Edited v unfiltered: Literotica v This is me

[MelissaBaby]

I just read Tales of Summer:Queen of Spades. I chose it because it is the OP's most recent and highest rated submission. In fairness, I wanted to sample her "best" work. Also to be fair, I should say that I find the Black/white stereotypes repellent, but I am giving my opinions on the writing, not the subject matter.

As I don't usually read stories of this type, my knowledge is limited, but I thought that Sinderella had latched on to a good concept, the Dom taking the woman to get a tattoo that marked her as his submissive.

I drive a lot in my job, and I frequently dictate on my phone as I do. On a work break, or when I get home, I correct and edit it to an acceptable standard, making it part of my first draft.

This story reads like some of my unedited dictation.

I very well might dictate a sentence like "She sat opposite Dwayne as he drank his drink." as I'm driving in traffic, but in my second look, I'd edit it to "drank his beer" or "his coffee" or his "gin and tonic." Not only does that remove the clumsiness of "drank his drink", what he drinks is an indicator of character. Is he the kind of guy who sips fine wine or one who drinks cheap hootch or something in between? It helps him become someone more than generic Black Bull.

This is really bad writing, even apart from the bizarre affectation of capitalizing all of the Dom's dialogue, while not using quotation marks at all for any character. (Note: It's pretty well established that most people assume ALL CAPITAL LETTERS IN DIALOGUE INDICATE SHOUTING!) The syntax is garbled. Even common expressions are misrendered. Characters are so poorly differentiated that it's hard to keep track of who is who. In places, the narrative is incoherent, and a number of times, I had to reread sentences or even whole paragraphs to follow what was happening.

And yet, this story has, as of this writing, a 4.26 rating, has been favorited 16 times and has several favorable comments. So it has reached an audience. My advice to Sinderella would be to respect and appreciate that audience enough to take more care with her next endeavor and present them with a higher quality story. Because as it stands, a good part of her "this is me" seems to be that she only wants to see her words posted and has no regard for the readers.

 

[Gamblnluck]

Respectfully disagree.

Read their post again. This isn't someone asking for help or looking for constructive criticism.

The post essentially translates to "Woah as me! I just wanna publish my poorly written completely unedited stories without fixing my mistakes but big bad Literotica won't let me! Why does no one understand my genius? Why must I be forced to conform to standards? I just wanna write the way I wanna do it."

I tend to agree with you. Her writing is almost what they called in a medical psych class, 'flight of ideas'. She jumps from thought to thought within the same paragraph. Punctuation and grammar rules ignored. I found it almost painful to read. And the 5 stories posted where the ones ACCEPTED. How badly written must the ones that were rejected?

 

[Omenainen]

So I went and browsed through your stories, and I say browsed through because honestly, they're unreadable.

There's nothing "raw" or "unfiltered" about your writing. You're not some maverick, breaking new ground in the writing word with your unique, individual style.

Your stories read as someone unable to write properly or simply too lazy to care enough to try.

By your post here I'm guessing the latter, since instead of accepting the criticism offered by both readers and those screening your submissions, you reject it in favor of coming here and complaining about it, hoping to find a sympathetic ear.

You won't find that with me, sorry.

Take responsibility for your lazy, sloppy writing and try harder.

Funny, I distinctly remember you having a very different outlook on these issues.

Is there a phrase in English for this? In Finnish we say “takinkääntö”, literally translates to turning one’s jacket inside out, and it’s usually used for politicians who lobby for something and then do a 180° and vote for the exact opposite.

 

[MelissaBaby]

Learn the rules, then master them within reason. Then - and only then - break them. The odds that you are a Picasso are slim; but with work and dedication you could become as close to him as makes no difference.

There are some rules that I break here and there. And I get away with it. Because I break rules only under particular circumstances where I think it is a better choice than following the standard procedure.

I've never had a reader complain because I used a non-verbal dialogue tag or whatever, because I don't do it all the time. Most readers don't notice, and those who do understand that I made a conscious decision for what I thought was a good reason. But if I did it all the time, they'd just think I'm a careless writer. And if I don't care about my story, why should they?

