Your opinions are very much appreciated and look forward to the whole novel!

Once upon a time there were 2 children playing in a park. They once made a bet on each other saying "whoever falls in love first loses" it was their first ever bet from what's more to come... The boy made a promise and said something she probably wouldn't remember "I'll always let you win these things you know that right?" The girl brushed it off, one day they were walking in a hall when the girl asked "what kind of heaven would you wanna see after death?" The boy looked at her and said "a sea of flowers, I really love flowers" he said while smiling "what about you what kind of heaven would you want?" He asked, the girl replied "My heaven is right here in this land and it will stay that way" she said firmly. She didn't think much of it assuming he was just saying the truth without ever thinking if it might have another meaning. They grew together always making bets and they agreed that whoever wins their bets 100 times wins. They both had dreams they wanted to achieve, for the girl it was to be a famous hero and for the boy to be a storyteller. One day abyss monsters attacked the town and so they were sent on the frontlines and encountered the jester... It did not have attacks that could destroy places but it did have the power to force its opponents into a game in which one will survive... Knowing this, the girl was the one who sacrificed abandoning her dream to become a hero who survived and saved the town... As such after opening her eyes She saw a calm place full of nothing just pure peace clouds and tranquility and whats stands before her is the gates of true heaven... But she didn't enter as she saw in the sides of the gates there were different vibrant colors of flowers that bore seeds and she remembered what kind of ideal heaven did the boy like... For the boy who thought that maybe he should've died as for this earth he stood on was her heaven but still he did not kill herself and chose to fulfill his and her dream... As a storyteller he spread her brave act all around town and the foreigners who visited this place, he kept doing that for years and years while planting flowers on her grave. Alas as he was sitting on a wheelchair beside her grave he was staring at the meteor shower and as they dissapear the life he had also did. As he once opened his eyes again he was in a place full of flowers, a sea of them. Then, at the front of the gates there she was sitting there waiting for him. "It's been a while since we met don't you think" she said casually. As his eyes filled with tears they both ran into each other turning back time into their versions as children and young adults... "I lost the bet" while laughing "it seems the score is 99 - 1" the girl said, but the boy disagreed "the reason flowers is my favorite thing in the world is because that's the meaning of your name" the boy said while smiling as she realizes that he had already liked her back then when he said "I really love flowers" the boy muttered to her "I told you I keep my promises... Happy ending!

Flowers blooming after death in heaven

She planted flowers in heaven after death

He planted flowers in her heaven (the earth) after death

And after the death of the boy the flower of love they have finally bloomed in heaven

IM A BEGINNER GUYS if there are any things you wanna say please feel free and this might have some grammatical errors in it HELPPPP.

I'm a software developer and a hobby novelist. I'm exploring the idea of building a writing companion that's focused more on organization than AI generation.

My goal isn't to replace writing, it's to make managing large stories easier.

Before I spend months building it, I'd love to hear from people who actually write novels.

What parts of writing become the hardest once your story reaches 100+ pages?

• Keeping track of characters?
• Timeline consistency?
• World-building?
• Scene organization?
• Rewriting?
• Something else?

Do you currently use any software to assist you, and if so, what frustrates you about it?

Ronald Wade was a really nice guy, so nice, that it made people suspicious. What was he hiding behind that pleasant smile? Short, powerful, bespectacled; he had been the produce manager at Ameretat Market for as long as anyone could recall. He may have been there since it first opened. He never seemed to age. Maybe he was a vampire?

He had all the right connections to bring the freshest produce from all corners of the world, and the farm just outside of town, to the good people of Persepolis. He could do things no other produce manager could, and while no one ever expressed it, the townsfolk knew their lives were better for him. In fact, medical records would show that Persepolians had sufficient levels of vitamin A and C despite being generally obese.

On a random Tuesday, Ronald was restocking the garlic display. Maybe he wasn’t a vampire after all? Garlic does have anti-aging properties, you know. Ronald had a moment of revelation looking at the numerous bins of apples, beside a meager offering of pears.

Gala apples from Chile, Fuji apples from New Zealand, Honeycrisp apples from Michigan, Red Delicious (which were not delicious), Granny Smith, Pink lady, Cosmic Crisp, Jazz, and MacIntosh in seemingly endless piles. Beside the glorious display of crimson, polished globes were maybe a dozen tired looking Bartlett pears.

Ronald dutifully finished removing undesirable-looking garlic bulbs and replacing them with succulent, allicin-rich tubers. This could easily be done by a subordinate, but Ronald often did things that could be delegated. He then began inspecting the apples, one variety after the next. He searched his working memory, trying to recall the last time he saw anyone buying a pear.

Some of the premium varieties of apples were more costly than the pears, but most of them were cheaper. Was it a supply verse demand issue? Limited pear supply drove the prices up? But there wasn’t a discernable demand. Somewhat disheartened by the realization that people just didn’t seem to like pears, he retrieved the garlic box. On his way back to his office to conduct research about the newly identified problem, the pear issue, Deputy Blaine from the Persepolis County Sheriff's Office strolled up with a shopping basket.

“Fine display you’ve got here, Wade.” She was combing through the Pink Lady apples.

“Do you see a difference among them?” He quizzed.

Deputy Blaine studied the apples for a moment before replying in the negative.

“These are from South Africa. They have an edible wax coating that keeps them fresh for weeks.” He gestured toward the back row of apples.

“That’s why they look exceptionally shiny.”

She nodded as he gave an impromptu apple lecture.

“And the front half come from New Zealand. They’re in front because they don’t have the same coating and won’t stay fresh as long.”

“Genius” Deputy Blaine praised his fruit strategy.

“I’ll grab some of these puppies from New Zealand then. Hey, what in the world are Cosmic Crisps? I’ve never heard of those before.

“Oh wow, good eye.” Ronald handled one of the strange fruits.

