Disgruntled Readers?

[Ice_Tease]

I was fairly pleased with my writing and the voting I was getting on Lit until just recently. I'm not sure what has happened but the last 2 or 3 comments I have received have been negative almost to the point of belligerent.

The latest is the very first vote and comment on a new story. It's a BDSM submission and until recently the preceding 5 stories have been in the top 70 on the voting list. I made a comment in the begging of the story thanking those that voted for their votes and positive comments. This is the comment from my latest "fan". If they didn't like BDSM stories then why were they reading one?

Top 70 in BDSM---Is that something to be proud ---
05/30/07 By: Anonymous
of????----I guess it proves that you write about cruelty almost as good as 69 others--First hand experience?? I guess that is the likely reason for your proud accomplishment

The previous one is a persons critique of my writing in the second person and how it doesn't work. Does it just not work for them or am I missing something? I guess my real question is has anyone else hit one of these streaks where disgruntled readers berate them?

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

Welcum to the world of Lit Trolls. Most of them suffer from inadiquacy stemming from adolecent casteration and/or under developed genitalia. Don't worry about them.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

And welcome to the world of blank validation and back-patting! Few will actually read your story, but everybody and their mothers will tell you to ignore the mean, ignorant trolls.

In answer to your next to last question, the unreal one, second-person doesn't work for a lot of people. Gamers and adult-chat-addicts probably don't mind it, but as a literary device, it needs to be really, really, really well done and justified for it to "work".

 

[Guest]

When the reader's comment has nothing to do with the story and everything to do with the writer themselves, of course it should be ignored.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

When the reader's comment has nothing to do with the story and everything to do with the writer themselves, of course it should be ignored.

Yeah, but that was one comment from one person. What about the others?

 

[Guest]

No clue.

But I would have responded the same way Jenny did, given that same example.

Ignore it.

 

[Stella_Omega]

That's the thing about Lit-- there's something for everyone to hate, if they want to go looking for it, and there's always someone looking for it!
I've been lambasted for one of my BDSM stories; Someone told me that women just don't act like that to each other. Like you, I can't understand why anyone would read in a cat they aren't comfortable with-- but here at Lit, I've learned, they do.

As far as writing second person-- I took a look at your chapters 1 and 4, and the second person made me disinterested. However, that's just me, and if you're in the top 70, you're doing it right for plenty of people!

 

[tickledkitty]

The second person didn't do it for me either. In fact, it kind of annoyed me somehow. The first couple of stories I wrote, which I never posted, were done this way. I actually like first person because it seems very intimate to me. Maybe you could try it? You're still telling the story first hand.

As for people who are just being mean, don't let them get to you. That's what they want.

 

[Guest]

That's the thing about Lit-- there's something for everyone to hate, if they want to go looking for it, and there's always someone looking for it!
I've been lambasted for one of my BDSM stories; Someone told me that women just don't act like that to each other. Like you, I can't understand why anyone would read in a cat they aren't comfortable with-- but here at Lit, I've learned, they do.

The concept of BDSM threatens the whole fabric of their universe ... it is even worse than Loving wives in that regard. I think that bad comments in that category come with the territory.

The first BDSM scene I ever wrote got me a barrage of mail accusing me of being a man posing as a woman, even though the story is about a pagan apprentice midwife ... not that I am saying that a man could not write that, of course :grin:

Just delete it as soon as possible,don't let it get to you.

I just wonder that the naughties were doing...

Maharat

 

[MarshAlien]

I was fairly pleased with my writing and the voting I was getting on Lit until just recently. I'm not sure what has happened but the last 2 or 3 comments I have received have been negative almost to the point of belligerent.

The latest is the very first vote and comment on a new story. It's a BDSM submission and until recently the preceding 5 stories have been in the top 70 on the voting list. I made a comment in the begging of the story thanking those that voted for their votes and positive comments. This is the comment from my latest "fan". If they didn't like BDSM stories then why were they reading one?

Top 70 in BDSM---Is that something to be proud ---
05/30/07 By: Anonymous
of????----I guess it proves that you write about cruelty almost as good as 69 others--First hand experience?? I guess that is the likely reason for your proud accomplishment

The previous one is a persons critique of my writing in the second person and how it doesn't work. Does it just not work for them or am I missing something? I guess my real question is has anyone else hit one of these streaks where disgruntled readers berate them?

I didn't really care for the second person in your stories, either. The very few second person stories that I have liked have been what might be seen as love letters: "You stroked my skin, and then sent me skyward with your tongue." In those stories, although they're directed to "you," the narrator is really explaining the first person's feelings, not the second. So I feel that I can put myself in place of the second person, and go through the story that way. In your case, though, you are telling me, the reader, what I am feeling and doing, and that was kind of off-putting to me. I kept wondering, "how the hell do you know what I'm thinking?" Of course, it may just be my limited experience with this sort of writing that keeps me from enjoying it.

As far as gruntlement goes, you're always more likely to hear from the disgruntled in a category like that than the gruntled.

 

[jomar]

Embrace them and just smile at their bile.

 

[3113]

On the other hand...

This is the comment from my latest "fan". If they didn't like BDSM stories then why were they reading one?

