Forty-Two

Hey Hamen, Glad you were receptive to my review I understand now that you are writing for yourself and not your readers, which is the main purpose of GA existing, after all. However, I was reviewing from a different perspective, so it seems that most of my points are now moot. As a reader, it is very hard to give any useful constructive criticism when the author is only writing and posting to satisfy himself. You probably would have gotten more out of a simple "nice story" review. I will keep this in mind before reviewing other authors' works. I certainly agree that it would be pointless to cut Charlie's word count in half - you would lose the story. I was just giving you an idea of what the stats are like with published works. I still feel the story could benefit from being tightened, removing elements that only contain secret meaning for you, a little less description, a little more plot (and plot doesn't have to be intense action or exclude character development), and stylistically be more like part four all the way through, but, this whole point is still moot if the story is the way you like it. I got the sense that in several places you feel I didn't "get" the story or what you were trying to achieve with a specific scene or character. When you explained your intent with things such as the psychologist purposely being extreme, Derek not actually having many friends despite being "popular", his attitude to his phone, his mother's feelings toward his father, and the hyperbole coming from Derek's skewed narration, they were in line with what I thought your intent was. My comments were based on feeling you weren't quite achieving the effect you wanted or achieving it as well as you could have. But again, if that's the way you like these elements, then there's no reason for you to change them. In Part Four I felt the writing focused more on plot and had much better focus and flow than parts one through three. The epilogue didn't have this feeling. The writing style wasn't as fluid or engaging, the focus seemed to be on the wrong elements at times. It felt like you lost all the stylistic improvements you made in part four. I can't really give any more detail without going back and re-reading to highlight specific elements, sorry. With regards to the narration vs. speaking style, I was referring to the whole story while Derek is the first person narrator. I was aware Derek was "speaking" throughout the whole story when I made my comments. I tried to keep this as concise as possible, but am always open to discussing more if you are interested. Good luck with current/future projects! Forty-Two

Note: Spoilers abound! If you have not yet read the whole story and are worried about spoilers, do finish the story before reading this review. Hey Hamen, So, sorry I didn't write any reviews as I read Charlie. Nothing frustrates me more than seeing the read count go up on one of my stories but not getting any new reviews. Hopefully the following makes up for not reviewing. This is going to be very long. Sorry. I have strong opinions, and I'm verbose. In your responses you've said you are open to constructive criticism. I hope you truly mean that. These sites are awesome for authors getting support and feedback, and I love GA, but the main problem is that everything gets rated four or five stars. According to the stats, every story posted is amazing, and essentially perfect. That is simply not true, and not a real-world reflection of the quality of writing represented. Although I enjoyed Charlie enough to read all the way through, there are several chapters I would have rated one or two stars. Hope you are okay with hearing why. To start, I think Charlie is a good story. The idea, the characters, and the general plot are all interesting and well thought out. I was skeptical for the first several chapters about it being unique and not following the same "meet, struggle, fall in love" plotline as you usually read on these sites. It wasn't until Derek made his first homophobic hate statement that I believed this story was following a road less travelled. I enjoyed the slow reveal of Derek's tortured past and my confusion about why he felt so much seemingly random hate. The child abuse and hateful views of Derek's father are so very reflective of real-world hate mongers. Bad people aren't just born that way, they are created out of nature and nurture. In fiction and real life I really enjoy the psychological exploration of how people who think or do terrible things come to be that way. The biggest problem with Charlie is that it is too long. Way, WAY too long. 163 275 words for a drama/comedy/love story is simply too much to keep discerning readers engaged. In one of your comments you mentioned something like, "If only I was being paid to write this." If you are serious about one day becoming a professionally published author, then one of the first things you need to do is research your genre. The average published novel in this genre is probably somewhere around 75 000 - 90 000 words. Of course, lots of novels are longer, but they are usually things like epic fantasies or psychological thrillers. This is because they have so many characters and such long, convoluted plots. Your story (and almost all romances) simply doesn't have enough plot or characters to warrant such a lengthy word count. The readers who pick romances off the shelf do not want to be taxed with lengthy descriptions, teasing lead-ups, and endless unanswered questions. They are looking to be quickly engaged, immediately entertained, and to have things wrap up before they have to get on with the next chore in their life. Most romance readers are looking for a quick, easy, fun read. 163 275 words does not meet that criteria. This is the kind of detail that will make any book agent or editor immediately toss your manuscript into the slush heap