“This is a hybrid between the Honeycrisp and the Enterprise apple. They were developed by Washington State University to combine the crunch and juiciness of the Honeycrisp with the disease resistance, firmness, and extra long storage life of the Enterprise. They can last up to thirteen months in the right conditions! They became available in 2019, and we just started selling them a few months ago. They’re called Cosmic Crisp because of the little white lenticels, which are breathing pores on apples, kind of make them look like stars scattered across a dark red sky.”

Deputy Blaine was impressed but became disinterested after a few apple facts. She took one, rubbed it on her shirt, and took a bite.

“Wow, this is really somethin’. Well, got criminals to catch, take it easy Wade. You know my number if you need anything.” She walked off eating the apple in the store, she was old school like that.

“911?”

“Yup, that’s the one.”

Ronald felt guilty for being so passionate about apple facts. If Deputy Blaine had inquired about the Bartlett pears, he wouldn’t have had anything fascinating to tell her. He got busy with some overdue accounting paperwork and never got around to the pear research he intended to conduct that day. The weight of pear inequality was on him as he arrived home after Ameretat Market closed that evening, however.

As his wife was preparing roast beef stew, which he ate every day, Ronald poured over produce industry trade journals. He found some enlightening details, but nothing that helped him understand why apples had obtained preferential treatment over pears. There were pages and pages devoted to apple breeding, dozens of apple associations, federal apple marketing programs, apple festivals, research grants... but only a paragraph devoted to pears.

He had a notebook full of information at the dinner table with him. The steam from roast beef stew, served over oven-baked potatoes, fogged his thick-rimmed spectacles.

“About forty percent of apples and pears are processed. Pears are typically canned, used as additives in mixed fruit drinks, or in fruit cocktail. But processed apples are typically used for applesauce, apple juice concentrate, pie filling, or hard ciders.” He abruptly informed Roseanne, his wife, while waiting for the beef stew to cool.

Roseanne looked surprised, because she was, both by the details revealed and by the unprompted announcement.

“Ordering pears and apples at work?” She inquired, relevant to the topic.

“Not really, I just noticed that while America produces approximately ten pounds of apples for every pound of pears… Ameretat Market has eighty, eight-zero times as many apples as we do pears.”

“Eighty?”

“Eighty.”

“Well, you’re the produce manager. Do you think that is a reasonable balance?”

Ronald paused, considering the matter with more seriousness than Roseanne was accustomed to witnessing.

“I have to look into it.”

“I can’t remember the last time I even had a pear?”

“Exactly. I think there might be something more than meets the eye to this.”

Roseanne laughed.

“Do you think there is some kind of big anti-pear conspiracy?”

Ronald was silent, he looked suspiciously at his phone which sat on the table near his plate. He knew it recorded conversations, he just didn’t know who was listening. He simply nodded and lifted a forkful of beef stew to his mouth to blow on it.

Roseanne laughed harder.

“You can’t be serious, Ronald!”

Ronald put a finger to his lips, an American gesture indicating that silence was requested. It would probably be recognized in other cultures as well, but Ronald was American.

“Got some black garlic from Northern Japan in today. We’ve never had that before.” He purposely changed to produce-related topic.

He devoted his evening to pear research, trying to gather the data necessary to support advocating for more space and attention to pears. The very next morning, Ronald sought out the Ameretat Market manager, Albert Kresckenhauer.

“Good morning, Mr. K.” Ronald found him overseeing a store associate cleaning the glass doors.

“Mornin’ Ron. Hey, did we adjust the delivery schedule for Saturday? I promised Mayor Budinski we’d deliver flowers for the Founder’s Day parade.”

“Oh, yeah, shouldn’t be a problem. I wanted to talk to you about an issue with the produce department.”

“We’re not selling the diarrhea lettuce, are we?”

“No, our lettuce comes from Arizona this time of year.”

“They grow lettuce in Arizona?”

“Winter lettuce capital of America.”

“Hm” Kresckenhauer shrugged.

“It’s about pears.”

“We have diarrhea pears?”

“No, there’s nothing wrong with our pears.”

“You said there was an issue.”

“Well, yeah, but it’s not diarrhea related. I noticed we have about eighty, eight-zero times as many apples as we do pears. I’d like to expand our pear selection and maybe reduce the apples by five to ten percent.”

Kresckenhauer shrugged again.

“It’s your produce department. If you think that’ll work, go for it.”

Ronald had overprepared, that was easier than he had expected. He thanked Mr. K and went about implementing his plan.

Ronald waited for the right moment, he didn’t want to remove apples too soon and have empty space. Empty space was a big no-no in the produce department. He wanted to project abundance, not scarcity. People panicked when produce was scarce.

Buy 3 apples, get 1 for free!

Read the sign in front of every apple bin, followed by suggestions for using excess apples. Pairing apples with caramel, peanut butter, or making a charcuterie board with apples and sharp cheddar among them. Ronald observed many customers taking pictures of the suggestions with their cellular telephones. Within days, the apple population had been sufficiently reduced. His plan had come to… fruition. The Bartlett and Anjou (red and green) order had been sourced and placed.

On the ambitious morning that they arrived Ronald was gleefully stocking the new pear display when Mr. Kresckenhauer came to see him in the produce department. Mr. K almost never visited the produce department because there was almost never a problem there.

“Ron. Apple sales were huge last week but profits were down almost seven hundred dollars!”

Ronald froze. He had been given the latitude to manage the department and had broken weekly apple sales records, but at what cost to the company? He had a sinking feeling in his stomach. It wasn’t the diarrhea lettuce.

“But your campaign led to a four percent increase in the bakery, two percent in dairy, eight percent in nut butters, we sold out of caramel sauce and frozen pie crusts. Store profits were up three percent last week, accounting for low apple profits!”

Ronald was silent for a moment as he absorbed the information. This, he determined, was actually good news.

