All Comments on 'Happy Hollowdays Pt. 03'

So they hire people at escort services who maybe once had sex but also wouldnt enjoy it because they arent married? It gets weirder and weirder.

Interesting chapter!

4

Loving how this tale is growing. I still want to hear about justice on Andy, Rita and Brenda. But I am keen to see how her gets on with Miss Anna, does he get a ally ending. While the others are miserable….

It's a long and tiresome graphomaniac drag. I've lost all hope that there would be some sort of catharsis or a punchline, but I'll stay out of boredom

(Please get an editor)

As I have already pointed out, you tell your story with many words and in an entertaining way. And yet it is unbelievable to me. You make your protagonist look like a therapist. He is 23 years old and this is the second time he has handled a woman as if he were a professional therapist. And all this after you previously drew us this protagonist soft and vulnerable and disoriented. In the first chapter he tells Rita that he's expecting an invitation to the wedding, even if he won't be there, and then you make him act like it's the most impertinent thing that he got an invitation! What now? I assume that with "Anna" he has found his future wife and they will ride happy and loving into the sun.

There are about six original paragraphs in this whole saga. The rest are just rehashing the same things.

Tim is too altruistic for his own good and well being. He exhibits all the sign sof "white knight" syndrome and feels compelled to “rescue” people in intimate relationships, often at the expense of his own wellbeing and life.

Such behaviors stem from a mindset that perceives the other sex as weak, dependent, absolved of all responsibility for their outcomes, and thinks that she/he will dedicate herself/himself to loving him/her because of his/her help.

ll white knights have two beliefs ingrained in them — it is pivotal that every woman (man) likes them, and no one will like them as themselves. These beliefs are managed by the manifestation of White Knight Syndrome.

From acceptance and friendship to sexual relationships and even marriage, white knights seek all these from the opposite sex, yet feel that their true self is inadequate to do so.

In order to manage this plight, they erroneously think that they must do something extraordinary — like rescuing a woman or man. In a way, by being the knight in shining armor for those who need saving, they believe that their desires can be fulfilled in return for their seemingly altruistic acts, without having to directly solicit anything.

White knights all secretly seek a reward for their acts of “altruism”, although sometimes they are unaware of it. Some seek something intangible in return while others want something more spiritual.

Ultimately, it would seem that White Knight Syndrome is a case of low self-esteem caused by a myriad of potential issues. The White Knight’s need for external validation and discomfort in dealing with women and men as individuals is what leads them towards this unhealthy behavior. The White Knight needs to learn to accept that he or she has intrinsic worth and doesn’t need to prove himself/herself worthy by “rescuing” people.

The fear of rejection and abandonment comes from the belief that he/she has no value outside of what he/she can do. And by building confidence, the white knight will reduce the neediness.

Finally, it would be beneficial for the White Knight to seek counseling to help him/her work on building characteristics that are actually ideal, such as esteem, interpersonal abilities, genuineness, honor, aspirations, and self-assurance.

So tedious, so repetitive, and then, boring. I didn't get through page 1. I think I will read the whole thing once I have time, probably; we'll see. Maybe this is a form of literary flagellation? Very evident this is Not being written for a reader, this is total self absorption. Which is very common on this site, but hardly ever to this extent. Adrian Leverkuhn (not even worth verifying the spelling) comes to mind, and that dreadful cuck some kind of Legman (or Leglover?), with 87 chapters (a guess) of his ballerina wife fucking everybody and anybody but him: Dreadful; God was it Ever going to end? So your ilk has been here before, and worse. And even Adrian did write some really interesting stuff, but I think it was an accident. Again, like you, he couldn't care less about the reader, or even coherence. Kind of like you claiming Jill summarized the entire rise and fall of his relationship with Brenda. Sure, OK, its your typewriter. But it was mostly babble. But then you are the expert at that dish. Sorry I can't stay for all seven courses. At least they won't get any worse with time, so maybe I will find an opportunity to drop by, just to see where this cluster fuck ends. In the mean time, thanks for the effort.