without even giving a glance to the plot or characters. A professional book editor told me that tightening a novel always produces a better reading experience. I then went through the process of cutting 35 000 words out of a novel. It was so HARD. All authors resist chopping up their baby. It is a painful, long, frustrating, and daunting experience. But I learned, it is also so very necessary. The final result was much improved. The amount of detail you have created for your characters, setting, and world is amazing and necessary to the beginning stages of structuring and outlining a good story. The problem comes when you go to describe these details to your readers. Authors have to be very aware that while their understanding of their story is informed by 100% of the world they have created, readers only need to know (and have the patience to learn) about 15% of that world. Your main characters are described and characterized well, but some of the secondary characters are filled out to unnecessary extremes. The psychologist, for example, has multiple paragraphs of description, and she is in the story for all of what, two or three chapters? Although her extremes are entertaining, they are mostly superfluous. Rebecca's mom is also described in way too much detail. Secondary and background characters need very little description, just enough to serve their function in a story. After all, if they needed detailed characterization, they'd be main characters, wouldn't they? As you are editing, in any genre you must constantly ask yourself, "Is this advancing the plot?" If not, don't hesitate to cut it, your readers will never miss it. If it is not plot advancement but character development, ask yourself if it is absolutely necessary. Is this something readers already know, or is it something they can infer from the character's actions instead of being told directly? If so, cut it. The chapter that immediately comes to mind when asking this question is the one where Charlie gets a job. The only necessary points to get across are a) Charlie has a job, which takes one sentence to explain, that Charlie is helpful and good natured with a little pushing from his mom, which again takes about one sentence and is already seen through Charlie's other actions, and c) that Derek can be selfless when it comes to helping Charlie and hanging out with him, which again only takes a sentence or two to get across. Characterizing the old man, describing the store and the work they do, and the whole thing with the young kid buying the video game are all completely superfluous. I get you are trying to show (instead of telling) Derek has a softer side and that is what Charlie sees and loves about him, but we already know that just from where they are in their relationship in that point. Even if we don't see a direct example of it, we know from how Charlie idolizes Derek that he sees a savior and a good person. This chapter is giving us no new information on their personalities, so cut it, please! A quick paragraph summarizing Derek giving up his weekend day to help Charlie at his new job before going into the next plot oriented chapter is all that is needed here. There are several chapters like this in the story - especially the first half - that really get in the way of advancing the plot. As you edit, constantly ask yourself, "Is this engaging my readers, or is it causing them to suffer fatigue?" After almost every chapter in Part 1 and Part 2 I wasn't sure if I would keep reading because it was taking so long for the characters to start doing anything. You also must be careful when giving visual descriptions of settings and background info on groups and places. Like secondary and tertiary characters, with places like the high school, mall, restaurants, and psych office, although you have all these fantastic details outlined in your head, your readers only need to know the essentials. Everyone has been to a mall and can imagine your characters in one. Unless it is essential to plot development, describing the features and layout of any mall is boring. Everyone can imagine a "classic fifties diner" from that description alone. Derek's musings on the weirdness of Neo Japanese dining are entertaining, but make sure you just tell enough to make the readers get the joke and then move on. A few descriptions on the school are necessary, especially for those readers who have never seen a private school, but again, keep it simple and relevant. The psychiatrist's office is WAY too excessive, but I will return to that on a later issue. Believability is another major issue I have with the story. I love Derek's attitude about perfection. Self assured, arrogant characters are so much fun, especially the joke about him disliking people who are full of themselves. This sets up the comedy aspect of your story well. However, comedy is very, very difficult to write. It is possibly the most difficult genre to write to well and to reach a wide audience, because readers' comedic tastes are so varied and fickle. Comedy can be a great medium get across an idea, and it does blend well with drama, but again, it is a very difficult thing to do. I commend you on your dedication and efforts here. I think the comedy/drama blend is a great approach for this story. It still needs a little polishing though. My sense of humour is very dry, so I am not a great judge, but I didn't have any laugh-out-loud moments in your story. That didn't bother me though, because the "comedic" elements read as hyperbole to me, and I enjoyed them in that way. Rebecca toting an axe was fun. Derek's love for his sexy car is done well (although I really don't think a car from the 90s can be considered "classic".) The problem arises when readers can't tell what is meant as hyperbole and what is meant as serious drama. Read it the wrong way, and what is meant as a joke comes off as