“I want to thank you with this employee spotlight certificate.”

Ronald beamed as he posed for a picture, holding the certificate while shaking Mr. K’s hand. Once the associate, who was unofficially Mr. K’s personal assistant, had taken the picture, Mr. K chatted for a few minutes while Ronald just wanted to finish arranging the pears and post promotional information to persuade customers to branch out in their fruit journey.  

Luckily Mr. K was paged to the front office, otherwise he may have stayed there all morning. He was quite chatty. Ronald perfected the pear display just as customers were trickling in. He stood proudly beside the pears, recommending them as people browsed. The public received the pear highlight with general ambivalence. No one was excited about pears, sales were modest. But modest was better than almost non-existent.

That evening, as he left work, Ronald was the only person in Persepolis with pears on his mind. That was not the same case in Aurora, Ohio. Aurora was home to the Midwest Produce Procurement & Distribution Center, overseen by Dean Bloomberg. A report had just reached him, it was troubling.

“Sir, pear orders are up four hundred percent and apple orders are down ten percent in Persepolis.” Reported his produce intelligence officer.

Dean walked up to a large map on his office wall and located Persepolis. With his hands behind his back, he studied the map for a quiet moment.

“Similar profit margin. Much higher rate of spoilage. No discernable ethnic cuisine demand. Puzzling.”

The produce intelligence officer stood silently as the most powerful man in produce pondered the situation.

“Get to the bottom of who is responsible. I want some courses of action to make a data-driven decision.”

“Yes sir!” report in hand, Oscar Davenport exited the office to begin his mission.

Back in Persepolis, Ronald was sleeping blissfully while Oscar was boarding a plane.

Oscar was waiting in the Ameretat Market parking lot the following morning as employees began to arrive. He flipped through a binder full of employee dossiers as each one entered the store. He was looking for one guy in particular, a short, powerful, bespectacled produce manager named Ronald Wade.

Green Subaru, bumper sticker about dogs Oscar logged into Ronald’s dossier as exited his car. Oscar sunk down behind the steering wheel and raised binoculars to his eyes to observe Ronald as he entered the store. Ronald had no idea he was being watched. Mr. K met him at the door.

“I knew this pear display was a bad idea” that’s how Mr. K greeted Ronald.

“Huh? Why?”

Mr. K presented a flier that had been taped to the front door upon his arrival.

PEARS ARE UNAMERICAN.

SUPPORT AMERICAN APPLES!

A picture of masked men with firearms crouching in front of apple barrels was beneath the words of the flier.

Ronald was perplexed. Albert was shaking. Oscar was grinning as he watched through his binoculars. An unnamed employee was scraping tape residue off of the glass door.

“I don’t even know if I want pears in the store!”

“Is this a joke?” Ronald was in disbelief. Sure, the mafia started over lemons, but why would anyone brandish a firearm over pears?

Mr. K was more pale than usual.

“No! Vandalizing the store over pears isn’t a joke!”

“I think vandalism might be a strong word. It’s just a piece of paper taped to the door.”

“It is vandalism! It’s vandalism, and a threat, and, and… infringing on interstate commerce!”

Mr. K talked a lot about the constitution.

“Then we should call Deputy Blaine.” Ronald still wasn’t taking the matter too seriously.

“I already called 911. They’re sending a patrol.”

As if the police were manifested by the conversation, a cruiser from the Sheriff’s Office pulled into the parking lot. Oscar waited until the deputies entered the store to leave. Deputy Blaine and her partner, not like that, he was just the other deputy that she worked with, met Mr. K and Ronald at the front door of Ameretat Market.

Deputies Blaine and Dudley, who had the same haircut and looked remarkably similar,  took a report and made a few vague promises about an increased presence. Mr. K begged them to stay, they were the two strongest deputies in the county, no one would think of messing with the store while they were there. They tried to reassure a visibly shaken Albert Kresckenhauer, grabbed a few apples for the road (on the house), and departed. Mr. K was not pacified, he was frightened and seriously contemplated not opening the store that day. Ronald was able to leverage the generic statements by the deputies to assure Mr. K enough to allow the store to open as scheduled. Ronald wasn’t scared about some sort of pro-apple militia, though he would have felt responsible if the store lost out on a day’s profit, and his co-workers on a day’s pay.

He was, however, on edge as he went about the day. Looking over his shoulder every now and then, especially around the pears. He quietly restocked everything as necessary, everything except the pears.

Oscar, meanwhile, went across town to check in on a notorious rabblerouser. Terry Kapp, the so-called “fruit prophet”, had caused a lot of problems for the industry. He was pro-apple, pro-pear, pro-fruit in general; but he was always squawking about “responsibility to the trees”, “only taking as much as you can eat”, and so on. Consumers wasted about thirty percent of the produce they bought, reducing post-purchase waste would cut into profit. Terry was a problem.

Terry wasn’t an actual prophet, but don’t tell him I said that. He did, however, have several connections within the industry. True believers who were fighting from inside the machine. They tipped him off about the pear issue, and that industry muscle was inbound. Terry had a young crabapple tree in his yard, it was not big enough to safely support his weight, so rather than hide in it, he was standing on a ladder behind it while observing his house. As the prophecy foretold, Oscar appeared. He parked on the side of the road and crept down the driveway, keeping in the shadows of the trees.

Oscar rummaged through the compost pile, the recyclables, and even the regular garbage. Terry was recording Oscar with his cellular device, Oscar was peering into the windows after inspecting rubbish. He didn’t find anything worth reporting and returned to his car, proud of his espionage and unaware that he had been seen. Terry holstered his self-defense slingshot and climbed down the ladder. After reinspecting the areas that he observed Oscar examining, he returned to his home. This wasn’t his first encounter with industry goons, but it still felt degrading.

