Reviewer: The GTS Reviewer Anonymous [Report This]
Date: August 29 2011 5:58 PM Title: None

Hello, ArtimusG.  I’ve just finished reading your short story here, and thought I’d drop in with a few of my thoughts.

 

THE COMPLIMENTS: I can begin by stating unflinchingly that you are one of this site’s better unaware writers.  I often find myself becoming bored of the interactions involved in micro stories that run on for more than a couple thousand words, and quite frankly, it’s because there’s (as I thought) a decidedly and unfortunately limited range of, shall we say, “activities” that can take place between a skyscraper-sized girl and a being the size of a pea, or much smaller, even.  Death is almost inevitable.  Being lost forever is solidly inevitable in most cases.  It’s a vision of a towering mountain of woman before becoming a quick pop of blood and a forgotten existence.  I’ve been proven heartily wrong in several unaware stories, though.  The exceptions.  This happens to be one of those exceptions.  You have a variety of interactions both arousing and almost quietly and pathetically amusing at play here, and it’s absolutely fantastic.

 

Your descriptions are just damn good, and there’s little other way to say it.  In particular, your imagery of the daughter’s gaping maw, opening like some black omen of her mother’s gullet-plunged demise, was both animalistic and almost nonhuman, and it clicked so well I had to read these segments several times to get the full effect.  You drew beyond the simplest picture of a mouth.  There’s a good reason for this, too: a mouth doesn’t look like a mouth to someone as small as your diminutive protagonists.  A mouth looks like a gargantuan, steaming death cave.  Almost a living beast unto itself, inhaling hapless victims.  This, to me, is the truest representation of a mouth to a micro person, and small as it may seem, it’s crucially central to the story’s interworkings, and you pulled it off flawlessly.  Few writers I’ve seen have gotten such a true version of this particular scenario.

 

Your story does a great job of bypassing the “hump” of unreality acceptance, if you will, that often must be swallowed in this type of story.  As this is a short story, you completely forgo the tricky and questionable waters of either dumb sci-fi or magical explanations for the size-changing.  Rather, you leap right into the action, and it works just fine.  The narrative is structured to work in this manner, and as a result, I didn’t find myself wanting to know much about the backstory of these characters.  It was rendered unnecessary for the purpose of sheer, brute-force giantess content, and it actually worked great.

 

THE CRITIQUES: I am fully aware that this story wasn’t intended to be more than one or two chapters.  That’s not what I’m going to refer to; in fact, I’m all for the expansion of stories as authors discover an unfolding narrative right as they put finger to keyboard.  Really, what I took a tiny bit of issue with here was that the story didn’t get much of a chance to spread its wings.  There are no real attempts at escape, or getting the daughter’s attention.  I realize that they are, indeed, far, far less than an inch tall, and the possibilities are severely limited, but I believe you could have come up with something to jazz up the story a bit more in this respect.  As you have stated before, this story was intended fully for arousal rather than narrative satisfaction, and I totally agree; some stories are meant for one purpose, others for another.  All I’m saying is that some people actually see this as a contribution to the environment of the sexual fantasy: the attempted escape, the desperate chances, the near-successes.  It would have made their ultimate failure all the more crushing, I believe.

 

I do wish that the fates of your “tinies” had ended up slightly differently.  I’m not saying I don’t enjoy unhappy endings for this particular genre of writing, because in this fetish, a crushing failure is often the name of the game.  What I saw here, though, was a unique opportunity for something different: a slight forgoing of logic in favor of a bit more emotional experimentation.  What would have been very interesting to me, for example, would have been to see the father saved at the last moment, only to find that his wife had been swallowed, and having to inform his gigantic daughter of what she had done.  I think this could have been a rather fascinating exchange to read about.

 

On one final mention, I had a bit of a problem picturing the size of the parents.  I’m now aware that they were grain-sized, and I acknowledge the fact that at a size like this, comparativeness necessity gets dicey at best, so it’s not a huge issue, it just makes it easier to imagine when the size is more outright stated.

 

OVERALL: A superb short story.  I flew through the chapters because of the great readability, near pitch-perfect grammar/spelling (and coming from a grammar Nazi like me, you know you’ve done well), and enticing descriptions.  The small issues I’ve mentioned were only amplified because so much else worked so fluidly.  Keep up the fine work, pal.  You’ve got talent at this.

 

Author's Response:

If I had more reviews like this, I would be an exponentially better author.  Thank you for the time you have put into both the reading and reviewing of my little tale.  

In response to the critiques first:  I agree.  As I've stated before, declaring the size of my characters has never been a strong point for me, and it's become increasingly obvious.  As far as having a different ending, I had several endings written before I posted the one that I went with.  Two of the endings had one of the parents surviving and being noticed, and they both ended with one of them saying something to the extent of "Thank god you found me!  Now we have to find your mother/father" and as they said that, Lacey would either stand up and crush her father, or swallow and consume her mother.  Either of those happening would end in a scenario in which the viewer would expect another chapter that I wasn't prepared to write.  Call it lazy, meh.  I'm trying to keep a consistent thing going with my stories, with a long term one that spans maybe a year or so (Best Friends) A mid-length that only lasts several months (Family Bondings), a short one that gets posted in a few chapters over a single month, maybe two(Innocent Musings) and the occassional one chapter short (An Unrequited Love).  

In reponse to the compliments: Thanks!  I try to approach everything from a realistic stand point, as if everything happens in a very real world, from personalities, to perspective, to reactions, etc.  When I myself read stories, it's a quick turn off to find the character described as a loved one, close friend, or even a kind stranger, and upon the shrinking or growing, they turn demonic in nature, and now seem to enjoy torture, violence and pain.  I often don't finish those kind, unless there is good reason for it.  Therefore, I write stories that anticipate what I expect to read from other authors; consistent characters, realistic motives and actions, interesting, but undistracting plot.  

Sometimes I curse myself for prefering micro, because it's such a hard genre to write and do justice for.  I myself don't find that I can justly describe how a grain of salt would see a 5 foot 7 inch tall woman from the floor, but words can only do so much.  However, the detail of the human body, the intricacies by which we were constructed provide endless hours of inspiration for me to write about, and that is the bulk of my stories.  How better to explore the human body than from as small a scale as possible? When we want detail, we use tools that give us a closer look with a more perceptive eye, like a microscope, and I take that approach when I write in this genre.  This is also part of the reason that I have yet to write an effective giantess/growing story.  Who knows, maybe I'll try it soon.

Again, thank you for your in-depth review.  I'm glad to know my work is appreciated!