[Report This]Date: January 12 2025 5:25 AM Title: Ready, Set, Grow!
This was an excellent read!
Your strong adherence to consistent scale and detailed use of description serve the story well and helped paint a vivid picture in my mind throughout. Rapid growth, particularly in the mega ranges as you've done here, can be very difficult to envision for a reader and I had no issue doing that in your story. Especially considering the growth occurs in incremental stages, each of which has a unique scale all its own.
Also, I believe your protagonist is written authentically in the surreal context of the story. She might not possess a particularly deep backstory or wide range of emotions, but this is a short story after all, and one that takes place (from what I could gather) over a very brief period of time, so expecting her to have time to process everything that ensues after the growth wouldn't make much sense. I think given that it's plausible how she reacts for the most part. It's almost reads like Maddie feels it has to be a dream at first so she's just kind of rolling with it unquestioningly as one might under that assumption.
Last, the hardest thing (in my opinion) and you've nailed it is the dialog. You communicate your story's themes masterfully here, particular with the coach. You are not slouch when it comes to descriptive language, but I think the dialog, however limited, really shines in this tale. I struggle the most with writing authentic and efficient dialog and so I will refer to your work as an example
Terrific story, man! Keep on keepin' on. I look forward to seeing more of it.
Author's Response:
Thanks! I'm glad you liked it.
Each of my short stories will serve as an experiment for some specific facet of writing, but I'm always hoping that the story is done well overall, too. The intention here was to use the giantess converter to nail the scales and relate it to the reader, but I tried not to slouch on the themes and action. My next writing experiment (based on the poll I've made) will most likely be a "slice of life" story, so I imagine there will be more dialogue in it.
[Report This]Date: December 31 2024 4:19 AM Title: Ready, Set, Grow!
Nice descriptive elements throughout this story, especially as Maddie ascends higher and higher. I thought you did well with the detail regarding her godlike, destructive capabilities with every footfall. I liked in particular the strength she conveyed as she picked up the bus between her thumb and forefinger, accentuating just how much power she conveyed in the slightest of movements as she enlarges throughout the story. The descriptive pieces about her body were a nice touch too, further adding to the sexual appeal she held over everyone around her as she ascended into godhood, both in destructive power as well as physical beauty.
While some might find this to be a bit long and overly descriptive for a short story, I personally found it adequate all around. Personally I would have liked to know more of Maddie's mental and emotional state during the growth spurt. Would she be freaking out on the inside and on the verge of a panic attack? Would she start to see herself as an all-powerful goddess who no longer answered to mankind or society, now that she has outgrown civilization? Would she worry for her future living in a world she had now become much too big to safely coexist in? Just my personal preferences regarding this story.
Overall, you showed nice descriptors throughout this piece. You also gave a poignant way of implementing a life lesson of sorts with how Maddie focuses more on seeing things through, in that it's more important to finish than to win per se. Granted, it was initially about winning a standard foot race, but the lesson came to be applied for Maddie seeing her evacuation in order to keep physical damage and loss of life to as much of a minimum as possible. While I'm sure there are those who would have preferred her to go on a destructive rampage, I'm more inclined towards the gentle giantesses who are cognizant of their power and don't have it go to their heads, so I found this particular tale amusing in that regard.
In conclusion, a nice one-shot that didn't take the destructive elements to a dark, morbid place. Nice stuff!
Author's Response:
Thanks! Detailed reviews like this really help me with my writing. Right now, these short stories are basically experiments for me while I work on my novel, as I have plans for more novels after I complete Tipsy Titaness. My goal is to make each short story have some unique themes and perspectives while I find what I like to write. So while this one is written from the view of an objective third-person narrator, the next one could be from a regular person's perspective or that of the giantess. Likewise, each story will have different themes and scales. They won't all be gentle. They won't all be mega. But I do try to have some greater theme in the story rather than just gratuitous violence, sex appeal, or growth.
As for your critiques, I really appreciate them. Though I prefer to write character-driven stories, I'll admit that Maddie is a fairly dull character. We get hints at her personality, like her competitiveness, but overall she's a pretty calm, rational person. We see that she's collected and focused, managing the situation pretty well at first, but she does start to become more anxious once we raise the stakes by introducing her family. Likewise we also see a brief glimpse of her seemingly contemplating a punitive action on the people beneath her, but again it's quickly squashed when her family comes into play. She never really "freaks out" and while that's consistent with her personality, it is also rather boring. Personally, I think the more emotionally tumultuous characters are served better by first-person perspectives than third-person narrators, but that could be something for me to explore in another piece. Interestingly, I do have a writing outline for a short story that is the complete opposite scenario (a character that grows with her anxiety but also gets more anxious as she grows). Whenever I get around to writing it (if ever), we'll see what people prefer.
The main "experiment" of this story was using the giantess converter tool to track a giantess' size as she grew, which it sounds like I managed well. In my first short story, my goal was to write a short under 5,000 words and play with the concept of a "cheeky third-person narrator" that subverts the "woman grows big and becomes evil" trope. As the story went on, it became clear that the giantess was always evil and the narrator was just unreliable. This time I used a more objective perspective (with brief glimpses into the protagonist's thoughts) and focused on using that perspective to communicate the protagonist's evolving dimensions since I think that's the main advantage of a detached perspective in these stories. First-person is great for communicating thoughts and feelings, but it's weird when characters innately recognize "I'm 500 feet tall now." I fly planes and at a certain point, I can't recognize my altitude without the use of instruments. And that point is not very far from the ground. I have about 10 writing outlines for other short stories in the works (and 200 broader ideas). The next one I'm likely to tackle will be from the perspective of a regular person, but I'm going to focus on my novel in the short term since I haven't updated it in a couple of weeks.
Thank you again for the review! It was very helpful.