All Comments on 'Marco! Polo!'

This is one of your best stories!

5

Absolutely excellent! Every time I read one of JB44’s stories it feels like I’m sitting down with old friends. Everyone who deserved one got a happily ever after.

Thanks

5*

I just love reading your stories

Love your stories. Great entertainment. 5 Stars

Another great story.

I like the realism and character development.

The personality of the characters and the arc of the plot are cleverly revealed with the most minimal snippets of dialogue. A relatively ordinary story rendered with extraordinary style - compelling and delightful. Thanks very much.

Best one yet. 5*

Well, it has a strong blue collar vibe and while (being polite) disjointed, parts of the dialogue have a reality to it, with Cindy having a separate discussion with John than the other people around him.

.

This is vey much ‘stream of consciousness’ writing; the words just galloping out of your head onto the page. Cecil was sitting on the couch, then he wasn’t there, arriving behind Cindy and DJ, and then the couch was damp. A little skull sweat figured this all out, but it would have been better to write

.

.

‘Cecil headed to his usual haunt, rudely sitting on the couch while festivities occurred outside in sullen silence. ‘The couch is wet. John steamed them for the party.’ DJ exclaimed. Frowning, Cecil pressed on the couch anyway, then rubbed his damp fingers on the arm of the sofa.’

.

I reread and rewrite things about 6 times before I submit everything, to make sure that B follows A and odd elements and digressions are adequately explained.

Great story, very entertaining. As a survivor of 12 years of Catholic school, Father Nelson made me laugh!

Not sure about this one. D

No English person speaks like that outside of hallmark movies

Glad St. Elizabeth's lager made its appearance at the end - LOL! 4.4*

Really good one. Thanks!

3 stars

1 star off for the author deciding to give that money-digging heartless brainless bimbo a happy ending she didn't deserve whatsoever. And 1 star of because, while the claim is that Nina loves him, the FIRST thing she seems to care about is him taking her to expensive vacations.

Which is a pity as with a couple of fairly small inconsequential fixes, this could easily have been an outstanding 5 star BTB.

LeontheKing yes, that made me smile too, I say, just not cricket old chap.

If Cecil was from South East of UK, everyone would ask him what part of Australia he was from.

Love these hillbilly type stories.

>>For all we know, she's in so much pain she can't even think.

Your stories are compassionate and empathetic.

And you always get a 5* from me.

I will have to read more of your stories as your writing style was a bit disjointed as it seemed to jump around. I gave it four stars as I enjoyed the story.

So... his brutal ex-wife is now his mother-in-law? But he had been exposed to her for years. Owen was rebounding from losing his wife and could have done much better.

As always, great story. Love to see your posts!

Very confusing from start to finish, no flow, big gaps, did not understand what was going on half the time. A poorly written tale.

John had fallen in love with April Strickler the first time he'd seen her. She was petite, four eleven, though she claimed to be five feet even. At that time, she'd been a little on the chubby side, one hundred and thirty eight pounds. At five feet, ten inches, John was also one hundred and thirty eight pounds.

.

.

5' = 100lbs

1" over = +5lbs

5'10" = 150 lbs average

4'11" at 138 lbs IS NOT slightly chubby, it is obese, on the border of morbidly obese

.

We all know you have a thing for fat chicks, have a thing for objective realty as well, stop pretending tons of fun and 12 double chins is a muffin top

1 star. Where to start:

you introduce characters as though we should know who they are in relation to the story. I had no idea whom Nina was or why she was important.

Why does Annalise talk like a 12 yr old preteen girl and not an 8 yr old?

At 5’ even and 138lbs, Sarah isn’t petite or a little chubby, she’s fucking fat.

Over and you over you demonstrate poor character development, a meandering plot, zero idea about human physiology and no overall design.

What the fuck did I just read? Who was who? The story read like a Jackson pollack painting.

One of the very best writers on Literotica.

Boring as hell.

Always a good read.

Really enjoyed this!

Love your stories and tales.

