I will never read your story if…

[Bramblethorn]

I will never read your story if...

...you don't finish writing it and post it.

(let's be honest, probably not then either, but at least there's a chance!)

 

[Bramblethorn]

Varies by culture. Some places, like Thailand and Black America, do routinely make up new names.

Some places, like most of Europe and white America, choose from a separate set of words that are reserved for names and not used in ordinary conversation.

Some places, like China and I think most of the Islamic world, use ordinary words that appear in conversation.

And then there's Vietnam where half the population is Nguyen because they didn't use last names until the Chinese conquered them and started making them file taxes.

Similar story with a lot of Ashkenazi Jews, who didn't generally have surnames until they were compelled to do so by various European governments. We tend to assume that names come from occupation, but for some folk whether you got to be surnamed "ruby stone" or "pickpocket" depended not on what you did for a living but on what the tax official felt like calling you.

When I was much younger, I used to hang out on one of those "mock people's made-up baby names" web forums. Then I learned about the history of how some folk were forced to change their names, losing their own languages and getting renamed after their "owners", and I figured out that it was none of my business if their descendants felt like creating some new names rather than stick with the ones provided by their ancestors' abusers.

I still draw the line at names like "Number Seventeen Bus Stop" though.

 

[Rustyoznail]

... if you post an incomplete chaptered series.

Just finish the damn thing before posting.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Sounds like pronouncing the name the same way, just with different accents for an unstressed vowel. The Hamilton musical and the guy off True Blood both sounded like laff-eye-ett to me.

Lots of English words have a u sound spelt as o, thanks to old scribes, so combine that with non-rhotic r and you've got wuss-cester. Elide the unstressed syllable in the middle and you have Wuster (and wustasher sauce)

See also Gloucester (gloster), Leicester (lester), Bicester (bister), Towcester (Toaster) and then there's Cirencester (to be fair, the old pronunciation of Sissister is dying out and people call it siren-sester or just Ciren).

I think I'm going back to France. Or in Germany (actually Deutschland! We've got the entire country wrong.) how is Köln pronounced? Anything like that stuff you put on your face after shaving? Not that I ever used it.

 

[gunhilltrain]

I've long that these "who was worse" among history's most evil and destructive people debates are among the least worthwhile debates one can have.

Another thing that spoils a story right off for me: too many times confusing "its" and "it's."

Yes, this is a detour I should never have gotten into. And yes, I was the first one to bring up Nazis. I lose.

 

[gunhilltrain]

My mouth isn't prone to getting a UTI. Like yeah build up your immune system but there comes a certain point when you have to ask, is pissing lava every thirty seconds for god knows how long it takes to get immunity in that region to cover everything it could plausibly encounter on a public chair, worth it?

This is another detour I should never have gotten into. Everyone has different health outcomes. Although a hospital operating room is the closest thing to a sterile (no pun intended) environment most of us will ever be in.

Somehow I survived years of being in this kind of environment. Well, I did get bronchitis almost every year for a while.

https://flashbak.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/New-York-Subway-1970s.jpg

 

[Rob_Royale]

 

[TheRedChamber]

I still draw the line at names like "Number Seventeen Bus Stop" though.

I dunno, if celebrities like the Beckhams can name their child Brooklyn after the place where they were conceived, why not the masses as well?

 

[DanDraper]

If it's written in second person point of view.



....

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I think I'm going back to France. Or in Germany (actually Deutschland! We've got the entire country wrong.) how is Köln pronounced? Anything like that stuff you put on your face after shaving? Not that I ever used it.

The nice thing about German is everything is pronounced as it's spelt, so Koeln. Easier to just stick to English and call it Cologne.

I dunno, if celebrities like the Beckhams can name their child Brooklyn after the place where they were conceived, why not the masses as well?

Half of America: looks down on the other half for using wackeigh spell-llings and excess punctuation and 'made-up' names.

Britain: looks down on the first half of America for using 'made-up' names which are surnames, places, and random nouns, as well as the British chavs (roughly trailer trash) who do the same.

If you're upper class you can get away with it and be deemed eccentric, but that doesn't apply to the Beckhams. And hypocrisy really doesn't go down well. Famous TV interview with Katie Hopkins (right-wing idiotic rent-a-gob):
"I hate geographical names for children."
"Isn't your daughter called India?"

 

[AchtungNight]

If you condemn my story after allegedly reading it and refuse to work with me to make it acceptable. There are no other mortal sins besides giving up on someone.

 

[YDB95]

My only dealbreaker is if I read any of your previous stories and hated them.

 

[SimonDoom]

Yes, this is a detour I should never have gotten into. And yes, I was the first one to bring up Nazis. I lose.

Godwin's law. It's inevitable. Not your fault.

 

[TheRedChamber]

Half of America: looks down on the other half for using wackeigh spell-llings and excess punctuation and 'made-up' names.

Britain: looks down on the first half of America for using 'made-up' names which are surnames, places, and random nouns, as well as the British chavs (roughly trailer trash) who do the same.

