WBDaddy

It is always worth making people wait to get it right. Don't ever let anyone convince you any differently.

Well... that was a mood. Kid has stress incontinence, and in a very big way.

It's not like I don't still have notes from ideas we batted around over the years. Challenge being, we both have a tendency to want to take the lead on stuff like this, so we butt heads a lot.

Pers and I go way, way back, to when I was working on "The Panda's Ashes" while he was working on "Dante's Infanzia". I'm actually his editor on the published version of "Unfair". I've literally read everything he ever wrote. You'll see me poke my head into his Patreon Discord from time to time, though it's rare because, well, I have direct access to him - we live probably 30 miles apart and hang out routinely. By the way, regarding ADHD brain - appreciate what you've got going on now for what it is, because ADHD brain can also make you fall into dry spells that last years. I know from personal experience.

This is truth. And truth is, writing is a practiced skill. The more you do it, the easier it gets, the better the output is. As long as you internalize whatever critiques you get as guides to being better, along with observing and internalizing what other writers are doing (I swear to the gods, @Personalias is giving a clinic with the "Unfair" saga, and @Frostybaby isn't doing so bad himself with "The Mommy Influencer") that you maybe aren't - I'm terrible about changing focus with scenes between characters, which is why I namechecked both those writers and both those stories. Frosty accidentally triggered my PTSD with the way he started out one of his characters, and I got irrationally angry about it in the thread (and had to clarify that I wasn't mad at him, just her for being who she was). That's how good their character development is.

Low-key, I love building spreadsheets. My greatest joy was when I accidentally made Excel do predictive analytics without any scripts at all, because I didn't even know how to do scripts. It was just all my background math that made it happen. Had a cute little graph and everything. Client PM who told my boss he didn't think I could handle being a PM was dumbstruck.

When I went back and reread how bristly I was to people back then, I can't blame you for whatever you called me. Hard part was, at the time I was fresh off of 2 years as a medical transcriptionist, where our grammar, punctuation, everything had to be perfect. Proper for medical reports. Style guide to be followed. I was so indoctrinated into that, I couldn't believe there were people pumping stuff out that was barely legible for all its mess. 17 years later, I've learned how to skim, to let my natural instincts regarding what someone *meant* to say stand out when I read through a new post. Doesn't mean, if someone brings their invitations to criticism down here to the dungeon, that I'm not going to be unfiltered about it, but I'm not going to be a dick like I used to be.

Yeah, early on I was more than a little curmudgeonly. I feel like in my old age I've learned how to be more diplomatic about it.

No need to try and slow down your pace. Just make sure you do a little proofreader once-over before you post, so you can find the obvious stuff (without getting all self-critical, because we are ALL our own worst critics). For the record, my arrogant ass used to sit here and pour stories directly into the forum in this very reply box, because I was so confident in my grammar/punctuation/etc skills that I felt like I didn't need to edit a damn thing. Hoo boy, did that put egg on my face a few times.

You really have a good plot working here, especially with the wrinkle about Joy being an AB. Of course Jimmy wouldn't have noticed that, he's completely in his own head 99% of the time and the other 1% worried about what other people are thinking about him. One thing I would recommend, before you post new chapters, read the dialogue aloud to yourself. Does it sound natural? Could you imagine yourself or someone you knew speaking this way in regular conversation? Give it a try. You might be surprised. Also, you might also try blocking extended dialogue like Joy's little speech here with physical stuff, fidgeting, blushes, hand motions, positioning. Lots of opportunities to make Joy more three-dimensional with how she's conveying the information she's sharing, which is very, very deep and personal. Jimmy's reactions too would be good blocking. For the record, I'm really bad at this - I get so laser-focused on a monologue that I forget that I'm supposed to be conveying a believable person saying this to another believable person. But it's still a good habit to get into, imagining how your person would be behaving during different segments of the monologue, and letting the reader know what that looks like in between all the verbiage.

