Virgin Author's Musings

[genderbender]

As my pseudonym suggests, my fantasy life is polymorphously perverse. Its interesting observing reactions of readers to the many stories I've sent Literotica the last couple of days. Stories with very clear gender bending possibilities have gotten limited but enthusiastic response. Stories with an incest theme have been very well received with large readership and pretty high scores. A couple of lesbian stories which were among my first efforts have gotten pretty good readership and middling scores. The stories I wonder about are the ones where my fertile imagination puts the hero into frankly homoerotic situations. I wonder whether lower scores on these are coming from men turned on by the heterosexual and lesbian developments but put off by reading about two men getting it on together. Perhaps I need to keep these themes separate so the audience won't be surprised along the way.

I've gotten some helpful feedback and would welcome any comments other authors or readers might wish to share about whether cross-gendered or gay sex would best be treated apart from your garden variety sucking and fucking.

I'm also curious about another matter. Frankly, I'm more interested in the tension surrounding seduction and forbidden possibilities than I am with the mechanics of sex. There are only so many ways to describe tits and ass, cocks and butts, kissing, licking, sucking and fucking. Yet I sense that many in this audience want the hard stuff. Emails I've received offer suggestions which invariably focus on who will next do what to whom. I can do that, but how boring! Any thoughts on the matter?

 

[Nudist Bill]

It is all about the process and not the product. The chase and the tension are so much more inspiring and it leaves so much more for the reader to interplay with their own experiences. While I'm all for the hard stuff, getting off isn't what it is all about for me. I enjoy prolonging the process and the product will take care of itself.

On another topic, the feelings generated by homoerotic experiences are ok. All parts of sexuality will make certain people feel different or uncomfortable and they will never get more comfortable unless you expose them to whatever turns you on.

Keep up the good work!

Thanks,
Bill

 

[KillerMuffin]

Another thing one has to consider is that the vote totals do not reflect readership. That bit hasn't been worked into the scripts that power the site yet. We've been assured by the siteowners that this site receives upwards of 75,000 hits a day. You can be guaranteed that only a fraction of the people who vote for your stories read them. Yes, transgendered stories are going to be less read than lesbian stories, it's the nature of the beast.

You have to consider your audience when you write, the audience here like incest and lesbians, sufficiently naughtly subjects in fantasy that isn't bizarrely kinky. Because you are writing about things that aren't mainstream, you shouldn't take popularity as an indicator of how well received it is. Some subjects the only true indicator is the email you get. Transgendering and homosexual subjects are like that.

Keep writing.

And yes, give me characters with dimension, feelings, a life. If I want cardboard, I'll go read a western, at least the story is more interesting that way.

 

[bluntforcemama]

It's too bad there wasn't some way to tell what readers were giving you the lower sscores. Since you have concluded that is must be the homosexual sex among men that is turning male readers off, perhaps you should do an experiment of sorts. You could post one story under the Gay catagories, and another story of a similar nature under something else that is a theme in your writing. This way you might be able to tell who's enjoying the stories more. Sound complicated? It does to me, too.

 

[genderbender]

Mother Knows Best

In checking the Top list for stories about incest I noted that virtually every story that has the word Mother or Mommie in its title has big time readership. Seems as though we have a few unresolved oedipal issues floating around this site. At the same time, my story "Memories of Father" has had surprisingly low response, at least from scoring reports. IMHO its a very good story, but it doesn't seem to be catching on. The audience seems to know what it likes. The top fetish stories have 30 to 40 readers listed while the incest stories about mom get six to nine hundred readers. How interesting!

 

[Jake2001]

You can be guaranteed that only a fraction of the people who vote for your stories read them.

"...vote for your stories read them" or read your stories vote for them?

 

[Laurel]

The top fetish stories have 30 to 40 readers listed while the incest stories about mom get six to nine hundred readers.

That number is not how many readers have read the story, only how many have voted. We're currently working on making it so you can see stats on how often a story is read along with the voting stats. That should be available within the month. *crosses fingers*

 

[Jake2001]

I remember reading that in a previous thread, Laurel. I also remember your telling us of the extremely high ratio of readers to voters. That ought to be very interesting, especially in the case of stories that have few votes (like mine). It will offer a lot of encouragement to, at least, see people are reading our stories even if they aren't voting on them.