Should authors hold each other up, or tear them down?

[Emotional]

I am kinda shocked.

When I started writing, I thought fellow authors would give advice, pointers, ratings, constructive comments, etc.

And while I have seen a few of those, several others are petty, tear each other down, give 1 stars to lower their rating.

So

Should fellow authors be a part of a fraternity and have each others backs? Or is this a competition and tear down others so you look better?

 

[lovecraft68]

Like anything else you have good and bad. If someone asks a question here and I can help, I try as do most here. If someone here is a dingbat I treat them that way. As for bombs, I have never bombed an author from the forum or on the site itself.

This community is supposed to be supportive, but well...people are people and not all people get along. I troll a little and I'll trade barbs here and there, but I have never denigrated anyone's writing. Okay, not publicly, we all do have opinions after all.

Edited to add, in the spirit of honesty I do denigrate Burn the bitch stories both authors and readers because violence against women is not a kink, its hate speech.

 

[NotWise]

AH is not a fraternity. It isn't even a club. It is a community of sorts, and like other communities, we have our differences and divisions.

 

[EarlyMorningLight]

When I joined here, one of the first things I did was reach out to writers whose work I respected, and who I felt were aligned with both my intentions as a writer snd my values, based on what I’d seen in their work. I’ve developed really rewarding and mutually supportive relationships with some of them.

Building a community snd a network takes effort.

 

[FifthEstate]

As authors, we all understand better than anyone else what goes into these stories from an emotional and time commitment standpoint. So my first response would be that we should act as a fraternal group, supporting and encouraging others to achieve success. IMO there is no place for authors to criticize other authors and I don’t understand the need to compete. Why does the success or failure of your story have any impact on mine?

The one exception are the authors (one in the categories in which I publish) who pump out daily low scoring, frankly garbage stories just for the fuck of it. I wouldn’t typically care, but those shit stories move the new ones written by discerning authors off the new story pages (where they would get the most exposure) more quickly. I feel especially bad for newer authors who get fewer eyeballs on their stories because of it.

Authors like that will never be in my fraternity!

 

[Duleigh]

@lovecraft68 is correct, like anything else you have good and bad, and being bad is pretty stupid. This is a hobby like any other hobby, just a lot cheaper. Yes, some people can make money and can make it their living, you can do that in model railroading or photography too. Like any other hobby we put part of our soul into what we do, which also makes it an art and people take that very seriously, unfortunately they don't have the maturity to handle it like an adult.

@NotWise is correct also, it's not a fraternity (but then many fraternities aren't either), I've written in the SciFi channel's fan forum where there's NO chance of winning ANYTHING and the same nonsense goes on... no, actually it was worse there because there was no age restriction and there were people there who preyed on the younger writers. how sick is that?

@EarlyMorningLight is very correct, this is what you make of it. Put in the effort, reach out to writers who earn your respect and emulate their behavior. And it does take an effort, I have been a member for 18 years and was shocked at some of the same behavior you pointed out and found other things to do with my life for a dozen years, and finally started poking around and communicating again recently. The folks at the AH Coffee Shop and Reading Room are a good bunch who do communicate well, and respect each other and I'm incredibly thankful for finding them.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Usually if you put a request for advice up, say on this forum, people will answer you. If might get a bit disorganized or there will be digressions, so try to be specific and stay focused. In other words, try to respond and don't just disappear. (That seems to have just happened with someone on another thread who asked for advice.)

It's difficult to prove who is down-voting stories, which was become a gripe here recently. My guess is that it's not the other authors, for the most part. I believe people can vote anonymously, and whoever they are seem to be causing the problems. They could just be random lurkers. There are a lot of readers here who don't write anything but will favorite dozens, even hundreds of stories. I suspect it's not them either. They seem to have made a hobby of reading erotic stories, and that's what they are most interested in doing.

 

[gunhilltrain]

As authors, we all understand better than anyone else what goes into these stories from an emotional and time commitment standpoint. So my first response would be that we should act as a fraternal group, supporting and encouraging others to achieve success. IMO there is no place for authors to criticize other authors and I don’t understand the need to compete. Why does the success or failure of your story have any impact on mine?

