Stories embracing ambiguity

[FrancesScott]

Very nicely done. I kept wondering how I would have interpreted the narrator's gender if I hadn't read this thread. As it was, I didn't know the gender for sure, but I knew my uncertainty wasn't just me being 'duh.' I do think there were two or three giveaways, though, most particularly the "spread my legs" to reveal arousal and use of "masturbating." Should you want to take this approach again.

Thank you. It’s not a 3.4 story. At least in any other category.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

My second Summer Lovin’ story is laced with ambiguity and people misunderstanding / miscommunicating. The status of the narrator's existing relationship is not described reliably, but via a prism of hurt feelings. The nature of the marriage of two characters is unclear. The relationship of the husband with a male friend is open to interpretation. The appearance of the wife is exaggerated by the narrator’s mental state. And even the gender of the narrator is not definitively established.

Many people seemed incredibly bothered by all this and requested that things be explained. Is this normal around here?

I think that it depends on the category to a large degree.

I have two stories in LW and 1 in the Romance category where the ambiguity flew right over a lot of readers' heads. I have others in Novels/Novellas where the ambiguity was embraced and understood by most.

 

[FrancesScott]

I think that it depends on the category to a large degree.

I have two stories in LW and 1 in the Romance category where the ambiguity flew right over a lot of readers' heads. I have others in Novels/Novellas where the ambiguity was embraced and understood by most.

I need to be more category savvy.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I need to be more category savvy.

You will be. As I said earlier, sample the stories, read the comments before you leap.

I'm not sure your apparent strategy of "try every category" is the best approach, though. You've got a distinctive enough style that you should write the story first, then figure out the best category.

I get the sense from your comments and from your stories that you treat many of your stories as a writer's exercise - which in some instances gets in the way of the story, because it's too deliberate, too self-conscious, and can be self-indulgent. Maybe relax into just telling the next story, not spending the effort to tell it "differently." Use your natural style, maybe, don't mimic?

So far, I've seen you mention Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and you've explained your account name, but have you mentioned yourself yet?

 

[Statius]

You will be. As I said earlier, sample the stories, read the comments before you leap.

I'm not sure your apparent strategy of "try every category" is the best approach, though. You've got a distinctive enough style that you should write the story first, then figure out the best category.

I get the sense from your comments and from your stories that you treat many of your stories as a writer's exercise - which in some instances gets in the way of the story, because it's too deliberate, too self-conscious, and can be self-indulgent. Maybe relax into just telling the next story, not spending the effort to tell it "differently." Use your natural style, maybe, don't mimic?

So far, I've seen you mention Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and you've explained your account name, but have you mentioned yourself yet?

That may be one of the most Insightful and necessarily direct comments I've seen. And I just realized that about myself here.

 

[FrancesScott]

You will be. As I said earlier, sample the stories, read the comments before you leap.

I'm not sure your apparent strategy of "try every category" is the best approach, though. You've got a distinctive enough style that you should write the story first, then figure out the best category.

I get the sense from your comments and from your stories that you treat many of your stories as a writer's exercise - which in some instances gets in the way of the story, because it's too deliberate, too self-conscious, and can be self-indulgent. Maybe relax into just telling the next story, not spending the effort to tell it "differently." Use your natural style, maybe, don't mimic?

So far, I've seen you mention Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and you've explained your account name, but have you mentioned yourself yet?

I appreciate the advice, which is most likely sound, if my central objective was not to experiment here. It’s a bad strategy for building a following, but that’s not what I’m trying to do. It’s more like an exercise regime in advance of some other activity.

Only one story has been an attempt to write ‘in the style of.’ Some of the rest are pretty straight forward. The Soldier’s Widow, Open Wide, and More Than Words experiment in areas other than literary ones. E.g. More Than Words has a deaf FMC. The Soldier’s Widow is told from the POV of a black woman (I’m white). Open Wide is trying to write a non-tropey ‘guy becomes involved with lesbians’ story, in a way that doesn’t fetsishize the gay girls.

My queued story, I Belong With Her, is trying to recapture teen angst, desire, confusion.

Even this story, In The Eye Of The Beholder, is trying to convey how obsession distorts reality.

I’m happy to experiment. But I learn from the data gathered.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I’m happy to experiment. But I learn from the data gathered.

Your threads demonstrate that, certainly, but at the same time I get the feeling you're seeking a more sophisticated response than you're getting. Which isn't a reflection on your content at all, more an observation on the low bar that's out there, feedback-wise.

 

[FrancesScott]

Your threads demonstrate that, certainly, but at the same time I get the feeling you're seeking a more sophisticated response than you're getting. Which isn't a reflection on your content at all, more an observation on the low bar that's out there, feedback-wise.

True. But it’s been much better in other categories. Which is my central point about LW. The feedback is not useful. It has been elsewhere, even the furore around my lexicon in Ice Cream (Romance).

 

[AwkwardMD]

I had a run of stories that had what I called Schrödinger endings, where the outcome was left unclear and could be interpreted in at least two ways.

I don't do these anymore, but at the time I felt quite strongly about it.

