[stmercy2020]

Let me start with the question, which you will not be able to answer until after you read what I've written this morning… 😉

I pretty much know what Dicey's initial reaction is to her awakening powers; what do you think Dasia's reaction would be, and how would she express it to her sister?  I especially want to hear from the women on this (that doesn't mean I don't want to hear from guys, as well) as they are certain to have a perspective that I don't…

Oh- one other question- do you prefer the larger indentations for paragraphs that I used in Chapters 1 & 2, or are the indentations I used here okay?  The difference is that in Chapter 1 & 2 I manually keyed five spaces before each paragraph and in Chapter 3 I got lazy and used the tab key.

And on that note:

Chapter Three

Police Detective Jodi Francisco was awake now, at least.  She’d been called on duty early to take down the statements of the two young women-victims?-who had been found at Moe’s, surrounded by wounded gang members.  Their explanations were pretty fragmentary.  The big one had almost no memory from the time her sister got hit in the face until the time the cops arrived to find her holding a 300 pound bruiser fully over her head.  The other one, Dasia, was better, but what she described just seemed impossible to the experienced policewoman.
They were back at the QuikMart, sitting at a small table, and Jodi had bought them both a small cocoa to drink while they talked.  She figured they would be more forthcoming here than they would be at the police station, and, besides, they weren’t charged with anything.  At least, they weren’t charged with anything yet.  Jodi looked at them again.  There was such a contrast between them.  Dasia was tiny– barely over five feet tall, and petite.  The other one, Dicey, was huge.  Tall, Jodi had her for nearly six feet in her sneakers, and wide.  Her back made one of those inverted triangles you saw on some bodybuilders- wide shoulders tapering into a thin, hard stomach.  Then her legs flared out again, thick, powerful legs, like those of a dancer, or a gymnast.  It was what Jodi called the frog-build, and, until tonight, she’d never thought it could look flattering on anyone, let alone a young woman.
“Okay, ladies, here’s the deal,” Jodi said.  “Those men in the hospital probably won’t press charges unless you do.”  Jodi could see the protests boiling to the surface and hurried on.
“As it stands, we can certainly get them on assault and battery for your friend, Ron, and maybe for Dasia, too.  It’s not too likely, though.  One of them-” she consulted her notes- “Cliff- actually works at Moe’s during the day, so he could potentially be protected, and, by extension, his friends, under Michigan’s castle-law.
“We would charge him with assault, and he would claim that he was protecting his place of business from intruders, and his friends would all support him.”
“So- we should just let them walk?” Dicey definitely didn’t like the sound of that.
“Well, you need to make a decision.  Are you willing to stand up in court and testify?  I want to be honest with you.  I can’t promise results, and their lawyer may countersue you for their medical bills, which are going to be extensive.”  That was an understatement.  Nobody had died, at least not yet, but it was touch and go with a couple of them.  Cliff’s jaw was fractured and several of his teeth had shattered, and his right arm had been badly broken as well as having the shoulder separated.  Another one-her notes said his name was Lee Montgomery-looked as if he had gone up against a wrecking ball and lost.  Most of his teeth were missing, and the damage to his upper palate and nose was, in a word, devastating.  And those two were the best of the injured.  Of the five gang members, only Steve was relatively unharmed.  Dasia had clubbed him pretty hard with a piece of wood- probably a broom handle, Jodi guessed- but hadn’t managed to break anything, and Dicey hadn’t actually laid hands on him at all.
“What’s your advice, Detective?” asked Dasia.  Jodi found herself liking the little girl.  She seemed pretty timid, but there was some real steel underneath it all.  She had, the detective thought, spunk.
“Officially, my advice is that you ought to charge them and try to push for the maximum penalty.”  Jodi leaned back in her chair before continuing.  “You won’t get it, though, and you’ll be lucky not to get sued in civil court.  My unofficial advice is to let it ride.  They won’t be bothering anybody for awhile, and we can see to it that they never find out who you are or where you’re from.  And, as long as you leave them alone, I think I can convince them that it wouldn’t do their reputations any good to seek legal reparations from a couple of young girls…”

