Do you ever engage with your readers?

[Gamblnluck]

I just posted a story, a sequel to a pretty good story to which I gave full points. I saw things the author did not address in his story. Motivations, character flaws, apparent inconsistencies with behavior etc. I asked him if I could write a sequel and he agreed. I even gave him an advance read of my sequel. The original story was 'The Teacher's Husband" by Offkilter123. Mine used the same title using Kate's story as an addendum.
Reading the comments, I find myself wondering how people really think. I saw a woman who admittedly cheated, got burned justifiably for her actions. But I also saw a mentally ill (I hate that term). Rather severely depressed woman who cannot justify her actions, but wants to at least be heard. She forces the issue. That is the synopsis.
I was fried in the comments. A few followed my logic but most did not.
I felt part of the original was kicking a sick woman while she was down with no idea what is was like for her. Both the original and my sequel were told from the first person. The original from the husband's and the sequel from the wife's.

I am curious how many authors think "Damn, can't you see I am showing an side, that while maybe is different, is still valid?

 

[Voboy]

Not for nothing, and I've never read either story, but I'd say "well-reasoned plot critique" is not necessarily the strong suit of many of the people who read stories here on Lit.

Note, I said "many of the people." There is, believe it or not, an incredibly diverse and appreciative readership that is respectful of complicated stories. But they might not find you unless you've developed a certain reputation here. They also tend to frequent certain categories. Let me guess: you wrote in LW? That's not really a hotbed of nuanced literary feedback, to say the least.

The other thing to think about is that if your themes are SO CLEAR to you, but not to your readers, then perhaps you could have done a better job conveying your themes to them. It's worth pointing out, anyway. That's why even negative or neutral feedback is useful to us.

 

[Euphony]

I am curious how many authors think "Damn, can't you see I am showing an side, that while maybe is different, is still valid?

Most authors experience this. Maybe not to the acidic levels some categories engender but it happens all the time.

Think about how easily misinterpreted songs are, and they are mostly micro-narratives if narratives at all.

Readers come in with their own expectations, biases, leanings, and perceptions so they are going to disagree with you (especially if you consider those who do respond tend to only do so because they disagree)

Understanding and/or at least appreciating subtlety, nuance, and shades of grey inherent to the human experience is not Literotica readers default M.O.

 

[ronde]

It can work the opposite way as well. I have a story up about a man cheating on his wife with an absolute bitch of a woman. I painted this woman as a selfish woman who enjoyed enticing men away from their wives. She was also living with a guy who encouraged her to do that. She came on strong to the guy and got him to screw her a few times. When the guy told his wife to get out because he was going to marry this bitch, she him she was just playing with him and he wasn't that great anyway. Then, she went home to her boyfriend and told him she was going to find another guy and disrupt his whole life.

I figured I'd painted her as a woman any reader would hate, and most did. I got one comment though that said what this woman's boyfriend was doing to her was unforgivable and he hoped she kicked him out of her house.

I still haven't figured out the logic of that comment.

 

[SeraphNocturne]

I engage with my readers constantly.

I think the way that I write attracts readers on a more cerebral level who aren't just looking for quick kicks and cheap thrills. There's nothing wrong with readers who're 'just passing by' types. However, I'm seeing a pattern of a lot of writers who have a hard time getting their point across to those types of readers. They've got what they want to read in their head, and anything that deviates from it is a sin against humanity to a lot of them, and you as the author will suffer their wrath in angry commentary.

I know when the point is moot and to let someone have it. If I don't expressively ask for opinions or to engage over something I've written then more often than not, I don't feel the need to explain myself or clash against someone's point of view with how they perceived the story.

It's our job as writers to tell a story to the best of our ability and in sync with our vision. That also includes knowing your audience. I think if you feel like you've offered a glowing rendition of an alternate point of view to the story (and you must have had good thoughts if the original author allowed you to write on it), then I wouldn't even sweat explaining it to the people who didn't see it.

 

[NoTalentHack]

Let me guess: you wrote in LW? That's not really a hotbed of nuanced literary feedback, to say the least.

Before I get started on the main question, I want to say that of all the categories I write in, I'm most likely to get good and nuanced criticism from the commenters there. I mean, I get a lot of "-1 cuck shit" ones, too, but if I want an honest assessment of themes, structure, etc.? LW is the place to go.

Now, on with said assessment.

I felt part of the original was kicking a sick woman while she was down with no idea what is was like for her. Both the original and my sequel were told from the first person. The original from the husband's and the sequel from the wife's.

