Do you ever think about what we do?

[Emilymcplugger]

We spend hours of our time hunched over a pad and paper, old computer or laptop, crafting narratives laced with experience, fantasies or just plain made-up scenarios to titillate and turn-on people we will never meet or encounter, OR, even if we do encounter them, wouldn't know them from Adam.

It's something that boggles my mind when I pay heed to it, but when I'm in the middle of a story, writing character arcs, plot devices and even good old fashion sex scenes it's the last thing I'm thinking about. All I'm thinking about then is how I can progress the story to a logical and satisfying conclusion, and judging by the nice comments (and emails) I've got now and then it's something my readers seem to appreciate as well.

So, before I went off on my usual plot-based tangent (as I do) how much thought do you give to the enjoyment of your reader, intellectually as well as physically, whilst creating your stories?

 

[EmilyMiller]

[…] how much thought do you give to the enjoyment of your reader, intellectually as well as physically, whilst creating your stories?

It’s maybe a stereotypical, even trite, response, but not a lot. About the only thing that comes to mind is “you haven’t had any sex recently, maybe there should be some sex now, or at least soon”.

Em

 

[oneagainst]

I did some maths and worked out based on number of story views I've racked up so far that walking down the main street in the city there was someone in the crowd who had read one of my stories. We probably passed each other by. It adds something to the effort or building up the characters and the stories knowing that somewhere there are people whose little guilty pleasure is what you wrote.

 

[MrPixel]

Honestly? I don't think about it at all since I write for my own enjoyment. If somebody else draws pleasure from what I polish enough to upload, that's great, but, still, I don't dwell on it.

Now as far as being aware of how much time/effort is spent writing, my wife frequently reminds me, "All I ever see is the back of your head!" That of course can't be responded to with "And all I see is the top of yours!", her normal posture most of the day being her nose in her iPad, texting or emailing to friends, surfing new sites, or working sudokus. This winter has been a little rough around our house.

 

[SyleusSnow]

how much thought do you give to the enjoyment of your reader, intellectually as well as physically, whilst creating your stories?

It's a writer's duty to not be boring. So I do think about that when writing.

Whether readers enjoy what I write is another matter.

 

[Emilymcplugger]

Honestly? I don't think about it at all since I write for my own enjoyment. If somebody else draws pleasure from what I polish enough to upload, that's great, but, still, I don't dwell on it.

Now as far as being aware of how much time/effort is spent writing, my wife frequently reminds me, "All I ever see is the back of your head!" That of course can't be responded to with "And all I see is the top of yours!", her normal posture most of the day being her nose in her iPad, texting or emailing to friends, surfing new sites, or working sudokus. This winter has been a little rough around our house.

I think that’s what I find most curious about this, now I write here as well as read other people’s works.

When I’m writing, editing, thinking of plot points, character points, etc, I barely think about turning on my audience. Often if it’s a sex scene I might turn-on myself (a little bit) but I rarely reflect on the reader, even though ultimately their enjoyment is perhaps just as important, if not more so, as my own.

I think it’s there in the back of my head, give the reader a good time, but it’s at the back of the concerns rather than the front.

 

[ChloeTzang]

I look upon it as a social service. We supply excitement, interest, anticipation and vicarious sexual satisfaction to large numbers of readers! Think of the good that we're doing! This is all going down on our cosmic Karma account. We even supply all of the above to the trolls as well. Every time I see a one star go thru, I bask in the knowledge that I have provided some level of emotional satisfaction to some poor benighted soul who is now a little happier as a result of my story.

I have no idea how to correlate the number of sexual climaxes to view tho, which is a statistic I would dearly love to see. But based on reader feedback, I think it's pretty high. It's very rewarding to know that I am directly responsible for a few million ejaculations. Now THAT is a social service that almost every single one of us can be proud of! LOL.

 

[SimonDoom]

There's not a clear dichotomy between "writing for myself" and "writing for my reader" for me because I write to please myself as a reader. My experience has taught me that there although many readers don't enjoy what I do, enough do to make it worthwhile. So I would say that as I write I think constantly about pleasing the reader, but the reader is me.

 

[ronde]

I don't typically write stories that are stroke-worthy, so I don't really think about writing something that will cause a reader to get off. What I do think about is writing in a way that the reader can "see" my story play out in pictures in his or her mind, not just words on a screen.