The one exception are the authors (one in the categories in which I publish) who pump out daily low scoring, frankly garbage stories just for the fuck of it. I wouldn’t typically care, but those shit stories move the new ones written by discerning authors off the new story pages (where they would get the most exposure) more quickly. I feel especially bad for newer authors who get fewer eyeballs on their stories because of it.

Authors like that will never be in my fraternity!

It's basically a laissez-faire situation where anybody can do whatever they want (within the site's rules). And it's all digital, not like the old days of print were there was editorial control. And it was difficult to get anything published under those conditions, although the outlets often paid something for it. Try to get a story or poem into Harper's Magazine unless you're somebody like T.C. Boyle.

So there's a downside to it, but the upside is that we get to do something that previously would have been very difficult to do.

 

[Duleigh]

The one exception are the authors (one in the categories in which I publish) who pump out daily low scoring, frankly garbage stories just for the fuck of it. I wouldn’t typically care, but those shit stories move the new ones written by discerning authors off the new story pages (where they would get the most exposure) more quickly. I feel especially bad for newer authors who get fewer eyeballs on their stories because of it.

Does that include the Survivor competition? I don't know if that's around anymore, but authors pumped this website full of schlock to see who could get the most stories posted in a given time period, and some of that was awful stuff. I hope that is dead and gone.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Does that include the Survivor competition? I don't know if that's around anymore, but authors pumped this website full of schlock to see who could get the most stories posted in a given time period, and some of that was awful stuff. I hope that is dead and gone.

Last seen 2015, according to the last thread on the competition.

 

[KeithD]

The only "should" involved, I think, is that writers should have more understanding of and sensitivity to what is involved in getting something written than a nonwriting reader would naturally have. Beyond that, writers aren't any different from other people in terms of the degree of competition they feel and exhibit in their endeavors. As far as the contests here, I intuitively think the contestants themselves are more prone to trying to manipulate the ratings than just the story readers are. There's money involved, and it's only the contestants who have something in stake in the outcome.

 

[RejectReality]

As always, I'll say that most people severely underestimate how obsessively protective fans can be of their favorite authors. I have little doubt that there's shenanigans from some authors themselves, but there are far more fans than there are authors, and their motivations are just as powerful.

Mathematical probability says that overall, it's more likely Johnny Cheerleader dropped that one bomb than Jimmy Author.

 

[KeithD]

As always, I'll say that most people severely underestimate how obsessively protective fans can be of their favorite authors. I have little doubt that there's shenanigans from some authors themselves, but there are far more fans than there are authors, and their motivations are just as powerful.

Mathematical probability says that overall, it's more likely Johnny Cheerleader dropped that one bomb than Jimmy Author.

Yeah, no. I don't see evidence of that much. The writers who enter the contests who have a lot of fans aren't actually winning very often. It's usually sleeper writers the manipulators don't notice soaring after the sweeps. The annual silly game is controlled by fan clubs, yes. Or were the last time I took time to check what was happening there. Didn't look at it this year.

 

[RejectReality]

A single one vote can take the score of a low-vote story down under the radar, where it's no longer perceived as a threat. Efforts switch to the stories with scores that are a threat.

Hoover comes by, the one-bomb is removed, the original high score of the low-vote story is restored, story places. Meanwhile, a story with lots of votes has multiple malicious votes, because it remained in the threat range for far longer, creating a much higher probability that some of them will escape the sweeps.

The single one-bombs that escape the sweeps don't get noticed by most people, because they don't place and are just "also ran".

And that applies whether it's the author or a fan doing it. A story that goes from 4.92 with 25 votes down to 4.77 with 26 votes simply doesn't present as a threat any longer after the first bomb.

Not a valid argument against large scale fan manipulation.

 

[lovecraft68]

Does that include the Survivor competition? I don't know if that's around anymore, but authors pumped this website full of schlock to see who could get the most stories posted in a given time period, and some of that was awful stuff. I hope that is dead and gone.

That died out a few years back and any chance of a come back went out the door when the person willing to run it, Boxlicker, passed away a couple of years ago.

