BEA Story Contest 2000: Judges' Comments

Some of the best character portrayal in this batch of stories. Good characters, likable. Good story. One of the more intriguing BE mechanisms I've seen -- the most interesting one in the Contest stories. Lori's "apology" scene could've been written better, though -- the dialog seemed a little strained. I love the idea of good deeds reversing the process, but just apologizing doesn't seem like enough -- though maybe it doesn't matter if they're sorry, as long as Grace feels good. Nice to see the open-ended conclusion -- she isn't cured, just in a state of equilibrium. It's not entirely clear why the well grants her wish this way, unless it really likes big breasts itself... The sex scene was nice and romantic.

Score: 24

Of all the stories submitted, I think this is the one that broke the most ground as far as developing its characters and telling a meaningful story. The theme is love, and that is one that is rarely touched on in this genre. I was very pleased with how the author made breast expansion an integral part of the story and also used it to complement the main character. The only thing that held this story back from becoming my favorite is that the writing voice occasionally slips up. In some cases, characters who were supposed have a very innocent personality would belt out an expletive. Other times, the whole story would degrade into what I've affectionately labeled "cornball mode" - an example being the sappy attempt at humor during the story's only sex scene or the nerdy character unexpectedly opening up a can of whoop-ass. I also was a little disappointed with the fate of the story's villain, Rachel. She didn't seem like such a bad person to me. But still, I couldn't hold the story back. Its tale of love and coming of age hit a soft spot in my heart.

Score: 20

There's an oddly naÔve main character in this story. Even down on the farm she's surely heard of boob jobs. But maybe the author has shared the same sheltered upbringing if he can talk of girls having 'double letters in their bra size'. The characters are 2-D, the geeks too geeky, the bitches too bitchy. And the editing is downright careless. The story isn't the worst interpretation of this theme.

Score: 12

As close to perfect as this contest produced, I thought. Wonderful, fully-fleshed characters, interesting gimmick, clever and multifaceted plot, nice mild twist on both the gimmick and the ending. The only reason I knocked a point off the plot score was I felt it dragged a bit in places -- basically, the story could have been trimmed by a thousand or so words and come out the better for it. Still, quite a feat, and quite an excellent story.

Score: 24

None of these stories are ever going to be 'believable', but this one brings instant suspension of disbelief. The girls are fun, their reaction to their acquisition of huge breasts seems authentic, and the description is nicely done.

Score: 22

Interesting choice of setting. Some very nice description, both of breasts and of the Western setting. Nice period details (don't know how accurate, but nice). I really like the characters. Downside -- the whole saloon scene was a little implausible for the time period. Otherwise, a good story!

Score: 22

Good characters, but the plot seems a bit plain. While it's true this category's the least specific, that doesn't mean the story has to be nothing but girls meeting and talking about their boobs. On the other hand, the descriptions are great. On another hand, the epilogue is sort of strange/creepy - why end with a little girl finding the bottle? Still, fantastic technical writing skills and a solid actual story -- I guess I'm just wistful that there wasn't more direct action.

Score: 20

Man, what a difficult review this is. This story reads well, but when I got through reading it I just couldn't find a lot to comment on. The characters go about their daily lives, their breasts getting bigger, but nothing exciting or interesting ever happens. I was reduced to writing down comments like, "I wonder if the author used a thesaurus." or, "It slipped out of the old, western setting once or twice." Breast expansion stories shouldn't be this mundane.

Score: 12

One for the lovers of larger-than-life police drama, the plot works nicely although I don't find the characters particularly engaging.

Score: 18

One of the sweeter stories submitted in the contest. The protagonist is one of the best-fleshed-out women in the stories. Something about being a brand-new cop on your first day -- the stress and "wanna look good" feelings really come through well.

Score: 20

Very nice overall. Nice humor in the shower scene. Some nice human touches in the squadroom. I like how horny she gets even before she grows. Also, nice epilogue to round things out. Only real objection is the slim nature of the narrative.
Score: 19

I liked this story for completely selfish reasons - the breast expansion scenes excited me. I love a good story where a woman in a dominating position slowly loses her control because of her expanding breasts. I found myself eagerly anticipating the growth scenes. I congratulate this author for being able to understand and capture one of the many different fundamental motives behind the breast expansion genre.

Score: 18

Busy little story with a lot going on but it seems to lack focus somehow. It left me feeling nothing at the end of it.

Score: 13

The plot was logical and colorful and held together quite well. It even wrapped up fairly nicely, although the number of "what happened to" paragraphs at the end became a bit overwhelming. The characters were colorful, unique, and well-developed, though we could have used just a touch more flavor on the various "enemies" and the others affected, such as the two boys at the end. Overall, quite good.

Score: 20

Pretty damn good, at least for my tastes. The Arthur/Merlin thing was a little cheesy, but you have to have some sort of explanation, I guess. Nice building of action -- small changes at home, bigger changes at the mall, then an "orgy" of changes at the party. Very cute angle -- to have the wisher never noticing that her wishes were being granted! I had gotten to like the main characters so much that I was actually disappointed when their own breasts grew to gigantic proportions -- it seemed out of keeping with their characters. Note on the "Meanwhile" epilogue -- I don't think it's really necessary, and adds tedious length to a story that should have just ended without it.

