Do you not want feedback?

Emirus said:

If the story doesn’t find a receptive audience then that’s the way it is. But it’s on 4.70 with 175 votes.

Romance was the point which is why it’s in the Romance category not Horror. Simple really.

Sorry you feel I ruined the story. But I think it’s done ok seeing it was only my 3rd story.

As for your edit as to why is Tom’s spirit hanging around. I thought I’d made it clear that his wife had died on that day, their 48th wedding anniversary. He had died the year previously on that day, what would have been their 49th wedding anniversary. He’s come back that day because it would have been their 50th wedding anniversary and means an awful lot to a couple who’ve been married that long.

I can assure you that’s correct because my wife and I will be celebrating our Golden Wedding in a few weeks time on the 28th September.

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I read it and didn't feel that the ghost ending ruined the story at all. The ending is a surprise, but not a shock, because you provided a little bit of foreshadowing with the discussion of the oddness of an old man wandering 5 miles in the middle of the night, and also the fact that he's looking over a cemetery. Death hangs over the entire story.

Perhaps something that would have tied it up more tightly would have been to give Bob some more background and personality, or to offer something about him that would explain why the ghost would reveal himself to Bob. Maybe Bob is a good listener. Maybe Tom has a reason why he needs to share his reminisces.

SimonDoom said:

Perhaps something that would have tied it up more tightly would have been to give Bob some more background and personality, or to offer something about him that would explain why the ghost would reveal himself to Bob. Maybe Bob is a good listener. Maybe Tom has a reason why he needs to share his reminisces.

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I like your suggestion. I’ll give some thought as to expanding on Bob and giving him an appropriate backstory/reason that might indirectly provide a link. If I’m happy with it I’ll submit an edit.

Emirus said:

I can’t see how you didn’t realise quite quickly what the story was about. It’s a short story because that’s the right length for it. I can’t see the point of unnecessarily padding out a story. That makes a good story bad. I’ll settle for you finding it interesting. I’m not looking for the Novel prize for literature. It’s a romance story and it’s in the correct category. Your e dung isn’t better than mine. Your ending sounds as though the author couldn’t think of an ending. You did get it right with the point of the story being romance. A lifetime of happiness with the woman he loved despite everything or because of everything that had happened to them. I like a twist at the end of a story. That’s why it’s there rather than just slide off the cliff edge into oblivion. Have you seen the Sixth Sense with Bruce Willis?

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You seem upset. I'm sorry if I angered you. You asked for constructive criticism and I gave it to you.

Back to my original point - constructive criticism in the best of situations can make authors angry. Unrequested constructive criticism is much more likely to do so. If I had posted my feedback as a comment on your story, how would you have responded?

Other points:
* I don't read a lot of Romance stories, so I don't know what's typical there. When I read stories on LitE, I usually assume that the first two characters that talk are going to wind up having sex. In the incest category, the title usually gives away who is going to wind up fucking whom. Your title didn't give me a clue that this was going to be a recounting of a life-long romance (but maybe I'm dense), so when Bob and Tom started talking I assumed that was going to lead to a romance somehow
* We all make assumptions about stories based on their category. Because "My European Summer Vacation" was posted in the Incest/Taboo category, you had trouble reading the first page of the story even though it's a straight romance through that point. I counted on readers assuming that my story would turn into an incest story involving the two main characters. You, on the other hand, counted on people not assuming that your story would be a romance involving the two main characters
* I said your story was a good length for what it was. You seemed to take that comment as something else.
* Some people like surprise twists. I don't. I think a story should build up to the ending. You asked my opinion and I gave it to you

Emirus said:

My first impression is your style is similar to mine.

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To me, our styles are nothing alike. I would never write anything like your first paragraph.

Emirus said:

2. Was it that obvious I was an American? Why is he sarcastic when he’s only just met her and she’s trying to be helpful. I can understand her asking if he’s a Yank. Don’t ever make the mistake of assuming a Canadian is an American just because of a similar accent. It won’t go down well.

