Hi MontyB

Thank you for participating in the December round of "The LGBT Writing Contest - now judging" . I'm reviewing your entry, "Invalid Item" , in my role as the judge for this round.


The Prompt
You went with prompt one – about meeting a partner’s family for the first time, which is rather an interesting conundrum because it was and wasn’t the first time. Bailey is meeting her partner’s family for the first time as Bailey, but she’d spent many visits with them as James. A transgender character certainly allows for somewhat of a bend to that prompt

It took me a decent amount of time to realise Bailey is transgender. It wasn’t really until Miranda’s mom commented that Bailey had been such a cute boy that I went ‘aaahhhhhh.’ Up until that point I was simply reading a story with lesbian characters (and thinking that Ryan was damn rude). You know, Miranda could have been worried about the ‘seeing the body’ part simply because she was female and that Ryan could have been afraid to touch her for that same reason. And, yep, the estrogen comment didn’t really make me twig. I think this is the third or fourth transgender we’ve had now, and I love reading them; they feel (to me, anyway) like they have a greater capacity for emotional conflict which I find really gives depth to a story. However, I do find that it can take some time to understand the nature of the character if it’s not given clearly.


Overall Impressions
This is a powerful story of courage.

Being transgender can’t be easy at the best to times but returning to a home town, to a family you’ve known all your life as a different gender to the one they know has to take difficulty to a whole new level; times a thousand when you’re dating their daughter! I get the feeling that the lesbian side of Miranda and Bailey’s relationship doesn’t actually rate on the shock-o-metre. I also got the feeling that ‘disgust’ isn’t really there either – it’s more shock and unsurety and primal curiosity (as the in the case of Uncle Brent). Miranda’s mother is wonderfully supportive (It seems she’s been award of Bailey’s feelings for a long time.)

One thing I was surprised to find missing was little to no mention of Bailey’s own family. She and Miranda have returned to their home town for Christmas. Granted, it’s not given that Bailey’s family are still there but there’s no mention at all if her parents accept her as Bailey. Bailey does a lot of internal thinking and I’m a bit surprised, I guess, to have nothing come up comparing the two sets of reactions (and I cannot believe that her family doesn’t know). (So, yes, let me say this right now – this make an awesome plot for a novella (or longer!).)

I appreciated that it was the not-overly-supportive brother-in-law that provided a bit of hope at the end; though it did come across as caused by a ‘stick up for my sister’ feeling rather than any greater feeling for Bailey. Nonetheless, Ryan’s words bolstered Bailey and Miranda’s smile at her across the table helped; and I think Bailey might have realised that this whole situation was ‘tit for tat’; she has to play her role as much as the others; there can be nothing one-sided about it if she wants to be accepted simply as Miranda’s wife.


The Characters
Bailey is transgender. I’ve no issue with that but I really would like to have known what she looked like, a bit more of her own thoughts perhaps too on the matter. She’s concerned about showing her female body when everyone last saw her (presumably) as a male) and I’d actually like to know what she’s most concerned about/conscious of. Does she occasionally slip into a deeper voice (or maybe she’s always sounded feminine)? Is she seen as ‘rather tall for a female’? How does she feel about what I presume is quite a masculine Adam’s apple? Bailey is freaking out about meeting Miranda’s family as Bailey, her confidence is at rock bottom and so I would just presume she’d start nit-picking at herself (which allows the reader to start visualising her a bit more – we don’t even know what hair colour she has). I think this would give a heightened sense of conflict.

Miranda’s the same, visually – sort of non-existent. She’s gutsy and caring and deeply in love and protective but she remains physically a shadow too. Does either girl compare herself to the other?

Ryan seemed to react absolutely naturally. Having known James all of his life it must be hard not to see him even when he’s looking at Bailey, and therefore almost impossible to not react as if he’s dealing with a male. I felt somewhat offended at the lack of helping Bailey with her bags (but at this time I was also thinking this was simply a lesbian tale not a transgender one). His actions make sense though and I’m not entirely sure he did any of this stuff fully consciously. In any case, his later explanation makes a lot of sense. It’s not just Bailey and Miranda who have to work through things, so does everyone who ever knew Bailey when she was James. (Miranda was perfectly right in reminding Bailey she had to face them some time – putting it off would have just drawn out the pain for everyone.) As much as I feel wrong for saying this, I kind of think Uncle Bruce reacted naturally too – curiosity about Bailey’s physical attributes is probably high on everyone’s list. I’d like to think it wouldn’t be – just accept that Bailey is a woman and be done with it – but human nature isn’t like that. I fully understand Miranda’s reaction (awesome speech there, by the way) but, you know, later Brent passes the potatoes without even a comment. As silly as this sounds, I thought that was nice!

Miranda’s mom is just what you’d hope in a parent – caring, accepting, loving. Interesting that there’s no mention of her father though….


The Technical Things
Straight up – and I should have mentioned this when I first read the story – you need to change the rating to GC because of the three Fs. Only one F allowed in 18+, so either remove two of them or change the rating before a Mod does it for you ().

Watch that you only have one POV in each paragraph. You mix them together a couple of times and it’s a little hard to discover who’s doing what action.

Miranda gasped. – this is after she’s mentioned how crazy the airports are. I’m not sure why she gasped.

Put a few more paragraph spaces before Bailey’s hands shook as she stepped into the airport terminal. just so we know a certain amount of time has passed between the previous action and this one.

the fears wretched – reads like you’re using ‘wretched’ as a verb here and it’s not one. If you’re saying the fears are wretched, that works but it just needs a bit of rewording.

beautiful wallflower – isn’t a wallflower someone who prefers to hide away from others? This sentence reads as if it’s Miranda who is the wallflower because it’s Bailey who steps back and cuts the tears, but I’d have thought it the other way around. Miranda doesn’t seem the sort to be a wallflower at all. (And this para is one of those with the double POV.)

Bailey stayed in her seat, her fear freezing her… – think you can get rid of the ‘her’ that precedes ‘fear’ since we know whose it is (and just means you trim the number of ‘her’ down a bit).

half drank glass of wine – ‘drunk’ rather than ‘drank’.

procession of family began their exodus – it might just be me but though I knew what you meant here it also didn’t make sense. And ‘exodus’ almost makes it sound like they’re leaving the dining room, when that’s not the case. Something like and the family began their procession toward her. might work a little better.

“If you leave, they win.” He slurred. – I’ve never been one to write ‘drunk speech’; just can’t seem to do it, but here’s where you could and then get rid of ‘he slurred’. But beyond that, this dialogue tag is quite strong and would seem to me to fit better straight after ‘if you leave’. We get a pause between that and ‘they win’ which kind of gives the impression of a slurring pause (er, does that make sense??) (I also read this the first time round thinking it was Uncle Brent because we hadn’t seen Ryan for ages and it was Brent who’d had the most recent ‘contact’ so I guess I expected him – and that made me confused when Bailey appeared to appreciate him.)


Closing Comments
I liked this story, Monty, and it’s definitely one that could go on to become something longer. In fact, the premise almost demands it. Bailey’s worried what people will think of her so seeing her journey up to this point would be insightful to her own character as well as her reactions. I think the journey would heighten the reader’s feelings for Bailey; though I sympathised with her concerns and fears, I didn’t feel very invested in her (beyond the natural desire for a happy ending).


Thank you so much for entering "The LGBT Writing Contest - now judging" , and we hope you come back again! And - if you have any queries about anything above, don't hesitate to get in touch.

Kind regards,
Osirantinous





My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .