Learning

[texasnottexas]

https://www.literotica.com/s/new-years-and-new-doors

I am new here and recently posted the above story in the Loving Wives category. This story has been rated pretty poorly. Even though I write more for myself than for an audience, I don't want to provide content that is a waste of time for the reader. In this regard I would value some feedback. I'm trying to understand why the story is being rated so low.
Is the writing bad? In which case I should not post.
Does it develop too slowly? In which case should I provide a warning?
Is it not erotic enough? In which case should I provide a warning?
Is the topic unpopular? In which case, I guess I will not worry.
Is there something else for me to learn?

I look forward to feedback, though I am bracing myself a bit.

 

[KeithD]

The Loving Wives category is a cesspool of reader battlefield, as you will note from threads continuously running on the discussion board such as this current one: http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=1515459.

There may be nothing wrong with your story as written at all.

 

[texasnottexas]

Thanks KeithD. That is enlightening and discouraging at at the same time. I guess there is some cultural emotional baggage going on.

 

[AlinaX]

I regard posting in Loving Wives as a form of social experimentation.

 

[jaF0]

First thing necessary here is to ignore all reader 'comments'. I turned them off in my console. Let'em fuss on FB somewhere.

 

[LesDesirable]

I had problems with the realism, mostly because the dialogue was just prose wrapped inside quotation marks. The lengthy explanations reading more like scripted speeches than two friends sharing a few drinks.

Your opening paragraph jumped through way too many things. Break those kinds of things off for strong openings.

"Walter why are you here?" Danial asked.

"I'm sorry, should I leave?"

so much explanation just weakens the scene. You can fill it in after we are introduced to the characters. Hell, you can have Danial tell Walter about building the firepit, his plans to sit there and sip umbrella drinks with Lindi, and so on.

The comment you received about untrustworthy - just ignore that, LW readers want either cheating wives being cunts, or loving wives being sweet. Either complains when the characters do not fit their kink.

Overall, you left 20 or 30 spelling and other errors in the story. You use some backwards sentence structures, leaving readers wincing over the word placements.

The sex did not make me want to jump up and down, nor did I just skip to the end. It was just sex. Had you executed the story better, made the interplay more fun, I think it would be rated higher.

 

[ElectricBlue]

It might have run better in either Group or Erotic Couplings. Those categories can be more accommodating than LW - the category description is a bit misleading, as you've discovered from the link in KeithD's post.

I skimmed it (only because you've asked for feedback here) and will say, while you didn't have any man on man action, you had a huge amount of build up as if you might (the whole first page, nearly, is a conversation between the two men and she was peripheral).

The story also plods along with truckloads of exposition and back story, but not much sexual action until the second page, and even then, I blinked and nearly missed it. The story isn't the easiest read, it's mostly told, not shown.

Your dialogue punctuation is also inconsistent, sometimes correct, more often not. I wasn't reading closely enough to spot other technical glitches, but your dialogue punctuation stood out - and would normally be reason for me to stop.

My guess is that readers got tired of waiting for sexual action, feared the threat of gay male, and possibly the use of drugs. Your subtitle "art and drugs mix" maybe wasn't the best idea (erotica and drugs don't always mix very well - but please note, this observation is based only on a small number of threads on this in the past).

You've copped a whole bunch of things, I reckon. You're writing is no worse than many I've read here on Lit - but no better, either. I would have clicked out early because of the plodding style, but I skimmed on to see why such a poor response. My guess is that many readers are jumping straight to the end without reading it all, but dropping you a low score anyway, because that's what readers do.

I didn't score it at all, by the way.

 

[texasnottexas]

Great feedback. That is very helpful. Thank you.

 

[JPGmvny]

https://www.literotica.com/s/new-years-and-new-doors

I am new here and recently posted the above story in the Loving Wives category. This story has been rated pretty poorly. Even though I write more for myself than for an audience, I don't want to provide content that is a waste of time for the reader. In this regard I would value some feedback. I'm trying to understand why the story is being rated so low.
Is the writing bad? In which case I should not post.
Does it develop too slowly? In which case should I provide a warning?
Is it not erotic enough? In which case should I provide a warning?
Is the topic unpopular? In which case, I guess I will not worry.
Is there something else for me to learn?

I look forward to feedback, though I am bracing myself a bit.

I skimmed it. As LesD--who's been harsh but fair with one of my stories--points out, lots of dialogue.