Score: 22

The plot is not overly complex and the breast expansion isn't all that original, but something about this story grabbed my attention and wouldn't let go. I suppose it could just be absurdness of it all - the fact that reality is changing around the two main characters and they're stuck being passive observers. It's hilarious, actually. When Milly made her best friend a stunt driver, I almost fell out of my seat. I was momentarily saddened when the two main girls' breasts expanded, but I suppose it's just a testament to how well the characters were written. Lots of fun to read.

Score: 20

Just for a change, the British police, a British policewoman with nipples called Jezebel and Delilah. A promising start! Wow, talk about pearls before swine. This author is wasting his or her time writing stuff like this for free membership of BEA. Pity it's a Mind Control story, I'd like to have seen this skill turned loose on one of the other plot themes. A keeper.

Score: 22

I had a hard time placing this story because its events are so scattered about. Though solid, the plot jumps around quite a bit and doesn't ever totally settle into a comfortable mode for reading. However, I was intrigued by the unique method of breast expansion, and I found myself inexplicably being drawn into the author's world. The characters are much more serious than I'm used to, and there seems to be an underlying moral the author is trying to hint at but never quite reveals. Advanced writing, for sure.

Score: 17

Woof. There are times when a big story gets so big it just overwhelms you. Well, maybe not you, but me. For instance, although I like the ideas, Robert Silverberg's sci-fi stories leave me cold - I find myself barely making it through them since I have to read so much to get anywhere. This one struck me the same way. Excellent writing (hard to dispute that), but I found myself fighting the urge to just give up reading it. It took so long to get where it was going, and it kept detouring down all these blind alleys. The details kept overwhelming me, and while I normally relish details, in this tale they seemed to be everywhere. Still, I can't in good conscience take away too many points, because this is too good a story overall. The fact that I have an ailment which prevents me from reading it in the proper manner is my fault. :-)

Score: 18

Was Vandana's real name Moi Spoo Si? :-) A good adventure yarn overall. Well told; I like the plot. I think in the first part of the story you need to make the flashbacks a little more distinguishable from the main narrative -- it was difficult to work out, at first, when the various bits were taking place. Some things gave me a little difficulty: her story of finding the Hjetari (Hetarae?) seemed like they were far to easy to find (her long story was cut a bit too short); Michael's behavior after capture (being remorseful) seemed out of character from what we'd seen of him earlier, even if it was a deception. Vendana's character seemed a bit less-justified than the other characters. A fair amount of BE, though sketchily described. The idea for the "detonator" near the end was original.

Score: 17

Bonus plot point for clever mystery format. Solid writing and characterization - a smile here and there as well. Good work.

Score: 21

Skips along nicely: engaging characters and snatches of humour ã it's quite a fun read.

Score: 17

My gods -- a plot where you're not sure what's going to happen next! That's a fair rarity. Love the plot twists. The BE descriptions were good. A few problems -- it got a bit too talky at the end where Rebecca had to explain everything that was going on. Also, as whole this isn't a very deep story, even for this place -- anything that didn't help move the plot along was left out.

Score: 21

I know this story was all in good fun, but I just never quite bought on to its unique brand of humor. The character names are so ridiculous that, well, they suck. The dialogue just kept getting worse and worse as the story progressed. At several points, it completely broke down and the characters just sat there and blabbed out the entire plot, as if the readers hadn't been paying attention or couldn't quite figure it out for themselves. The whole thing just felt... silly. It would have been better if it didn't lead the reader by the hand so much. Still, there was a good amount of BE.

Score: 13

Wordcraft sounds uncomfortably like a shareware program. Preparation should be more than spell-checking: 'itching-powered'! The characters are drawn with Plato's customary whimsy but there always seem to be too many of them. And ten-foot tall women do nothing for me personally.

Score: 12

A good fantasy story. Several cute things about it. Some nice descriptions of Wydda's BE. Great segue into a B plot, which dovetailed nicely with the first part. Definitely like the epilogue -- a nice idea that needs a BE story all its own. The style's a little rough, a few grammar mistakes -- but nothing too distracting.

Score: 19

Fairly interesting plotline, but the characters are a bit unreal-feeling. As a whole, the story doesn't quite ring true as a straight fantasy, with the odd "panties unlock the book" bit, and the lists of sword-and-sorcery names.

Score: 17

How do you weigh the merits of a well-written story against a lack of any kind of pleasure factor? It's not an easy decision, and I've spent the past month worrying if I would make the right one when it came time to put scores to paper. Luckily for the author, I enjoyed this story, and I'm not just saying that. From the very first paragraph, I knew I was reading a work of higher quality. The characters reached out to me with their cute names, witty dialogues, and unique personalities. Somehow, everything just clicked together and suddenly I wasn't just reading a breast expansion story - I was simply reading a good story that could stand on it's own. But there are also some nice descriptions of breasts here, some of the better ones in the contest if you ask me. I thought this story was a wonderful balance of creativity, style, and execution. Oh, and the fact that it has a dragon in it helps too. Dragons are cool.

Score: 23

Overall, pretty good. I appreciate the "jealousy" theme, and the general plot was well thought out and told. The story overall was quite gentle, and I especially appreciate the talking people did, and in a natural sort of way. Still, when all is said and done, not a whole heck of a lot happened - Dianna grew big breasts to compete with Jeri for Harold's affections. I suppose that's enough, but it felt somewhat unfulfilling when I finished. Having an old wizard giggle at one point threw me, too - the characterizations sometimes felt a bit off. A few odd word combinations or phrases also caught my eye and jerked me out of the tale, and made me drop the story a few points.

