Author's Commentary submissions

DevinRush

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Nov 26, 2017
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If an author has written a long story and has a lot to say about it, does it make sense to post an author's commentary "story" about it? As long as it's over 750 words and meets other submission guidelines, it would be accepted, wouldn't it? Should it be posted in the Non-Erotic category, or the category that the original story was posted in? Have there been examples of other authors doing this, and if so, could you point me to them? Thanks!
 
Hard to say whether Laurel would accept it or not. I do think that if you were to post something of this nature, it should probably be in Reviews & Essays. That sounds more like what you're talking about.

Absent having a website or blog where you can post such commentary, which can then be linked from your Bio and forum signature ( but not stories ) there is another option people have taken advantage of in the past.

You could post a thread here on the forum. Threads of this nature have been opened both here in the Authors' Hangout and in Story Feedback. The advantage of this is that you can add a link to the thread within a note attached to the actual stories discussed. You can even do this with stories already available by editing in the note. The only links allowed in stories are those that point to other Literotica pages, and the forum qualifies.

You can post your thoughts at will, without having to wait for the submission process, and have a discussion with readers, should any choose to visit the thread.
 
You can link within Literotica--one work to the other. I don't see why this wouldn't be accepted in "Reviews and Essays," with a link to your story.
 
I think it could be done, as suggested above.

What I would question though, is 'Should it be done?'.

Your story should stand on its own and not need extensive commentary. Unless you are using the story to make a political or social point, commentary is obtrusive, and can be even then.

You are making me think of the Prefaces to Bernard Shaw's plays which were sometimes as long as the play itself. Who read those Prefaces? Why would they? If the play works? Good. If it doesn't, the preface is useless.

So - my view is - you can do it but why?
 
If it were done more--and started generating discussion--the site would probably be that much more inviting for writers.
 
You are making me think of the Prefaces to Bernard Shaw's plays which were sometimes as long as the play itself. Who read those Prefaces? Why would they?
After receiving my adult library card at age 12 because just smart-ass enough, I constantly checked-out spoken-word records. I especially loved listening to Caedmon discs of Siobahn McKenna reading Shaw's prefaces -- often better than the plays IMHO. The AV dept also loaned artworks. Imagine jean-clad adolescent me biking home with the basket filled with 12-inch LPs, original paintings, and sculptures. Took my Hawai'ian language and 'ukulele lessons that way.
 
Absent having a website or blog where you can post such commentary, which can then be linked from your Bio and forum signature ( but not stories ) there is another option people have taken advantage of in the past.

You could post a thread here on the forum. Threads of this nature have been opened both here in the Authors' Hangout and in Story Feedback. The advantage of this is that you can add a link to the thread within a note attached to the actual stories discussed. You can even do this with stories already available by editing in the note. The only links allowed in stories are those that point to other Literotica pages, and the forum qualifies.

One thing here leaves me scratching my head. Sorry for the complete newb question, but I didn't know there was such a thing as notes on stories. I must not have ever encountered this. Could you link me to an example of a story with a note?

My original thought was, it would be nice for the commentary to be a submission in an author's list of stories/poems, so that it's still visible months and years down the road to anyone who becomes interested in exploring the author's work.

On the other hand, I can see how posting it in the forum would be good for discussion's sake. And I can see linking to a discussion from somewhere. Maybe not from the story itself, but maybe from the biography or something.

So anyway, thanks everybody. I would still be curious whether this is considered standard Reviews & Essays material.
 
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No, it's not standard Reviews & Essay's material--because it either isn't done very often or it isn't noticed that it's being done very often.
 
I am not sure what information you would want to list in a note, but imagining if I wanted to say something further about a story that wasn't included within, I think I would just attach it to the end of the story or the beginning - depending on what it is.

For example: You could write a Preface or a Prologue before your story or you could write an Epilogue at the end. If it were me, I would include the Preface/Prologue preceding Chapter One and in the same submission. For the Epilogue, I would include it in the same submission with the last chapter. Then, it will always be accessible to the readers.
 
You're probably just not familiar with how I'm using "note"

https://www.literotica.com/s/a-fine-substitute?page=3

That's a link to one of my stories. At the very end, I have a closing note ( all in italics )

Such notes are added directly to the text of the story, and pasted ( or uploaded ) in the story text section of the submission. They can be opening notes or closing notes, and are quite common. In your case, I would suggest a closing note, as those who have completed the story are most likely to be interested in the additional material.

