All Comments on 'Good Things Come In Small Packages'

Enjoyable story!

5

The first wife cheating was such a small part of the story it was almost like the author threw it in just so this story could fit in the LW category. This could have just as easily fit into Romance with the cheating ex-wife just mentioned in conversations with Liz.

Both wives were written as being too stupid to live in normal society.

Still, a mostly entertaining story.

The story wasn't too bad however, the whole thing felt very rushed. It was too fast paced and lacked a lot. The author needs to slow down a bit and add a lot more detail. More on the 1st marriage and the cheating and divorce would have helped. Also More about the two meeting and dating and falling in love. Her naivete about marriage just wasn't very believable. There is just no way ANYONE would find it ok to invite someone else to an anniversary dinner and then proceed to dance 3 dances in a row with that person and then not expect the husband to be pissed off about it.

Not one of your best stories it was rushed and littered with errors, mistakes and plot holes. For example one huge error or cock-up as the Brits would say (pun intended) ' She owned the house. ' Further on in the divorce settlement you said 'She could have the house.' Of course she can she owned the fricking thing before she married him. It seemed as though the first marriage was something you simply threw in 2 stars sorry I really wish it could have been more

An editor would help.

Aside from anything else, the second wife's actions are beyond explanation and using that her father died when she was three wasn't nearly sufficient. Her behaviour in asking Bobby to dance after her husband had made it clear he was unhappy that she'd invited Bobby to the dinner because he wanted a romantic dinner with his wife on her anniversary was outrageous and can't possibly be explained as ignorance on her part.

The story line was not bad, but the format and language was to silted for me. 3*

I enjoyed the story, but the writing style really undermined my enjoyment. The good news is I can offer a simple tip that should improve at least one portion of your writing. Use more compound sentences. Almost all your sentences are simple sentences, and the result is the writing comes off as choppy, like a machine gun spraying bullets. Try occasional sentence structure variations. You should have sentence strewn throughout your story that have commas & semicolons.

IF she was working late, let’s assume a 14 or 15 hour day, the last thing anyone would want would be to go out to dinner and then dancing at 9pm. You just want to go home to sleep.

Now, regarding the bizarre coincidence regarding his discovery: he should buy a lottery ticket because him and his wife being in the same restaurant at the same time when neither of them should be there and only he being aware of it despite the “Find My Friends” tracking that damn near every married couple has…well, he has a better chance of winning a billion dollar powerball.

This hot even worse.

They write notes to each other instead of actually talking and if you distrust your spouse so much that you have to hire a stalker to follow them and report back to you what they did and said then you need to get a divorce. It means you don’t trust your spouse and no trust means always believing the worst.

The story has promise, but the writing is very clunky. 2*

It was Odd, but interesting.

The guy telling this story is dead? Amazing! Very few people can tell a story from the grave.

Ghost writer?

Same old unbelievable RAAC with the usual sheep husband.

1 star - not very interesting.

Gambling is one of the most destructive addictions in the world.

Thousands of lives are ruined every day.

So this ended up being a lame story with cardboard characters.

PLUS English is obviously not your first language.

"Laura became Liz's best friend." - While it became obvious that Laura was Joe's wife, she should have been introduced first.

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I don't care how naive she is, how could she not know that you don't include a third person on your anniversary

Pablum. Three stats

JPB.

Sweet. Not what I expected. I thought for a moment he had led the vasectomy slide, and she would wind up pregnant. No worries. It all worked out. Just slightly simplistic. The Bear approves.

The BEAR

Not a bad story. I chuckled at the last sentence: “ We both found it to be the most enjoyable part of our career. We were still very much in love when we passed. I went first and Elizabeth a few weeks later.” The story written in the first person and narrated by him at the ending. So if he passed first, how’d he know she passed a few weeks later? Oh, unless they were reunited afterwards.

You need to actually start writing.

This was just a load of bullet points and read like a presentation.

And "my mother wasn't married" isn't a good excuse for doing things an average 10 year old can tell you will be hurtful to a person.

It's been mentioned in other comments, but who's Laura? It becomes clear that she's Joe's wife later on, but she really needed to be introduced properly. I would say that this was the low point of the story, but to be honest there isn't much of a story to begin with. This reads more like a history textbook, with a bullet point list of facts and events than an actual story. That plus the lack an any real erotic content makes me wonder why its in the Loving Wives category. You can have a story without sex, and sex without a story, but without both of those this just falls flat. Should really have been posted in Non-Erotic. 1*

I applaud you for writing, which is more than what I can say about myself. Other comments have hit upon this, but I think you can storyboard this a bit more. The settings changed rapidly and it never felt very settled.

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Furthermore, I never felt a strong connection to either his first or second wife and I think that’s important when setting up a story of betrayal. You occasionally flashed to Mary’s perspective, but it didn’t add to the story. My feeling was that she was distantly displeased with the end of the marriage. Why? We don’t see their relationship being strong. We don’t see that they loved each other or had a strong connection. I would say that the rule of thumb here is to “show, don’t tell.” Show us that it was a good marriage and that George was a good husband, don’t just tell us and use it as a springboard.

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There’s a strong understanding of the genre in this story, it just felt like you were checking the list of what to do in an LW story: cheating, dumb wife, hottie backup, hidden incomes. In contrast, horse racing and jockeys are actually different and unique portions to the story. You have an interesting concept and a good idea of what to do, just develop the details.

I am not interested in racing so that left me cold. In addition your writing style is very stilted, as others have also pointed out.

Well, I thought the story was pretty good. As others noted, the delivery needs a lot of TLC.

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There a lot of short sentences and didn't gel within the paragraph. Mechanics with quotation marks also need attention. One rule of thumb is to make a new paragraph when the speaker changes.

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Maybe there's someone out there who could write the story with your outline? It worked for FTDS.

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Anyway, I liked the story. Gave it four stars. Too many errors to make it five. The potential is there, just needs to be cleaner.

I guess the short stuff was just a plot device to explain the first wife fucking him over? It reads like he was not a very good judge of character when he married the whore. After that it was kind of bland, just a report of what they did for a living and how they managed their marriage and their business affairs. Glad they lived happily ever after.

It was a bit better than average. Four stars. Horse racing is a dying sport, so kind of hard to get into some of the backdrop for the story.

I think this is your best story. I have read all your works, and as a group I do not like them. Most of your stories see nothing wrong with the wife betraying her husband, and then the husband just accepting it.. This, plus erratic writing, makes me say that writing may not be your cup of tea.

A bit matter of fact but a very good story in a "Just the facts ma'am" kind of way.

Horse racing is a dying sport? I did not know that. Interesting.

Just get a divorce. This will fester and bubble up at the most unexpected of times. They say that actions speak louder than words. She's talking out of the side of her mouth. He's being a fool.

You should find a partner who is a great writer but can't come up with a plot. Between the two of you, it might be very good.

Honestly, I found this story refreshing. The style fit this short story perfectly.

Your story about the jockeys was a little short, but actually pretty good.

Great story. My second time reading it. I like that your MC didn't put up with shit but it never devolved into some crazy revenge story. It remained tasteful and unique. Cool stuff man. Keep writing man