You know what I really like this story! I can relate to it a lot cause I have a bit of a crush on this girl who's in band with me and she's a drummer too... she has a bit of an attitude as well so this is perfect! I really like this story keep it up!

This was an extremely enjoyable read. Your story doesn't read like an inexperienced author wrote it, you're well above that. I also loved the storyline. You managed to have a story with a coma patient without writing a soap opera! All joking aside though, I loved the story, especially A.J.'s past and how she turned it into a musical. While I'm not much of a poetry fan, I liked that the actual script was there. All too often I see people write about artistic things their characters have made, but there's no detail to it and it shows that the author didn't think it through. In a way, that becomes a cardboard character crippling the story, in my opinion. Here, I don't feel like there's huge chunks of the musical A.J. wrote missing, it feels like a complete idea, which is good because the majority of your story is built around the musical.

Both of your characters are strong, but Violet seems to get a bit out-shown by A.J. A.J. has more back story, more emotional struggle, and ultimately more of an identity than Violet because of it. I would've liked to see more about the bad boyfriend and more of her emotional struggle with being attracted to A.J. before the almost-kiss. I find it a bit hard to believe that she never addresses her feelings or is even aware of them before the almost-kiss. I think this would be less of a problem if you didn't have Violet as a narrator. This is just my opinion, but I got the feeling throughout the work that the real main character was A.J. It felt like she was not only the focus of the work, but that you personally favor her as an author. The dual-narration you use suggests that the two should share an equal spotlight and that you meant for them to share in focus equally, but in actuality I think it's unbalanced.

You give yourself a great opportunity with the dual-narration, but I don't think you take enough advantage of it. I often felt that the switches between narrators, especially as often as they came, was unnecessary because I wasn't learning anything that I couldn't have with the other narrator. It almost seemed as if your switches were based on who the focus of the conversation was, and it felt unnecessary because I could have gotten the same information out of the event from either narrator. Using the first person point of view gives you the opportunity to tell the reader what's going on inside the character that isn't being expressed externally. Right now, you're very dialogue-driven. The story could be rewritten in the third person and still give the audience the same experience, with few exceptions. If you choose to revise, I think it wouldn't hurt to consider making some of the character's struggles a bit more internal, or showing some of the internal struggles that you don't by keeping your focus on dialogue.

HOWEVER, this is merely a stylistic choice and a very mild problem within the work. I'm no professional editor, so take my criticism with a grain of salt.

I have enjoyed reading your story so far and I plan to give you an actual review at the end but I just have one little comment that I wanted to give about this chapter before I forgot:

I'm no great expert on the matter, but I've hung a few lights in my time and I've never had to climb or descend ropes to do it. In my limited experience, there's a pulley system (they fly system) on one side of the stage and it lowers and raises various bars held parallel to the stage floor (batons). When you are working on lights, you just lower the baton and do it more or less on ground level. And with the lights above the audience you go up into the catwalk to work on them, putting you on their level. The only other instance I can think of that would have a different set up is a black box theatre, but because the ceiling is so low in a black box, you generally just use a ladder.

Again, I'm no expert. I just work tech at my local theatre. If you've happened upon a theatre where they do it that way, then I'm jealous! It sounds like fun. After all, an entrance by sliding expertly down a rope is much more dashing than one where you duck under a bar. :)

Where's Waldo? Tehe sorry I just had to =]

I wonder if I'm the only straight girl to love this.
Anywho, despite the few errors here and there, this was absolutely beautiful.

In fact, I think it's so brilliant that you should think of re-working it into a novel. I'd buy 100 copies. [And I rarely think that of a story.]

I really, really enjoyed this. It was humorous, artistic, and romantic. Very realistic, and absolutely marvelous.
xx

I just wanted to pass along my heart felt congratulations on your writing an excellent story. It can make you laugh and it can make you cry and anything in between on the emotional scale of life. I honestly can't write enough thanks, all I can give is a Thank You from the bottom of my heart. Good luck where ever you may need it, and thanks once again.

~ Marquel

This was an amazing story... Really long, which is always nice. And I'm afraid of going down stairs, too!

I must say this had to be one of the best stories I think I've read on this site, making me quite happy I seem to have 2 other stories by you open waiting to be read.

(My apologies on how short this is, my cat is quite unhappy that I've stopped petting him.)

Okay. I cried. I don't cry for books. Well, I did for New Moon, but that's a different story. Anyways. This was THE PERFECT love story. I'm adding this to my favorites and you as a favorite author. This was amazing. I don't even know how to describe it. It was just perfect. Great work. Only thing that got confusing is when you'd change P.O.V.s and wouldn't let on right away as to who the person talking/thinking was. Other than that, I loved the story line, the dialogue/description ratio was great, the dialogue and description was awesome, and over all (in case I haven't said it enough) I loved this story. (: I think the reason why I like it so much is because I'm bisexual, so I could really relate to the story and the love that they feel for one another. There have been two girls that I've truly fallen in love with, one of them hates me and doesn't want to remember me, and the other is still my best friend. Sorry. Getting kinda personal. But this story struck me so much that I feel like I have to get personal. You know what? If you want, my email is in my profile, under the "About Moi" section, email me if you wish, we could talk, chat about your work. Whatever, I don't care, either way, I loved this story. (:

Wow. Just, wow. This story was excellent, and as others have pointed out, there are some minor grammar errors. What I truly like is how A.J. and Violet don't lose their personalities over the course of five years, And how it ends with A.J.'s proposal, genius in it's own right. Music to my Ears, excellent read, a story that I'll read again.

This story is absolutley adorable. I love it, and am glad it had a happy ending ;)

Amazing... really.

As others have pointed out there are a few minor errors with
grammar, but you are talented enough on the whole that that becomes irrelevant.

Imagery is strong and realistic; the characters are believable,
and i didn't want it to end.

The ending was greatly written also, with the characters keeping their personalities even years after the main story was set, which added a nice touch.

Dramatic, believable and definitely worth reading ;]


xN

Nice ending :D And I really liked your story! I've never realized the consequences of outing oneself as gay could go as far as being beaten up. And I loved how AJ used to call Violet strings. And the ending was very funny too xD

Yep, yep. Definitely awesome. ^^ Loved the whole damn story! :D Great job!

Ow... Lot's of cheesy happiness at the end!
More seriously, I really liked your story. It's more original than most of the lesbian romance stories hanging out on FictionPress, and it's well written. A few typos though.