I loved it. You have a fine hand and chaos

Managing numerous characters in a scene like the barbecue is no easy task. Nice work JimBob.

I love reading your stories. Thank you, *****

I tried but couldn't figure who was who half the time. I stopped reading midway through the second page, too many names, too many missed or misspelled words, nothing about the story grabbed me and said "don't stop now."

I didn't finish so I won't score it, sorry mate, it was boring at best.

Well written but way too pacifistic.

I get you hate the Brits yet the real scumbag was in fact a former wife.

Ruined life of two men and somehow ended up on the honeymoon in Hawaii.

As bad as the Cecil character was he in fact stayed and was trying to provide for his family.

And to the best knowledge of anybody didn't even cheat on her.

She on the other hand ended with her legs spread whenever her husband had it hard.

Cecil was just dumb while she was plain despicable. And yet everybody tolerated her for some reason.

Women are inherently evil, right? And thus we MUST just acquiesce.

Sad.

What a piece of shit set of parents, especially her father. They wanted the marriage to fail, the marriage failed just as they wanted, and then they had the gall of tsk-tsk-ing her.

It was all on them. Yes, maybe April didn't have the fortitude to endure her tribulations, and reject what seemed an easy way out, but she didn't even have the opportunity to let her love set and solidify. Their parents threw them in a difficult, wearing situation that not even all well established marriages survive.

So fuck their parents, and those who blame April.

Great story. It got me all riled up :).

I enjoy your stories, but the way you write your dialogue makes them VERY hard to follow. I get that you're trying to make the dialogue seem more natural; but I don't think it flows as well as you hear it in your head when you're writing it.

I would also recommend a line or something between each scene. It's very confusing when something jumps from one scene to another without any warning or space or line.

a story of nice people and a fool and foolish woman making poor choices. Not really any emotional discovery or revelations to add depth to the telling.

Sloppier and more confusing than usual. Well done overall just not your best.

Does every woman in this author’s universe have a room temperature IQ?

.

3 ***

I enjoyed much of this. Thank you. But why did John never really confront April? Her parents lit into her more than he did. She never even apologized that I could see. Also, she left him due to lack of money, so I thought her new guy was wealthy. But nope, not even close. I understand maybe she thought he would be, but when it became obvious that wouldn't happen she still decides to stay? Having multiple kids? I don't understand.

My biggest issue is April's ending. I'm not a hardcore btb person (unless truly warranted) but don't feel she deserved a happy ending either. Especially not with John's friend and the father of his new love. Ughh. No way.

Great story! I grew up in North Carolina...different accents but the sane wording and people. Thanks for the stiry and the memories. BJH

A very good read, thank you.

You have a great ear for the speech pattern and patois of Cajuns and residents of southeast Texas. I was born in Beaumont and spent the first part of my life in the Golden Triangle and your writing captures the flavor of that area very well. Great job.

1 star - what a mixed up jumble mess! - I could not get past the third paragraph.

Hopefully, you will eventually get better.

Have a nice day.

Do you write any stories that aren't gritty and realistic, while at the same time capturing the emotions and attention of your readers? Because I have not seen any yet. As always 5/5 stars.

Dewey Cheatham

As one who's been critical of JimBob's stories before, I have to say that this one was really good. The common language, using every day vernacular, combined with a lot of dry humor and interesting characters, all seemed to work. Enjoyed it a whole lot.

Thing is...vernacular language is endemic within any given "village" regardless of whether that village is a self-contained entity or simply a part of a larger whole but tied together by an ethnic, family, or historically isolated grouping of people. Visit any neighborhood in older large cities or smaller rural communities and you are exposed to a consistent strain of "local" accumulated linguistic uniqueness of vocabulary, sentence structure, and subject-verb oddities. Cajun, Country Texan, Georgian, Boston, the Norwegian of Garrison Keillor country--the examples are endless; pick an area and just start listening.

Loved this story of gentle, loving humanity coping with what life threw at them. JimBob44 is a master storyteller whose stories I always find worth reading. Thank you for all those past creations and please keep writing.

