Two Hearts, One Wedding

[Shocker]

Normally I’d say give them their Honeymoon in perfect bliss, but this sounds to me like the ex girlfriend from hell might have gotten hold of Zoe, and I’m all dow for that.

[RapeU]

Chapter Tags: FF lesbian sex
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Chapter 14 Last Night In Paradise

It was our last night in paradise, and I felt it in the hush that fell between us as we stepped into our hotel room. Hannah let the door drift closed behind us, the soft click sounding almost ceremonial. Her hand lingered on the deadbolt a second longer than needed, and I wondered if she was already bracing herself for the end. I wasn’t ready to go back, not even a little. Not to the gray of winter, to the city, to all the real world things that waited. But there was something beautiful about the way Hannah looked at me right then, eyes gone wide and soft, lips parted like she had something important to say and couldn’t make the words fit.

I said it for both of us, “I wish we could stay forever.”

Hannah nodded. “It’s the last night,” she said softly, then smiled that wicked smile I loved. “I plan to make it unforgettable.”

She quickly closed the gap between us and kissed me. Her kiss was rougher than usual, all teeth and heat, and she pressed me backward until my heels bumped the edge of the bed. I could taste the tingle of pineapple still lingering on her lips, and something in me cracked open. Whatever sadness I felt about leaving was burned away by the want and desire of her kiss. We undressed each other in a slow but hungry way. There was something sacred about the slowness, like we were trying to slow time itself, to stretch the moment until it filled the entire night. We moved as one toward the bed. I pulled her down with me, falling backward onto the mattress. She let out a sexy giggle. It was the kind of laugh that said she wanted this as much as I did, that she was just as overwhelmed by the need to make this night last forever. “You can lead first,” Hannah whispered.

I kissed her lips hungrily and rubbed my hands on her arms. She let out a soft, sexy coo. My mouth moved down to her throat, kissing the pulse that fluttered there. She shivered under me, hands fisting in my hair. I bit her earlobe, then soothed it with my tongue, making her gasp. Her nipples were already hard, dark against the pale of her skin, and I licked around them, then sucked, nipping just enough to make her squirm. I trailed kisses down her ribs, her stomach, dipping my tongue into the hollow there. She tasted like sweat and salt and something sweet, maybe the dessert from dinner, or maybe just her.

When I got to her sex, I took a moment to admire her. She was flushed and wet, her clit already swollen and begging for attention. I ran my finger along her slit, spreading her open, and she made a noise that was almost a plea. I circled her clit with my tongue, slow at first, then harder, faster, matching the rhythm I knew would drive her wild. She writhed beneath me, her thighs trembling, her hands pulling at my hair like she needed to grip herself to reality.

I slid two fingers inside her, curling them just so, and she cried out, soft and low, her hips rolling into my hand. I alternated licking, sucking, and fingering her sex, sometimes letting up, sometimes relentless, and watched the way her face changed with every new sensation. She was always beautiful, but never more than when she was lost in pleasure, her mouth open, eyes dark and unguarded. She had a hard orgasm, her body tensing then breaking apart, her voice a low moan that was always music to my ears. I kept going, gentle now, coaxing every last ripple from her until she was panting and limp. I offered my chest for her to lay on and recover and she shifted onto me.

We lay together for a while, tangled in the sheets, the air thick with sweat. My skin was slick, my hair stuck to my face, but I’d never felt so perfect. We didn’t talk, didn’t need to. The world was reduced to touch, to breath, to the hum of blood in our veins. After Hannah recovered from her orgasm, she whispered in my ear to hold in my orgasm as long as I could. Hannah’s mouth found its way down my body with slow, deliberate care. She kissed every inch as if she could memorize me by lips alone, then started over as soon as she reached my hip bones. She spread my legs, her hands warm against my thighs, and I felt the familiar ache of wanting her so badly it hurt. She kissed my inner thigh, then the other, soft and slow and never where I needed her most. I was already trembling, but she kept at it until she reached my sex. Her tongue drew slow circles, teeth scraping just enough to make me gasp.

I clutched the sheets like I was going to float right off the bed, and she licked me with slow, insistent strokes, building the pressure until it was all I could do not to buck my hips up into her face. “Don’t stop,” I begged, the words shredded and breathless, and Hannah hummed a yes against my clit that nearly did me in. She pressed her tongue flat, dragging it up the length of my slit, pausing to flick at the hooded spot that always made my vision go static. Hannah kept going, gentle and relentless, circling my sex with the kind of precision that made my body go tight as a bowstring.

My legs started to shake, and I realized I was making noises that sounded like an animal. Hannah pushed her tongue deeper, flattening her mouth against me, sucking and licking. I felt the orgasm gather at the base of my spine, but I held it like she asked, holding on and holding on until the pressure was a physical thing, a knot of pure heat that built and built.