cheesy or unrealistic, breaking the readers suspension of disbelief and jarring them out of the moment of the story. Some moments are just taken too far. Derek watching the bug get eaten by the frog is so obviously there just for the metaphor that it has no dramatic appeal. The exchange with Rebecca's mom would be good if it were simple, but her mom is SO intense and overbearing it just leaves readers wondering why she is such a bossy, meddling parent. Mrs. C's dominant personality can be entertaining, but again when it goes too far or goes on for too long, it just comes off as ridiculous and unnecessary. Derek's mom also sometimes overreacts outside of the boundary of reality when defending her son. The idea of Rebecca's dominant personality is good, but it sometimes doesn't come off well, needs a little polishing and different wording to make readers laugh instead of wonder why she's insane and who in their right mind would be friends with her. That the stoplight is always green for Derek is great, and it works well to set up the one time it is red, but we really do not need the stoplight's whole life story. It is an odd shaped intersection known to cause accidents. Got it. Readers have not selected a comedy/drama about a teen and his gay best friend to read half a chapter on the history of a traffic light. It needs to be tightened, a lot. Derek's cell phone. What teenager would hate his cell phone? Especially a popular kid? This makes no sense. And the lengths you go to to try and justify it only make the unrealistic nature that much more obvious. Keep it simple. Derek is resentful of the phone because it is a present from his dad. He forgets about it because since he can't have it at school, he doesn't carry it around much. Done. There are a few moments in the story where you try to justify why the obvious thing is not happening. Be very careful with your reasoning in these places. If you can't work in a quick, simple, and believable explanation, then you have to re-write your scene to meet readers expectations, even if makes your plot point harder to write. The challenge will make you a better author for future stories. The psychiatrist's office hits on the length issue as well as the believability issue. Not only are the descriptive paragraphs excessive, the idea alone that it would be so huge with so much seating makes the story read as amateur. Psychiatrists run tight schedules and pay excessive rental fees to have professional looking offices in downtown cores. The exorbitant cost of the size of rooms you describe with a full kitchen is just too unbelievable. It would cost way too much and she would not be so free with her time. The core idea is good - lots of seating to read the patient's personality from their actions. But, it needs to be simplified. You can get the same idea across with only three or four seating options in a normal sized office. That way the reader can focus on the comedic elements of the psychiatrist's personality and fashion. But again, be careful which things you make light of. Her fashion sense is a good way to get humour. Her dismissive attitude makes sense when dealing with a teen who doesn't want to be there. But the professional boundaries she crosses with flirtation, threats, and insults destroys her credibility as a realistic dramatic character Derek will end up being emotionally reliant on. On the other side of things, some details are left a little to vague. Luke is a secondary character, so you don't want to fall into the trap of giving his life story, but when every sentence describing him is hyperbolically evil, he comes off as nothing but a two-dimensional "insert homophobic bad guy here" character. We know Derek hates him, but why does everyone else? Luke could benefit from being portrayed as a little more well rounded. Derek's father. It is a total "What the heck?" moment that disengages readers the first time you mention Derek's father hasn't been home in years. That is a really important point to make and needs to be worked in much earlier. It is great how the details of their family's past are revealed slowly, and Derek's attitude is a spot-on representation of a teenager's want to please being mixed with resentment. But it makes absolutely no sense why Derek's mom isn't divorced if she never even talks to her husband. The relationship is explained and worked through really well in the end, but something needs to be done to make the early parts understandable. And how does being in construction give Derek's dad any kind of sociological power? It would make a lot more sense if he were in something like politics. Emo boy Jared. DON'T TOUCH A THING. He is described just enough to remember he is around but not enough to be conspicuous. He was the perfect surprise villain. Travis was also characterized enough but not too much. Andrew was pretty good, although his perceptiveness seems to come out of nowhere in his first chat with Derek and he offers too much insight too soon. I noted you said in one of your responses that as you were writing, you wanted to change something in an earlier chapter, but it was already posted so you re-wrote the later part of the story to make it fit, even though it didn't come out as well as it would have. This type of thing makes me cringe and want to cry. Why, WHY would you cheat yourself like this? I understand in the e-fiction format authors are excited to post their first chapters before they are done writing later chapters to get feedback and encouragement, but this is not like airing a TV show. You have the power to go back and make changes to things that are already posted. You can make a simple author note at the beginning of a later chapter to let readers know there has been an edit. This is one of the awesome benefits of e-fiction and the greatest tool to allow authors to learn and grow. Take advantage of it! No professional