Terrible Chapters

** Harper **

[ She undid her braid, letting the lustrous golden curls fall over her shoulders as she seated herself in his lap. His gaze darkened. Hoisting her into him, he crushed his lips onto hers, and his hand … ]

The blinking cursor stopped moving after the word "hand". Harper willed her fingers to keep typing, and after five minutes, she grunted in failure. What should the character do with his hand anyway?

Damn it. She just couldn't help but get stuck every time writing scenes like this.

Harper slumped into her chair in frustration. Come to think of it, she had been writing this web novel for almost three months now. Things hadn't been nearly as difficult at first — she must've gotten the beginner's luck, as her book picked up quite a decent number of readers as soon as it went online, and the praises they showered her with had given her endless energy to keep writing. Her audience was growing so steadily that she thought the story was going to become a big hit in no time, but sadly, that illusion shattered the day when she got to her very first kissing scene.

She still remembered the comments she got after that update.

[ Ugh, author, what are they doing exactly? ]

[ Is it just me or are those metaphors really weird sounding? >_< ]

[ Gif: dying from rolling eyes. ]

Harper had stared at the notifications for hours that day, her eyes almost burning a pair of holes into her computer screen. The feedback made her want to find somewhere to hide. Even the most positive comment was mortifying:

[ Hmm, maybe I'm a unicorn here, but I kinda like this chapter! It's hilarious in its own way haha. ]

… But she had never meant for that scene to be hilarious! It was supposed to be angsty and touching!

She deleted the entire chapter later that evening, rewrote another one from scratch, and edited it a dozen times before posting. It didn't seem to help much though. She did get fewer discouraging comments, but judging from the declining number of her followers, the silence was probably because too many readers had already dropped her story.

And that was just a kissing scene. Not to mention the more intimate ones that followed after …

Needless to say, the setback had left a permanent mark on Harper's fragile confidence. She hadn't written another lovey dovey act since then, and whenever she tried to, the fiasco of her first attempt would bite back at her, making her words freeze.

Harper tapped her fingers hopelessly on the edge of the keyboard. Maybe she should just make all those scenes fade to black? All her previous chapters had been well received so far. It was only when the romance heated up that things started getting cringy. But she liked the idea of showing the characters strengthening their connections — no pun intended — by spending more personal time together. And truth be told, she kind of enjoyed the feeling while writing about those intimate times …

A short buzz of her phone snapped her out of that thought. Her eyes darted to the phone holder. [ Chelsea: Hey, I got in touch with that editor I told you about. Still interested in meeting up? ]

Editor? Oh, right. Harper had almost forgotten that in her utter dejection a couple of weeks ago, she had whined to her best friend Chelsea about the bleak future awaiting her latest hobby. Chelsea, who was eager to help and happened to know a freelance editor in the area, suggested that she should get the book workshopped. Neither of them had followed up on that conversation since then though, and Harper didn't know Chelsea had been working on it already.

Now, the text rekindled a sparkle of hope in her. This might just be her best chance at saving the book! She wasn't looking for a professional line-by-line edit, but she could certainly use some pointers on how to fix those problematic chapters. If an expert could take a good look at her writing and tell her where exactly to improve, that might just be enough to rescue her cringy content.

So she snatched her phone. [ Yes! Thank you my love!! Does she wanna meet for coffee? I'm free all weekend. ]

The reply came quickly. [ I'll just send you guys each other's phone numbers so you can figure out the details yourselves. Btw, it's a he. ]

… Wait, the editor was a guy?

Harper could've sworn that Chelsea had referred to the editor as a "she" before. But now, it was going to be a guy meeting with her face to face and … discussing how to write scenes like this?

She was still processing that slightly awkward surprise when a new incoming message showed up. [ His name is Eli Sterling. Here's his number. ]

Eli Sterling …

Eli Sterling?!!