Hot Damn! My First Pan

[SlickTony]

Well, it was bound to happen--you can't please everybody. I usually just back out of a story if I really don't like it, and if there's something specific about it that bugs me, like using too damn many exclamation points, I'll say so, but man! This person, whoever he is, really got out the flamethrower. Not only that, he got personally insulting. True, I had misgivings about the proportion of background stuff to erotic stuff, but I've read other stories that had similar proportions. If I hadn't first run the story through a cyberfriend who said that it Worked, and encouraged me to submit it, I'd be more hurt than I am. I can't help wondering who it was--AND if he's published as well, and if he has any idea what work writing can be sometimes. I also would love to know if he's one of these people who writes "who's" when he means to write "whose," "it's" when he should be writing "its," and loses track of what tense he's in. Unfortunately, I suspect he's someone to whom I gave very high votes for stuff he wrote. Naturally one doesn't expect "quid pro quo" in an author's forum--otherwise your writing never grows, and you turn into a meaningless mutual admiration society. Still, I wasn't really expecting to be slammed like this. Now I feel diminished and can hardly think about getting into another project. How do y'all handle situations like this? What do you do? How do you psych yourself back into a feeling of worth?

 

[KillerMuffin]

*ahem*

http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=25276

*scuffs toe in dirt*

 

[SlickTony]

Thanks, KillerMuffin. I feel better already. But not better enough yet! From certain remarks that the critic made in his review, he's someone who knows me from my posts, i.e. he hangs out in the bulletin boards and has read things that I wrote that were about me and NOT stories. Then, too, if he really were the kind of writer who commits the kind of literary sins I complained about in my first letter, it would be one thing, but I suspect he's not.

C'mon, you out there--you know who you are! (I think I know who you are, too.) Say something useful, like what I could have done to make the story better. Answer as a man!

 

[SlickTony]

But then I just got a GOOD review. THAT'S what makes me feel better.

 

[KillerMuffin]

I read your story. I dunno why anyone would think it's a crappy story cause it's not.

Probably your "buddy" was wanting the brother to give it to her and then have Mom, Dad, and the family dog jump in for kicks. Sexually speaking, the story wasn't all that sexually exciting. It was just a really good story.

 

[SlickTony]

I'm sure you're right. However, I'm not going to do it. The next story I'm going to submit--provided I don't finish my souped-up version of Gen. 19 and submit it first--involves another member of this family, and I'm sure that Mr. Critic will like it somewhat better, as it's pretty action-packed.

I should probably explain that Quid Pro Quo is back-story to a sort of family saga that I'm working on, that I hope to go mainstream with once I finish it. Problem is, a lot of the stories I know about the characters happen to be erotic ones, or ones, at least, with erotic content. Maybe I miscategorized it, and should have submitted it under Exhibitionist/Voyeur. It was sort of a test-run of some of the characters, and as such maybe I should have run it under non-erotic. But I couldn't do THAT, because it DID have some erotic content. And I can't think of any other writing forum that I could turn it loose in. Maybe I should go out there and look for them.

Thank you for your good review, KillerMuffin. I feel better yet. However, not for the sake of Mr. Critic or even for you, am I ever going to have that particular set of characters take off in that particular direction. I do have a story kicking around in my head in which that pretty much happens--brother, father, and the family dog--but that's a whole 'nother set of people. One of the bedrock principles in the family in my saga--the working title of which is Still Crazy--is while there's one thing they WON'T do, it's each other. They might consider it, think about it, be tempted by it, even come dangerously close to it, but more than that they Will. Not. Do.

 

[KillerMuffin]

I get hate mail for my Acidic Tiger story. That one and Absolution for Gretta MacClain.

I also get good mail for 'em.

You will, too. The story is well written and the sex is just right for it. For someone looking for a quick cum, reading three pages and not getting his money shot on his keyboard may make him feel a little cranky. Cranky enough to get pissy about it.

So, my take on the whole thing is to ignore this email. It didn't apply to the story, just to a lack of a stiffie. That's the hazards of not pandering completely to the audience. Your story fits in here at Lit.

I wish she had an "Erotica" category for stories that are erotica, but not cum stories.

Oh well.

 

[wildsweetone]

I wish she had an "Erotica" category for stories that are erotica, but not cum stories. Oh well.

i second that wish KM. branching out has it's own following of difficulties i'm noticing.

 

[Coolville]

tony...

just the fact that you wrote the following...

'and I'm sure that Mr. Critic will like it somewhat better, as it's pretty action-packed. '

... is, I dare say, the wrong way to think about it, mate.

Don't even think about the schmuck and what he may or may not like. Write what you want to write and critics be damned.

I don't where you're coming from. I've only recieved wonderful, flattering feedback and then one anonymous moron writes a bitter, childish feedback along the lines of "what a totally lame story! You are So crap!"

Hey, I've been a professional writer for years and am used to getting praised and panned but that small-brained individual really pissed me off for a week. I know somebody who uses 'totally' can't be an Oxford scholar, but he pissed me off.

For a while. Then he was gone.... until now.... writing about him makes we want to research torture techniques.

 

[Coolville]

addendummy

in the above i meant to write...

I KNOW where you're coming from...

 

[SlickTony]

Thanks, KM, Coolville, Wildsweetone. I've had some time to do some reflection on the matter, and I am still kind of intrigued by "Mr. You Suck's" review--from the POV of a psychologist, although I don't have any training;--no, just the insight that comes with an actual diagnosis within my family of the condition which I imputed to Adam and his son, plus hanging out with social workers all the livelong day.

I'm not going to go back and dig up the exact text of the letter out of my Deleted Items box, because my BP is higher than it used to be in the days of my youth, when Blood Bank people could still tell you to go drink a Coke and smoke a cigarette and then come back (that's honestly what I got told one time when they took my blood pressure and said it was too low). But he said something along the lines of "My God, that story almost sent me to sleep, but I forced myself to read through to the end, just so I could vote...after wading through it and not finding the [I forget what he called it but he must have meant the money shot] I decided that you should be thankful for your second marriage, because if I'd been married to you I would have killed myself long ago."

Bzzzzt! Wrong response! If a story doesn't interest you, doesn't get you going, what you do is back out of it and go find one that does. I've done this myself. It is not a normal reaction--at least, IMO not a usual one--to a dull story to slog through to the end and then go and excoriate the author. My personal theory is that something about the tale hit this guy somewhere where he lives. I'm mildly curious about just where that is, what nerve I might have struck, but not enough to write him (he did have an e-mail address) and ask what it was. I'm not a professional counselor or a psychologist after all.

Also, sometimes it is possible to work up a sense of outrage when THE STORY A WRITER TELLS IS NOT THE ONE YOU WANT TO READ. A few years back a fantasy/SF novelist named Elizabeth Lynn came out with a trilogy which just knocked my socks off--in case anyone is interested, the books are The Watchtower, The Dancers of Arun, and The Northern Girl. The second in this series was reviewed by no less an author than Orson Scott Card, who dissed it up one side and down the other. He praised her style, but said that it was a shame that someone whose writing was so good should tell such an uninteresting tale.

Obviously, he was pissed because the story he had expected to see developed when he started reading The Dancers of Arun was not the story which Lynn chose to tell. I wonder what Lynn thought of his review.

And don't worry, I don't plan to do a thing to my upcoming story to make it conform to Mr. You Suck's expectations.