She sucked hard on my sex, and a hot, helpless sound punched out of my chest. Before I could even process the next wave, her finger slipped inside, slow and deep, curling in a way that made my entire sex clench around her. The pleasure built, wild and unsteady, cresting higher and higher until I was begging, not even sure for what. Suddenly, a spasm sharp and new hit through me and I lost control completely. I felt my hips buck up off the sheets, and the next second, an explosion of wet heat shot out of me. It splattered Hannah’s face and chin. The shock of it made me sound like an opera singer attempting to break glass with her voice.

“Oh wow,” I whispered, barely able to move from the feeling I had, “That was very new.” Hannah wiped her face with her hands and grinned, “Yeah, it was.” She lightly kissed my lips and I could smell the scent of my sex mixed with her essence. Hannah offered her chest for me to lay on to recover, and I did so.

After a few moments I asked “Is that going on the sex spreadsheet?”

She let out a soft giggle. “Of course.”

I rubbed my head on her breast affectionately. “Good,” I said, “because that felt amazing.”

Time passed and I realized I had fallen asleep. I lay still, content, letting Hannah’s warmth seep into me. Her arm draped over my waist, and one of her legs was thrown possessively over both of mine. It was like she was worried I’d drift away if she didn’t weigh me down. I smiled into the darkness, then rolled carefully to face her. She blinked awake, not startled, just mildly curious, the way a cat might be. Her hair was wild, a mess of red in the half-light, her cheeks still flushed.

“Hey,” she whispered, voice husky and small. She looked at me for a long moment, then traced her finger along my cheek, soft and aimless. “Couldn’t sleep?” she asked.

I shrugged. “Didn’t want to miss our last night.” I ran a hand over her back, feeling the slickness where sweat had dried and left a salty film. She shivered, then pressed closer, burrowing her face in the crook of my neck.

“We don’t have to leave until noon,” she said, a little desperate. “We could…just stay in bed and pretend.”

I laughed, low and fond. “Pretend what? That we live in this hotel forever?”

She nodded, then added, “Maybe we can put plumeria in all the air vents at home and trick ourselves.” She was smiling, but I heard the sadness, that note that always came in the middle of goodbyes.

I kissed her forehead. “Or,” I said, “we could just get really rich and fly to Hawaii every weekend.”

She laughed, but not loud, not enough to break the spell. “I like that plan. Not practical, but I like it.” She hesitated, her fingers still tracing shapes on my skin. “What are we even supposed to do when we go back?”

The words hung there. She didn’t mean it like an actual question, but I took it as one anyway. “We’re supposed to…get groceries, pay rent, go to class. Call Zoe. Maybe…” I hesitated. “Maybe start our wedding business?” I felt the twist of nerves, and wondered if I was being silly. But she didn’t laugh or shrug it off.

Instead, she said, “Do you think we could? Actually do it?” She looked so open, so unsure, it made my chest ache.

I wanted to cup her face and promise the world, but instead I twirled a strand of her hair and said, “I think we could do anything. As long as we don’t murder each other first.”

She grinned, then rolled her eyes. “If I do, it’ll be over which planner we use. But yes. I want to try.” She kissed my lips, soft and a little sad. “I love you,” she said.

“I love you,” I said back. I put all the trust and certainty I had into it. I meant it. After a while, we fell quiet. I played with her hair, twirling and untwirling it, tangling us together one last time before the world started up again.

Finally, she said, “I know this is going to sound insane, but…I don’t have a plan for what comes next. Not past this week, not even past the plane ride home. I wanted us to make the plan together, for once.”

I felt the weight of that. Coming from Hannah, it was an admission so raw, so honest, I almost teared up. I kissed her palm and pressed it to my cheek. “We’ll figure it out. As wives. That’s the only plan I want.” She smiled, and I saw the tension melt out of her. I smiled back and gently kissed her lips.

We didn’t fall asleep until hours later, when the sky over the ocean was starting to bleach out the darkness. Even then, we woke again and again, reaching for each other, like the only way to hold onto paradise was to never let ourselves drift out of one another’s arms.

The first light of dawn spilled across the room, soft and gold, and we were still in each other’s arms. I brushed her cheek with my finger, memorizing everything as if the world might forget it otherwise. Hannah’s hand found mine, her thumb brushing my knuckles, and her voice was low and certain, “No matter what comes next, we do it together.”

I pressed my forehead to hers and whispered back, “Always.” And I knew paradise wasn’t beaches, sunsets, or fancy dinners. Paradise was the two of us together, for as long as we both lived and loved.
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This particular story has reached a good place to end. The seeds of more stories are planted, so Hannah and Wendy will return. And having a wedding planning business sounds like a great story, after all what could possibly go wrong?

[RapeU]

Normally I’d say give them their Honeymoon in perfect bliss, but this sounds to me like the ex girlfriend from hell might have gotten hold of Zoe, and I’m all dow for that.

