Creative Writing

In A Few Amazing Moments Shaun shares his journey to find love through the decades. From his teen experience of rejection; to living by the philosophy of grabbing a few amazing moments of love where he can. The moments always coming to an end as he expects. But with Nathan his best friend and lover, will it be a happily ever after or is it another one of those relationships with a shelf life?

This story contains scenes of a sexual nature. Download: A Few Amazing Moments (PDF)

I saw this call for submissions a few weeks before the deadline. I decided I’d write a story, if I could find an idea that worked. I wanted to tell an authentic and enjoyable gay love story. I struggled on a few ideas until I found an old typed diary from years ago. It described an experience I had as a teen, what happened and how I felt about it. I decided to use this as a basis for my story along with my dreams and hopes for love in the future.

I wrote A Few Amazing Moments, but it wasn’t accepted for the anthropology. The rejection email from the editors said that my story has promise, but needs more work. Here is what I learnt from writing this story:

• The opening paragraphs of each scene used technology and societal attitudes to gay people to set the decade. This worked well. If I’d have used dates, it would have dated the story overtime.
• I could have spent more time editing. There are a few sentences where the reader gets what I’m trying to say, but they aren’t written well.
• The loose end with Liam maybe frustrating to some readers.
• I could have potentially cut the Ted scene and gave the story a different title.
• The use of first person perspective worked for this love story, in particular at establishing an emotional connection between Shaun and the reader.

I have emailed the editors of the anthropology to try and get feedback around what I need to work on.

I welcome feedback, comments and constructive criticism for A Few Amazing Moments. You can post a comment here or contact me.

Number of Downloads: 884 (application/pdf)

Last Updated: Wednesday 30th December 2015.