. I just wanted to say that as a reader, it was top!

No doubting the excellent writing and the characterisation is reflected in the author's pseudo, a person with the paranormal ability to perceive the mental or emotional state of another individual. It is engaging immediately and easy to read, but easy to read the narrative does not make the story easy on the emotions. A whole lot of stuff has been written about readers liking happy endings and I've never paid that too much attention, because I swing towards reality and happy or sad, if it's realistic and believable, that's what counts. Only here we start out at the end and we look back forty years and the end appears sad, even more so on checking Land of Lincoln. Sad because John Renkin couldn't live his own life, but felt compelled to live someone else's, his parents, society, the pressure to be normal and not be a homosexual communist. It's sad at the end, it's sad at the start, maybe there's some joy along the way, I hope, but in the end he made a bad choice I think and that goes to show how much pressure parents, family, and society can exert. But therein lies the battle, the war, the struggle, and you've got to be strong, you have to live your life, not someone else's and that's the sadness when you don't, because it's a lot of time blown in the wind!

@Thirdly you have been very nice to me and I sincerely thank you for all your detailed comments. Perhaps another author might have taken offence at how their story was dissected, but honestly not me. I found it really, really, helpful and am deeply grateful because I've got some great feedback on what I need to do. I have the plots for stories, I just need to get the detail and order right. Thank you, thank you, I feel very enthusiastic about my writing now!

@Thirdly you've given me more than enough information to make this story into a real novel, probably double the size and that same point was made by others, but you've actually given me the threads to pursue and elaborate. Maybe I should do a rewrite taking in all this extra writing, I don't know, do authors revisit their stories, rewrite the whole thing?

Yes, yes, there you got it exactly and I missed putting a lot of that into the story. Thinking about it, I probably need to focus more on motivations, why someone does what they do.

@Thirdly these are good ideas that I could have used to expand the story, unfortunately I never thought about it and didn't have any kind of feedback before publishing. Not an excuse for what's lacking in the story, just an explanation. I will try to use everything you have pointed out in the future.

@Thirdly from you comment, which is similar to feedback I received from another source, essentially says there should have been much more detail. I agree, I hope my second story had some improvement around this. It's a learning process.

Good point, I'm amazed your comment went into so much detail, but thank you for this constructive criticism, it's noted. On a similar note, this story was submitted to another site where they actually got down to editing it and at the same time rejected it asking me to rewrite it. So I know it's a long way from perfect.

I think you constructed a good story out of a difficult prompt, April Fools Day would never have inspired a story from me, I kind of think you drew the short straw!

The story was easy to read and full of surprises. An enjoyable story.

I was left with one simple question on my mind: why was Gavin/Calvin marrying Lilah? I know he had this three some thing in his head, but you don't get married for that.

And you are right to wonder. I wanted a who done it that finishes with a perfectly plausible explanation and yet leaves some doubt in the reader's mind - did I really get it right, is that how it happened, or... I hope it's not too sneaky on my part not to dot all the I-s and cross all the T-s, I think there's a space for doubt, there usually is in a lot of crimes!