First, use contractions. Everyone, except Data, does. I do not know, I mean I don't know of a time I have dialogue that doesn't use them, except for something said In Great Seriousness or by someone for whom English is a second language.

Second, break up the dialogue. Instead of having so much as quotations, throw in something like, "Walter went on to say XYZ." Also interject some action during the speeches. "He grabbed a stick and moves some of the word around in the fire."

As to ratings in LW, I know nothing of that. But I've heard bad things.

 

[gordo12]

https://www.literotica.com/s/new-years-and-new-doors

I am new here and recently posted the above story in the Loving Wives category. This story has been rated pretty poorly. Even though I write more for myself than for an audience, I don't want to provide content that is a waste of time for the reader. In this regard I would value some feedback. I'm trying to understand why the story is being rated so low.
Is the writing bad? In which case I should not post.
Does it develop too slowly? In which case should I provide a warning?
Is it not erotic enough? In which case should I provide a warning?
Is the topic unpopular? In which case, I guess I will not worry.
Is there something else for me to learn?

I look forward to feedback, though I am bracing myself a bit.

I had problems with your first paragraph too. I found myself debating what you really meant in parts of it. I had to reread it three times and then gave up I came up with multiple interpretations. I don't know what YOU meant so it wasn't clear. That happens sometimes. Descriptions that are clear in your mind don't always translate.

Contractions and misspells have been mentioned. Also the speech-like dialogue. That was a little too preachy for me.

Overall the biggest failure of the story was bringing the M/M sex into the story. LW readers (hetero category) really don't like MM and let the authors know. Yours was particularly egregious because you failed to disclose it in the tags. A lot of readers check those ahead of time. You get through three pages of story only to find yourself into Male on male action. Not cool.

Imagine walking up to 10 strange men on the street and asking them to suck your cock. I'd be shocked if at least 9 out of 10 didn't plow you in the face or tell you to F off. That's what the readers are doing. Via your low score.

You left the story unresolved at the end so I would expect a second chapter. It's nice if an author uses "TBC" (to be continued) or "The End" so the readers know.

I did like the slow build and overall it was an interesting story.

JMO

 

[ElectricBlue]

Overall the biggest failure of the story was bringing the M/M sex into the story. LW readers (hetero category) really don't like MM and let the authors know. Yours was particularly egregious because you failed to disclose it in the tags. A lot of readers check those ahead of time. You get through three pages of story only to find yourself into Male on male action. Not cool.

So there actually was M/M? After the first page I thought the story was leading up to it, but my skim was obviously so quick I missed it completely. That just by itself explains the low score.

On the last page? That made it even easier for readers to drop to the bottom and low score the story.

For the OP - any gay male must be tagged. It's not received well in most categories, and even in the more tolerant categories you'll find an undercurrent of homophobia reflected in lower scores.

 

[KeithD]

Under my sr71plt account, I tried going both ways with categorizing chapters in a series. Some I put in different categories and tailored the tag list to the chapter. Some I put in one category (the Novel category is always there to use for multiple genre work), either in Novels or in a dominate subject category. I didn't really notice a significant difference in readership response across any of these.

Most notably was my very intentionally genre-spread Tuscan Twilight novella (https://www.literotica.com/s/tuscan-twilight-ch-01), a five-chapter work that has widely varying genres. This is the hook of the series, though--two GM, one Lesbian, one Erotic Coupling, and one Group Sex. I kept each chapter dominant category specific and clearly marked them in the tags. The readers weren't overjoyed but they also didn't criticize. What was nice, though, was that Laurel gave four of the five chapters editor choice Green Es.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Most notably was my very intentionally genre-spread Tuscan Twilight novella (https://www.literotica.com/s/tuscan-twilight-ch-01), a five-chapter work that has widely varying genres. This is the hook of the series, though--two GM, one Lesbian, one Erotic Coupling, and one Group Sex. I kept each chapter dominant category specific and clearly marked them in the tags. The readers weren't overjoyed but they also didn't criticize. What was nice, though, was that Laurel gave four of the five chapters editor choice Green Es.

Did the five parts see the typical View drop off as the series progressed, with Views counts roughly the same for chapters 3 - 5; or did you catch a similar number of Views in each category?

 

[gordo12]

Under my sr71plt account, I tried going both ways with categorizing chapters in a series. Some I put in different categories and tailored the tag list to the chapter. Some I put in one category (the Novel category is always there to use for multiple genre work), either in Novels or in a dominate subject category. I didn't really notice a significant difference in readership response across any of these.

