How long do you give a story?

[regularguy13]

How much of a story do you read before giving up and moving to another? Measure in time or paragraphs.

I see some stories richly decorated with details and background and the introduction of characters. Some I like. Other times I find my self saying "Please! Let something happen." Other stores jump right in to err......the action and grab my attention.

Of course, good writing grabs readers, but don't we write to be read? Do you toss out a juice morsel early on to wet the reader's appetite and encourage them to stay?

Thanks in advance, r

 

[TarnishedPenny]

How much of a story do you read before giving up and moving to another? Measure in time or paragraphs.

I see some stories richly decorated with details and background and the introduction of characters. Some I like. Other times I find my self saying "Please! Let something happen." Other stores jump right in to err......the action and grab my attention.

Of course, good writing grabs readers, but don't we write to be read? Do you toss out a juice morsel early on to wet the reader's appetite and encourage them to stay?

Thanks in advance, r

Multiple questions, of course.

How long do I give a story? As long as it deserves, of course. If it’s well-written, interesting and doesn’t feature major grammatical or spelling errors, to the end. If it’s badly-written cr*p, I’m outta there by the end of the first paragraph.

How do I keep readers reading? By pretending that they’re me. It no doubts works for some, fails for others. I get read enough to satisfy myself.

 

[KeithD]

I rarely read the stories here. I'm here to write, not read. Those are two separate interests.

When I write, I try to grab the reader at the top, usually by providing a bit of confusion they'll want to clear up before stopping reading--and then become engaged enough not to want to stop reading. I generally start with action, and on an erotica board, that action often is a sex scene. Some give advice here to build up to the sex scenes--to establish the characters and their relationship first. I don't believe that. I think it's effective to get right into one and then work to explaining how it came to be later. There also can be more than one sex scene, and, in my erotica, there usually is.

 

[BelleCanzuto]

I usually give a story the better part of the first page, unless it's awful. If it's just slow to start, or kind of involved, or i think it might not be my cuppa, then I'll go at least halfway down the first page. So, 1500 words or so.

Like TP wrote, if it's badly written, with lots of errors, or overly hateful, then I'm done much sooner.

Sometimes I'll read a couple of paragraphs and then skim for a while, to see if anything grabs my attention. If I'm on the fence about it, i'll scroll to the bottom to see how many pages it is. A middling story that's only a page or three I might go ahead and read all the way. A middling story that's 10+ pages, and I'm done.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Like Belle and TP, maybe a thousand words or so (assuming I haven't backed out after three paragraphs). It very much depends on my mood - I don't actually read much here, so something has to grab me, style wise, to continue.

 

[Voboy]

Depends on the writing.

The premise gets me to click on it. Then the writing either keeps me there or drives me away. More often than not, I can tell within, say, two paragraphs.

Stilted, unrealistic dialogue is a real turn-off. Just as bad is immediate description, a la "Perhaps I should describe myself. I'm a luscious, 90-lb young woman, 44-21-39, and everyone tells me they wanna fuck me!!!!"

Yeah. No.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Just as bad is immediate description, a la "Perhaps I should describe myself. I'm a luscious, 90-lb young woman, 44-21-39, and everyone tells me they wanna fuck me!!!!"

Yeah. No.

So very true. Actually, there are red flags flying at the first mention of DD boobs or 9” willies.

 

[Polyacrylate]

For reading: On Lit, I start by skimming the first page. Depending on length, sometimes first two pages. Skimming only a page, I've never felt like I've ruined a surprise (that was worth finding, anyway), and it gives me an idea of what I'm getting into. If I don't like what I see in the skim, I consider it a "no harm, no foul" situation, move on, and generally forget about it. If I'm interested enough to buckle down and actually read, then I will finish and rate it. I used to always leave feedback for everything, good and bad, then changed to leaving it for anything that wasn't a 3 or 4. I eventually stopped doing that, and maybe should start again.

For writing: how long do I give a story? Too freaking long, mate.

 

[SimonDoom]

I can tell within a few paragraphs -- say, five -- whether I'm going to want to give the story a serious try. Unless the premise really grabs me, I'll bow out if the story has one or more features that turn me off: walls of unrelieved narrative without dialogue, bad dialogue form and punctuation, careless tense-shifting, careless perspective shifting, shallow physical descriptions (body measurements), sloppy spelling, and insufficient establishment of the characters' motivations and needs.