I am curious how many authors think "Damn, can't you see I am showing an side, that while maybe is different, is still valid?

If you're asking that question, you've failed to connect with the readers. It's easy to say, "well, they're just not picking up what I'm putting down," and sometimes that's true. But most of the time, it's because the writer is/was too close to what they were trying to do to see what they were actually doing. Just ask Ray Bradbury; he thought Fahrenheit 451 was an anti-television story, but everyone else said "this is such a great anti-censorship story!" Even the greats get blindsided by it sometimes.

I've read both the Teacher's Husband stories. I enjoyed the original for what it was: a boilerplate "wife cheats, man moves on with a dash of revenge" story, exactly what Offkilter123 advertised it as. He wasn't trying to move the needle, and that's okay sometimes. A well-rendered boilerplate story can be fun.

Now that I've read what you planned to do, I agree it could be interesting. I love Rashomon-style stories where each person has a different viewpoint on what's happened in the story. At the End of the Tour and Funeral Dirge for a Fairytale were exactly this thing in the same category. While the latter was less well-received, managing to pull out a 4.35ish star rating in LW on a story that's about reconciliation with a cheating wife after a 6 year affair that's gone on for longer than the marriage(!) is one of the big "fuck yeah!" moments in my short writing career.

I get what you were going for. I want to read the story you were going for. But you didn't write that story. You wrote... let's use an analogy. You know February Sucks; we all do over there. There are over a hundred stories written as sequels, alternate versions, revisions, etc. because it ended "wrong" in the estimation of probably most of the people that read it. People wanted to "fix" it by making the right person "win" at the end.

You did the reverse. You made a story where the "good guy" (I'm not saying he is, but we'll get back to that) won in the original, but the cheating wife won in the sequel. And she didn't just win, she fucking demolished him.

Let's say everything you wrote about how cruel and unfair the wife's treatment seems in the original is correct. I don't entirely agree with that assessment, but I can see the argument. There's an interesting way to approach that where you write a parallel story from her point of view or, alternately, one where we follow her after the door gets slammed in her face and she has to come to terms with the fact that she's just not ever going to get to tell him her side of the story.

You can even hit the same beats: she was depressed, she was remorseful, she was suicidal, she was enraged, and all of those were at least somewhat understandable reactions. There's a very strong story to be written there, the cheating wife version of the "moving on" story. Maybe eventually she does get to have the sitdown, for whatever reason. Maybe he's grown and changed and feels remorse, or maybe he's an asshole and she walks away, head held high, knowing she was right in her assessment of him as a clueless/distant/cruel dick. I want to read that story.

I'm not going to get into whether you changed details from the original story or not; I saw someone mention it in the comments, but I'm not going to do a deep dive. That could be laid at the feet of an unreliable narrator on either side. But regardless, you took the end of the story and undid everything that the first narrator had won: not just his patents (which, fine, whatever), but also that the daughters were now on the side of the mom, and he was humiliated in front of his new wife, and his dad and he were both jerks, and the MC's mom had kicked the dad out of the house instead of him choosing to leave and... you get the idea.

Essentially, you took a well-liked story (currently sitting at ~4.54 rating, which is really solid in LW) and said, "Yeah, that story you liked? Fuck the MC of that story, and fuck you for liking him." She got the traditional-to-the-point-of-overdone "I won" hero monologue where the "villain" of the story either can't or doesn't respond intelligently in their defense. You took a character who, for all the problems one could read into his behavior in the first story, was the de facto hero and said "nah, he's the villain." And then you took damn near everything away from him, or at least hinted that it was going that way.

I usually do like your stuff, and the fact that I didn't enjoy this one surprised me. I get what you were trying to go for now, and after your explanation, I like the story better than I did. But I also get why people really, really did not like it.

 

[KeithD]

I engage with readers as long as that's useful. A reader here engaged with me on another site seventeen years ago; invited me to post here as well; became a cowriter, my editor, and one of my publishers; and we have continued to engage every day since then.

 

[Escierto]

No, I don’t engage with my readers. Giving them material to use when they jerk off is enough engagement I think.

 

[ChloeTzang]

Yep, I engage with readers all the time - by email thru feedback, on the comments and on Facebook. I find it quite rewarding generally, altho you get the occasional doofus - them I just ignore. Apart from anything else, it's fun to engage with your readers and discuss your stories as well as life, the universe and anything else that comes up.