Score: 19

A nice romantic fantasy story. Could have used a little more development on the rival girl -- she didn't seem entirely like a villain, and could have been made even more sympathetic. And while the lead was a person who managed to stay on the side of 'good', she still had some questionable ethics (these are compliments! I don't like black-and-white characters). Although the BE was off-camera, the results are well-described. Some of the best characters in the Contest. Got a bit talky near the end, but it wasn't too bad.

Score: 19

Nicer people and dialogue in this one. The description of the breasts and Dianna's dealing with her increased size is good. There is a convincing love-triangle but it isn't fully exploited.

Score: 19

I don't know why it bothers me so much, but the title doesn't fit this story at all. Something like Harold's Seduction would have made more sense. Anyway, the story itself reads pretty well, but it's extremely slow going and the main character spends way too much time playing dress up. The breast play was pretty good, but then there's no ending. What a let down.

Score: 12

This author has created quite an interesting story world, which seems to be a tribute to one of my favorite Japanese mangas - Ranma 1/2. The magic school setting works amazingly well here, and the characters seem to belong to it. Interestingly, I found myself admiring the main character in particular for the simple fact that she's got balls! The writing in general seems very professional, and except for a few muddled sentences, I thought the author handled himself very well. Story structure is very solid, and the plot seems to have been planned out in advance. The big drawback to this story is that the transformation scenes are largely off-topic all the way up until the ending. On top of that, it feels like the sex scenes were written using the famous "cookie cutter" method, rehashing cliched scenes that I've seen a million times before. But for some reason, the ending still surprised and pleased me. Looking back over it, I thought this was one of the more creative renditions of this particular plot line.

Score: 19

Not a bad story, but I almost disqualified it for lack of BE until the last part. The magic system is nicely developed. Technical detail -- I think that in the section where the author talks about a 'bustle', I think he actually meant 'corset' or possibly 'bustier'. This is less of a BE story and more of a multi-purpose Transformation story that has some BE in it. On the other hand, the descriptions of her breasts in the third part of the story were nicely done.
Score: 18

Nice story which gets a bonus plot point for following a traditional "three tries" story format. Believable traditional fantasy characters, including the three guys she tries to attract, good logical plot construction, nice ending. Overall, a solid tale.

Score: 20

It must be the Magick Medium that makes some people tend to write in pompous sentences. Any character, no matter how charming, has a struggle to rise above this kind of writing. If the girls themselves aren't either sexy or fun, they won't make it. Crystalynne is neither.

Score: 12

One of those magic pens again, and more burping. Tits full of wind don't appeal to me, however pretty they look. I like the major character but unfortunately she's the cat.

Score: 14

A very nice, inventive story. Short, but it feels like the right length for this particular tale -- but I would like to see more of this situation and these characters in a future story. The story wasn't exactly in line with the Contest storyline, but close enough. Perhaps a little too much from the cat's POV.

Score: 22

Clever and unique plotting, I especially liked the story-within-a-story. The characters take backseat to the style and ambiance, though, which leaves the story feeling like cotton candy - sweet and fluffy, but light and insubstantial.

Score: 16

I think I like this story, but I'm not sure. There were times where I was enjoying it and other times where it was all I could do to keep going. You see, it's all about the cat. She totally steals the show, and it makes the rest of the story terribly uninteresting by comparison.

Score: 14

Nice justification in the third paragraph -- that everything she's said has been untrue, so she wishes everything she says will be true. I like the unusual fact that the character actually worries about her wishes going wrong. And then, despite all her caution, she gets trapped by DST!

Score: 16

This one has a nice warm feel to it. Monkey's Paw stories always need a twist and there aren't any new twists left, but it's just pleasing and happy.

Score: 19

This story frustrated me so much. The character gets a day to have anything she wants, but she can't wish for anything because she thinks there's going to be these awful consequences. And finally, when the girl does make a bunch of wishes, the story just ends without telling us any of the bad stuff that happened. Where's the follow-through?

Score: 9

The cleverest story in this category, since it turns the specified plotline on its ear, while technically following it to the letter. I got a chuckle out of the girl not using her power for fear of the Monkey's Paw effect. The Daylight Savings Time ploy at the end was almost too cute, straining credulity to the point where I nearly dropped a point off the plot score, but I figured that I could handle that bit of suspension of disbelief, and the rest of the tale was excellently told.

Score: 21

Another great one in this category. I thought the characters were well done, and the BE scenes are very nicely done. Like the "group" ("grope"!) BE. Cute ending, too. Good sex scenes.

Score: 20

A lot of numbers and letters sprinkled around but much less in the way of description. The bog-standard set of teenage girls.

Score: 13

OK - I admit it. The plot right away suckered me in. I like the idea of having nutrient baths and puberty drugs being combined by a girl in university science classes. About time a girl went around inventing big breast formulae. Cute characters, even though I could guess that Katie was gonna do what she did. Still, it was fun and fluffy, so good job. Some typos and missing words ("Can we it again") dropped a few points off this one, though.

