What went wrong? Feedback request

I'd published three stories before writing "Sheila's New Family" and I thought I had a pretty good grasp on how it would be received. Generally I get about a 4.2 - 4.4 with the occasional chapter that gets a "Hot" rating.

With Sheila's New Family, I expected the first four chapters to average somewhere around 4.3 and the final chapter getting a Hot rating. That final chapter is something that I am really proud of and I was really excited to see the responses to it. Unfortunately the previous four chapters were barely rated above 4.0 and almost nobody stuck around long enough to get to the final chapter. The few who did gave it a perfect score which I appreciate, but I'm really disappointed how few made it that far.

I was hoping that someone could do a review of my story and tell me what I did wrong in the first four chapters to cause people not to like it? I'm hoping I can correct it and resubmit the whole story. I spent a lot of time writing this and I feel like I've developed a unique and interesting character in Sheila. One person left a comment at the end of Chapter 4 saying that they really enjoyed her character but that was the only comment I got so not sure what people who didn't like the story thought.

The story is 50k words long so obviously not short. I'd be willing to do a review or a similar length story in exchange for a review of my story if that helps. Also, maybe someone could let me know if I should have published this under Novels and Novellas instead of Nonconsent.

Appreciate any help I can get! Thanks everyone.

https://www.literotica.com/stories/memberpage.php?uid=4176549&page=submissions

I had a quick look through Chapter 1, and I think I can see the issue.

Your story is about a guy being kept in chastity and dominated by women, consensually and otherwise. A large chunk of the NC/R readership is hostile to anything other than "man dominates woman" and will downvote it. I'm surprised nobody's left you a comment yet telling you how your male character is a wimp and ought to [creepy violent revenge fantasy at unnecessary length].

If you're going to post female-on-male stories in NC, that's probably just the way it's going to go. Less of a reflection on your story and more on people who expect everything in the category to be written to their tastes. :-/

I quickly read the first chapter. Like Bramblethorn, I didn't see anything obvious in a technical sense that would cause it to be downgraded. I think it probably is an issue with the subject matter, which isn't a reflection on your writing skill.

Two technical notes:

The character's name is Sheila, but in the title it's "Shelia." That's a big error. It's not crucial to reading the story but it's off-putting and if a reader notices it the reader will be primed to think you are not a careful writer. You don't want to get off on the wrong foot with your readers.

In the first chapter the story is told mostly from the third person limited POV, from Troy's point of view, but near the end you shift suddenly into Sheils's perspective. That's jarring because the drama of the chapter lies in Sheila's unexpected appearance and in Troy being startled by it. You could try telling it from her point of view in a subsequent chapter but for this chapter the POV should remain with Troy.

You posted the previous chapters on consecutive words, then there was a three day gap before Chapter Five appeared. That might account for some drop off. Some readers may have thought Chapter Four was the conclusion.Some may have just not gotten back to it yet.

In terms of views, your story's pattern is highly unusual. There's a normal drop off from chapters 1 to 2 and 2 to 3, but then a big spike in views for chapter 4. That's the anomaly. There's something goofy about it. The views for chapter 5 are consistent with a fairly normal pattern of dropoff from one chapter to the next, especially since it came three days later.

Bramblethorn is right. Even though femdom is a big part of BDSM and non consent can work both ways...this is a site full of misogynists who only want to see the 'bitch put in her place"

Unless....you take your next story to fetish. The men in fetish are actual men as in secure enough to enjoy femdom or even if its not there thing, not a bunch of whiners that have to crucify it, but will just click away.

Any type of women in control has to go there. The faux men are afraid to go into fetish it hurts their cold male insecurity.

I didn't read the story (I'm busy proof reading another and am a little fried), but I'll give two points to consider:
A) If you have a following from your other stories, and if you changed your writing style, some fans tend to look negatively on such things. Most accomplished writers will write under a pseudonym instead of risking damaging relations with their followers, when the writer goes in a new direction. Only an arrogant SOB would think "people love my work so if I decide to do a 180 degree turn in my writing style, the people who love my work will follow this trend and continue to love me." (something to consider)
B) stop. looking. at. the. numbers. - Market fluctuations happen all the time because someone randomly started contemplating their bellybutton lint. Things ebb and flow. Sometimes surprisingly so. Your analysis is based on 2 months during the winter/spring and your most recent story is during the first warm days of summer. Perhaps some readers decided to hit the beach instead of hitting the stories? Perhaps market values based on belly button lint have soared? Who knows? (you're hypercritically looking at trends based on a super short time) stop. looking. at. the. numbers.

Thanks to everyone who took a look at this.

SimomDoom, wow, I can't believe I misspelled the characters name in the title! Ugh, thanks for catching that. I'll also try re-writing the chapter to only be from Troy's perspective.