 

[Djmac1031]

Funny, I distinctly remember you having a very different outlook on these issues.

Is there a phrase in English for this? In Finnish we say “takinkääntö”, literally translates to turning one’s jacket inside out, and it’s usually used for politicians who lobby for something and then do a 180° and vote for the exact opposite.

I'm not sure who you're confusing me with, but you are incorrect.

 

[MelissaBaby]

Funny, I distinctly remember you having a very different outlook on these issues.

Is there a phrase in English for this? In Finnish we say “takinkääntö”, literally translates to turning one’s jacket inside out, and it’s usually used for politicians who lobby for something and then do a 180° and vote for the exact opposite.

"Flip flop"

 

[Omenainen]

I'm not sure who you're confusing me with, but you are incorrect.

No, I’m not. Your argument was that grammar doesn’t apply to everyone and it’s a matter of personal style to ignore sentence structuring, and as long as it is works for the author, it’s all peachy.

 

[Nynah]

If the idea is to make the character's speech distinct, OP could learn to use some basic HTML formatting? This article has been particularly helpful for me when I was learning to navigate what exactly is accepted here on Lit. Certainly the assertive character can have their speech bolded or underlined or blockquoted or something.

I will say I'm confused as to why OP seems to be allergic to using quotation marks for speech but uses them for things like "tramp stamp". Incongruous.

 

[onehitwanda]

If the idea is to make the character's speech distinct, OP could learn to use some basic HTML formatting? This article has been particularly helpful for me when I was learning to navigate what exactly is accepted here on Lit. Certainly the assertive character can have their speech bolded or underlined or blockquoted or something.

I will say I'm confused as to why OP seems to be allergic to using quotation marks for speech but uses them for things like "tramp stamp". Incongruous.

HTML works until the Lit Formatting Troll gets hungry.

 

[Djmac1031]

No, I’m not. Your argument was that grammar doesn’t apply to everyone and it’s a matter of personal style to ignore sentence structuring, and as long as it is works for the author, it’s all peachy.

please go cite an example of when and where I said this.

Ill wait.

 

[Omenainen]

please go cite an example of when and where I said this.

Ill wait.

You had a whole thread about it right here on AH.

 

[TheLobster]

Is there a phrase in English for this? In Finnish we say “takinkääntö”, literally translates to turning one’s jacket inside out, and it’s usually used for politicians who lobby for something and then do a 180° and vote for the exact opposite.

You literally said it: do a one-eighty. That’s when you do it once.

If someone goes back and forth between opposite stances multiple times, then that’s flip flopping.

 

[TheLobster]

pictures are often worth a thousands words:

I can’t help but wonder what happened to Picasso between 19 and 29 years old that his art style, and presumably outlook in life, changed so drastically and in such an abrupt manner.

Without looking up his biography, my guess is that he lost his virginity.

 

[SinderellaSin]

Thank you for all your thoughts, some harsh, some not so. Yes I do write what comes into my head but I do look back. I've taken on board all your thoughts and yes I do want people to read it, so yes I shall try to give them more of what you have suggested working on it once I have the basic premise down. Next story is edited. I finally gave up my control on my words and to be fair we talked about it.

Thank you again for the feed back

S x

 

[StillStunned]

I commend you for your mature response. Criticism is always a lesson that's hard to learn, and it's easier to reject it than to take it on board.

Writing is an art, and art is highly personal and individual. But form matters. Like it or not, prose has some loose parameters that readers will expect to encounter. Spelling, grammar and punctuation are like the canvas for a painting: yes it's possible to create a painting on a different background - steam, or half a dozen metal pipes, or three naked dancers - but that's asking the audience for more work than they signed on for when they thought they were going to look at a painting.

The same with stories. Spelling, grammar and punctuation are the common foundation most stories are built on. They give you a head start with your readers. You can tell a story like Paul Muldoon's Madoc, which is a series of poems in very unusual formats - one is just a triangle, if I remember correctly - and it will make people think, but it will make more people just nope out and look for something easier to read.

