All Comments on 'Stella's Story'

<p>I'm honestly not trying to be mean, and I did try to find a reason to at least give the story a "25", but after sitting and thinking about it, I just couldn't do it.</p>

<p>Maybe because I'm a Male I just don't understand the premise behind your story. In your story you had the female lead, Stella, engaged to one man, but wonder about missed opportunities with Leland. When you had Leland re-enter the picture, you had Stella and him go out on a date, have sex, then had all the supporting character gang up on Ben because he felt betrayed. Your story then pretty much turned Ben's "reaction" from being hurt by his girlfriends actions into one of "It's no big deal", and that he should have let her <i>explore</i> these missed feelings and had supported her after she finished. I'm sorry, but to most males, thats a crock. The story let her experience if the grass was really greener, then was written (or at least to me) so that it gave the appearance that Ben was a heartless jerk if he didn't find a way to take her back, because she needed to experience sex with another man to appreciate what she had in their relationship.</i>

<p>What did "Ben's" character get out of all of Stella's extremely quick affair? Stella got to experience her first love again, her first love got to experience her, Stella dressed up for him, went to dinner with him, and "let" him have her because of her emotions, even <i>after</i> she claimed she was trying to be faithful to Ben. After getting to finally have sex with the man she had dreamed about, she called it mistake and everyone in hearing distance agreed and appeared to gang up on Ben. But what did "Ben" get? Nothing, and didn't appear to really have an expectation too. And when the story suggested he might have been hurt by Stella's actions, after telling her he trusted her with Leland, everyone quickly rushed to Stella's defense and made Ben the outsider for getting hurt and that he should probably forgive her. If you ask yourself a question "If I found the person I wanted to marry, and after accepting my offer to marry me, an old flame comes back to town so they decide to get one last time in before they married me, I'm not so sure I'd be all that quick to want to still get married. Would you <b>honestly</b> (if your truly honest with yourself) be willing to pretend, "after" being cheated on like this, that nothing happened without some time to think about it?" The story never suggested this seperation time ever happened, which again hurts it plausibleness </p>

<p>Everyone in the story excused away her actions. This isn't any form of male "pride" as to why I say this, it lack of accountability for Stella's actions. What the story suggest that was after she had her extremely short "fling" she got to keep the guy, and he accepted everyone's view that he was wrong. Why? That makes no sense. Why would he say "I trust you" in one vein, find out the one time she went out with Leland she slept with him, then let Frank convince him almost immediately that he was stupid to not immediately forgive her? That doesn't seem plausible. I can't think of one single male would or <i>could</i> do this, outside of romance novels.</p>

<p>The other thing that hurt the story for me was the <i><b>implied</b></i> force by Leland to do something against her will. You wrote this:</p>

<p><i>When he kissed her again, <b>she let herself go and was completely lost as the old feelings came back</b>. Finally, Lee kept holding her and she saw a look in his eyes that she had never seen before. It was a passionate look of longing that <b>she</b> had only dreamed of and he kissed her again so deeply that her knees buckled and she fell back on the sofa carrying Lee with her. <b>They started laughing and fell off of the sofa together</b></i></p>

<p>This wasn't the actions of someone, tricked, coerced, or "forced" against her will to have sex with another man. Longing to do something, and then not really wanting to face the consequences after the fact doesn't make the longing not this characters fault. And that's what the story appears to try to say. When you have something like this in the story, then you have supporting characters saying things like this:</p>

<p><i>Gracie, "Didn't she say that he was forceful? She was probably so confused by her past feelings and his aggressiveness that she let herself experience what she had wondered about all these years. I'm sure that she dreamed about being with him and not knowing how it would be, she conjured up fantasies that the reality didn't live up to."</i></p>

<p>And</p>

<p><i>Gracie, "If she loves you, there's no way that she won't talk to you but <b>you</b> have got to let the <b>memory of this other guy go</b> and just love her through this. She needs you more now than ever."</i></p>

<p>What memory? The memory that she slept around on him with her first love and is now sorry only after it happened? If she's an adult wouldn't she have the power to say, this is wrong and I won't do it, like about 75% of the people in the world "before" she cheated on the man she was in a committed relationship with? Why would everyone try to <i>trivialize</i> her actions to such a degree that it made it seem like Ben was chasing ghost of things that had never happened? Why would the character of this story accept that? That doesn't make sense either. Gracie's comments make it sound like nothing happened and Ben is going off half cocked on a suspicious hunch. This, and his actions once she and Frank said these things, don't make sense or seem believable as something a real person would do.</p>

<p>I think if it had been in the Romance section I could have at least given it a 25. As I've often found out Romance stories don't have to make sense, answer the questions the stories raises, or even be <i>plausible</i> long as it has a happy ending by the end. But I just couldn't get behind this story. Sorry, I honestly did try though. Sorry the comment is so long</p>

-Risq

I may have given you a higher score but I have to agree with Risq on this one. If there had been some time separation for Ben to get over his feelings I could have agreed with him taking her back, but this ' she cheated but it was just closure' line kind of sickened me.