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To Noel, he looks like the young people around him. Sinead immediately picks him out as a Yank. I'd say that most Americans have almost no experience with guessing what country someone is from. Having been an young American in Europe, it's pretty shocking when someone guesses right away you're from the US.

Emirus said:

1. By c’mere do you mean lost?
3. Back to my flat la. I thought this was a typo until you used it again further on. What a “la.”
4. That’s going to get heavy fast. I’m English with an Irish surname and Irish grandparents and I’ve visited Ireland on many occasions and never heard the phrase.
:
9. That sounds savage. Never heard the phrase before in my lifetime.
:
11. Na, na. Does that mean “no?”

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I did a ton of research on the Cork accent while writing the story. I leaned heavily on this webpage which says:

IrishAbroad said:

C'mere => Excuse me
Here la => here you are
there la => it's over there/look over there

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And on this page

IrishSlang said:

Savage
An expression of satisfaction
from The Drummer
"That tune you just played on the harpsichord was savage, Phillip. Now fuck off out of it, ya fucking bufty."

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I read somewhere that Roy Keane had the quintessential Cork accent, so I listened to this interview of him over and over. He used, "na, na, na" for "no", which I shortened to "na, na".

Emirus said:

5. “Seriously?” She nodded her head. “I’ve never met another Noel.” Is that two people speaking in the same paragraph?

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No. Noel says "Seriously?", Sinead nods her head and Noels says, “I’ve never met another Noel.” If Sinead said anything, it'd have to be another paragraph.

Emirus said:

7. What are non-profits? Is that an American phrase.
:
10. Her apartment (or flat) would be numbered 23 not 203.
:
12. Peanut butter and jelly. This really is American. Jelly is referred to as jam on this side of the big water so it would be peanut butter and jam. Except over hertbe idea of mixing peanuts and jam is a sickening thought. She would never have said that.
:
14. I’d fancy that. She would never have said that in that context.
15. Not at all. She goes from a supposed Irish brogue to the Queen’s English.

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I'm not surprised I got little things like this wrong. I tried and tried to get someone Irish to read my story, failed and eventually went with my best shot. Oh well.

Emirus said:

8. Labor Day (or Labour Day to spell it correctly. lol) means nothing to anyone outside America.

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As Noel said it, it was spelled correctly. Sinead is bright enough to realize that it's an American holiday in September from the context.

Emirus said:

16. I assume that Geographic Information Systems was intended to be a joke?

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Yes. They're both IT people. I originally was going to write "I didn’t take any GIS courses," but decided that'd go over most people's head.

Emirus said:

17. She’s got to buy herself a beer if she wants one? He’s a real creep.

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I guess you could interpret their conversation that way. Noel buys water as the default. As the author, I know that if Sinead had expressed interest in having a beer, Noel would have bought her one and bought himself water.

Emirus said:

18. Paying the restaurant bill. He decided to let it go. This guy really is obnoxious.

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He offers to take her out to dinner at an expensive restaurant to say thank you. To him, that's the right thing to do. What he didn't realize is that Sinead as a very attractive woman is constantly asked out to expensive restaurants. Noel offering to take her out to an expensive restaurant makes him just like all the other guys who hit on her, and it provokes a negative reaction from Sinead. Noel doesn't understand that and he's frustrated that she's rejecting his offer to do the right thing. Things flounder between them until Sinead takes charge and says, "What I want as a thank you is for you to clean my kitchen." Noel's willingness to break out of the typical male stereotype to do what Sinead wants is the turning point in their relationship.

................

Amen.

KindofHere said:

Morimoto had him try a dish with anchovies, that guy told him: I love it, but you can't serve it in the US and expect a big crowd of people to want to eat Anchovies. It's not going to sell. Why is this constructive: Because the guy is thinking about the overall success of the restaurant and not his personal tastes or Morimoto's feelings. This is pre-opening menu decisions, not 'Take that off the menu' nor is it 'cook it this way instead.'

