All Comments on 'Innocent Before, Guilty After'

Huh? Is that the ending? Is that the Fin?

the innocents are not afforded that luxury and have to waller in ignomy, TK U MLJ LV NV

I decided to end with a new beginning for the two main characters. Sheila was able to reunite with her husband, which is what she truly wanted. Russ, although hurting, sets his sights on new horizons and was beginning to become excited about the potential the future holds for each of us.

would either start Posting sensible Comments, or give up!!

A good idea (maybe) but the lack of realistic characters torpedoed the story. The details of the business dealings were very good but the lack of motivation of the characters or maybe just some understanding of their behaviors really did the story in. Sheila's husband was made out as jealous and really not very desirable on any level. Yet Sheila loved him. No, she hated him. And then out of the blue she went back to him. For no apparent reason. In fact, when did she find the time to reconcile? This story had so many holes my interest fell through.

Please think about your characters — and your readers — before you say you're done.

might have been a decent tale but...

not written well, not told well, doesn't flow at all, characters were not fleshed out one bit (I mean I'm sorry, when a woman *accepts* her hatred of a guy she doesn't just hop back into his bed and business after being falsely accused and put through hell for any among of time let alone excessive amount of time, I have never in all my time met a woman built like that, they may forgive, but they're gonna put the hubby, ex-hubby through such an ungodly amount of hell that he would never remotely think about it.

The ending it a complete and utter waste of type space, and that's being nice...

2/5 and that's being generous

I can see the effort and the kernel of a decent tale lies somewhere buried in there, but it needs a character rework, a general look at the story itself and a good coat of wax to make it actually flow

in Loving Wives. She cheated by omission, because the duty of married couples is to not cause the partner grief, which she did, the way she acted. Also, if she really was in love with her husband, she wouldn't have slept with the other guy, no matter how attractive he might have been. Sorry, but I had to mark it low.

I enjoyed the story, in my opinion well written, understood the characters, and dare I say would like, no love another couple of chapters. Been in a similar business arrangement. Thank you.

dont be an idiot. if causing your spouse grief were cheating every single married couple on earth would be a pair of whores.

Terrible ending that made zero sense ruined this tale. As others have said, Sheila going back to a man who treated her so badly makes zero sense. The fact that the resolution to such a major plot point happen off screen and got so little an explanation and seemed nothing more than an after thought, is really bad writing.

Also why is this story in the romance section?

I loved the story and your writing but hated the ending. You could make it up to me with a second chapter telling about Russ' new beginning as well as his happy ending though lol.

I suppose this story's ending is realistic in some ways though, as much as I hate to admit it. It's not always a happy ending for all. Still, I wish that Russ would have found a way to screw ole Dick in the end (pun not intended).

Either way, thanks for sharing, look forward to reading more from you.

Thanks to those who left kind words about the story. They are always nice to see.

Thanks are also in order to some that were more critical in nature, especially Molliculus, Depopulo, and, to a lesser degree, Jounar. While I don't agree with your opinions in totality, there are some gems of advice in them. It is comments like that, as painful as they can be, that cause us to examine our writing and learn to improve upon it. So thank you.

That being said, I'd like my say too. Upon reflection, I certainly could have, and perhaps should have, explained in a bit more detail how Sheila ended up back with Dick. I usually try to keep a story or chapter to a certain size, but had I considered my readers, I would have written this without worrying about length of the story or the extra work involved. I guess it is alright to leave the reader to draw some conclusions, but perhaps this one was a bit too much to leave to that. I also could have provided a bit more background about Sheila's relationship with Dick prior to all this.

Because here's the thing. Sheila loved Dick. He had courted her, and she had married him. She was distraught when he threw her out and divorced her. What we know of Dick is how he described himself, not how Sheila described him. It was Dick's own insecurities that sunk him. Sheila finally got involved with Russ because her marriage was over, and she felt she had to move on.

I can envision a scenario where he runs into Sheila and they talk a bit, maybe over coffee. He wants to know why she cheated. She tells him again, she never did. I don't know. He begins to realize he may have been wrong, asks for forgiveness, agrees to counseling, whatever. I can even see them out a dinner, and Liz comes over to their table to apologize. She has the entire investigators report, and wants to share it with Dick and Sheila. She confesses that her anger with Russ caused needless harm to Sheila and Dick. In a leap of faith, Dick refuses to look at the report, instead deciding to believe Sheila.

