Babypants

Agreed, although I would use the term formulaic rather than forced. Structurally, this story recalls an earlier one about a slightly younger protagonist with an equally abusive mother, sadistic sibling, and negligent father. That one had a fairy tale ending, so it will be interesting to see if the author is going to switch gears and come up with something new here. One thing that Elfy really needs to work on is UK-centrism. It is clear that I am not the only Yank who finds this story perplexing.

Something that caught my eye here is that Scott is doing algebra in his final year, at age 18. I did algebra at age 13, although most eighth graders are 14. Then it's on to geometry, trig, calculus in grades 9-11. Is the starting point and progression in the UK radically different, or are we to infer here that Scott is a slow learner?

Can you please take the time to put dialogue in quotation marks? It is very hard to distinguish internal thoughts from spoken words, so the story is very confusing. This is a shame, because the story line is really good.

Cauda equina syndrome? Pudendal nerve entrapment? Neurogenic bowel syndrome? IBS? Colon cancer? This is a short list of the possibilities. Absent medical screening, Occam's Razor tells us that this is a straightforward case of parental abuse. Perhaps the author is setting us up for a surprise ending. We shall see.

Really well constructed. Looking forward to the next chapter.

In structural terms, the problem with situating the main character between competing human stereotypes is that the reader anticipates one of two resolutions-- and they lived happily ever after, or tragedy. Yanking the rug out from under the reader requires a reversal, which typically relies on foreshadowing and/or an unexpected twist near the end of the story. Kellerman has written some very good novels in this vein in his Alex Cross series. It will be interesting to see whether we get something similar here, or whether the author chooses to go down the romance novel path with lots of angst still leading to an anticipated outcome.

I agree with Bonsai. By painting the parents in such unrelievedly bleak terms, and making the aunt and uncle out to be their exact opposites, the story is bordering on becoming an "and they lived happily ever after" fairy tale. It's an obvious trap, and it requires conflict in the present to escape, not conflict in the past. It will be interesting to see what you offer us as a reversal.

Activated charcoal? It doesn't take long completely to eliminate the odor, although patients do need to be advised that the color of their stool will change, perhaps dramatically. In my experience, pull-ups deal with messing quite efficiently-- if the leg gathers are well designed.

"After all this time you still get such little warning." What a red flag. Pelvic nerve damage yields the symptoms that you are describing here, as millions of us have discovered in real life.

Tom, you have just put your finger on the biggest structural problem embedded in any story written from a single POV. In this instance, we don't know what the father thinks because the only practical way to insert it in the text is to have the protagonist ask the father, and get "no" for an answer, complete with explanation. This would have worked, but too many asides of this type interrupt narrative flow. It is often better to have a second character with POV-- in this instance, the mother. Using this specific example again, a conversation to this effect between mother and father would give us a better sense of her motivation, and rather than interrupting the narrative, would be central to it. Alas, one of the real challenges in writing fiction is finding the balance between essential and extraneous detail. The one constant is that you have to give your characters enough depth that their thoughts, words and actions are plausible. As the number of POV's increases, the risk of getting this wrong goes up exponentially. Very, very few professional writers can pull off something like James Clavell's Noble House.

This story increasingly baffles me, but then again, I'm two generations older than you, and a Yank to boot, so perhaps the problem is cultural, generational, or both. As the chapters unfold, it's not the plot that is drawing my attention, but the setting in which the story is taking place. First, your protagonist is 18. Is this the age of jural majority in the UK, or is he still legally a minor? In the preface and opening paragraphs, he looks like a Droog, straight out of Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange. But as the story progresses, we see a young man who seemingly has no life skills, which leaves him both physically and psychologically fully dependent on a mother whose own behavior strikes me as downright bizarre. Case in point: he can't go and live with his father because the latter travels a lot. Huh? I'm an only child, and my parents couldn't wait for me to become old enough to house sit for them. This started when I was 14, which meant that by 14 I needed to learn how to cook and do laundry, in addition to all of the chores that were already on my plate. There was nothing unusual about my upbringing in this regard-- quite the contrary. And in turn, I was delighted when my kids became old enough for me to put them in charge of the house when I was away on business. Your protagonist is 18, and he can't be expected to fend for himself? What is so hard about popping a pizza in the oven? So, what are we looking at here? Is this family even remotely real, or are you giving us a DD version of the Addams family?