"I prattled on". Yup you did. Over and over again. You continue to use a ton of verbiage to say the same things you already said. This could've been done as succinctly with 5 or 6 pages instead of 20.

Sounds like Tim now has a job fixing damaged women. Glad to see the lighter tone in this chapter. Gives me hope that our hero will end up on top, so to speak.

OK - I got restless about halfway thru the 3rd page. It was chpt 1&2 regurgitated over and over - only in another format - great for making the story 2-3 pages longer but boring as hell. 1*

Sad stories, but I completely love them. I do understand that profound hollowness.

Buddy, what’s there to even say at this point? You know your fatal flaw, and you either accept it and improve, or don’t and wither away.

I’m curious—and that’s the strongest word I can use—enough to read the next part, and I’m just crossing my fingers that I won’t have to skim through five more summaries of the plot before it’s done.

Out of a four chapter story you've spent the first three in character development. Does this story actually move forward?

Some redundancy but less than previous episodes. You have a wry, dry, perplexing sense of humor that when used is most enjoyable. So far, a mere three words used improperly, resend/rescind, fowl/foul, reign/rein. I enjoy your writing style, your casual very likely to be used types of references injected into the conversations, Since I really like the stories all get 5*.

I hate to be mean, but I’m beginning to suspect that Brenda left Tim because of the endless, pointless, repetitive conversation.

Pleas stop repeating the same points over and over.

An extremely high amount of dialogue with no action. Felt like being lectured. Made it boring to read.

Weird but still interesting.

More crap. Please stop writing what a load of BS

Your protagonist seems to have both a martyr complex and a savior complex. Not only does he refuse to stand up for himself (with women, with his family, with anyone), not only does he let everyone walk all over him, he seems to believe it’s his job to fix other people in ways that he sees as selfless but are really just self-flagellating. I think he likes to believe that he’s helping others at his own expense.

Emotional masochism isn’t my kink, but if it’s yours that’s fine. My issue that the wallowing in self-pity for page after page after page, in such a repetitive way, gets a bit tedious.

Story doesn’t seem to have a lace to go…at times

Pretty bad. You need to be more concise with your words.

The ex has no excuses even if she were afraid. A letter probably could've done it's job and hopefully he gets his happy ending without some sort of closure even if they were made for each other. 6 months and nothing which should give him enough for closure as she's too scared and no respect for him after what she did. Again, hope he gets his happy ending with someone better and prettier

Much redundancy...

Curious to see how this ends but it really can be tiresome to read. Outside Frazier Crane and Lilith on Cheers, no one is this pedantic in real life. I know only too well how it can be hard not to write a lot of words, but you can get the point across without going into soliloquy mode.

And I hate to say it but Swiss Miss fiancee may be a jerk but the way she is written no one would want her, I understand religious conflict with sex ( which I blame in the churches, that women should save it but men aren't) , but wow.

I also think the main character is just too unbelievable on that he,who is supposed to be a wreck, is this wise counselor to women in distress. He is just too far from human experience , he kind of is like a priest telling a couple how to have sex&enjoy it

Not sure the continued repeating of what happened moved the story forward , just filler. Could have been tightened up. Overall good righting just incredibly verbose

About the first 3 pages were spent as a recap of the previous two chapters which made this one seem tedious. I loved how this story started out but it appears to be headed to a rather predictable end done in a predictable manner. Hope I'm wrong.

Gave up on page 1. Way too much repetition. Part 2 was a new twist: save a virgin prostitute by not having sex with her. You have the potential to write an interesting story, but it is buried under the chaff.

I’m still here, so kudos for that. The plot continues to meander amongst its emotional morass. I do like your writing style, mixing simple and complex sentence structure. 3*

A bit better refined than the previous two chapters, which I also enjoyed a lot. Your story is definitely stylized -- it's very difficult to imagine anyone carrying on monologues of this nature IRL. But that's not necessarily a bad thing! It's a perfectly valid (and in this case, quite enjoyable) form of art. Hell, lots of stage plays have a similar pace/feel.

