Question Regarding Reviews

Hello All:

I have (within the last few weeks) placed my first two submissions to this site. They are the first installments of what promises to be a fairly long story.

My question is regarding the voting on these stories. Because I want to have some feedback on the stories, I have allowed public voting. However, I am a little confused. For one of my stories, the number of votes itself has fluctuated. A few days ago there were 6, now there are 4. While the overall rating has stayed pretty consistent, I am confused as to how the number of votes can actually go DOWN.

While the removal of the votes involved has made my overall average go up, I would like to know if there is some internal mechanism in place of which I am not aware.

Can anyone shed some light on this?

Also, if anyone wants to post their thoughts on my submissions, I would be happy to have some written feedback. Votes are nice, but constructive criticism is better.

The site has a thing called "Sweeps", which removes bad votes, or multiple votes from the same person. This is why your vote totals go down and your score can go up. There are petty people that 1 bomb thinking they can lower your score.

As the above poster stated the fluctuating votes are sweeps that are run weekly and more often during contests.

As for feedback it helps is you link your stories

here is the link to chapter one.

https://www.literotica.com/s/the-balance-ch-01-05-1

The sweeps can be heartbreaking when you're just starting out and don't have many votes.

Hang in there through the roller coaster, and keep submitting your work. As you build a story list, you'll build a following, and your scores won't fluctuate as much.

Thanks for all the help

I appreciate the information. I was unaware of the sweeps. That explains quite a bit. Hopefully I can build up a following, as has been suggested above.

- I like your second sentence more than your opening sentence. I understand your first sentence is about your story but it doesn't hook me as a reader.

- I think your story would be better received (in views & rating) if it was posted in the incest category.

- Your grammar is generally good but there are a few mistakes. Did you have an editor? If you didn't use an editor you should have. Editors clear up all the irritants whether they be adding missing quotation marks or advising you to replace words that do not belong:

He hadn't. The clothes that were laying out for him were exquisite, expensive stuff that he had never seen before.

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- you are an advanced writer capable of wondrous sentences, so it's, er, disappointing (not sure that is the right word) when you throw in a quick bit of information you want to get out. Example:

Abiron was unaware of his mother's gaze. He was just past nineteen years of age, but all that he knew was his place in the temple. Almost since the day he had been born, Ariana had been the only other person in his world. With her guidance, he learned how to crawl, to walk, to bathe, to dress. With her help, he learned how to cultivate the fruit in the garden and to tend the sheep and cattle in the pastures. With her, he performed the sacred rites of the temple. He knew that she was his mother, but he was all but unaware that there were other people in the world.

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Why is this example so annoying to me? Is it because you are telling not showing? Is it because this snippet of information adds nothing to the story? Is it because the sentence is not so much a sentence but almost a mere sentence fragment? Is it because the sentence is not as sensuous as the rest of your prose? IMO it's this last mentioned issue which bothers me.

Glaze72 said:

I appreciate the information. I was unaware of the sweeps. That explains quite a bit. Hopefully I can build up a following, as has been suggested above.

Click to expand...

Lit tries to get rid of troll votes, both with the general submissions but especially during the seasonal contests. That would explain your loss of votes but a higher rating.

In selling anything, including your writing, the fresh air of publicity fills your wings.

In my opinion, a new writer, starting out, can't just post a story and expect the eager beavers to find it. With over 600 new stories a week a newbie can get drowned out.

Use the boards, ask for story feedback and try a few threads in authors hangout where you can add a tag for your stories.

Lit, I understand some of what you are saying.

Regarding an editor, no I did not engage one. I was unsure about the process, so I simply re-read and revised on my own.

As far as the "stuff" that you disliked, I meant the word in a somewhat archaic English form, in which "stuff" means woven material. And yes, I am borrowing shamelessly from English authors i like in my word choice and phrasing.

Regarding the category, I am not going to post this in the incest category. Yes, there is obviously incest in the story, but the story will expand to have a wider scope.

I hope that explains some of my decisions.

In general, no one gives a piss about your decisions. Everyone else thinks they know better than you. They'll follow this with some wet noodle bullshit about "oh, but don't you want to be recognized for your work?" "Put it where it will be truly appreciated!" "Some people don't like blah blah blah."

It's bullshit. Be honest with yourself about what kind of story you're writing and why you're writing it, and put it where you think it should go. No one knows better than you.

Reality on Literotica, though, is that the submissions editor, Laurel, claims right of category decision for herself, Incest is one of the trump categories here, and if someone points out to her that incest is a major element of any part of a series, that part might wind up in the Incest category whether or not the author likes it. Just be aware of that possibility.

Glaze72 said:

Hello All:

I have (within the last few weeks) placed my first two submissions to this site. They are the first installments of what promises to be a fairly long story.

My question is regarding the voting on these stories. Because I want to have some feedback on the stories, I have allowed public voting. However, I am a little confused. For one of my stories, the number of votes itself has fluctuated. A few days ago there were 6, now there are 4. While the overall rating has stayed pretty consistent, I am confused as to how the number of votes can actually go DOWN.

While the removal of the votes involved has made my overall average go up, I would like to know if there is some internal mechanism in place of which I am not aware.

Can anyone shed some light on this?

Also, if anyone wants to post their thoughts on my submissions, I would be happy to have some written feedback. Votes are nice, but constructive criticism is better.

Click to expand...

I'm just perusing the posts here and don't have time to read right now, however I have advice on getting a larger audience for your stories. Find a way to weave your story, if possible, into the category for a story contest and enter the contest. This brings your stories to more readers. IMHO.

As she waited for the water to heat, she looked at her herself in the bronze mirror on the wall. Her eyes were dark and serene, with the calmness that proximity to the Deity brought. Her black hair, undimmed by gray, fell in waves past her shoulders, reaching nearly to the small of her back. Her skin was dark, tanned by exposure to the sun, but her legs and arms were well-muscled and shapely. Her stomach showed little signs of bearing a child. Her hands reached up to cup her breasts, which were large and firm, with only a trace of sag to show that a baby had suckled on them. (112 words)

Your work is unnecessarily verbose. two examples (tanned from the sun {what else?} Mirror {hanging on the wall} you sure?) I though it was going to take forever for something to happen. Your paragraph is above, here is my suggestion for the same paragraph.

As she waited, she gazed in the bronze mirror. Her dark eyes held serenity from proximity to the deity. Her ebony hair, undimmed by trace of gray, hung in waves to a waist that showed no sign of childbirth. Her arms and legs were well muscled and deeply tanned. She cupped her large, firm breasts appreciatively. Only a slight sag revealed they had ever suckled a child. (67 words)

This is a mere suggestion, but I hope you see what I mean.