Calendar Boys: March - Kiss Me by Jamie Craig

There's an art to short story writing. I think it's much harder than writing a novel, because a short story has such a limited space to introduce the characters and the conflict and then create a satisfying resolution. It requires a specific economy of vision and language that's hard to carry off.

Kiss Me does not carry it off.

First—and most importantly—there's no conflict. There could've been conflict. There was a set-up made for conflict—a relatively insecure photographer dating a porn star who wants a real relationship—but Craig didn't follow up on her set-up, instead penning the couple's fairly uneventful dates, where their biggest 'problem' is the unlikeable Mal's case of blue-balls when Alejandro won't put out until the third date!

Mal's insecurity about Alejandro and Alejandro's career comes briefly into play a few pages from the end—too late to create any tension or do much good—but is resolved quickly by Alejandro's heartfelt reassurances.

Which leads into my next problem: lack of realism. Okay, the entire set-up of the gorgeous photographer and the equally gorgeous porn star isn't one that reeks of realism. But. Within the boundaries of your set up, you still need to create an acceptable level of realism for your reader to swallow the tale you want to tell. A mistake that Craig makes—and one that is all too common in the genre, imo, is the lack of realism inherent in the concept of immediate trust/total communication.

Mal and Alejandro are immediately open to each other, pretty much on first contact. They look at each other and know how the other is feeling, know that the other is just as into him as he is to them. They verbally pour out their feelings to each other and confess how no one has ever made them feel like this before…pretty much on first meeting.

…and my willing suspension of disbelief comes to a crashing halt.

Real relationships are more tangled than that, more uncertain. By the time we are adults, our scars have taught us to censor what we say and to withhold total trust until said trust is earned. We might think we've glimpsed our soulmate across a crowded room, but we don't say so on first meeting…unless we want the object of our desire to think we're psycho. And if we're on the receiving end of such a declaration after first meeting…we're likely to think something is functionally wrong with the other person, up to and including psychosis.

More than that, from a writing standpoint, it's easy, lazy writing. Communication is a negotiation, it's a slow process of learning a similar but foreign language as we study the vagaries of how our partner does—or doesn't—communicate. Miscommunication is inevitable (and a good source of conflict/tension) and so when the two main characters are openly, unguardedly communicating and in total sync with each other, especially on short acquaintance, it throws me out of the story. Because relationships just ain't that easy.

Another problem I had was with characterization. Alejandro and Mal read too much alike. Though I read the story in epub format, the natural formatting of the story itself meant that there were times I wasn't sure who was talking, their voices too similar to tell them apart. (it probably didn't help that I started disinterestedly skimming about halfway through, but it was a problem before then) Other than their physical appearance, there wasn't a lot to distinguish them otherwise, either, and I felt through much of the story that Craig herself couldn't make up her mind how to characterize them—Mal, in particular.

Initially, Mal is presented to us as relatively shy and uncertain, amazed that someone as gorgeous as Alejandro would be interested in him. Later, he comes off as toppy and aggressive, driving the relationship and always pushing Alejandro for more. Then, toward the end, his uncertainty surfaces again, just in time for Alejandro to soothe it away. Too, even the presentation of his job as a photographer seems inconsistent and indecisive—first he's struggling and just starting out, then he's actually on the cusp of success and expanding his business into other states…it feels all over the place and ill thought-out.

The greatest disappointment for me is that the story did have a lot of potentiality. I liked the dynamics that put the big, buff porn star as the physical bottom of the relationship and I would've been interested in how that played with a toppy Mal if he hadn't also come off as kind of a jerk (the tantrum in the parking lot when Alejandro didn't put out on the second date REALLY turned med off). Alejandro as a successful, moderately famous porn star and Mal as a just-starting-out, 'average' guy had a lot of potential to it, from the issues of infidelity (or perceived infidelity), an income disparity, experience disparity, etc. The set up was rife with conflict threads Craig could have picked up and it was a disappointment that she didn't choose to go with any of them.

Overall, I was just disappointed, period.