Over some months the middle aged man concludes his decision to marry
his wife of twenty years and raise a family was a mistake.
He decides he is gay and begins to
experiment. After several casual affairs the man realizes
he has been mistaken about his sexuality identity over his life and he
decides to confess this to his wife.

Over some months the middle aged man concludes his decision to marry his wife of twenty years and raise a family
was a mistake. He decides he is gay and begins to experiment. After several casual affairs the man realizes
he has been mistaken about his sexuality identity over his life and he decides to confess this to his wife.

This isn't 13 lines of 12 pt Courier; it's 22.

quote:

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The man discovers himself deeply attracted to the boy

---

Had he described the "boy" as "young man" it would not be. We would assume the younger male was 18ish. Still young, but not distinctly pedophilia.

You do need to alter your title to include (PG-13) for adult material and shorten your text to 13 lines as it would be in courier 12pt with 1" margins.

A) It's a high school. The girl (its really
a girl Pantros) may actually be at the age of
concent. You read between the lines. Exactly.

The pedophilia aspect does not make it unpublishable or even untouchable. It just makes it inappropriate for this forum whether the pedophilia is certain or not. You missed my point when I mentioned that you have an adult character who thinks of a "boy" as a sexual object. Whether the object of his affection is really a minor or not is not relevant as long as the protagonist sees him as a minor (the term "boy".)

This would make a good short story, but your presentation is not a short story. I am trying very hard not to call it a very bad short story. Your plot is a good one. But you need to show us the steps not tell us that they happen. Your form is far too condensed. You need to elaborate and show us how this transpires. Can I say that again or did you get it this time?

Next time you post, please have read the forum rules and follow them.

It's not me that isn't reading between the lines. I see what you are trying to do. You are just failing in your presentation and flavoring. You are also failing to show respect for anyone who partakes in this forum by not reading the guidelines before posting.

quote:

---

A) It's a high school. The girl (its really
a girl Pantros) may actually be at the age of
concent. You read between the lines. Exactly.

---

And where did I comment on the gender sexuality? Girl or boy both denote minor. Since your gender realization didn't occur in the first 13 lines, I wouldn't be commenting on that aspect.

EDIT: ok, I don't think that the subject matter neccesarily makes the piece inappropriate for the forum, but for me as a reader, I would read no further after the pedophilia aspect comes out.

does it upset my morality? Pedophilia is an evil. Yes.

And there is absolutly no question whether this is pedophilia. Your character feels attraction for someone he thinks of as a minor. That is pedophilia.

Either that or you just pick your words stupidly and instead of "boy" or "young girl" you should have said "young man" and "young woman".

"Pedophilia is an evil", well that says alot
about you sir. See, I am willing to admit that
a man can be attracted to a young woman society
does not consider an adult, and that is a very
natural thing considering the way nature works.
I also recognize how important is is for social
boundarys to be placed so that young adults
can be nurtured into productive members of
society.

And thanks for calling me stupid. It just says
one more thing about the kind of individual you are.

"As to whether I have offered suggestions, that's not being critical, thats doing your work for you." Not only have you forgotten to elaborate your suggestions. It is one heck
of a nasty sentnce. Me thinks my brave doggie could do better.

Your main plot is terribly flawed. Whether the student who your protagonist thought was male was actually male or not, the person in his mind that he was attracted to was male. So your protagonist was gay or at least bisexual.

I studied sexual psychology for years. I'm not a doctor or planning on going for the PHD, but I know the psychology of attraction very well.

Your protagonist is attracted to someone he percieves as male. You didn't say your protagonist was attracted to someone with dark hair and dark eys and broad shoulders, so these were not the attractive features, you said 'boy' meaning that the attractive feature was the gender.

There is no "OMG I'm not gay" realization to be had. If the guy was exploring his sexuality with other men, the marriage was already destroyed and needed to be rebuilt or abandoned.

"One day he sees a boy in the crosswalk that touches deep
and long forgotten memories of himself as a youth, and a time
when he was sexually ambiguous."

"I sort of touched a nerve with ya there." "But notice
The kid reminds him of himself," and long forgotten
memories. "narcissism", and then those creepy
comments abount fantasy. The guy is messed
up! Then he trashes his life only to realize
it was based on a mistake. Need I point out the
double entente.

You have the ability to create a good storyline.

However, the point of this forum is to help people make their work publishable, which your story is not. I never recieved anything less than an 'A' on any of the hundreds of written pieces of composition(fiction or essay) I turned in during my nine years of college. Still, nothing I wrote then would be publishable.

