Asking a favor of AH members who read BDSM.

[AG31]

I've read Twelve Maxbridge Street, which I assume is the story you're most proud of. I could tell you what I personally did or didn't like, but I'm not sure how helpful that would be. I'm pretty sure I'm nowhere close to being an average reader in any sense. Instead, I'll try to tackle things from what I believe is the preference of the average reader of simple erotica, as you call it. Assuming I know what the average reader in this category enjoys, of course.

First, I want to say that you write well in general. Your style is descriptive and very detail-oriented. It's also quite formal, and I would say even clinical in sex scenes.

The things I see as problematic from the viewpoint of an average reader of simple erotica, or a stroke story, in no particular order:

- You start with a descriptive exposition. It takes quite a few paragraphs before anything happens that can catch the reader's interest. It's something that's important for all types of stories, but even more so for stroke stories, where you'll want to grab the reader's attention quickly. It's my opinion that the best way is to put your reader in the middle of an interesting scene right away, sexual or otherwise. There are so many stories here available for free. You need to fight for the attention of your readership.

- I've already mentioned that your style is mostly clinical, with not much moans, sighs, or expressions of inner thoughts and the arousal that your characters feel. It's a style, I suppose, but, in my opinion, not one very much popular with stroke story readers.

- There is a good deal of gay male content, and there aren't even any tags to let the reader know in advance. I'd say that would be off-putting for many readers, me included.

- Too many characters take part in the action. I think that the average reader would enjoy it if the story had fewer characters, but if they took more stage time, so the reader could form some kind of attachment or preference. In your story, there are too many of them, and most of them take only a fraction of the total stage time. They are practically X, Y, Z characters.

The aspects of your story that I see as popular from the standpoint of that same average reader are the fact that you focus a lot on the male ejaculation, and that your story ends on a very positive note, with love and a happily ever after of sorts, even though the way you introduced love into your story stretches the suspension of disbelief a lot.

There it is. I hope that helped.

Thanks much for the detailed reply. All very interesting.

I could tell you what I personally did or didn't like, but I'm not sure how helpful that would be.

Au contraire. Could you just go down my list in the OP and tell me which things put you off, you, yourself? I should have added "gay male overtones," I suppose. Edit: On further reflection, although all my stories contain some M/M activity, it's important that the MCs are clearly not gay. They're experienceing surrender, not attraction for a man.

I'm not looking to broaden my readership, just looking to identify what makes my preferred niche small.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Could you just go down my list in the OP and tell me which things put you off, you, yourself?

- The gay male content. I can read a story that has gay characters, but I don't want to read about them having sex.

- The clinical style is very much not my thing. I like the sensuality, the emotions, the passion. I want to know how the characters feel and what they think as the sex unfolds. I want to hear them moan and hiss in pleasure. In this sense, I believe I want a lot more compared to the average reader.

- I can read stroke stories, quick or longer ones, but I prefer fleshed-out characters. I also like it when the tension builds over a long period before exploding into passionate sex.

- Readers vary in this sense, but I like it when the story revolves around a woman's sexuality, around her needs and wants. I like it when she's not just an instrument of male ejaculation; I like reading about her arousal and orgasm, and what she feels and what goes through her mind during sex.

 

[SamanthaBehgs]

I am not sure my feedback is really going to be that...beneficial? I am not a good writer and I literally have a brain that is broken (like, seriously, I have doctors working on fixing it). I coud try to add some to the feedback you've been given but some may end up more like either headcanon or questions/things that confused me that would not confuse someone who was better able to focus their attention and hold a more complex story in mind for longer.

I'm glad to provide commentary, but my abilities with statistics might be more beneficial to you on those days where my brain is not mush by the time I get "me" time to get onto the site.

 

[Britva415]

I'm also a vote in favor of a "not clinical" style - at least, not when it comes to the sex.

I do have a story which I could see described as "clinical," regarding the scene-setting, the scenario-building. But the main-event sex scene is very organic, wet, visceral, breathless, sweaty, charged with somatic sensations, transparent as to motivations, evocative as to emotions, etc.

Opposite-of-clinical is what I like to read, and what I endeavor to write.