 

[ElectricBlue]

True. But it’s been much better in other categories. Which is my central point about LW. The feedback is not useful. It has been elsewhere, even the furore around my lexicon in Ice Cream (Romance).

LW is a great chasm across the centre of Lit. When I first joined the site I spent maybe a week sampling stories and the comments, and wondered what a strange world I had wandered into. Not for me.

 

[FrancesScott]

Not for me.

Me neither.

 

[RetroFan]

It is also a great issue in the April Fools challenge when you setup up a story and spring a surprise on the reader at the end.

My story 'The Lost Hours With Annabelle' won the April Fools contest a few years back with an ambiguous, haunting and sad ending in which the narrator didn't know whether the events that had taken place either in the present day and many years earlier were supernatural, or whether they were just a massive series of coincidences with real world explanations. But while the story got the scores to win the contest and plenty of positive comments, since then the scores have dropped and the comments turned mostly negative, critical of the ambiguous ending.

I tried an unreliable narrator in a Loving Wives story once, 'Cheating on a Cheating Wife', which is narrated by the cuckold, creepy husband. The fans there didn't like the story because it had an unreliable narrator, in fact it made many of them hate it even more, but many of them did pick up that events described were so outlandish that they should be questioned.

Some readers do seem to want every loose end cleared up at the conclusion of a story. As one example in one of my stories 'Cindy's Close Encounter' set in the late 1950s where a group of teenagers (all 18+) are abducted by aliens after their Halloween dance and taken aboard a UFO. Later and following a series of strange events post abduction the families of the teenagers involved are paid off by the government and military for their silence. But knowing that the flying saucer was real and there has been a cover-up, the six teenagers leave a sealed 'Not to be Opened in My Lifetime' letter with an attorney regarding the events, and there the story ends. Some time later I got some private feedback saying I should have described what happened when the letter was opened in the present day. But given it has a first person narration by one of the girls Cindy, and that these characters were all born in 1941 and there is a strong chance that some of them would still be alive today aged in their mid-80s, writing such a post-script would have been difficult.

 

[FrancesScott]

My story 'The Lost Hours With Annabelle' won the April Fools contest a few years back with an ambiguous, haunting and sad ending in which the narrator didn't know whether the events that had taken place either in the present day and many years earlier were supernatural, or whether they were just a massive series of coincidences with real world explanations. But while the story got the scores to win the contest and plenty of positive comments, since then the scores have dropped and the comments turned mostly negative, critical of the ambiguous ending.

I tried an unreliable narrator in a Loving Wives story once, 'Cheating on a Cheating Wife', which is narrated by the cuckold, creepy husband. The fans there didn't like the story because it had an unreliable narrator, in fact it made many of them hate it even more, but many of them did pick up that events described were so outlandish that they should be questioned.

Some readers do seem to want every loose end cleared up at the conclusion of a story. As one example in one of my stories 'Cindy's Close Encounter' set in the late 1950s where a group of teenagers (all 18+) are abducted by aliens after their Halloween dance and taken aboard a UFO. Later and following a series of strange events post abduction the families of the teenagers involved are paid off by the government and military for their silence. But knowing that the flying saucer was real and there has been a cover-up, the six teenagers leave a sealed 'Not to be Opened in My Lifetime' letter with an attorney regarding the events, and there the story ends. Some time later I got some private feedback saying I should have described what happened when the letter was opened in the present day. But given it has a first person narration by one of the girls Cindy, and that these characters were all born in 1941 and there is a strong chance that some of them would still be alive today aged in their mid-80s, writing such a post-script would have been difficult.

I got a few ‘you should have explained X’ comments, when I had intentionally decided not to explain X. It felt weird, to be honest. Like I’m not allowed to make my own creative decisions. People don’t have to like my decisions, but they are mine alone to make.

 

[AwkwardMD]

I got a few ‘you should have explained X’ comments, when I had intentionally decided not to explain X. It felt weird, to be honest. Like I’m not allowed to make my own creative decisions. People don’t have to like my decisions, but they are mine alone to make.

Stick to your guns. Nobody else will ever make the choices you will make, which means its up to you to make them.

 

[Statius]

I got a few ‘you should have explained X’ comments, when I had intentionally decided not to explain X. It felt weird, to be honest. Like I’m not allowed to make my own creative decisions. People don’t have to like my decisions, but they are mine alone to make.

As has been repeatedly said, no matter what choice you make some reader will question it. If you don't explain they'll tell you you should have, if you do explain that same reader will say you shouldn't have because you took all the fun or interest out or whatever. Writing the same formula or method gets old real quick, so if you want to experiment then experiment. Some will work, some won't. In January a story will get 10k reads, in May another will get 5k. It's Lit, it's a gamble and constantly changing. Now I'm a mediocre writer and take things hard, admittedly, but you gotta write the way you wanna write and what you wanna write. Toss the die and say fuck it. At least that's where I'm at, fuck the popularity contest.

 

[FrancesScott]

Thank you for the understanding comments here. I have read them all, even if I haven’t replied individually.