Rant Thread (open for all annoyed authors)

[TalonDigital]

I'm pretty tolerant of user comments on anything I do. I have a degree in studio art, and one thing you learn getting an art degree (or an English degree too) is that you have to be able to accept critiques. I have no problem listening to a complaint about my work, whether it be Photography, Drawing, Sculpting, or Writing. I draw the line, however, at unsupported jabs. I'm a new author, just submitting my first 2 chapters to a 5 part series I'm working on.

This morning I woke up with a new comment on the second chapter of the series. All it said was:

"You went from a decent first chapter to a total piece of shit."

Okay, my gut reaction is someone is homophobic and didn't like the bi-guy group scene at the end. If he (or she) had said something along the lines of: "I was started by the bi-scene at the end and it ruined it for me because I am not interested in that subject." Fine. No big deal, different strokes for different folks. I'd have left that comment.

I've always felt anything which allows comments on any type of artistic material should force commentators to go through a training test to make sure they understand how to comment in a productive manner. If you did not like it, that's okay, express what you didn't like about it and use your words. I'm open to critiques, they help us grow as authors and push us to recognize something we failed to consider.

Is my second chapter shit? I don't think so. My fiance loved it, and I wrote it for her. She got completely turned on by it. An average rating of 4.28 with 25 votes suggests that plenty of people agree that its at least okay. I've always felt that in the case of a story on literotica, as well as more mainstream publications that if you don't like it for simple taste then you just ignore it. I've never gone onto Nora Roberts' website and complained her work is crap, simply because I don't like Romance novels. Obviously she has a significant following who would disagree with me.

I know posting isn't going to change it, but this is a very big ARGG!

 

[jomar]

I feel ya. It's especially brutal in Loving Wives.

Welcome to Lit.

 

[TalonDigital]

I feel ya. It's especially brutal in Loving Wives.

Welcome to Lit.

Do you mean the fact that the only Loving the wives do is with men who are not their husbands?

 

[Stella_Omega]

"Loving wives" is the home to hateful husbands.

The readers there are misogynist, angry, and want to read stories where THAT BITCH GETS WHAT SHE DESERVES DAMMIT.

I really, really detest the title of the category, in view of what it actually encompasses. The stories are almost never actually about the woman at all-- and the readers almost never read from her point of view. It's the ugliest, most cynical category in lit. Insulting in more ways than I want to think about at the moment.

And of course, homophobia walks hand in hand with misogyny.

If I were to write anything with a married couple, I would put it anywhere except "loving wives."

 

[TalonDigital]

Interesting, I've seen a few other complaints about the category, but I prefer group stories, so I've never looked into that category.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Anytime two men *gasp* TOUCH each other, you will get complaints, no matter which category you post to-- except, of course, gay male, which is the trash bin of literotica.

 

[Cruel2BKind]

Anytime two men *gasp* TOUCH each other, you will get complaints, no matter which category you post to-- except, of course, gay male, which is the trash bin of literotica.

HEY!

I demand that you give a reasoned argument why my favorite cat (where I have submitted 93% of my stories) is a trashbin!!!!

To the OP, people on lit can be jerks, and you do need to put a disclaimer on any story with any homoerotic content, or you will get flamed. It helps tremendously.

 

[TalonDigital]

I didn't think it would matter. 99% of my stories don't involve it, just it was right for that particular chapter. Good advice for the future. Its funny, since technically the two women together is homoerotic. They don't complain about that.

 

[jomar]

Do you mean the fact that the only Loving the wives do is with men who are not their husbands?

I mean the feedback there is pretty zany and can get brutal. Some feedback can rival the length of the story!

Anytime two men *gasp* TOUCH each other, you will get complaints, no matter which category you post to-- except, of course, gay male, which is the trash bin of literotica.

Not necessarily. Fetish and Transsexuals & Crossdressers can get pretty "touchy," even EC or group, for that matter. Where the comments tend to come in is when the reader is expecting one thing and getting another.

And why do you say gay is the trashbin?

 

[Stella_Omega]

HEY!

I demand that you give a reasoned argument why my favorite cat (where I have submitted 93% of my stories) is a trashbin!!!!

To the OP, people on lit can be jerks, and you do need to put a disclaimer on any story with any homoerotic content, or you will get flamed. It helps tremendously.

I call it the trashbin because the criteria to put a story there a is not based on gay readers' preferences.

