Mean Feedback (by the faceless)

Missouribiguy

Literotica Guru
Joined
Oct 17, 2005
Posts
2,468
I just got a anomynous feedback message from a guy who went under the title Anomynous (oh, how fucking original) which simply read:
English isn't your native tongue, and it shows! (not his/her exact words, but close).

That fucking hurt! My eyes are welling with tears cause I want to punch the computer screen. Yes, I am that mad!

What would you all advice me to do? Just ignored this ass-stain and go on with my life.


I should just do that, but it upset me that bad.
 
On my very first story, the first comment told me to quit writing about queers and start writing about big black men fucking little blonde wife cunts. As the product of a loving biracial marriage, I wanted to go find Mr. Anonymous and kick his teeth in. I ended up deleting the comment, to save the other non-racist readers' sensibilities.

Moral of the story: You're in good company. Check out the 'Literotica's All-time Best "Worst Public Feedback" List' thread in this forum for pages upon pages of offensive, nonsensical commentary, usually by our good friend anonymous. The guy cared enough to comment, which means you automatically win.
 
First off, even with the most vitriolic feedback, you have to see if there's any nugget of reality in there. You've probably stepped back from the story a bit since you wrote it, and you might possibly catch some things while reading it again that are off. When you're involved in a story, it's easy to miss punctuation mistakes and other goofs.

You could also post a link here to let people give it a gander and tell you what they think. There are some hard-edged critics here in the SF forum, but you'll get some brutally honest answers, and probably pointers about anything that might actually cause someone to believe English isn't your first language.

Beyond that - trust me, you haven't seen nothing yet! There are people out there who will wish you to die, your whole family to die with you, your dog to choke to death nibbling on your corpse, and your house to burn down around you...

For starters.

Once you've determined whether there's anything useful in a negative comment, either ignore it, or laugh at it. Many of those long hateful tirades you'll pick up in your email and comment board are so idiotic that you can't help but laugh at them. Horrible spelling, sentences that make no sense, obvious inability to distinguish reality from fiction - you'll get it all. Just remember that it's probably some 40 year old guy who lives in his mother's basement sitting naked in a bean bag chair eating cheesy-poofs while he types his hateful comments on his vaseline-slick keyboard.

And don't respond on your story's public comment board to such comments. All that does is make a signpost for all his troll buddies to come swarming over top of you.
 
I just got a anomynous feedback message from a guy who went under the title Anomynous (oh, how fucking original) which simply read:
English isn't your native tongue, and it shows! (not his/her exact words, but close).

That fucking hurt! My eyes are welling with tears cause I want to punch the computer screen. Yes, I am that mad!

What would you all advice me to do? Just ignored this ass-stain and go on with my life.


I should just do that, but it upset me that bad.


I would advise you to form a thick skin or stop offering your stories for public view. And that's not offered to be nasty; anything you publish is going to receive unfavorable comment from someone.

But you might also have someone with a strong English background check over your stories--because the comment might just be correct about your demonstrated grasp of English grammar, spelling, and punctuation, and if you don't correct that and still post stories, you'll continue to get the comment. If the criticism has some truth in it, it's best not to just ignore it.
 
Well, I am calm down a bit. It was just another pissant who wanted to cause problems. I have since turned off my anomynous feedback.

Actually, I am a thick-skin person sometimes. I think what set this off more than anything is this guy who seems to be stalking me or some form of bullshit. You know the type, the ones who tend to try to send you invites to dating sites. I've figured out how to stop him (hopefully), but this person's message set me off.

Well, I let you all judge the story itself, entitled: The Boss's Boy Toy
http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=358779

Try not to be to harsh. I know there are probably some mistakes, but it can't be as bad as the Anomynous person said it was.

Now, I just need a good, and reliable, editor. My last one proved to be rather unreliable.
 
You certainly need a proofreader. Here's some corrections to your first couple of paragraphs:

Sam Michaels sat at his cubicle, typing out the last paragraph of another report. The office was mostly empty, as it was about midnight. Only Sam's boss, David Peterson, and the custodial staff were left inside the building. The silence was actually very welcoming to the employee The word choice here is a little flat and impersonal.