 

[BelleCanzuto]

Depends on the writing.

The premise gets me to click on it. Then the writing either keeps me there or drives me away. More often than not, I can tell within, say, two paragraphs.

Stilted, unrealistic dialogue is a real turn-off. Just as bad is immediate description, a la "Perhaps I should describe myself. I'm a luscious, 90-lb young woman, 44-21-39, and everyone tells me they wanna fuck me!!!!"

Yeah. No.

So very true. Actually, there are red flags flying at the first mention of DD boobs or 9” willies.

So VERY true.
It's a pet peeve of mine, but any story that has the line "Hi, my name is" directed at the reader, or a out of place self description is one I immediately downgrade. There are just so many other ways to work that information in, that seeing it makes me think someone is brand new to writing (not necessarily bad) and not putting much effort in (not good).

 

[Bramblethorn]

How much of a story do you read before giving up and moving to another? Measure in time or paragraphs.

I see some stories richly decorated with details and background and the introduction of characters. Some I like. Other times I find my self saying "Please! Let something happen." Other stores jump right in to err......the action and grab my attention.

Of course, good writing grabs readers, but don't we write to be read? Do you toss out a juice morsel early on to wet the reader's appetite and encourage them to stay?

Thanks in advance, r

Depends on the story. Some lose me in the first paragraph, others take longer. If I click on to page 2, I'm probably there for the rest of the story, unless it's really long.

 

[NotWise]

How much of a story do you read before giving up and moving to another? Measure in time or paragraphs.

It's too bad you can't ask the readers that question. I don't imagine that other writer's answers are really representative of readers.

 

[KeithD]

It's too bad you can't ask the readers that question. I don't imagine that other writer's answers are really representative of readers.

And you'd have to query a couple of hundred thousand readers to be able to get a picture--and the picture would always come out as "different strokes for different folks."

This thread is beginning to teeter on the edge of "you should write what little ole me wants to read and forget everyone else with different reading interests (including those who think in terms of measurements as at least triggers of arousal)."

 

[Jada59]

Usually a couple of paragraphs. If it's poorly written, I have to stop. If it's just not my thing, I might try a little more. If I am trying to give feedback, I might force myself to do more.

 

[NotWise]

And you'd have to query a couple of hundred thousand readers to be able to get a picture--and the picture would always come out as "different strokes for different folks."

This thread is beginning to teeter on the edge of "you should write what little ole me wants to read and forget everyone else with different reading interests (including those who think in terms of measurements as at least triggers of arousal)."

Agree.

Sampling the writer's group will probably not get a response from readers who get a surge from a nine-inch cock, or from painfully large tits. You won't get a big response from readers who need to feed their urge to splash cum on the wall like, right now.

Whatever response you get here is unlikely to represent your readers. I imagine a sub-community of Lit readers and target my writing to them, and that community grows through my writing for them.

You can't possibly appeal to "Lit readers." They are too diverse and there are too many. All you can really do is write what you want and let your readers find you.

 

[KeithD]

You can't possibly appeal to "Lit readers." They are too diverse and there are too many. All you can really do is write what you want and let your readers find you.

One thing I do in my writing, which is prolific enough not to think of each story I'm able to birth as a diamond I'll probably never be able to produce again, is that I look to reader subgroups and small genre niches that are underserved and I write a few stories to them. I don't have to write what simply everyone wants to read. The term for what that produces is pabulum.

I don't think twice about throwing in measurements when I'm writing a character who would likely think in terms of measurements (e.g., the construction workers sitting on a wall with their lunch buckets and watching a busty woman walking by. I haven't the slightest doubt they would discuss her in terms of measurements even if they didn't have the foggiest notion what those measurements actually meant. For them, it would be just a representation of "humma, humma humongous." But it would very much establish the character type.)

 

[SamScribble]

How long? Not long at all.

When I read, I want to be informed, provoked, or entertained. Aroused? At my age, that's a subset of entertained.

What I don't want to do is correct spelling and grammar (in my head), and re-cast clumsy sentences to make them readable. Most of what I start to read on Lit is pretty dire. Perhaps I should confine myself to the writings of the authors who post here on the AH. At least you chaps give a damn.

 

[NotWise]

I don't think twice about throwing in measurements when I'm writing a character who would likely think in terms of measurements (e.g., the construction workers sitting on a wall with their lunch buckets and watching a busty woman walking by.