Top 70 in BDSM---Is that something to be proud ---
05/30/07 By: Anonymous
of????----I guess it proves that you write about cruelty almost as good as 69 others--First hand experience?? I guess that is the likely reason for your proud accomplishment

Okay, a lot of folk are dismissing this as a troll. I don't think it is; I suspect it's someone with a very sensitive button, but they might actually have a point....

Let me first say that I have not read the story, so I have no way of knowing if the comment is in anyway justified. HOWEVER...a lot of BDSM readers take it as an important point of their sexual lifestyle that there be concent and love in the sexual play, however sadistic it may seem.

I've read a lot of stories on Lit, most of them in the BDSM cat, where there is no implication of either concent or love in the relationship, just meanness. The dom jerks the sub about by the hair, beats, yells, abuses, tortures and imprisons her (usually it's a her), and comes across not as a "Master" involved in a concenting, mutually loving BDSM relationship...but as a father abusing a child.

I've seen stories where there are pages and pages of this, including sex that comes across as torture and rape.

Now your story may be nothing like that, or if it is, you may not have intended it to come across that way. Perhaps, among most readers, it does not come across that way. Or perhaps it does, but that's what they get off on and they like it. But...perhaps this is not a troll, nor is it someone unfamiliar with BDSM, nor is it someone whose comment you should just dismiss. Perhaps there is a valid point here. Re-read the story. Does it come across as cruelty for cruelty's sake, with you the writer getting off on abusing one of the characters...rather than presenting a concenting and mutually satisfying relationship?

I've written BDSM stories; one such story I consider pretty harsh. But the one thing I emphasize over and over again in it was that there was mutual need and mutual satisfaction and mutual concent for both of the people involved. Without that, the writer as well as the characters can come across as just cruel.

So maybe, just maybe, this commentator is presenting a valid point. You don't have to consider it for this or any other future story, but I'm putting this out there so that you don't dismiss it out of hand.

 

[Stella_Omega]

AS you so often do, 3113, you bring up a very valid point, and I'm grateful to you for it.

When I go into the BDSM category I assume there will be consent in the context, even if the scene has non-consent elements. The place for cruelty and abuse is in non-consent/reluctance, at least in my mind.

 

[Ice_Tease]

Thanks to everyone for their responses. All of you have brought up great points. Originally when I started writing these stories they were for one person and I had never considered posting them here. That is why they have been written in the second person.

I guess what upset me about the troll in the response I posted is that the story contained no cruelty, torture, pain or the like. I wonder if they even read it.

Thanks again all!

 

[Stella_Omega]

Thanks to everyone for their responses. All of you have brought up great points. Originally when I started writing these stories they were for one person and I had never considered posting them here. That is why they have been written in the second person.

I guess what upset me about the troll in the response I posted is that the story contained no cruelty, torture, pain or the like. I wonder if they even read it.

Thanks again all!

That's how the "Story of 'O' " was started; as bedtime stories for her boyfriend.

 

[JamesSD]

Okay, a lot of folk are dismissing this as a troll. I don't think it is; I suspect it's someone with a very sensitive button, but they might actually have a point....

It's pretty clear that the comment poster views all BDSM as cruelty, and it was a blanket genre-troll comment.

 

[elsol]

Let me introduce you to The Famous ElSol Way of Thinking Of Trolls:

"Thank you, God. I thought I was pathetic, but you kindly put this thing in front of me to raise up my esteem of myself. I can't use the word pathetic for me and this idiot at the same time."

 

[3113]

It's pretty clear that the comment poster views all BDSM as cruelty, and it was a blanket genre-troll comment.

Ice Tease said NOTHING about what the story was about or what it contained. If some indication had been made of its content, then I would probably have agreed it was a troll remark and nothing more.

That the commenter dismisses the other 69 stories...hey SHITTY stories can get voted high--and in the BDSM category, that can include stories as cruel and thoughtless as I described. Highly unlikely that all 69 are like that, so this is hyperbole, of course...but why against this story? Again, with no descripton of the story, there's no idea as to whether the poster may have had a valid reason for posting this or is just a troll.

I'm not saying I'm right. In fact, as I said REPEATEDLY, it most probably IS just a person with sensitive button venting their frustration at a genre that pushes that button.

But I thought it might be good for someone to offer a different point of view on this negative comment. Otherwise, we might well fall into the trap of saying "Troll. Ignore it" every single time someone posts a negative comment...and thus, we risk telling writers to ignore the valid commentary along with the troll commentary.

That was my primary point in trying to give it some small (and very small at that) consideration.

 

[Ice_Tease]

3113, I read your comments and truly appreciated them. Thank you for taking the time to bring another perspective to my question. The story in question contained very little bondage and no acts of sadism which makes me lean towards this person fitting the troll category. Of course the only way to improve is to listen to honest criticism. Luckily I'm only 2 pages into the next story I'm writing, non-bdsm, so it won't take too much work to move it into the first person.

Thank you again all!

 

[JamesSD]

That was my primary point in trying to give it some small (and very small at that) consideration.

Oh, I thought you made an excellent side-point. And while yeah, occasionally bad stories can temporarily hang out near the top of categories, nothing truly awful (at least in my mind) seems to stay in the top page very long except in the most thinly posted of categories. Anytime someone dismisses an entire genre or subgenre, they're usually wrong