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I completed and published the final chapter to The Coupon Book earlier today!
I have heard authors talk about making emotional connections with the characters in their books. Some of these attachments lead to the author shedding tears when they write a character's death scene. While I may not be quite that connected to the group in The Coupon Book, I really enjoyed writing the story.
When I initially outlined the characters I created a lot of background info that didn't make it into what was eventually published. I think it would be easy to continue with several new, independent stories with that cast of characters, but I've got another story partially completed and hope to finish it before returning to the world started in The Coupon Book.
For those that have read and provided feedback, Thank You! It is much appreciated. If you have read, or will read, the story and have a comment please don't hesitate to send me a note.
I hope you enjoy reading The Coupon Book as much as I did writing it.
For my sophomore effort I wrote two short stories (~2500 words each) that follow one another. After getting Two Perspectives done (~40K words), it seemed pretty easy to write these two very short, non-sex, stories. My third effort is blocked out around 8-10 chapters so it will likely be closer to the Two Perspectives.
Many thanks to those that have sent feedback. I really appreciate it.
-DF
Updated many small typos in Two Perspectives (my first effort) and reposted. Email if you are an editor that would be interested in giving feedback. I have a second story about ready to publish, and a third that is roughly blocked out.
October 16, 2020
I just finished posting my first story - Two Perspectives - and see that the final chapter (the epilogue) is now published to the site. It is my first attempt at any kind of writing and it ended up being a bit more ambitious than I originally intended! It clocks in at over 20K words, or ~40 pages in Word.
If you haven't read it, please do! Afterward, I would love to hear your feedback.
As it was my first attempt at writing a story, I'm sure there are some likely weak spots, but figured (hoped!) that I got the story to a fairly solid state, and if I didn't just publish it I would spend forever editing and possibly never get it online.
I hope the story hung together and the characters were engaging enough that any short comings in style or execution did not deter from your overall enjoyment!
I know if I went back to edit the story in a week or two there are some areas that could probably use some work:
1) It may have been a poor choice for a first-timer, but I chose to write alternating chapters in the first person, starting with "hers" and then "his" (hence the title, Two Perspectives). In early drafts I occasionally switched to the third person and had to go back and modify the text. An inadvertent "hers" or "his" likely made it to publication instead of "my."
I also struggled in a few places to keep the story strictly in the first person so I tried to indicate a change of perspective with an in-page break ("+++") then another break when returning to the fist person.
2) I tried to be careful with tense, but after reading and rereading so many times I'm sure I wrote a mixed tense sentence or two (or ...) somewhere in the 40 pages.
3) The erotica! Trying to write a story was a challenge, but trying to write the erotica was a bit harder than expected. Like above, I hope it was passable and didn't detract from the overall story.
Again, if you have any feedback on the story I would be grateful to hear it! This story is literally hot-off-the-press as I waited to see it go "live" before posting a blog entry.
I have some ideas that I am toying with for a sophomore effort and would appreciate feedback that may help me avoid the same errors in the future.
-DF
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