Score: 19

It seems to me that this story moved too slowly. There isn't much of a plot to it, and what little is there takes forever to develop. I know that's not always a necessity, but what with most of the girls being largely indistinguishable from one another, this story needed a good kick in the butt to get it moving. It does eventually pick up, but by then I was kind of tired, the end result giving me an overall feeling of indifference. I thought the technical aspects of the writing were pretty good though.

Score: 13

Modern times again, and another nice young witch. Are people modelling their witches on shaggable girls like Buffy? This one's sexier than some others.

Score: 18

The computerized-spells idea was good, though the Napster references will date the story (like that matters!). I definitely like the long drawn-out BE, it's very well described. But on the whole, the story is a little too short.
Score: 14

Funny author name. You know, sometimes an author can use an interesting method or device to turn an otherwise average story into something special. For this story, it was the cool method of casting spells, which combined a goofy computer-like interface with traditional spell casting. With a little bit of creativity, this story managed to make me smile a few times with its references to pop-culture and computer jargon. And I've always loved the idea of nipples that could cut through glass. ;) The characters are a bit cliché.

Score: 18

I liked some of the plot points, like downloading beta spells over the Internet -- but when all is said and done, not much actually happens in the story. Cassie downloads a spell, casts it, her breasts get huge, she masturbates until Sylvia comes back, Sylvia joins in. Not much chance for the characters or dialogue to shine through, so I can't give this too many points.

Score: 15

Quite heavy reliance on bra sizes, but backed up with nicely varied description. Plausibility is OK within certain limitations of timescale, characters are more than 2-dimensional. The girl outgrows the writer's descriptive powers towards the end.

Score: 19

Kind of an 'ideal woman' isn't she? A nice romantic story. The BE is slow, but that makes room for a lot of breast-play along the way.
Score: 18

The best compliment for the plot: until she got bigger than triple-D, I'd forgotten what plotline this was for. Well-constructed, mellow and "realistic" plotline. Nice characters, though the protagonist doesn't seem to change much over the months. Just enough typos and grammatical bugs to jerk me out of the story a few times, alas.

Score: 20

Oh man, this story creeped me out. Girls like this don't exist. And where the hell is her boyfriend? I kept waiting for him to show up and beat the snot out this little loser who's sleeping around with his girlfriend. I don't like this at all. Well okay, the breast scenes are nice. But everything else is the pits.

Score: 7

Remoteness from the characters in the early stages: I would happily not have progressed beyond the Prologue. Uncertainty throughout about tenses which should have been rooted out in the preparation. Another of those unconvincing Scots accents. Accents aren't easy; they always come across as comic and phonetic rendering has to be used sparingly and only for effect. All those scrolls and spells made me want to skim through the story in search of tits.

Score: 10

Well, it's hard to describe this story as anything other than "epic". Still, I got so involved in reading the overarching story and the comings and goings and the deep dark doings that I lost track of the goal entirely. Overall, I was pretty impressed, hence the fairly high score. But when it ended, I was left... disappointed, somehow. Unfulfilled.

Score: 19

You know, there's only a few BE stories I've ever read that I think are good enough to be "mainstream" -- and this is one of them. A darn good story, and another one that I'd really like to see a sequel to. On the other hand, this story only barely qualifies for this contest -- the BE is limited to one sentence, and not a very good one at that. The shapeshifting spells were a standard opportunity to do some BE, but instead we were treated to a weight-gain... though storywise, it worked pretty well. Granted, there are some very nice descriptions of her breast-related problems with clothing. The magic-system details are nice, though I admit to having never liked AD&D's system of magic. Technically speaking, there were a few problems with repetition and "spellcheck curse" ("pearls of the future"?). Nice time-travel plot, but I'm not entirely sure that the temporal paradox was adequately explained -- how did Anaiya's past self know to expect Nargona's arrival from the future?

Score: 22

I think this story was trying so hard to be epic, it wound up overextending its bounds. The author spent almost the entire story trying to develop the character from the ground up - dealing with her repressed memories, teaching her how to cast spells, and having her experiment and learn new spells. By comparison, all of the other characters, especially the main villain, seemed severely underdeveloped - we got almost no time learning about her own dark motivations. Another thing I noticed was that while the writing started out pretty decent, it slowly degenerated so that by the time it reached the final climactic battle it was just one sloppy mess. Most disappointing of all was that this story failed to do what it should have been doing from the start - concentrating on breasts. It seemed like such a sure thing too, considering the main character starts out with such a nice, large pair.

Score: 13

This is nice; the big girls just keep on coming, and the two main characters are still getting bigger and bigger when it ends, leaving you wanting more. What is it about this story: whatever the reason for the growth I've forgotten it; the description isn't especially vivid, yet it gets the point across; the girls are ordinary enough, yet they seem to be alive.

Score: 18

May be the best of this category. I like the main character, and there was good character development. Some nice humorous touches. There was one technical problem on page 9 where two paragraphs said exactly the same thing but with different words. Nice breast descriptions. A bit unusual that the story ends before the growth has really gotten out of control, but it does end with a nice sense of anticipation on the girls' part (good for readers who like to fantasize about what happens after a story ends).

Score: 20

The characters are great - I really felt for Wendy and Trish, and their relationship is wonderful. But the story barely got going when it stopped with "end of part 1". Man, we'd barely gotten going! I'd like to know what the heck is going on, who or what is doing it, how far Wendy and Trish are gonna go, and what else is up. Talk about leaving you hanging...

