LW-adjacent story in the Guardian today

[ZackStevens]

Since becoming an enthusiast of many LW stories, I've begun to notice the themes more when they pop up in real life. For instance, this Guardian story -
"Last year I began an affair. His marriage is over now, but how can I survive his separation?"

There are some excellent suggestions here, many of which would (imho) improve a lot of LW stories.

A couple of quotes but read the whole thing...
"we can’t move on if we don’t allow a certain amount of critical self-evaluation"
"If we can’t feel guilt without either trying to block it or hurtling straight to total self-doubt, all guilt-inducing questions can feel like attacks."

 

[NoTalentHack]

There's a number of very good reasons so few adulterous relationships survive the separation/divorce of the married partner.

 

[OverconfidentSarcasm]

Since becoming an enthusiast of many LW stories, I've begun to notice the themes more when they pop up in real life. For instance, this Guardian story -
"Last year I began an affair. His marriage is over now, but how can I survive his separation?"

There are some excellent suggestions here, many of which would (imho) improve a lot of LW stories.

A couple of quotes but read the whole thing...
"we can’t move on if we don’t allow a certain amount of critical self-evaluation"
"If we can’t feel guilt without either trying to block it or hurtling straight to total self-doubt, all guilt-inducing questions can feel like attacks."

So, I just went over the article.

The author of that article had an affair with a married man, which led to his divorce so he could be with her.
After that relationship ended, she had another affair with a married man, which led to his divorce so he can be with her.
And now that woman is writing an article about how she needs to let go of her guilt to "survive his separation"?

Call me ignorant, but I kinda doubt this would fare well in LW...

 

[ZackStevens]

So, I just went over the article.

The author of that article had an affair with a married man, which led to his divorce so he could be with her.
After that relationship ended, she had another affair with a married man, which led to his divorce so he can be with her.
And now that woman is writing an article about how she needs to let go of her guilt to "survive his separation"?

Call me ignorant, but I kinda doubt this would fare well in LW...

Wait up. The author of the article (Eleanor Gordon-Smith)? Where'd you get her bio? (I'm looking.) Or are you talking about the one asking for advice?

 

[OverconfidentSarcasm]

Wait up. The author of the article (Eleanor Gordon-Smith)? Where'd you get her bio? (I'm looking.) Or are you talking about the one asking for advice?

Ah, I'm sorry, my mistake. The first "author" was supposed to be "the author of the letter", not "the author of the article".

 

[Winter_Fare]

This is the most beautiful loving wives story I ever read. And it still got panned by knuckle draggers. Go figure. The range of human emotion is lost on some people.

 

[NoTalentHack]

I don’t know about “panned.” It got a 4.45, which is a really solid score in LW. That’s like a 4.8 or so anywhere else on the site.

 

[Constories]

This is the most beautiful loving wives story I ever read. And it still got panned by knuckle draggers. Go figure. The range of human emotion is lost on some people.

I agree with NTH, Scream got an above average score.

I liked the story, but the author has openly admitted that he "shoe-horned" (his words, not mine) the adultery elements into the story in order to make it fit within the LW category.

Surely cramming an irrelevant plot element into a story just to make it reach a wider audience is bound to have some negative effect in the overall ratings, huh?

 

[NoTalentHack]

I will say this: you do have to spell things out in there a lot of the time. I had a throwaway line in one of my stories where the paternity of the children was in doubt, but only narrowly; the husband was already almost certain his wife had never slept with the other guy, at least not as long as he and his wife had been together. So I tossed in this line:

I still doted on the kids—and, yes, they were mine, courtesy of Crick and Watson....

'Cause, you know. Crick and Watson. Nobel prize for discovering DNA. That's like, super low hanging fruit. And yet, I still got people saying "WHY DID HE NEVER GET THE KIDS TESTED!?" And other ones that were like, "So the kids weren't his. Dumbass should have gotten tested, and you're a dumbass for writing such weak men."

You just have to accept that you're going to be writing for the audience you're writing for, that you're writing something 90%+ of your audience is going to get, and accept that the outliers on the left half of the bell curve are going to be ignorant and loud no matter what you do. And if they are, they're going to also be the kind of person to not even try to understand something they don't want to.