MLJ

One of your best

I enjoy almost all of your stories, and while this one didn't have the blazing heat some of them do, I still enjoyed it immensely. And while some may criticize that April didn't deserve her happy ending, her other two kids did. Well done. Five stars.

I really enjoyed this. It would seem MOST folks got what they deserved in the end. I like how the brothers came together in the end.

I liked the story, even for it's slapstick comedy style elements. But sometimes it was rather difficult to follow the time line. FD45 called it ‘stream of consciousness’ writing, which I can support. It's not necessarily bad in my book, but a little more cueing in could be helpful to the reader. 5 stars and thank you anyway!

Cecil mistook kindness for weakness. A common traits for insecure men. John may have missed his ex wife, but not enough to consider taking her back. She left him. She tried to trade up and leave him behind struggling. Growing up means accepting consequences. Hers were kids she has to raise regardless, a guy she has to dump, and an ex husband who will never want her back.

I like your stories. Sometimes, they are hard to follow (dialogue, layout and names, as others have noted) but the effort is worthwhile. This one is enjoyable, with some good laughs, some very good lines and the children are great.

Thank you for sharing

"Thanks, Mr. John," Nina smiled when John handed her a twenty for Annalise's ticket.

"Nina, you turned eighteen when?" John smiled, giving Annalise ten dollars for popcorn and soda." •••

This is funny because the last time we were at the movies a child's matinee ticket would have been about ten bucks and the popcorn and soda would have cost twenty! Since the movie will be over by 4:10 PM they would have been hitting the matinee show time.

So why would One want April? She is so used up and has no loyalty at all. And this guy is such a freaking saint! What I lost was the age difference. An 18 year old hottie wants to marry that guy?

Another enjoyable redneck romp. Love the folksy delivery of this author, but a little more delineation when time frames or perspectives switch would make a smoother read.

They all make you smile (smile)!!!!!!!!

Entertaining slice of life. 5 stars. Was a little harder to follow than usual. Your stories tend to rapidly change perspective and it takes effort to keep track of all the characters. A little more trouble than usual with this one, but pure fun as expected. (Maybe I am just slow this morning)

Another great story! Couldn’t put it down once I started reading. Five great big stars! My day is truly made when I see a new Jimbob44 story! Thanks for sharing your work with us.

Another great story

Sorry, but this story was almost unreadable, really difficult to follow. No good.

Top Notch, as usual. Thanks

Great story, a slice of life. Divorce is not the end of the world. Very entertaining. 5 stars. Thanks for posting.

.

Gotta admit I lost some respect for the Owen character, leaving with a married woman for sex, while her kids are at a birthday party... across the street. That's pretty cold. We already knew April was a tramp, but Owen surprised me.

.

Father Nelson, that was hilarious. I'm glad you're still writing. Thanks JimBob.

Rather hard to follow, mainly because of the plethora of characters.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

I like the story. I gave it 4 stars because it was very difficult to follow the story through to the end. Too many characters too many scene changes too much differences I just couldn't keep up with it.

that this story is totally enjoyable.

ok...

Found it a bit creepy how the guy hooked up with a girl he watched grow up from the age of 14. He at the very least is 27 or 28 at the time he hooks up with her and the touchy feely gets going right away.

Also creeped me out that every single time the daughter addressed him it was “Daddy,Daddy,Daddy” is the girl like Sheldon on Big Bang.

I finished and found it very ho hum for lack of a better way to put it.

Great story, a fun read. Thanks for writing.

April is a slut, Cecil is an asshole, and Owen is a seducer of married women. All are pathetic characters in this story. And worst of all, you need to learn proper English and how to write if you're going to keep posting on this site. Otherwise, keep your horribly written stories to yourself. 2*

First, it's a five star story. Like a lot of eccentrics, you are natural but unpolished.