Score: 15

Aww man. I got so disappointed when I found out there wasn't an ending, I couldn't even bring myself to write comments about this story. I was just getting into it too.

Score: 9

A nice, different take on the storyline. Cute ending! I have technical problems with one paragraph -- Shakespeare wrote in Modern English, not Old English!
Score: 14

A little more charm from Cyndi here, but not much. And I found the pay-off line at the end cringe-making. I for one would find no enjoyment in a get-together with the members of BEA!

Score: 14

A quicky tale of a girl who uses a spell she doesn't fully understand, and ends up transforming into whatever the men who look at her want. Well constructed, but nothing remarkable in the plot - though the cute self-referential bit at the end earns an extra plot point from me (how many stories do we readers literally appear in?). Unfortunately, the people in the story end up shortchanged characterization-wise; even the star doesn't get much development except in her bust. Short and to the point.

Score: 18

This story got off to such a nice start; I was disappointed to find out that it was only a tribute to the contest. It's a real shame too, because I was enjoying this story much more than the author's other two stories in the contest. The main character is so cool with her winning attitude, immediately interesting and admirable. The whole magic system struck me as very creative. I know the idea of a woman's body rapidly changing to fit men's desires has been done many times before, but I never expected it would be so awesome in a club setting like this. This was one of the neatest transformation sequences I've ever seen. Alas, it was short lived though, as the story abruptly ended in what seemed more like a cruel joke than anything else. If this story would've lasted longer and had a bit more closure, it could've gotten a much higher score.

Score: 16

AB doesn't write nearly enough stories. Then when he does, you tend to remember the things you like least about them: the fatiguing staccato run-on sentences, the brooding intensity and, in this one, the unfeasibly fast growth. Unconvincing in parts, for me. But the characters, for all their gloomy demeanour, are more rounded than some others.

Score: 14

This is another one of those stories that scored high simply because it appealed to the right side of my brain. The writing is terribly simplistic and the story itself makes absolutely no sense. Still, I had a heck of a lot of fun reading this. A wacky mix of pop-culture and a complete disregard for structure gave it that little extra punch that it needed. Not a whole lot of breast expansion, but whatever.

Score: 15

As soon as I heard "Patty" and "Lane household", I chuckled. Nothing like an homage to a classic television show to get me to smile. The characterization was excellent throughout, even if Daniel is a total doofus (but then, he was one in the show, too). Still, when all is said and done the story is really pretty silly. It doesn't feel like a sexy episode of the Patty Duke Show - it feels like an episode of Gilligan's Island or some other farce. So I had to knock a few points off for plot holes, and then a few for some regrettable editing/spelling errors. Still, quite a bit of fun, even if it is silly fun.

Score: 18

I love the scene where Cathy stares down the crowd by the cab. I don't think Patty's character was explained nearly well enough. There's not a whole lot of 'story' here, for its length. The BE is a bit under-described. Too many unanswered questions. What happened to compensating for the side effects? Where on earth did "Logic Center" come from?? The story contained interesting ideas, but not very well worked out.

Score: 14

In this category, everything seems to boil down to the credibility of the reasons behind the growth of the characters. The characterisation is no more skilful than in any of the other stories, and the story fails particularly either to entertain or to arouse.

Score: 13

The final explanation (a league of evil) was rather corny. The BE was a little skimpy. The plot of hiding the BE mechanism in an obscure contract provision was cleverly done, including the misleading bit where they found an outdated copy of the regulations.

Score: 14

This story has all the makings of a late night, thriller B-movie. The characters are unrealistic and have practically zero personality. The dialogue often is silly and unbelievable. And the plot twist at the end had me rolling my eyes. Not much about breasts either.

Score: 13

Again, quite clever plotting keeps us guessing, even though we know someone's going to be getting a bigger rack pretty soon... The characterization is a bit weak, though. I really liked the plot device, and the macguffin partway through. I'm a sucker for "puzzle mysteries" like this one, and adding BE to the mix adds some decent amount of spice. Despite the general medium-level writing, I got a kick out of this one.

Score: 21

I like the main character -- a girl struggling against encroaching bimbohood.

Score: 16

Eeek! Who ever suggested green on black was supposed to be more readable? (I read the HTML source, it was easier on the eyes!) Bimbo characters are OK but plot seems obscure and breast description is lacking. Some fun, nevertheless.

Score: 16

Chilling. Reminds me "Flowers For Algernon" in that way, and that sort of "knowing you're becoming dumber" thing has always scared the living shit out of me. Still, that doesn't mean I don't like it - a good horror story gets kudos as well, and this was quite a horror story to my mind: losing the woman you love to the sex kitten she partially becomes. Hoping you can bring her back. Yow.

Score: 17

This sad look into the male psyche was sort of depressing for me, and it kept me in such a somber mood I couldn't enjoy the story. I'd hate to live in a world where this actually happened to all the women. I wish the author had spent more time looking at the positive aspects of what was happening around the town instead of taking the thriller-style, zombies approach. The prison scenes were very unsettling. I like my fantasy girls with a little more "up top", please.

Score: 12

British again, and lots of those private little references to British TV. A less powerful plot than Penny, and the characters not so strong. Somehow it feels like half a story but I'm not sure which half has been left out.

Score: 16

Cute that she named her vibrator, like men name their penises. A nice story, though nothing spectacular. The ending came a bit abruptly, as if there could have been more buildup. Why could her boss take being yelled at, but not her, when they were both at the same "stage"?