Mr. Michaels had started working at this firm ever since he graduated school, which was five years ago.{{{This sentence stumbles. I would suggest something more like "Mr. Michaels had started working at the firm upon graduating from college, some five years ago" Mr. Michaels also comes off a little dry. Maybe just "He"}}} Now, the thirty-three-year-old {{{I would suggest avoiding thirty-three-year-old. Perhaps something like "Now thirty-three years old, he had...}}} had worked his butt up to the top, and never looked back. He loved the rewards and benefits that his job got {{{Using "got" in a business setting just seems off. I would suggest "provided", and drop the following "him"}}} him, though he never let it affect him. Deep down, he had always been a friendly {{{Suggest comma here}}} but shy country boy.

You're going to need an editor/proofreader with plenty of time to work with you. Keep track of the changes they're suggesting, and see where your common errors are. Then keep those errors in your head as you're writing, and slowly weed them out.

I'm not going to sugar-coat it, you need a lot of work. I haven't read the entire story to give a critique on the storyline, but the errors and style problems here mean that not many others are going to get far either. You need to knuckle down on some nuts and bolts of grammar, hopefully with some patient assistance from a proofreader/editor.
 
You certainly need a proofreader. Here's some corrections to your first couple of paragraphs:



You're going to need an editor/proofreader with plenty of time to work with you. Keep track of the changes they're suggesting, and see where your common errors are. Then keep those errors in your head as you're writing, and slowly weed them out.

I'm not going to sugar-coat it, you need a lot of work. I haven't read the entire story to give a critique on the storyline, but the errors and style problems here mean that not many others are going to get far either. You need to knuckle down on some nuts and bolts of grammar, hopefully with some patient assistance from a proofreader/editor.


Isn't it already too late with this one anyway?
 
Well, I am calm down a bit. It was just another pissant who wanted to cause problems. I have since turned off my anomynous feedback.

Actually, I am a thick-skin person sometimes. I think what set this off more than anything is this guy who seems to be stalking me or some form of bullshit. You know the type, the ones who tend to try to send you invites to dating sites. I've figured out how to stop him (hopefully), but this person's message set me off.

Well, I let you all judge the story itself, entitled: The Boss's Boy Toy
http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=358779

Try not to be to harsh. I know there are probably some mistakes, but it can't be as bad as the Anomynous person said it was.

Now, I just need a good, and reliable, editor. My last one proved to be rather unreliable.


Yes, the story is riddled with mistakes, although probably not enough to ruin the interest of the most appropriate readers here to the content, which is interesting for that genre. (Although who the hell still is dumb enough to click on a link in a spam mail message? And if it wasn't put there to deliver a virus, who the heck would send spam mail that actually linked for free to a completed 20-minute sex scene video?)

But, yes, some of the mistakes indicate either English isn't a first language of yours or that you are very sloppy in reviewing what you write. Either of those conditions is better approached by something you do yourself to improve your English/writing presentation if you don't want to receive comments about it rather than ranting at someone who points them out.

Just two examples:

His boss sighed, "But, I view you as a valuable employee to, Sam. What would you say is your excuse is?"

1. Not an uncommon mistake, but you can't sigh a vocalized sentence like that (try it; you can say it or murmur it, but that which causes a sigh gets in the way of try to speak as well). It would have been OK if you'd put a period after "sighed" rather than a comma. Then it would have denoted two separate acts.

2. No comma after "but."

3. What's with the "to"? Even if you mean "too" (which I assume you do--especially since you make the to/too mistake in your posting above), it's inappropriate because "too" indicates that the same something occurs before, but it doesn't here. Sam hasn't said his boss (who, incidentally you later just slip in with an unconnected first name) is a valuable employee.

4. To leave "is your excuse is" means you didn't read attentively in the review or that you aren't that comfortable with the English language.

Another example:

What do you want me to do?" he asked

"Turned off your computer and come to my office with me."


