Style Me Sexy

Ed Note: Spoilers ahead. It's hard not to give things away when the story is only 21 pages long.

First of all, when you sell something as a novella – make sure it's a novella. When I hear “novella” I expect around 100 pages. Not 20. But perhaps that's a personal failing of mine in misunderstanding what a novella consists of.

Second, when you write something don't fill it so full of cliches that the reader gets whiplash from watching them fly by.

The premise of this “novella” had so much promise! A woman has been made to feel ugly and not worthy of love from a past relationship, so a makeover is in order to make to turn her from the (not) ugly duckling into a beautiful swan before a big blind date. It's the stuff of fairy tales.

But Bridget spends the entire time she's in the salon chair worrying about the man touching her hair but then deciding it's okay because “he must be gay” (because all male stylists are gay amirite?).

I think that's what really tanked the story for me. I couldn't get past the “it's okay because he's gay” commentary in her head every few seconds.

Oh my, I'm attracted to him. I'm FEELING THINGS WHILE HE'S TOUCHING ME. But... surely he's gay. So it's okay.

Seriously.

And then there's the BIG PLOT TWIST (that you see from a mile away). Her big blind date? OH MY GOODNESS IT'S WITH THE (SURPRISENOTGAY) STYLIST.

And they live happily ever after.

After 21 pages of angsty he's-touching-me-but-he's-gay-so-it's-okay commentary and then a brief interlude of oh-he's-not-gay-but-he's-sexy-and-into-me-too.

-Fin