Chapter 1 focuses on Troy but the rest of the story becomes about Jennifer and Sheila. Troy doesn't even show up in Chapter 2. Could anyone give that chapter a quick look over to see what might be wrong there?

Maybe I really do just need to move this story to a different section such as Fetish like lovecraft68 mentioned.

LWulf said:

I didn't read the story (I'm busy proof reading another and am a little fried), but I'll give two points to consider:

B) stop. looking. at. the. numbers. - Market fluctuations happen all the time because someone randomly started contemplating their bellybutton lint. Things ebb and flow. Sometimes surprisingly so. Your analysis is based on 2 months during the winter/spring and your most recent story is during the first warm days of summer. Perhaps some readers decided to hit the beach instead of hitting the stories? Perhaps market values based on belly button lint have soared? Who knows? (you're hypercritically looking at trends based on a super short time) stop. looking. at. the. numbers.

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I took a quick look at your submission list and you've gotten, I'd say, excellent numbers in the several categories you've been in. Things seem to be going great.

My feeling is: 1. Take constructive (and not so constructive) criticism mostly for future reference, not to rewrite stories you've already posted. If you like the story yourself that's the most important thing. If you get a 1.30, well, maybe that would need some assessment. But maybe not, you might just be beyond the capabilities of the audience.

2. Only move to another category as an experiment. Basically, if the administrators accept it, that's good enough for me. There is one story I've considered moving but it's not a priority for me.

"what I did wrong"?

You took the ratings too seriously? And you thought that the ratings were related to the quality of the writing?

Ch 1 didn't get a high rating simply because it didn't have lots of explicit sex in it!

It's not really the ratings that I'm disappointed with. It's that almost no one stuck around to read the last chapter. I considered it an excellent conclusion to the story and one that I was hoping to get the bare minimum number of reviews (10) to at least have a chance at getting a Hot rating. The reason I am hoping for that isn't because I'm ratings obsessed, but because I know it will encourage others to read through the whole story. It is something I wanted to share with a larger audience than the handful that made it that far. That's why I consider this a relative failure. If the story had been good enough that i had a bunch of people complete it and I ended up getting a poor rating on the last chapter then I wouldn't be all that disappointed. I would have gotten my story out there and it might have turned out that people didn't like it all that much. But I really doubt that is going to be the case and want to do what I can to at least give try and fix the earlier chapters for the sake of the last chapter.

I'm guessing there aren't many out there who would want to attempt a full story review but if there is anyone let me know. I'd love to hear what someone thinks about the totality of it. And like I mentioned in my first post, I'd be willing to do a review of a different story of a similar length in exchange.

Edit: Just to respond to "Ch 1 didn't get a high rating simply because it didn't have lots of explicit sex in it," I haven't written a story yet that has lots of explicit sex. When I posted chapter 1 of I, Blackmail, I really thought I'd get my head handed to me. Zero sex, zero references to sex, and only the slight promise that something was coming. It got rated a 4.43 and is by far my most favorited, most viewed, and most rated chapter of any story I've written. When I posted chapter 3 of The Invention of Domina I again expected to get destroyed. I went into the ending with the possibility of so much depravity but sidestepped all of it and even gave a sad ending. Rated a 4.53. I've been blown away by the flexibility of readers on Literotica to accept work that isn't all that sexual and is instead just an interesting story includes a little sex. Maybe I've just been lucky up to this point and the results for Sheila's New Family is more the reality.

You asked for comments on ch 2.
At several points in the first few paragraphs there are long sentences that should have commas in them. That would make it easier to read. Also there are quite a few mistakes.
"This had to handle this now."
"You won't your gun for that."
"Take your clothes in the garage..."
As for the story itself, well, some people clearly like it but it's not my cup of tea, nor is it mainstream for this site, so I can see that many people would not continue to the end of the series.

You're reacting to scores far too soon. Chapter1 has only been up a week and a half. Wait a month, and then wonder what it all means.

hadruprider said:

You asked for comments on ch 2.
At several points in the first few paragraphs there are long sentences that should have commas in them. That would make it easier to read. Also there are quite a few mistakes.
"This had to handle this now."
"You won't your gun for that."
"Take your clothes in the garage..."
As for the story itself, well, some people clearly like it but it's not my cup of tea, nor is it mainstream for this site, so I can see that many people would not continue to the end of the series.

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Thanks! That helps for sure. I went through the story several times before publishing but apparently I missed some.

Glad to get the feedback on that chapter. Maybe I've just been lucky with getting good responses to my stories up to this point. Bit disappointing, but that's how it goes I guess. Thanks again!

gunhilltrain said:

I took a quick look at your submission list and you've gotten, I'd say, excellent numbers in the several categories you've been in. Things seem to be going great.

My feeling is: 1. Take constructive (and not so constructive) criticism mostly for future reference, not to rewrite stories you've already posted. If you like the story yourself that's the most important thing. If you get a 1.30, well, maybe that would need some assessment. But maybe not, you might just be beyond the capabilities of the audience.