You are partially correct about the ex girlfriend from hell. She does play a part in the storyline at some point. But that's not what was wrong with Zoe. This was!

[Claire]

I finally managed to read the first two chapters of this. Hopefully, I'll manage to read the rest in time to read your current contest story.

I think your story's biggest strength is still your cast of characters. They carry the show. That was definitely true here as well. I think the Melissa character I invented for "The Strange Case of Henry Banner and Danica Carew" would fit in nicely with this wedding emergency council!

The first chapter was very nicely written. But it has one structural weakness. It contains no hook for the larger story. We see Wendy and Hannah being cute and tender which is really nice. But there is nothing happening here that sets up any future conflict. If you are open to rewriting the first chapter a little, then I would increase it a bit in length so that it ends with Wendy reading the message of her parents. You don't need to show her reaction to it yet, you can open chapter 2 with that. But then you have an immediate cliffhanger at the end of chapter 1 that introduces conflict into the story.

Chapter 2 was fun. I like how you expanded the circle of characters around the leading couple. I really liked that you didn't resolve the conflict between Wendy and her parents in the one year gap but have it take center stage now. It's like a seed planted in The Blowout that finally grows. I like that a lot!


I have one gripe with the story though, and it has nothing to do with the prose or what's happening with the story. It's the formatting of the dialogue, the way you embed several dialogue lines from different speakers within a single paragraph. I find the dialogue and who is speaking very hard to parse because of that. I know that my formatting of dialogue is unusual in that I always give each piece of dialogue it's own line and don't even include a simple "she whispered" or something like that within the same line. But I think what you do really hurts the readability of the text. Look at how @SoftGameHunter formats his dialogue in Pheromonica:

“Bad luck, huh?” one of the uniforms said. Sergeant Klein, according to his badge.

“You trying to make detective, sergeant, with that kind of insight?” Frank asked.

“Huh, no. I mean, you know…” Klein stammered, trying to backpedal.

“I know a nightclub robbery in broad daylight is shitty luck. I guess that’s why I got promoted. You hoping for the same, sergeant? Keep talking.”

“Sir, sorry, no. I just mean, did you just get here, sir?”

“Yeah, I just got the call.”

“I mean, the company event. Some big R&D drug company was renting out part of the facility for a party. Got a bunch of nerds and secretaries doing their team building events when the shit goes down. Gotta suck is all I’m saying.”

“Drug company?”

“Yeah, I thought you knew that.”

“Got something to say about that?” Frank barked, but now it was show. Sergeant Klein needed to be somewhere else. Of course Frank should have known that. His reaction was out of line, but fuck if some uniform older than him was going to get some mumbled apology. “Never mind. Go make yourself useful.”

As Klein hurried away, Frank surveyed the scene.

(...)

He doesn't go as far as me with separating dialogue lines from narration, but he never has 3 or 4 short dialogue fragments of different characters within the same paragraph. Look at an example from chapter 2 of your story for comparison:

Aisha grimaced, dropped into a chair, and opened her laptop. “Ok, here’s what I’ve got,” she said quickly, “Formal legal options are out. The wedding is less than a month away and legal takes longer than that.” She paused, ran a hand through her dark hair, and continued. “You could move the venue, but that runs the risk of them following you.” Hannah shook her head, “No chance of moving the venue, not this late.” Aisha nodded and continued, “You could play nice, let them in, and have security prepped to remove them at the first sign of disruption.” Zoe chimed in, “I like that idea. Let her make a fool of herself while both of you stand there cool as a cucumber. The more reasonable you look, the more everyone remembers how reasonable you were.”

You have three different people speaking in that one paragraph. Aisha starts, her line gets interrupted by narration, then she picks up again, gets interrupted a second time, continues the third time in a row, then Hannah speaks, Aisha responds, and then Zoe chimes in.

I had trouble identifying who speaks (edit: I had so much trouble that in my brief summary in the paragraph above I overlooked in the pre-edit version of this post that Aisha sppoke for a fourth time between Hannah and Zoe). You not only have 6 instances of dialogue by 3 different characters and a fourth character present as well. Sometimes short lines like "Zoe chimed in" could refer to the line that was just spoken or to the line that follows immediately after. By formatting the text like that, you make the reader expend a lot of energy on figuring out who is speaking. If you mimicked @SoftGameHunter style of formatting the dialogue, I think it would look something like this.

Aisha grimaced, dropped into a chair, and opened her laptop.

“Ok, here’s what I’ve got. Formal legal options are out. The wedding is less than a month away and legal takes longer than that.” She paused, ran a hand through her dark hair, and continued. “You could move the venue, but that runs the risk of them following you.”

Hannah shook her head, “No chance of moving the venue, not this late.”

Aisha nodded, “You could play nice, let them in, and have security prepped to remove them at the first sign of disruption.”

