threats of violence. :-(

[fluidmingle]

Hello everyone.

Sorry, I'm probably doing this all wrong / in the wrong place etc. Please redirect it or let me know if so but...

My latest story 'Rough Trade at the Rainbow' (http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=310336), was accepted on Sunday 13th May. It attracted 37 views and a glowing vote of 5/5 - needless to say, I was over the moon that I had brightened someone's day. The following day however, the average had plumeted to 2.3 / 5 (them's the breaks I guess, one can only improve!...) and there were two 'public comments' (which I dumbly went and deleted so I can't quote them).

Now, while any feedback on the story is always appreciated, my real question is on the validity of the comments - well, one tiny part of one of them anyway. They were quite nasty (not constructive at all) and almost violently threatening (my story contains 'gay' content and the comments were homophobic in nature).

The only constructive point I could salvage was that one of the 'commenters' seemed to feel a little cheeted that they had opened the story and discovered the content was gay (that's putting what the person said very mildly!). So putting my revulsion at the unpleasantness of the comments aside and doing my best to see the person's point...

...When you post your stories, you get the choice of a number of categories ('Erotic couplings', 'Gay', 'Incest / Taboo', ..., NON-EROTIC). I inferred from the non-erotic category that everything else was meant to be erotic.

So If there are two categories: 'Sci-Fi / Fantasy' and 'Gay' and my story is both (the erotica content going without saying since I'm assuming everything that isn't under 'non-erotic' is erotic) then which one does it go under? I posted it under 'Sci-Fi / Fantasy' and got roasted for it - so I suppose nobody will read it now as it has such a low average. :-( (But then again, maybe it's just rubbish anyway and the first voter was just being nice, it's entirely likely, I'm only a baby writer and I have no training but one must start somewhere.)

I mean, on the one hand, I can see that if ppl are looking for erotica then they need to be able to see at a glance whether a story is likely to contain what they want (still if it didn't, there's no need to threaten the author with grievous bodily harm! - sorry, still a little peeved). But on the other hand, what if they're gay and they just want some good ole down-to-earth sex with a truck driver or something and hate 'all that Sci-Fi / Fantasy nonsense'?

Any guidance appreciated!

fm.

 

[mikey2much]

something similar happened to me

Hi fm,

I posted a story 'Evolution pt 3' in interacial and got hammered the same way.

I posted in Interacial because most of the story involved interacial sex. But like you I got a bunch of gay-bashing comments and the story still has some of my lowest ratings even though I think it is a good story.

I am new at this also and do not think of myself as being able to give advice to anybody. In my opinion you should take comfort in what the people who liked your story had to say and try to ignore the assholes and the rude noises that they sometimes make.
mikey

 

[MarshAlien]

Hello everyone.

Sorry, I'm probably doing this all wrong / in the wrong place etc. Please redirect it or let me know if so but...

My latest story 'Rough Trade at the Rainbow' (http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=310336), was accepted on Sunday 13th May. It attracted 37 views and a glowing vote of 5/5 - needless to say, I was over the moon that I had brightened someone's day. The following day however, the average had plumeted to 2.3 / 5 (them's the breaks I guess, one can only improve!...) and there were two 'public comments' (which I dumbly went and deleted so I can't quote them).

Now, while any feedback on the story is always appreciated, my real question is on the validity of the comments - well, one tiny part of one of them anyway. They were quite nasty (not constructive at all) and almost violently threatening (my story contains 'gay' content and the comments were homophobic in nature).

The only constructive point I could salvage was that one of the 'commenters' seemed to feel a little cheeted that they had opened the story and discovered the content was gay (that's putting what the person said very mildly!). So putting my revulsion at the unpleasantness of the comments aside and doing my best to see the person's point...

...When you post your stories, you get the choice of a number of categories ('Erotic couplings', 'Gay', 'Incest / Taboo', ..., NON-EROTIC). I inferred from the non-erotic category that everything else was meant to be erotic.