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So you're saying that if the guy had said, "I love it, but you can't serve it in the US and expect a big crowd of people to want to eat Anchovies. It's not going to sell. I'd take it off the menu or replace the anchovies with [x]," then that wouldn't have been constructive criticism?

KindofHere said:

You ignored the fact that in fiction, with thousands times thousands of readers, that a ghost story with reminiscing romantic overtures (on a free site with minute advertising) will work, because there will be people who find it interesting.

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If your goal is to write a story that at least a few people will find interesting, then that's true. If your goal is to write a story that a lot of people will find so enjoyable that they'll leave positive comments (which is my goal), then you need to think about what the bulk of the readers in the category the story is posted in will find enjoyable.

KindofHere said:

Anyway, no sugar coating 8letters, you need to put in more thought when you offer constructive criticisms, because too often you tell people how 'you would do it' and not how to improve on what they have.

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To me, the best way to tell people on how to improve on what they have is to provide them an example of what I'd consider better.

An example from my own experience. I once got the following feedback for one of my stories:

The first thing I notice in your story, or any story for that matter, is the beginning. Yours was a bit...off mark. I get what you're wanting to mean, but I feel that it wasn't aptly written, and hence you lost the impact it was meant to have.

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Would you describe that as constructive criticism? Because to me, it was by itself not useful. I had spent a lot of time on the first paragraph and I thought it was aptly written. For that advice to have meaning to me, I would have had to see how to write it better. And that would entail the person saying, "This is how I would have written it."

So I feel that saying that I found the ending inappropriate is inadequate. The first thing that would have come to Emirus' mind would have been, "So what would have been an appropriate ending?"

Critiques of critiques!
This is gonna be a deep rabbit hole

...............

KindofHere said:

Stop calling that constructive criticism then. Call it '8letter's opinion.' Call it '8letters telling you how to do things.'

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Isn't all constructive criticism an opinion?

How about if I had written this:
I think the ending could have been better. Up until the ending, it was a bittersweet story of what love in the long haul is like; days of joy and days of heartbreak; days where you're so happy with your spouse that you feel like you're going to burst and days where you're so angry with your spouse that you feel like you're going to burst. And it's about the sad, sad truth that bad things happen to good people. I felt like your story had a powerful message. By having Tom be a ghost, you take the focus away from the message of the story. At the end, rather than the reader thinking about Tom's life with his wife and daughter, he/she is thinking about what foreshadowing there was for Tom being a ghost. You've gotten a good rating for the story and a lot of positive comments, but I think the story would have done better if the ending had been something that amplified the message of the rest of the story.

.................

KindofHere said:

Dammit! My post per day went up. I'm never going to get away from Lit for a week at a time if the average keeps going up. I'm out (hopefully).

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Face it: you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.

KindofHere said:

He wants a ghost story. That's what he wants. So your criticism should focus on how to make the Ghost Story work (not that it doesn't). (He doesn't want you to change his story into what you believe makes a great story, because he's not writing your idea.) This is his story (big, little, medium) so the focus should be on how to improve his story without changing it from his overall vision.

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Okay. I can see your point.

I'm going to change my feedback to :
A ghost story? Why didn't you tell me it was a ghost story? I don't read ghost stories. I don't like ghost stories. I have nothing useful to say about ghost stories.

8letters said:

Okay. I can see your point.

I'm going to change my feedback to :
A ghost story? Why didn't you tell me it was a ghost story? I don't read ghost stories. I don't like ghost stories. I have nothing useful to say about ghost stories.

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If that's the case, you could just dispense with the feedback altogether and trot on by. (Which usually, I think, is the best thing to do anyway.)

KeithD said:

If that's the case, you could just dispense with the feedback altogether and trot on by. (Which usually, I think, is the best thing to do anyway.)