 

[AG31]

I am not sure my feedback is really going to be that...beneficial? I am not a good writer and I literally have a brain that is broken (like, seriously, I have doctors working on fixing it). I coud try to add some to the feedback you've been given but some may end up more like either headcanon or questions/things that confused me that would not confuse someone who was better able to focus their attention and hold a more complex story in mind for longer.

I'm glad to provide commentary, but my abilities with statistics might be more beneficial to you on those days where my brain is not mush by the time I get "me" time to get onto the site.

I'm looking for individual's takes on my stories. Just reply Yes or No to the list in the OP after reading enough of one of my stories to form an opinion. (Yes, this turns me off. No, this doesn't bother me.) And thanks for explaining where you're coming from!

 

[ElectricBlue]

Edit: On further reflection, although all my stories contain some M/M activity, it's important that the MCs are clearly not gay. They're experiencing surrender, not attraction for a man.

That's you the author saying that, knowing your kink. But that's not how readers will read MM action - it's still the one big taboo here on Lit, the hint of gay male action.

It's still a big run away quickly for many male readers; although I always make the observation that chapters in any of my longer stories with man on man action always have a kick up in Views and the score, compared to adjacent chapters. Which I put down to readers reading it twice, to make sure...

 

[SamanthaBehgs]

I'm looking for individual's takes on my stories. Just reply Yes or No to the list in the OP after reading enough of one of my stories to form an opinion. (Yes, this turns me off. No, this doesn't bother me.) And thanks for explaining where you're coming from!

Absolutely and you just happened to catch me while I'm still here, so I can do that now:


- Staid, almost formal tone of narrative.
This will result in my only reading it if I am in a VERY particular type of mood, which I am rarely in. This is actually where the headcanon comes into play as well. The introduction has me thinking that the main character (I read Twelve Maxbridge) was an AI driven robot, like the sexbots you see referenced in movies (not the porn type, mind you, just folks talking about sexbots). Almost as if this bot was gathering data about the various elements of human experience without actually emotionally connecting to that experience. (Edited to add: I liked this headcanon. I think it would make a cool premise AND match the writing style well)

- Almost total absence of relationships.
The existence of the relationship at the end was actually jarring. I don't think there's anything wrong with "stranger" stories and in fact this can be quite sexy. It's not my style (which comes more from lived experience in a more realistic BDSM lifestyle) but it's not an immediate turn off either.

- Focus on a male surrendering rather than a female.
This is a turn off for me, but only because I'm a female sub myself. If I am going to read about male submissives I, at the very least, want to see how their internal worlds might be the same as or different from mine. But since I am generally trying to get into the mind of the main characters of a story - I want one of them to be someone I can relate to in some way. If there isn't an emotional element to the writing (i.e., more formal writing) then that relation is going to have to come from shared features more than anything else.

- Absence of naughtiness, sissification, training, infantilization, etc (why I add "with dignity" to my blurbs). If so, could you specify which?
Nah. I don't mind the absence of any of these, as they aren't waht I'm looking for. I think this is also where the tags come in. If any of those are in the tags, I tend not to read the story in the first place. I obviously won't negatively rate them, they are for *someone* out there, just not for me.


And commentary unrelated to your questions (feel free to ignore, this is the stuff that borders on writing advice that may just not be good advice. I welcome being told I'm wrong):
One thing that *did* almost make me stop reading, however, was the repetition of the word "perfect" in the first few paragraphs without ANY context. I *think* I can see what you were trying to do? Maybe? But I feel it needed something more. And it needed to either continue or not be there at all in my opinion. This, however, is coming from someone who is both not very prolific and who is in no real place to give writing advice, so please view this just as something that I as a reader was looking for and then felt the absence of while I was reading.

I also think the story might have been better off as a series. I found the moving from station to station and the labelling within difficult to follow, and honestly, I think someone being the "subject" for each of those stations all in one night was a bit much for my suspension of disbelief. It would also be a bit chaotic for the patrons, again, making it hard for me to picture how it would have actually work without separating myself so far from reality that it was jarring (if I wanted to leave reality, I'd be in a different category). I liked how orderly the check in was. I like that the receptionist asked about someone being certified. Why wouldn't the subject be certified ahead of time? It just felt...off.