Zoe chimed in, “I like that idea. Let her make a fool of herself while both of you stand there cool as a cucumber. The more reasonable you look, the more everyone remembers how reasonable you were.”

Probably, you would have to move the short narration bits that signal who is talking to after the dialogue fragments to get closer to SGH's dialogue. But either way, it would make reading your text so much easier. In earlier stories of yours it didn't matter as much because the dialogue density wasn't as high as here. But here it became really distracting for me. It's hard to follow a conversation if I have to constantly work to figure out who is speaking.


Looking forward to read more chapters soon!


edit: @RapeU I edited this post slightly.

[RapeU]

I finally managed to read the first two chapters of this. Hopefully, I'll manage to read the rest in time to read your current contest story.

I think your story's biggest strength is still your cast of characters. They carry the show. That was definitely true here as well. I think the Melissa character I invented for "The Strange Case of Henry Banner and Danica Carew" would fit in nicely with this wedding emergency council!

The first chapter was very nicely written. But it has one structural weakness. It contains no hook for the larger story. We see Wendy and Hannah being cute and tender which is really nice. But there is nothing happening here that sets up any future conflict. If you are open to rewriting the first chapter a little, then I would increase it a bit in length so that it ends with Wendy reading the message of her parents. You don't need to show her reaction to it yet, you can open chapter 2 with that. But then you have an immediate cliffhanger at the end of chapter 1 that introduces conflict into the story.

That's an interesting idea. I'll think about that for a little bit before deciding whether or not to change it. My original intent was to show they are in a good place where nothing major will happen to them. A wholesome chapter to let the storyline breathe. We last left them with Hannah having a flashback after all. Having Chapter 2 start with drama shows that while they are in a good place there's still going to be drama involved.

Chapter 2 was fun. I like how you expanded the circle of characters around the leading couple. I really liked that you didn't resolve the conflict between Wendy and her parents in the one year gap but have it take center stage now. It's like a seed planted in The Blowout that finally grows. I like that a lot!

It was a good unintentional seed yes

I have one gripe with the story though, and it has nothing to do with the prose or what's happening with the story. It's the formatting of the dialogue, the way you embed several dialogue lines from different speakers within a single paragraph. I find the dialogue and who is speaking very hard to parse because of that. I know that my formatting of dialogue is unusual in that I always give each piece of dialogue it's own line and don't even include a simple "she whispered" or something like that within the same line. But I think what you do really hurts the readability of the text.

You mentioned the same thing with The Blowout, so I'm going to fix all of that now by formatting a little differently. I already did a few chapters here and so far like the logistics of it. Re read chapter 2 again and let me know if that fixes the issue.

I'm in the process right now of fixing all the other chapters with this issue. My next story will be another hub story like this one, and knowing my dialogue style isn't quite working ahead of time is important because there will be more than 4 characters discussing things amongst each other.

[Lucius]

I've finally managed to read the last two chapters of the story. We've seen the event in the next-to-last chapter from another point of view, but the, hm, events of the last chapter are quite extraordinary and hot.

... Look at an example from chapter 2 of your story for comparison:

Aisha grimaced, dropped into a chair, and opened her laptop. “Ok, here’s what I’ve got,” she said quickly, “Formal legal options are out. The wedding is less than a month away and legal takes longer than that.” She paused, ran a hand through her dark hair, and continued. “You could move the venue, but that runs the risk of them following you.” Hannah shook her head, “No chance of moving the venue, not this late.” Aisha nodded and continued, “You could play nice, let them in, and have security prepped to remove them at the first sign of disruption.” Zoe chimed in, “I like that idea. Let her make a fool of herself while both of you stand there cool as a cucumber. The more reasonable you look, the more everyone remembers how reasonable you were.”

You have three different people speaking in that one paragraph. Aisha starts, her line gets interrupted by narration, then she picks up again, gets interrupted a second time, continues the third time in a row, then Hannah speaks, Aisha responds, and then Zoe chimes in.

I had trouble identifying who speaks (edit: I had so much trouble that in my brief summary in the paragraph above I overlooked in the pre-edit version of this post that Aisha sppoke for a fourth time between Hannah and Zoe). You not only have 6 instances of dialogue by 3 different characters and a fourth character present as well. Sometimes short lines like "Zoe chimed in" could refer to the line that was just spoken or to the line that follows immediately after. ...

I second that -- it's a bit difficult to parse who says what when that happens.

[Claire]

I'll keep updating this post after every chapter I read. Unless somebody else posts before I finish the story.


Chapter 3

I didn't expect to get a fight between Wendy and Hannah. I'm also glad I didn't read the little chapter teaser that would have spoiled that for me.

The fight did come a bit out of nowhere but I liked how it was written. I'm also not sure whether you changed the formatting of the dialogue here - I see that you did for chapter 2 - but regardless of whether you edited that later or wrote it differently from the start for this chapter, the effect is enormous. Reading this was so much smoother. I could really get absorbed into the argument. In case you're still wondering yourself: Keep that format. The improvement is tremendous.

