All Comments on 'New York Agent Ch. 01'

I am also a "wierd" girl who reads gay male stories, marvelous aren't they? And yours is in line with some of the best, so keep it coming. I love the strength in these characters, Julie included. I'll have to search out the other stories you referred to...nice work.

Well there is a lot of us "female" out here that read gay short stories, novels, and they are excellent - So meet your sister here too.

Has been mentioned in the New Story Reviews thread on the Lit forum (Author's Hangout).

I think working with an editor might help with the story flow, make it smoother. The bones of the story seem strong but it it needs to be fleshed out. Take your time and proof read til your eyeballs fall out.

SOME ONE NEEDS TO LEARN TO SPELL.?

Your plot has potential but you need a beta. Yes, you do have spelling errors that your editor missed, but that happens. Speaking of that, dinkyboots, as a pronoun someone is one word, not two. It is ironic that you are so critical on spelling yet can't even get a six word sentence correct much less punctuated properly. Sorry, Bellehoney, but that irked me that you were hit with a criticism so blatantly rude like that even if you aren't still actively writing on the site.

As for my suggestion of a beta... I use one and she is invaluable. Questions like what was Jake doing 'working with' someone yet he hasn't even seen a photo from his agency dossier file? If the guy works covert, why would they have a lot of long, lengthy personal conversations over the phone? Why was Reilly still in the hospital after 6 weeks for a gun shot, did he have serious internal damage? That's an excessive time frame for most gun shot victims. Why isn't he being wheeled out in a wheelchair which is policy for anyone being released after a stay at every hospital I've worked or been in?

Which POV are you supposed to be using? If it's supposed to just be Jake's in this chapter you had a mistake and did a POV shit to Julie right at the end to show her thoughts. These are all questions that came to mind just from a casual read of this chapter that bothered me as a reader. A good beta gets into your story and forces you to show things you might know but your reader doesn't. One that knows editing could also smooth out the punctuation and flow issues as well as helping to catch some of those spelling errors.

"I mostly read gay male stories" - that's not weird, it just puts you at the "very straight female" end of the gay-to-straight spectrum.

"Why isn't he being wheeled out in a wheelchair . . . ?" - Cia81, I see this author is South African. Hospitals in South Africa don't have that policy - in South Africa, you walk out on your own two feet.