I watch the stats of a story to see if I've succeeded both in selecting the genre as well as writing to stimulate the reader's imagination. The number of reads, while not very accurate, is still a good relative measure of the selection of genre. A story with few reads after a week or so tells me either I didn't pick a popular genre or that readers have read my other work in that genre and didn't like it. Votes and comments are a measure of how well I did with making the story an enjoyable read.

Another thing I do spend some time on is title selection and the short teaser text. Those are really the only way to attract a reader to click on the story and actually read it. I do wish the teaser text could be a little longer.

 

[onehitwanda]

I'm a complete attention whore because I love getting positive feedback on what I write.

But whether or not comments existed... I think I'd probably still write. And I can't say I've ever been influenced by what readers might think. Last night for example I was tinkering on my next work, which was supposed to be light and gentle... and suddenly the lead character is unpacking a huge host of shit that happened to her that wasn't even there thirty minutes before.

My process isn't a process; it's... more like I'm seeing bits of a real life or series of events and trying to capture them for other people to read. There's no scope in that for pleasing whoever reads it. Best I can hope for is to please myself.

 

[Rob_Royale]

I posted my first story about six months ago. I wrote it based on my fantasies and what would totally turn me on. I got a LOT of great feedback and the story was very well received. That was enough to realize that people liked my writing AND what turns me on. So at that point, I realized that if I just keep doing that, I'll make myself and the readers happy.
Eight stories into it now and so far, so good. Erotica suits me.

 

[gunhilltrain]

We spend hours of our time hunched over a pad and paper, old computer or laptop, crafting narratives laced with experience, fantasies or just plain made-up scenarios to titillate and turn-on people we will never meet or encounter, OR, even if we do encounter them, wouldn't know them from Adam.

It's something that boggles my mind when I pay heed to it, but when I'm in the middle of a story, writing character arcs, plot devices and even good old fashion sex scenes it's the last thing I'm thinking about. All I'm thinking about then is how I can progress the story to a logical and satisfying conclusion, and judging by the nice comments (and emails) I've got now and then it's something my readers seem to appreciate as well.

So, before I went off on my usual plot-based tangent (as I do) how much thought do you give to the enjoyment of your reader, intellectually as well as physically, whilst creating your stories?

The most direct answer, and I think we've said this before, is that if you as the write like what you've created, then probably at least some of the readers will like it too. That's not the same as "pandering" to them, which I would define as trying to plan or guess what you think they would like and then using that as your main goal.

 

[DeLaFaye]

I did some maths and worked out based on number of story views I've racked up so far that walking down the main street in the city there was someone in the crowd who had read one of my stories. We probably passed each other by. It adds something to the effort or building up the characters and the stories knowing that somewhere there are people whose little guilty pleasure is what you wrote.

This is a story waiting to happen...

 

[Emilymcplugger]

I did some maths and worked out based on number of story views I've racked up so far that walking down the main street in the city there was someone in the crowd who had read one of my stories. We probably passed each other by. It adds something to the effort or building up the characters and the stories knowing that somewhere there are people whose little guilty pleasure is what you wrote.

Yeah, my numbers aren’t that large to merit that but even so. It’s wild to think that a few thousand people have read your story or part of it and really got a lot of enjoyment, both physical and psychological, out of it. I guess when we get people voting it up or commenting it means the effort to world-build matters, and, in cases where love plays a part, even in salacious stories like what we write, people do appreciate and crave such things, even in their fictional filth.

 

[onehitwanda]

...

Sorry, I just have to leap in here:

Gander Wrangler​

you made me snort tea out my nose when I noticed this. Love it.

 

[DeLaFaye]

Sorry, I just have to leap in here:


you made me snort tea out my nose when I noticed this. Love it.

It's what I do.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

I'm never going to make every reader happy, so I don't even try. Instead, I envision the characters I create as real people and ask myself if they would be proud to be included in this story, or suing me in a court of law?

 

[Emilymcplugger]

This is a story waiting to happen...

It could be an online group discussing online erotic stories. The story title would be THE FUCK-BOOK CLUB.

That's it, it's on the to-do list.

 

[SimonDoom]

I did some maths and worked out based on number of story views I've racked up so far that walking down the main street in the city there was someone in the crowd who had read one of my stories. We probably passed each other by. It adds something to the effort or building up the characters and the stories knowing that somewhere there are people whose little guilty pleasure is what you wrote.

