Ain't too proud to beg

[theMaven]

I have three stories currently posted on this site (not including one pending, and one poem) and all have received what I'd consider to be a generous amount of feedback and support except for my entry in the 2008 Earth Day Competition, "A Land Far, Far Away."

It's part 3 of a continuing series and seeing the response I got on my previous two postings, I thought this one would blow the other two out of the water. I consider it and its second half (as yet unposted) to be my best work to date, but statistics say otherwise. Those who have read the Black's Magic series (much to my pride and deep appreciation) have seen fit to give the various installments fours and fives. "A Land Far, Far Away" continues this trend, having an average vote of 4.78, but only 9 people have voted

So, I'd like some honest feedback. Is it the pairing? Is it the category? Is it the length of the story? Why isn't this installment doing as well as the previous two?

Constructive criticism is welcome, but flames are not.

Read and review: http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=358907

Please and thank you,

theMaven

 

[sr71plt]

I have three stories currently posted on this site (not including one pending, and one poem) and all have received what I'd consider to be a generous amount of feedback and support except for my entry in the 2008 Earth Day Competition, "A Land Far, Far Away."

It's part 3 of a continuing series and seeing the response I got on my previous two postings, I thought this one would blow the other two out of the water. I consider it and its second half (as yet unposted) to be my best work to date, but statistics say otherwise. Those who have read the Black's Magic series (much to my pride and deep appreciation) have seen fit to give the various installments fours and fives. "A Land Far, Far Away" continues this trend, having an average vote of 4.78, but only 9 people have voted

So, I'd like some honest feedback. Is it the pairing? Is it the category? Is it the length of the story? Why isn't this installment doing as well as the previous two?

Constructive criticism is welcome, but flames are not.

Read and review: http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=358907

Please and thank you,

theMaven

Apples and bananas. Contests attract an entirely different vote/comment pattern than regular story postings do. You'll have to wait until a month or more after the contest is over to see how reception of a contest entry balances with your other submissions. Certainly you can't tell anything relative about a contest entry during a contest. If a story is particularly good, it will attract all sorts of efforts to eliminate it as competition--reaction that may or may not eventually be swept away by the Web site balancing system. Not nice, certainly, but that's reality for contests here.

 

[Darkniciad]

SR's right, for certain.

:: Note to self to read this one first next time I'm contest reading, because it always ends up low on the page when I refresh for some reason and I never make it down that far in a sitting ::

If it's part of an ongoing series that requires reading the previous parts to know what's going on, that could be hurting the response. This is especially true for the contest itself.

The interratial category is a bit dangerous, because there's a turf war there between people who want nothing but big black man on little white girl stories, and people that hate them. Write anything else in the category, and you confuse them. Much like the Loving Wives category, this turf war chases off a lot of other potential readers from the category.

Four pages is pushing your luck, too. Once you pass that dreaded three page barrier, a lot of people are back-clicking. Once again, has more impact on the contest than day-to-day stories, but not by much. Quickies are the standard, and us long-winded folk are just sorta outta luck *laugh*

I'll read the story tomorrow ( I'm about half asleep and delerious right now, and that's not conductive to a critical read ) and let you know what I think.

 

[theMaven]

Hmmm . . . Maybe I'll steer clear of the competitions from here on out. I only entered to gain a little more exposure for my meager series, and hopefully, get a little camaraderie going on with some of the other authors on the site. But neither of those things seems to be panning out :/

Like most writers I have a huge, but fragile ego. I have a thick skin, so I can handle harsh criticism, but when nobody says anything at all, I get really paranoid and can't help but wonder what I've done wrong.

But, if that's just the nature of this site's competitions, I suppose I can put the monkey on my back to bed. His screeching and clawing was beginning to get really annoying

Thankies!

 

[theMaven]

Oic

SR's right, for certain.

:: Note to self to read this one first next time I'm contest reading, because it always ends up low on the page when I refresh for some reason and I never make it down that far in a sitting ::

If it's part of an ongoing series that requires reading the previous parts to know what's going on, that could be hurting the response. This is especially true for the contest itself.

The interratial category is a bit dangerous, because there's a turf war there between people who want nothing but big black man on little white girl stories, and people that hate them. Write anything else in the category, and you confuse them. Much like the Loving Wives category, this turf war chases off a lot of other potential readers from the category.

Four pages is pushing your luck, too. Once you pass that dreaded three page barrier, a lot of people are back-clicking. Once again, has more impact on the contest than day-to-day stories, but not by much. Quickies are the standard, and us long-winded folk are just sorta outta luck *laugh*

I'll read the story tomorrow ( I'm about half asleep and delerious right now, and that's not conductive to a critical read ) and let you know what I think.

I see.