Our world is full of people that forgive each other such transgressions. It isn't easy, and it can take some time. (Perhaps I could have done a better job giving a sense of elapsed time. I never wrote that Sheila left Russ' bed and ended up in Dick's the next day. Anyway, Sheila loved this guy. She may have hated him too, but she always loved him. Do we not see stuff like this every day in real life? I mean, hell. People stay with spouses that beat the crap out of them. This isn't such a stretch here.

As far as flow, I don;t know I agree with the comment on that. Some of the events in the story were concurrent, and involved different people in different places. How I handled that was pretty common.

To the LW commenter, sorry, I'm not taking the LW bait. I did not post this as a LW story, because it isn't. Honestly, I think it defies categorization, as it doesn't fit very cleanly in any of the available categories. Anyway, Russ and Sheila did not do ANYTHING prior to Dick throwing Sheila out and divorcing her. The omniscient narrator makes that clear. The fact that she thought Russ attractive is a moot point. There are attractive people all around us every day. Being aware of that is not cheating. All Sheila did was her job. If Dick had problems with that, he could have worked n them. Let's not forget he had her sign a prenup. Was she supposed to give up her career, depending totally on Dick, when he didn't provide her with any protection should they split up? The fact that she eventually slept with Russ was because she was no longer married, as noted above. You don't get to divorce someone and the expect them to forsake all others after you threw them out. Not unless you're a nut.

To the other anon: Yes, Liz was so angry and irrational, she spent a bundle to extract revenge on Russ, throwing Sheila under the bus in the process. Undoubtedly, LIz had all the facts and knew nothing was going on with Russ and Sheila. But she fucked him over anyway. Do you really think shit like that never happens? As for Sheila fighting the divorce, who says she didn't? The story stretches out over time. No one says everything happened in one or two days. Security cameras might not have captured anything, but that isn't proof. There are too many places where cameras are not present. As for the buyout clause in the contract, you're just wrong. Who would agree to a specific dollar buyout on creation of a company when you have no idea what the enterprise value will be worth six, twelve, twenty four months from now and beyond? The non-compete was in exchange for Dick paying twice the value of the company. Seems a fair tradeoff to me. Again, you think that doesn't happen? Why didn't Russ try to sink Liz? Not everyone is motivated by revenge. It is actually pretty counterproductive. Where did it get Liz? As for Sheila having sex with Russ...I never said she knew that she wouldn't fall in love Russ. She tried. She said that. It just didn't happen, much as Russ' relationship with Liz didn't work out as he had hoped. Life sucks sometimes.

I enjoyed reading this story and liked your theme and character development. Although, as others have stated, I didn't particularly like the ending because, as you know, I am a believer in happy endings. Looking forward to a sequel where Russ finds love and happiness in his life.

I loved the build-up - and the sex scene was spot-on and un-rushed.

Like some other commenters, I didn't care much for the ending ... but, shit like that happens in real life - why not in erotica?

Keep it up!

@swilly

First let me state for the record I was in error using the term bad writing in my post, instead of bad storytelling and for that I apologize. I understand where you are coming from regarding story length and you not wanting to make the tale to long but I personally feel that really hurt this story.

All I can say to you in this matter, is that quality always beats quantity. An extra half a page, explaining how Sheila got back together with Dick, would of make a HUGE difference to this tale, seeing as how the false claim of her cheating was the catalyst for her actions with Russ and a main plot point to the entire story.

Also, while Russ may not have wanted revenge on the bitch who caused all the problems, the way you wrote Dick, makes me believe he very much would demand his pound of flesh from her.

good writing.

WTF, where is the rest of the story? This is like a porno movie; build up, sex scene, and then it just sort of ends.

So much promise! Please get back here and finish this for Russ.

...that so many readers are unwilling to accept what the authors write as being the story the authors want to tell.

Swilly, in my opinion you have crafted a well-written work of short fiction. With a realistic ending that is often missing from stories posted to this site.

I look forward to reading your other posted stories and future postings still too cum.

I didn't want to like the ending but I found that it stuck with me. Good story.

I thoroughly enjoyed your style of writing and I really like the story. However, it would be nice to have a little bit more of a conclusion then him heading off into the sunset solo.

Thank you for sharing your stories with us.

Brujay

But also a rather sad tale at the end.