I was taken to court by two irate readers. They could not finish the story because everything was wrong: There was no logic throughout the story, the English was stilted and uncomfortable to read since sentences were way too long, and especially the dialogues were horrible. No Australian would ever talk this way, they were too difficult to read, and especially no Australian woman would ever talk in this complicated way. They would use easy, short sentences – and my dialogue had them talking about difficult subjects in a sophisticated manner. In their opinion, I was wasting their time and they did not finish.
Well, I might agree that my stories lack logic, my English is stilted, and my dialogues could improve. I disagree completely, however, that Australian women cannot express themselves in any other than simple sentences. I lived in Australia for four years and met extremely intelligent women – some probably more intelligent than I – and it took all my efforts to accompany them in serious conversations. And they were using sentences that were more than ten words long. Additionally, my story shows a very aggressive and successful female executive, a graduate in philosophy from a good university, and a focused IBM manager. I doubt that any conversation among them would be boring ….
I hope that you enjoy this new chapter, the next to last one of the story. It is supposed to be funny and tender.
PS.: This reader commented about the overall story I published in another site. It had over 50.000 downloads, and the weighted average rating from one to five was 4,76. Not bad for someone who writes stories with stilted English, lacks logic, and prefers intelligent women ….