10

Love the idea, love the repitition and all the sensory details... this is great!  The ending is fabulous because it's so obviously lacking that second sentence (and because it's just a great last line).  I also love the lines about the key turning in a lock and tasting the beach and how all men should wearing Levi jeans... there were more, definitely, but I don't want to end up quoting the whole thing!  Really, really nice job here.

Author's Response: Thanks, allibabab - I do appreciate the specifics! Glad you liked the format - it was a bit of a stretch :)

8

Aww, what a cute story.  I love how you included the talking-head moments -- it was a really good way to finish.  Your dialogue was also really good.  Thanks for this!  Sometimes it's easy to get bogged down by angsty Jim/Pam stuff, so it's always nice to read something lighthearted and fun like this.  :)

Author's Response:

Thank you so much- and thank you for taking the time to look at some of the older stuff!

The angst has been killing me lately, but these two can be so much fun together!

10

Oh gosh.  Another perfect piece from you -- I love everything about this, from your dialogue to your descriptions to... well, everything else.  I love when she wonders if he's playing differently because she's there and then he tries not to but can't really help it.  That always happens, and it's always cute, but this story is just undeniably adorable.  Awesome job, as always.

Author's Response: Yay - I'm always happy to hear the dialogue sounds right to a reader. Thanks, allibabab!

Haha, what a twist -- I definitely didn't see that coming!  Really nice job with this challenge.

9

Lovely.  I adore the line about "letting out the breath they'd both been holding for so long" -- what a great way to describe the release in the tension.  Beautiful title and idea, too.  I love dancing stories.  :)

Author's Response:

Thanks allibabab!  I love the idea of them getting together this way.  This is one of my stories that actually still has the chance of happening!!  We shall see!

Oh gosh, I love this.  I can so see Pam living contentedly alone, happy enough by herself, but still just a little... without, and missing him.  Her finding the directions, printing out the directions, driving closer and closer every time is so great -- she's all for taking small steps, I think; grand gestures are a little too scary sometimes.  My favorite parts are when you wrote about her being happy and going about her week because that really just fit with me in terms of characterization, and my favorite line was probably the third to last, about everything that's changed and everything that hasn't.  Nice to way end this piece, as well.  Lovely job!  Thanks so much for this.

Author's Response:

Thanks allibabab!  I'm so glad you reviewed this because it caused me to read this again and it was nice to see that this is one story I wrote this season that still seems to ring completely true.  There's nothing here that I don't think Pam would have or has done. 

Thanks so much for taking the time to tell me you liked it.  It means more than you know.

10

This is so wonderful.  I love how you use her sketching to draw you into the story.  It really leads you through just like watching someone draw, and it allowed you to include so many details, using the body parts as segways into explanations... just lovely.  Everything about this is fabulous.

10

This is just beautiful.  It's short, but you say so much with the repitition and with the extra bits in the parentheses... I absolutely love this.  Gorgeous.

Author's Response: Thank you so much! It was fun to work in a little bit of a non-standard structure.

10

This is so wonderful!  Karen may have been difficult for you to write, but I think you've done a great job with her voice.  I absolutely love your last lines to every section about Jim's happiness -- using the italics to emphasize different words and just changing the entire sentences up was brilliant.  Those lines really said a lot about the rest of the sections that they were attached to.  This is wonderfully written.  Really nice job.

10

This is just wonderful.  I'm trying right now to tell you which ones are my favorite, and I really, really can't decide.  You've characterized everyone so perfectly that to tell you all the parts that were great would be quoting the entire thing.  You've done such a fantastic job here.

I love this.  The Pam/Karen dimension is something that's pretty new to me but I absolutely love it -- I think there's something so heartbreaking about being in love with the same person and the way it connects you to your "competition" (for lack of a better word).  You've written this just beautifully, showing us so clearly the way Pam and Karen feel about each other.  It's a nice change from having two generic girls fighting over one generic guy -- this, I think, is something that happens more than you might expect.

Anyway, I'm rambling about this because I just finished working on a Pam/Karen piece and I'm feeling thoughtful about it.  About your story I'd like to comment that the tone you always bring forward is just fabulous -- it's quiet and contemplative and really just about the connections these characters all have with each other.  And you bring this all forward with so much subtlety... I think it demonstrates what a great hold you have on all the characters.

This is just wonderful.  Thank you so much.  :)

10

This is just beautifully written.  There were a few lines I wanted to pull out and tell you I loved but it always messes with the formatting and suffice it to say everything in this is just lovely.  I love the whole bit about twos and fours, and the way Karen is still included but there's no bitterness.  The way you describe their second kiss is just amazing -- I can't tell you how much I adore it.  Oh!  And the part where Pam "tackles and confronts" Jim after work... also wonderful.

Okay, I have to include my other favorite line because it was just so great:  "It used to unsettle her that she knows and notices these things -- now she thinks it follows after the sky is blue and the grass is green."

Oh gosh, just marvelous.  Thank you so much for this.

8

Wow.  This was just great.

I love how you use the same line to begin every chapter -- it adds a real sense of connectedness (continuity?) to this story.  You did a really nice job with all of the character voices in this piece, but I think my favorite was Roy because even though I obviously want Jim and Pam to end up together, I do have a little bit of a soft spot for Roy just because he's trying so hard now.  It's just nice to read a story where he's not a villain -- he cares about Pam and that's nice to remember.

Your last line is killer.  I love it.

 Thank you so much!