All Comments on 'Belle & Jack'

"This is my first foray into this genre" You sure hit it out of the park on the first pitch. Ultra-Hallmark stuff with just enough heat added to make a sweet, tangy, and spicy (Irish? well maybe Hollywood Irish) salsa. As to your question about shifting viewpoints; they were not bothersome at all. It was a device that was very appropriate for a story that was told in large part by relating characters internal conversations. Bravo! 5 stars.

That is quite ludicrously sweet. Possibly the best drawn character is Claire, but it's an extraordinarily sweet story, and well told. Two comments, not intended as criticism but as encouragement:

First, try to work more on 'show, don't tell'. Don't tell the reader that the conversation in car went easily, instead give us snippets of that conversation.

Second, if you're setting a significant part of your story in a place you don't know well, research it thoroughly. It's amazing how much location research you can do now with Google Maps and StreetView.

Again, don't take this as criticism, but as encouragement: it takes good writing to keep me with you for a twelve page story.

Sorry, just can't. A page from a point of view, maybe, but every three or four paragraphs back and forth? Nope, sorry, just no. Got four pages in and just won't go further.....

Wonderful story and a most successful venture from your normal genre. Congratulations on a job well done.

Most enjoyable.

Loved it.

Excellent -romantic and almost believable -5 stars

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I think you did a good job with the back and forth thoughts of your two characters. Most often we didn't need the cue that it was Belle or Jack because as good writers know, your first sentenced outlined who was thinking, who was directing the action. well done.

Wonderful love story, loved it ! 5 stars

Wonderful story thank you for your hard work

Brilliant! It took a little while to get used to the shifts between the characters, but it works well. If the story hadn't been in a Romance section, the tension would have been almost unbearable. How would they resolve their location problem? But, you brought them home very nicely.

I really enjoyed it. Thank you.

And I think the cottage they stayed in is just up the road from where I live.

Amazing story with great depth of characters and plot lines. I will say it was a SHIT ending! I need another couple pages of how their lives went, children, grandchildren and maybe a Jack/Brian head bashing scene. LOL! 5*

Excellent story. Thank you for your time and effort!

Hope more stories in a similar vein are in your plans for the future!

Great first “romance”!! Please write more stories like this.

I really found the constant changes of point of view very distracting and completely unnecessary. When the thoughts and actions occur it's obvious who is involved. I, too would have liked some additional action at the end rather than the abrupt jump into a "quiet" wedding. Much of the celebrity scene revolves around the press being in on the changes and for Belle to abruptly have a fiancée that no one knows and is indeed a mystery man would challenge even the super skills of Claire. It may have been a challenge to the author also to work out the details of such a metamorphosis, but it would have made the whole thing tie together very well. Still worth a 5* to me

Wonderfully romantic story, spiced up with Claire as the mouthy foil and friend.

When I saw that this story was twelve pages long I thought it would be nice to read a couple at bedtime each evening. It's now 2am. That tells you how much I enjoyed it. Great characters, believable storyline, hot sex; what more could a girl want? My one teeny criticism, though it's more of an observation really - I thought that the sub-headings 'Belle' and 'Jack' were superfluous and a bit heavy handed. If you are writing in the first person yes, but this was third person so changes of thought should be self-evident if you are a good writer, which you are.

Sorry, but way too long and boring. I am amazed Overcritical gave you 5 stars. That used to be extraordinarily rare but in his dotage he’s getting soft. I rate this 4*.

What an amazing story, thank you.

Really great story, thank you. I thought the pace of it was spot on even though I was sad when I reached the end. More romances from you please, you have a flair for them.

Congrats on your win.

I have one major complaint, though. What does this have to do with Valentines? Sure, they loved each other and the separation was painful, they reunited, yada, yada, yada, but it had nothing to do with Valentines. Without that theme, almost any romance could be a ‘Valentines’ story.

By the way, you had your times all screwed up between Ireland and LA. When she was waking up in LA, it would only be afternoon in Ireland.