If you're upper class you can get away with it and be deemed eccentric, but that doesn't apply to the Beckhams. And hypocrisy really doesn't go down well. Famous TV interview with Katie Hopkins (right-wing idiotic rent-a-gob):
"I hate geographical names for children."
"Isn't your daughter called India?"

On the one hand, it's an Englishmans God given right to hate those of a different geographical location or social class. Or indeed those of exactly the same geographical location and social class but who support the city's other football team. As someone who is clearly part of the upper-lower-middle class, I look down on those who call their progeny India just as much as I do Brooklyn.

On the other hand, I'm going to claim that the fun fact that my father played in the same youth football team as David Beckhams father, in order to avoid the question of whether I'm punching up or down here and claim I'm tenuously covered under the 'Taking the piss out of your mate at the pub' clause.

Plus if I'd followed the naming convention outlined my first daughter would have been called 'Cleethorpes' so you can see why Im against it.

 

[gunhilltrain]

I dunno, if celebrities like the Beckhams can name their child Brooklyn after the place where they were conceived, why not the masses as well?

I was going to skip this, but how does that explain the actress Brooklyn Decker, who was born in Ohio in 1987? At that time the borough of Brooklyn was mostly not that hip except for a few select locations. Still waiting for a woman named Hoboken or Secaucus.

 

[LexxRuthless]

I will never read your story if...

...you don't finish writing it and post it.

(let's be honest, probably not then either, but at least there's a chance!)

I felt like @Bramblethorn had nailed it there. In order to contribute further to the topic, I would tweak the OP to, "I won't enjoy your story if..."

As an author, you could well respond, "Well, I don't give half a fuck what you enjoy, Lexx. I'm going to write what suits me," and that's great. I used to voraciously read everything, but that has changed. Part of it is the sheer volume of new stories that appear on the site every day. It's tough to keep up with my favorite authors, let alone checking out work from new authors who might be tremendously talented. The other thing that has changed is me. It's tough, now, for me to read and enjoy any of the stories that appear on the site, since I began writing and posting my own stories here.

Don't get me wrong; it absolutely is NOT ego on my part. I'm not reading someone else's story and thinking, "Well, I could have written that so much better." It is that my entire mindset has changed. I used to love reading a story and immersing myself in that world and those characters. At least once a night, and usually more, I would get incredibly aroused reading a good story on Literotica. Now I'm caught up in this hyper-critical mindset that I enter when I'm writing and editing my own stories, and I cannot seem to get out of it and let myself simply enjoy someone else's work. I appreciate a well-written story more than ever, now that I know just how much work it is and how difficult it is to do it well. I can evaluate a story fairly quickly, and have a good idea if it is getting the score it deserves. I have provided feedback to several authors and helped aspiring authors get started.

It's just not that fun. Every time I see a misspelled word, grammatical error, incorrect homophone, bad punctuation, EXCESSIVE USE OF CAPS, characters whose names change throughout the story, or a really awkward turn of phrase, I cringe just as I would if I found such a mistake in one of my stories. I'm a perfectionist and a procrastinator. I knew that "going in" and force myself to write and publish without obsessing over everything the way I would naturally be inclined. Otherwise, I'd still be working on that first submission. But it also means that, rather than enjoying your story, I spend most of my time analyzing word choice and thinking, "What would be a better way to phrase that? Would it be clearer if it read..."

I would never downvote anyone else's work. Now that I've gone through it and know what it takes, I don't feel like anybody deserves to have their story "1-bombed" and particularly not a new author.

All that said...I will appreciate and encourage you to write your own story. I hope it's amazing and you enjoy the experience, and that you earn accolades beyond what you ever expected. I'm just unlikely to enjoy reading it.

 

[gunhilltrain]

View attachment 2251768

Cool train wreck (if you weren't on the train). It doesn't appear to be in the United States, so where is it? Also, surely there were fatalities: who many? I don't know why I like knowing trivia like that.

P.S.: After about fifty posts, most threads have run their course on the original topic. This one has 123 so far.

 

[NoTalentHack]

I was going to skip this, but how does that explain the actress Brooklyn Decker, who was born in Ohio in 1987? At that time the borough of Brooklyn was mostly not that hip except for a few select locations. Still waiting for a woman named Hoboken or Secaucus.

As one of American white trash stock, there's a long and storied history of my people naming a kid something "glamorous" as a way to sort of show that you aspire to them having something greater. "Stripper names" are a joke now, but there's a reason so many of them are gems, virtues, etc. At one point, they were what poor white folks called their kids in the hopes that names had power; it's the same impetus that has rich kids named after their ancestor that built the family fortune, just with a different focus. One looks backwards in hopes of claiming former glory; the other represents a fervent prayer that they can escape inertia.

... Shit. I need to use that in a story.

 

[TheRedChamber]

I was going to skip this, but how does that explain the actress Brooklyn Decker, who was born in Ohio in 1987? At that time the borough of Brooklyn was mostly not that hip except for a few select locations. Still waiting for a woman named Hoboken or Secaucus.

