https://chyoa.com/story/Ben’s-Mother.63740 Despite the title it’s not incest. Story is about an older woman and her son’s best friend falling in love and all the obstacles between them.
Line 1: This should be "I'd love to hear" or "I love hearing". Paragraph "Lara had just finished": You say that Ben turned 18, and then started having friends over. Why not before? Also I'd say "had been having friends over to visit, both male and female". You say he has female friends, but that's contradicted by the fact there's only boys here. It's also tell, not show. Just drop the "both male and female" phrase and make Sam female. You wouldn't even need to change his/her name! Similarly, you can also skip mentioning their ages altogether. Maybe have it come up in organic conversation later. "I know you're 18 now, Greg, but yada yada". I really like the last sentence, though! That's weird, maybe, but in my own work, I've been working on what I call imply, don't instruct, and you've provided a great example. If I had written this a year ago it could've very easily been "She walked from the sink to the towel rack and dried her hands. She then hung it back on its hook and walked from the kitchen, through the living room, towards the hallway." (Well, maybe not quite that bad, but you get the idea. ) Paragraph "As she approached": I would change "heard" to "overheard" or even "caught", both of which are more passive, more accidental, which fits the context better. Paragraph "Ben groaned loudly": You've given Ben 2 reasons to object to Greg's remark, but one is far stronger than the other: an 18 year old boy's desire to defend his mother's "honor". I would've written "Shut up, Greg! That's my mom you're talking about!" Possibly followed by "And anyway, you've got a girl already", clearly demoting it to a secondary concern. On the other hand, the chapter really needs the conversation to go on (so that Lara can continue overhearing it), so Ben can't come on too strong, either. Tricky balance. Paragraph "The other boys": Why is Ben "lucky" his mom is hot? Very porny, feels unreal. Speaking of, Jason should definitely straight up say porn, not "those movies". Teenage boys don't speak euphemistically when they can be crude. ...Then again, "your mom looks like a porn actress" are definitely fighting words. Maybe "your mom could be a model"? That's the trifecta: unambiguous enough for a teenage boy to say, actually complimentary to Lara, yet still embarrassing to Ben. Paragraph "Lara's heart sank": Bit excessive. Her son is being roasted by his friends a little, it's totally normal. This does lift the veil on her character a little, though, which is great: she could've felt flattered ("Hot? At my age?"), offended ("How dare they talk about me like I'm just a piece of meat!"), insulted ("'Those movies'? Are they calling me a slut!?"), annoyed ("I better have a talk with their mothers..."), etc. It's a great way to reveal a part of her personality without beating us over the head with a bat that has "she's a caring, somewhat overbearing mother" written along its length. Paragraph "Greg's always had": Sam switches target halfway through his statement. I like both lines, but they should either both be directed at Greg or both at Ben. (This whole section: You attribute every statement to a specific individual. '"Foo," said X. "Bar," said Y', etc. You could imply a little more. For example, you could write: '"Shut up man!" without attribution, and then in the next paragraph "Lara suppressed a chuckle. She could almost hear the blush in Greg's voice.') Paragraph "Ben groaned": Teenage boys get embarrassed at the drop of a hat, true, but they don't say they're embarrassed. Not ever. This I think is the moment in the conversation where Ben can get angry without derailing the chapter: Greg says shut up, Sam (or Jason) senses weakness and says something dirty about Lara to tease him, Ben gets angry, and then Lara takes her cue and enters the room to de-escalate. Paragraph "The room went silent" and "Uh, hey, Mom": Ben goes through 3 very different emotions in very rapid succession here. You could remove the sentence about his facial expression entirely. The way you've written his speech (very well!) already shows he's feeling awkward, you don't have to spell that out. Maybe have him just smile with relief there instead? That way you get 2 emotions in 1 paragraph, one told, one shown. Perfectly fine. Paragraph "Lara nodded": I like the "her smile unwavering" line. It's very "stoic mom letting things slide because she knows how to deal with teenage boys". Paragraph "As she turned": You could make this dirtier by having