Disappointed readers

[circe!]

I got some feedback this morning on my final chapter of Hurrying Down the Dark Road which makes me feel... guilty!
Someone who'd given feedback before, read and enjoyed my lengthy series, was very let down by the final chapter.

I can shrug off misguided negative feedback, but this feedback corrasponded with my own doubts about the last chapter. That it was rushed. That my heart wasn't in it. The feedback asserted that I was in a hurry to finish so that I could get on with the Lit. Survivor Challenge thing. Yikes.

Has any other author ever gotten feedback which makes them want to apologise to their reader?

 

[Ulyssa]

If the criticism was right on the mark, and you yourself felt that you let your reader down, then you have a right and responsibility to revise it until you know you've done your best.

Last chapters are like delivering babies. If you refuse to go through the labor, then you've lost the child, and the entire nine months--all that has gone before--was wasted.

There are two dynamics at work here--
(1) Did you really slide through the last chapter in order to find time for something else?
(2) Should you submit Chapters 1 thru x without having the whole thing finished?

I too am guilty of part (2)--so it's up to us to make the effort to satisfy ourselves first. If we genuinely respect our work then the readers will follow.

 

[Dixon Carter Lee]

There's a sequence in "Jazzy Girl" with a high heel shoe that a lot of women said "Yech" to, and I've eliminated that moment from an updated version of the story for print.

And the last sex sequence in "Teaching Patti" got some me some "overboard" comments, which caused me to rewrite it just a bit, too.

But, interestingly, the only time anyone has said that they were disappointed in an ending of mine was actually a compliment. Many people have told me that they wanted the characters to "stay together" at the end of "Patti", despite understanding why they had to end the relationship. So many people have told me how they wished that Mark and Patti could stay together that I've started a sequel (though I still don't know yet if they'll end up together in this one either).

 

[circe!]

Re-write

Okay, if anyone familiar w/ the proceeding 12 chapters of Hurrying Down the Dark Road thinks I should re-write Chapter 13, let me know so I can take it under consideration.
TIA,
circe!

[Edited by circe! on 04-05-2001 at 12:12 PM]

 

[Whispersecret]

Personally, the ending is the most important part to me as a reader, and therefore, as a writer as well. It's the big payoff--the entire reason I stuck with the story in the first place. When we write a story, especially a longer one, we make a promise to the reader to deliver a satisfying ending. The beginning (hook) and the ending are so critical. Spend extra time on those.

One suggestion I have is what Ulyssa said: don't submit the story as you go. Complete it, revise it, fix it, tweak it, smooth it over, type "The End." And then submit it as a whole.

 

[nitengale]

Re: Re-write

Okay, if anyone familiar w/ the proceeding 12 chapters of Hurrying Down the Dark Road thinks I should re-write Chapter 13, let me know so I can take it under consideration.

Kim, this is your story, and only you should decide if it needs to be rewritten. If you are unhappy with it, then by all means redo, because you won't rest till it is redone, right?

 

[KillerMuffin]

If you can't let it go as is and it'll eat at you for a while with all those niggling, I know I flubbed it doubts bothering you everytime you sit to the keyboard, then re-write it. Maybe wait a while and rewrite it, let the story sort of fade a little and give yourself a fresher perspective on it.

I have a story that I've pretty much would adore to have done with, it's been to two people who keep telling me it's not finished. I beat my head on the desk and let weeks, sometimes a month or two, pass between my bouts of writing on it.

I also have a story that's posted now, The Gathering Night. It's not nearly done, I knew it when I posted it, and I had no intention of finishing it. Well. I'm finishing it. It's just incredibly long.

I get tired of my stories and want something new and fresh after about the 30,000th word, and most of what I write grows. I just want them to be done and over with. It's frustrating.

But the bottom line, my ramblings here aside, is your own personal satisfaction with the story. You have no editors or publishers to please, only yourself and you readership. Do you feel gypped? Do you feel like you gypped your readers? Do you feel the need to fix it?

 

[christo]

I forget what great writer said it, but the line is "A work of art is never finished, it is only abandoned". If you don't like the way the series ended, roll up those sleeves and beat it back into shape! I know what you're talking about, I've posted a few stories that weren't the way I wanted them just 'cause I wanted to get SOMETHING put up. Bad way to think.

There are authors who published classics who kept revising them years and years after they came out. I think Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" is the best known example, even after it was acclaimed as a classic he kept reworking it till the day he died. I think Emily Dickinson did the same thing.

 

[Carmen]

Well now you make me feel guilty.

I’m truly sorry that I mentioned the “Lit. Survivor Challenge thing” it was just a spur of the moment thought. I usually don’t go around asserting things without any knowledge of them.