I think along these lines as well. I wonder if anyone I know has read my stories, not knowing it was I who wrote them. There's a secretive pleasure in it.

 

[Emilymcplugger]

The most direct answer, and I think we've said this before, is that if you as the write like what you've created, then probably at least some of the readers will like it too. That's not the same as "pandering" to them, which I would define as trying to plan or guess what you think they would like and then using that as your main goal.

When I wrote ALL THE DEVILS ARE HERE it was something I felt compelled to do after the dissatisfying ending of LIKE THE DEVIL WITH A DEAL (with permission from the author). The funny thing is that the story came into my head and it just happened to align with what many readers wanted, including myself. But, yeah, we can't be automatons just writing what people demand. We always need to be free enough to write a story our way.

 

[DeLaFaye]

It could be an online group discussing online erotic stories. The story title would be THE FUCK-BOOK CLUB.

That's it, it's on the to-do list.

This is far too ambitious an idea for me to take on, (I think, but it's also 10 am and I had a loong night) and I think all of maybe three people would be interested, but a Lit writing challenge wherein you envision the scenario of a Lit writer and one of their more avid fans discovering who they are and professing their undying, if nothing else, appreciation, for what their writings have done for them, meant to them, etc.

I can see a lot of fun possibilities, but at the same time, NO.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

I think along these lines as well. I wonder if anyone I know has read my stories, not knowing it was I who wrote them. There's a secretive pleasure in it.

I have the advantage (disadvantage?) of writing mainstream novels which brings me into contact with readers on a regular basis.

Most of my closest friends and associates have read some of my work, and a few even follow me here on Lit for my "hotter stuff" as they call it.

 

[Emilymcplugger]

I'm a complete attention whore because I love getting positive feedback on what I write.

But whether or not comments existed... I think I'd probably still write. And I can't say I've ever been influenced by what readers might think. Last night for example I was tinkering on my next work, which was supposed to be light and gentle... and suddenly the lead character is unpacking a huge host of shit that happened to her that wasn't even there thirty minutes before.

My process isn't a process; it's... more like I'm seeing bits of a real life or series of events and trying to capture them for other people to read. There's no scope in that for pleasing whoever reads it. Best I can hope for is to please myself.

Yeah, I've got to admit the attention is nice (when it comes and if it comes).

In terms of me in GROUP I rarely get comments on my stuff but with one exception they have been largely positive, which is nice. As for the characters directing the story, there's nothing really wrong with that. I let them guide me all the time and often they will lead the story where it needs to go without you telling them to. If they have an interesting dark aside to take you down then that's where the story should be.

 

[Emilymcplugger]

This is far too ambitious an idea for me to take on, (I think, but it's also 10 am and I had a loong night) and I think all of maybe three people would be interested, but a Lit writing challenge wherein you envision the scenario of a Lit writer and one of their more avid fans discovering who they are and professing their undying, if nothing else, appreciation, for what their writings have done for them, meant to them, etc.

I can see a lot of fun possibilities, but at the same time, NO.

I don't mind having a crack at it. It sounds long and involved. Just my cup of tea.

 

[Djmac1031]

There's not a clear dichotomy between "writing for myself" and "writing for my reader" for me because I write to please myself as a reader. My experience has taught me that there although many readers don't enjoy what I do, enough do to make it worthwhile. So I would say that as I write I think constantly about pleasing the reader, but the reader is me.

Pretty much this.

I won't lie and say I don't enjoy positive feedback from readers, or get excited by the idea that they got off physically, mentally, or both while reading it.

I was a wedding DJ, entertaining audiences for over 20 years.

When I retired from that several years ago, I needed a new way to express some creativity.

I'd been reading stories all my life of course. Been reading erotica stories here for a long time as well.

As much as I've enjoyed so many of them, I decided to see if I could write my own. Put MY fantasies and imagination into words.

I honestly had zero expectations that anyone would actually read them. I did it just to see if I could.

The fact that I've had any kind of success at it here, actually drawing readers and entertaining them, is an added bonus to the creative outlet of writing itself.

As a DJ, there was absolutely no better feeling in the world than, at the end of the night, knowing it was your creativity and energy that entertained an entire room of people, letting them escape their problems and pressures for a few hours and simply enjoy themselves.

It's kinda the same with a story. I write it for me, for my own entertainment and creative outlet.

But knowing I've entertained someone else, given them some form of escapism or enjoyment or whatever for however long it took them to read it, is a satisfying experience as well.