One thing that was missing for me in The Blowout was that the events itself never challenged their relationship. Not in the sense that they would hate or blame each other. But these are two lesbians who were repeatedly gang raped by men and forced to touch and stimulate each other. If I remember correctly, they were even forced to lick cum out of each other. I was always hoping that you'd show that having consequences for their sex or intimacy in general. Like maybe, Wendy usually enjoyed licking Hannah a lot, but now she had moments where she felt disgusted doing it because it reminds her of when she had to eat their rapists' cum out of her pussy. Many small things like kissing or touching her could have been contaminated by that. If The Blowout had explored that angle, it would have been a 3 instead of a 2 point story or me. Because then the relationship between the two would have been tested and integrated into the story instead of running in parallel to the story of their captivity.

Similarly, I would like it a lot if this became a story that deals with the following problem: Can they stay together without being a reminder for each other of what happened all the time?

To me, that would be the most interesting question and narrative conflict to explore that would fit perfectly with using the wedding as a framing device for the story.

That is why I like that you gave us this fight in this chapter. I want to see more tension in their relationship, I want to see it tested more, even if it is not exactly in the way I hoped you would explore it.

Personally, one thing I would criticize here: You resolve the tension too neatly for my taste. Hannah barely stormed out the door and three lines later everything is nice, cute and tender between them again. I would recommend: let the reader sit with this for 2, 3 or 4 chapters before you tidy things up again. Before I could even begin to feel that something might be damaged, I find myself in the middle of makeup sex with Wendy and Hannah. That sex would feel so much more impactful and meaningful if it came after a climactic resolution of their conflict 3 chapters later. Let the reader stew a little in the tension. Between Hannah slamming the door shut and her reentering all apologetic are literally only 79 words.


Chapter 4

Chapter 4 really stands out. First, there is how long it is. That's really unusual for you. Did you plan this or did it just happen?

But in another sense I think it kind of feels like the end point of a transformation you have been going through as a writer. I think during the early chapters of The CUNT Rapist you started to experiment with focusing more on dialogue. And as that story progressed, you leaned into that more and more. But this chapter feels like the culmination of that development. I'd actually be intrigued to calculate the dialogue to narration ratio for your stories to track the development.

How aware are you yourself of that change in your writing, @RapeU ? And was it a conscious choice? I think the reader can feel that you had fun writing these character interactions.

The chapter made me also I think that I wouldn't mind to see some decent male characters in this story.

Also, knowing that Mark will play a role later in this universe... I couldn't help but think that I might root for him if you had him go after Wendy's mother instead of Zoe...


Chapter 5

Hmm, not sure what to make of chapter 5. Overall, there hasn't much happened where it felt like anything was at stake since chapter 2. We get a lot of character interaction between Zoe and Wendy but there is no sense of progression for me other than time passing. It seems like we are moving toward the moment where the sub plot about the parents interrupting the wedding is coming to a conclusion but it feels like time is getting us there, not Wendy's actions. I think the story could have really used at least one chapter before the wedding day dedicated to a final attempt by Wendy to talk to her parents. If that final conversation would have failed and we had an idea what the parents are actually like, then we would have a better idea how big the threat actually is.

I think in total 4 of the 5 chapters so far didn't significantly progress the story and I feel like I'm following a protagonist who is mostly going through the motions rather than shaping her own story with her actions. The cuteness of the character interactions can only carry reader interest to a point. At some point, the things the characters say and do needs to do more than just express character but needs to affect anything that's happening in the story.

I think I want more meaningful change to occur at this point. Maybe I'll get that starting with chapter 6.


Chapter 6

I could only repeat what I said for chapter 5. I did like the wedding vows though. They read like you put a lot of effort into those!

Last update for this post since @RapeU replied. My commentary for later chapters will get their own post.

[RapeU]

I'll keep updating this post after every chapter I read. Unless somebody else posts before I finish the story.


Chapter 3

I didn't expect to get a fight between Wendy and Hannah. I'm also glad I didn't read the little chapter teaser that would have spoiled that for me.

The fight did come a bit out of nowhere but I liked how it was written. I'm also not sure whether you changed the formatting of the dialogue here - I see that you did for chapter 2 - but regardless of whether you edited that later or wrote it differently from the start for this chapter, the effect is enormous. Reading this was so much smoother. I could really get absorbed into the argument. In case you're still wondering yourself: Keep that format. The improvement is tremendous.

Yes, I see the improvement too.