And that's true in all of the categories; it's just that in LW, you don't (usually) have the buoyancy of "alright, that's my kink!" to fall back on. For example, in Incest you can choose to do something that will upset the readers and still get a high score as long as you're writing something hot and (usually) sweet. There are things that will get you a low score there (gay, noncon, etc.), but they're pretty predictable.

I included anal and analingus in my sibcest romance, for example. And, yes, I got some hate in the comments for it. I (over)indulged in making speech between two people tentatively feeling out how things should go actually be hesitant and stammering instead of just saying "she stammered out, 'Blah blah blah.'" I got hits for that. And yet, I still ended up with a 4.75ish rating on it. It was sweet, hot, and had a HEA. Even with the things that I did that pissed off a (fairly sizable, according to the comments) minority of readers, AND which turned off my fanbase (since LW is very sexually conservative), I did pretty good.

LW doesn't have any of those guardrails. The "ideal" LW story is a total moving target. For a few years there, they wanted the burntest of burnt bitches; now, they dislike the Martian Slut Ray stories and want more realistic motivations. Except that some folks don't want that; they just want to be mad. And others want reconciliation, but only if it's "earned." And others want no reconciliation, because it can never be earned. And others want adventure stories with a little sex, while others want full-on cruel cuckolding by a femdom wife that seems to hate her husband. And some want a lot of sex, and some want no sex. And and and.

Of all the categories, it's the least monolithic. You can say "the knuckle draggers in LW," as several people on the forums lately have called them, but that's extremely reductive.

I guess what I'm saying is, "Yeah, it's hard to write for, but that's what makes it fun." And it shouldn't come as a surprise that a lot of people on AH attack it, some for their stated reasons, but some, I think, because they're mad that they got pantsed and dragged around the track, metaphorically speaking, when they tried to write a story there.

 

[Constories]

I will say this: you do have to spell things out in there a lot of the time. I had a throwaway line in one of my stories where the paternity of the children was in doubt, but only narrowly; the husband was already almost certain his wife had never slept with the other guy, at least not as long as he and his wife had been together. So I tossed in this line:

I still doted on the kids—and, yes, they were mine, courtesy of Crick and Watson....

'Cause, you know. Crick and Watson. Nobel prize for discovering DNA. That's like, super low hanging fruit. And yet, I still got people saying "WHY DID HE NEVER GET THE KIDS TESTED!?" And other ones that were like, "So the kids weren't his. Dumbass should have gotten tested, and you're a dumbass for writing such weak men."

You just have to accept that you're going to be writing for the audience you're writing for, that you're writing something 90%+ of your audience is going to get, and accept that the outliers on the left half of the bell curve are going to be ignorant and loud no matter what you do. And if they are, they're going to also be the kind of person to not even try to understand something they don't want to.

And that's true in all of the categories; it's just that in LW, you don't (usually) have the buoyancy of "alright, that's my kink!" to fall back on. For example, in Incest you can choose to do something that will upset the readers and still get a high score as long as you're writing something hot and (usually) sweet. There are things that will get you a low score there (gay, noncon, etc.), but they're pretty predictable.

I included anal and analingus in my sibcest romance, for example. And, yes, I got some hate in the comments for it. I (over)indulged in making speech between two people tentatively feeling out how things should go actually be hesitant and stammering instead of just saying "she stammered out, 'Blah blah blah.'" I got hits for that. And yet, I still ended up with a 4.75ish rating on it. It was sweet, hot, and had a HEA. Even with the things that I did that pissed off a (fairly sizable, according to the comments) minority of readers, AND which turned off my fanbase (since LW is very sexually conservative), I did pretty good.

LW doesn't have any of those guardrails. The "ideal" LW story is a total moving target. For a few years there, they wanted the burntest of burnt bitches; now, they dislike the Martian Slut Ray stories and want more realistic motivations. Except that some folks don't want that; they just want to be mad. And others want reconciliation, but only if it's "earned." And others want no reconciliation, because it can never be earned. And others want adventure stories with a little sex, while others want full-on cruel cuckolding by a femdom wife that seems to hate her husband. And some want a lot of sex, and some want no sex. And and and.