To make your story publishable, you would have to:

1)show us the story in detail. Rather than saying a middle aged man walks past a high school on the way to work everyday, start with a scene of Joe Miller walking down the sidewalk when his wandering gaze falls on a student. Describe Joe's reaction, describe the student. Describe the fantasies and how they disrupt his life. describe how he finds his other men. Describe the dates and interaction with them (avoid bedroom scenes) as they are not in the genre you are writing. Etc.

2)Tell the story in past tense. If you want an editor/publisher to read it you would either have to have written in a traditionally successful style or be a recognizable enough name that the editor will read your alternative styled writing.

This particular piece does not happen now, its happens over the course of several weeks or months. Present tense is inappropriate.

3)Name your characters. Unless you are looking to publish in a very artsy low distribution publication, nameless characters will not sell your story. Chances are, unless you are previously published, no one will read your story without named characters.

4)Study your subject matter. Do research.

5)Juggle your sentence structures.

6)Just because Hemingway could use 'and' four times in a sentence doesn't mean you can.

Okay, i just got the rest of your story. You are trying to say that the main character is gay but that the triggering event that caused him to realize this was just an ironic misunderstanding. I repeal my previous statment about the premise being flawed. I still think you should carefully skip around the pedophilia, perhaps by making it a college instead of a high school.
Pedophilia, whether you think its okay to fantasize about minor's or not, will not help you get this story published.

If it were a fantasy genre story in a society where people were considered adults at 14, this would not be pedophilia. It's a fine line, but not one you should be dancing along while trying to get your first story published.

If he weren't gay, there would have been only one unless he decided that his lack of interest in that one had been a fluke so he tried again, and again, etc...

to get this point across you simply add the word 'disastrous' between 'several' and 'casual'.

You also need to make it clear that when he comes clean to his wife that he is apologizing for his misdeeds and not coming out of the closet to her.

If he's not gay, his focus at his initial attraction needs to be on something like the way the student walked or the curve of the students nose, something focusing not on the gender. At that point your protagonist can misunderstand his own feelings and miscontrue his attraction for that one student as homosexual.

And without sounding to be mean, if you are not willing to change what you write based on advice given here, you don't belong here. If you think you are just here to show off your 'A' paper, then you misunderstand the purpose of this forum. If what you have is perfect in your eyes, the proper place to show it off would be a literary agent or a publisher.

Over some months he concluded his decision to marry his wife of twenty
years and raise a family was mistaken. He decided he was gay and began
experimenting. After several affairs he wanted to change his sexuality
identity and he decided to confess to his wife. His wife was devastated
and feeling betrayed took the children and left. He found life with out
his family intolerably lonely, but consoled himself over his decision
because he said felt more comfortable with his new sexual identity.

In a chance encounter one day he came face to face with the boy.

"But you should know that while I would love
to be published I will not change myself to
do it.": I do hope you don't mean that -- because if you aren't willing to change what you do, what I'm about to do won't make any difference! I'll risk it.

I get the impression you don't realize that the thirteen lines are only meant to entice readers to continue? Critiquers are here to either
a) tell you how successful you were at enticing them, and what you can improve or
b) be enticed and agree to crit the rest of your story
or both.

I'm going to tell you straight up that this is not a story. It is a plot summary. You can't get drawn into plot summaries. Forget publishers, they don't entice readers. And unless you are only writing to keep your fingers in shape, I suggest you take them into account.

This sounds like it would make an interesting read. As a story. I don't know much about this 'very short story' style, but I imagine what makes them so short is that they can eloquently bring you into a scene and conclude it with brief prose. That's NOT the same thing as condensing a more complicated plot into the same space. All you do is lose the flavor/mood/meat of the story (basically what MAKES it a story).

As for pantros's comment on the subject matter, I disagree that it is unsellable. Though just TELLING about falling for a boy is unsellable. But if readers are right with the protag, seeing how he comes to fall in love, we can be understanding and sympathetic, though we cannot relate to his exact situation. Which is really what a writer tries to accomplish.

You know, if you developed it into a longer piece, you could have him do all the things you said only to one day come back to his house for one reason or another where he meets his son's new girlfriend -- you got it! -- the androgynoid from the crosswalk.

For some reason, the whole story played out in my mind as anime.

You are a newbie here so I hope you are not discouraged by some of the negativity you received.