One thing that was missing for me in The Blowout was that the events itself never challenged their relationship. Not in the sense that they would hate or blame each other. But these are two lesbians who were repeatedly gang raped by men and forced to touch and stimulate each other. If I remember correctly, they were even forced to lick cum out of each other. I was always hoping that you'd show that having consequences for their sex or intimacy in general. Like maybe, Wendy usually enjoyed licking Hannah a lot, but now she had moments where she felt disgusted doing it because it reminds her of when she had to eat their rapists' cum out of her pussy. Many small things like kissing or touching her could have been contaminated by that. If The Blowout had explored that angle, it would have been a 3 instead of a 2 point story or me. Because then the relationship between the two would have been tested and integrated into the story instead of running in parallel to the story of their captivity.

That's more of the purpose of Two Broken, One Whole. Their lovemaking can and is at times disrupted by PTSD and flashbacks. I sprinkled some PTSD moments in this story, so you'll see some of that here. Nothing that challenges their relationship...yet. The challenges are coming though, it's just going to take a while to get there.

Similarly, I would like it a lot if this became a story that deals with the following problem: Can they stay together without being a reminder for each other of what happened all the time?

Since they are going to therapy yes, but there are still cracks. Like I said you'll see some of the cracks in this story, but nothing will shatter quite yet.

Personally, one thing I would criticize here: You resolve the tension too neatly for my taste. Hannah barely stormed out the door and three lines later everything is nice, cute and tender between them again. I would recommend: let the reader sit with this for 2, 3 or 4 chapters before you tidy things up again.

2, 3, or 4 chapters? I see your point, but think a little bit about what you're asking here. If I were to do that there would be 2-4 chapters with no progression whatsoever. It would essentially be an hour by hour chapter set where Wendy feels guilty and thinks about what she should say. Maybe she goes through anger and guilt but it's literally a time period where nothing else happens.

You're probably thinking "she should call Zoe" and that could be a chapter, but it risks turning Hannah and Wendy's relationship toxic. What better way to derail a relationship than to tell others your business when angry/upset? Of course Wendy will confide in Zoe eventually, but not in the heat of the moment after an argument.

Remember, they are going to therapy for issues. There's a lot happening off screen that I'm leaving out so the story isn't like a car that stalls on a railroad track with an incoming train.

Chapter 4 really stands out. First, there is how long it is. That's really unusual for you. Did you plan this or did it just happen?

I knew going in the chapters would likely be a lot longer than normal because of all the seeds I wanted to plant for future stories. Chapter 4 has some real subtle ones mixed in with Zoe's character development along with their dynamics.

Nobody has asked this yet, but I'm sure it'll come up. "Hanner" is not a typeo. Zoe's the only one who can get away with calling her that, and only sparingly.

But in another sense I think it kind of feels like the end point of a transformation you have been going through as a writer. I think during the early chapters of The CUNT Rapist you started to experiment with focusing more on dialogue. And as that story progressed, you leaned into that more and more. But this chapter feels like the culmination of that development. I'd actually be intrigued to calculate the dialogue to narration ratio for your stories to track the development.

How aware are you yourself of that change in your writing, @RapeU ? And was it a conscious choice? I think the reader can feel that you had fun writing these character interactions.

I'm a lot happier with how things are turning out. Hannah and Wendy feel real and special. It was indeed a conscious choice. I essentially had most of the story mapped out along with future story ideas, so that's how this story came together so well.

The chapter made me also I think that I wouldn't mind to see some decent male characters in this story.

I think you'll like Hannah's dad.

Also, knowing that Mark will play a role later in this universe... I couldn't help but think that I might root for him if you had him go after Wendy's mother instead of Zoe...

Ooo don't tempt me with another story idea.

[RapeU]

Chapter 5

Hmm, not sure what to make of chapter 5. Overall, there hasn't much happened where it felt like anything was at stake since chapter 2. We get a lot of character interaction between Zoe and Wendy but there is no sense of progression for me other than time passing. It seems like we are moving toward the moment where the sub plot about the parents interrupting the wedding is coming to a conclusion but it feels like time is getting us there, not Wendy's actions.

I'm not sure what you mean by no progression now. Maybe you're thinking of this in a rape fantasy mindset. This is a love story, there's clear progression of love in Chapter 5. Especially with Hannah's favorite type of pen being the "something blue."

I think the story could have really used at least one chapter before the wedding day dedicated to a final attempt by Wendy to talk to her parents. If that final conversation would have failed and we had an idea what the parents are actually like, then we would have a better idea how big the threat actually is.

Yeah no, her parents don't listen to her as shown before in The Blowout and hinted at when Wendy said that they wanted her to "spend time away from her friend." Wendy talking to her parents won't work. But keep reading, you'll see what happens

I think in total 4 of the 5 chapters so far didn't significantly progress the story and I feel like I'm following a protagonist who is mostly going through the motions rather than shaping her own story with her actions. The cuteness of the character interactions can only carry reader interest to a point. At some point, the things the characters say and do needs to do more than just express character but needs to affect anything that's happening in the story.

