Help with low ratings - Gay Male category

Hi y'all
I just posted a new story in the Gay Male category and I've received a couple of one stars on it, which have really skewed my ratings. TBH it's knocked me for a loop - I'm no Hemingway but I really don't think I'm a one star writer. As the people who drop one stars never seem to comment I'm at a loss as to why it's so bad - would love some constructive feedback

https://www.literotica.com/s/kidnapped-ch-01-4

Thanks for your time

Bob

Disclaimer: I didn't read your story (not my thing), nor I looked closely at your stats history, nor I have any published stories here (that may eventually change), nor I even speak English... But what I can do, is to channel collective wisdom gathered by reading the forum regularly.

Don't freak about one-voters. They hurt, but they're the most meaningless. Next to none of those reflect about your story as a literature or you as an author.

One votes may be cast by:

- trolls (or even scripts) for gamely purposes: for example your story happened to be above their favorite, or any other principle only comprehensive for the troll themself;

- weird folks apparently devising satisfaction by casting one-votes indiscriminately;

- angry disgruntled people offended by imaginary causes only comprehensive for themselves, possibly not even within story in question, for example they found insignificant detail X offensive in a story ABC, therefore they cast one-votes at all stories of the same author or even the same tag, or whatever;

- easily triggered readers taking offence for whatever random reason completely unpredictably. "No, there shouldn't be any non-con whatsoever, looking at man's cock without written invitation is just wrong! One-star! No, no parent will ever disown a child, not in a fantasy story I happen to read! One-star! No, no one eats sausage with jam! Never! Pink shirts are disgusting! Those boobs are just too big! Well, It's nothing about your story,
actually, it just my spine hurts!"

- readers unable to discredit between fantasy and reality, who reads any story as factual reporting and are judging character actions, especially the protagonist's accordingly their own private principles, and/or projecting their opinion as your own. And the moment they no longer agree, they stop reading and cast one-star.

- readers irritated by a grammar problem, possibly falsely, or a word they don't understand.

- etc.

Many one-votes that doesn't seem to be result of a legitimate read of the story (while it not known how exactly the site qualifies this, it can be done) will be eventually removed in so called sweeps.

AgirlcalledBob said:

Hi y'all
I just posted a new story in the Gay Male category and I've received a couple of one stars on it, which have really skewed my ratings. TBH it's knocked me for a loop - I'm no Hemingway but I really don't think I'm a one star writer. As the people who drop one stars never seem to comment I'm at a loss as to why it's so bad - would love some constructive feedback

https://www.literotica.com/s/kidnapped-ch-01-4

Thanks for your time

Bob

Click to expand...

I just read it. I think you had a slight issue with tenses but I have the same problem. For me, the biggest issue was that you mainly focused on the kidnapping stuff. There wasn't much sex in it and it seemed to me that the sex was more of an afterthought. It also seemed to end abruptly. That's just my opinion, I don't write that genre.

Thanks LupusDei - I appreciate those thoughts, and I hate those people
I adore your first sentence btw - had me chuckling out loud, and round our way everyone eats sausages with jam so that would never be a problem
Thanks for taking the time
Bob

Thanks for having a read Jada59 - yeah I think I have got a bit tied up with tenses in this story for some reason - will have to go through my draft again - it's meant to be present tense but it sometimes gets hard to keep track of when your first person is thinking of things that happened in the past.
I do some slow burn - I like to write a story rather than one shots - I know some people get bothered by that on this site but I wish they'd give it a chance - though those people are really going to get their pants in a twist if I decide to keep going with it cos there'll probably be entire chapters with no sex But I guess here might have been a bad choice for this story - I was just feeling guilty because I hadn't submitted anything for a while.
And the abrupt ending is intentional because it's a chapter ending - supposedly meant to keep interest in what's coming next - maybe not that successfully
Thanks
Bob

AgirlcalledBob said:

Hi y'all
I just posted a new story in the Gay Male category and I've received a couple of one stars on it, which have really skewed my ratings. TBH it's knocked me for a loop - I'm no Hemingway but I really don't think I'm a one star writer. As the people who drop one stars never seem to comment I'm at a loss as to why it's so bad - would love some constructive feedback

https://www.literotica.com/s/kidnapped-ch-01-4

Click to expand...

I read and write in I/T, and Gay Male is not my category. That being said, it's my experience that a very high percentage of your rating is determined by how appealing your premise is. My very first story is badly written, but it's got a red H because it's got an appealing premise. If you got a low rating on this one, I'd say it's because being kidnapped isn't an appealing premise for Gay Male readers.

GM is a category that invites knee-jerk "go away" voting by those not even bothering to read the story, so there's little reason to agonize over one or two stories that more than the usual number of zappers have gotten to. One way to assure they concentrate on you, though, is to complain about it on the discussion board. You don't last long as a GM author anywhere if you don't hold to the "Don't let them see you sweat" mantra.

On the possibility that kidnapping doesn't go over well on GM, I demur strongly. A kidnapping scenario is a classic/natural GM storyline theme in both submissive and dominator reading interest. Many gay guys want the guilt of choice taken off their shoulders because of social pressures and gravitate to such stories--probably more so than anyone in the hetero world does. It's a special GM dynamic.

I looked at the story and found the present tense approach a bit irritating and tedious, which wasn't helped by the occasional unnecessary lapse into the past tense. I also thought it rambled a lot in background and "just stuff" before getting into the dilemma of the story, and a story hasn't begun moving until the dilemma (or at least one of them) is put forth. I just scanned, which might give somewhat of a reason itself on why it isn't rating like the others. (I didn't look at the others, though). I got the feeling that you were mostly dumping "stuff," which, when I see in a multiple chapter story here strongly hints that the story wasn't completely written before the author started posting it. I won't follow such a story; I want everything in a story to serve and drive to the resolution somehow--not be an accumulation of kitchen sinks that may or may not have anything to do with anything other than piling up words.

I read both pages, although I admit to skimming some of that. And I think that is the problem that seems to be getting more focused—The story doesn't grab the reader.

The writing itself is well done. But I just never got interested in any of the characters. This may very well be just different strokes for different folks, but it just seemed they were living a boring existence in a boring place where none of them wanted to be. As KeithD mentioned, there was zero tension built after two pages.

The kidnapping is mentioned and even moving forward, but for me; That's a very unbelievable situation. That anyone going to university would really believe they would get away with such a crime is not something I can grab onto. So, in my mind I sort of dismissed it as an important pending crisis point—even if it does eventually occur later in the story, my believably has been lost.

Given all of this, I will add that this first chapter may be an important part in some longer story yet to be revealed. In other words, in the bigger picture everything you wrote might make a lot of sense as the story develops. But, the problem here is it is also a stand alone chapter waiting for more at this point. A complete book might be better able to get by with a slower start because the reader holds the rest in his hands and may be more willing to keep on a little farther, etc.

You have a well received collection of stories, so you know what you're doing. Hope this and the other comments help you pinpoint the glitch in this one.

Thanks all, I appreciate the time you've taken and I'll take note of your feedback
Bob