I'm glad that you were able to accept it as that. It really was, for me, a flashback moment to that editor, to the amount of effort I invested in turns of phrase and flowery language to try and make the story shine, and that sudden back-to-reality moment having someone tell me that I was putting my creative energy in the wrong place. It's funny, because I'm also a bit of a gamer, and not long after I posted the above, I happened to be conversing in guild chat about some game elements, and this sentence I posted struck me (you don't have to understand the game mechanics to see why) (I'm lying - the actual SM labs are forming a conga line for that lab slot as we speak) Simple embellishment that turns a mundane statement into something witty and colorful. Not holding myself up as a shining example of this, but the adaptations I've learned to make in my writing look a lot like this. Quick bit of humor to spice up an otherwise dry piece of needed information. Add color, but be judicious with it, and don't get hung up too much on peripheral details, lest you distract from the message. And don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with setting a scene, especially to open a chapter. But there's a great deal more impact to those sorts of mechanics if you're actually connecting a character to the description in some way. This person drank in this beautiful scenery, or this person barely noticed it because they were so deep in their own heads, or whatever. That gives your description a purpose for existing.

The irony. I worry, to some extent, that your flowery prose is starting to distract from the actual story. Though that might just be my ADD plus speed-reading kicking in. The first attempt I made at a second draft of one of my longform pieces way back in the day, I did the same thing - packed it full of simile and allegory and, well, basically poetic stuff. My editor at the time looked at me and said, "Cut to the chase, WB. You're spending a lot of words to say things that can be said with one or two. Embellishing is one thing, going off on fanciful tangents just to describe irrelevant details is a whole other one." I spent a lot of time thinking about that, because in my heart I knew, that was all coming from the poet inside me, the one that wrote lyrics for songs my band performed, the one who worshipped ee cummings and TS Eliot, the one who joyed in painting with words and skirting direct prose. We all paint with words, and we want them to be beautiful, but that doesn't mean we need to do the Sistine Chapel every chapter. Let the story itself be the beautiful part. It's there, you've got it, your plot is full and deep and rich and has its own things to say. Also, you're bolding again, and I'm really not sure why. When I use foreign words/phrases in a story, it's a simple italic, just like inner thoughts (which you're already doing). And completely confusing as to why you bolded the elements of the spread on the boat. I'd love to hear your take on why you made those choices, though. Not coming down on you about it, just wondering.

Thanks for the invitation. I accept. 🙄

Trust me, my very first ABDL story was so ham-handed, I'm glad no copies of it exist online (that I know of). It's okay to struggle with that, as long as your struggle isn't about whether the audience will keep paying attention. Trust me, if you give them something to sink their teeth into in terms of plot, they'll follow and wait patiently for the payoff. Especially these days (it was a lot different when I first started writing here in 2008). Addendum: I hate the fact that it's been 17 years since I wrote my first of these stories.

Here is the place for unfiltered criticism, especially because you asked for it. I have been following "Different", but on a cursory level, as it's not really my cuppa. I also read the Halloween short, and I appreciated it for what it was. I did a lot of vignettes like that back in the day. I did just read your first chapter of "For Services Rendered", and I'm here to tell you, at bare minimum. you should be rereading before you post. It's not big stuff, but it's a bit sloppy. Word interpolations and omissions are everywhere in that chapter. You'd be right on the edge of leveling up in my price tier for editing services were you to hire me. Is it enough to distract me from the narrative? Not really, but that's more because I have the ability to take my editor hat off when I'm just trying to enjoy a story. Plot point issue: Really weird that Mabel beat her ass once for dropping an F-bomb, but completely ignored her throwing every curse word in the book when strapped to the changing table with her ankles cuffed. Probably would have been good to have her give Emma another round with her legs folded over her chest to really lean in on the humiliation aspect. "Are we done with the bad words now, baby?" The plot has the potential to be a really interesting take on the whole "unsuspecting ABDL modeling gig" trope, though if it's only 2 chapters, you don't leave yourself much room to develop it. I suspect this is because you chose to skip any sort of build-up and dive straight into the content everyone's here for. My best guess for a close is that Emma survives the night after getting the full experience, but runs away screaming in the morning. In summation: We've all started somewhere, and you do seem to be starting from a place where you have the skills necessary to write a coherent story. Nothing wrong with exploring well-established tropes, especially if your goal is, as it seems to be in "Different", to turn those tropes on their ears. I did a lot of that during the peak years of my writing output (2010-2013). Try not to rush your output just to please the masses hungering for content. Go over it once or twice, checking for silly mistakes that we all make when we're running full bore in the middle of an idea.