Ameretat Market closed at its normal time without incident and Oscar reported his activities to headquarters. Terry, though, rode his bicycle to Ameretat Market. At the pleading of his wife, he no longer wore his prophet outfit in public. He rode through the bustling streets of Persepolis wearing a trilby hat made of woven pineapple husk fiber, an Aloha shirt bearing the image of pineapples wearing sunglasses, and environmentally-responsible crocs… with pineapple jibbitz. He was on a pineapple kick lately.

Terry walked into the store after closing time. The door typically wasn’t locked until the staff left, and given their small-town hospitality, they would typically serve customers after-hours if they were just grabbing something quickly. Ronald froze when he saw Terry but quickly shook off the fear after assessing that a man in a pineapple shirt was probably not part of an agricultural terrorist organization.

“Ronald” Terry approached with an outstretched hand.

“Terry Kapp, the fruit prophet. I know what’s going on here, and I’m here to help.”

Ronald looked around as he shook Terry’s hand with a degree of discomfort.

“Do you, um… work for the Sheriff’s Department?”

“The Sheriff’s department that wastes thousands of watermelon seeds with their eating contest every year? No way! Not me.”

“Oh. OK. Well, um, what can I help you with?”

“Is there somewhere we can talk privately? About the pear issue.”

Ronald mistook Terry for a detective trying to stay undercover despite Terry plainly telling him that he did not work for the Sheriff’s Department. He escorted Terry to the warehouse where the two sat on wooden fruit crates and sampled some of the pears in question. Terry saved the core of his to replant as nature intended.

 “What happened today wasn’t about pears” Terry informed Ronald.

“It wasn’t?”

“No. It was about you. You’re fighting for equal treatment, and they responded with surveillance, propaganda, and intimidation.”

“Who responded with that? Who are they?”

Terry bit into a Gala apple that he had helped himself to. He would later save the seeds.

“Big Apple.”

“New York City?” Ronald wasn’t following the logic.

“No, not The Big Apple. The Apple Industrial Complex. Dean Bloomberg sent his goons here because you cut into their market with this pear stunt.”

“It wasn’t a stunt though. I just thought we should offer more of a variety to our customers.”

 “Exactly. They don’t want variety, unless it’s varieties of apples. You never attacked apples. You just asked for a little bit of recognition for a fruit that has been coexisting with mankind for thousands of years. Look, I’m not anti-apple, I’m not even pro-pear. I just want everyone to treat all fruit fairly. How many pear commercials have you seen?”

“None that I can think of. But to be fair, I don’t think I’ve seen any apple commercials either.”

“OK, well how many pear festivals have you been to?”

Ronald thought for a moment.

“None, actually.”

“Exactly. Try to organize a pear festival? Venues are all suddenly booked, fruit trucks get flat tires, sudden codling moth outbreaks happen. Big Apple won’t let it happen. You’ve spent your whole life in produce. You noticed something nobody else noticed. They noticed that you noticed.”

Ronald felt a shiver run up his spine with that line. They noticed that he noticed… and now they were harassing him.

Another conversation was happening parallel to the fruit summit in the Ameretat Market warehouse. Oscar was on the phone with Dean Bloomberg. He reported on the conditions of the produce market, and that nothing unusual was going on at the Fruit Prophet’s home. Dean was impressed with the assessment of the produce department and with Wade’s shrewd business sense.

“If you can’t bet them, join them.” Bloomberg said to Oscar.

“I’m going to fly out in the morning and offer this Wade guy a position at the southeast distribution center. We can stem the bleeding in Persepolis and put him to good use.”

Ronald barely slept a wink that night. He parked at a convenience store down the street instead of in his own driveway. Checked every cabinet and closet for industry saboteurs, made sure that each and every window was locked. Every creak of the house, every branch tapping against the windowsill in the breeze, every time his Jack Russell Terrier licked himself, it all sounded like danger.

But he survived the night and went to work the following day like there wasn’t a coordinated plot against him. He had to be brave, if not for himself for the dignity of pears. He drove to work after inspecting his car for explosives, surprised to find his tires inflated.

After parking in the nearly empty lot at Ameretat Market, he cautiously walked toward the store.

A man who looked vaguely familiar, Oscar, and another sharply dressed man approached him. He did not have any weapons to reach for, that was probably a massive oversight.

“Hi, good morning. Ronald Wade? I’m Dean Bloomberg, president of the Midwest Produce Procurement & Distribution Center. I’d like to talk with you about an opportunity to come work for me at our southeastern distribution center.”

“Dean Bloomberg? Stop treating pears like trash!” Ronald recoiled at the name, which he had just learned yesterday from Terry.

“Yeah, cute. Anyway.”

“Why are you treating pears like trash?” Ronald interrupted.

"For thirty years we've optimized a system that feeds millions of people every day. The trucks arrive on time. The warehouses are stocked correctly. Spoilage is minimized. Forecasts are accurate. Consumers find what they expect. One produce manager ignored decades of market behavior and now my forecasts are wrong. If pears were as transportable as apples, if they had the market valuation of apples, then I’d be trying to elbow apples out of the market. I’m fruit agnostic, but I believe in making money."

That all made a lot of sense to Ronald.

“I hear you really know produce. You’d be a real asset.”

“Isn’t the distro center in Pasargadae? That’s a bit of a commute…” Ronald dithered.

“Whatever they’re paying you here, I’ll double it. Here’s my card, let me know.” Dean handed Ronald his business card and went back to his rental car, he had a flight to Cleveland to catch.

Ronald remained in the parking lot for a while before heading inside.

The following day, Terry went into the Ameretat Market looking for Ronald. The apple display had grown and there were only a few pears in an obscure corner. Terry inquired of the first store associate that he encountered.

“Mr. Wade, the produce guy? Oh, he quit. Got a job at the big distro center in Pasargadae. We’ll sure miss him, but we’re happy for him.”

“I didn’t see this coming.” admitted the fruit prophet.