Score: 14

Interesting characters, but I just couldn't get into the story very much. Somehow, it seemed to just drag. Big tits. Lactation. Hum. I'm not going to be able to give very good comments on this story, I'm afraid, but it just didn't get me going, either in terms of excitement or in terms of fun story reading.

Score: 15

I don't have a whole lot to say about this story. The writing is only average at best, and there's not a whole lot of breast expansion either. In fact, the only notable thing I can say is that the best character is Arnold, the vibrator. But really, he does get to have so much fun. ;)

Score: 14

This was another one of those stories that simply failed to impress me. The main character struck me as a little over-imaginative and selfish. And there were a whole bunch of characters who where introduced but then never used. The lackluster writing hurt it, but the ending was decent I guess.

Score: 13

Once Molly explained the family history, the rest was entirely too predictable -- needed a surprise somewhere (more of a surprise than her size). The lesson learned from the singer was a good touch (a bit of growing up), though it might have been better if she'd learned a bit more from it. Nice main characters, though. All BE was off camera! It doesn't seem quite enough.

Score: 15

The opening line right away made me wince - it was trying for a "serious novel" start, and I thought "oh oh, this one is gonna try to be Faulkner". But then it didn't do that. Turns out it was mainly a device to tie the ending to, and I think it worked in that way. It's a shame it required the beginning to start so self-consciously. I liked the idea of the serum, but didn't quite buy the fact that it had stayed secret all that time (didn't anyone ever notice girls growing huge boobs?), or the way it worked. Characterization came off a bit flat (no pun intended), and Lindy just doesn't come off all that likeable - she seems kinda pushy and annoying.

Score: 16

Interesting breast tricks from Molly and Lindy but the ending doesn't quite cut it for me. It's as if the author had a number of cameo scenes which he was determined to use: the traffic cop, the Latin singer, the airline pilot. Although the bitches at school are 2-dimensional clichés, it might have been better to get back to them instead.

Score: 15

I suspect this is a not entirely serious story, hence the appalling Scots accent which does for BE what Dick Van Dyke's cockney did for Mary Poppins. Gurgling stomachs are simply not a turn-on for me.

Score: 13

Great description of BE on the second growth scene -- some good stuff there. Overall, the story was good. The grandfather seemed a bit hard to swallow, and the grandmother wasn't explained very well. On the last page of the story the author suddenly descended into cliché, and the "frame story" afterword was even worse. Author should have found some more interesting way of ending the story -- rushed for time?.
Score: 14

Man, this whole story is half-baked. I think the author must have watched Waterboy a few times before he started writing. The characters are immediately odd in a bad way; I was beginning to wonder what backwater dimension I had wandered into. The main girl is kind of sad. The grandpa is scary. And the main guy character just gets on my nerves. I noticed a lot of grammar errors too, and the ending was very blah. However, the breast expansion gets pretty good every now and then.

Score: 13

Bethany and Charlie are decent characters, and Bethany in particular gets fleshed out. :-) My main complaint is that Charlie going insane when Bethany's on the wheel doesn't ring true, though the other characters somehow end up being somewhat one-dimensional, too. Charlie's "snapping out of it" immediately thereafter is too cliched for my taste, but I suppose it had to happen to justify the title. The story framing was great: the flashback style, being told by a cellmate, was a good idea. The grandmother-locket angle gets tossed aside partway through, though, where you'd almost expect it to come back at the end to round it out. Evil grandfather is also sort of left unresolved. Still in all, a decent tale.

Score: 18

Some nice bits of logic in here, such as the revelation of the villain's plans at the end. Plenty of BE and BP. I really felt like I was drowning in baby-talk, though! Not much characterization here.

Score: 14

Magic has to be either total escapist fantasy or inexplicable events occurring in a 'real' setting. Here, we're in the world of myth and legend and witches. This can be a turn-off: lots of silly names and atmosphere stuff. He's set it in modern times, which is a good idea. Some cup-size cop-outs. The girl characters are engaging, but <giggle> tags are a lazy device.

Score: 16

Interesting story. The plot was convoluted and kept me guessing -- I liked that. Didn't expect most of the twists, which is always nice. But strangely, for all the originality in the plot, the characters get extremely short shrift. Nobody seems to be at all likable, but for that matter, nobody is really given much character to relate to at all. By the end of the story, except for the fact that everyone's become a slave to the wizard, I still don't know much about any of the characters, including the guy who comes out on top.

Score: 15

It's bad when you start reading a story and all you notice are the grammar errors. I kept stopping every few minutes just to write them down: unnecessary separation of paragraphs, dialogue problems, improper punctuation, misused words, tense problems, etc. In fact, I was hardly paying attention to the actual story until one of the characters started praying to the Holy Titties. And here I thought I was the only who did that. :)

Score: 13

Ha! Not badly done, for a shaggy-dog story.

Score: 11

It's cool that this story tries to fit in all of the plot lines, but it also makes the story appear a bit too haphazard. It had potential, but it needs more focus. I liked the first person perspective.

Score: 12

Quite strong characterisation but did he perhaps get lost while playing with the readers, introducing all those other themes? Tit description is OK and it's fun to read, but it's lacking something.