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I was directly asked to provide feedback on a story by the OP. IMHO it would have been rude to have not said something. But I see KindofHere's point that if it's the type of story I don't enjoy, I should have said that it's the type of a story I don't enjoy rather than suggesting the author change it away from the type of story I don't enjoy.

SimonDoom said:

Face it: you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.

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Great group. Great song. Every time you hear it (if you’re a certain age) you can’t help but instantly remember the words and sing along. Embarrassing when you’re in a crowd and (like me) tone deaf.

What F***ing Idiot Started This Thread!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, you did start it off trying to get support for being pissed off at someone clearly showing they didn't want your vigilante "instruction" on a posted story, didn't you?

Please let this torment end!

8letters said:

You seem upset. I'm sorry if I angered you.

ME:...........You have misinterpreted my response. That wasn’t me being angry. If I had started off angry (which I didn’t) it would have dissipated by the time I got to posting because my comments took so bloody long to type on my iPhone with one finger. I felt like giving up more than once.

If I had posted my feedback as a comment on your story, how would you have responded?

ME:...........That’s easy. Read the anon comment “work on your wording” given for EOM and my response.

* I don't read a lot of Romance stories, so I don't know what's typical there.

ME:..........I rarely read Romance. Except for Melissa of course.

When I read stories on LitE, I usually assume that the first two characters that talk are going to wind up having sex.

ME:.........Assuming there will be sex? Ok. But the first two characters who talk to each other? You have to be making a joke with that comment.

In the incest category, the title usually gives away who is going to wind up fucking whom.

ME:.........Not being a fan of I/T I wouldn’t know that.

Your title didn't give me a clue that this was going to be a recounting of a life-long romance (but maybe I'm dense)

ME:.........You’re not dense. But a few words in a title don’t always tell you what’s going to happen in the next hundred/thousand words.

ME:.........I didn’t realise it was I/T until I’d read the first page and looked at the ending. At that time I was unaware of which category you frequent. I thought I was reading a romance.

You, on the other hand, counted on people not assuming that your story would be a romance involving the two main characters

ME:.........No

* I said your story was a good length for what it was. You seemed to take that comment as something else.

ME:........you could be right

* Some people like surprise twists. I don't. I think a story should build up to the ending. You asked my opinion and I gave it to you

ME:........I’ll accept that.

To me, our styles are nothing alike. I would never write anything like your first paragraph.

ME:........I got that wrong then.

To Noel, he looks like the young people around him. Sinead immediately picks him out as a Yank.

ME:........I got the point about Sinead. I was just saying that automatically assuming that a North American accent means they are American can get you in hot water with a Canadian.

I read somewhere that Roy Keane ... used, "na, na, na" for "no", which I shortened to "na, na".

ME:.......It’s very difficult to put sounds down in print.

I'm not surprised I got little things like this wrong. I tried and tried to get someone Irish to read my story, failed and eventually went with my best shot. Oh well.

ME:......I can’t argue with that

As Noel said it, it was spelled correctly.

ME:......Did you not see that I’d put “lol?” .

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As I said in the title please let this torment end!

KeithD said:

Well, you did start it off trying to get support for being pissed off at someone clearly showing they didn't want your vigilante "instruction" on a posted story, didn't you?

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Once again you’ve got something completely wrong. By your comment I don’t think you’ve even read my initial post. Don’t waste your time coming back because I made a rule not to respond to any of your comments on any thread. I won’t break it again.

I'll try to bring my part to closure

Emirus said:

You seem upset. I'm sorry if I angered you.

ME:...........You have misinterpreted my response. That wasn’t me being angry. If I had started off angry (which I didn’t) it would have dissipated by the time I got to posting because my comments took so bloody long to type on my iPhone with one finger. I felt like giving up more than once.

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Good. I know I'm overly blunt on these forums but...I just an overly blunt person when I post on these forums.

Emirus said:

ME:.........I didn’t realise it was I/T until I’d read the first page and looked at the ending. At that time I was unaware of which category you frequent. I thought I was reading a romance.