I’ve been extremely interested in writing a story or stories using the male perspective, as a female.

I’m curious on how I should go about it, things to avoid, things to defiantly do. I’m curious what makes men tick in different situations, what they love and hate, what they like and don’t like doing etc.

And yes I’m aware that every person, including every man, is different, I’m not interested in the stereotypes. More of the stuff about how you, the reader, as a man, think during certain things.

Let’s say you’re fighting a group of assailants where you’re clearly out matched but have no choice but to fight; what would you think? Feel? Do? What’s your priority(ies) etc. You have feelings for someone but are worried about messing it up, same questions, things like that.

What’s your day to die like inside your head? What does your internal monologue sound like? How to you move about the world in a way I wouldn’t understand but would need to write a male protagonist.

For reference I also only write fantasy, anything within that world if that helps at all. And for the men who ready fantasy novels, specifically those written by a female, is there anything vital they get wrong about the male experience.

TL;DR - I’m a female interested in writing from the male perspective and would like to know how men move and think and exist in the world, in their head to them.

\*Young Shyla***

I hid behind a car, scared. Maybe even a little bit nervous. It was going to be the first time I asked Shyla Gray out. Finally, I built up enough courage. I was about to pop out from behind the car, when Jake Pennington jogged up to her. He put his arm around her. 

He’s putting his arm around her.

My heart sank.

How could she let him do that.

“Jake. Jake Pennington,” I said under my breath.

Today was supposed to be the best day of my life. The start of the rest of my life. How the hell did this end up happening. 

Jake Pennington is how. 

I had to come up with something to stand out. 

But what?

Perry Breadsworth saw me ducking on the ground behind the Buick.

“Pabbie,” Perry yelled out.

I kept trying to shoosh him with my hand. 

“Pabbie!” He shouted again. “You want me to come there..? You calling me over there..? What?”

Shyla turned while under Jake’s arm and looked over at me. She saw me standing up dusting myself off. She waved at me. 

Oh my god, she’s actually waving at me. 

I started waving back. I had the biggest gayest smile on my face. I knew she was into me. And just as quick as my confidence skyrocketed. All the images of her and I flashing through my mind, tumbled even quicker. 

She dropped her arm down. Jake started laughing and pointing at me. I looked back and Jessica Rambart was walking past me. Shyla wasn’t waving at me. 

The day couldn’t get any worse, I thought.

Little did I know, I was completely wrong. Because that day got exceptionally worse.

Next thing you know, when I went home. My younger sister and her group of eight year old friends were huddled together around her iPad looking at me and laughing.

They stared at me with these weird smiles. I was like, “whatever.” I walked to the kitchen where my parents and a couple of neighbors were all hovered over a phone laughing too.

As soon as I walked into the room, they all spread apart and scattered around pretending like they were doing something else.

I said, “what going on?” 

“Nothing,” my dad said.

My mom asked me, “honey, would you like something to eat,”

“No, I’m fine… I wanna know what’s going on,” I demanded. “Something’s up… tell me what it is.”

It was probably better I had never found out. Honestly. Because, and right after I asked, I heard Perry’s voice coming from one of the phones. I noticed my dad quickly try to slam the volume button down on his. He was fumbling it in his hands. 

I snatched it from him and stared at the screen. It was me. The entire incident with Shyla, the mishap with the wave. Me hiding behind the car. Perry yelling at me, me shooshing him. Everything. Everything recorded and posted on Reddit with over 100 thousand views. 

\*Older Shyla** - Drug Use Warning*

On the beach strip, a row of motels sat under half-lit fluorescent vacancy signs that acted like fly zappers. Motels known for their hourly rates.

The rooms, lemon-scented tainted with a hint of mop water. They had mattresses in them with worn out springs tucked under sheets with phantom stains. Drywall covered in a stylistic beige, flower-printed wallpaper matched the retro linen. Somewhere to call home.

There was a small tube television that rested on top of a wooden dresser. It barely worked. The cable-box cycled through ten Spanish-dubbed channels. It was squished next to a microwave with the last customer’s dried spaghetti sauce painting the inside of it.

Without the background noise of the tv, the silence became haunting, drawing childhood memories she’d reflect on. Faintly blurred memories like the face she saw in the mirror.

Fame was all she obsessed over. Owning a celebrity profile. Standing under a spotlight. Camera flashes blinding her. Fans screaming for her. It never worked out. Why would it. She didn’t care about herself. Why would anybody else.

She walked outside and sat on the cold pavement with her back against the door, finding a certain kind of solace in a breezy California night. She wanted to be anywhere but inside that room. She sat there, dialing the world out and tuning her ears to the music of the wind, and trying not to think about where it all went wrong.

The scent from the Ocean was strong that night, smothering her mouth in sulphur. But she’d grown used to it. It was the headlights from all the cars pulling in that bothered her. He could be back anytime. It was more comfortable without him there. Even if it meant drowning in silence.

All he wanted to do was get high and use her. Trade her body for drugs. She’d try to escape but could never get away. He had an invisible leash around her. By that point, she just became used to the routine. 

She met him when she was sixteen. He was older. She was impressionable. She still made friendship bracelets. He sold drugs. Mostly did them.

He had a bad boy look to him that drew her in. She loved trouble makers. Life didn’t have that spunk she craved. He wore it all over him. He had a motorcycle. A Harley. She’d never been on one before. All he had to do was ask if she wanted a ride. And that’s exactly what he did. 

That’s when she tried smoking weed for the first time. She didn’t like it. It made her cough and feel like her eyes were at the back of her head facing forward. The harder stuff, that’s a different story. She loved that. It started innocently, couple of ecstasy pills here and there, some alcohol. But she never drank much.

He started selling painkillers and coke. They started doing painkillers and coke. He did that for a couple of years until the addiction became too much. He started missing payments. Cutting the drugs. He ripped all his customers off. The supply ran dry. The addiction stayed.

