Secret Lovers by Cassie Stevens

TITLE: Secret Lovers
AUTHOR: Cassie Stevens
PUBLISHER: Amber Quill Press (Allure)
LENGTH: Short story (roughly 12k)
GENRE: Contemporary gay erotic romance
COST: $4.00

In twelve weeks since the fateful car accident that introduced them, firefighter Alex and Marine Sam have been nearly inseparable. On the surface, they claim it’s because they’ve discovered a best friend. While that’s true, they’ve also discovered a secret passion for the other. Both are gay, but neither knows it about the other, until the afternoon when both decide they’re tired of denying their lust. Their feelings are real, but their careers mean keeping them secret. To the world, at least. Not to each other.

If there is one thing I would tell authors who pen short stories if I had the chance, it’s this.

Every. Word. Counts.

Writers of short stories have to be so much more careful about the words they choose, simply because in a condensed format, your reader is that much more aware of them. You don’t have the luxury of losing their suspension of disbelief because you don’t have the time to get them back. Don’t give them reasons to laugh when you choose unfortunate phrases, like “log of hot velvet” as a euphemism for a hard cock when you’ve spent the first 4k of the prose being modern and graphic. Be aware of your choreography/editing, too. Don’t mix up your heroes’ names when one is standing and the other is on his knees, because when that happens, readers spend five minutes reading and re-reading the paragraph, trying to figure out how Hero #1’s hard nipples can be stabbing into Hero #2’s inner thighs when #1 is standing and #2 is blowing him.

Oh, and please, please, please…if you’re going to write about a man’s prostate, make sure you spell it right. I realize it’s very easy to type prostrate instead of prostate, but that’s what editing is for, right? Catch those mistakes, because you know what? Half the time, scenes that utilize that word are being read more often and more closely than the rest of the story. Readers will notice. This reader certainly did. And don’t use the excuse that you missed it. If you know you’re not particularly good at catching that kind of mistake, use a find function to see if you’ve misspelled it. In this day and age, there’s really no excuse for such errors to get into a final copy.

Maybe it’s not fair that I’ve chosen this particular story to put my rant on, but there were too many examples in it of why I think most short stories don’t work the way the authors want them to. It suffered from all of the above. In addition, the heroes, while nice enough, were practically interchangeable. The conflict was nearly nonexistent, since they both wanted exactly the same thing, had practically the same thoughts, and thus, had no reason not to fall into bed with each other or admit stronger feelings – see above about being interchangeable. While not the worst story I’ve ever read, it’s very forgettable. Except for that log of hot velvet falling into one of the heroes' hand. That still makes me snort.

Readability	6/10 – Stretches of clean, fun prose is marred by other stretches with editing errors and hokey description in the sex scenes.
Hero #1	4/10 – Nothing really wrong, but ultimately, hard to distinguish from the other guy
Hero #2	4/10 – Since the two characters feel like the same, can my reason for the score be the same, too?
Entertainment value	4/10 – I was too busy snorting at some of the phrasing to be able to enjoy this the way I’m sure the author wanted me to.
World building	7/10 – The author doesn’t shirk responsibility in trying to make the world they reside in realistic.
TOTAL:	25/50