So If there are two categories: 'Sci-Fi / Fantasy' and 'Gay' and my story is both (the erotica content going without saying since I'm assuming everything that isn't under 'non-erotic' is erotic) then which one does it go under? I posted it under 'Sci-Fi / Fantasy' and got roasted for it - so I suppose nobody will read it now as it has such a low average. :-( (But then again, maybe it's just rubbish anyway and the first voter was just being nice, it's entirely likely, I'm only a baby writer and I have no training but one must start somewhere.)

I mean, on the one hand, I can see that if ppl are looking for erotica then they need to be able to see at a glance whether a story is likely to contain what they want (still if it didn't, there's no need to threaten the author with grievous bodily harm! - sorry, still a little peeved). But on the other hand, what if they're gay and they just want some good ole down-to-earth sex with a truck driver or something and hate 'all that Sci-Fi / Fantasy nonsense'?

Any guidance appreciated!

fm.

As for the violence, they're just jerks. Keep in mind how difficult it is to do any actual physical violence on the internet and you'll be fine. I would have deleted them, too. That's not a comment about your story, it's a comment about them.

For a story like yours, you may have to choose between getting feedback from a sci-fi group that likes gay-themed stories and a gay audience that likes sci-fi. Once you've identified which is most likely to provide you with the kind of feedback that you're looking for, you might consider starting off your story with a small introduction to warn off people who will get angry once they get into the story and find out that - horrors! these future people are gay! - or horrors! these gay people are from the future!

 

[fluidmingle]

thanks

Hello mikey & marshalien. Thanks for that, you're very kind. Much appreciated. fm

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

First of all your link is not right. It should be

http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=310336

Your first paragraph -

A welcome relief from two months of the yawning black of deep space, the magical colours of the Rainbow nebula filled the upper deck porthole of Carlo's sleek black freighter. He was still far too far away to see the Rainbow itself but the signal from the hotel's deep space beacon was unfaltering on the deck's instrument panel. The signal faithfully guided the truck in like a benign tractor beam, pulling Carlo towards much craved human contact and luxurious five-star comfort.

"A welcome relief from two months of the yawning black of deep space, the magical colours of the Rainbow nebula filled the upper deck porthole of Carlo's sleek black freighter." is a run-on sentence. Also the word "truck" was not the best choice. This is Sci-Fi. "freighter" or "ship" would have been more appropriate.

Later you wrote, "Complex technology hauled the enormous armoured freighter along at cataclysmic speeds." Ummm. The technology didn't "haul" the freighter, it propelled it. And "cataclysmic speeds"? That sounds like it's going to crash someplace. At this point in the approach, the freighter would be slowing down, actually.

Next you wrote: "Though he reckoned there were still six hours or so before mooring, as if it his preparation would speed his arrival he decided to make himself presentable for human company." This is a comon error. You did some rewritting here and screwed up the sentence. Remove the word "it" and place a comma after the word "arrival".

These same faux pas continue throughout. Enough said.

This story begins rather like Stanaslaus Lem's The Invincable, but you've over done it. Four or five paragraphs about coffee? You should have done the "out there in space, hurtling towards the planet" then jumped right into the story. What's in between is confusing, overly verbose and doesn't really add to the story.

Overall, the story isn't really appealing because of 2/3's of the first page. After that the story becomes quite interesting.

You need to be careful in the future. The first paragraph is really important. The readers will back click you so fast you can't believe it if the initial paragraph or two is/are not perfect. After that and error here and there isn't nearly so important. Generally, the story idea was not too bad. Your writing style is a little verbose, but you will learn to be terse as time goes on.

Not bad. Keep it up.