My advice is always make a conscious decision, knowing and weighing the pros and the cons. Does the form enhance the narrative, or does it detract from it? Are you doing it to be clever, because you're lazy, or because there's a specific mood and tone you're trying to capture, and maybe ten readers will get it and everyone else will hate it, but that's art for you.

For instance, I've just started writing a story for the Born To Run challenge. It's a cyberpunk story, so it's dark and frantic, and the inspiration is taken from the song "Night", which is narrated in the second person. So this story is a second-person POV stream of consciousness, which I'm sure will be my new lowest-rated story here. Readers loathe 2P, readers hate stream of consciousness. But I'm going to do it anyway, because it's the only way to tell this story.

 

[XerXesXu]

I commend you for your mature response. Criticism is always a lesson that's hard to learn, and it's easier to reject it than to take it on board.

I noticed that.

 

[SinderellaSin]

I also loved Melissa's surprise that it had reached 4.26 and been favourited btly do many people. To be fair im shocked as well that people have voted so much, have made it a favourite, or even followed me. Yes I wrote in my own style, maybe even wrote for a certain audience to appreciate. This isn't Jane Eyre, I wasn't looking to write an epic novel just something people could enjoy. So many did, but with your rules you didn't. Classically trained writing v me (common and illiterate). I guess im from the 15th century before quotation marks existed.

As i said I've read your arguments and like everyone else in this world will try to improve myself. Yes sometimes I tell the reader what's happening rather than immerse them in detail I let them read the raw me. I guess that's style over substance. Xx

 

[alohadave]

The truth is that in almost all cases they simply don't know how to use those conventions well enough

On a slightly different note, this is me when I come up with an idea for a plot element and I have no idea how to write it.

 

[alohadave]

Is there a phrase in English for this? In Finnish we say “takinkääntö”, literally translates to turning one’s jacket inside out, and it’s usually used for politicians who lobby for something and then do a 180° and vote for the exact opposite.

Sometimes, especially with politicians, we might call that 'talking out of both sides of their mouth'.

 

[SpermFactory]

Sometimes my intent is to make the reader imagine how the characters are feeling without literally feeding them the words. But im learning to conform. Didn't like the thought of others editing it, might judge me

Sounds a little like prose poetry or Free verse poetry. You might want to have a look at the poetry Forums threads. However, as you are writing dialogue only, it may read like a rant or a ramble. If it doesn’t, then you know you have something special.

A word of advice, read other peoples similar works. This could include dialogue written for the Screen or Stage. Arguably in plays dialogue is King.

Accept and give feedback. Serious writers know what to do with feedback. Giving feedback to other writers will help you understand what you know, feel and understand. And need to know.

Lastly keep writing. Check out the poetry forums thread. You will find a vast range of abilities, styles and importantly humble supportive poets. Some of whom are real world / award winning / accomplished / published poets. The rest of us have a laugh and join them posting in Lit poetry forums.

All the best with your endeavors.

 

[MelissaBaby]

As i said I've read your arguments and like everyone else in this world will try to improve myself. Yes sometimes I tell the reader what's happening rather than immerse them in detail I let them read the raw me. I guess that's style over substance. Xx

Fair enough, but bear in mind, many aspects of style developed not as merely pleasant aesthetic mannerisms, but because over time, authors determined that they provided the most effective way of telling their stories. Are they carved in stone? No, of course not, look at James Joyce or Cormac McCarthy. But keep in mind, most readers find such authors difficult.

Much of what you are calling style is part of the basic structure of written language. To ignore that is like traveling in a foreign country and yelling in English to the locals and thinking they will understand you if you are loud enough.

 

[onehitwanda]

To ignore that is like traveling in a foreign country and yelling in English to the locals and thinking they will understand you if you are loud enough.

Most of them will understand you. They will just get even less helpful in response, as is discovered by numerous Brits every year in the South of Europe.