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Oops! Sorry. Though I did say it's not your typical incest story.

Thinking back on it, a lot of my criticism was because your story is a ghost story and that's not what I wanted to read. Instead of providing feedback, I should have just begged off. I hope what I did write was of some value to you.

Emirus said:

Once again you’ve got something completely wrong. By your comment I don’t think you’ve even read my initial post. Don’t waste your time coming back because I made a rule not to respond to any of your comments on any thread. I won’t break it again.

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Yes, I read your original post--a couple of times. You probably didn't understand what it meant for you to assume that even those who have comments and e-mails and PMs turned off really need (and secretly want) to hear your publicly provided, oh-so-experienced erotica writing instruction, presumably based on your sterling and deep file of stories here.

"I thought I’d leave a helpful comment but, although voting was allowed, comments were switched off. I’ll send him an email instead. But he won’t accept emails. I’ll try a pm. But he won’t accept pm’s."


This is straight out of your OP. A little dense in getting the point that the author wasn't seeking your vigilante wisdom is what I'm thinking. You have no trouble in "knowing" that your instruction is "helpful" and needed. And on top of that you felt the need to come to the board and complain about it.

8letters said:

I'll try to bring my part to closure. I hope what I did write was of some value to you.

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All constructive criticism is of value whether you agree with it or not. The person giving it has gone to the trouble of reading what you’ve written, analysed it, considered a response and whether to give advice, and then done so. The advice may or may not be accepted but it should always be considered.

Not all criticism is constructive. And amateur writers are prone to give criticism that isn't constructive when they assume it is because a little bit of knowledge can be quite destructive. There's a fair amount of that novice guru "constructive," yet not really constructive, advice given on this board. If writers come here and ask for it, that's one thing. When novice gurus go out into the story file and impose it on stories willy-nilly when it wasn't requested, that's quite another thing.

Where your premise goes off the rails is on two points, first, assuming all of the writing criticism you (the generic "you") would give is constructive just because you've written a couple of stories yourself and read some author's books on writing, and second, that everyone posting stories to Literotica is salivating to hear your "constructive" criticism simply because they posted stories here.

KeithD said:

Not all criticism is constructive. And amateur writers are prone to give criticism that isn't constructive when they assume it is because a little bit of knowledge can be quite destructive.

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It's not restricted to amateurs, either.

I have a non-fiction article coming up for publication with a major publishing house. Their copy editors just sent me back the proofs for checking. In twelve pages there were half a dozen places where they'd "corrected" something that didn't need correcting, and had changed the meaning to something I didn't intend. It was particularly irritating since they didn't give a change-tracked version, just a PDF of the final copy; I had to read through it closely to find the bits they'd broken.

To be fair, they also made many more changes that were either neutral or positive, and editing technical content is inherently tough. But it just goes to show that even professionals who've been asked for their input don't always get it right.

Bramblethorn said:

It's not restricted to amateurs, either.

I have a non-fiction article coming up for publication with a major publishing house. Their copy editors just sent me back the proofs for checking. In twelve pages there were half a dozen places where they'd "corrected" something that didn't need correcting, and had changed the meaning to something I didn't intend. It was particularly irritating since they didn't give a change-tracked version, just a PDF of the final copy; I had to read through it closely to find the bits they'd broken.

To be fair, they also made many more changes that were either neutral or positive, and editing technical content is inherently tough. But it just goes to show that even professionals who've been asked for their input don't always get it right.

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You're right, of course. Publishing house copyediting is one profession where you can move up to that position in house without any formal editing education at all. If you go to the university in editing, they will drill into you "first do no harm" and will pound away on you about some of the points KindofHere made up the line--that you're working with enhancing what and how the writer wrote, not substituting your voice and choices.

I see a whole lot of "do it my way" advice going through the feedback on this Web site along with the false assumption that everyone is submitting stories here because they want to further develop their writing skills.