Connecting vs Craftsmanship

[AG31]

Today @pink_silk_glove gave me a gift. She gave me a term to use to describe what kind of feedback I want from my stories:

Well, for me, writing is a form of connecting.

This was in a discussion about getting high scores on Literotica.

However, if you one is writing (in whole or in part) to get higher scores or more bouquet comments, that is pandering, regardless of plot smut ratio or other content, that is pandering. And there's nothing wrong with that.

I fully endorse the idea of "connecting" as a reason for wanting feedback, and for not looking for high scores (which suggests a broad appeal... often not compatible with "connecting.") But "pandering" has a negative connotation, whether or not you think "there's nothing wrong with that." Wouldn't it be better to ascribe the desire for high scores to be indicative of an author's desire to refine their craft? I've been intrigued by the fact that a lot of erotica writers take pride in being able to create stories in all sorts of genres. For myself, they are records of fantasies, and it would be inconceivable for me to try to write a story that didn't arouse me. So I conclude that these authors are taking pride in their plain talent as writers. That's not "pandering," but a look at scores is a legitimate way to measure their success. True?

Of course, writing "from the heart" does not preclude trying to refine one's craftsmanship.

So my question for you all are these:

What is your prime motivation? Connecting? Perfecting your authorial craft? Something else?

 

[MelissaBaby]

You've presented a false dichotomy. There is no correlation between high scores and broad appeal. In fact, the opposite is frequently the case.

My stories have an average score around 4.80, but my most viewed submission has only 41k views after almost five years on the site. Stories in popular categories get more than that in a week, regardless of scores.

 

[StillStunned]

I'm an editor by profession. I usually spend 40-60 hours a week dealing with people's atrocious writing. Writing is a way for me to rid myself of the frustration. It just to happens that I enjoy writing sex scenes as well, and my wife enjoys it when I read them to her.

 

[BrightShinyGirl]

I write smut to amuse myself, and I publish it here because why the hell not? If I find it sexy, someone else might too.

The writing I do to polish my craft and connect with others is totally G-rated.

 

[yowser]

Writing is like dancing, a lot more fun if it's not done solo. And if you are the writer, you take the lead, and if you're lousy (or clumsy or go against the beat) you find yourself with no partners. The reader is also an accomplice, and has to work themselves for their own enjoyment. There's many ways to have an enjoyable dance (luckily) but some sort of connection is essential.

I just posted a longish piece on this very topic, in the thread that perhaps prompted this one.

 

[Euphony]

 

[Comshaw]

Firstly I am not clear on what "connecting" actually means. After reading their post on the matter i'm still not clear as to the meaning. Call me dense but I learned a long time ago a good communicator is one who can, by spoken or written word convey their meaning to everyone listening or reading. And I just don't get it.

But I can speak to your question of what is my prime motivation for writing. I write simply because I like to tell stories. A side effect is that the more I write the better at the craft I get, and the better I can tell a story. It's like another skill. I was welder/fabricator for many years. When I first started I had a hell of a time running an acceptable bead. At the end of my working career I could do it literally with my eyes closed. In the beginning, I had difficulty in visualizing a completed project while looking at a pile of metal pieces. By the end, I could do it without blueprints. My point is by doing we learn and if it's a skill we really want to have we will make it a point to learn along the way so we get better at it.

As far as scores, those are just the candy topping on a completed story. I write it the way I write it and if it gets higher scores, great, the warm fuzzies. If not you damn well betcha' I feel disappointed. I write stories to be enjoyed by the readers. and when the votes fall down it's an indication that a bunch of 'em didn't enjoy it. If I was writing for myself, I'd never post a story on the internet 'cause I won't give a damn what others thought of it. But I do care and I will continue to post them.

With any scoring system, there will always be someone who thinks it stinks. But it is what it is here. You either ignore it or adjust to it. I can bet there are VERY few who actually ignore it. Those who do have it turned off. Those who say they don't care for it, but keep it turned so they get votes, are either self-delusional or are trying to hide the fact they do care. In the first example, it ain't no hide off my posterior because self-delusional people don't know fantasy from reality, so I can give them a pass. In the second it has and always will chap my ass when people are hypocrites. That is a choice. A choice to deceive people. And something I have difficulty in abiding.