She stayed faithful to her first love for a good while but at the first sign of temptation she fails her second love. And that's what she did; fail.

Maybe if you put an alternate ending to this story it would go over better, or even an extended ending where you explore Ben's feelings instead of just focusing on Stella's.

I may have given you a higher score but I have to agree with Risq on this one. If there had been some time separation for Ben to get over his feelings I could have agreed with him taking her back, but this ' she cheated but it was just closure' line kind of sickened me.

She stayed faithful to her first love for a good while but at the first sign of temptation she fails her second love. And that's what she did; fail.

Maybe if you put an alternate ending to this story it would go over better, or even an extended ending where you explore Ben's feelings instead of just focusing on Stella's.

I think your previous critics are living in some idealised never-never land that truly has never existed. Sounds like they are part of the religious right who have to shade their eyes from the real world because they just can't cope with their poor conflicted selves.

I'm giving you 100 because you have tried to confront a real human dilemma in this story. It isn't perfect, I could nit-pick about aspects of your writing.

But you have tried to face something hard and deal with it, and your total honesty in this endeavour is what stands out.

Keep writing, heart. You could be very good one day if you work at it.

Oh.....and you'll have noticed that your ctitics are offended males, who don't like the idea that THEIR OWN partners could feel the conflicts you describe. They are running away from the world, burying their heads in the sand. And no doublt secretly jerking off to thoughts of sexy women other than their partners.....if they're not actually fucking them.

Stay with your honesty, and your willingness to confront difficult things. It's the only way to be.

I notice that your critics have never had the ability, or courage, to post a single literary attempt themselves. Just dirtylurkers. Ignore them.

So what you're saying, Scotsman69, is that only authors can give their opinions of other peoples' works. That's fine but also a shame since that means, based on your assumptions, that 90% of the comments writers' receive, good or bad, have to be discarded because that person probably hasn't posted a story ON THIS SITE. I was going to read some of your stories but there's no point since my opinion doesn't matter to you and neither does that of anyone else who hasn't posted ON THIS SITE.

<p>You sir are an idiot</p>

<p>Let me expand, I'm the father of 3. I have 2 girls and 1 boy. I say the same thing to my children, regardless of their sex, that was said to me at my wedding. If you wouldn't do something with your mate (or in this stories case "boyfriend") standing next to you, then if you are still willing to do it, you already know your doing the wrong thing. The character wouldn't have felt guilty if she had done the "right" thing with Leland.</p>

<p>I could go into a long explanation, but let me say two things:</p>

<p>One, Scotsman69, I didn't attack the author, I critiqued the story. I just didn't like it because it made me feel the main character (Stella) was selfish and did what made her feel good at the time, while never giving a second thought to the man who trusting her to do the right thing. Then everyone in the story came to her defense while pointing out Ben was the bad guy for not giving her this chance. She had one character (Leland) who left her in another city while he went off. She didn't know if he was coming back or where he went. Leland's character "obviously" didn't care as much about her character as she cared about him. Ben's character <i>did</i> care enough to ask him to marry him. And the first time when the guy who didn't put <b>her</b> feelings first come back on the scene she's on her back with her legs up in the air trying him on for size. How is that not selfish of her? I curious how you can justify it. </p>

<p>Two: I notice you didn't refute any of my logic. All you did was throw around names and obvious slander. Couldn't do it? Or are you just used to doing it as a defense mechanism? Then to top it off you attempted to use the old fall back: "Well if someone has not ever written anything they don't get a say any thing <i><b>bad</b></i> about what you wrote". Let me make two statements, "bite me you egotistical idiot" who for some reason feels that because you wrote something your opinion matters more than anyone else's, and there are two reason that as a <i><b>reader</b></i> I get to comment "usually" on a story (unless the author decides to change this). One is the author's words herself:</p>

<p><i>And if you care to take a little time and leave a Public Comment, a kind one will be more encouraging than you can imagine --- and any constructive criticism is always gratefully received</i></p>