No, you don't have to read the previous parts to understand what's going. Each story is a part of the whole, revolving around the same set of characters and their attempts to form some sort of relationship, but each one is also capable of standing on its own, containing its own beginning, middle and end.

And there's a turf war, huh? A la Sharks and Jets or Bloods and Crips? LOL.

But seriously. If both my main characters were of the same race, I simply would have stuck the series in Romance. But since they aren't (and I know some people don't approve of such couplings) I stuck it in interracial to avoid any potential flamers. I am beginning to notice it's a bit of an oddity in the category, featuring a white man and a black woman instead of vice versa.

If I'd known some people took their story-writing so seriously, I might have just let my stories sit on my computer's hard drive. I always thought fiction-writing was supposed to be fun . . . *shrugs* Guess I just learned something new

Thanks for responding. I really appreciate the insight a more experienced set of eyes can provide.

 

[Darkniciad]

The characters feel solid to me, but I do sort of feel like I'm starting in the middle of the story. The opening conversation had enough snag to rope me in, but I felt like you lost the grip on me as the story went along. I suspect that has a lot to do with the Ch. 02 feeling I was having. I considered starting from the beginning of the series, but I wanted to evaluate it from the standpoint of the contest, and a lot of contest readers aren't going to backtrack in a series.

I get sort of a "day in the life" impression as I'm reading. I feel like there's not quite enough tension to carry the length of the story, at least as a standalone tale. As with everything else I've mentioned, I think my feeling of coming into the middle of the story has a lot to do with that. I feel like I know who the characters are, but I'm not so sure I know how they got there. ( If that makes any sense )

A couple of little quibbles: While the italic emphasis in the initial phone conversation makes sense to me, to carry the gravity and emotion of the phone call (you can really "hear" the irritation in your head), I think you use a bit too much italic emphasis throughout the story, and it sort of dulls the impact of the emphasis overall.

I think you have a few too many ellipses to denote long pauses, as well. There are a couple of places where you use them that I can't argue with, because I think I'd have written them the same way. Sometimes, there's just no way to convey what you're after with any other method. The rest of the time, I can see an em dash, or a bit of descriptive narrative replacing those ellipses and still carrying the jist of the conversation.

In conversation, there's more latitude, but the ones that always stick out to me are ellipses used in narrative. Unless the whole narrative has a tone that gives me the impression of listening to someone tell me a story directly from their recollection, an ellipse just feels off to me. The only place I have that feeling of a human touch as opposed to a neutral narrator are where you've used ellipses, and it jars me a bit. I think maintaining the neutral narrator would have kept things flowing more smoothly.

Your characters are a strong point. You paint them without depending on stereotypes, and they feel very much human to me. You don't see that much in interratial.

Anyway, that's my impression from reading it as a standalone story. It's just my knee-jerk opinion, so I hope it doesn't come across as too harsh. I'm only one reader, after all I do think that the things I mention have had an impact on the response to the story, especially since it's entered in a contest.

 

[theMaven]

You aren't the first person to say that about my use of ellipses, and you won't be the last, lol. I will defend their usage till the day I die.

Sometimes they're used for dramatic affect, usually to allow the reader to fill in the blank I intentionally left vacant, and sometimes they're used to show a pause in conversation where the character: a)doesn't know what to say; b)doesn't want to say what needs to be said; c)is unable to verbally continue the conversation or d)shifts thought processs mid-sentence, usually resulting in a change of subject. Think of stream-of-consciousness writing, if you will. My characters aren't speaking from a script, they're talking off the top of their heads; just as I write off the top of my head.

There were two or three occasions where I thought of substituting a short narrative in place of the ellipses, but I've always believed that less is sometimes more, and with the already formidable length of the tale, I didn't want to involve more details than I needed to.

It's interesting on hearing your perspective on reading the piece as a stand alone. Many complete works of fiction begin in medias res and then go back to tell how everyone ended up in their current situations. Doing that is also an immediate hook to the reader. However, if the reader becomes lost or confused, it's a definite negative.

I can't help but wonder how some would have responded to the piece if I hadn't told them it was part 3 of a series and not simply a stand-alone story?

I've always believed my strength in story-telling lied in my ability to create realistic characterization for fictional characters. Each of my characters has a back story (whether I reveal it or not) that dictates every action they take. In order for the reader to believe in the characters, the writer has to believe in them first.

I thank you for thinking I did that part well.

As for the day-in-the-life feel to certain parts of the story, I could never write a straight up stroke story. For me, there has to be a significant build-up before the climax, otherwise it feels empty and hollow. *shrugs* But maybe that's just me. I can appreciate those who can cut right to the chase and get down to the real "nitty gritty," but that's not me. Like I said, I'm long-winded.