To sum up all that foofraa up there: I write because I love too because an inner thing compels me to. I post them for people to read and enjoy. If I get high scores and good comments, the warm fuzzies are a nice payment for the work. If I get low scores and "fucking trash" as comments, I sigh and go back to the keyboard to see why. Was it my writing? The readers? The content? A learning experience. A guy told me a long time ago that if you never make a mistake, if you always stay in your comfort zone, you aren't pushing yourself and aren't going to learn anything new.

Okay, I think I've done speechified and been verbose enough for one day.

TA ya'll.


Comshaw

 

[pink_silk_glove]

There are levels of craftsmanship, aren't there?

One would suppose that the craft starts with the mechanics, vocabulary diction flow etc, the tools of the craft. Like any other artform prose presents ideas in a package. That package is your words, how they flow, how they describe, how they convey the message, the esthetics of that package is your eloquence or choice of style. At level 1B we could suppose that there is an art of dialogue, of imagery and such. For many of us here in the AH, we can read back our own stuff and see where something stylistically sticks out and needs fixing - using the same word three of four times in one paragraph and swapping one or two of them out for a synonym or pronoun. Mechanically for the most part, we're okay. We know if it "reads well" or "sounds good" or not.

The next level is probably deeper stylistic choices like when to delve into descriptive imagery and when to cut back to step up the pace. When is appropriate to add humor and when do things need to be serious. Is my protag sympathetic enough, or is perhaps too perfect and lacks depth? Is my villain badass enough? Is the plot dire enough? Are everyone's motives plausible? Now we're getting into the story telling. This is where it gets more difficult to know if we are getting across what we want to get across. This is where good constructive feedback is invaluable.

Here's an example. I wrote a female lead who was in a bad situation. I didn't want her to be a damsel. I felt that it would make her too thin and cliche, so I gave her some degree of complicity in her own demise to make her more human. I had a friend beta read the first few chapters and she told me that she just didn't care about my heroine, that her problems were her own and she deserved it. I hadn't connected with my beta reader in the way that I had hoped, so I read back and thought it over and realized that I had overdone things. I needed to make the odds against her a little tougher to lend her more sympathy.

On the other hand I had another friend read the first couple of chapters and all she said was "Great, yeah, wow such good stuff." She couldn't elaborate. It didn't help me at all. If she had said "My God, I need to know how she gets out of this!" then I would know that I had immersed her with my plot and lead character at least. If she had said "I just love the swank descriptions and all the clothes," then at least I would have known that the setting worked for her. Actually I think she did mention digging the descriptions of the clothes come to think of it.

I had a third friend read the first chapter and dismiss the whole novel outright simply because he hated my direct style of sentence structure. "That Hemingway stuff is bullshit," or something I believe he said. Well I never thought of myself as Hemingway but I do like mixing long and short sentences for ease of reading flow, detailed dreamy imagery sprinkled with blunt statements I suppose. I guess I leaned more to the blunt than I thought. In this case I didn't change anything because I liked the style the way that it was.

As for scores indicating a higher level of craft - on lit no, they don't. They mean nothing. I've said before, someone could be totally loving your story, then suddenly in the middle of page 3 the panties come off to show a big bushy pussy that you could lose your keys in and they stop reading right there and give the whole thing a 1. People do. They vote for the stupidest reasons. People have admitted right here in the AH that they just give a 5 if they like it because they don't want to be mean and drag the the score below 4.5. So it wasn't perfect by any means, but the score was. There is absolutely no criteria whatsoever and so everyone has their own. Huge tracts of voters vote purely judgmentally, did you portray the Dom/sub dynamic they way they feel it should be portrayed? 5 it is. Did you cross their ideals at all? Then it's a 1 because they think you're an asshole for judging their kinks and getting them 'wrong'. "A woman would never be turned on by that. 1!" We see this shit all the time and we don't even have to talk about the BtBs. Lit's scoring system is absolutely meaningless.