Dasia was asleep in Dicey’s bed.  Dicey had taken the couch in the living room, but couldn’t sleep.  Ron was over at the University of Michigan hospitals, spending the night there for observation.  She’s called Dad, then Ron’s folks, and let them all know what was happening.  She tried to keep the worry out of her voice, but she knew it had come through, anyway.  It was, she reflected, after two when she made the calls, so their parents were bound to be nervous wrecks in any case.
It was as she had told that detective.  She didn’t really have clear memories of what happened, even now.  Phil had mentioned something about that, once, describing how really good martial artists reacted so quickly that they didn’t actually have time for conscious thought.  Even so, some of the feelings were still with her.  A sense of rage as Joey hit Dasia, than exhultation-no-ecstasy as she drove into the entire gang.  A sense of joy, as her movements blended so powerfully with theirs.  She had felt something like it when she was on stage, like being transported to another plane.
That feeling was gone, now, and the emptiness that replaced it left her feeling nauseous and rocky.  She really was nauseous, she realized, and stumbled into her tiny bathroom to throw up in the toilet.  After retching for a minute, nothing but dry-heaves, she straightened up and looked at herself in the mirror again.
She did look different, she realized.  Leaner.  Harder.  It was as if the little layers of fat had somehow tightened themselves along her arms and chest and shoulders.  She could actually see little horseshoes of muscle on her upper arms as she held herself up against the sink.  Then she noticed the hole in her tank top, just above her right breast.  She placed a finger against it and could feel where her skin was starting to bruise.  What made that? she wondered.  Reaching under her shirt, she felt around until she noticed a small metal disc caught up in the cup of her bra.  How the hell did I not notice that before?
Pulling it out, she could see that it was dull gray, and far from a regular shape.  In fact, she thought, it looked a lot like bullet…  No.  It was a bullet, crushed on impact.  She turned back to the toilet and dry-heaved again.

[Mimi]

Disclaimer:  Please don’t feel like I am being negative or mean spirited in my tone.  I only offer my advice because I was asked.

One important aspect in telling a story; albeit good or bad is the fact that you have to give the reader a reason to sit there and read your words.  It's just like a movie; give your audience a good enough reason to spend their time, and walk away feeling that it was time well spent.  What makes a good story is really up to the reader, and what he or she is looking for.  Its just like going to a library and searching for what you want.

I don't know enough about specific themes in the muscular female domain to say what members want in their stories, but here are some of the questions I ask myself when I write my stories.

1)  What are the main characters, and what are their goals?
2)  Are their goals something the average reader can identify with?
3)  Make the characters' quest for their goals a challenge. 
4)  Are the words I use clear enough to accurately describe their feelings and thoughts?

I enjoyed how you started to paint the landscape of the characters.  Very well done.  The only thing I would suggest is take the time and elucidate their emotional state of mind too…  but that's a detail that may or may not be necessary depending on what you want to achieve in your story. 

I'd add more atmosphere… pretend you're telling a blind man the story.  Don't be afraid to use colorful words too.  If you use Word, the Thesaurus feature is an amazing tool.  I often use that and http://thesaurus.reference.com to help use words that may not be well known, but reads effortlessly.  A good understanding of the words you use is so incredibly important in telling a satisfying story.  That's why good novels made into films often leave the viewer wanting more elements and details to the story.

Compel the reader… leave us breathless, and wanting more.  Motivate us, inspire us.  Although I’m not a female muscle expert (or claim to be one), I do know that a woman of power and grace IS inspiring… seeing a woman of magnificent strength and colossal muscles are what inspired artists and writers thousands of years ago.  Keep in mind that language and words can be used as powerful weapons of seduction. 

Be inspired, sweetie…  you are writing about something very special to all of us.  You’re on the right path.  😉

Love,

[stmercy2020]

Thank you very much for your comments.  The only way I'm likely to improve is with feedback from readers.

I enjoyed how you started to paint the landscape of the characters.  Very well done.  The only thing I would suggest is take the time and elucidate their emotional state of mind too…  but that's a detail that may or may not be necessary depending on what you want to achieve in your story.

I've been pretty spare in directly stating characters' emotional states.  Too spare?

I'd add more atmosphere… pretend you're telling a blind man the story.  Don't be afraid to use colorful words too.  If you use Word, the Thesaurus feature is an amazing tool.  I often use that and http://thesaurus.reference.com to help use words that may not be well known, but reads effortlessly.  A good understanding of the words you use is so incredibly important in telling a satisfying story.  That's why good novels made into films often leave the viewer wanting more elements and details to the story.

This is a very good point.  I sometimes forget that not everyone is familiar with the atmosphere of, for example, downtown Detroit.  I'm a little concerned because my tendency years ago (when I actually studied creative writing) was to add far too much atmosphere at the expense of both realism and character development.  I will work on this for future updates.

