Amazing, the incredibly high standards us Lit writers...

[laptopwriter]

are held to. A while back I wrote a story about a married couple who had drifted apart, but before their divorce was finalized, they found their way back to each other. The catalyst for the reconciliation was a classic car they both worked on when they were happily married.

I was astonished by the last comment I received, stating the entire premise for the story was, "impossible."

Ever watch TV? Hollywood would have us believe one of Charlie's Angels can shoot the gun out of guy's hand at 100 yards with a snub nose 38; or that, even though he was a living legend in the west, no one ever knew who The Lone Ranger was until the end of the show; or that a pair of glasses was a sufficient disguise for Superman.

Usually when someone calls me on something that seems to them to be implausible, it has to do with the actions or feelings of a character while under stress. People comment saying he/she wouldn't do that. Usually, from there on out, they pick at everything else in the story.

I wish I could talk to some of these people in person and say, " It wasn't written as a fact based documentary. Just enjoy the story for what it was meant to be, an entertaining piece of fiction."

 

[sr71plt]

You can always just ignore them. They aren't going to wise up. As Judge Judy frequently says, "Beauty is fleeting but stupid is forever."

 

[laptopwriter]

I don't know...

Hollywood would have us believe Rocky went from being a near imbecile, to a well educated, smart man, then going back to being the same imbecile he was originally by suffering from brain damage received in a fight.

Let's see judge Judy explain that one!

 

[sr71plt]

Hollywood would have us believe Rocky went from being a near imbecile, to a well educated, smart man, then going back to being the same imbecile he was originally by suffering from brain damage received in a fight.

Let's see judge Judy explain that one!

I think she'd just roll her eyes toward the ceiling and say "Hollywood."

 

[DreamCloud]

We write fables.
If they were true - we wouldn't spend our time writing.

 

[Hypoxia]

I just received a comment on a 2013 story complaining that my narrator misquoted Pete Townshend [sic]. Okay, so it should have been "I feel pretty old" not "I look pretty old". Damn, those narrators and their unreliable memories...

BTW LTW that was a fine story. *****

 

[robertreams]

hang in there. i find your description eminently plausible. I haven't read teh story, but. . . I wrote a story recently about my outlandish adventures in the Air Force. Of course they were somewhat embellished, but not much. I was accused of creating it all, told it was bullshit. But the events happened! It was because they were so outlandish that it made a story, duh!

 

[TamLin01]

Well, it's one comment. Meanwhile, 40 people favorited the story, it has a score of 4.66, and there are 63 positive comments on it. Given that, why does this bother you so much? I get that it's never pleasant being criticized, but it's a fact of life, and your story still comes out smelling like a pile of roses.

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

I've had worse comments. Usually from yahoos who have no imagination. Which is why they troll instead of writing, right? Buck up, man. It only gets worse from here.

Personally, if you liked the story, and frankly it doesn't seem that implausible, life is full of the unexpected, so what's wrong with a little case of literary magic, right?

Just follow the Muse, writer. She knows what she's doing, even if the trolls can't stand it.

 

[elfin_odalisque]

sr is right; ignore.

Over the years I was addicted to episodes of 'House'. I can't begin to list the myriad implausibilities including sex, drugs and rock'n roll. But millions of us loved the story.

If implausible were a criteria for fiction, Hollywood would be dark and Amazon bankrupt.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

hang in there. i find your description eminently plausible. I haven't read teh story, but. . . I wrote a story recently about my outlandish adventures in the Air Force. Of course they were somewhat embellished, but not much. I was accused of creating it all, told it was bullshit. But the events happened! It was because they were so outlandish that it made a story, duh!

Yo, asshole!

Eminently plausible means convincing.

 

[DeYaKen]

are held to. A while back I wrote a story about a married couple who had drifted apart, but before their divorce was finalized, they found their way back to each other. The catalyst for the reconciliation was a classic car they both worked on when they were happily married.