-

The opening was like a drink from a fire hose. Maybe even like from a fireboat or ARFF truck nozzle. Too many names, too quickly without context, frustrates the reader. Think Abbot & Costello's "Who's On First" at 3X speed. Then, the scene jumped from a domestic scene to a wedding. "Wait, what?" I thought. Rewriting that "in the mirror" paragraph or adding some type of line break fixes that. You do that later when you go from "anti-government conspiracists" to the hospital scene.

-

Right after the first birthday party, I jumped back to the beginning of the story, and it all made sense. Too many clever "asides," such as the bologna and cheese, the gambling losses, etc., clog up the story. Even the banter, such as around the pool, uses too much vernacular (I write in the same TexSpeak) and moves too fast for the reader to see and follow clearly. Some colloquialisms are lost on the people unlucky enough not to live between the Sabine, Red, and Grande Rivers.

-

You need at least a beta-reader to help clarify some things.

Another great JB44 story

Not one of your best but enjoyable none the less.

Glad the better men won.

Great story, but how the heck did you leave out UFC double champ and hall of fame mma fighter, Daniel Cormier? I mean, he's the greatest fighter to come out of Louisiana.

That was incredibly hard to read.

Nina’s baby is gonna have not so much a family tree as a kudzu vine.

It's really hard to believe the number of people who gave this disjointed unreadable boring, stupid stories at your high school.

You just keep getting better. Thank you for sharing this.

"Father Nelson": best Lit line this year. Always a pleasure to see another JB44 story pop up.

Another very enjoyable story. A real lesson in restraint. Thank you.

LOVE IT. You’ll right bout folks I might know.

LOVE slap-hapy-papy #9

I think I liked the story, but the writing was so rough that it really detracted from the attempt to read it. I know I missed a lot and had to go back and try to figure out what you meant instead of what you wrote.

Yeah, you ruined it by bringing April and Owen together.

Enjoy reading your stories, there down to earth plus they have real men in them not some wimpy pussy.

to work on your sentences and adding verbs.

Loved it! Many of your stories bring back good memories of working in the oil field on the Gulf. Thank you.

All you people complaining about the grammar and speech of the author and his characters should understand that this author writes all his stories this way. They use a tone, vernacular, and speech patterns of folks living in the SE Texas/Louisiana regions of the US. This gives his tales a certain charm and authenticity.

In a nutshell, its intentional...

Most of the time, dialect is best avoided; I don't know how you do it, but when I read your stories, I _hear_ and _see_ real people!

while the story was good, I cannot understand why the Texans in your story, were portrayed as partial illiterate. I don't know where you are from, but most Texans are smarter than you seem to think.

Confusing. Lots of never-ending dialogues, lots of names thrown in and patched plot. Was there a story?

One unimportant detail remained unclear to me: where and when did April manage and was able to get acquainted and get involved with this Cecil?

I love your stories.

I love your characters.

I love your writing style.

PLEASE keep them coming!

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Loved this tale. 5*

Good story!!!!!!

From my opinion, a bit more of edition would have helped to make it more understable since the beginning.

Thanks!

Great dialogue.

So much fun to read.

From one of our most talented writers.

Top ratings from me.

ANON cracks me up who said, "Learn some proper grammar!" The single WORST story to read is where everyone speaks like they just got their Ph.D. in English lit. Moreover, how many LW writers, especially, write dialogue where nobody ever uses a contraction (can't, won't, didn't, etc.). That turns emotional conversations into something that sounds phony, contrived, and out of place. In OP's defense, read something by Elmore Leonard (40+ of his books were made into films) and study the dialogue. His characters speak differently, which JimBob and other good storytellers do. My late writing coach told me to throw away all those books on dialogue, except for a pair concerning dialogue tags and action beats. Then, he gave me a collection of Elmore Leonard with nine books in one dictionary-sized tome. Yes, it was a Master Class on dialogue. So, if you can appreciate colloquialisms and non-standard (i.e. realistic) dialogue, you've been reading too much crap. Probably on here.

Damn Good Story, Thanks...

Thanks for this one….an excellent story.

there were so many charaters in this story i was hopelessly lost by page 3