Greg look at a particular part of her. Lara's "chuckle" implies a kind of aloof amusement at something way beneath her stature, which may not be what you want to go for. You could let her "smile inwardly" to show she felt flattered by the attention instead. Paragraph "But for now": There's nothing really wrong with this paragraph, but I don't like it. She never follows through on her intent to approach Greg to Have A Word With Him, so why bring it up? The "she was Ben's mom first and foremost" also feels odd: it seems to imply there's a conflict between being Ben's mother and her wanting to deal with Greg? But I don't understand what it is. You were right to put a kind of conclusion here, but it's not this. ...Uh, yeah, I had some free time so I went through it with a finer-toothed comb than I usually do. Please note, these are all just suggestions, so feel free to ignore any or all of them! It's your story, you're the writer! I'll be less nitpicky from here on out, if only because I don't have infinite time. In chapter 2, Lara says Greg called her a MILF, but that never actually happened. Oh! did you mean to imply in chapter 1 that Ben's friends have been sleeping over? If so, that makes the first paragraph of that chapter way more sensical, but I totally didn't catch that meaning. And because of that, when Greg suddenly shows up now, "after everyone had gone to bed" it felt very unexpected, like he'd just broken in or something. If you make the 'sleepover' aspect more explicit in chapter 1, then the start of chapter 2 makes a lot more sense. You describe Lara as being slightly tipsy at every possible opportunity... except at when she actually behaves in a way that requires such an explanation! I'd strip all such descriptions except for the first ("a bit more carefree than usual"), and then add one or two as a direct reason why she accepts Greg's shoulder massage, and/or for why she reciprocates when he kisses her, and/or when she climbs the stairs after the fact and has to come up with an excuse for her behaviour. The phrase "the ghost of his lips on hers" is really good. At the start of chapter 4 I was worried it'd feel like a clone of chapter 3, but I was totally wrong. I like how the complete lack of dialogue in chapter 3 contrasts with the more conversation-heavy chapter 4, and that they're clearly very different dreams. In chapter 5, Lara thinks of Trista as "mega bitch". That's teenage girl language, not grown woman language. Drop the "mega". Optionally replace it with an uncomplimentary adjective that a 39 year old woman would actually use. Afterwards, she could feel a brief pang of remorse at even thinking it. Alternatively, "brat" highlights the contrast between Lara the grown woman and Trista the teenage girl, which is a perfect fit for a story about a boy and a MILF. Later on in the same chapter someone says "Bitch.", and it feels like it comes out of nowhere, totally at random. I have no idea why that's there, who says it, or if it's even really said. Is this Lara's thoughts again? Is Trista insulting her out loud? Someone else? Very confusing. I like the sunglasses thing. It's very sneaky. I'll stop at one last, more high-level remark: The characterization of Greg and Lara needs work. When Greg is with his friends, he's an awkward teenage boy who blushes when they tease him. It's great. it fits. But when he's alone with Lara, he instantly transforms into a confident, extroverted, seductive man. Everyone behaves behave differently in different settings, but if you take it too far in a story it becomes jarring, more suited to a Jekyll and Hyde story than a romance. And similarly, Lara turns from a warm, caring, knowing mother into a love-struck, insecure wreck the moment she's alone with Greg. She literally says "I'm scared" and "I don't know what to do". She's 39, for crying out loud! She was married! She has a grown son! Why is she acting like a blushing virgin who's never so much as spoken to a guy all of a sudden? Remember, "my friend's mom" and "my son's friend" stories live and die by the "eager yet inexperienced teenage boy has a crush on a sophisticated older woman with a latent fear she's past her prime" trope. That's the story people expect here.
Thanks for your input. It is quite a lot, so I’ll have to wait until after work to go over everything. I have considered going back over and editing the first two chapters again. I didn’t polish them as much as I would have liked. The flaw of being your own editor is that stuff will make sense to you, as you know the overall story in your head. It is nice and helpful to have this type of constructive feedback.
