All Comments on 'Shut Up and Drive My Way!'

Good story!

5

From all the flash stories here, this one is outstanding!! Hats off!!

Sorry, I like the original better but only because the characters and the plot were more developed. You premise of the broken hearted widow was a great idea but not completely developed.

J-W, I had previously enjoyed Denham Forrest’s two parter, but your take on the story goes in an entirely different direction. I enjoyed your ending very much as it is a good explanation for Estelle’s actions. Ted doesn’t give a surname in your story, so I wonder if he is the brother.

just a bit too short

Two compelling and sympathetic souls. This could be a helluva setup for a romance. I usually don't care too much for alternate endings - they seem to dilute and confuse the author's original intent. This, however, is completely independent from the original premise. Very nice. Thank you.

I'm sorry, I shouldn't have to go back and read two other stories to know what's going on.

Just too short to rate

Interesting take on a classic LW story. We miss Denham/ The Wanderer and his excellent story telling

The original was a complete story. I don't see why you felt the need to change it almost entirely.

As a stand alone story it is great and would get high marks but I preferred the original so only 3 from me, sorry.

I don't get what you are attempting to do. As a standalone I liked it with the exception of not really knowing the 8 year relationship. Was he an old lover, a brother, a dear friend.

Reading the original two part series I know who they are and the relationship. But in the original Cooper was a cheating bastard she divorced. In your version Cooper is dead and she is a grieving widow. But what I don't get is why she goes to the bar and gets drunk? Why not be a drunk at home? Not sure why she risks getting taken by thugs.

Sorry, written well, but I guess it is just over my head or too deep for me.

I thought about saying that, but I liked the idea of the reader putting it together at the end.

I came into this looking for a tale. I got a flash. Still, as flash’ goes, this was an admirable effort.

Nicely done.

..not British I'm afraid old chap (could be Celtic or Gaelic if British). Just kidding, Denham Forrest is an outstanding writer and you were brave to take on a variation of one of his tales but I think you did a very good job. Well done and thank you.

Confused... I can't make the leap as to where this story ended - too many paths that are plausible. What's here is well written, so on the fence of 3 or 4*...

Unfortunately you managed to hack it up. Without the background supplied in the original story you really don't have much here. Leaving out or changing the policeman's response to Ted "taking care" of Estelle by taking her to the hospital to have her stomach pumped was a huge change. And you completely bypassed the fact that there are two chapters to the original story. Sorry. but this was a complete letdown.

I enjoyed this story for what it is but it really doesn’t hold a candle to the original. Then again I don't think it was meant to.

Didn’t work for me. It was great and I looked for the link to page two and realized that it was over... it just stopped and the ending was flat. I can see why some might like it but really.:. Finish the damn story.

I read both stories and understood Roger Cooper is her cheating husband. Was James Cooper her father-in-law?

I suppose its ok for what it is.

Preferred the original myself.

I actually smiled once I realized the story had ended. Queue up the trolls.

Perhaps I am in the minority but while I did like the original, I enjoyed this turn better. The original was too full of assholes, this one had at least one less and a better back story for why he found her like that. Thank you both for your stories!!!

???

Like Estelle, you had way too much to drink before jotting this lame excuse on the back of a vomit covered napkin.

So, no one is married, no one is having sex, no one is cheating

Why is this in LW?

Her husbands name was Roger Cooper. This made no sense and in my opinion it really sucked. Although I do like most of your other stuff but this one gets a ONE*

This author 'only speaks American?' Contemptable.

It has potential but hasn't gone anywhere. Is there more of this story to come?

I’d like to hear more of what got them there.

What we didn't already read this.?

??

For anyone complaining that this story was lacking, you obviously didn't read the story he recommended, "Shut up and drive" by Denham_Forrest. The first few paragraphs echo the original, then there is a very radical change.

Very powerful departure from the original. There is not nearly as much character development, but this version doesn't need it. Powerful ending.