 

[AG31]

Thank you, thank you, thank you! Thank you for engaging with my points.

I'd like to continue the conversation as long as you don't take it as defensiveness or arguing or me trying to persuade you to change your mind. OK?

- Staid, almost formal tone of narrative.
This will result in my only reading it if I am in a VERY particular type of mood, which I am rarely in. This is actually where the headcanon comes into play as well. The introduction has me thinking that the main character (I read Twelve Maxbridge) was an AI driven robot, like the sexbots you see referenced in movies (not the porn type, mind you, just folks talking about sexbots). Almost as if this bot was gathering data about the various elements of human experience without actually emotionally connecting to that experience. (Edited to add: I liked this headcanon. I think it would make a cool premise AND match the writing style well)

Fascinating!! Can't say I'd be attracted to your story, if you write it, but a lot of people would be.

@MillieDynamite's wonderful comment on my story, specifically "I believe there is something deeper in this story than just the shock factor," got me thinking about the almost formal style. It may be a reflection of my sense for the power of sex in human life. It's beyond silly or trivial.

- Almost total absence of relationships.
The existence of the relationship at the end was actually jarring.

You're not alone. For me the "jarring" transition in style and the sudden, no build-up emergence of the relationship reflects my own total separation between sado-masochistic erotica and real life relationships. I've never experienced the tiniest inkling of desire to act out IRL, even back when my MCs were female like me.

- Focus on a male surrendering rather than a female.
This is a turn off for me, but only because I'm a female sub myself. If I am going to read about male submissives I, at the very least, want to see how their internal worlds might be the same as or different from mine. But since I am generally trying to get into the mind of the main characters of a story - I want one of them to be someone I can relate to in some way. If there isn't an emotional element to the writing (i.e., more formal writing) then that relation is going to have to come from shared features more than anything else.

Of course. You and 99.99% of the rest of readers of fiction. I have yet to figure out why I have this predilection. There were hints of it throughout my life (strong attraction to fiction featuring "heroic sacrifice"), but the change came like flicking a switch. I haven't explored this aspect of my erotic life much here on AH. I'm going to put it on my to-do list.

- Absence of naughtiness, sissification, training, infantilization, etc (why I add "with dignity" to my blurbs). If so, could you specify which?
Nah. I don't mind the absence of any of these, as they aren't waht I'm looking for. I think this is also where the tags come in. If any of those are in the tags, I tend not to read the story in the first place. I obviously won't negatively rate them, they are for *someone* out there, just not for me.

And commentary unrelated to your questions (feel free to ignore, this is the stuff that borders on writing advice that may just not be good advice. I welcome being told I'm wrong):
One thing that *did* almost make me stop reading, however, was the repetition of the word "perfect" in the first few paragraphs without ANY context. I *think* I can see what you were trying to do? Maybe? But I feel it needed something more. And it needed to either continue or not be there at all in my opinion. This, however, is coming from someone who is both not very prolific and who is in no real place to give writing advice, so please view this just as something that I as a reader was looking for and then felt the absence of while I was reading.

Interesting. You're the 3rd person to zero in on the use of "perfect." The first was a reader in a Reddit group, before I'd published in Lit. I decided to leave it, because if I had encountered it in someone else's story, I'm pretty sure I would have taken it with the tongue-in-cheek attitude that was intended. I left it in, and added this little bit of advice to myself. Some things work for some people, and some things don't.

I also think the story might have been better off as a series. I found the moving from station to station and the labelling within difficult to follow, and honestly, I think someone being the "subject" for each of those stations all in one night was a bit much for my suspension of disbelief. It would also be a bit chaotic for the patrons, again, making it hard for me to picture how it would have actually work without separating myself so far from reality that it was jarring (if I wanted to leave reality, I'd be in a different category). I liked how orderly the check in was. I like that the receptionist asked about someone being certified. Why wouldn't the subject be certified ahead of time? It just felt...off.

Interesting. I don't think anyone else has made this kind of critique. Perhaps it is tied in with whatever condition it is you're wrestling with.

Anyway, THANKS AGAIN for giving me the opportunity to keep talking about this stuff. I hope we hear more from you.