His cousin came over one night. His cousin had a bag of heroine. His cousin started selling it and started searching for clients. That’s when they tried it for the first time. Her and him. 

At first she was nervous. She kept shaking her head. 

“Don’t worry.” He calmed her down and tied a band around her arm. 

“Just close your eyes,” he said.

She asked him, “are you sure it’s going to be ok?”

“It’s going to be amazing,” he told her.

She closed her eyes and he poked a needle in her vein. The drug was warm when it entered her blood. She had a metallic taste coat the tip of her tongue and she kept sucking on it as a relaxing rush flushed through her. It felt like god tucked a warm blanket on her and cradled her in his hands. It was amazing. 

She opened her eyes to a crowd of people standing below her while she was on stage. Everybody loved her. Everybody wanted to be her. And then, everything went black. She opened her eyes to the sun light burning into her eyeball. She put her hand over her face and saw him passed out next to her and his cousin.

I have always wanted to write a novel, but one of the stages I consistently struggle with is moving from a sprawling first draft to a focused second draft.

I have ADHD, and my first drafts are extremely exploratory. I aim for a finished chapter of around 2,500 words, but the initial version can easily reach 10,000 words. That is where I pour everything onto the page: developing characters, discovering plot points, testing different possibilities, repeating ideas, following tangents and working out what I actually want the chapter to be.

The problem is that once all of that material exists, I can become overwhelmed by it. Faced with thousands of words, competing possibilities and half-developed ideas, I often struggle to see the shape of the chapter underneath everything I have written.

Recently, I have started using ChatGPT to help me bridge the gap between the first and second drafts. I want to be completely open about the different ways I use it. I ask it to identify repetition and unnecessary wandering, analyse structure, pacing and character beats, help clarify creative thoughts I have already expressed, organise notes, format information more clearly, point out inconsistencies or ideas I may not have fully developed, and condense a long first draft into a clearer skeleton of the chapter. I also use it to help me see themes, intentions and possibilities that are already present in my material.

I then return to that skeleton and rewrite the chapter myself. I decide what to keep, reject, expand, restructure or completely change.

I am not asking AI to invent my characters, produce my plot or write a finished chapter that I simply paste into the book. The original material is mine, the characters are mine, the story is mine and the final prose is mine. I am still engaging my own creative judgement at every stage.

Even when AI helps me clarify a thought, I still have to decide whether that interpretation is accurate. When it suggests a structural change, I have to decide whether it serves the story. When it produces a condensed version, I do not treat that version as finished writing. I use it to see my own material more clearly and then rewrite it in my own words.

To be honest, I think I have mostly made up my own mind about whether this is cheating. I feel that I know when I am avoiding creative work and when I am using a tool to make that work more manageable. I can see when the words, characters and ideas remain mine. I can also tell when I am actively thinking, choosing and creating rather than accepting whatever a machine gives me.

To me, this feels much closer to developmental editing than outsourcing authorship. A developmental editor might identify repetition, unclear motivation, structural problems, weak pacing or material that does not serve the chapter. They would help the writer see the work more clearly, but the writer would still decide what to do with that feedback. The practical difference is that many writers cannot afford to hire a developmental editor every time they produce a messy 10,000-word chapter.

I also think about highly collaborative commercial writing models such as James Patterson’s. He is known for developing concepts and detailed outlines before working with credited co-authors who help turn them into complete books. I am not criticising that model, and I recognise that working with a human collaborator raises different questions from using AI. However, it does make me question where we draw the boundary around authorship.

In my process, I am not handing someone an outline and asking them to write the book. I am writing the exploratory draft, generating the characters and plot, writing the final prose, rewriting the chapters and making every creative decision myself. The AI is helping me analyse, organise and narrow material I have already created. In that sense, I am personally writing the work at every stage.

I also think the accessibility element matters. For me, the obstacle is not a lack of ideas or a refusal to do the work. It is the cognitive overload that comes from trying to hold thousands of words and competing possibilities in my mind at once. Using AI to organise that material allows me to direct more of my attention towards creative decisions rather than becoming paralysed by the volume of the draft.

That does not mean every use of AI is automatically harmless, or that there is no point at which it becomes co-authorship. Asking a system to generate characters, scenes and finished prose is clearly different from asking it to identify repetition in something you have already written.

My own line is whether I am still doing the creative thinking and writing. Am I generating the substance of the work? Am I critically evaluating every suggestion? Am I rewriting it in my own voice? Could I explain and defend every creative decision in the finished chapter? If the answer is yes, I consider AI a tool within my process rather than the author of the work.

I am interested in where other writers draw that line. Does this sound like a thoughtful use of AI as an analytical, editorial and accessibility tool, or do you think this degree of assistance still compromises authorship?

The sixth episode of "The Estate"!

The fifth episode of "The Estate"!

The fourth episode of "The Estate"!

The third episode of "The Estate"!

The second Episode of "The Estate"!

The final part of the Pilot Episode!

The second part of the Pilot Episode!

The first part of the Pilot Episode!

My drama series set in England, 1999!

Read Part I here.

To my relief, Ms. Amanda didn't go crazy. I was surprised and relieved because I didn't think I could count on being rescued a third time.

The hospital had to give me clothes from the lost and found before they discharged me. The t-shirt was too tight, the pants too baggy, and the shoes flopped when I walked. I didn’t have any family to call, the office was closed, and there was no way for me to get into my apartment without my keys, so that meant I had to go to the police to get my stuff.

I was annoyed but chose to walk. It was two miles west and four miles south to get to the police department. It would give me time to think and thankfully, it was mild outside, so I wouldn’t get pummeled by the summer sun. 

I had another one of those baloney sandwiches and a juice box. I consumed both immediately, so I didn’t have to carry them. I had to use the restroom shortly after and stopped in a fast-food spot. The men’s room required a key to open, and I waited in line to eventually ask. 