Because of the lack of development, the reader is not lead to understanding Ted's devotion to her.

5*s for the powerful and radical departure. As a standalone, however, it doesn't work at all.

Well done, but need the BTS story.. Please

This was a very different but nice twist to the original story 5*

Better idea.

More mature then the original one.

But then, this wasn't a story.

Just a part of it.

3 out of 5 from me.

As some other I would like to know who James Cooper is. The father, the husband? ANd what relationship has Ted with him? Or is Estelle Teds sister and James Cooper the brother in law?

This didn't work for me, at least as a build on to the original "Shut Up and Drive". There was just no point to attaching it to the original...

Now, that said, it was a clever flash.

Please remember that I took the first half page of the original story and jumped off from there. The only names I held from the original were those that had already been introduced.

Estelle is the suffering wife of James and Ted is James' brother, Estelle's brother-in-law.

That Ted knew let alone was related to Estelle's husband. And why would she miss someone who was making her life miserable? It seems you wrote the continuation of a story, but it wasn't the one you named it after. Piss poor.

There is no reason to believe Theodore Edward Harper was Estelle's brother-in-law nor that she was so in love with her husband ,James as to break down over his death. From where did you come up with this idea? This has no relation to the original plot and is a disappointing display of your talent as writer. 2*s.

Ted’s last name was Harper. That us how he signed his paintings!

Nice one son!

As I write most of my own yarns from scene to scene, I can see no reason that I didn't or wouldn't have chosen a similar path as well; except for the fact that I needed to fit that one particular line into the text somewhere. I do love that song. ;-)

Bleeding-'ell. I really wish I'd been back here sooner. What Just_Words has written here is a continuation of part of the first chapter of the story. I'll happily tell everybody that I probably could have chosen to go exactly the same rout the this author did if my mind had been in a different mood the evening I wrote it. In actual fact I didn't because my mind was set on bringing the story to the point where Stella said to Ted "Shut-up and Drive!"

Just_Words took just a small part of my tale -- which I do not begrudge him -- and took the story from there on an alternative rout. And I can say I really like where he went with it.

But the readers must try to get it through their thick heads that Just_Words was not writing about the Stella and Ted that I had conjured-up in my own mind; he has written about the Stella and Ted those few paragraphs of my story he used had conjured-up in his own mind.

Everything that happens after the line

"Are you taking her home, Ted?" One of the police officers enquired. "She don't look too clever!"

Has no connection whatsoever with what happened in my story from that point on.

DC

Thank you, Wanderer. You are very kind. I would not have thought to write this if I had not read your story with it's vivid images that sparked my imagination. I read your story and I was fully engaged, playing it out in my head. It was a real movie in the mind.

The original story is much more appealing because of the happy ending

???

Nah

Big fuss over not much. I would agree that it needed more development to make a story - what you've given us is a vignette with no past and no future and little reason for its existence.

mmmmmm I can’t make my mind up about this, you have ended it in a most odd place from my reading of this, I liked where it started but I felt it lost its value right near the end.

to the readers of the original that Denham Forrest's story was extended to 4 chapters in 2021.

Green-something

I originally didn't red this because I don't like reading multiple older chapters first, but I decided to check out the original, and liked it fairly well. Then came back to this, and found it very blah.

\

For those questioning the names, I believe that at the point this split off, the only names we had were Ted and Estelle, and we didn't know that her husband had cheated. In THIS story her husband hadn't cheated, he died, so her mourning was legitimate, and there was no reason that Ted couldn't be her brother-in-law.

I didn't read the original, so I have no idea how it fits in. But as a stand alone vinyette, it is powerful.

Original was much better. 3*

Nice, I like it. Certainly a different tack then the original but it still works.

Excellent. Wondered where it was going. Five stars.

I read this first and it made some kind of sense. Then I read Denham Forrest's excellent tale and this no longer made sense. I guess even JW has to have an off day now and then.

I read the original which was very good. This also is very good just a totally different scenario. Excellent version. BardnotBard