If there's ONE sentence with two men together-- gay male. It doesn't matter if the story is BDSM-- some gay men are vanilla,you know, and MIGHT NOT want to read BDSM-- or bisexual-- some gay men would like to not have female plumbing in their reading material-- the only thing that worries lit is if the straight men get upset.

It's a hierarchy of what straight men will tolerate. Gay male is pretty much at the bottom.

I didn't think it would matter. 99% of my stories don't involve it, just it was right for that particular chapter. Good advice for the future. Its funny, since technically the two women together is homoerotic. They don't complain about that.

Of course not. Every man that watches porn knows that a lesbian couple is just a threesome waiting to happen, right?

But men sure do complain about my lesbian stories-- because I don't write them for men, I write them for lesbians. The buzzwords are not what they expect. I don't publish much here, really, just the mildest, most vanilla stuff.

 

[SydneyBlake]

Yeah, I felt a bit sideswiped by the feedback to my chapter 6, which features two women. (I would call it a lesbian scene, but they're not lesbians.) Anyway, one of them is married, and a few respondents were not happy about that. Oh well, I can't always control the muse.

 

[jomar]

I think that with an author's note to let readers know a bit of what they're in for you can pretty much do what you want wherever you want without much, if any, complaint.

 

[PennLady]

I'm pretty tolerant of user comments on anything I do. I have a degree in studio art, and one thing you learn getting an art degree (or an English degree too) is that you have to be able to accept critiques. I have no problem listening to a complaint about my work, whether it be Photography, Drawing, Sculpting, or Writing. I draw the line, however, at unsupported jabs. I'm a new author, just submitting my first 2 chapters to a 5 part series I'm working on.

This morning I woke up with a new comment on the second chapter of the series. All it said was:

"You went from a decent first chapter to a total piece of shit."

I haven't read your story, but I'm sure it's not a piece of shit.

I say this a lot -- don't hang too many hopes on feedback or votes. It's nice when you positive feedback, and at least decent when you get constructive feedback even if they don't like it.

On the other hand, I try to keep in mind that I'm just through stuff into the mob here. This isn't peer review, or anything close. It's a random crowd of people that read stuff, and a random group of them will vote or leave comments, the only "qualification" they have is that they can read.

I'm not slamming readers, don't misunderstand. I love my readers, and I love reading. But submitting here isn't like you're submitting to an English class, or a writing group; you're really just taking your chances. Plus, as Stella noted, even the definitions of the categories leave something to be desired.

Personal attacks are no good, and unfortunately all you can do is ignore them.

 

[sr71plt]

If the comment upsets you enough to post about it TD, I'd suggest you just delete it. The website gives you that power. It gives no hint why it thinks your story has deteriorated, so it's of no use to anyone. Therefore, it if bothers you just hit the delete button.

 

[TalonDigital]

If the comment upsets you enough to post about it TD, I'd suggest you just delete it. The website gives you that power. It gives no hint why it thinks your story has deteriorated, so it's of no use to anyone. Therefore, it if bothers you just hit the delete button.

Thats what I did.

I was just noticing there's no "rant" thread for generic rants about posting here. I figured it was something that people would post in, and not just relating to my story, but their own frustrations too. What made it easy to discount is the 4.25 star rating it is averaging. If it was 2 or less I would take it more serious and wonder what I did wrong. I know its almost certainly the unexpected bi action.

 

[sr71plt]

Thats what I did.

I was just noticing there's no "rant" thread for generic rants about posting here. I figured it was something that people would post in, and not just relating to my story, but their own frustrations too. What made it easy to discount is the 4.25 star rating it is averaging. If it was 2 or less I would take it more serious and wonder what I did wrong. I know its almost certainly the unexpected bi action.

There are a lot of these rant threads here--about two a week. They are usually posted to the Story Feedback forum.

I think the best gauge to how your story is being received is in how many readers favorite it. If several have gone to that effort to reward it, it's doing just fine.

 

[CarlusMagnus]

Oh well, I can't always control the muse.

Shit---most of us have trouble controlling our characters, let alone the muse!

 

[autoplot]

Not really a rant so much, but I got a reader who was upset because I put some girl-girl stuff in one chapter of one story, and was rather put out because apparently authors "always add lesbians" which apparently ruined the story.

I'm sorry the reader didn't like it, but I can't and won't write stories based on what other authors "always" do. I just find it funny that I'm part of some conspiracy to put lesbians in all stories everywhere.