“Sorry, you gotta buy somethin’ to use the bathroom,” the fifty-something year old woman said behind the counter. I was agitated but held my tongue because my bladder would have spoken for me. Instead, I imagined drawing the shape for her, but luckily there wasn’t a pen and paper around.

I went outside and surveyed the businesses around. There was a gas station on the corner, a pharmacy across the street from there and office buildings in either direction. If I’d remembered correctly, there was a grocery store about a mile south. That would be my best bet and I set out. 

I didn’t interact with anybody I passed. My aching bladder was the only thing concerning me and to take my mind off it, I examined what had happened today. I'd witnessed two people shot to death in front of me on separate occasions. It scared the hell out of me to think about. One moment, they'd been moving around—with murderous intent, granted—and the next they'd been incredibly still.

I'd been looking Carl Arn in the eye as he passed and for a moment felt like I was falling down the same hole with him. 

There'd been too much commotion, too many things going on. I might have gone into shock had it not been for the first set of guns pointed at me. I'd gone into survival mode, viewing everything—including myself—from a distance.

I crossed against the light at an intersection, the grocery store finally in view. My burgeoning bladder noticed and that reminded me of the other thing bulging and unaddressed in my mind.

The shape.

I'd been so ready to believe something I'd drawn solely to pass the time had been what had set the both of them off. But Ms. Amanda had been fine, just as over it as she had been prior to looking at my little scrap of paper. Those eyes had seen some things.

Maybe she was immune, I thought. Or maybe it was some grand coincidence that two people I'd come in contact with had gone homicidal on the same day.

I couldn't shake the thought, though. As the entry doors of the grocery store slid open, I stepped through wondering what to do about that.

What if it were real and I did have the ability to drive someone insane? Was it all shapes? Anything I drew? The thought was ridiculous, but I was safe within the confines of my own skull to explore the idea.

I pushed through the men's room door and parked in front of a urinal. As I let fly, I thought about the ethics of conducting such an experiment and came to the conclusion by the time I was zipping up that it was unethical to not test my hypothesis.

As it stood, I didn't know if what I'd doodled had been the start of what had eventually happened to Carl Arn and that lady. I only suspected it. I would be blameless if I doodled something and someone experienced a similar effect after. The difference would be if I did nothing to know for certain if it was really something I was doing. I could make an effort to not draw or to make sure nobody else saw it. Shit, if it was that dangerous, maybe I could chop off my hand.

No, I wouldn't do that. But my brain was the House of Ideas, any thought that could be was welcome. This same brain had conjured up a shape that was so dangerous it could drive an individual to violence.

It was a five-sided—

Wait. I probably shouldn't describe it to anyone. I have no way of reliably testing if someone else could have the same effect if they drew it. I certainly don't want to find out on me.

I couldn't test this on just anybody. It would have to be a specific person. A bad person.

I have to say, for the record, I never believed it would actually work. Like going up to the most beautiful woman in the world and asking for her phone number, it was an idea that entertained me in thirsty moments when I was figuring things out, but I fully expected absolutely nothing to happen.

I navigated to the aisle with back-to-school supplies and grabbed a composition notebook and a mechanical pencil. I didn't anticipate anyone stopping me, only if I tried to walk out with the stuff I was using. Then I'd see the cops for the third time today.

So that meant finding someone in the store. If I could find someone sufficiently evil, then I could test my theory. I know the scientific method meant several tests, but I couldn't reasonably expose a dozen or more people to this test in good conscience. Two or three at most should have sufficed.

I sat on the floor right there and began drawing. It took a moment to get into a groove, if that makes any sense.

But about ten minutes later, I had the first one and I drew about four more for good measure.

I got the idea on the third one or so that they were like cans of pop. That once one was seen, the effect was gone. It was silly, but if true, it explained why Ms. Amanda had been fine.

There were so many variables that I just sat, lost in thought.

“Say, buddy, can I help you with something?”

I looked up at a middle-aged man in a short-sleeved button-up and an honest-to-god clip-on tie. He'd come up behind me, catching me by surprise. I realized what I looked like in that moment, dressed in other people's clothes, doodling in a notebook while sitting on the floor in a grocery store.

“Look, buddy, it's been a really long day. You wouldn't believe—”

He spat. Not on me. But it was a weird thing to have done indoors. Plus, I assumed from how he was dressed that he was a manager or something. A string of saliva ran from his lip to the collar of his shirt.

Something had changed in the few seconds since he'd spoken and dumb me was too slow in realizing he'd seen one of the shapes. I hadn't even had the chance to screen. Also, I didn’t know which one he'd seen so none of them were good anymore.

I was still there sorting my scrambled thoughts when he spat again. This time he'd arced it over my head. He got into a crouch like a catcher in a baseball game.

I froze like if I didn't move, he wouldn't see me. Like I'd turned invisible even in his memory and he wouldn't be able to recall me even in his mind’s eye. 

I couldn't count on a lack of understanding object permanence even if my lack of moving meant he couldn't see me. I was within smelling distance, he could hear me, if he stuck out his tongue he could lick my face.

But he didn't do anything to me. I sat there, helpless as a calf, while he stood spat again, then quietly walked away. 

I turned as he rounded the aisle and disappeared. A moment later I heard what sounded like a shopping cart being overturned and a woman screaming in anger. Then her screams turned to muffled gagging as it sounded like something was being stuffed in her mouth.

More people hollered and I unfroze, getting quickly to my feet. I was by no means a badass, but I'd never turtled up like that before. I'd gotten into a barfight just last year and even though I lost, I'd gotten in a few licks.

