Yes, thank you for posting clarification about what happened. I had actually already copied BOTH of your reviews to my notepad before you deleted them because I was trying to write a more detailed response.

First off, I always appreciate honest feedback — positive or negative. It’s always nice to accept accolades, but it’s just as good to hear complaints and criticisms, as my ultimate goal is to improve my writing process. I completely agree that most of your complaints are well warranted with regards to plot and character development, but as I mentioned from the beginning (and I think you found out), that this story was part of a series where those things weren’t really going to be of the highest quality. The main focus of this story was perfecting the writing for my shrunken encounters.

That being said, I’m not exactly satisfied with the ending either. I had always intended the story to end this way, but I think the direction it took along the way made it hard to make this ending fit. The only way I could really make things work was to have Natalie snap from the stress and pressure but I agree, that still didn’t fit with Natalie’s personality. I did hint at a few streaks of anger and frustration throughout the week, with Natalie warning Tim not to tell lies about his aunt (which turned out to not be lies) or she’d “put him under her feet”, but I should’ve built that up more.

If it makes you feel any better, this will be the last of this type of story for a while: my next small projects, while also focusing on specific scenarios, will be much more cohesive and true to the nature of characters and plot, as I want them to stand on their own while furthering my goals.

Lastly, don’t feel you have to delete your reviews on my account. I know I can’t please everyone, but it’s also nice to be reminded that there are specific things that I need to work on. Perhaps with these stories, I might revisit them in the future and make some adjustments and rewrites.

For now, thanks for your feedback.