Rewritten Story

Last November, I posted my first story on this site. One of the sections was very well received, but the rest, frankly, needed some help. Since I wanted to build on the story, I decided to take it down and start over. Because of other obligations, I wasn't able to get back to it for quite some time. The new story is broken to five parts. I posted the first part this week:

https://www.literotica.com/s/the-nerd-conquest-pt-01-1

Based on a couple of comments I received, it seems there were some people unhappy that I rewrote the story and posted the first part back up on the site. I'm pretty sure these same people were also trying to somehow punish my story by driving the rating down artificially.

This is not a word-for-word repost by any means. Of the five parts of my story, portions of parts one, two, and four are rewritten. Parts three and five are completely original. Even the portions that are rewritten are very different from the original. While the stories main premise remains, the flow is completely different.

Now I'm wondering whether I should post the other four parts on the site or if I should try to find another venue. I don't want to violate any written or unwritten rules. I also don't want to be trolled over the next four weeks as I post the rest of the story.

I do appreciate feedback, positive and negative, as it makes me a better writer. I just wonder whether the whole rewrite issue will distract from the actual story.

Any thoughts?

You might be better off starting this in the feedback forum.

As for the response, maybe people who read the previous one felt you were somehow 'milking' them by re-posting a lot of the same material. That's just a guess of course because to me there should be little complaints when one is reading for free in the first place.

Hey there, welcome to AH.


If you're looking for more feedback on how to write the story, then Story Feedback is the place. You can post your own thread asking for feedback, plus both Lien_Geller and Sammuel_Bard have threads where you can post a link to your story and ask about it.

On the issue of re-writing and re-posting, don't worry about it. I had a very quick look and you had one positive comment and you're Favourited by seven people. The score is a bit low, but not too bad in comparison to other stories in Non-consent which all look as if they are limbo dancing.

One thing you could do is ask for the story to have a private sweep, then 1-bombs will be cleaned off the score and you will get a better idea of the score. (Not a completely 'true' one, there are usually odd votes that sneak through the system.)

As the story posts later chapters, you will lose the boring trolls and keep your genuine fans. The score will go up. Anyone who complains after that, you can legitimately say: "Look, it's chapter 96 now, you should know what you're going to get, so go and troll someone-else's story."

Good luck!

For whatever reason, there are a number of readers who feel that reposting a story without alerting them at the beginning in an author's note, no matter how significant the changes, is a felony-level crime. There are enough of them to do serious damage to the initial score of your story, lowering its exposure during the "honeymoon" period of the first few days.

This seems to extend to stories that are pulled and reposted with only minor revisions as well, even when an author's note is included at the beginning.

If you're only making minor revisions, such as altering a single plot point that you changed your mind about, it might be better to edit the existing submission, and then use a note at the beginning of the next chapter to point this out to readers. I've done this in the past on a story, and suffered no ill effects.

Granted, it was in Sci-Fi&Fantasy, where the readers aren't prone to this sort of retaliatory voting, and are prone to read author's notes.

If it's a major revision and you decide to repost, adding a note at the beginning announcing the repost seems to stop enough of the complainers to matter, so I would suggest doing so if the situation arises for you again.

Thanks

Thanks for the feedback, everyone.

I was going to come back and add to my thoughts, as I agree with RR.

The normal way of submitting a re-write is to edit the original and submit it as a revised version. That avoids readers thinking they have found an exciting new story in the genre they love, and feeling cheated. I have done this with the early chapters of my novel, then like RR says, I put a note on later chapters to tell the readers the earlier chapters have been revised to take on board their comments.

In fact on Smashwords, they explicitly tell you that you must do this, and not submit your old novel as if it were a brand new one when it's just a revised version. (Although of course people try to get round this as they want the exposure which new writing gets on Smash.)

I'm not sure if there is a hard and fast rule on here about it. I don't think it's a big deal, however it would be courteous to put a note in and warn readers who have read your work already. It would help to say: "Thank you for all your useful feedback. I have incorporated this into a new version. If you are re-reading, I would value your input on whether this is a better version now."

If you want to be sure this would be acceptable, then PM Laurel to ask about it. (Don't email, emails never get a response however she is usually very courteous about replying quickly to PMs.)

Best of luck!