Err...it makes no claims to explain anything outside of the Beckham child (who is probably now out of college but I'm not looking that up because I don't want to feel old.) It was the reason they gave for the name.

 

[Britva415]

I felt like @Bramblethorn had nailed it there. In order to contribute further to the topic, I would tweak the OP to, "I won't enjoy your story if..."

As an author, you could well respond, "Well, I don't give half a fuck what you enjoy, Lexx. I'm going to write what suits me," and that's great. I used to voraciously read everything, but that has changed. Part of it is the sheer volume of new stories that appear on the site every day. It's tough to keep up with my favorite authors, let alone checking out work from new authors who might be tremendously talented. The other thing that has changed is me. It's tough, now, for me to read and enjoy any of the stories that appear on the site, since I began writing and posting my own stories here.

Don't get me wrong; it absolutely is NOT ego on my part. I'm not reading someone else's story and thinking, "Well, I could have written that so much better." It is that my entire mindset has changed. I used to love reading a story and immersing myself in that world and those characters. At least once a night, and usually more, I would get incredibly aroused reading a good story on Literotica. Now I'm caught up in this hyper-critical mindset that I enter when I'm writing and editing my own stories, and I cannot seem to get out of it and let myself simply enjoy someone else's work. I appreciate a well-written story more than ever, now that I know just how much work it is and how difficult it is to do it well. I can evaluate a story fairly quickly, and have a good idea if it is getting the score it deserves. I have provided feedback to several authors and helped aspiring authors get started.

It's just not that fun. Every time I see a misspelled word, grammatical error, incorrect homophone, bad punctuation, EXCESSIVE USE OF CAPS, characters whose names change throughout the story, or a really awkward turn of phrase, I cringe just as I would if I found such a mistake in one of my stories. I'm a perfectionist and a procrastinator. I knew that "going in" and force myself to write and publish without obsessing over everything the way I would naturally be inclined. Otherwise, I'd still be working on that first submission. But it also means that, rather than enjoying your story, I spend most of my time analyzing word choice and thinking, "What would be a better way to phrase that? Would it be clearer if it read..."

I would never downvote anyone else's work. Now that I've gone through it and know what it takes, I don't feel like anybody deserves to have their story "1-bombed" and particularly not a new author.

All that said...I will appreciate and encourage you to write your own story. I hope it's amazing and you enjoy the experience, and that you earn accolades beyond what you ever expected. I'm just unlikely to enjoy reading it.

There's never a point where you'll just stop reading a story and move on to another?

You'll hate-read shit just so you can "respect" the author's right to write it? Or just so you can suggest tweaks to OP's premise?

 

[Britva415]

As one of American white trash stock, there's a long and storied history of my people naming a kid something "glamorous" as a way to sort of show that you aspire to them having something greater. "Stripper names" are a joke now, but there's a reason so many of them are gems, virtues, etc. At one point, they were what poor white folks called their kids in the hopes that names had power; it's the same impetus that has rich kids named after their ancestor that built the family fortune, just with a different focus. One looks backwards in hopes of claiming former glory; the other represents a fervent prayer that they can escape inertia.

... Shit. I need to use that in a story.

Not sure to what extent Reality Winner represents the extreme to which this can be taken.

 

[SimonDoom]

There was a thread similar to this one a little while ago, and my reaction then was similar to what my reaction is to this one. This thread, IMO, asks the wrong question. I don't read stories as though I'm about to enter a minefield and I'm out as soon as one blows me up. I'm looking to be seduced. If something in your story seduces me, then I can overlook a lot of things, like bad spelling, or silly cliches. There's no ONE thing or collection of things that will bounce me out of a story. The chances are that if I start your story I won't get very far, not because you've done something obviously wrong but because you haven't seduced me, and most stories simply don't seduce me. I finish far fewer than one-quarter of the stories I initially click on.

The problem with the inclination of a thread like this one is that it encourages writers to avoid the negative. I think it's better to focus on the positive.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Err...it makes no claims to explain anything outside of the Beckham child (who is probably now out of college but I'm not looking that up because I don't want to feel old.) It was the reason they gave for the name.

I meant that rhetoricallly. There is this explantion from her of how she got her name. (Just Google your questions! That's what it's there for.) It's a bit vague about her dad got from Brooke to Brooklyn. I'm guessing he must have heard the name of the borough somewhere - it's often mentioned in movies and TV shows.

https://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/brooklyn-decker-im-named-after-a-horse-2012165/#:~:text=%22I'm%20named%20after%20a%20horse%2C%22%20Decker%2C,time%2C%20so%20go%20figure.%22

 

[dadadadiox]

I don't read 99% of the stories on here anyway. Sorry, fellow authors. But then, the majority of people who comment or favorite my stories have never submitted anything. Most of them do have dozens or even hundreds of favorite stories however.

Maybe I’m mistaken, but I get the impression most Lit members are either creators or consumers. Those who do both are in the minority.

 

[djrip]

Maybe I’m mistaken, but I get the impression most Lit members are either creators or consumers. Those who do both are in the minority.

I try to do both but there's only so much time in the day.