Where do I go from here?

[iwatchus]

Just as a follow on: https://www.wabi.tv/2025/04/01/turkeys-chase-mail-carrier-throughout-his-route/

 

[NuclearFairy]

My son volunteered at wildlife rehabber wherewhen he was in middle school or so. Meaning my SO and I were volunteered.

The rehabber had a nasty tom who was about as tall as my son. He loved to terrify my son and trap him in a corner. My son did work there for almost five years and ended up majoring in zoology. But he had two unpaid internships and decided he wanted to work somewhere that actually paid him. Of course, he and his partner are back living with us, so...

Ah well, Susy was good at keeping the racoons and foxes away, so I can see it.

Are they still looking for work? Or looking for a place?

 

[iwatchus]

Are they still looking for work? Or looking for a place?

Work first. He is on the spectrum. so it can be challenging

 

[NuclearFairy]

Work first. He is on the spectrum. so it can be challenging

Good luck!

 

[designatedvictim]

So I read your Halloween story and your comment about it being a parody and I just had to laugh because I had a very similar experience.

I wrote a story under the pseudonym Todd Everman called Mom's Backseat Boy. It was an intentional parody of the classic Mom / Son Incest trope where she's forced to sit on his lap in the car and somehow sex ensues.

(Replying to DJ, but aimed at OP.)

50 stories posted in a year? I'm impressed, but I agree with the comment that wonders if you'd managed to spend enough time on each of them. On any of them.

I'm on the other end of the spectrum. Six posted parts (84K-words) of an unfinished story and one stand-alone (39K-words) in 11 months. I over-analyze and over-think things.

My big project was written for Novels and Novellas because I knew it was gonna be long. I am still rather disappointed in the traffic it drew. Since posting it, I've learned more about the category expectations.

They've all drawn fairly low view and vote counts, but surprisingly decent ratings. All but one part would rate a Red H if they had enough votes. After nine months, the worst-performing part still doesn't rate high enough and has only six votes.

The first thing you need to do is get eyes on the product. As has already been covered, you need a good title and description. Mine are kind of... meh. Not horrible, but not catchy.

After the lackluster results I got with mine, I decided that I was gonna write-to-the-category. Taboo/Incest is one of the high-traffic categories.

You also need to add relevant tags to your stories so that people can search for it once you drop of the New List.

I didn't go the parody-route DJMac1031 took when I wrote my entry for Taboo/Incest, but I decided I needed more eyes and that's what I went for.

It did pretty well, but hardly stellar, in that category, and those view numbers are nowhere near notable for T/I.

I took over 12 thousand words (of 39K) to reach the first sexual act, which was too long for some readers.

>>> NERD ALERT! <<<

I keep track of my stats and this graph is a stark example of choosing your category with relation to views.

My works tend to build slowly and I can't say I have any real hooks in the opening paragraphs. (Oddly, I don't think in terms of immediate hooks.)

My one-liner descriptions are fairly... I won't say anemic, but, unspectacular certainly apply.

Sister stays with brother during a home renovation.
University student gets together with landlord's daughter.
Waking up the next day with the landlord's daughter.

Fairly self-explanatory, but unimpressive.

I've never asked for critiques in AH because the best I could hope for would be for the verdict to be workman-like, at best.

 

[joy_of_cooking]

Oh man you wrote https://www.literotica.com/s/oh-suzie-q ! That was some disturbing stuff. I'll check out some of your other works.

 

[PrimalDual]

First, thank you all for the variety of very constructive comments - and especially for the effort* some put in to scan my collection of works.

There are too many tangents to try to cover in this reply, but I want to address the opinion that several shared that I have been posting my stories too fast. These stories have been taking up space on my hard drive for 25 years in some cases. Both of the two series, roughly a dozen stories each, started out as one long story, and I opted to break them into the pieces that I eventually posted to Lit, each exhibiting a facet of the main characters' personalities and each intended to be readable stand-alone if it so happens. So, a lot of the work was done already when I began here again - and I also went about doing revised drafts of each installment before submitting any to be published. The purpose was to try to maintain continuity - and also add clearer foreshadowing to some of the early episodes that might not play out until much deeper in the series. Maybe I was too ambitious - a Google search reminds me that Robert Browning came up with the notion that one's reach should exceed one's grasp. But it wasn't the case that I was hunched over the keyboard cranking out hastily composed text. The final polishing just went fast each time.