Compel the reader… leave us breathless, and wanting more.  Motivate us, inspire us.  Although I’m not a female muscle expert (or claim to be one), I do know that a woman of power and grace IS inspiring… seeing a woman of magnificent strength and colossal muscles are what inspired artists and writers thousands of years ago.  Keep in mind that language and words can be used as powerful weapons of seduction.

I am also not an expert in female muscle- I'm a fan, but most of my expertise is limited to English (which I teach) and martial arts (which I also teach).  This means that I am working well outside of my areas of expertise, so any ideas you have to help me improve are greatly appreciated.  Believe it.

On that note, two further questions: Is the dialogue reasonably believable to you?  I've always hated writing dialogue, but it seems like such an essential part of any story in which the goal is "show, not tell"- i.e., any exposition really needs to be covered either by dialogue or by things that the characters could conceivably and believably perceive.

Second question: the internal thoughts that Dicey, Dasia, etc. have.  I have no difficulty with the men, but I want very much to write believable thought processes for the girls and women in the story as well.  For example, Dicey is, at this point a little frightened about what's happening to her.  She's old enough to recognize that the things she's done are not normally possible, even if you take into account adrenaline and excitement (and, I should point out, I've used very little metaphor or exagerration at this point…)  Dasia, as a fourteen-year-old, I figure to be pretty self-absorbed.  The world still rotates around her, and she's mostly concerned with how changes are likely to affect her, personally…

Be inspired, sweetie…  you are writing about something very special to all of us.  You’re on the right path.

And, on that note, I've nearly finished with a sequence that has Dicey starting to really experiment at the gym…  I hope y'all like it.  I'll be posting it sometime later this evening…

[Mimi]

Honey, the fact that you’re writing is a triumph all unto itself.  Anyone who takes the time and thought into creating a story should be applauded. 

I can’t reply in detail just yet, but with dialogue, it’s not as hard as you think.  What I do is place myself in their shoes, and actually say the words as I try to write them.  Speak the words out loud and hear them… I also have some of my GF’s read for me when they come over so I can hear it.  At times, I often think WTF!? as I hear my dialogue coming back to me. 

Remember a great line from Harrison Ford’s comment on Star Wars…  “You can write this stuff, but you can’t really SAY it.”  I love that line.  😉

“Show, not tell.”  Honey, you HAVE to tell because it’s a worded story.  Show it in a film or a piece of art, TELL it in a story.  :-*

More later, sweetie.  Remember, we ALL are a work in progress.  Stories too!  Wait until I post my draft of my next story…  I dread that feedback!  😀

XOXOXO’s

PS:  I appreciate your kindness in not taking this personally.  I want to help you tell a beautiful story.

[stmercy2020]

Okay, the end of Chaper Three.  Things start to get a bit hotter for our heroine, as she starts to make some hitherto unsuspected things about herself…

As usual, any comments about this- content, style, what have you- are greatly appreciated.

*****

It was still early in the morning when Dicey got up.  She went into the kitchen and started coffee and pancakes.  After a few minutes, she heard Dasia moving around upstairs.  Soon after, Dasia stumbled into the kitchen, bleary-eyed.  “Smells good,” she yawned.  Dicey flipped a couple of pancakes onto her plate.
“Chocolate chip, the way Moms makes ‘em,” she said.
Dasia looked at her.  Dicey didn’t cook, as a rule, and didn’t do mornings as an article of faith.  “What’s up, sis?”
“Huh?”
“Why the sudden bout of domesticity?  You okay?”
“Yeah… Well… I think I really hurt those guys last night, Dasia.  I didn’t think I could do that.”
Dasia cocked an eyebrow, not quite understanding.  “So?  They were trying to hurt-or kill-us.  What’s the problem?”
“I dunno.  I just didn’t think I had that kind of violence in me, you know?  And it’s not just that.  Look at this.”  Dicey tossed the bullet to her younger sister.
“What is it?”
“It’s a bullet.  I got shot last night.”
“What?!  Omigod, are you okay?”
“I’m fine.  That’s what’s freaking me out.  I got shot in my boob, for chrissakes, and all I got was a little bruise.”
“But- that’s so cool!”
“It is not cool!  That could’ve been you- or Ron.  It was just luck that it was me, and I don’t know what it was that I didn’t even feel it until after we got home.”
“Adrenaline?”
“Hah.  Very funny.”
“Okay… So what’re you going to do about it, now.  You can’t exactly go to the cops.  You gonna see a doctor?”
“No, I don’t think so.  If they believed me, they’d only think I was some sort of medical freak.  No, I think… I think I’m going to go to the gym.”