Again, no one would leave the past-tense "turned" here unless they were very sloppy or not comfortable with English.

So, although "anonymous" wasn't too helpful in telling you why they posted the criticism they did, "anonymous" did point to one of the two probable problems that are really there in what you posted.

If you want the problem (which is in your story more than in the comment) not just to continue repeating itself, you'd probably be better off to accept it as a problem you have rather than calling the one who pointed out a pissant. Just my perspective on it, of course.

And did your last editor really prove unreliable, or perhaps was it that he/she got weary of continually correcting things that you never absorbed and learned to do right? There usually are two sides to every story like this. I'd like to hear from the editor on this.
 
Isn't it already too late with this one anyway?

No, you can substitute a reedited version of the stories on this Web site. Directions for that are in the Web site FAQs.

But, also, you can take this experience as evidence that it would be better to address your own problems than to waste energy on railing against those who point them out, no matter how impolite they are in doing so.
 
Yeah, you've been trolled. :rolleyes:

Listen to what drk and SR are telling you--there's no one better on this board.

However, your story is far from being the worst that's been posted on Literotica, believe me! It is riddled with mistakes, but the vast majority of them are by no means fatal.

When you say that your Microsoft Word is a piece of shit, are you referring to the Spelling and Grammar checker? It absolutely will not catch everything. That's why a writer has to know and follow the rules of grammar and punctuation until he or she is skilled enough to know when, and how, to break them. Alternatively, find a really thorough proofreader and follow his or her suggestions.

Final note: the good news is that you can tell a story, which is a hell of a lot more than many "writers" on this site can do. Take the advice and your writing will improve.
 
Word's spell/grammar checker should have caught some of the problems in the story. You certainly don't want to depend upon it, because it chokes in a lot of places and makes suggestions that can only be called stupid. It can catch some common errors such as "cubicle"

Start with just the spelling checker. Turn off the grammar part of the check, because learning to determine when it is giving dumb suggestions is far more difficult than double-checking the spelling. If you come to something that Word suggests that you think is questionable, look it up on dictionary.com, some other online site, or an actual print dictionary if you have one.

That's as good a place as any to start. Work your way up from the bottom, and attack your common mistakes one at a time. If you can weed out a few ( or a lot ) of them before looking for a proofreader/editor, they'll appreciate it.

We all started somewhere, and not all of us started out good. I know it's a shameless plug, but click the link to My Lit Stories and find "LST3K Ep. 02: Small Town Screw" I'm spoofing some of my own ancient crappy writing in that one, and believe you me, that's not the worst of the literary offal I have on my hard drive from the long forgotten past!
 
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Hey, I be the first one to admit that I am not a professional writer. Really, are any of us professional writers on here? Sorry for ignorance, but isn't this a site just for fans of erotic stories writing erotic stories?

Well, I haven't talked to my editor of late, so I don't know how unreliable she really is. The problem is that I e-mail some ideas for a non-erotic story based on a character I have drew. I stopped getting e-mail back from her, so I kind of given up on her. I could e-mail her now, but I doubt she be helpful.


Reading Darknicard's post with his edits of my story's first paragraphs, I just feel a little letdown. Sr71pit's comments didn't help either. I be honest, I was thinking, "how dare they."

After having dinner & a shower, I've calm down quite a bit. I'm not going to quit as a writer. As you can see, I need help. With this help, maybe then I can learn to do a properly grammar story.

Of course, to be fair, I've read some stories where you can't even recognize a word.

I better stop writing. Not cause I'm getting emotional, but because I'm trying to sound super smart, and it makes me sound really dumb.
 
I just got a anomynous feedback message from a guy who went under the title Anomynous (oh, how fucking original) which simply read:
English isn't your native tongue, and it shows! (not his/her exact words, but close).

That fucking hurt! My eyes are welling with tears cause I want to punch the computer screen. Yes, I am that mad!

What would you all advice me to do? Just ignored this ass-stain and go on with my life.


I should just do that, but it upset me that bad.

That comment is really quite mild compared to others that I have seen floating around the site. Were there problems with grammar, spelling, etc.?
 