Score: 13

Bonus points for super-cleverness, in attempting to use every single contest plotline in one story. Unfortunately, while it's an interesting attempt, the various plotlines don't quite mesh (they weren't devised to do so, after all), leaving the plot somewhat haphazard. Still, considering I wouldn't have thought such a story was even possible, Camille's Orientation makes more than just a valiant attempt - it does fairly well. In the process, the characterization gets somewhat shortchanged, though.

Score: 21

The "mysterious stranger" plot device once again?

Score: 13

Strange, the characters in this category seem more pleasing than in some of the others. Must be that the theme suggests bimbos to writers.

Score: 16

Hmmm. A basic, run-of-the-mill story (no offense), with nothing particularly to make it stand out or to make it memorable. Somehow, the horror aspect of this scenario not being emphasized like it is with Town Spirit drains the story of some of its impact and energy, and there's nothing else to replace it with. In other words: is this a happy story? A sad story? A horror story? Action? None of them seem to apply - it just seems to be a series of events.

Score: 15

BE writing tip for the day: the word you're looking for is not "mummeries", no matter what the spell-checker tries to tell you. Anywho, I think this author just needs some more experience. There's too much text here and not nearly enough dialogue. The plot's pretty weak too, and a little more breast description would have been appreciated. And what's with the overblown character bios?

Score: 12

Presentation looks good, but it fails to conceal the bizarre punctuation and unchecked spellchecking, and girls shouldn't change their identity between the start and end of the same sentence. The idea of the flashback is neat but the instant magic stuff takes some swallowing.

Score: 10

The touches of geology knowledge are nice. A short, fun tale, not too serious. Nice to have multiple growth scenes. Rather thorough sex scenes. The frame-story wasn't really needed except to comply with the contest storyline, but it gave a nice rounding-out to the story...

Score: 15

Multiple transformations always attract me more than single ones, and this story has a few, despite how weird the "giant balls" part was. The descriptions could use more work, as could the general plot, but I did like the touches of realism about rock-hunting and the spice of the extra transformations and sex scenes.

Score: 17

This story was kind of funny in a Beavis and Butthead sort of way. Big nuts... heh heh. Dang, I've got to come up with something more about this story. Well, I thought the Pokemon joke was funny. Oh hey, there's lots of sex at the end.

Score: 13

More sex description than fun. Something for the muscle fans, too, but considering how many climaxes are involved it's a bit one-paced.

Score: 12

A straight-to-the-point meat-and-potatoes story that gets the job done, but seems to be in a rush to do so. Overall, I can't give it more than average marks all the way across the board.

Score: 15

Where are the commas? The lack of punctuation made the writing seem stilted, choppy. A bit too much "muscle" stuff for my taste. There were good sex scenes, and the BE was nice, working well at the slow pace.

Score: 13

What a fine example of lazy writing: crappy editing and mixed-up usage of dialogue, thoughts, and narration. Despite the first impressions, I did finally get into this story enough to enjoy it a little bit. There's some pretty good lesbian sex in here, and the beloved "Pussy of Steel" makes another appearance. It's not overly exciting by any means, but there were some decent sex scenes and big breasts, enough to save it from getting a lower score.

Score: 13

Geez, what a depressing opening. In fact, the whole story's fairly depressing. The writing style's a bit choppy. Otherwise, it's really not a bad story, though the actual BE is a bit lacking.

Score: 14

As you'd expect from Mr Breed, a less comfortably innocent atmosphere prevails at his college! The girls are shamelessly and shamefully obsessed with breeding. Despite that, the characters are flimsy. The story has a strong plot-line but the 'ending' is rushed.

Score: 13

This author must have borrowed his plot from the thriller movie, Disturbing Behavior, because they seem to have a whole lot in common. Why in the world an author would choose to beat a character up so much is beyond me. This is one the most pitiable characters I've ever seen - she has my utmost sympathy. I was with her all the way, fighting against the school and her being turned into a brainless slut. So why oh why, does she lose in the end? It just makes me feel awful. What did I read this for? It doesn't even concentrate on breasts.

Score: 8

We're in such a rush to get going that we don't even get to be shown any of Anne's life - we're merely told how it's gone up to now in short, staccato sentences. Car crash. No insurance. Foster family. No loan upgrade (whatever that is). The opening litany gets almost absurd in its detail when it seems to exist only to get Anne to the College. From there we have a fairly standard slow-growth scenario with vaguely threatening people around our protagonist. Technically, this story was very well written. But its emotional heart seems to be missing, and the plot and characters reflect that. Then again, I rarely respond well to dark and depressing stories, so perhaps I'm not the best one to judge.

Score: 15

Difficult to read, due to the style and typos, but I appreciated the use of the time-honored "bovine growth hormone" plot. Did we really have to have a cigar-smoking man show up at the end to plot a sinister plot, though?

Score: 8

Style is too one-paced for me: gives the impression that we are hearing every little thing that happens to the girl as she goes about her business. Presentation is clunky. Events are implausible so it has to be a fantasy, but as a fantasy it is short on fun.