Got my imagination.

"She's got D's" he thought. He touched his growing erection and teetered on the beam he'd perched on for lunch. "No, they're E's! No they're EE's! God no! That's Mom!!"

He and his lunch toppled backwards, and the deep, freshly poured concrete below closed over him. When the lunch whistle blew, the foreman wondered where he'd gone.

"I think there's a problem with the pour right here," the engineer. said. He ordered a sonic survey and after a long consultation with the coroner and the family, they decide to cut out the slab that held Mom's boy and inter him intact -- 9 inches and all."

Wait. I don't think I'm writing for that crowd. Their longevity is an issue.

 

[HeyAll]

2-3 paragraphs, if that. Most of the time that's all it takes.

Same with movies. I go through a lot of them and switch it off quickly if there's the slightest hint that I won't like it.

 

[KeithD]

Got my imagination.

"She's got D's" he thought. He touched his growing erection and teetered on the beam he'd perched on for lunch. "No, they're E's! No they're EE's! God no! That's Mom!!"

He and his lunch toppled backwards, and the deep, freshly poured concrete below closed over him. When the lunch whistle blew, the foreman wondered where he'd gone.

"I think there's a problem with the pour right here," the engineer. said. He ordered a sonic survey and after a long consultation with the coroner and the family, they decide to cut out the slab that held Mom's boy and inter him intact -- 9 inches and all."

Wait. I don't think I'm writing for that crowd. Their longevity is an issue.

That's an example of how it wouldn't apply and work in a story, I think. The construction workers, with construction workers likely to think in terms of measurements because they work with them every day, would just have something like "38D" in their minds that represented "big basooms" in their inner group discussions. They wouldn't have any real idea of how big a 38D was and wouldn't have to to understand among themselves that it meant "big basooms." But a measurement would hit their arousal buttons a lot quicker and more effectively than "well endowed" would in their reading of a story. They'd have no idea what EE or EEE meant at all, so writing in those terms would come across as false characterization. They would think something they, as a group had settled on, as what they thought was a arousingly big measurement. And it most likely would involve either 36 or 38 and D, as being what they've heard the most to represent the reality of "big."

In another vein, I write a whole lot of gay male stories targeted to actual, sexually active gay men. Don't even try to tell me that men in this category don't think in terms of measurements when they're talking cocks--theirs, which damn right they've measured more than once, and those of others, especially if they bottom. And for a hardcore gay male readership, damn right you'd be giving measurements in writing your stories if you wanted to be authentic, and they'd understand what the inches represented a whole lot better than those construction workers who would be throwing out a 38D bust measurement would. The body builder subset of the sexually active gay males would also be targeted on measurements in their thinking of biceps, necks, chests, waists, thighs . . .

 

[OneAuthor]

How much of a story do you read before giving up and moving to another? Measure in time or paragraphs.

I see some stories richly decorated with details and background and the introduction of characters. Some I like. Other times I find my self saying "Please! Let something happen." Other stores jump right in to err......the action and grab my attention.

Of course, good writing grabs readers, but don't we write to be read? Do you toss out a juice morsel early on to wet the reader's appetite and encourage them to stay?

Thanks in advance, r

For me, I can handle a slow buildup if the story is well-written and contains at least one nugget in the first page that shows promise for later on. If a slow burner is poorly written or there is nothing to engage me within the first page, I stop reading.

Of course, even a story that jumps right into the action will lose me if it is badly written. If I cringe more than once at the spelling/grammar/punctuation/tense changes/etc. in the first few paragraphs, I'm out.

In a semi-related topic, I had breakfast a week ago at a great new place in your neck of the woods... "Well Fed". The name of that restaurant perfectly describes how I like to feel when I am done reading a chapter of a story (or the entire story, if it is shorter).

 

[MikeHockisgon]

Often I can tell by the first sentence or two whether that story is for me or not.

 

[regularguy13]

Thanks for the responses. I, like KeithD, try to grab the reader's attention from the start with an action or dialogue. I'm working on a new story and thought I might try a different approach.

I was considering telling it chronologically without a big splash at the beginning. I was wondering could I count on the reader giving me 6 or 12 paragraphs. Sounds like I can.

I generally give a story a page or two, if it isn't horrible. I thought I might be an outlier.

OneAuthor, Skippack is quirky little town with interesting shops and many good places to eat. Glad you had a good time. r