2. Only move to another category as an experiment. Basically, if the administrators accept it, that's good enough for me. There is one story I've considered moving but it's not a priority for me.

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I'll take it that by quoting me, but editing out select text that you were agreeing with what I said? Most people who want to show they agree, say "this" and quote. The way you did it, it looks like you're talking to me.

Ok, yes I was agreeing with you but talking to the original poster, DigitalAge. Sorry if there was any confusion.

DigitalAge said:

It's not really the ratings that I'm disappointed with. It's that almost no one stuck around to read the last chapter.

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Yes well, I for one am struggling to read past the first 2 paragraphs. As a general rule of thumb I prefer conciseness over verbosity, unless of course the verbosity is being used for emphasis. In other words, I don't care for the road descriptions or that the music is coming from speakers, so an alternative to your early sentences could write as follows:

"Troy drove home while appreciating the landscape; the roof of his convertible was down and the upbeat music boomed loudly enough to draw attention from his neighbors."

As opposed to what you had:

"Troy drove down the winding road towards his home while taking in the picturesque landscaping and beautifully developed houses of his neighborhood. The roof of his convertible was down and the upbeat music booming from his speakers was just loud enough to ensure that his neighbors noticed him."

While anyone is more than welcome to disagree that my version is any 'better,' at the same time I'm still cutting your story in half while conveying the same overall message, which is an advantage if readers are impatient for the story to develop. By the second paragraph the grammatical errors are also becoming transparent, and as a reader I'm very quickly losing faith that it's worthwhile to continue. So again, let's compare an alternative version to your original:

"Jennifer was the light of his life, his reason for being and his everything, while he was her very obedient husband. Though he was often belittled by his peers for being a beta male pussy without any balls, he didn't really mind."

Compared to the original:

"Jennifer was the light of his life, his reason for being, his everything, and he was her obedient husband. Though he was sometimes hassled by his peers about his wife wearing the pants in the relationship he didn't minded.

Again, people are more than welcome to claim that my version is worse, though I personally am a fan of the emphasis; the 'hassling' he receives (kind of boring how it was stated before, imo) is far more dramatic, and the (very obvious) grammatical errors are also fixed. Because honestly, if your second sentence in your second paragraph literally reads as "he didn't minded", then it gives the impression that you don't care at all for the journey of your reader.

Oh, and even aside from all the issues pertaining to grammar or conciseness, on a personal level I already strongly dislike the character introduced. I honestly have no idea what kind of cars my neighbors drive, and I can't understand why any one of them would want to 'show off their car' to me. Furthermore it would also irritate me immensely if they wanted to play loud music, and where I live this type of action would be considered very rude and discourteous. So unless the featured character is going to be dying a very long, painful and agonizing death at the end, then words can't emphasize enough just how disinterested I am to continue the read.

beerlovr88 said:

So unless the featured character is going to be dying a very long, painful and agonizing death at the end, then words can't emphasize enough just how disinterested I am to continue the read.

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Yet you have taken how long to spray your opinions like graffiti on a wall?

You don't need to belittle everyone whose writing you don't like. Could you try to be a little more helpful, less belligerent, maybe? Be kinder, please.

I only read chapter one. The grammatical errors did stand out to me but I know if you are writing a story that turns you on as you write it, those errors are bound to happen. I am guilty of that too. So I could cut you some slack on that one.

I also feel that it is somewhat verbose. Too much description and not enough action. That could be a personal preference. It just wasn't exciting enough for me to want to read the next chapter.

electricblue66 said:

Yet you have taken how long to spray your opinions

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Why do you feel the need to harp upon the supposed duration? Because for clarity's sake, I want to mention that you can have a lengthy story that's also concise, and not only do these concepts not preclude one another in any way, but it's also why I think that it's odd that you mention the 'duration' needed to express my opinion as if it would in any way undermine (or not be consistent with) my previous post.

electricblue66 said:

Could you try to be a little more helpful

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Prior to preaching to others about the importance of upholding a specific standard, you should at least make an attempt to define the specific metrics that would help showcase that standard. For an example, the fact remains that in this thread you have yet to make a single comment about the content of the actual story that the OP posted. So is no direct reference to the actual story in question suppose to be helpful to the author? If not then you should try practicing what you preach prior to belittling others.

electricblue66 said:

Be kinder, please.

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Sure. Right after you quote me an example of a statement that you would personally consider to be kind. Because if you ask me, repeatedly heaping praise after praise upon some of the worst stories I've ever read is not only cruel, but it's also very clearly not doing anyone any favors around here. Speaking of which, if you have any issue with my alterations of the OP's sentences that I quoted, then by all means please feel free to come forward and say why specifically you don't think they were either kind or helpful. Until then, please spare me the pretense.

beerlovr88 said:

"Troy drove home while appreciating the landscape; the roof of his convertible was down and the upbeat music boomed loudly enough to draw attention from his neighbors."