I just wanted to say that you do not owe me anything, and nobody forced me to read your stories, so there is really no reason for you to feel guilty.

As for the question of rewriting the chapter, you are truly the only person, who can make that decision. But I would feel bad if you did it on my account.

 

[Ulyssa]

I would feel bad if you did it on my account.

She won't do it on "your account," Carmen, she'll do it because she wants to be professional. Don't apologize for saying what you felt---well okay Survivor Challenge was probably presumptuous, but if her ending chapter deserved the criticism, then by God tell her so!

It's all about that first amendment sort of stuff that the politicians are so fond of telling us doesn't apply in "This Particular Case."

 

[circe!]

Hi Carmen

Don't feel guilty for being honest, hon. And to tell the truth, the Lit. Survivor Thing has been on my mind, besides the urge to end Hurrying Down the Dark Road and move on.

If I hadn't recognised the truth in your criticism it wouldn't have effected me. I'm thinking you're probably right, but I shudder to think of going back to revise...


circe!

 

[Endlessly]

Endings are so important it's silly.

The only series I've ever done, "Good things come to those..", was submitted with the first three chapters done, because I was halfway through the fourth and final, and thought it'd be all right.

I was wrong.

Not too long after I hit a serious emotional block that made it just too painful to finish, especially with all of the feedback I'd gotten talking about what a wonderful, happy couple I'd created. I -knew- James was going to leave Moira crushed at the end, and I loved my chars too much to do that.

So for an entire year I got feedback telling me it wasn't done, it didn't end. And sure enough, I ended up having to write the final chapter, because I thought I could let it go, but I couldn't.

You may just find the same problem.

 

[knotty_dude]

Scat stories - please warn !

I felt this was a related topic but wanted to give some general feedback. Maybe I should even post this elsewhere, if someone has a suggestion let me know. I read a lot from various categories & one of them is the fetish section. Now fetish has a rather broad definition & you have no idea what exact fetish it is until you're partway into the story, unless the author hints at it or tells it upfront in the title. Just a suggestion but maybe a little headline at the beginning of the story mention in general what fetish it's concerning.

The reason I wrote this awhile back, sorry I don't remember the title or the author's name, there was a story that involved scat & "golden showers." I personally don't care for reading those types, specifically the scat stories, so I'll avoid them if I can. I was thinking that some other readers would have a like/dislike of a certain fetish & wouldn't mind being warned what it involves.

What does everyone think?

 

[cymbidia]

Re: Scat stories - please warn !

I personally don't care for reading those types, specifically the scat stories, so I'll avoid them if I can. I was thinking that some other readers would have a like/dislike of a certain fetish & wouldn't mind being warned what it involves.

I put a disclaimer at the top of "Pierced" precisely for this reason. If the title doesn't warn off someone looking for a Romance-type story, then my talking about "blood play" in the disclaimer ought to. (Of course, if a reader is looking for Romance and they click on a story called "Pierced", then maybe they need more help then my little disclaimer will give them, hmm?)

I really do *not* want anyone reading my stuff and gagging all the way through it, then sending me nasty email cuz the story didn't contain enough kissing, you know? I write niche stuff. I know it. I accept it. That's the way it is.

Personally, i like disclaimers. They let me know right from the beginning if the story is seriously kinked. I keep an eye out for those kind. http://cwm.ragesofsanity.com/cwm/3dlil/eyes.gif

 

[Ulyssa]

Okay this is further off the subject.

I will never forget when my kids got their first puppy. Anyway this incident, which I now recall with great laughter, has always delighted the pervert in me.

She was one of those inquisitive monsters which we all expect puppies to be now and again, and she conned one of the kids into giving her food from off her plate. This eventually led to a bad bout of puppy dysentary.

So later that night as my husband crawled into bed next to me with his wonderfully amorous (and hard) husbandly intentions, the new puppy jumps up on the bed and sticks her nose right between our faces. Strangely enough, the man who always dreamed of two females in bed at once didn't go for this. Well, by now, my fully erected show-off doesn't want this much playfulness in bed, so he yells at the puppy: "SCAT!"

I'm certain you can guess the results of his scream at a sensative and loose boweled baby. As I watched the yellow brown stains begin to spread, all I could think to say was: "Did you have to use that word?"

And as for Mr Hey-Look-At-The-Size-Of-This, he hid his glorious gift under a towel while I cleaned up the mess.

Of course, this story seems to get funnier the more years I put between the happening and the telling.

[Edited by Ulyssa on 04-20-2001 at 04:06 AM]

 

[Sonia_de_Beaumanoir]

how to revise?

If you want to rewrite a chapter, how do you go about it here? If I resubmit with the same title does that eventually replace the original?