All Comments on 'Queen's Gambit Ch. 01'

I look forward to the next episode.

Intriguing. Is he interviewing for a maid or a prostitute? There was a Seinfeld episode about that.

Beautifully written - fantastic pace & observation. Very intriguing dynamic between Matt & his first interviewee, I shall look out for more (can hardly believe it's your first effort!) well done!

There are quite a few unnecessarily convoluted sentences, some of which are hard to read, e.g.

"The alcohol filling the air is sweet and rancid as it sits alongside stale sweat, itself rubbing stubbornly against the sweeter perfumes and colognes falling to mask its presence."

" her teary tone replaced with seething wariness." Sorry, but "seething wariness" doesn't make any sense.

" will take a good 45mins longer " " a 2yr old" - that's fine for a text, but for literature you need to write it out; "a good forty-five minutes longer" and "a two-year old."

I hope this is helpful.

Thank you for the feedback. All much appreciated.

Though I have not met many Romanians, the dialogue seemed credible as being from someone for whom British English was not a first language. As for the plot, Sorana was fairly milking her so-called-poor-English. Poor Matt, how will he cope with the other interviews? And did he really need to offer £30ph? (what do I know!)

I like this a lot. It is refreshingly different from anything else I have read here - really creative. The 'melting pot' of late-night city life is captured well. The gritty detail of the conversations on the bus remind me of Mike Leigh. I like the varied style - the swearing drunks, the slightly formal tone of the narrator, the texts, Sorana's language... The contrast between these styles really helps to make it an interesting read. I like the various bits of innuendo / double entendre, and the fantasy sex scenario is the kind of thing we do daydream about - well I do anyway!

I don't quite get the chess analogy yet - maybe that will get clearer later. The ending could perhaps have been stronger, with a twist or a cliff-hanger.

Is there anyone out there who actually knows what an apostrophe is for? It is not something that automatically goes before every last "s" in a sentence.

"Tonight, like most Saturday's, " This is not a possessive, so what letter is the apostrophe replacing? Apostrophes are to show a possessive, e.g. "Ann's clothes" or to replace a letter, e.g. "It's going well = It is." Fucking learn this and use it. I learned this in third grade, for fuck(apostrophe)s sake!

A great slow build and better written than most stories on here. Don’t worry about apostrophes, you can write a good story!

I found this story from your Forum post asking for feedback. IMO, this is a well written and very original piece of work. I'd ignore the trivial comments about " the proper way to write". I had no problem following any part of this — in fact, the style pulled me into the action which is what all stories should be able to do. As per your request, I'll read you part 2 and give you my 2 pence worth soon. Five stars for creativity!

great fantasy scene!