And once again, embedded throughout this chapter are various gems. Here's one of my favorite:

"I don't think much of them, but I'm not trying to commandeer the karma train and tie them to the tracks."

I still like the story, and will keep reading, but have to second the comment from 'mattenw' about Tim sounding like a therapist. Any time a man as young as he is can out talk, out analyze and out verbalize 2 females- well, it strains credibility. And what about Jill? Tim saves her life, restores her marriage, changes her whole future, and what does she do for him? Pushes another needy female onto him. I can see it's going to turn out good for him, but seriously? She, and her husband, leave him outside in the cold with a potential concussion, leaves him all alone on Christmas, doesn't refund the money he paid for her 'services', doesn't even offer to pay him gas money for driving her home. She's going to be a great friend......

I actually like the chapter. Although a woman who gives up her virginity to a worthless fiance and the decides she's only fit to be a whore is a bit over the top even for an LW story.

My problem is that within the context I f this chapter it does make sense for him to retell his story regarding Brenda & Andy but... It makes it so incredibly painful as a reader because this is now the third chapter where we've had to hear the story over and over.

Keeping my fingers crossed that we don't have to go through that again in the next chapter.

Commenter who said your protagonist is way too mature is probably right. No matter how principled a person is (and I have no problem believing that aspect of the saga), the analytical ability gained by detaching oneself from his emotional pummeling would be totally foreign to such a young, inexperienced and innocent person.

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But re. “Redundancy”: one time I had a job cleaning storm windows on a house. (Older houses that have single pane windows are easy to clean. But some homes also have storm windows—another single pane mounted in a rigid frame mounted on the outside of the house. There may be 4-6” gap between the regular pane and the storm window.) My partner and I split the house, with him doing half and me doing half. I showed him how to remove the storms for cleaning and then reassemble them. There’s no way this rookie should have beat me done. When he told me he was finished I looked at his windows: they were still visibly dirty and had to be re-cleaned. Turned out that he skipped a few steps because he wasn’t patient enough to have followed instructions. He should have cleaned 1) the inner facing of the inner window; 2) the outer facing of the inner window; 3) the inner facing of the outer window; and 4) the outer facing of the outer window. For every window.

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Your protagonist isn’t being redundant. He’s rehashing the same events from the varying perspectives of the distinct individuals. Each rehash isn’t analyzing the actions but what the individual’s motives are contrasted with what they should have been. Just like the windows, each facing of each relationship in this multi-layered saga demands attention.

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Your approach would be terrible for making pizza, but if anybody ever had sex in your story it would probably triple the length and be incendiary the whole time. You’d be like “Storm Rising’s” little brother.

All that and swiss miss doesnt bang our hero? Booo

This was a bit of rehash from the 2nd installment, going over his betrayal again. Also, a girl religious enough to want to stay a virgin until marriage deciding to become a hooker is a bit of a stretch. She could have just been a friend if Jill's. Still, good story and characters!

How many times do you have to tell the same story? FFS

In retrospect, I think I (the reader) was providing the energy to this story rather than the story itself.

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Yes, your writing style is efficient enough that, if there were any plot movement, it would flow nicely; but as it turns out, that’s a monumental “if”.

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I really question the possibility of any of these characters or events occurring as described, but since the lethargy of the plot is so overwhelming it’s difficult to give a fair evaluation.

Ok, you forewarned that this saga was long, and a couple of your pt. 1 commenters noted redundancy. That was on target, but excusable to me because your protagonist was so hurt, and lost he couldn’t keep track of himself. He was fluttering in a wind of rage and confusion that I could see. But part 2 accomplished little to advance the plot except introduce the first escort. Most of what he did was to re-tell part 1, complete with redundancy. Ok, enter part 3, and we’re telling repeating the story again. True he advances his tale by chastely sleeping with a second escort, but that could have been wrapped up without as much (again) redundancy..

