All Comments on 'Stepping Out'

Loved the characters and the story but I had a problem keeping the identity of the characters straight. Thanks for a good story that doesn't read like a sleazy comic book.

Good story but characters are difficult to follow ie who speaking or being spoken about, particularly in the first half.

Hiya everyone,

Thanks for the kind comments but I've decided to add a little note to clarify what I can see are some problems. There are paragraphs where Sandy is engaging in an internal monologue. This was supposed to be italicised and I toyed with the idea of putting dates before these paragraphs to suggest a diary. I had the idea of a gritty New York cop narrating as she went along. In hindsight I can see this might have made it easier to follow the characters and work out who's who. Criticism is greatly appreciated and duly noted.

Thanks again.

I agree with the others, it is a great story but I found the names and speaking made it confusing. I would like to see you follow this story further.

As others said, I was sometimes confused as to which character was speaking, but all in all, I loved this story. Great job!

Like some have said a bit hard to follow the dialogue (Who is the she in "she said")

OTOH I loved the Uhaul joke reference.

I agree that at times it was hard to follow. I really loved the whole piece. Well done but needs to be edited a little. Thanks

Well enough written but... As other comments have pointed out, the story was a bit confusing in places---I've noticed in some other of your stories that you tend to overuse the pronouns as in '...she this...' and '...she that...' You should be really clear on which character is talking or acting, otherwise there's a danger of putting your readers off. But you've got the right idea yourself in that it would be much better to italicise your protagonist's thoughts and musings. Can I suggest that when you've finished a story, you step back and take a good look, if necessary putting it to one side for a while before coming back to edit. I think you'll find this makes all the difference.

Well done with great feelings. Was hard to follow at times. You need to watch

who is talking to whom. But I still loved it. Thanks

You definitely need to rein in the "she"s and "her"s a bit. Of course, *you* know who is speaking, who is thinking, to and about whom. But read your story as a reader; pretend you know nothing. Go through and ask yourself, is this clear, who is who in this, otherwise, great dialog.

An editor can help immensely pointing out ambiguities and confusions. They, of course, will have to read the story as a reader, which will greatly improve the clarity of your otherwise wonderful writing.