<p>I never attacked her as an author, and tried to limit why my problem was to strictly the story, while apologizing for why I didn't like the story. That was an honest reaction. I could have accused her of trying to live this life or force it on me, but I didn't I kept it in the realm of her characters, something you <i>Obviously</i> failed to do in your response. The other commentor above me did the "EXACT SAME THING". Only <i>you</i> went off and over the top with personal attacks. Like you were trying to over compensate for something.</p>

<p>And the other reason, when you post <i>any</i> comment on Lit you self righteous ........ you see this at the top of <i><b>every</b></i> title of your comment:</p>

<p><i>Thank you for taking the time to leave a public comment on this submission. All comments posted through this form will be viewable by all Literotica visitors.</i></p>

<p>I <b>CHALLENGE</b> you to where Lit says I have to agree, love, or enjoy the authors story or opinion or I can't post mine. You beef should be with the site admin's of Lit. You need to tell them that you feel slighted with your stories and you are going to keep lashing out till they put in a policy that only allows positive criticism that you agree with to be posted in the comment sections.</p>

<p>Tamed, again, sorry I didn't like the story. Male or female this was a selfish reaction that I just couldn't get behind. I don't do this in my daily life (even though I've had it done to me at various times in my life) and I don't teach my kids to do it as well. I personally believe in treating someone you love better than you expect to be treated yourself. For this to work as a love story, Stella didn't do that. That's why I couldn't like it. But that doesn't say your a bad writer, I just didn't like the premise of this story is all.</p>

-Risq

Well! How pathetic of them. Just keep writing, Heart. One of them even had the nerve to email his incoherent and poorly-written thoughts to me......as, of course, the cowardly 'anonymous'.

But it turns out he has reappeared with the same comment in public just below this.

I challenge him: post your own story, numpty. Spend hours, days, maybe weeks, trying to get it as good as you can.

And then sit back and listen to the illiterate crap you get back from some challenged readers.

I post here, as I am sure Heart does, because I'm trying to get better at writing. Some of it about real life, hard things to deal with. As Heart does too.

Not to please every sub-literate who reads here to get jack-off material. And fails to address the idea that for all their proclaimed purity, they don't jack off to, or fuck (if they ever got the chance), women other than their wives.

I bet their pure wives don' know they are litlurkers.

And, sorry but in my experience this is true, they all seem to hail from the US of A, land of the immoral right.

Hey T M,

You should ignore this bum Risq! Your writing is great and I want to see more of it.

Risq, why don't you go to one of the forum and have you little discussions there? You are pathetic.

Luke from Luton

Tamed Heart,

I agree with 'Luke from Luton' - your writing is far better than that Dummy Risq gives you credit.

And who is he, anyway? An 'author' without any apparent stories who is content to use you as a forum for his trash comments! Whatever happened to constructive criticism? He is obviously too full of himself to consider you. I'll bet he didn't e-mail you, so you could respond to his unbelievably long 'comments' - hiding like a coward behind a nickname. My e-mail will follow, but he made my blood boil!

Keep up the good work

First of all, we can appreciate the time & effort it takes to develop any of these stories - thank you, author. Next, what is the Scotsman & Lightpen smoking these days - friggen idiots have ego issues and can not handle simple & honest feedback from Risq. Frankly, Risq's feedback is the best feedback this author will get on this site. Once again, thank you author & thanks to Risq for taking the time to provide honest feedback.

It came across as self serving chic lit, where one sided weak ego strokes are provided. It’s a shame because I like the other kind of chic lit – where the women are strong smart and accountable.<P>

How Stella rationalizes in her mind that Ben is truly her intended life partner it’s easy to understand. After all, her number one on the list has rejected her suggestion for renewed relations (so you are not interested in me?) and she was bitterly disappointed by his answer. So much for calling her actions ‘a mistake’. Being practical if not emotionally honest with herself and with Ben, she falls back to option two. <P>

Ben was not informed by Stella about her careful effort to ‘jump ship’ at the last possible moment. Wisely (for Stella) she edited that part of their post coital conversation out. Still, his behavior after he learns about her affair is consistent mostly with desperation rather than transitioning to restore love and trust as the story tries to sell it. <P>

What I can’t understand though is how the author expects the readers to buy the preaching segment of the story where Ben is being moralized to correct HIS wrong behavior… We were onto Stella’s effort of reuniting with her lover, giving it up only after he rejected her. You can’t “sell” the story of Stella “making a mistake” or “finding resolution” (what a euphemism) and so on to us too…Thus the incredibility of the story.