Stay Sweet Ch. 03

@member9458

Thanks for taking your time answering your comment. Just my additional three cents

Every communication has three components: author-medium-recipient. I have great admiration for people who can effectively cover at least two of them on paper for anything above 1000 words - I know a lot of great stories (author) but when I attempt to write them down (medium) they are completely indigestible when I read them back (recipient). I simply fail co close the gap and chatacters and situations I attempt to transpose fail to live and make any sense in recipient impagination. This is the core of my comment 1 - your story create a sketch in reader's imagination that is filled by readers themselves. Hence so many comments (actually best testimony to characters well defined) 'my character would never do it' etc. By introducing important character aspects in your story without its full exploration you unnessesarily complex this readers' imagination excersise. it goes beyond your story, well written story lives its own live in reader's imagination (good job, mission accomplished). Hence my comment - standalone sentences for important story characters 'she had it tough, falling down relationship and then she lost her job, was diagnosed infertile', 'I need to stop home to take my medicines, I have MS', 'Let's take a lift, my lower left leg is prostetic and is painful when I climb too many floors' do not help. I fully agree with comments regarding multiple happiness paths and that children may not be important for MC in story time or afterwards, but this is not the angle I am coming from.

Similar comments for topics 2 and 3 - characters I impagined based on chapter 1 would not do it the way it is described, I am left with feeling of inconsistency. It may be about my predefined expectations (aforementioned live happily even after), maybe I missed something in the story and imagined characters not as intended, maybe it would help to restructure something in the story to further allign 'your' (author) characters with mine (reader)

In general good job and good luck. Finalk remark about rating system on Literotica - I feel it is too constricting and narrow bundling everything above 'meh' ('read it once, nothing gained nothing lost, will not come back') to two tiers only, it feels like 1-2 ratings are missing for decent to great reading. I am rating as per Literotica guidelines with 3-average 4-like 5-love..... and feel weird when most stories below 4.4 I read at my own risk!

@pjpb

That’s actually really helpful feedback, thank you! Don't worry, you didn't miss anything; what happened is that I made the rookie mistake of structuring the work around its three centerpiece sex scenes. The story progression was an afterthought; some writers are smart enough that they can get away with it, but in my case I ran out of narrative gas halfway through and had to make a too-big deal out of the leads' fears and insecurities to justify part three. Grateful as I've been for the high reader scores (it averages out to a 4.8 between the three chapters as I write this), in recent years I've felt they were inflated by about two or three tenths.

If I can offer some mild defenses of the three specific points you made, though:

1.) I don’t think Pete cares about starting a family of his own (or more accurately, hasn't really thought it through), and frankly, I don’t buy into the idea that children should be the endgame of a marriage. True, starting a family is a logical next step from falling in love; there's power in a bond between two people being so strong it can create and/or nurture life, I'm not trying to be edgy here. I just also think that for some couples, having each other is enough, and I think that's Pete and Ji-yeong. That said, you’re absolutely right in that it's a heavier subject than the story gives it credit for; I could have dug a little deeper there.

2.) So what I was going for was "I'm not sure how I'm supposed to love you when I can’t even love myself, and I need space to figure out how to do that." I felt like Ji-yeong needed to assert some independence at some point to assure the reader that her relationship with Pete wasn't just repeating some co-dependent cycle. Aside from not being all that well communicated, however, the problem there is I'm not sure Ji-yeong would have had the self-awareness to come to that conclusion on her own (even after two whole months of therapy), so yeah, not well thought out. If anything, it probably would've been more dramatic for /Pete/ to realize what trap Ji-yeong was falling into and for him to break it off with her; would have made him a stronger character, and given me an actual conflict to work with for the third chapter. (Not to mention a nuanced one; after all, who is Pete to tell Ji-yeong what's best for her?) (*snaps fingers* Another question I could have asked myself more often!)

3.) It wasn’t an issue; if anything, Pete's proud of her. Hell, I kind of regret not making him straight-up *into* Ji-yeong being with other people, even if the inversion from her controlling husband might've been too on the nose (and, from what I understand, would've had this category's fans breaking out their pitchforks). Still, if that wasn't clearly communicated, that's on me.

Thanks again for the insight, boss! If you feel up to it, I wouldn't mind having you poke holes in my other works too!

4.5/5 overall (rounded down to 4; all chapters)

After very good chapter 1 (strong 5/5) came bland chapter 2 and a bit dissapointing chapter 3 (4/5 both). Chapter 1 was engaging with clear narrative (after 7 years when she cut all connections when she got married; almost-family-member came back fragile and bruised from abusive marriage; MC helped her and they felt in love); chapter 2 was OK but had little actual progress I found ( relationship contunied but she had to reinvent herself so would not go after him when he went back home) and then followed with feeling off 3 (she healed enough to go for major road trip where she engagedd in several sexual hook-ups; while they were both mooning after each other; afterwards they both felt the attraction but were doing their best to stay friends until they stopped pretending, came back together and decided to get married). Maybe I missed something important, chapter 2 and 3 I did not find engaging enough and skimmed a bit.... Specific concerns lowering my score:

1. Ji-Yeong infertility was obsolete from ch. 1-3 narrative perspective and yet could weighted significantly on the future romance 'happily ever after'. Either use such important elements in storyline or just skip it. It was introduced just as 'she had it tough' side note, not enough

2. Maybe I missed it why they could not be together after she healed. Road trip and friend zone afterwards made little sense to me

3. I could well understand road trip with casual sexual hook-ups as self validation for Ji-Yeong right after she left her toxic marriage (low self esteep issues); it should have not been an issue after her new relationship with MC

This was an enjoyable read. The characters stay just the right side of too good to be true. Pete isn't perfect, he does get hurt and angry. It does seem cruel of Ji-yeong to tell Pete about Adrian, but she does recognise that she's on dangerous ground.

I was amused that they sublimated their mutual attraction into buying furniture. It reminds me of how one my friends described two people that we know who weren't doing it as "having energetic non-sex".

As for blowjobs, what you describe as basic sounds just fine to me. Anything else is optional and deep-throating is strictly for porn.

Very nicely constructed. The character building and development was excellent and really got me involved. Congratulations and well done. Hope there is more from your reservoir of ideas and thoughts.