JJ

 

[starrkers]

I doubt you can win in this case. I'm fairly new at this too, but spend a lot of time wandering around the discussion boards (it's called procrastinating ), so have learned something about our beloved audience.
There are readers out there that read the Gay category just to slam the stories.
Probably a note at the top, warning of the content, is about as good as you can manage. It will prevent some from being outraged, but others will carry on regardless, just so they can be nasty.
Ah the joys of writing

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

The real problem is people from the Gay Male Cat don't read Sci-Fi and the people from the Sci-Fi Cat don't read Gay Male.

Now if this were a trucker pulling into Chicago...

 

[Darkniciad]

I've posted stories with M/M content in Sci-Fi Fantasy without getting roasted over it. I put a warning in the Author's notes any time M/M comes up in a story. Those that actually feel they've been tricked by wandering across M/M can't say that when there's a warning right at the onset.

Those who still spit venom are just trolls who blast anything with gay content. Put the warning in there right at the beginning of your story, and you'll know who's actually commenting.

 

[fluidmingle]

Excellent!

Thanks everyone for those tips - very helpful and comforting.

Yes, the 'warnings' are a good idea. The thought did cross my mind but I was worried that it might be against the rules to put notes to the readers in your text or something...silly me building authority figures in my head I guess.

Special thanks to JJ for critique on my story - and I agree with all of it and even kind of half-knew-but-didn't-realise some of it before I submitted it anyway. I spotted the 'it' typo after it had been accepted sadly and I don't think you can correct them once they're in though you will be amused to discover that it wasn't actually a rewrite mistake. Instead, it was a blackberry typo since that's the kind of sad use I put my company's loaned equipment to on the train to / from! .

It was a hard one to write actually, I kept getting bored hence the woffle. Might edit it sometime but I'm a great believer in onwards and upwards. I have two more on the way over the next month or so (hopefully) and shall take all comments on board. I'm persevering with 'gay' as well as another 'hetero' one even though my two previous hetero ones have done considerably better than the latest flop (though it's recovered to 3 or 3.5 or something...) .

Now I will go and look for someone else's story to constructively critique to alleviate these feelings I have of being a bit of a freeloader... (Trouble is you can never quite finish reading the good ones...) :->

Cheerio.

 

[christabelll]

I don't mind one way or another if its hetero of gay/les or a combo thereof
I do mind incest so I don't read that...

As far resubmitting an edited piece.
You can
Simply make the corrections and then
resubmit with (EDITED) in the Title.
It doesn't take nearly as long as the original approval.
You can also add your "warning" at that time.

Keep up the writing... practice does make perfect!

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

Give you a hint, fluidmingle...

Whatever I write begins at about 7,500-10,000 words. Then I set it asside for a few days and go back and read it, cutting out everything that (a) drags in the story and (b) anything and everything that doesn't move the action along. I end up with about 4,000 words. Then I rewrite, compacting and compressing to end up with 3,000-3,500 words in the completed story.

At that point, I go back and look at the jokes to make sure they work and make sense - sometimes rewriting them again.

Finally, assuming I'm worried about it, I go back and repair the punctuation etc. But, when it comes to this...only God is perfect.

 

[LustyLucille]

You want to retrieve the comments? This is the best I can do for you.


"How about a 250 degree hot soldering iron
up your ass, you piece of shit faggot breath... I'll make your day, and you'll be screaming..... Or maybe I'll cut that one inch piece of shit off and shove it up your ass. Then you can say you ...[read more]

No need tobe ashamed of your orientation
You want ot write gay, list your writings as Gay. Don't try to con others into your world.[read more]"

 

[fluidmingle]

Re: comments

You want to retrieve the comments? This is the best I can do for you.


"How about a 250 degree hot soldering iron
up your ass, you piece of shit faggot breath... I'll make your day, and you'll be screaming..... Or maybe I'll cut that one inch piece of shit off and shove it up your ass. Then you can say you ...[read more]

No need tobe ashamed of your orientation
You want ot write gay, list your writings as Gay. Don't try to con others into your world.[read more]"

That was clever! How did you do that? I've kind of moved on now anyway. But thanks!
fm