I'm not sure "going through the motions" is accurate here. More like everything is planned ahead of time and she's following the plan with appropriate emotional moments. "Going through the motions" is a phrase that implies the character is suffering from depression, hiding it, and going about their day as if nothing was wrong. That's would describe Alex. It doesn't describe Wendy in this case.

I think I want more meaningful change to occur at this point. Maybe I'll get that starting with chapter 6.

The actual wedding ceremony? Oh yeah, I kinda felt bad writing better wedding vows for fictional characters than I did for my own wedding

[Claire]

I'm not sure what you mean by no progression now. Maybe you're thinking of this in a rape fantasy mindset. This is a love story, there's clear progression of love in Chapter 5. Especially with Hannah's favorite type of pen being the "something blue."

Okay, let me try to explain this. I'm not thinking about this in a rape fantasy mindset. Are you familiar with the classic Three Act Structure in narrative fiction? It's basically a standard template for how stories are structured. Let me quote what the Wikipedia page says:

The three-act structure is a model used in narrative fiction that divides a story into three parts (acts), often called the Setup, the Confrontation, and the Resolution.

(...)

As the story moves along, the plot usually progresses in such a way as to pose a major dramatic question. For example,

Will the boy get the girl?
Will the hero save the day?
Will the detective solve the mystery?
Will the criminal be caught by law enforcement and brought to justice?
Will the protagonist be murdered by the fugitive?

The answer to such a question is generally provided in the climax of the story. The event implied by the question may occur or not occur.

(...)

The first act is usually used for exposition, to establish the main characters, their relationships, and the world they live in. Later in the first act, a dynamic, on-screen incident occurs, known as the inciting incident, or catalyst, that confronts the main character (the protagonist), and whose attempts to deal with this incident lead to a second and more dramatic situation, known as the first plot point, which signals the end of the first act, ensures that life will never be the same again for the protagonist, and raises a dramatic question that will be answered in the climax. The dramatic question is generally framed in terms of the protagonist's call to action (Will X recover the diamond? Will Y win their love interest? Will Z capture the killer?

What I'm saying is this: I don't see a dramatic question and I'm now 7 chapters deep into the story and still waiting for the inciting incident that raises the dramatic question.

To give you a few examples:

1) In Star Wars, the inciting incident is when Luke's aunt and uncle are killed by the empire and he joins Obi-Wan on his journey.

2) In Lord of the Rings, the inciting incident is Gandalf returning to the shire and informing Frodo that the ring he inherited is actually The One Ring and that it needs to be destroyed. Frodo's status quo of living life in the shire is disruspted and the rest of the narrative is informed by the dramatic question "Will Frodo be able to destroy the ring?"

3) But dramatic question and inciting incident don't mean that you need world ending stakes in your story. If I remember your age correctly, then you probably saw the movie American Pie as a teenager? That's a comedy about kids finishing high school. If you look at the plot description on Wikipedia, it starts like this:

At East Great Falls High School in Michigan, four friends await graduation: the sexually inexperienced Jim Levenstein; the insensitive lacrosse star Chris "Oz" Ostreicher; the intellectual Paul Finch; and Kevin Myers, who is desperate to have sex with his girlfriend Vicky.

During a house party hosted by womanizing jock Steven Stifler, the friends learn that their dorky classmate Chuck Sherman has lost his virginity. Frustrated by their lack of sexual experience, the four make a pact to each lose their virginity by prom night in three weeks.

The first paragraph is the part in the three act structure described as: "The first act is usually used for exposition, to establish the main characters, their relationships, and the world they live in. "

And the second paragraph that describes the party where they learn that Chuck Sherman lost his virginity and that the pact they make to lose their virginity is the inciting incident that raises the dramatic question: "Will the boys lose their virginity by prom night?"

Every event in that film, even the silly scene with the titular apple pie, happens in relation to that dramatic question. It's silly, it's a joke in a comedy, it's meant to portray Jim's character, but it is also absolutely in service of engaging with the dramatic question.

4) Now you argued that you are writing a love story and that the sense of progression comes from depicting the love Wendy feels for Hannah as they get closer to the wedding, and then throughout the wedding. But that is not what I mean by progression. Love stories or romantic comedies absolutely rely on this storytelling model of introducing a dramatic question by having a inciting incident. The most common pattern is: The leading couple of the story meets (inciting incident) and the dramatic question "Will they get together?" is raised.

To give an example here too: Did you ever watch the movie Love Actually? I would say that this is for many people a classic feel good romance at this point. The film consists of many interconnected short stories about love in various forms. Each paragraph in the plot description on the wikipedia page summarizes one of these short stories. If you just look at how these summaries are written, many (not all) follow the pattern of: Setup, Inciting Incident, Resolution.

(...)

Aging rock star Billy Mack records a novelty Christmas version of the song “Love Is All Around” with the help of his long-time manager Joe. Although he openly mocks the single during promotional appearances, the song unexpectedly becomes the UK’s Christmas number-one. On Christmas Day, Billy realizes that Joe has been the most important person in his life and chooses to spend the holiday celebrating quietly with him instead of attending a celebrity party.

