A writerly/readerly thread.

[EmeraldKitten]

What? On this board? lol.

In all seriousness..

Most everyone wants that elusive 'H'.
So you have your list of stories, and hey, you have some. Yay!
Other stories don't, and they feel left out.

As a writer, doesn't that make you nuts? Especially if the stories without deserve it?
Do you watch your control panel submissions page, watching the number creep up?

As a reader, do you tend to go for the stories that have the 'H'?
Does anyone go for one that doesn't, just because it's new and hasn't had time to get 'H'ed?

I just had this discussion in an email, and I was wondering what other people do.
Me? I go for stories that do not have an 'H' first.
The way I see it, it already has one, so it doesn't need my vote.
If I read a story and get interested, I'll go check out the rest of that author's stories.
And I avoid the good ones on purpose, lol. Yes, I will read them, but not first.

Any thoughts? Theories?
Do you guys have your own methods of madness?

Please discuss.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Based on my experiences the only stories worth reading are designated with an E; I dont bother with the others.

 

[sr71plt]

I was pretty obsessive about Hs on my stories when they first started going up. That went by the wayside when I had too many stories listed to watch individually and when regular zappers showed up and I knew most of the stories would be kept just below the H mark, which I think is misleadingly high anyway. (I favor more levels of distinction; something to identify the stories in the range of 4 to 4.5 as well.)

I do sort of raise my eyebrows at some of mine that get an H (and even a green E) in relation to those that don't, but I don't think that much about that anymore either.

I read practically none of the stories here (part of the reason for that is that I don't want to inadvertently swipe someone else's themes and hooks), so it doesn't matter much to me if those stories have Hs or not.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

I don't pay much attention to the Hs, either mine or others, and I haven't looked at any Es yet, though I probably will. As far as scores go, I also don't pay much attention. Some of my stories have been trolled down, and others seem to be swept down whenever they reach the magic 4.5.

If we are to have these scorings and ratings, I agree with the pilot that we should have finer levels of distinction. As a researcher, I do know that people are reluctant to assign the highest value to anything. In Lit ratings, that means most very good stories will receive 4s, and that works very strongly against hitting the 4.5 mark.

 

[fuckwaffle]

a friend who posts stories here once told me - "does the red H please me, hell yes! do my stories without one displease me, not a bit. most of the time those without a red H should have them but seeing as how the voting is based on subject matter it is not surprising that none have red H's."

i know once i start to post a red H will fill me with pride, although the green E would be much better, i suppose. we will just have to wait and see.

 

[Athalia]

I confess that I do use the red H, but in a general way. If the story's theme appeals to me, I'll read it whether or not it has the H. If I'm lukewarm about the story's theme, sometimes an H will encourage me to read it anyway. I do agree that perhaps we need a rating system with more nuanced values, such as numbers or stars (at least eight of them). Perhaps the new keyword feature will help as well ... a descriptor such as "Fetish" really doesn't tell you much, does it? I'd also like some sort of indication of how long the story is ... 7K? 825K? Not that one is necessarily better than the other, but it helps to know what you're getting into. I do notice that most of the "E" stories are quite long, whereas most of my preferences (both for reading and writing) are around 30K in length.

On the writing end, I don't pay much attention to whether my stories rate an H or not. I've checked them and found that many of them are borderline ... some days they show an H, and some days they don't, depending on the latest votes. I depend on feedback to tell me what people like about my writing, and what they don't.

If I were a more serious erotica writer, I would read all the H stories, carefully analyze them for common threads and treatments, and tailor my own stories to those factors. But such "market research" interests me not in the slightest. One of the stories I'm proudest of, "Endymion," barely rates a four, but it isn't erotica in the usual sense. It's not likely to make men unzip their jeans, but it raises questions of what love and lust are, and to what extent they enslave you. That's the kind of story I wanted to write, and I sort of hoped that there'd be people out there who wanted to read that kind of story.

 

[TE999]

I look at it this way. You can write to please others or you can write to please yourself. I'm in the latter category. I've picked up a few H's along the way and I'm pleased that the readers liked those stories. Personally, I'm pleased with all of them no matter what the scores are.

 

[Tx Tall Tales]

I like the H's. I read the H's. So much junk gets added every day, at least most of the H stories are somewhat readable.

As for the E's, I don't read the appropriate categories to see them very often.

 

[EmeraldKitten]

Interesting views everyone.
I'm glad I'm not the only one with a particular way to do it, lol.

I actually dont read too much on here anymore, but I have been lately, so I
was just wondering.

Thanks for the replies.

Ya know, about the E.. I've never really seen too many of them. Maybe I'm
in the wrong catagory too?? I have one, which shocked the hell out of me,
but I just don't typically see them.

P.S. I've been going to the recent feedback page and depending on what is being said,
I'll check some of those stories out. That has been a neat way to hit a story I probably
wouldn't have looked at. Okay, that's all.

 

[oggbashan]

I don't have that many Hs as a proportion of my stories. I have one E and a couple of Ws for essays.

I would like more Hs but I might have to write different stories, so I'll remain content with those I have.

Og