 

[SeraphNocturne]

I absolutely engage with readers. Have had some great conversations and editing offers from some of them. Have even developed legitimate friendships with a couple of them.

Coincidentally, engaging with readers is how I met my editor! I say it's so worth it to take up an offer of a fan for editing, I've gotten much sharper and my work feels more polished in the few months I've been working with her.

 

[Azuldrgon]

I used to.
Then I realized if I leave it all on the page when I submit it, I can appreciate the complements and deflect the trolls.

 

[HopelessDreams]

I would like to engage more with my readers, but Literotica's interface discourages this:

1. Commenters are not notified of replies to their comments (and authors are not notified of comments to their stories). Perhaps the intention behind this is to minimize conversations in the comments section (which would tend to veer off-topic).
2. Formatting is ugly for multiple-paragraph comments, because the spacings between paragraphs are removed in the final posting (even though they are visible when previewing the draft).
3. I cannot reply to feedback submitted via the private feedback portal without providing my own email address to the recipient, and I don't currently have one that I feel comfortable associating with my Lit profile.

I suppose the best thing we as authors can do is direct our readers to engage with us elsewhere.

 

[PlanetaryNebula]

Coincidentally, engaging with readers is how I met my editor! I say it's so worth it to take up an offer of a fan for editing, I've gotten much sharper and my work feels more polished in the few months I've been working with her.

And you are a phenomenal writer!!!

 

[TheSpleen]

Oh, the OP is curious how many authors think "Damn, can't you see I am showing an side, that while maybe is different, is still valid?"
Many authors have found themselves thinking that, I'm sure. Especially those who I've seen get rude comments from the OP, accompanied by 1* ratings he cheerfully admitted to dropping, because he did not see the validity of their viewpoint in the stories they tried to tell. Now the OP is again starting a thread to complain about the same things he does, being done to him. My, my, how the turns keep tabling.

 

[SeraphNocturne]

Oh I definitely took some of them up on their editing offers and, in my opinion, I do think they improved my stories with their suggestions. (I think I only disagreed with one change I made at their suggestion, but i also agreed with it because I got where he was coming from and think it was better for the flow of the story even if the narrative suffered a tiny bit.)

Ultimately improving on our work is so very helpful, but I think also knowing when to decline a suggestion allows your voice as a writer to shine.

I’m too thankful for those “this is TECHNICALLY correct, but it would sound better if…” suggestions, and both my editor and my proof reader call me out on wonky sentence structure, or adding in sentences that I feel improves the story. I couldn’t be more grateful for that!

And you are a phenomenal writer!!!

Thank you, seriously, that’s kind of you. It’s such a long series—hit around 200K with the last few chapters. Anyone who takes the time to read that through never cease to amaze me.

 

[lovecraft68]

I just posted a story, a sequel to a pretty good story to which I gave full points. I saw things the author did not address in his story. Motivations, character flaws, apparent inconsistencies with behavior etc. I asked him if I could write a sequel and he agreed. I even gave him an advance read of my sequel. The original story was 'The Teacher's Husband" by Offkilter123. Mine used the same title using Kate's story as an addendum.
Reading the comments, I find myself wondering how people really think. I saw a woman who admittedly cheated, got burned justifiably for her actions. But I also saw a mentally ill (I hate that term). Rather severely depressed woman who cannot justify her actions, but wants to at least be heard. She forces the issue. That is the synopsis.
I was fried in the comments. A few followed my logic but most did not.
I felt part of the original was kicking a sick woman while she was down with no idea what is was like for her. Both the original and my sequel were told from the first person. The original from the husband's and the sequel from the wife's.

I am curious how many authors think "Damn, can't you see I am showing an side, that while maybe is different, is still valid?

Kicking women when they're down-or in anyway possible-is what drives that category, you're trying to somewhat humanize her is a big problem to misogyny land.

LW works on two principles
1-Men are noble creatures who do no wrong, literally angels on Earth
2-All woman are evil and should be tormented in every way.

If you write that, you're good, if you deviate you'll pay the price.

 

[NoTalentHack]

Kicking women when they're down-or in anyway possible-is what drives that category, you're trying to somewhat humanize her is a big problem to misogyny land.

LW works on two principles
1-Men are noble creatures who do no wrong, literally angels on Earth
2-All woman are evil and should be tormented in every way.

If you write that, you're good, if you deviate you'll pay the price.

 

[TheSpleen]

you're trying to somewhat humanize her is a big problem to misogyny land.