I was astonished by the last comment I received, stating the entire premise for the story was, "impossible."

Ever watch TV? Hollywood would have us believe one of Charlie's Angels can shoot the gun out of guy's hand at 100 yards with a snub nose 38; or that, even though he was a living legend in the west, no one ever knew who The Lone Ranger was until the end of the show; or that a pair of glasses was a sufficient disguise for Superman.

Usually when someone calls me on something that seems to them to be implausible, it has to do with the actions or feelings of a character while under stress. People comment saying he/she wouldn't do that. Usually, from there on out, they pick at everything else in the story.

I wish I could talk to some of these people in person and say, " It wasn't written as a fact based documentary. Just enjoy the story for what it was meant to be, an entertaining piece of fiction."

I wrote a story in which a wife whose husband had a low sperm count, said she got herself pregnant using donor sperm and a turkey baster. I had loads of people tell me it was impossible. I knew it wasn't because we had a court case in the UK in which the woman claimed financial support for a child she had conceived using the semen from her married boyfriends condom in a turkey baster.

The comments stopped when one reader looked it up and posted a surprised comment sayin that it was a recognised method.

So there you are even when you get it right you are wrong.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

I received a comment on a recent story that was longer than the story itself. About half way through the comment I just gave up. The story is no longer up. I took it down as I didn't include a vital part and decided it needed a rewrite to boot.

I have posted the comment as a complete novel though.

 

[JKendallDane]

I've gone to some pretty extreme lengths as far as research to make sure a lot of little details in my Pizza Boy trilogy series are dead on. One of the two main characters is a medical school student and I've really been totally anal about names of businesses and hospitals, streets and roads, university calendars, four years of med school curriculum, residency requirements, and even bought an eBook on same sex surrogacy of twins.

The completely amazing thing to me is that with all that, no one has bothered to mention that the university the two boys are attending doesn't even HAVE a medical school.

Course, I think some of the readers who get all bent out of shape over authors taking literary license with some details and "facts" in a story, are probably also the type that would argue to the point of bursting a blood vessel, that professional wrestling is real.

 

[Got2]

Yep,

On my first story posted here, just a few days ago, I had a commenter telling me that my story was unoriginal, 'Garbage' and implausible. So, right way I got to be in the same boat as all the other great authors here!

It is a work of fiction. Suspension of disbelief anyone?

Ah well, looks like the Trolls have left the second story alone.

A secret assassin agent of the British Government can NOT hijack a space shuttle, with Dr Goodhead, and take it to a secret space station...but it was a damn fun movie anyway!

"Bond, Bond! What is he doing??"

"Sir, I think he is attempting re-entry"

 

[TxRad]

Move a few small towns around and see what the geography buffs have to say.

 

[oggbashan]

Move a few small towns around and see what the geography buffs have to say.

I failed geography with one of my stories Christmas on Duty.

I had started with the protagonists going to a caravan site in the New Forest, but changed their destination to a hotel near Tunbridge Wells because I thought it would be too cold in a caravan at Christmas (or the site would be shut).

I didn't change all the references and the readers picked it up quickly.

It has now been edited. They ARE going to the hotel.

 

[sr71plt]

I had the reverse happen to me. I have a mainstream book set on a bricked-over village mainstreet. I put a children's carousel at one end just for convenience of the storyline. Two years after the book was published, the village put in a children's carousel in the same spot.

 

[Hypoxia]

Geography: In THE BOOK OF RUTH: BEFORE RUTH the narrator relates a driveaway. He announces the route: "...we left our little family bungalow in Santa Monica, near the Pacific Ocean. We drove east to EL Paso, then south to our destination: Taxco, Guerrero, Mexico."

He then describes the drive: fighting commute traffic out of the L.A. basin, driving past Palm Springs and through Indio, and on through Phoenix and beyond.

The comment received: "WTF! Santa Monica to El Paso and back to Indio? You had to pass Indio to get to El Paso!. I quit right there. Get a map out!"