author keeps their first draft. Most professional authors publish draft four or five-B - or fifteen-H. Re-read your writing, edit, edit, take a break, and do more editing. As the story changes and develops while you write it, go back and fix those consistency errors in earlier chapters. This isn’t a choice. It is a must if you want your stories to be fluid, professional, and keep readers engaged. Beta readers will help a lot with this process. I know they are hard to find and even harder to keep on task and on schedule, but do your best to find them. There is a HUGE difference in part four of Charlie where you had beta readers. It was tighter, smoother, more interesting, better written. Did your betas read the epilogue? I would guess not, because it fell back to the earlier style of writing. Betas will also help you with your language issues. I'm sure you're aware you have the standard grammar and sentence structure mistakes that every author misses with their own work. But your writing style regarding narrating vs. talking could also use some extra polishing. Derek's narration is actually pretty good. But the formal word choice and stiff sentence structure when people are speaking does not read as real. Young Charlie and Young Derek speak the same as their eighteen-year-old selves who speak the same as the adults in the story, which is really unnatural and jarring. Kids use simple words and short sentences, even the mature ones. Teenagers use contractions and slang. Teenagers take the easy way out, and would never say something like, "I profess your machinations are rather rudimentary," when they could say, "Dude, you're a tool!" instead. Your sentences weren't this bad, but I'm exaggerating to make my point. Adults in a professional setting - such as the principal punishing Derek - will tend to be a little more formal. But remember to treat them as three-dimensional characters too. When they get mad or passionate, something like, "Mr. Hampton, if you do not get an attitude adjustment this instant, I will slap a suspension on you faster than your flashy wheels can make it from zero-to-sixty. Got it, hot shot?" is much more palatable than something like, "Mr. Hampton, if you do not adjust your errant behaviour I will be forced to take extreme measures against you, are we clear?" Also, it is fine if you always want to write happy endings, but if a story isn't turning out that way, don't force it into a mold. You'll wreck it. Let the story take the best path, and if it ends up being not what you originally set out to write, that's not a bad thing. (I do feel Charlie ended well. It was thematically consistent the whole way through.) Any artist (or businessman, or student, or anybody) benefits from workout outside of their comfort zone. I challenge you to write a short story (under 1 000 words) that is a tragedy. These types of exercises, although maybe not enjoyable, well make you a better author, even when you are writing in your comfort zone. So, there you have it. Hopefully you made it to the end of this looooooong review, which I realize is kind of ironic (hypocritical?) considering my stance on keeping written projects as short as possible. But I wouldn't have taken the hours (seriously, hours) I did to write down my thoughts if I didn't think you were worth the investment of my time. Although all this criticism may be coming off as rather harsh, honestly, I do think you are a good writer with lots of potential. That's why I want so badly to see you improve. I really hope I have helped you and encouraged you. In no way is my goal to bring you down. Criticism like this can be really hard to take, and it will take some time and probably a few re-readings several days apart to digest it all. I promise you, if you take the time to objectively review your work and give it a hard-core, no-holds-barred round of chopping and editing, you will be so proud of your final draft and in a much better position to write your next project. You are at the stage in your writing where you have grown but are still struggling to get out of your cocoon. But the future butterfly you does show through. Your italicized introductions to each section are my favourite parts of the story. They are, in a word, perfect I bet that's because you put a lot of extra thought and care into shaping those paragraphs, re-read them multiple times, and wouldn't let them go until they met your highest standards. Apply that effort to the whole story, and you will have something that lives up to the all the stars your readers have given your work. All the best and good luck! Forty-Two

Stuck in a freezing apartment on Christmas Eve, a young artist and a young writer must huddle together and try to heat each other up.

It was cold. So damn cold. So damn freaking cold! Barrett kicked the broken radiator. A rusted knob fell to the floor and the serpentine shaped metal let out a dying groan as the last bit of luke-warm water burbled onto the floor. Dammit, Barrett swore to himself. He wrapped the blanket tighter around his shoulders. He could barely keep his grip on its edges with his numb fingers, despite the thick ski gloves he was wearing. The front door to the apartment slammed. The sheet of ice that ha

There’s something Killian has been hiding from Joseph and all his friends. When the secret finally comes out, Killian has to fight to hold onto his treasured friendships.

He slapped me. I couldn’t believe it! What the hell? Who does that? “You slapped me!” I yelled, unable to get past the shock. “You’re a goddamn liar!” he accused, his face getting red from the rage. “I never once lied to you!” I stated firmly, truthfully. I rubbed my stinging cheek. “A lie by omission is still a lie.” “Bullshit. You assumed. You saw what you wanted to see.” “Get out,” he growled. “Don’t be an ass! I’m sorry. Please, just let me explain.” “Get out!” he scr