All Comments on 'Saving the Doctor Pt. 07'

Very good story. Well written

God the twist and turns to this thrilling tale.

After the first few pages I was worried that you had stacked the deck too much against Jon and that there was going to be no way for you to pull him back from the brink...

I am worried about him choosing between Beth and Carly. I can't believe Beth actually got with him and now he's again in the unenviable position of having to be a jerk and break it off with one of them. All because we're in a 'serious dramatic universe' instead of 'wish fulfilment porn universe'.

Oh well. I guess you can't have everything.

Okay, so seven installments into this story... I'm hooked. Please tell me and all your readers that this story is not over yet. <smile> Bravo my friend... simply... Bravo!.

As a recovering serial cheater and "love addict", I see so much of myself in Jon and in the actions played out in this series. The pain I caused and experienced over the years and the relationships I ruined (mine and others) will be a burden I carry to the grave. While I find some aspects of this series titillating, mostly I'm intrigued with Jon's motivations and poor decisions as he navigates all the available relationships and entanglements. In some ways, it's like watching a video of the way I used to behave. He has more scruples than I did, but he's still a flawed man with a keen sense of how to fuck things up. You're a very good writer and have a talent for painting pictures with your words and keeping the reader engaged and wanting more. Cheers to you on an excellent achievement.

I have a bit of hopefully constructive criticism. I only say this because I’m invested enough in your story to care about what happens.

I think you need to have more faith in your writing. I was so impressed with the down to earth inner struggles of your characters early on. You did a great job of making their day to day struggles compelling. But more and more as the story wears on it feels like you’ve strayed into melodrama to try and keep things interesting.

The vast majority of scenes are still well written, but so many of the situations are starting to feel contrived. I thought it was going to be more of a deep dive into an affair where there were no clear heroes and villains, just flawed people. But then it kinda jumped the shark for me with how extreme Elaina’s behaviour became. From then on it sorta turned into a bit of an erotic soap opera with all the affairs, suicides, fist fights, stabbing etc.

I think you have the talent to maintain a lot of the drama without having to resort to plot contrivances. Maybe Elaine could’ve accused Jon of being the abusive one, and manipulated people that way. Maybe Brent and Elaina could’ve had an affair instead. Or Brent could’ve been less of a one dimensional asshole and Jon& Carly would’ve felt even more conflicted about their affair.

I just feel that from the first gaming night onwards, Carly has ceased to be a particularly likeable character. It feels like we’re constantly having to be told how much Jon loves her, because she has barely had any agency within the story since the first house party.

Again sorry if it feels like I’m just tearing apart your work. It bears repeating that the only reason any of this bothered me was because you clearly have the talent to do even better. I think you should just keep your plot tighter, and focus on keeping your stories character driven. You did a really good job of making me care about an overworked family doctor, you don’t need all these extreme situations that IRL would’ve ended up with the authorities getting involved in.

I gave up when he went back to that psychotic bitch. I cannot credit that anyone who knows what she was like would touch wich anything smaller than a 10foot bargepole. Sorry. 1*