You can add a Literotica link to these notes. That could be a post on the forum, or a submission to the story file, as you originally suggested. As long as the page is on Literotica, the link is allowed.

That doesn't mean you shouldn't point it out in the "Notes" section of the submission form for Laurel, so she knows it's there. That section of the submission form is only seen by Laurel, so you don't add your notes to readers there, but rather to the story text, as mentioned earlier.

Reason being that she speed reads stories for approval, and it's entirely possible she may see the html for the link, and knee-jerk reject it without noticing that it's a Literotica link in order to move on to the next submission. If you point it out in this section, she knows immediately that the link is within bounds before she comes to it, so you shouldn't have an erroneous speed-reading rejections.

Here's another example, which is a direct example of the subject at hand.

https://www.literotica.com/s/comforting-my-little-sister?page=8

This story's closing note links to the Literotica forum, and this thread.

http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=1406850

One thing here leaves me scratching my head. Sorry for the complete newb question, but I didn't know there was such a thing as notes on stories. I must not have ever encountered this. Could you link me to an example of a story with a note?

My original thought was, it would be nice for the commentary to be a submission in an author's list of stories/poems, so that it's still visible months and years down the road to anyone who becomes interested in exploring the author's work and cares enough to read a commentary.

On the other hand, I can see how posting it in the forum would be good for discussion's sake. And I can see linking to a discussion from somewhere. Maybe not from the story itself, but maybe from the biography or something.

So anyway, thanks everybody. I would still be curious whether this is considered standard Reviews & Essays material.
 
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I sometimes put a short note on my Lit. stories to give the inspiration for the stories. When I've published the stories in marketplace anthologies, I've often given longer backgrounders on the stories in the anthology preface. Thus, the note on the marketplace version of my most recent story here, "The Jacket," was given as:

"The Jacket,” which takes the reader to Paris, is one of those stories that comes directly from one of habu’s mundane life experiences. One day he pulled an intricately designed wool jacket, acquired in Norway and passed down to habu, that he had rarely worn but that seemed perfect for the weather conditions, out of the closet and wore it out to get a haircut. Coming out of the barber shop he suddenly wondered if the coat he wore and wasn’t familiar with really was his jacket, or not, and if he’d perhaps taken the wrong one from the barber shop. What if he’d gotten the wrong jacket? What if the man who got his jacket was a hunk? What if they went to the same café and recognized that the other one had their jacket? Habu went home and wove this jacket story from very basic material.
 
I sometimes put a short note on my Lit. stories to give the inspiration for the stories. When I've published the stories in marketplace anthologies, I've often given longer backgrounders on the stories in the anthology preface. Thus, the note on the marketplace version of my most recent story here, "The Jacket," was given as:

"The Jacket,” which takes the reader to Paris, is one of those stories that comes directly from one of habu’s mundane life experiences. One day he pulled an intricately designed wool jacket, acquired in Norway and passed down to habu, that he had rarely worn but that seemed perfect for the weather conditions, out of the closet and wore it out to get a haircut. Coming out of the barber shop he suddenly wondered if the coat he wore and wasn’t familiar with really was his jacket, or not, and if he’d perhaps taken the wrong one from the barber shop. What if he’d gotten the wrong jacket? What if the man who got his jacket was a hunk? What if they went to the same café and recognized that the other one had their jacket? Habu went home and wove this jacket story from very basic material.
I'm a huge sucker for stuff like this. Even if I never read the story, knowing how somebody else came up with an idea can give me a good brain workout with my own "what if...?" scenario. :)
 
In the preface to the published anthology in which the story of mine that posts on Lit. tomorrow, "Sailor's Bluff," the following note was given. "'Sailor's Bluff' is one of several stories habu wrote from inspirations gathered from around him during a spring train trip from Washington, D.C., to Chicago on Amtrak's Capitol Limited and then on to Spokane on the Empire Builder. The first night out, habu went to the observation club car and observed a young woman from Jordan trying to hook up with a drunken sailor, who talked of a fiancée in Chicago, who he nonetheless wasn't going to visit in Chicago as he rode the rails to San Diego and who could only talk about how tight he was with his buds in the Navy. Tuned into such things, habu knew the sailor wasn't for either the girl from Jordan or his supposed fiancée but was shopping for something else altogether. This provided the inspiration for the first story in this anthology."
 
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