Taking pride is also a phrase that I don't like. It's misleading. Yes, I know what is meant by taking pride in something but true pride is an ego thing, so taking pride in something can really start to blur things for your psyche. To take pride could mean that I simply care about what I'm doing or it could also mean that I want to show off bask in the accolades of it. To avoid the confusion I prefer to say that I take care in a job well done. It helps me know the difference. It also makes it very easy for me to not give a shit about the meaningless scores, and also no problem at all to take the positive and negative comments equally.

 

[AG31]

You've presented a false dichotomy. There is no correlation between high scores and broad appeal. In fact, the opposite is frequently the case.

My stories have an average score around 4.80, but my most viewed submission has only 41k views after almost five years on the site. Stories in popular categories get more than that in a week, regardless of scores.

Of course. I forgot that scores here at Lit are averages of 1 out of 5. But, however one measures positive feedback (number of followers, maybe?) wanting positive ratings would seem to go with a desire to be a good crafts person. No?

 

[AG31]

Writing is like dancing, a lot more fun if it's not done solo. And if you are the writer, you take the lead, and if you're lousy (or clumsy or go against the beat) you find yourself with no partners. The reader is also an accomplice, and has to work themselves for their own enjoyment. There's many ways to have an enjoyable dance (luckily) but some sort of connection is essential.

I just posted a longish piece on this very topic, in the thread that perhaps prompted this one.

Did you ever see the ballet scene, the dying swan? She's totally alone. I bet she's pretty satisfied.

 

[Comshaw]

There are levels of craftsmanship, aren't there?

One would suppose that the craft starts with the mechanics, vocabulary diction flow etc, the tools of the craft. Like any other artform prose presents ideas in a package. That package is your words, how they flow, how they describe, how they convey the message, the esthetics of that package is your eloquence or choice of style. At level 1B we could suppose that there is an art of dialogue, of imagery and such. For many of us here in the AH, we can read back our own stuff and see where something stylistically sticks out and needs fixing - using the same word three of four times in one paragraph and swapping one or two of them out for a synonym or pronoun. Mechanically for the most part, we're okay. We know if it "reads well" or "sounds good" or not.

The next level is probably deeper stylistic choices like when to delve into descriptive imagery and when to cut back to step up the pace. When is appropriate to add humor and when do things need to be serious. Is my protag sympathetic enough, or is perhaps too perfect and lacks depth? Is my villain badass enough? Is the plot dire enough? Are everyone's motives plausible? Now we're getting into the story telling. This is where it gets more difficult to know if we are getting across what we want to get across. This is where good constructive feedback is invaluable.

Here's an example. I wrote a female lead who was in a bad situation. I didn't want her to be a damsel. I felt that it would make her too thin and cliche, so I gave her some degree of complicity in her own demise to make her more human. I had a friend beta read the first few chapters and she told me that she just didn't care about my heroine, that her problems were her own and she deserved it. I hadn't connected with my beta reader in the way that I had hoped, so I read back and thought it over and realized that I had overdone things. I needed to make the odds against her a little tougher to lend her more sympathy.

On the other hand I had another friend read the first couple of chapters and all she said was "Great, yeah, wow such good stuff." She couldn't elaborate. It didn't help me at all. If she had said "My God, I need to know how she gets out of this!" then I would know that I had immersed her with my plot and lead character at least. If she had said "I just love the swank descriptions and all the clothes," then at least I would have known that the setting worked for her. Actually I think she did mention digging the descriptions of the clothes come to think of it.

I had a third friend read the first chapter and dismiss the whole novel outright simply because he hated my direct style of sentence structure. "That Hemingway stuff is bullshit," or something I believe he said. Well I never thought of myself as Hemingway but I do like mixing long and short sentences for ease of reading flow, detailed dreamy imagery sprinkled with blunt statements I suppose. I guess I leaned more to the blunt than I thought. In this case I didn't change anything because I liked the style the way that it was.