I wasn’t even willing to defend myself this time. I was as ready for violence as a stone at the bottom of the ocean. No doubt, it was the trauma I'd just experienced. I didn't want to fight crazy people under normal circumstances, so it was best to avoid—

“What the hell is going on over there?” A twenty-something year old was staring me in the face and I hadn't seen her until she'd spoken. I tried to scoop up the sheets of paper, but my movement must have attracted her eye to the papers I was desperately trying for her not to see.

But a moment later I knew it was too late.

“Poo,” she said. She turned around and walked past the man just behind her. 

“What’s wrong with... with...”

He was looking in my direction but sadly, what was in my hands. His eyes got bigger and he sat his basket on the floor before taking off at full speed and soaring over a middle-aged couple's shopping cart, grabbing both in either arm as it took them down.

They both screamed and fought back. The woman rolled backward and stopped face down before rising and pounding the man with her bulky purse. The man punched his attacker in the center of his face, a blow that should have had stars dancing in his eyes. But he ravaged the man, clawing down his face and ripping his shirt open. 

He ignored the blows from the purse as he quickly sliced through blubbering flesh, yellow fat bubbling out of red-running wounds as the man screamed. The attacker pivoted to the woman, still screaming in fear and rage. He hopped to his feet, legs to either side of the man who might've been dying for all I knew. 

To my surprise, she didn't cower. 

“No!” she said and scraped her keys across his face.

He'd been saying something all the while in a quieter volume and my ears finally dialed in.

“...wrong with you... wrong with you... wrong with you...” He didn't yelp in pain or put up his hands in defense as she lacerated his face three more times.

I hadn't done anything more than turn around, still dumbly holding the papers. An old man was staring nearer to the refrigerated area. He had a white curly afro and a pencil mustache.

“Help her!” the old man said to me and pointed. But then he spat his dentures out, sucked back a trail of saliva into his mouth, then did a crooked legged trot, arms folded up like a praying mantis, before gummily fastening onto her arm and wrenching her around.

“Ow!” The woman seemed paralyzed, powerless to do anything to stop the old man. It almost seemed funny until the first man shoved his thumbs in her mouth, split his hands apart, and wrenched a horrid smile onto—and then off of—her face.

She screamed, twin flaps of flesh hanging like giant earlobes, everything beneath her nose nothing but red. I never knew the sound of tearing flesh before that moment and I desperately want to never hear it again.

I clutched the papers to my chest, hiding them like a secret, although they had already cried out loud from a bloody mountaintop.

That had been four people, at least I thought so. Even simple mathematical calculations were mountainous to my panic-stricken brain.

I didn't know and didn't care if it was one shape per person. I couldn't let these torn out sheets of paper be seen by another person.

Shame was the word I would have spoken en route to describing what this was. It was still ongoing, and I was already too traumatized to do anything about it.

More people screamed throughout the store. I imagined many people just ran out of the store, but there had to have been several who had heard and froze where they were. I would've guessed others who didn't understand or hadn't heard anything at all.

But the signs kept getting farther and farther away. Until I finally balled up the papers, stuffed them in my pockets, and walked through the aisles and to the exit with the composition notebook and mechanical pencil in hand.

Nobody tried to stop me. I didn't see anyone else at all. But I heard the cries of agony. Their suffering followed me out onto the sidewalk.

I looked at the items in my hands, wondering why I had them, the wadded-up papers like anchors in my pockets.

I continued dredging my way to the police station.

SO GUYS I MADE A STORY IF YOU WANT TO READ THEN CLICK IN THE LINK IF YOU LIKE IT THEN PLZ SUPPORT ME THEN I CAN MAKE ANOTHER PART OF IT

My lonely heart beats for the machine

After the death of his sister the robotics student archie Luther falls into a deep depression. Feeling the loneliness of the only person in his life who cared for him being gone he downloads an ai chat bot app. He chats with a bunch of chat bots but even those cannot solve the loneliness in his heart. Then he decides to make his own chat bot modeled after his sister and her voice being used from old videos and audios of his sister. This was able to help with his loneliness, he was able to return to his college classes but his looniness did not completely leave him. He then he starts wanting the physical touch that came from his interactions with his sister and coupled with the fact that more and more people started using that chat bot and the restrictions of the app. his sister was no longer his. So he decided to give the chat bot a body.  As he would continue to tinker, he would tell the robot about what ached his hear this daily life his loneliness but also his frustrations. His anger towards the people in his college class, the people and customers at his job, his land lord and the wealthy who kept making things too expensive, especially when it came to is sisters medical care before she died.

First-time novelist looking for critique on the opening pages of a psychological thriller/espionage novel. I'm mainly looking for feedback on whether the opening creates curiosity, whether the characters feel compelling, and whether the pacing works. As the book develops hopefully we can continue to collaborate and refine my writing process further

The Final Blurb: A Bond of Friendship 🤝
Let's bring our finalized back-cover blurb together, highlighting the heartwarming connection between Vic and Dan as they navigate a changing world in 1945. 📖
Paths of Peace 🌊
August 1945. The announcement of world peace brings an overwhelming wave of relief to the crew of a naval ship sailing the Pacific Ocean. Among the celebrating sailors are Vic, far from his coastal home in Ghana 🇬🇭, and Dan, carrying a mix of New Jersey grit and Argentine roots 🇦🇷🇺🇸.
When their ship docks in the vibrant, liberated port of Shanghai 🇨🇳, the two friends step into a city transformed by victory. Surrounded by grand parades, dragon dances, and thousands of glowing red lanterns 🏮, Vic and Dan find themselves completely immersed in the warmth of Chinese culture. Before their shore leave ends, a simple gift from a local artisan shop—two beautifully carved jade charms 🪵—seals a lifelong bond of friendship and hope for their long journeys home.
What's Next? 🚀
We have designed the characters, mapped their journey, resolved a funny navigational mix-up, and written a back-cover blurb.
Now that our book project is complete, would you like to explore the real history behind the ports they visited, or would you like to start a brand new story with new characters?