The other angle I'll comment on is that I should figure out why I'm writing these. As I said, these have been percolating for more than a couple decades in some cases. The basic answer therefore is that I write to satisfy myself. They're usually masturbation fantasies that I decided to try to flesh out with realistic motivations that involve flawed human beings doing flawed human stuff, that turns into more of a character study than a plot-driven story sometimes. Yes, as some point out, they're kinda short. When I re-read, they do the job for me. In particular, a masturbation fantasy ends at sometimes unpredictable moments - some of my stories end in the same way, perhaps at a crisis point I found compelling, or else where the remainder of the action becomes too pat and predictable. All in all, I'm happy enough with them.

The better question which someone asked is why I put them here. I had the naive idea others might enjoy reading them, that's all. I didn't expect someone to contact me asking permission to publish The Collected Short Stories of PrimalDual for mutual profit.

I want to repeat my gratitude to the responders who read and gave frank and constructive comments. I must say though that some of those recommendations (better titles, sharper keywords, quicker hooks) are somewhat orthogonal to my purposes. My stories don't neatly fit categories - I recognize that a lot of people think BDSM means Gor, for example, but the Dom/sub aspects would be off-putting in other categories. In a couple of cases I should have chosen Humor as the category, but it gives away that there's a joke coming. Ah well, these are details for another time. Maybe if I had had a similarly generous response the previous instances I reached out, when I had put fewer stories out yet, it would have made more of a difference.

More sobering though is that there didn't seem to be much expression of pleasure from those who looked at my words. Doesn't matter if I draw a reader in with a flashy, on-the-nose title plus keywords, nor if I provide action in the first two sentences instead of setting the scene or mood. No, if the writing isn't enjoyable, then it's a waste of time to keep fine-tuning. As one respondent put it, the "problem unfortunately lies deeper than just marketing and presentation."

So, again, thank you. You all have helped me reach what I think to be the right decision, to not invest further time in an activity that has proven to be a poor fit all the way around.

* PS. A small apology about including the word "effortlessly." I wrote imprecisely, and deserved worse criticism than I got. The image in my mind of the finished product sailing through a frictionless aether didn't come out well. Certainly I don't think the stories themselves come from little effort.

 

[PrimalDual]

Oh man you wrote https://www.literotica.com/s/oh-suzie-q ! That was some disturbing stuff. I'll check out some of your other works.

Thank you. It's one of the ones I'm most proud of. As for it being disturbing, I wouldn't say that's my aim and purpose most of the time; that one just grew organically as I mapped out its contours.

 

[Actingup]

I’m late to this thread. Just in case it’s still useful… and noting your decision above… I’d suggest that one option you have is to take a break from the site and spend some time doing some in-person (if possible) writing courses, and join a book club (again, in person if possible) to help you with your writing skills and literary influences in a socially positive context.* Then, if you dip your toe back into the water here, do it under a new name so that your back catalogue doesn’t weigh you down.

*Also paying close attention to what the women in the book club enjoy reading!

 

[TarnishedPenny]

I always say that you have your reader's attention on credit. They've clicked on your story and decided to give it a go. You have to start making it worth their while before they invest much more of their time and attention.

Well said!

 

[TarnishedPenny]

What’s that thing about Steogsaurus lived longer before T. rex (proper binomial contraction) than we live after T. rex?

Yeah, I’m the T. rex in this analogy. Rah! Or more likely, hiss!

At least I was 18 not that much more than a decade ago. I was always old for my age intellectually and in interests if not so much in appearance.

Rule One. Never let details stand in the way of a good yarn.

Rule Two. Actually, I forget if there was a second one. Stick with Rule One.