As for scores indicating a higher level of craft - on lit no, they don't. They mean nothing. I've said before, someone could be totally loving your story, then suddenly in the middle of page 3 the panties come off to show a big bushy pussy that you could lose your keys in and they stop reading right there and give the whole thing a 1. People do. They vote for the stupidest reasons. People have admitted right here in the AH that they just give a 5 if they like it because they don't want to be mean and drag the the score below 4.5. So it wasn't perfect by any means, but the score was. There is absolutely no criteria whatsoever and so everyone has their own. Huge tracts of voters vote purely judgmentally, did you portray the Dom/sub dynamic they way they feel it should be portrayed? 5 it is. Did you cross their ideals at all? Then it's a 1 because they think you're an asshole for judging their kinks and getting them 'wrong'. "A woman would never be turned on by that. 1!" We see this shit all the time and we don't even have to talk about the BtBs. Lit's scoring system is absolutely meaningless.

Taking pride is also a phrase that I don't like. It's misleading. Yes, I know what is meant by taking pride in something but true pride is an ego thing, so taking pride in something can really start to blur things for your psyche. To take pride could mean that I simply care about what I'm doing or it could also mean that I want to show off bask in the accolades of it. To avoid the confusion I prefer to say that I take care in a job well done. It helps me know the difference. It also makes it very easy for me to not give a shit about the meaningless scores, and also no problem at all to take the positive and negative comments equally.

Do you have voting turned off? And if not why not?

Comshaw

 

[gunhilltrain]

Today @pink_silk_glove gave me a gift. She gave me a term to use to describe what kind of feedback I want from my stories:


This was in a discussion about getting high scores on Literotica.



I fully endorse the idea of "connecting" as a reason for wanting feedback, and for not looking for high scores (which suggests a broad appeal... often not compatible with "connecting.") But "pandering" has a negative connotation, whether or not you think "there's nothing wrong with that." Wouldn't it be better to ascribe the desire for high scores to be indicative of an author's desire to refine their craft? I've been intrigued by the fact that a lot of erotica writers take pride in being able to create stories in all sorts of genres. For myself, they are records of fantasies, and it would be inconceivable for me to try to write a story that didn't arouse me. So I conclude that these authors are taking pride in their plain talent as writers. That's not "pandering," but a look at scores is a legitimate way to measure their success. True?

Of course, writing "from the heart" does not preclude trying to refine one's craftsmanship.

So my question for you all are these:

What is your prime motivation? Connecting? Perfecting your authorial craft? Something else?

This question of "connecting" to the readers or gaining "visibility" has been coming up recently. It's possible but very difficult to do that. There are so many stories here and so many new ones churning in every week. And there are so many readers. Yesterday I compared them to locusts swarming in on each week's new offerings, and then moving on.

I'm not blaming them. Yes, it is nice to get a high score. But we live in an age of mass entertainment and a raving for mass distraction, and Lit is one outlet for that. As they used to say in Hollywood, "You're only as good as your last picture." The authors who accept that and write for themselves are probably happier.

 

[AG31]

Firstly I am not clear on what "connecting" actually means.

It's what you don't get when you go to ChatGPT to generate "a girlfriend."

 

[AchtungNight]

Like other people here, I write to connect with others. I also write to get my insane creative ideas out of my brain and entertain myself and hopefully others too. Over time I’ve put out a lot of unique ideas and gotten a moderate amount of good feedback. I hope it continues.

 

[Comshaw]

It's what you don't get when you go to ChatGPT to generate "a girlfriend."

I see. So when I have Mrs. Thumb and her four daughters do special things for me I'm connecting?

Hmmmmm...


Comshaw

 

[madelinemasoch]

Wouldn't it be better to ascribe the desire for high scores to be indicative of an author's desire to refine their craft?

No. Unless you think popularity=quality, when it doesn't. 50 shades is garbage and everyone knows it. For a more relevant example, scroll through any category for highly rated stories. Read it. Did it deserve it? Likely not. Weak little strokers and stories with bad punctuation get higher than 4.5 all the time on here.

