So yesterday I spent a good chunk of the morning working on a new Concerning Littleton short story, called Gear Shift. (I'm about 75% done with it, hoping to actually finish it today.) I was sharing it with some test readers of mine, showing them chunks of it as I wrote, getting their responses, and editing-on-the-fly.
I love doing that. It's like taking a short vacation with a friend to a world to the world of my writing.
So my friend Marie Furie was reading the latest section, and the two main characters Adam and Christina, get into a discussion about her new safe word. We had a little discussion about what I thought would turn out to be a pretty powerful scene, if you've already read Concerning Littleton.
Here's how the conversation went.
Marie: "What is the word. I need to know."
Me: ****REDACTED****
Marie: ***REPEATS WHAT I TOLD HER***
Marie: "Hmmm."
Me: "Think about Concerning Littleton."
Marie: "Oh god. Noooooooooooo. Noooooooooooooooooooooooo. OMG."
Me: "Heh. Yeah. I won't ever publicly say so, though."
I want the reader to be able to figure it out from context and clues, and have a reaction. I think that's the reaction I'm pretty much going for.