Story authors

Story club is back! It's February, which means romance is in the air, Valentine's day is coming up, and it's Black History Month!

This month's selection is a sweet bite called "Crumbl For You" by TCC.

fantasyfeeder.com/stories/view

In the author's words, "This is the first story that I've posted that represents a female character most like myself, inspired by my wish to see more black women in stories here on FF. As a half black and white woman, the racial dynamics in this story are based on my own experiences with interracial dating and growing up in a diverse home and community, as well as attending a majority white university. Please understand this is just one of infinite possible representations of such characters. I appreciate any and all feedback readers have to offer. Happy February all!"

It's charming and romantic with a ton of character building in just two chapters. I hope everyone reads and enjoys it, and joins in the discussion. Thanks very much, TCC!

The setting and the characters are really charming. I LOVED the descriptions from the get go, her hair as a “plump bouquet of juicy curls” especially jumped out at me. It’s so vivid and sensory.

Really fun little meet cute premise with great characters. Love her slow realization of what exactly has her so fixated on this curious customer. Also love that it’s a mixed race relationship as I myself am in one and there really is not a lot of representation in stories around here. Great work and thanks for sharing for the story of the month. I’m glad it’s still going into the new year.

Ok, so I bought a cookie at Crumbl this week and it was $6 after tip. This kid was loaded or he went broke buying cookies. It was pretty good though.

The thing that I love the best about this story is how much character development there is in just two chapters. The interactions between Janessa and her coworkers are very targeted and effective at painting the picture, the love interests shared high school background is great and is very relatable, so it helps to short cut the reader to a place where it feels like we just know who these people are. It’s hard to do in a couple chapters, but really well done here.

On a technical level, the prose is great. Sweeping up for dialogue tags (the ‘he said’, ‘she replied’s’ alongside quotes dialogue, for folks out there who don’t know what I mean) is all the rage now, so cutting a few of those where the speaker is clear might punch up the dialogue, but they’re something I lean on a lot, too, I said.

Very lovely and well done, thank you again for sharing.

(Anyone who would like to get in for March, please reach out to me! If there’s no takers, maybe we’ll do a different style of event for the month)

Great point on the sweeping dialogue. I often get caught up with the tags back and forth to make sure a reader knows exactly who saying what to who and how they are saying it, but cutting these out where possible can definitely pick up the pace. Need to remind myself not to always play to what I assume is the lowest common denominator of reader, y’all are smarter than that right? Ha

There are times when it’s necessary and times when they don’t get in the way. When I go back through to revise, I try to take a few out along the way when I can. It feels like it streamlines things.

For anyone looking for help with this, I know the ProWritingAid (which I believe is still free) plug-in for Word will identify dialogue tags, and I’m sure Grammerly does too. They can be good tools for highlighting different aspects of the way we write. Ok, taking off my lecture hat now.

Thanks for the tip. I really do use a lot of dialogue, because it's my favorite part of characters. I will be keeping an eye on maintaining the balance with dialogue tags. Similar to what Bcain said, I so want to be sure clarity is there for readers. Sometimes in stories I read I find myself having to go back to verify who said what, which takes you out a moment.

And as for the cookies, I couldn't imagine ever just picking one! I'm always getting the six pack (I'm secretly all the characters) out of fear of missing out or buyers remorse. But in all my stories, the money is made up, 100%. Maybe a story with a realistic budget would be a fun excersize, but in this economy it might just be too real lol.

Thanks for reading. And so glad to bring representation for fellow interracial couples. Your picture is great too btw.

[quote]Battybattybattybat:
The setting and the characters are really charming. I LOVED the descriptions from the get go, her hair as a “plump bouquet of juicy curls” especially jumped out at me. It’s so vivid and sensory.[/quBTW.

Thanks for pointing the specifics out. I often feel like I stray from vivid descriptions, maybe out of laziness sometimes, so I'm glad I can pull something worthwhile out once in a while. I think wanting to clearly show the characters unique features was a good push for me. Thanks again 😁!

Thanks again TCC! Great story!

I’m thinking of doing something different for March and get it up tomorrow or Monday, but if there are any last minute volunteers for a story club, just let me know. Thanks everyone.