The University of Michigan North Campus Recreation Building was on the North side of town, just a bit Northeast of a couple of nice parks and fairly isolated.  The building itself officially opened at 9:00 on Sunday mornings, but, fortunately, Drifter had a key and was willing to let her in, provided she promised to be careful and not strain herself.
“Hey- not a worry, man.  I’ve just gotta work off some nervous energy, you know?  I’ll be good, and I’ll holler if I have any trouble.”
“Good girl.  This place is pretty dead Sunday mornings, in any case.  I’ll be out in the front office if you need me.”
Dicey went into the locker room and stripped down to her sweatpants and a sportsbra.  A little snug across the hips, she grimaced, and my boobs don’t seem to be shrinking any, either…
The weightroom itself was a good sized room on the first floor.  Huge mirrors covered two walls, and the weight machines were arranged to accommodate quite a few people at once.  Dicey knew there was a heavy weight room upstairs, although she had never been there.  The stairway leading there always smelled powerfully of men’s sweat and the disinfectant cleaning product they used on the mats and pads for the machines.  The free weight bars and weights were neatly racked along the far wall of the room, and Dicey figured there were probably several thousand pounds of weight in the free weights alone.  What kind of monster needs a heavy weight room with this much weight lying around in here, she mused.  Dicey was familiar with the operation and use of the various weights and machines from her previous athletic endeavors, and knew that she had been fairly strong even in high school.  She was out of training, now, but she figured that her day-to-day life with the band probably kept her from losing too much muscle mass.
She started with some simple stretches, remembering that her coach used to warn her that the majority of sports injuries happened because a muscle wasn’t properly warmed up before being stressed.  Some lunges, some calf extensions, butterflies, and then she dropped gracefully into a side-splits.  I’ve still got flexibility, at least, she grinned, enjoying the sensation as her muscles started to respond to the exertion.
She turned and lay her chest across her knee, then flat on the floor, then again on her other knee.  Placing her arms one in front of her and one behind her butt, she lifted her weight off the ground and changed her position to a scissors-splits, then dropped her chest forwards again, then to the sides, and finally arched her neck and back to the rear until she could touch her heel.  She carried on in this manner for a few more minutes until she started to feel just a little bit of warmth in pretty much all of her major muscle groups.
Getting up, she went over to the scale to weigh herself before starting.  Now that can’t be right! she thought.  She hadn’t actually weighed herself since her last medical checkup, over a year ago, and she had felt that she was a bit heavy then, at one ninety, but this scale had her up to almost three hundred.  She’s have to tell Drifter about that…
Sighing, she went over to the free weights, figuring to start with squats, as she used to do when training for ballet.  Her max at that time had actually been 200 pounds, something she was quite proud of, given that many of the young men in the gym with her hadn’t been able to handle that much weight, and hadn’t been able to squat it the way she had.  She loaded up the bar with two 45 pound plates on each side, then, breathing deeply, cleanly lifted the bar up, over her head, and rested it on her shoulders.  That wasn’t as hard as I expected, she reflected, settling into her squat.  She used a modified squat that her coach had taught her in order to increase her jumping ability, starting out in what was referred to as the ‘ass-to-grass’ position and standing all the way up, then jumping into the air at the apex of the squat.  After 10 repetitions, she realized that she wasn’t really feeling much strain at all.  In fact, she was feeling more energized, more vibrant than when she started.
Given how easy the squats had been, she decided not to reduce the weight at all as she moved into military presses.  Bringing the bar back over her head, she rested it for just a moment on her chest before knocking off ten more slow repetitions.  She felt these a little bit more than she had the squats, but she was quite certain she could lift more- much more.  Gently setting the bar back on the rack, she tensed her arms.  Immediately, the round, softness that had characterized her shoulders disappeared to be replaced by hard angles.  Her deltoids and triceps leapt into sharp relief against her otherwise supple flesh.  “Unreal…” she breathed.
“Damn, girl,” came Nicole’s voice from the doorway, “I didn’t know you worked out…”  Nicole was standing in the doorway of the weight room holding a gym bag, her long, honey-blond hair tied up in a ponytail.  Nicole was shorter than Dicey- not really a surprise, since nearly everyone was- and had the kind of beauty that looked as if it was a gift from God but which required, Dicey knew, hours of work to maintain.  Flawless skin, sea-green eyes, and a round, pixie-like face with the most incredible dimples when she smiled or laughed.  Dicey had been deeply envious when she first met her, but Nicole’s depth of character, her capacity to genuinely care about other people so much more than herself, had soon won Dicey over.