I appreciate your honest opinion, though. And you have my whole-hearted thanks for taking the time out to read the piece and give me your critique

 

[sr71plt]

No, you don't have to read the previous parts to understand what's going. Each story is a part of the whole, revolving around the same set of characters and their attempts to form some sort of relationship, but each one is also capable of standing on its own, containing its own beginning, middle and end.

If I'd known some people took their story-writing so seriously, I might have just let my stories sit on my computer's hard drive. I always thought fiction-writing was supposed to be fun . . . *shrugs* Guess I just learned something new

As I indicated above, I think you are reacting to contest exposure too quickly--this contest isn't even over yet--and comparing votes/comments on stories not only too soon but also out of the separate contexts of the stories (this one in a contest; the others not).

If you will wait that month I told you to wait and look at your comparable reads/scores, I don't think you'll be hyperventilating quite so much about having stories in Lit. contests. My experience has been that having stories in the contests does, in fact, heighten your profile and improve your reads and votes overall (and there's a "favorites" list going as well). And I think there are those who have found comaraderie by posting to the forum's contest thread while the contest was ongoing.

As far as the "feel" that the chapter 1 run in the contest wasn't the actual chapter 1 of the story, yes, I felt it wasn't the beginning of anything either--and not because it used the "drop in the middle" technique, which I use a lot too. But, rather, because it gave the impression that background had already been laid somewhere that wasn't coming up in the context of this segment--and that had not come up by the time the segment was completed. I'll have to see where I think your chapter 2 posted today to the contest fits with that. I haven't read that one yet, but will be doing so tonight.

 

[theMaven]

Duly noted.

 

[Darkniciad]

Absolutely don't judge the immediate impact of the contest on your other work in the moment - or even from a single contest. I had a jump on my other horror story after my first contest ( where I entered a horror story ) but didn't see much of a spike in anything else until I entered both a romance and a no-sex sci-fi/fantasy in the next one.

I'm having a pretty solid jump in my stories across all categories and both pen names this time out. The hits on my website are also spiking in about the same range.

This contest, and thus the thread, are also very light on participation. If you look at the contest entries, you see the same author names repeated quite a lot ( or their alternate pen names, in my case ) The actual number of authors who are participating is way down from what you usually see in contest. The same holds true for the thread. DG, Ogg, and I are pretty much carrying that one along by ourselves with a little help now and then.

Ellipses are just a pet peeve of mine *laugh* You don't use them half as much as many people do. There are a lot of stories floating around out there that have enough pips to look like they're written half in English and half in Morse Code

 

[UCJ]

My 2 Cents...

I've been an avid fan/reader of the site for the last year. However, I rarely ever vote.This is actually my very first post.I read your first 2 submissions and was pleasantly surprised by the characters.To be blunt, stories featuring women of color on this site are rare.Stories that show us as being multidimensional people are even more rare. I generally don't read contest submissions until after the winners are selected...if at all. The only reason that I started reading the latest installments of your story was because they were a continuation of the original stories that I liked so well. I haven't finished reading the latest submission...but I will! Please don't let the lack of response stop you from writing and submitting quality work. It's my hope that other writers will follow your example and expand their horizons...and their cast of characters.

 

[Darkniciad]

And there ya go, Maven You can't get a much better compliment than a reader popping in for the very first time to say don't stop doing what you do, because you're one of the few doin' it right.

Told ya that your characters are a major strength

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

Fuck everyone who doesn't like your stories. Write what YOU want to write. Write from your gut. Write well and you're fine. Trolls are trolls. Assholes are assholes. You'll never get away from that either on Lit or in the real world.

You did good. Keep it up and you'll gain a following. Eventurally they will bury the trolls. That's called "Success."

JJ

 

[theMaven]

Awwww...

*blushes* That's by far the best compliment I've received in a long, long time.

Thank you

 

[theMaven]

LOL

I always write what I, personally, enjoy, but if no one else enjoys it (or seems to enjoy it) I start to wonder what I'm posting it for.

Obviously, if you post something for public viewing, you want people to read it, and you hope that they'll respond to it some way, shape or form. Even if the comments are negative, I at least know it is being read, and somebody has an opinion about it. And based on the content of their comments, I can tell if they're just being a troll or if they're making some valid points that I never considered before.

And if they're positive comments, I can start doing cartwheels around my apartment.

But if there's no comments, the fear, doubt and suspicion starts creeping in, and I wonder why I even bothered posting it, why I insist on putting myself out there like this.

And then I remember that I'm a masochist, and pain and suffering are just par for the course for me. I enjoy reaching for "unattainable" things, and then crashing and burning. But when I succeed . . . Well, it happens so rarely, I automatically think there must be some mistake, or that I'm actually still asleep and dreaming.

*shrugs* But I'll get over myself, eventually

Thanks for the encouragement, though. I know what you say is true, and I've learned it time and time again, but I always seem to forget. Good thing I have somebody like you to remind me