All Comments on 'Learning to Love Louise'

I hope you enjoyed reading my new Romance story 'Learning to Love Louise'.

I am curious if anyone saw the plot twist coming, or if it came as a surprise to you? What did you think of it? Please leave a comment and let me know.

RetroFan

I really liked reading this story and ,yes, I caught the transition from real to ghost and that changed the story for me. This treatment dampened my enthusiasm for a romantic story to one of discovery. Hence, my sense of a clinical rather than a romantic relationship developing. That was the difference in rating between a 4 and a 5.

Thanks for sharing your efforts and I look forward to reading more of your work.

Loved that Jane was the ghost. Very nice read.

I really enjoyed the story, for some reason my eyes got rather damp when Paul discussed his loss of Jane to Louise.

Thanks for sharing your imagination.

Thanks for reading my story and your positive comments & feedback.

The 'dead all along' trope is not an easy one to master, and I hope I did a good job. Part of the challenge is not making it too obvious, but so when this is revealed that it makes sense in hindsight. In this story I gave a few subtle clues about Jane, but all could have had rational explanations too, or could just have been simple mistakes on my part as the author as follows:

1. Other than Paul, no other character speaks to Jane or acknowledges her presence. This can be seen with the Economics teacher, and the group of students who talk with Paul about football.

2. When Paul and Jane are running in the park and at the shop, the two women running by and the boy working on the checkout look at Paul curiously when he laughs at something Jane said. However, they may just be humorless and having bad days as Paul himself speculates.

3. The nature of Paul and Jane's relationship - a 41 year old man being best friends with a 25 year old woman in a relationship - is unusual, but not impossible.

4. Never once do Paul and Jane communicate by telephone or text message. Again, this may just have been an omission, but unusual in the present day.

5. Some of Jane's clothing is a bit out dated and more suited to the late 1990s & early 2000s (hipster jeans and long floral skirt) but still seen today, so not overly out of place.

6. Paul's cat reacts negatively when Jane arrives, but is very friendly with Louise. Cats are highly receptive to the supernatural, but they are also known for liking certain people and not others without rhyme nor reason.

7. Paul describes the cat and a second cat now deceased as 'our cats' rather than 'my cats'.

8. There is no explanation as to why Paul is still single and never married at 41 years old at all in the first half of the story, not even a simple one such as not meeting the right girl at the right time.

9. Louise and Jane do not meet, but there is a logical explanation for this as Jane says she needs to use the bathroom when Louise calls to the house.

10. When Louise apologizes about her sons kicking a football onto Paul's roof, Paul says that at least it didn't hit the car in the driveway (Jane's car), and Louise queries this, but is distracted before any more can be said. But then again Louise might have been thinking of Paul's car which is in the garage, and was also annoyed at her sons at the time, so might have simply failed to see it. Later on their date Louise goes to query this with Paul, but again is distracted so never actually asks.

This is a nice story and I enjoyed it. Thanks for writing and posting!

BUT - Jane died AFTER the wedding, not before!! Check your dates. The wedding was for September, but her obituary says ---- 10/9/01.

Kind of a big deal as the whole premise of the story was that he had lost his fiance!

I am NOT a nitpicker, a great story that just has one little slip up!

To Retrofan

good story. 5 stars.

To Anonymous

I wold like to point out that not all countries sue the same date structure.

Some read Sept 10 2001 as 9/10/01

While other read it as 10/9/01. Day first.

Being from America it drive me crazy when it is day or year first.

well put together

I hate 'local' dates. I love no confusion. BTW. Loved the story. I could see real flawed people.

Another excellent story retrofan!

Nope, lost this reader when she turned in to ghost, if I want to read about ghosts I'll go to nonhuman or scifi 1*

Love the story. I thought it a realistic portrait of a person unable to accept the loss of his fiancé even after 16 years. No I didn't pick the plot twist, although I agree that the clues were there. I see Jane as not really a ghost but as his sub-conscious imagining her and what she might have said. His sub-conscious uses her for internal debates, he knows he should move on, imagining that "Jane" is encouraging this helps him to do so. This type of imagining that a dead person is real can happen when some-one is grieving for a lost one. (I could swear that I had conversations with my father after he died, he seemed so real although I knew that he was dead.)

In relation to the dates, the story is set in Australia, so the date would have been written in the Australian way, i.e. Day, Month Year. Any other way would have been wrong. As an Australian I have to adapt to the American local way of writing dates for stories set in America, and expect Americans to adapt to our ways for Australian stories.

It was beautiful and the turn of events in the story was well described. Altogether a cute love story. Would love to read more stories like this.

Great story, Loved it, 5 stars

For a while I thought that maybe Louise had received one of Jane's organs.