The First Night with the Duke

**Moral lesson: Unless one can do better, maybe skip the nasty comments** This is a story about a reader who went after an author because the story did not go the way she wanted. She hated how it progressed, hated how it ended, and decided it was perfectly fine to throw around rude comments in public. Hiding behind that old excuse of "we're entitled to our opinion", but the message in this story was pretty clear: "If it's really that easy, then write and produce something better." There is a massive gap between criticism that helps and comments that just attack. Some authors speak out, many just stay quiet. Some do not even bother reading feedback anymore. And there will always be those who lose heart, those who stop writing, those who even lose their jobs—because of words meant to hurt, not help. This story was written for those types of readers. The main character? A woman who decided to let loose an ugly comment. Unfortunately for her, the author fought back. She was challenged to rewrite the story. Not just rewrite it—rewrite it well enough to save her life. She tried. Only to end up dying by execution. In the end, the author gave her one last option: write a proper ending using only three sentences, to save yourself from execution. After wasting hours trying to pull off something epic, what did she come up with? A bee. A ridiculous bee. Her "genius" twist boiled down to the most random thing imaginable—a bee. In fairness, despite almost dying and her ridiculous bee, she actually came up with a better version of the story she trashed. One that worked, nonsense twist and all. She learnt her lesson. Sometimes it is not about liking or hating a story. Sometimes it is about understanding that writing is never as easy as it looks. Not every twist will be loved, not every ending will satisfy. And attacking someone for it helps no one. The question is—did you learn the lesson?