I'll never get into this debate because everyone already feels what they feel. Nobody's mind is going to change, and the exchanges always end with a hostile impasse.

What I will say: before you feel too much affinity with Gamblnluck, maybe know that he epitomizes the things you've said you hate about Loving Wives. He's contributed to what you see as the toxic culture there. He only comes to the boards to start complaint threads whenever the beast he helped create, turns around and bites him too.

I recommend checking out this thread to see a sample of his history in Loving Wives, including comments encouraging murder and suffering for women who cheat:
https://forum.literotica.com/threads/peeved-at-commenters.1593822/

 

[LIDiver]

Kicking women when they're down-or in anyway possible-is what drives that category, you're trying to somewhat humanize her is a big problem to misogyny land.

LW works on two principles
1-Men are noble creatures who do no wrong, literally angels on Earth
2-All woman are evil and should be tormented in every way.

If you write that, you're good, if you deviate you'll pay the price.

So true. I learned the hard way.

I naively posted a story of a loving, consensual experience my wife and I had in LW.
I was stunned by the band of creepers that anonymously attacked the story, myself, and even my wife. Because the story didn’t fit into their own perception of LW even though it did fit into the category description.
I thought intolerance wouldn’t be found on Lit, I was naive again.

 

[Rob_Royale]

A few readers have reached out through the email function and I've had a couple of nice conversations with them, but it's not a regular thing.

 

[luv2custrip]

One male reader makes absolutely wonderful comments that inevitably raise the story’s ratings. We have exchanged occasional emails about writing.
Two female readers have reached out and tried to get very personal but both eventually disappeared.

 

[Anton25]

I just posted a story, a sequel to a pretty good story to which I gave full points. I saw things the author did not address in his story. Motivations, character flaws, apparent inconsistencies with behavior etc. I asked him if I could write a sequel and he agreed. I even gave him an advance read of my sequel. The original story was 'The Teacher's Husband" by Offkilter123. Mine used the same title using Kate's story as an addendum.
Reading the comments, I find myself wondering how people really think. I saw a woman who admittedly cheated, got burned justifiably for her actions. But I also saw a mentally ill (I hate that term). Rather severely depressed woman who cannot justify her actions, but wants to at least be heard. She forces the issue. That is the synopsis.
I was fried in the comments. A few followed my logic but most did not.
I felt part of the original was kicking a sick woman while she was down with no idea what is was like for her. Both the original and my sequel were told from the first person. The original from the husband's and the sequel from the wife's.

I am curious how many authors think "Damn, can't you see I am showing an side, that while maybe is different, is still valid?

Interesting. I tried to tell from third person perspective. I would be interested if you check it out and give feedback. Giving husband and wife perspective: https://literotica.com/s/sex-for-donation

 

[PlanetaryNebula]

Ultimately improving on our work is so very helpful, but I think also knowing when to decline a suggestion allows your voice as a writer to shine.

I’m too thankful for those “this is TECHNICALLY correct, but it would sound better if…” suggestions, and both my editor and my proof reader call me out on wonky sentence structure, or adding in sentences that I feel improves the story. I couldn’t be more grateful for that!



Thank you, seriously, that’s kind of you. It’s such a long series—hit around 200K with the last few chapters. Anyone who takes the time to read that through never cease to amaze me.

I can’t wait for more!!!!!!

 

[Gamblnluck]

Oh, the OP is curious how many authors think "Damn, can't you see I am showing an side, that while maybe is different, is still valid?"
Many authors have found themselves thinking that, I'm sure. Especially those who I've seen get rude comments from the OP, accompanied by 1* ratings he cheerfully admitted to dropping, because he did not see the validity of their viewpoint in the stories they tried to tell. Now the OP is again starting a thread to complain about the same things he does, being done to him. My, my, how the turns keep tabling.

Hey Spleen, good to hear from you. Have you got off your butt and written a story yet? See if you can put your thoughts out in a coherent pattern that people read. I know exactly why i got a low score. I wrote something that contradicted the mindset of a popular story. Matter if fact, I had a few conversations in private with that author.

 

[Gamblnluck]

I naively posted a story of a loving, consensual experience my wife and I had in LW.

I once told the story of how I came home to find my wife and fifteen year old daughter gone. The comments were amazing. 'How could this happen if the MC was not an asshole (which I probably was and am, especially if you listen to TheSpleen). I also got condemned for saying that the Catholic church annulled my 16 year marriage almost 10 years after our divorce so she could re-marry into that faith. I was told that I had made that up and it was blasphemous.