“I actually haven’t worked out, really, in a long time,” Dicey explained, “but, after last night, I just sort of felt the need.”
“Well, hey, you want a partner?  I was only going to do a light workout today, but I can spot you, if you want.”
“Sure.  I’m actually lifting kind of heavy, but I wouldn’t mind the company.”
As Nicole went back to the locker room to change, Dicey went back to the bar to add more weight.  Deadlifts, next.  She figured that it wasn’t too unreasonable to double the weight on the bar, especially given how easily she had handled the other two exercises.
Nicole came back into the weight room just as Dicey finished locking on the end caps for the bar.  “That much?” she asked, wonderingly.
“Yeah, I think…” Dicey started, turning.  Nicole in her workout togs was simply breathtaking.  “Oh my…”  Nicole clearly spent quite a bit of time on her body- not building mass, but sculpting her form.  As Dicey looked her up and down, she noted the shapely calves, the tight, toned thighs, and the flat stomach.  Nicole’s physique wasn’t hard and angular, but rather smooth and firm.  That gentle curviness disguised muscles in her arms and legs that were rather larger than average on a girl her size.  Dicey knew that Nicole had done some modeling early in her college career, before meeting Drifter.  Evidently she hadn’t given up on her workout when she gave up on that career.
Noticing Dicey’s obvious interest, Nicole blushed slightly.  “Well, okay, if you think you can handle it, but be careful.  Don’t hurt yourself trying to impress me, or something.”
“Yes, coach,” Dicey smirked, then smoothly lifted the weight clean off the ground to mid-thigh.  After holding it for a second, she squatted back down and set the weight on the ground.  Nicole was about to step in when Dicey lifted it again.  And again.  After about six reps, she was just starting to feel a tingle in her quads.  After eight, the muscles were actually starting to feel warm, but not intensely so.  Dicey seemed to remember that her workouts in school really made her muscles burn, like hot coals inserted under her skin.  This was nowhere near that intense.  She continued for two more, then racked the weight.
“Okay,” Nicole murmured, “that’s impressive.”  She reached over and placed a hand on Dicey’s outer thigh.  That sudden touch startled Dicey much more than she would have expected.  It wasn’t unwelcome- far from it- but it was a complete surprise.  She gasped, amazed at how deeply pleasurable the sensation was.  Suddenly, the hand was gone.
“I’m sorry,” Nicole gasped.  Dicey had virtually turned to a statue when she touched her, her quads huge and unbelievably solid.  Nicole had seen Dicey nearly naked before, in changing rooms when they were getting ready for a show, and she had thought she was sexy as hell, but she had never realized just how muscular she was.  That leg completely filled the leg of the sweatpants she was wearing.  There simply wasn’t room for further expansion.
“No, s’okay,” Dicey managed.  “Feels good…”  She hadn’t realized just how horny she was until now, and suddenly it didn’t matter that Nicole was a woman, or even that Nicole and Drifter were dating, and they were both her friends.  She took a step towards Nicole, but Nicole quickly backed up a step.
“Uh-uh, girlfriend,” Nicole said, arching an eyebrow.  She had never realized that Dicey harbored any lesbian tendencies at all.  Whatever had happened last night must have been intense.  “You’re not going to do something that we’d both regret, later.”
Dicey gathered herself for a moment, panting slightly.  She closed her eyes briefly, and when she opened them, she seemed to be back in control of herself.  “Right.  I have one more exercise to do in this circuit, then I think I’m gonna go for an ice-cold shower.”  She bent down and picked up the bar again, not stopping to change discs on the bar, then smoothly brought it up to her shoulders.  As she lifted, she felt her sports bra get suddenly tighter as her traps expanded into huge wedges connecting her already large shoulders to her thick neck.  Without stopping, she quickly knocked out nine more reps with perfect form, than racked the weight.  She was sweating, now, but it wasn’t from the workout.
Nicole watched her silently, than reached over again, her fingers feather-light against Dicey’s hard flesh.  This time, Dicey wasn’t surprised, and she didn’t freeze, but instead gently flexed her arms and shoulders under Nicole’s tender fingers.  Nicole reached behind Dicey’s head with her left hand and roughly pulled her face down to her own.  “You are so beautiful,” she murmured, then kissed her on her hard on the lips, holding her there for a couple of seconds before letting her go and sauntering off to start her own workout.

[Author]

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