What do they want?

[Colleen Thomas]

I have a story up that has a PC that has left me kind of scratching my head.

sigh...
You did not get the top vote only due to it's shortness!

This story is two good lit pages long. It's not a serial or a chapter, but is complete with a logical, if happy ending. I didn't leave alot of plot danglies or loose ends. I don't think there are any major questions left unanswered.

The comment dosen't upset me, in that it seems to be approving on the whole, but I am left wondering just what the reader wants? I don't see anything in it that I left unresolved that is of major import. Another sex scene would have been strictly gratuitous. Carryoingit beyond the ending would have entailed an entierly new plot line and tone.

Is it just a matter of there not being enough words to keep him/her occupied for long? Or did i miss some major plot theme? Or is this just a case of not being able to please everyone with a tale?

 

[Tom Collins]

I've experienced this as a reader. I can't speak for them but for me, when I'm disapointed in the shortness of a story,book it's because I liked the characters and writing so much that I just wasn't ready to leave them. I wanted to know more, experience more with them. Be with them, in their world, longer than the author let me.

 

[RogueLurker]

What do they want?

A book.

I would take it as a compliment ... Tom has it right in that often readers like a character(s), world, etc that they don't like it when it ends. And you've set the bar high by issuing longer stories and two novellas.

I read the story this morning and liked it alot. Could it have been longer .. of course. Should it have been longer ... no. It was the story that you wanted to tell ... and there will be more than enough readers who are satisfied with the length of it.

 

[Guest]

I'm pretty certain no two readers could make a matching list of everything they want from a story. Mostly I hope they want 70% of what I want, since they are getting 100% of what I want. I write the stuff I want to read, honest and for true. (Why would I write something I don't want to read, I don't even want to contemplate.)

 

[Stella_Omega]

Damn, if I feel that way about a story- that I wish I could stay in the author's world- it definitely rates a top vote!

I'm sure it was meant as a compliment.

 

[lucky-E-leven]

Your characters are too good to let go of. I've a story that's 350 Word.doc pages (okay, it's a novel and not a story) but I've had the same complaint. Once the attachment's been made, no length is ever enough it seems.

Congrats on a success.

 

[LadyJeanne]

It sounds like a compliment to me, though a picky one. Either the reader wanted more story to wank to, or more story to get immersed in. It's in the same category as those folks who get upset that you didn't write another chapter or that it took so long to write the next installment. More, more, more!

 

[BlackShanglan]

I agree that it's essentially a compliment. I just wish the reader had the sense to recognize that and let the vote reflect it.

 

[elsol]

What a reader wants....
By ElSol

More of what they like.

The End


Any questions?

Obviously then... my work here is done.

Sincerely,
ElSol

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Thanks all. As I said, the comment didn't upset me, i felt it was a positive one. It just left me wondering. I can easily see the point if the work was a 780 word vingette. When it's nearly 2 full lit pages, I just had to wonder.

 

[BlackShanglan]

Thanks all. As I said, the comment didn't upset me, i felt it was a positive one. It just left me wondering. I can easily see the point if the work was a 780 word vingette. When it's nearly 2 full lit pages, I just had to wonder.

Yes, especially given that for so many people, "more than two Lit pages" is the rule of thumb for not starting in the first place. Fickle, fickle readers.

 

[SophiaY]

(sighing) I write what most would call very concise short stories, and I've had some complaints about the brevity.

But I compose my stories as if they were word songs -- hopefully with a good melody and complete in themselves -- that desired unity of effort.

hmmmm...I wonder if the reason why we're in a period where longer is better -- details piled on details -- is why novels are popular but poetry isn't (the only poetry most seem to allow in their lives is through songs).

 

[wishfulthinking]

I hate the implied criticism in comments like that, which are mostly unintentional. It's like hearing a "nice outfit, but...".

I'm going to be really nasty and say that when I get comments like that, I think it is from someone who doesn't know how to give or receive a compliment. And if I'm feeling really really nasty [like now] I would say that they have experienced an unhealthy relationship where someone seeks to punish someone else for not getting what they want and trying to wrap it up nicely in a sort of compliment.

Yeah, stop being nasty?

 

[hyulhyulhyul]

Thanks all. As I said, the comment didn't upset me, i felt it was a positive one. It just left me wondering. I can easily see the point if the work was a 780 word vingette. When it's nearly 2 full lit pages, I just had to wonder.

I read the story and the comment, and I got the feeling that the reader was disappointed that you didn't have your heroine either make use of the riches in the dragon's lair to help her family or her village, or perhaps use the dragon to exact revenge on the man reponsible for leaving her at the mercy of the dragon.

Some readers like to have everything tied up into a nice bundle of fulfilled expectations and feel cheated when the writer doesn't deliver. I thought that you ended it in the right place for a short piece and left room for an expanded story if you choose to go in that direction.

 

[wishfulthinking]

ok, before you all think I am completely loopy and can't deal with constructive feedback, even a "shit, that part about the ... totally blowed. Are you completely fucked in the head?" is constructive feedback in my book.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

I read the story and the comment, and I got the feeling that the reader was disappointed that you didn't have your heroine either make use of the riches in the dragon's lair to help her family or her village, or perhaps use the dragon to exact revenge on the man reponsible for leaving her at the mercy of the dragon.

Some readers like to have everything tied up into a nice bundle of fulfilled expectations and feel cheated when the writer doesn't deliver. I thought that you ended it in the right place for a short piece and left room for an expanded story if you choose to go in that direction.

thank you so much for that observation. i suppose, withing a certain frame of reference, that was something I did leave unresolved.