Do You Ever Disappoint Readers On Purpose?

[StillStunned]

Still a happy ending though.

I wonder, did you get any complaints from readers who thought the title was advertising a threesome?

No, and that was one of my concerns when I chose the title. I think it helps that Jessica and Yuliya are portrayed as separate entities, or at least as conflicting desires.

 

[RetroFan]

I was surprised when I found out that some readers had no concept why somebody would deliberately write a bad story.

This was the case with me when I wrote the story 'Kyle's Revenge' for the 750 word contest a few years ago. I deliberately wrote the most stupid and offensive story I could think of, with a ridiculous premise and bad grammar and I thought anyone reading it would have immediately picked up that the story was written as a joke, but a lot of the IT readers thought I was serious and commented accordingly.

I've had other stories where readers for the most part didn't 'get' it. Another IT example was 'Perving On My Virgin Cousins', where a wayward 18-year-old guy after a run-in with the law is banished by his long-suffering parents to live in another city with his aunt, uncle and cousins, twin 18-year-old girls. This branch of the family are devoutly religious, fundamentalist Christians and the two girls along with their friends have taken abstinence pledges. The young man who is the narrator of the story does improve his behaviour and stops being a slacker, but he does find his two cousins attractive. However, he makes no sexual move on them, for one wanting to keep out of trouble but more significantly because the fact that the two girls are virgins turns him on, and the knowledge that while both have serious boyfriends they are never intimate. It doesn't stop him engaging in discrete voyeurism with his cousins, such as panty-sniffing, up-skirting and getting off by them undressing, showering, going to the toilet and having their periods, but the main turn-on for him is that they are virgins and he doesn't want to have sex with them personally, nor does he get turned on by fantasies of them having sex with their boyfriends or other guys; he wants them to remain virgins. However, few who read the story seemed to get that the girls' virginity was the main source of attraction to their cousin, and it scored very badly with much negative feedback.

Another IT story people didn't get was 'The Tale of the Too Close Twins' which is narrated by a young man who develops concerns that his two friends, a twin brother and sister, are too close for comfort, with his suspicions eventually confirmed. This was an April Fools story which took a different tactic, written from the perspective of a third party who has no direct involvement in the sex but is uncomfortable with what his is seeing and thinks might be happening behind closed doors. And most of us would at least once have encountered a brother/sister duo who give off a Flowers in the Attic vibe, a mother and son who seem more like an older woman and her younger lover or a father and daughter where saying the daughter is a Daddy's girl is the least matter of concern. Readers were not at all impressed by this different story, viciously attacking the story's narrator, some even calling for him to be removed from the story altogether. Harry Potter fans liked Dolores Umbrage more than the IT fans here liked Andrew, the narrator of this story.

 

[DeMont]

Do you ever choose let a character make bad decisions or behave badly, when you know it's the opposite of what the reader wants?

Say you've portrayed your character as a decent, caring human that your readers adore. Would you intentionally let that character lose their integrity, at some point in the story, knowing it would disappoint readers?

Are you willing to write a sad ending when you know readers will crave a happy one?

I hate sad endings, but I'm also weary of predictable happy ones, so I'm exploring ideas on going against the grain.

@Off_base,
It's commonly called a "plot twist" and it can be used to great effect, suddenly the hero/heroine switches to anti-hero/ heroine. I don't prefer either "happy" ever afters or "sad" ever afters, I roll with it and see what the story needs to wrap it up. Occasionally I will end with a "Hanger" which, hopefully, leaves readers wanting to know what happens next. This has happened on a couple of occasions for me.

If you're weary of "predictable happy ones", as a writer, then yes, mix it up. Give your readers a shake-up and see what comes back (as in Feedback) You'll soon know what your readers want. That will lead you neatly into the thread hereabouts entitled, "Do you write for your readers or yourself".

I say, if you're bored, change it up. Get your creative going again and get "un-bored". Just my two cents worth, naturally.
Respectfully,
D.

 

[Bazzle]

Do you ever choose let a character make bad decisions or behave badly, when you know it's the opposite of what the reader wants?

Say you've portrayed your character as a decent, caring human that your readers adore. Would you intentionally let that character lose their integrity, at some point in the story, knowing it would disappoint readers?

Are you willing to write a sad ending when you know readers will crave a happy one?

I hate sad endings, but I'm also weary of predictable happy ones, so I'm exploring ideas on going against the grain.

I helped edit this story.

Every comment complains about the twist!

https://www.literotica.com/s/broken-salvation

But if it wasn't for the twist, would anyone have commented/voted?

 

[cw5523729]

I hadn't considered that. I don't have a big following and assumed that the favorites I received were from people who'd read the story.

Getting back to this. This morning I woke up to find out that I had notifications of 31 new favorites added!!

Oops, all 31 were from 1 person. All added at the same time. And clicking on their profile revealed those 31 were added to the 5,695 (I swear that's not an exaggeration) that were already in their favorites list.

 

[Off_base]

Getting back to this. This morning I woke up to find out that I had notifications of 31 new favorites added!!

Oops, all 31 were from 1 person. All added at the same time. And clicking on their profile revealed those 31 were added to the 5,695 (I swear that's not an exaggeration) that were already in their favorites list.

Good Samaritans can be such assholes sometimes.

 

[cw5523729]

Good Samaritans can be such assholes sometimes.

I'm sure it's not like they meant anything by doing it. Just an example of how that favorites tally is somewhat worthless unfortunately.

But the flip side is that it's not totally worthless. Another person has consistently favorited every part of the story but at a much slower rate than they were published. Since some of the later parts were over 10k words, that implies that that person really is reading them either before or after they favorite them.

On a related note, I received a new follower today as well! That made me # 19,415 on their list. I have no idea why you'd follow 20k people unless you really like waking up to several hundred new notifications every single day. But hey, a follower is a follower.

 

[Off_base]

I'm sure it's not like they meant anything by doing it. Just an example of how that favorites tally is somewhat worthless unfortunately.

But the flip side is that it's not totally worthless. Another person has consistently favorited every part of the story but at a much slower rate than they were published. Since some of the later parts were over 10k words, that implies that that person really is reading them either before or after they favorite them.

On a related note, I received a new follower today as well! That made me # 19,415 on their list. I have no idea why you'd follow 20k people unless you really like waking up to several hundred new notifications every single day. But hey, a follower is a follower.

View attachment 2575893

Yes, I'm reevaluating the weight I give to favorites. I'm still learning how things work. I did, however, get my 100th follower last night, so today I like getting followers the most!

 

[cw5523729]

Yes, I'm reevaluating the weight I give to favorites. I'm still learning how things work. I did, however, get my 100th follower last night, so today I like getting followers the most!

If you don't feel obligated to dig too deeply, you can bask in the joy eternally. You know what they say about ignorance.