Young Writers Society

You know, a good portion of people think political correctness is just a way for the regressive leftists to censor the language of the people. Some people actually go out of their way to be ashamed for being politically correct. I am not one of those people. You know why? Because I can tolerate political incorrectness if what they're saying speaks some sort of truth or if they're funny (AKA George Carlin)--the use of the word 'tranny' in this context is neither. Not even for funny language purposes. This is a very offensive word for the transgender community--a bit like the f-a-g word for the gay community--if you're going to use it, I suggest you justify using it other than letting it be a joke that completely relies on the fact that 'oh, they're not the gender they were assigned to at birth, har har har'. It's not funny, especially considering the rest of the description remains completely normal up until it describes Uqinta. I won't say it's completely offensive to me just because I am who you're describing, but because it's just not in good taste in my opinion and it does nothing to justify it. And don't say "I have plenty of transgender friends who are fine with this" because that's not what I mean. It's not offensive because it offends a group of people, which it does. It's offensive because it uses that offensive word and does absolutely nothing with it. Understood? Understood.

*deep breath* Let's get back to the review.

Other than what Hannah already said in much nicer language than I did, I am also afraid that you're going to use Uqinta as nothing more than comedic relief for the same reasons I've said above. I'd be fine if she's a comedic relief because she likes eating peanuts a lot and it becomes a sort of running gag that she'll do anything for a bag of peanuts, but you know what I'm talking about when I say 'transgender comedic relief'. It's like 'black person comedic relief', relying entirely on stereotypes of black people to be funny. I mean, that can be funny, but it gets old really quickly and runs the risk of being offensive even quicker. So yeah, avoid the one-dimensional comedic relief that uses stereotypes.

You'll observe that I've talked about Uqinta more than I have the main characters. That's because there's really not much to talk about regarding that. I can't say how it will turn out, but I will say it doesn't seem interesting at first glance. It's just another good girl, bad boy situation with a twist--the good girl decides to step up her game and get back at the bad boy. I hope there will be some interesting character development coming along and that Trinique actually does have a good reason to fall in love with Deqavious other than 'oh he's hot' or 'oh he's such a bad boy' or 'oh I can change him' because I am slowly getting sick of those reasons. Or you know what, throw in those reasons, but later on have Trinique realize 'I am a goddamn idiot' and have her whack him in the face. That would be interesting to see.

In any case, I will probably review this book, but if at some point I feel uncomfortable I'm sorry if I have to stop. It's just not my thing, and I don't like going to rants every five seconds, and I'm finding myself angrier at everything than I usually am lately. Sorry for the rant-y review.

Signing out,

--EM.

Hi, again.

First of all, I wanna commend you on the practice of writing summaries. Getting reviews even on these small ideas can really help you build ideas, think of flaws before they happen, or imagine potential narrative arcs!

I am now going to try to make a comment without injecting too much of my beliefs into it, BUT... so, it's a fact that transgender individuals are a minority in the population. They often encounter a lot of difficulty because of that, including individuals not believing the way they choose to identify, making fun of their choices, etc. One other way that transgender individuals encounter difficulty is by having their identity be used as a "punishment" or a "trap" for cisgendered (those who identify as the gender that matches their sex organs) individuals.

I'll compare this to any other piece of writing -- USING a character simply as an element of a trap or lesson for another character takes away from that character's humanness. Instead, they are only a plot device. Often, we call this an underdeveloped character.

A potential danger comes when you decide to make that underdeveloped/stereotyped character a transgender individual and not only fail to develop the character, but also contribute to the ongoing stereotype that they exist only to be "traps" for cisgendered people, rather than as normal, functioning members of human society.

If you choose to use Uquinta in this way, you run the risk of contributing to society's perception of transgender individuals.

Of course, I could be completely misinterpreting this summary, because you never say what the "dangers of cheating" are that Uquinta and Trinique will show Deqavious, but yeah.

Otherwise, what I see in this summary is: boy cheats on girl, girl gets back on him. Why does this idea interest you? I'm not sure I'm clear on why you want to write this particular story. Is there something unique about the relationship you see between the characters. I'm a bit intrigued by Trinique's and Uquinta's friendship outside of the topic of her relationship with Deqavious. How did they meet? How do they like to hang out? Character development is obviously a big factor in determining whether a plot becomes an enjoyable or a flat book.

Lemme know if you have any questions about this review.
Good luck!

Hannah

Oooooh, nice. I'm intrigued by the names and the revenge plot! Is this going to be a short story, a novel? What can I expect?
Hit me up with a pm if you'd like me to review!