Love slow beginnings, instead of sex sex sex.

Contrary to what Anonymous says, the story gets the time difference correct:

"The time difference wasn't easy, Ireland was eight hours ahead of LA so that Jack was just getting up as Belle was going to bed".

Really good romance story and well written.

5*

Very well done in spite of a few technical issues that did not effect the storyline in any significant way. Good characters, especially Claire! There was certainly room to expand some of the interactions and issues, but they played well as they were. The tempo was spot on!

Great story!

5

Fuck off bitch Claire

A really good story. One suggestion: I think you could have done without the frequent "***Belle***" and "***Jack***" separators. The story is told in third person and flows fine without them; I know because about halfway through I just started ignoring them.

Definitely a prize winner, and I have to wonder about the voters responsible for it not being higher than third. I've not read every story in this Valentines Day contest, but I have read several and while the quality of some is outstanding, though this one I think never mentions Valentines Day, it's only the second I've read that truly embodies the spirit of Valentine's Day.

Though it does at it's core share the basic plot of the Julia Roberts/Hugh Grant movie "Notting Hill" that one was long enough ago that turning this into a screen play which if done right would make a really good movie. and rake in some serious dough.

The story was pretty good, but longer than it needed to be. With only two main characters, the rapid changes in point of view weren’t helpful, but not terribly distracting. The proliferation of errors throughout the story was distracting. An editor…or a careful re-reading…would have helped a lot. It read more like a rough draft than a polished story. Maybe a rush job to meet a deadline?

Wonderful love story, worthy of the five stars I gave it. I do wish Jack could have taken care of Brian personally.

Congratulations on the Valentine’s Day contest win. I really enjoyed the story, with the characters being well drawn (especially Claire for the limited parts where she appeared), and the writing being good. There were a number of things that could have been cleaned up but they weren’t too distracting… except for the perspective changes.

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The short (extremely short in some cases) and ever-shifting perspective was annoying, so much so that I quit reading around page 2, took a break for a day or so and came back determined to ignore them! Since the story was written in third person, identifying the character perspective changes wasn’t necessary, it was already done in the text of the story itself (though it could have been improved in a few places). You might consider that in future stories.

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In the end, I really enjoyed the story despite the glaring issue and rounded up to 5*.

Outstanding! One of my favorite stories; maybe even my favorite.

Well done. Because your narrative was in the third person and the switches in focus were smooth—with neither gaps nor overlap—I was not at all daunted by them. A quarter of the way in I wanted to tell you that the “Belle” and “Jack” tags were unnecessary. I wonder if those who complain about the shifts would have noticed if you’d left the tags out.

I look forward to reading your other entries here.

A beautiful well written romance. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I have a time separation problem. My 60yo Chinese fiancée lives in time zone 8 hours ahead of mine, so she is getting as I am going to bed. Our long distance relationship is not easy, but is also very rewarding.

This was so much fun! The way they found their way into each others arms and eventually into hot sex felt just right and really evoked my own feelings of falling in love and those wonderful endless days and nights in bed, just can't get enough of each other

6 pages of scene setting was perfect, not too much or too little. You have a great sense for pacing.

Bravo!!

Such a great story, and so well-written.

Great story until the end! On the last page, she calls him an a**hole twice and tells him he's full of sh*t when he describes how confident he is in their relationship and how he knows she's always coming back. Why? She was a sweet person the entire story, then starts calling him names?!?! I would have believed that from Claire, but not Belle. That left me with a bad taste...

This was very sweet. I liked the slow burn.

A good romance. Importantly, the sex scenes feel properly earned and integral to the plot.

Wonderful story .Thank you very much!!

So many of the stories here have a forced ending. This one doesn't. And many thanks for that. I wish them well.

Just great !

5/5 stars !

Well done Five Stars

I liked that the author didn't do many (or any?) obvious plot moves in such stories. Well deserved 5 stars.