Most notably was my very intentionally genre-spread Tuscan Twilight novella (https://www.literotica.com/s/tuscan-twilight-ch-01), a five-chapter work that has widely varying genres. This is the hook of the series, though--two GM, one Lesbian, one Erotic Coupling, and one Group Sex. I kept each chapter dominant category specific and clearly marked them in the tags. The readers weren't overjoyed but they also didn't criticize. What was nice, though, was that Laurel gave four of the five chapters editor choice Green Es.

The old pages don't allow you to check for tags unless you go to the end. That was a problem. Many authors warn up front about MM issues in the story. That way they can be avoided if you don't like it. Some readers will still vote it down just because!

When I see chapter such and such on a story the first thing I do is go to the author's page and check out the scores, categories, teasers etc. In your case seeing chapters in GM I would avoid the story and making any criticism or giving it a low vote, regardless of where the other chapters are.

And don't forget your sr71plt was a well known account for GM stories. People who don't want to read that would avoid it. I think negative responses would be muted because of that.

 

[KeithD]

The old pages don't allow you to check for tags unless you go to the end. That was a problem. Many authors warn up front about MM issues in the story. That way they can be avoided if you don't like it. Some readers will still vote it down just because!

When I see chapter such and such on a story the first thing I do is go to the author's page and check out the scores, categories, teasers etc. In your case seeing chapters in GM I would avoid the story and making any criticism or giving it a low vote, regardless of where the other chapters are.

And don't forget your sr71plt was a well known account for GM stories. People who don't want to read that would avoid it. I think negative responses would be muted because of that.

I'm not sure what this is trying to tell me about my post. The chapters of Tuscan Twilight are each posted to the category of predominate genre--they were appropriately tagged, but that's neither here nor there--chapters went to separate categories. The reader had no excuse not to know what the predominate context was. The series also was posted in my first few months of posting to Literotica. The sr71plt account (which wrote to over twenty different categories--often with more stories in a non-GM category, like I/T and LW, than a poster concentrating on that category and looking down their nose at me as a GM writer had to their own credit) hadn't established a predominate category then. It wasn't "known" for anything at that point, and, indeed, the series cover four different strongly divergent categories.

The ultimate Lit. reader--Laurel--liked how the divergent preference chapters (the subject of this thread) were categorized and tagged in Tuscan Twilight. She gave four out of five of them her rare Green E award of approval.

So, I don't know what you are contradicting in my post.

 

[KeithD]

Did the five parts see the typical View drop off as the series progressed, with Views counts roughly the same for chapters 3 - 5; or did you catch a similar number of Views in each category?

I don't think I kept track of voting progressions and, after thirteen years and 1,000 stories in that account, I wouldn't remember. But all have a view count around 30,000, except the Erotic Coupling one at 20,000. The high is the Lesbian one at 34,000 votes. They all, but one, are under Hot but in the 4 plus range, but not by much, and this is generally what the readers do to my stories that get a Green E. Enough of them "Oh, yeah? Well take that then!" the stories enough to keep them below Hot.

 

[Jada59]

I couldn't read very much of it. I am unsure whether the person's name is Daniel or Danial as you keep switching back and forth. Then there are missing question marks.

 

[yukonnights]

First, I really do hope you continue to write your stories. You have some things worth telling (and worth propagandizing for). There's nothing wrong in using our stories to try to normalize human sexuality — including polyamorous relationships.

I like your 'laid-back','west coast cool', approach. But it did get a bit too 'preachy' at times. Some of the dialogue seemed contrived / forced.

The technical issues need to be tightened up — punctuation, spelling, etc. We all benefit from a second pair of eyes to find the things we overlook — it's almost impossible to do a self-edit or final proof. Find a writing partner to share beta-reading duties with.

I read it all the way to midway through the last page. I sort of glazed over with the final sex scene. That may just be me, one person's opinion. But it wasn't crisp and exciting to me, even though I wanted it to be. I had no issue with something like this being believable, etc.

All in all, I think it was a great premise, the plot was believable (if maybe only for the more sexually enlightened readers). I think you would have been far more successful in Erotic Couplings or even Romance. Don't feel bad, I learned on my first story that Loving Wives isn't really about a loving wife

Don't throw in the towel — you and your stories belong here.