Don’t get me wrong, I love the plot idea, especially the device of the hero putting his beloved into the clutches of his best friend, next to willingly! Oh well, on to part 4, hoping for the promise of an endin as clever as the opening.

The plot doesn't progress. In addition, the vocabulary feels like this was written in the 60's . Very few people, especially in their 20s, use the word copulate unironicallyn in the age of smartphones.

Oh man oh word Diarrhoea, I like the plot line, but oh so many words and words and words,

Good Lord, that's some emotional vomit.

If Tim was spewing even a 1/10th of that at Brenda I can see why she'd run off with the first man who showed even a hint of stoicism.

GODDAMN JUST FUCKING SHUT UP ALREADY

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She cringed, "Jill told me she and her husband were so happy to be together that they left you outside without so much as a... hot chocolate." She looked at her mug, "Jill's very embarrassed by that."

.

Swiss Miss moved closer to me. Her eyes were so large and more than a little moist. Sympathy danced with incredulity as she verified, "So, you were... engaged. And she left you. Then after all that you helped my friend, Jill, and got punched."

So repetitive. How can one be so wordy. I think Brenda spent two minutes with Andy, realized he did not go on and on and repeat himself over and over and could not wait to bail.

Overyly wordy, which detracts from the overall message, which is quite good.

Verbosity isn’t a virtue.

So if you don't like what is written then just move on. I am enjoying it.

Seriously, read the remarks in the comment section and take them to heart. I don’t recall ever having said this before, but you need to take their advice! it might be a good story but you are so endlessly redundant that it totally detracts from what plot you have designed. One virgin hooker might work in some twisted Harlequin Romance concoction but two in a row reads like a badly stuck record, just like his eternal regurgitation of his lost love.

It is super wordy, but I still enjoyed it. Thanks!

So now he's the relationship therapist for first time prostitutes? All he has to do is tell his story and bam! fixes them. Okay, I admit to being intrigued as to how this ends.

I feel he needs to have a third one to counsel, for this to transition from heartfelt to genuinely amusing. Then it could have that underlying comedy element of a skit, with him just leaning into the absurdity. And also it becoming a weird Christmas carol analogy. He's had the ghost of the past, now one in the present... is Brenda his "yet to come" if he doesn't split away from the angst?!

Was liking the story til this chapter. Did you really just tell the entire story over again?

First half of this chapter read like a repeat. Also while Jill decided to break herself and descend into personality suicide by becoming a whore based on her story, the rationale for Swiss Miss.to do it is beyond surreal. She is a religious girl, who wants to see give her virginity to her future husband, does everything else (except anal) with her proto fiancé, then under pressure caves to having sex with him to make her commitment, not knowing he wss banging a harlot for many months while "waiting", her experience is poor but she still wants him and he abandons her, leaving her crushingly depressed not just because he betrayed her but also because she lost her virginity and her future soul mate won't be able to claim it? Huh? Ok fine she has a weird guilt complex. But with her religious background and her ability tonreisst temptation for a long time, what is her epiphany, what is her solution: becoming a prostitute who claims proclivity and experience with anal sex when she had neither, knowing that it will be really painful, because hey she deserves to be punished. Wtf? She has psychological problems and needs therapy. Yes at this point it will eb a romance for her and the MC, but seriously? Religious people don't self flagellate in modern times because they gave their virginity to a loser who abandoned her. And they certainly don't become painal hookers. That is beyond absurd. Jill (and Gary) came off as contrived but fictional (it is a story) but having second damaged one with such an idiotic rationale was just crazy. Only a woman with deep psychological problems would do that based on her virginity crisis. By that logic any woman who was religious and lost her virginity via rape would then choose to suffer rough sex as a prostitute. Huh?