 

[Cruel2BKind]

Cant really relate to girl-girl hate, but I did have one story in GM with a little guy-girl action. I put a warning at the top, so I didn't get any hate-comments or anything, but it was the lowest-rated story in the series easily

 

[PennLady]

Not really a rant so much, but I got a reader who was upset because I put some girl-girl stuff in one chapter of one story, and was rather put out because apparently authors "always add lesbians" which apparently ruined the story.

I'm sorry the reader didn't like it, but I can't and won't write stories based on what other authors "always" do. I just find it funny that I'm part of some conspiracy to put lesbians in all stories everywhere.

Well see now I feel like there's a conspiracy to keep me out of the lesbian conspiracy. Oh, wait, no, that's just me.

But it's true -- there's no pleasing everyone, and you have to write to please yourself and fit your story, otherwise it won't work.

 

[TalonDigital]

You know why girl on girl scenes are so prevalent? Big surprise here: Guys love girl on girl. They immediately take the leap to FFM even if its not in the scene.

We read and write what we fantasize about ourselves. Or even what we have already experienced. Has every author on the site who writes a story about a FFM scene actually had FFM? No, I bet probably less than 25% have. But its what we like. But there's no reason to complain because 'its in everything.'

I'm picky when I read. Not overly so, but if something isn't doing it for me, I just start looking for something else to read. Not a big deal, I dont trash the author just because I didn't like it. Everyone is different, there's no rainbow with clearly defined stripes, it all blends together in one spectrum. People forget that. They don't think "Hey this is a blue story, but it may have a touch of Violet in it." They expect it to be 100% blue.

 

[BONNIEBREA]

TalonDigital -

SR71 is right that you can delete the most moronic comments. You access that feature through your submissions tab (on each story's information block there is a 'moderate comments' option). I'd add that you also have the choice through your options menu to not allow anonymous comments to your stories - and I have little doubt that the comments you're referring to are anon comments.

This reduces the number of comments to your stories. Before I disallowed them I'd very occasionally get an insightful or worthwhile anon comment, but they were by far the exception rather than the rule. So you're really missing very little by not allowing them.

You just have to get used to the idea that readers are often saying more about themselves in their comments than about your story. They're really revealing their insecurities and prejudices and preferences (I get comments regularly about 'this character should....' even though my stories are finished before I start posting them. Readers want to bend the story line into whatever their preference or fetish or whatever is)

You also need to get used to the idea that the great majority of readers at Literotica are devouring, insatiable greedheads who just suck up stories. That's just in the nature of a free site like this, and I can't imagine how it would be any different - short of entirely changing human nature. No one pays for stories here so they don't value them. Someone above in the thread (maybe PennLady?) said that votes and comments are the 'currency' on this site. And I think that's very true. The problem is that there isn't a cash register to collect that 'currency', just a 'pay as you want to' box.

Now, that's just the nature of the site, and writers have to just accept that. But in practice it's like having a 'pay what you'd like' box at a car dealership (I want to use in my analogy a product that is big and expensive and difficult to build, just as stories - as I'm sure you well know - involve a great investment of time and effort and are of great value). Cars would be driven off the lot all day every day and the people who build the cars and run the dealership would be left with, at best, some loose change at the bottom of their box.

I have some readers who follow my stories closely and eagerly look forward to the next, and they tend to 'reward' and 'pay' me with comments. That's great and I appreciate them. But they are by far the exception rather than the rule.

 

[TalonDigital]

Thanks BonnieBrea,

I immediately deleted it, I'd already decided before they were even approved that any comments that had no critique value (ie: exactly like the post I deleted). I also already have an edit with a warning at the top pending. So that should take care of that.

I dont mind anonymous comments. I never leave comments that unproductive so I never post anonymously. I try and provide helpful critiques like some of what I got in ch 01 of it. I like this, but this could use some work. Most people don't understand the actual meaning of criticism. They don't understand that criticism is a synonym for evaluation. It doesn't have to be negative, and it doesn't have to be positive. But it should have a logical basis and in general be helpful to the person, not hurtful.

 

[estragon]

Trolls, like the poor, ye have always with ye. It's the price we pay for publishing here. If you step onto the ice, be prepared to be hit, as the hockey players say. Skate with your head up, but always be prepared for the cheap-shot artists. I ignore anonymous comments, but prize those from readers who will sign their handles to their comments, and even more do I prize comments from published authors I admire.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I think that with an author's note to let readers know a bit of what they're in for you can pretty much do what you want wherever you want without much, if any, complaint.

And the recently implimented tags system might help as well.