Newlyweds Juliet and Peter appear happily married, but Peter’s best friend Mark secretly harbors feelings for Juliet. Mark’s distant behaviour toward her stems from his attempt to conceal these emotions. When Juliet unexpectedly watches the wedding video Mark filmed, she realizes it focuses almost entirely on her. Later, Mark confesses his feelings through a silent display of cue cards outside her home, insisting he expects nothing in return. Juliet kisses him briefly before returning to her husband, and Mark accepts that he can now move forward.

Writer Jamie discovers that his girlfriend is having an affair with his brother. Heartbroken, he retreats to a cottage in France, where he develops a bond with his Portuguese housekeeper Aurélia despite their inability to speak each other’s language. Months later Jamie returns to propose to her, speaking halting Portuguese; Aurélia accepts in broken English, revealing she has also been learning his language.

Harry, the managing director of a design firm, is married to Karen, with whom he has two children. His flirtatious secretary Mia encourages his attention and hints she wants a special Christmas gift. Karen later finds evidence suggesting Harry bought Mia an expensive necklace, which devastates her and forces Harry to confront the damage his behaviour has caused to their marriage.

(...)

Daniel, recently widowed, struggles to support his stepson Sam through grief. Sam becomes infatuated with an American classmate named Joanna and resolves to win her attention by learning the drums for the school’s Christmas concert. Encouraged by Daniel, Sam later rushes to Heathrow Airport to confess his feelings before she returns to the United States, successfully catching her attention.

(...)

5) And one final example: Maybe the quintessential romance story of the last 3 or 4 decades or so, Titanic, follows the same pattern. Rose and Jack meet on the Titanic as Rose is about to kill herself by jumping off the ship (inciting incident). The dramatic question is: "Will they get to stay together despite their class difference?" or maybe "Will they survive the sinking of the Titanic together?"


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So what I'm getting at is this: If you apply that model to your story, then you begin with the setup as all these other stories as well. Your setup being: "Wendy and Hannah are a couple about to get married." But you don't follow this setup with an inciting incident that raises a dramatic question. Your story proceeds with: "And then they got married"

That is what I'm getting at when I say I feel no progression, not that literally nothing happens. I got the setup in chapter 1. I thought I got an inciting incident with the message from Wendy's parents in chapter 2 that might disrupt the status quo you presented in chapter 1. But chapters 3 to 7 just depict normal stuff you expect to see around a wedding. And it does that in a very charming way. But I as a reader am still waiting for the inciting incident that disrupts the status quo and that raises the dramatic question I would usually expect to be resolved with the wedding ceremony.

The dramatic question for your story could have been for example:

1) "Will Wendy and Hannah get married?" - But you would need an inciting incident that calls the planned marriage you begin the story with into question.

2) "Will Wendy be able to get her parents to approve of her lesbian partner?" - You essentially have an inciting incident for that in your story, but the following chapters don't follow up on that idea.


What I essentially argued in my earlier comment was that this story would work best for me as a continuation of The Blowout if the event of that story now called their relationship into question. Your setup would be something like the wedding being one month away, but Wendy is having doubts, not about her love for Hannah, but whether she can ever fully heal with Hannah also being a reminder of her trauma. Then you have a dramatic question, and now all you need is an inciting incident that brings those lingering doubts into the forefront.

If you did that, a chapter like chapter 4 suddenly stops being just "stuff happens" but it can have Wendy's doubts become important. She can choose to confide in Zoe. We can get Zoe's character introduction and all her fun character quirks, but in service of engaging with the dramatic question.

Also, if Wendy chooses to confide in Zoe, then she is an active protagonist who makes choices that drive the plot forward toward the resolution of the dramatic question. When I said that she just goes "through the motions" I didn't mean that she was depressed. Maybe I got the expression wrong because I'm not a native speaker. What I meant to say was that she's not an active protagonist whose choices drive the story toward answering the dramatic question, but that she is just carried through the plot. But the problem is not Wendy as a character. The problem is the lack of an inciting incident raising the dramatic question that would pull Wendy out of the status quo in the first place.

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I'll end it here. My central point is: I can't identify the inciting incident and the dramatic question that defines what your story is about after I read 7 of 14 chapters. That being said, this is not necessarily a problem. This kind of storytelling is probably the standard way of structuring a story and it exists for a reason. But you can of course deviate from that and deliberately avoid following that model. But I think that is a difficult thing to do. For me as a reder, the effect is that I feel no tension in the story. I get this wedding ceremony, and those beautiful vows you wrote for them that are just oozing with love for those characters. And I find that moment cute and endearing, but I'm not sobbing in relief at how beautiful this moment is as I would if the affirmation of their love was the climax after everything you had them overcome to get to this point. And that is usually what a love story does.