Too bad, in principle it was a great challenge. Points for how many categories you could right in, sliding points for additional stories in each category. The point was to get you to stretch yourself as an author and write things you normally wouldn't.

But yes, a couple people were just churning out one page crap to win and in the last one, someone held back stories while score watching and the last three days of the contest uploaded something like 40 stories to get a last minute win.

Still blows my mind the amount of manipulation that goes on here for very little pay out.

Those people are why we can't have nice things.

 

[lovecraft68]

AH is not a fraternity. It isn't even a club. It is a community of sorts, and like other communities, we have our differences and divisions.

Damn, I only joined because I thought it was a cult.

 

[Defluer]

I would never try and pull another author down. I think the worst I would probably say is "That's not for me." which is a valid answer, one I've gotten the rare times I asked for an editor. But I wouldn't go bursting into the comments section unsolicited and say that.

I don't want to be part of competitions here anymore either, because I don't feel there is a fair way of doing them. It's a "fun" thing for some people but I don't want the money and I feel ripped off at the same time.

 

[lovecraft68]

I would never try and pull another author down. I think the worst I would probably say is "That's not for me." which is a valid answer, one I've gotten the rare times I asked for an editor. But I wouldn't go bursting into the comments section unsolicited and say that.

I don't want to be part of competitions here anymore either, because I don't feel there is a fair way of doing them. It's a "fun" thing for some people but I don't want the money and I feel ripped off at the same time.

The contests could be made better and more fair. Its always been obvious who the cheats and forum one bombers are, but it all gets let go. This is a minimal effort ownership and if you were around years ago and posted in the General Board you'd learn one owner enjoys and encourages divisiveness and trolling.

 

[Lifestyle66]

I think, for the most part, you'll find decent people among the authors who will offer a helping hand to other authors.

But all it takes is a very few narcissistic shitheads to ruin everyone's day. They can't see themselves that way. Their closed minds see everything they do or say as justified for their greater good. They're like rioters and looters taking advantage of an otherwise peaceful demonstration, thinking they deserve what they take or that the store owner deserved to have his store destroyed.

Those few authors refuse to see the consequences of their actions having torn down a part of their community, when the attacked authors subtly write their bad impressions into their next stories. Then we'll eventually find hateful stories which deserve to be called out. But in calling them out, we become the attacker.

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? It's life, and people are who they will always be.

 

[Duleigh]

Damn, I only joined because I thought it was a cult.

I joined because the dues were affordable

 

[lovecraft68]

I joined because the dues were affordable

In cults we call them offerings.
Just sayin'

 

[Voboy]

I've noticed that a lot of people on the internet confuse honesty with meanness.

I've also noticed a lot of people don't understand that, oftentimes, the internet brings out the worst of human nature, not the best.

Those two things explain a lot about how this place operates. "This place" being not the Authors' Hangout, but the internet.

 

[oggbashan]

I suspect much of the downvoting is obsessive fans of a particular author trying to keep their favourite in the top lists.

As for the annual contests? Those seem to be dominated by nominations and votes from users with suspiciously low postings and recent join dates, probably alts created just for the purpose. The winners are decided by very few votes, so an author (or an author's fan) creating half a dozen new alts could force a win.

I shouldn't complain. One year I was nominated for most influential poet. I didn't know I was, but someone obviously thought I deserved a nomination. Odd.

 

[SimonDoom]

I t

I've noticed that a lot of people on the internet confuse honesty with meanness.

I've also noticed a lot of people don't understand that, oftentimes, the internet brings out the worst of human nature, not the best.

Those two things explain a lot about how this place operates. "This place" being not the Authors' Hangout, but the internet.

Cyberspace gives people the opportunity to play out the fantasy, "What if you could be a total shit, and get away with it?" You can hide behind your pseudonym. For some people, it's too good an opportunity to pass up.

Despite the snits and rancor that sometimes arise at the Author's Hangout, it's actually pretty tame and pleasant compared to many other online forums. Even here at Literotica, the Politics board, for instance, is a cesspool.

 

[AndromedaDreamer]

The internet, like real life, is a weird place.

People like to have their own little fiefdoms and invest far too much in things that don't matter.

So, I just stay clear of the noise and just write.