Of all the categories, it's the least monolithic. You can say "the knuckle draggers in LW," as several people on the forums lately have called them, but that's extremely reductive.

I guess what I'm saying is, "Yeah, it's hard to write for, but that's what makes it fun." And it shouldn't come as a surprise that a lot of people on AH attack it, some for their stated reasons, but some, I think, because they're mad that they got pantsed and dragged around the track, metaphorically speaking, when they tried to write a story there.

I have WAY less experience in LW than you, but I can attest that's true.

A portion of my detractors complained that my story was too dark because of guns, and roughly an equal sized portion whined that my FMC should have shot and murdered those who wronged her. So my stories was somehow too violent and simultaneously not violent enough. Haha

Some people complained it was too long, and others said I should have had more there.

That said, the vast majority of the viewers were happy with the results, so I feel like I hit a happy medium.

I feel like LW is the perfect examples of the duality of man... Except there's way more than two sides at play.
¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

 

[lovecraft68]

You think the crowd over there is going to listen to anything but their own predetermined prejudices and say "hey, you know?"
Waste of time to any of the hardcore crowd there, they know what they like, but even more so what they hate.
That and you're asking them to read.

 

[ZackStevens]

I will say this: you do have to spell things out in there a lot of the time. I had a throwaway line in one of my stories where the paternity of the children was in doubt, but only narrowly; the husband was already almost certain his wife had never slept with the other guy, at least not as long as he and his wife had been together. So I tossed in this line:

I still doted on the kids—and, yes, they were mine, courtesy of Crick and Watson....

'Cause, you know. Crick and Watson. Nobel prize for discovering DNA. That's like, super low hanging fruit. And yet, I still got people saying "WHY DID HE NEVER GET THE KIDS TESTED!?" And other ones that were like, "So the kids weren't his. Dumbass should have gotten tested, and you're a dumbass for writing such weak men."

You just have to accept that you're going to be writing for the audience you're writing for, that you're writing something 90%+ of your audience is going to get, and accept that the outliers on the left half of the bell curve are going to be ignorant and loud no matter what you do. And if they are, they're going to also be the kind of person to not even try to understand something they don't want to.

And that's true in all of the categories; it's just that in LW, you don't (usually) have the buoyancy of "alright, that's my kink!" to fall back on. For example, in Incest you can choose to do something that will upset the readers and still get a high score as long as you're writing something hot and (usually) sweet. There are things that will get you a low score there (gay, noncon, etc.), but they're pretty predictable.

I included anal and analingus in my sibcest romance, for example. And, yes, I got some hate in the comments for it. I (over)indulged in making speech between two people tentatively feeling out how things should go actually be hesitant and stammering instead of just saying "she stammered out, 'Blah blah blah.'" I got hits for that. And yet, I still ended up with a 4.75ish rating on it. It was sweet, hot, and had a HEA. Even with the things that I did that pissed off a (fairly sizable, according to the comments) minority of readers, AND which turned off my fanbase (since LW is very sexually conservative), I did pretty good.

LW doesn't have any of those guardrails. The "ideal" LW story is a total moving target. For a few years there, they wanted the burntest of burnt bitches; now, they dislike the Martian Slut Ray stories and want more realistic motivations. Except that some folks don't want that; they just want to be mad. And others want reconciliation, but only if it's "earned." And others want no reconciliation, because it can never be earned. And others want adventure stories with a little sex, while others want full-on cruel cuckolding by a femdom wife that seems to hate her husband. And some want a lot of sex, and some want no sex. And and and.

Of all the categories, it's the least monolithic. You can say "the knuckle draggers in LW," as several people on the forums lately have called them, but that's extremely reductive.

I guess what I'm saying is, "Yeah, it's hard to write for, but that's what makes it fun." And it shouldn't come as a surprise that a lot of people on AH attack it, some for their stated reasons, but some, I think, because they're mad that they got pantsed and dragged around the track, metaphorically speaking, when they tried to write a story there.

I remember reading that line and thinking "nice, but a lot of people are going to just skim and search for 'DNA' and never get it". Love your stuff!

 

[ElectricBlue]

and accept that the outliers on the left half of the bell curve are going to be ignorant and loud no matter what you do.

"...left half of the bell curve..." is a phrase worth remembering. Nice work .