Score: 11

Grammar could use a little work. A nice adventure story -- but evil faceless government agents again? The sudden introduction of Giantess stuff at the end seemed a little abrupt, and a little too "magical". It was kind of a nice coincidence that the husband was one of the people who developed the formula. A fight that the wife just happened to get in the middle of. Ironic coincidence with the milk tanker -- too much? Nice sex scene. But why did she grow so much after the doctor's visit, when all she'd had was a bowl of cereal and glass of milk (less than she'd had the night before)?
Score: 14

The writing in this story is pretty awful. Verb tense errors. Run-on sentences. Dialogue problems. Poor paragraphing. Etc. So why the high score? I guess I'm just a sucker for these kinds of stories where the hinges come flying off, all in the name of fun. I can't explain it other than to say about halfway through I started having flashbacks of when I first started writing breast expansion fiction a few years ago. This guy has a great attitude - just look at the first line right after the title. As a bonus, this story also features one of my personal fan-favorites, the "Pussy of Steel". I'll leave it to your imagination.

Score: 16

If this category is going to be an excuse for a bunch of magic stories, they'd better have something different about them. Surely, if magic is to have any appeal, there has to be tension between the sheer ease of making absurd things happen and the normality of the environment.

Score: 11

I liked all the various transformations people go through, but the story got lost somewhere in there. I wasn't very far into the story before it started seeming like a catalog of wishes and changes. Some of them didn't even get followups (like the "breastmilk causes changes" one). Nice little oneliner at the end, but it was too late to save the story as a whole.

Score: 12

A few logic problems -- a paragraph on the first page makes it unclear whether Steve is her boyfriend or not; after Michelle's first growth, the next bit of dialog sounds like she hasn't grown yet; Sarah's wish to "alter bodies sexually" is unclear as to its meaning and doesn't seem to have any effect. Before the wishing starts, the romantic interaction between Michelle and Steve is nice. The story could use some more rewrites, I think.

Score: 12

I spent the first half of this story noticing how poor the writing was. I didn't like it when the main character gave her reality-changing power to all her friends, but I realize it was just an excuse for the author to get away with a lot of weird sexual transformations. If nothing else, the author is creative. I liked the stuff with the lactation, but the rest of it got a little too gross for me. It just didn't concentrate on breasts enough.

Score: 12

This story starts off pretty good, but then it slowly falls apart. The characters are one-dimensional, and they're weird too. The main character thinks through her wishes too much. The dialogue is unnatural. A lot of this story doesn't seem to make sense. Why does she feel pain when her breasts grow? There's a lot of lesbian sex.

Score: 13

Some logical problems -- how does Katie know that the wishes affect only physical things? The recap starting on page 5 is annoyingly unnecessary -- should have just been something like "Katie told Sandy everything that had happened that morning." and left it at that. Wasn't the storyline of "a girl giving her best friend a third breast" done somewhere before, too? As for the BE -- having it accompanied by pain (unusual for BE stories) makes it a bit of a turn-off.

Score: 11

Very little in the way of characterization or plot, although the twist of running over the deadline at the end gets an extra plot point from me.

Score: 9

Wish and it just happens, for 24 hours, then it stops happening. There has to be more to it than this.

Score: 9

I dunno. What's the position when an author knowingly submits Part 1 of a longer story to a short story contest. If Part 2 isn't to be a genuine sequel, I reckon it ought to rule out the entry or at least cause it to be marked down. Not that it matters a toss, it's too wordy and self-consciously literate.

Score: 12

This was a curiously clinical story - it had the feel of a JR Parz special, with the way a boy ends up mindcontrolling the girl (and the world). It was fairly logical, but it had little flavor, and the characters didn't really come to life much beyond Rich. Even the putative star, Jean, doesn't get very much story development.

Score: 11

Unusually heavy use of metaphor, at least for a typical BE story. Sometimes the metaphor seems overextended. Rich seems to catch on rather quickly to the situation; has he had previous experience with magic? Overall, somehow this is more a story about Rich and his wishes rather than Jean's, which seems a bit peculiar. And there's almost no BE, and not even much wishing. Maybe when this story is actually completed it'll be better, but "part 1" is not that great.

Score: 10

What the hell did I just read? I knew something was up when the author started wearing out that stupid train analogy on the first page. There are various random errors all over the place. The characters aren't introduced. The dialogue doesn't match the characters. It's corny and unrealistic. Giving control to the guy ruins the fun, and how the heck did he know all that stuff anyway? What's with all the fainting? Loses focus. Wanders around. No breast expansion. No ending. No story. Is this guy Canadian?

Score: 2

Cute disclaimer. The style of the first paragraph seems a bit clumsy, and the "not part of the story" paragraph should have appeared at the end. Too many "asides" in the first part of the story. The biggest problem -- no dialog! Without dialog, it reads more like a newspaper article. I think the introduction of ANS was fairly bizarre, though I may be prejudiced. Just about everything after that seemed fairly hard to swallow without more justification for the events going on. With the BE -- fewer numbers, more verbal description, please. On the whole, this story needs a lot more fleshing-out.

Score: 6

How to write a bad story: Speak out of context. Write big, blocky paragraphs. Use only one character in your story. Write lots of numbers instead of words. Leave out the dialogue. Don't worry about reality, it only gets in the way. Put odd lapses in the continuity. Make sure there's a lot of tense errors. Keep the plot slow and boring. Don't talk about breasts. I wonder if this guy watched the Little Mermaid II recently.

Score: 4

Hmmm. You know you're in trouble when there's literally no dialogue anywhere in a 5000 word BE story. No dialogue pretty much guarantees no characterization (and there isn't any), and the plot stays very plainjane all the way through.

Score: 5

Less than impressive.

Score: 8