What is your prime motivation? Connecting? Perfecting your authorial craft? Something else?

Depends on who I think I'm talking to. If I feel ashamed, I say I write this for practice so I can do a fantasy epic and social theory later. If I feel overzealous, I say it's for propaganda purposes. If I'm honest with myself, it's in order to keep my feelings vibrant and alive while I'm alone, and to help improve my own life by giving me something to do and think about that isn't the haunting voices in the wall.

 

[ronde]

I fully endorse the idea of "connecting" as a reason for wanting feedback, and for not looking for high scores (which suggests a broad appeal... often not compatible with "connecting.") But "pandering" has a negative connotation, whether or not you think "there's nothing wrong with that." Wouldn't it be better to ascribe the desire for high scores to be indicative of an author's desire to refine their craft? I've been intrigued by the fact that a lot of erotica writers take pride in being able to create stories in all sorts of genres. For myself, they are records of fantasies, and it would be inconceivable for me to try to write a story that didn't arouse me. So I conclude that these authors are taking pride in their plain talent as writers. That's not "pandering," but a look at scores is a legitimate way to measure their success. True?

Of course, writing "from the heart" does not preclude trying to refine one's craftsmanship.

So my question for you all are these:

What is your prime motivation? Connecting? Perfecting your authorial craft? Something else?

I write because it's fun, it's relaxing, and it's creative. I write about what I've experienced in life and what I imagine could be. I would suppose ego is part of why we all write, but I doubt that's the primary reason. I have a son who is an artist and we knew that from the day he could pick up a pencil and draw. He didn't draw to get praise. He drew because he couldn't not draw, if that makes any sense.

To me, views, comments, and scores only tell me that I have a few readers out of the multitude who read here on Literotica who enjoy what I write enough to let me know that. Views, comments, and scores are not related in any way, or at least I've never been able to correlate any one to the other. My highest rated story is sitting at 4.9 with 16,875 views, 1,159 votes, and 88 comments. In contrast to that, one of my stories with 49,410 views (almost three times as many views), is rated at 4.61 with 616 votes (not quite half as many) and 7 comments ( a tenth as many). The only thing I've been able to correlate is that in general, the longer a story is on the site, the more views.

Scores tell me if what I'm writing continues to please my limited audience. High scores make me happy because I've done that. Low scores tell me I didn't reach the readers I write for.

It's not pandering to look at your work and figure out why one story scored better or worse than another, and then changing how you write so you don't do that again. It's only pandering when you begin writing something you don't really want to write just so you can see a high score, for instance, looking to see which genre generates the highest scores or the most votes, and then deciding to write in that genre when you really don't like it.

 

[AG31]

I write because it's fun, it's relaxing, and it's creative. I write about what I've experienced in life and what I imagine could be.

Interesting analysis of stats.

You describe what sounds to me like the reason a mainstream author might cite. Do you also write mainstream fiction? Do you know why you write erotica? Is it simply to explore the sexual side of life?

 

[MelissaBaby]

Of course. I forgot that scores here at Lit are averages of 1 out of 5. But, however one measures positive feedback (number of followers, maybe?) wanting positive ratings would seem to go with a desire to be a good crafts person. No?

I can only speak for myself, but although I consider myself an empathetic person, I can't understand the mindset of anyone who goes to the trouble of writing a story and the trouble of submitting it, and not care how it is received.

What method authors use to determine whatever they consider success is highly subjective and extremely;y conditional. I am very successful as measured as by ratings, much less so if you place the most emphasis on views or favorites.

But all that really tells you is that I write in the less popular categories, and that what I submit there appeals to to that particular set of readers.

 

[MelissaBaby]

Scores tell me if what I'm writing continues to please my limited audience. High scores make me happy because I've done that. Low scores tell me I didn't reach the readers I write for.

An overlooked factor is that a high percentage of the votes on a particular author's story is likely to come from their followers. Therefore, ratings are to some extent an indication of whether or not your core audience likes that story more or less than others you're written. It is probably a better indication of how you've done compared to your own standards than how you compare to other authors.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Of course. I forgot that scores here at Lit are averages of 1 out of 5. But, however one measures positive feedback (number of followers, maybe?) wanting positive ratings would seem to go with a desire to be a good crafts person. No?

