Reviews
I've been lazy recently, plotting stories rather than writing, and reading ebooks on my computer. (I realize I shouldn't feel guilty because if you don't read, how are you going to write, but maybe it's the quality of what I've read.)
The ebooks/ free stories I've picked up in the past six months or so have been fluff and not the good kind. This is made worse by knowing that a professional editor looked them over. S2B2 stories are better edited. Maybe because the betas love these stories too.
(None of this pertains to writing for fun or the kind of early drafts people post for free, so don't worry. I'm not talking about you.)
The fluff that really bugs me is repeats. She frowned, annoyed. Or Joe wondered what could be bugging Tom. "Tom, what's the matter?" or having Bart worry about the same three reasons he might be losing his job, once while going to see the boss and again on the next page when stepping into the boss's office. It adds absolutely nothing to the plot and only bogs the story down.
These aren't bad stories. They were all pretty good (except the one where the main character slept through the climax of the story and where even after reading the love scene twice I couldn't make sense of which parts were whose [for some reason I thought I should be able to understand a f/f love scene since I share the parts, but then a cock appeared from pretty much nowhere and it might have been a strap-on, but was treated like it had feeling... I don't know]). They would just be so much better if they were a little tighter.
It's like no one did the Cut-10% exercise. It's hard and can be painful, but I've never had a story that didn't come out better for a little lint removal.
I'm not talking about a bare bone story. Some fluff is good, necessary. It's like chocolate is good, truffles are great, but between the two, when you've melted the chocolate, but haven't fluff in all the air, when the ganache is warm and glossy and spreadable and fragrant... nothing can compare.
Among all these stories was perfect ganache. Several months ago someone on my flist linked to a store with a sale (free) on books by Tamara Allen (thanks, whoever that was). I picked up a few on the last day. Then last week, I started If It Ain't Love and recognized it. I'd gotten it somewhere before. I remembered it was heart-wrenching, so I read the beginning and the end and got just a touch of the flavor. Then I dug in to the two I hadn't read before. I read Downtime over three days, before and after work, around dinner and family time and all. It stayed with me. Things bugged me, but I stuck with it and then those things made sense. I mean, the story stopped to chase Jack the Ripper. Only it didn't stop. That was all character development. Then I dove into The Only Gold. I cried even reading only a bit at a time, the story gripped me that much. Although I knew the Main character was seeing life through distorted glasses, I still felt for him and shared his pain. And when the twist happened, I was trying just as hard not to give up on the love Interest. And then... I love happy endings. And these were all the more happy because of the journeys there.
This author has pretty much spoiled me. I want everything I read to be this good. I want everything I write to grasp the reader just as hard.
The ebooks/ free stories I've picked up in the past six months or so have been fluff and not the good kind. This is made worse by knowing that a professional editor looked them over. S2B2 stories are better edited. Maybe because the betas love these stories too.
(None of this pertains to writing for fun or the kind of early drafts people post for free, so don't worry. I'm not talking about you.)
The fluff that really bugs me is repeats. She frowned, annoyed. Or Joe wondered what could be bugging Tom. "Tom, what's the matter?" or having Bart worry about the same three reasons he might be losing his job, once while going to see the boss and again on the next page when stepping into the boss's office. It adds absolutely nothing to the plot and only bogs the story down.
These aren't bad stories. They were all pretty good (except the one where the main character slept through the climax of the story and where even after reading the love scene twice I couldn't make sense of which parts were whose [for some reason I thought I should be able to understand a f/f love scene since I share the parts, but then a cock appeared from pretty much nowhere and it might have been a strap-on, but was treated like it had feeling... I don't know]). They would just be so much better if they were a little tighter.
It's like no one did the Cut-10% exercise. It's hard and can be painful, but I've never had a story that didn't come out better for a little lint removal.
I'm not talking about a bare bone story. Some fluff is good, necessary. It's like chocolate is good, truffles are great, but between the two, when you've melted the chocolate, but haven't fluff in all the air, when the ganache is warm and glossy and spreadable and fragrant... nothing can compare.
Among all these stories was perfect ganache. Several months ago someone on my flist linked to a store with a sale (free) on books by Tamara Allen (thanks, whoever that was). I picked up a few on the last day. Then last week, I started If It Ain't Love and recognized it. I'd gotten it somewhere before. I remembered it was heart-wrenching, so I read the beginning and the end and got just a touch of the flavor. Then I dug in to the two I hadn't read before. I read Downtime over three days, before and after work, around dinner and family time and all. It stayed with me. Things bugged me, but I stuck with it and then those things made sense. I mean, the story stopped to chase Jack the Ripper. Only it didn't stop. That was all character development. Then I dove into The Only Gold. I cried even reading only a bit at a time, the story gripped me that much. Although I knew the Main character was seeing life through distorted glasses, I still felt for him and shared his pain. And when the twist happened, I was trying just as hard not to give up on the love Interest. And then... I love happy endings. And these were all the more happy because of the journeys there.
This author has pretty much spoiled me. I want everything I read to be this good. I want everything I write to grasp the reader just as hard.