"You have to understand, this is what you wanted." Thus Emily. But what exactly is it that Will wants? "Adult baby" is a catch-all concept, and as such, essentially meaningless. "Baby" is an umbrella term, beneath which there are many stages of development. It sounds like Will wants to be a late toddler who no longer messes his diaper; in contrast, it appears that Emily wants to locate him somewhere in the cycle that begins with crawling and ends with a toddler able to speak and walk, but still fully diaper dependent. The potential for misunderstanding here is huge, so wise is the adult baby who insists on locating the terrain on which he/she and mommy/daddy will be interacting.

Very astute observation by Bluebird67. The end of this chapter reads like the end of the story, so you need to drop a discordant note into the next chapter that will frame chapter two as the calm before the storm.

If the answer to this mystery lies in the perfume, then Nora could become a very, very wealthy woman if she owns the patent.

You might want to try proof reading before your next post.

For a first effort, this is outstanding. And please do not apologize for taking it slow. Prolific writing is not necessarily good writing, and far too many of the plot-oriented stories on this site fail because the author does not take the time to do the character development that makes thoughts, words and actions plausible to the reader. My only concrete advice for anyone writing in a serial manner is to get at least three chapters ahead before you post a given chapter. This will allow you to see inconsistencies and eliminate them beforehand, and most crucially, will allow you to sense when you are headed down a path that leads to a dead end. Margaret Mitchell got it right in Gone With the Wind: the first chapter you write is the final chapter, and the final chapter you write is the prologue.

Neat story. Really enjoyed reading it.

Thanks, LBJ, your time line really helps a lot. Hard to believe that this entire story has taken less than two weeks to unfold.

Well designed, and well written. So, let me ask you the same question that comes to mind in every Amazon story. Why not a potty chair in lieu of diapers? A potty chair for an Amazon toddler should be the right size for a human adult. In contrast, the crib makes good sense, for as you have ably pointed out, it is a long way down to the floor.

Terrific chapter, with a great final sentence. One thing you should work on is syntax in your dialogue. To cite but one example: "`Thanks and sorry for the trouble.' Said Heather quietly" should read "Thanks, and sorry for the trouble," Heather said quietly. Your writing shows real potential.

Interesting tale, but you really should take Eagle0769's comment about proof reading to heart. An idea is only as good as the effectiveness with which it is presented.

How much time has passed since the start of this project? There are points in the story where everything seems to be swiftly cascading, and other points (especially his on again, off again approach to his article) where it seems as if months are going by. Someone once penned a detailed tutorial on how to achieve incontinence in a year, so I'm wondering if it will take him a year to reach zero.

Elfy, here in the US Spring break is normally one week in duration, the said week occurring at any time from early March to mid-April. Is Easter break in the UK also for a week, or is the break much longer?

The time line for this story confuses me. It opens on the cusp of Easter break, at the end of which your protagonist will be heading back to school to complete his final term. Then, after a series of incidents that result in him being diapered full time, we suddenly jump forward to summer vacation. Now, months later, school is about to resume, and we are told that he is worried about returning to school in his nappied state. What happened to the term after Spring break, which should have been his last? Here in the US, on the semester system this would normally eat up about ten weeks. How about in the UK? Did he in fact go back to school wearing nappies? Did he flunk out, forcing him to have a second go at finishing his final term? What happened? Because academic calendars can vary radically-- in the US, for example, a university on the semester system (15 weeks of instruction) might begin a new academic year in the third week of August while a school on the quarter system (ten weeks of instruction) might not start until early October, it is always a good idea for writers to pin stories such as this to the specific months in which it is unfolding rather than using academic terminology.

Interesting twist. But a cassette tape? In what year is this story taking place?