As opposed to what you had:

"Troy drove down the winding road towards his home while taking in the picturesque landscaping and beautifully developed houses of his neighborhood. The roof of his convertible was down and the upbeat music booming from his speakers was just loud enough to ensure that his neighbors noticed him."

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The original passage is clumsy, yours removes information that, rightly or wrongly, the author wanted the reader to have. When I read that Troy was "appreciating the landscape" I picture him gazing at mountains, an ocean view or an idyllic countryside. Not the neighbor's houses. Nor does "taking in" the view equate to "appreciating" it. I take in views of a lot of factories and strip malls on my way home each day, I don't find myself appreciating them.

Your handling of the music leaves out the clear implication of intent. In the original, Troy obviously wants to annoy his neighbors. He is playing the music loud enough to "ensure" they hear it. In your version, he might have forgotten to turn it down, he might not care one way or the other, or he might even be hard of hearing.

Your version is different, It's not better.

beerlovr88 said:

"Jennifer was the light of his life, his reason for being and his everything, while he was her very obedient husband. Though he was often belittled by his peers for being a beta male pussy without any balls, he didn't really mind."

Compared to the original:

"Jennifer was the light of his life, his reason for being, his everything, and he was her obedient husband. Though he was sometimes hassled by his peers about his wife wearing the pants in the relationship he didn't minded.

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Aside from the correction of the grammatical error, your version is far worse than the original. Perhaps you live in a world where people might commonly refer to someone as a "beta male pussy without any balls", but most of us do not, and I would not assume that the protagonist of the story does. Since it is highly unlikely that anyone has actually said such a thing to him, the use of that phraseology here would imply that he thinks of himself in those terms, which he obviously does not. In addition, I took "hassled" to mean that they teased him in a humorous manner, not that they "belittled" him, which has a more hostile connotation.

beerlovr88 said:

I honestly have no idea what kind of cars my neighbors drive, and I can't understand why any one of them would want to 'show off their car' to me.

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They no doubt fear that if they did so, they would be submitted to a long winded diatribe about what color you would have preferred and a lecture about how only pussies choose the cloth upholstery.

Originally posted by beerlovr88 on another thread.
You know, every once in a while I like to go on Amazon and read all the 1 star reviews of my favorite books. Are they serious? If so then how can they possibly think that way? Because literally, often the same reasons why I thought the book was brilliant were the same reasons why they didn't like it. For me it's really quite mind boggling, almost to the point where comedic effect can be derived, and to such an extent that I don't even want to read the 5 star ones.

Regardless, at its core I think the premise, that negative feedback is something to be 'handled,' is flawed. You should write because you enjoy writing. If people like it then great, and if not then that's fine too. When you can be your own best audience and when your applause is the best applause that you know of, you're in good shape
_______________________________________________________________________________

I think that comment can be made about so much writing (or movies or music or whatever). It comes down to personal opinion. Pointing out grammatical mistakes is different but someone saying one sentence version is better or worse is an opinion. The op asked for feedback and received it and it is up to the op on what to take from it. I can't say what is mean or constructive but the tendency of people to argue back and forth on these threads is a reason I sometimes stay away from them. All one can do is give their honest opinion of the story in question and if its done in good faith I don't see what else can be done. You don't have to agree with it but most are just doing that. You might give feedback in a more uplifting or blunt or matter of fact way but all are trying to give their feedback in the way they see fit.

Beerlovr: Thanks for the input. I am actually grateful to have the grammatical issues with my story being pointed out as it is showing me that I am not nearly as careful of a writer as I thought I was. I need to put more effort into that. As far as the lengthy descriptions of the neighborhood, the reason that is in there is to show how much Troy owes to Jennifer. He loves his car and the place they live and she is the one that made it all possible. He was a nobody going nowhere without her. I also wanted to paint a picture of where they live since the whole story takes place in their house.

I really appreciate everyone's input on this. I've got a lot of corrections to make on this story and a lot of things to reconsider. Hopefully I can transform this into a more readable story in the future

DigitalAge said:

I really appreciate everyone's input on this. I've got a lot of corrections to make on this story and a lot of things to reconsider. Hopefully I can transform this into a more readable story in the future

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Don't worry about this story. Take on board the commentary and focus on the next one, and the one after that. That way you get half a dozen stories and start developing your own style, rather than one story twice. You learn the ropes faster that way.

electricblue66 said:

Don't worry about this story. Take on board the commentary and focus on the next one, and the one after that. That way you get half a dozen stories and start developing your own style, rather than one story twice. You learn the ropes faster that way.

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Good advice, this. Leave the old story behind and move on to a new one. Onward and upward.