Hey, I be the first one to admit that I am not a professional writer. Really, are any of us professional writers on here? Sorry for ignorance, but isn't this a site just for fans of erotic stories writing erotic stories?

Well, I haven't talked to my editor of late, so I don't know how unreliable she really is. The problem is that I e-mail some ideas for a non-erotic story based on a character I have drew. I stopped getting e-mail back from her, so I kind of given up on her. I could e-mail her now, but I doubt she be helpful.


Reading Darknicard's post with his edits of my story's first paragraphs, I just feel a little letdown. Sr71pit's comments didn't help either. I be honest, I was thinking, "how dare they."

After having dinner & a shower, I've calm down quite a bit. I'm not going to quit as a writer. As you can see, I need help. With this help, maybe then I can learn to do a properly grammar story.

Of course, to be fair, I've read some stories where you can't even recognize a word.

I better stop writing. Not cause I'm getting emotional, but because I'm trying to sound super smart, and it makes me sound really dumb.


Yes, there are professional and accomplished writers at this site. And there are many that try to raise the quality of their writing above stroke material. A lot of us take our writing quite seriously.
 
On my very first story, the first comment told me to quit writing about queers and start writing about big black men fucking little blonde wife cunts. As the product of a loving biracial marriage, I wanted to go find Mr. Anonymous and kick his teeth in. I ended up deleting the comment, to save the other non-racist readers' sensibilities.

Moral of the story: You're in good company. Check out the 'Literotica's All-time Best "Worst Public Feedback" List' thread in this forum for pages upon pages of offensive, nonsensical commentary, usually by our good friend anonymous. The guy cared enough to comment, which means you automatically win.

That is so true!!! Especially this statement:

The guy cared enough to comment, which means you automatically win.

I wish you had been around, wanderwonder, when I first started posting in Lit. Boy did I get ripped and wanted to dig a hole and hide my head. As a matter of fact, if you read the comments of one of the chapters I posted of "Bigrig", you'll see some highly unamused friends came to my defense. LOL

I was bashed, by three different anonymous commenters I deleted, as a worthless sinner that was headed straight to hell if I didn't get my act straightened out. I was even told that my work was nothing more than trash that should never have been submitted, let alone posted on this site.

It was so painful at the time, I didn't post the last chapter for weeks. But my loyal friends, fans and readers begged me to finish the story, so I did.


Yer not alone, my friend. All of us get the book thrown at us at one point or another. And I don't mean the good book, either. ;)
 
I'm not going to quit as a writer. As you can see, I need help. With this help, maybe then I can learn to do a properly grammar story.


Yes, that's a good idea. And when mistakes are pointed out, try to absorb that and not lean on anyone else to get them right the night time. That's the only way you'll really develop as a writer. Good luck with the journey.
 
Yes, that's a good idea. And when mistakes are pointed out, try to absorb that and not lean on anyone else to get them right the night time. That's the only way you'll really develop as a writer. Good luck with the journey.

Also, stop being a whiner, and get thicker skin.
 
Also, stop being a whiner, and get thicker skin.


That would be nice too. I don't see you as someone who accepts personal responsibility, though, so it seemed a waste of time to mention again.

You've really come here to fight, haven't you? If it's over the quality of your writing, you probably need to bring more ammunition next time. :)
 
That would be nice too. I don't see you as someone who accepts personal responsibility, though, so it seemed a waste of time to mention again.

You've really come here to fight, haven't you? If it's over the quality of your writing, you probably need to bring more ammunition next time. :)

Actually, I do take personal responsibility and criticism easily. It's when a person basically being a asshole, then yeah, I get ready for a fight.
 
Yes, there are professional and accomplished writers at this site. And there are many that try to raise the quality of their writing above stroke material. A lot of us take our writing quite seriously.

Amen to that!! (no pun intended)
 
Actually, I do take personal responsibility and criticism easily. It's when a person basically being a asshole, then yeah, I get ready for a fight.


I'm afraid the upshot of this thread is that you probably should be shadowboxing.
 
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