Followers are nice to have, but usually they are pretty distracted. Most of the ones I've looked at (I do check their profiles) may be following dozens or hundreds of authors. (Hm, just reading Lit is a hobby? I guess so.) Anyway, maybe five or ten might stir themselves if something comes out and they vote or comment. As I said, I don't blame them; that's the nature of Lit reality. Better this than the difficulty of getting anything into print. By the way, in the days of porn magazines, did anybody care about the writers, assuming there was some fiction in the the publications?

Someone I once knew wrote about porn publishing as it was years ago. I haven't read this yet.

https://www.amazon.com/Beaver-Stree...s=Beaver+Street&qid=1695327037&s=books&sr=1-1

 

[madelinemasoch]

To me, views, comments, and scores only tell me that I have a few readers out of the multitude who read here on Literotica who enjoy what I write enough to let me know that. Views, comments, and scores are not related in any way, or at least I've never been able to correlate any one to the other. My highest rated story is sitting at 4.9 with 16,875 views, 1,159 votes, and 88 comments. In contrast to that, one of my stories with 49,410 views (almost three times as many views), is rated at 4.61 with 616 votes (not quite half as many) and 7 comments ( a tenth as many). The only thing I've been able to correlate is that in general, the longer a story is on the site, the more views.

To be honest, this may be a miscalculation. I don't think longer story=more views. The reason why you got more comments and rates is probably due to the content, not the storys' lengths. Unless they both have the same subject matter, then I'd be proven wrong.

 

[ElectricBlue]

It's only pandering when you begin writing something you don't really want to write just so you can see a high score, for instance, looking to see which genre generates the highest scores or the most votes, and then deciding to write in that genre when you really don't like it.

I agree. I don't know why you bother/how you can, write content that doesn't do much for you, personally, in terms of a kink. I think it shows in the writing, there's no heart in it. It's like painting by numbers, to get the numbers.

Similarly, those who say, "I'm going to write something in every category, to see if I can." To be fair, that IS a writer's exercise, but again, why bother? Those categories that you don't know, those kinks you don't have - they're going to show in the writing, by not showing. Readers are going to "know" it's not your kink. You can fake it till you make it, I reckon, but it only gets you so far. You need the kink to get you the rest, and that's the bit that readers will "believe".

I've written in a fairly wide range of categories (18, at last count), not because I'm trying to write in all - which I'm not - but because the category fitted the story best, and I don't fit myself into any tight niches (I'm a wide-ranging perv, what can I say. But I reckon anyone who knows my content, they're going to say, "Yeah, that's an EB story. " They'll spot my trademarks, my tropes, straight away.

 

[Britva415]

Imagine improving connection via good craftmanship.

 

[ElectricBlue]

No one seems to have noticed that I'm not into incest or romance yet.

I write things I'm not into because I'm not into them. I figure if I can convince most people I'm into it/understand it then I can't be as horrible a writer as I think I am. I also want to figure out the appeal of certain things I have no experience with.

I guess you could say it's a type of research.

I sorta kinda get that, but it still seems a bit self-defeating, to me. Perhaps I'm at a point in my life where my clock's ticking down, finite number of heartbeats, that kind of thing. Why waste time thinking about things you don't want to think about?

I have a vague notion that you get a bunch of peak moments in your life, probably not all that many (but I don't list or count them). Life is made up of the periods in between. As you get older, the memories of those peak moments get longer, and if you're lucky, you keep adding a few more. Eventually, on your death bed, those memories are continuous, but you're out of time for the bits in between.

When I die, I want the ghost or shadow of every loved one I've ever known to come walk through my room, and say, do you remember me? And of course, I will. In the meantime, I write about it.

That's what my mum did, in her last two weeks. It was a very crowded room, all her ghosts. Strangely enough, she didn't do it with any of my siblings, only when I was there.