Maybe I should have included a TripTik.

 

[sr71plt]

Of course the reader should recheck before questioning. Rita Mae Brown lives near us and writes about our area. More than once my wife has questioned a geographic call in one of her books and, upon checking it out, found Rita Mae was right. (Pat Cornwall, on the other hand, screwed up directions in this area religiously). I write about the area too, but invent as I like--usually in plopping buildings down that aren't really there rather than messing up driving directions, though.

I occasionally have readers here questioning the parts of my stories that actually came from experienced truth.

 

[laptopwriter]

Don't get me wrong, folks...

I'm not really bitching, I was just commenting on the standards to which our readers hold us. I write under 3 different pen-names and have many stories out there so I have received far worse comments myself.

I just think it's funny, considering the kind of forum this is, that the readership would do that.

The best one for me was a couple years ago. I wrote a story, as a lot of mine are, that centered around my profession. I've been a professional photographer for 49 years now. As a result, I've worked with hundreds of models; young models, old models, glamour models, fashion models, hand models, foot models...well, you get the idea.

Anyway, one person commented saying I knew nothing about the modeling industry. Models started when they were 13 and retired when they reached 19. So, he scored the story a "1."

I sincerely hope he was kidding although it didn't sound like it.

 

[sr71plt]

Aren't there a whole WIDE range of readers and resulting standards? And you expect to get those ducks in order somehow? Really?

 

[Handley_Page]

I wrote a story in which a wife whose husband had a low sperm count, said she got herself pregnant using donor sperm and a turkey baster. I had loads of people tell me it was impossible. I knew it wasn't because we had a court case in the UK in which the woman claimed financial support for a child she had conceived using the semen from her married boyfriends condom in a turkey baster.

The comments stopped when one reader looked it up and posted a surprised comment sayin that it was a recognised method.

So there you are even when you get it right you are wrong.

I'd be very interested to see where the story is, please

I failed geography with one of my stories Christmas on Duty.

I had started with the protagonists going to a caravan site in the New Forest, but changed their destination to a hotel near Tunbridge Wells because I thought it would be too cold in a caravan at Christmas (or the site would be shut).

I didn't change all the references and the readers picked it up quickly.

It has now been edited. They ARE going to the hotel.

As one among the pickers-up of the error, I'm delighted to hear it.
It is a damned good story though.

 

[DeYaKen]

I'd be very interested to see where the story is, please

I didn't put a link in because I thought it would look like shameless promotion (too British I guess) But since you ask it is here:

www.literotica.com/s/secrets-and-lies

Part 2
www.literotica.com/s/secrets-and-lies-ch-02

It was my first ever Lit story and part 2 especially could do with editing, but when I tried Lit rejected the edited version.

 

[DeYaKen]

are held to. A while back I wrote a story about a married couple who had drifted apart, but before their divorce was finalized, they found their way back to each other. The catalyst for the reconciliation was a classic car they both worked on when they were happily married.

I was astonished by the last comment I received, stating the entire premise for the story was, "impossible."

Ever watch TV? Hollywood would have us believe one of Charlie's Angels can shoot the gun out of guy's hand at 100 yards with a snub nose 38; or that, even though he was a living legend in the west, no one ever knew who The Lone Ranger was until the end of the show; or that a pair of glasses was a sufficient disguise for Superman.

Usually when someone calls me on something that seems to them to be implausible, it has to do with the actions or feelings of a character while under stress. People comment saying he/she wouldn't do that. Usually, from there on out, they pick at everything else in the story.

I wish I could talk to some of these people in person and say, " It wasn't written as a fact based documentary. Just enjoy the story for what it was meant to be, an entertaining piece of fiction."

One wonders if they watch CSI and yell "that wouldn't happen" at the screen.

I don't think it's any bad thing to be told when you get it wrong. I do a bit of voluntary work and my catch phrase is famous in the committee room "Just because you are not being paid it's no excuse for behaving like amateurs"