What's the deal with sci-fi? (or plug your latest here)

[gauchecritic]

Right, three days and I've already slid to the third page of New Stories. 1286 views have produced 1 (count' em one) vote and zero messages. No feedback whatsoever.

Where did I go wrong? I have three possibilities.

1. First person in the form of a letter (Story is called "Dear Betsy" that's a link)

2. Surprising twist(!) a third of the way through.

3. The actual premise and sci-fi don't come in until the second half. (Indeed you can probably skip the first half and with only slight dislocation get the feel of the whole story.)

So does no-one actually read sci-fi? I know I tend to back straight out from most of the stories in that category because they're usually just sex in another galaxy rather than sci-fi.

Did only one person read to the end? Did the other 1285 viewers skip out after the sex? Did they see the sex first and find no sci-fi. (It is very subtly sci-fi at first unless you make the appropriate connections from the first bat.)

I can see that I've probably missed quite a few readers because of the three page length and the sci-fi category but 1286 views?

I really liked the premise for this story (I know I rushed the ending and explanatory detail) but come on! twelve hundred and eighty six? What do they want? "My Mother is An Alien And I Fucked Her.(and made her pregnant)"?

 

[Weird Harold]

1. First person in the form of a letter (Story is called "Dear Betsy" that's a link)

I think the Title is part of the problem as well as the "letter to a friend" format.

3. The actual premise and sci-fi don't come in until the second half. (Indeed you can probably skip the first half and with only slight dislocation get the feel of the whole story.)

The story doesn't have a "hook" that would make me wade into what is generally one of the most abused erotic story formats -- in fact, there is nothing to this story, exept your name, that would attract me to it; in spite of the fact that I'm a big SF fan.

 

[elsol]

I think it's the letter thing.

I read and write sci-fi. but I can't get past the 'Dear Betty'... *shiver*

Sincerely,
ElSol

 

[oggbashan]

I found it difficult to get into. After the first 500 or so words I wasn't enthused enough to want to continue.

I think you have written a rare failure.

Og

Edited for PS: Unlike me who writes rare successes. No votes? Low votes? No PCs? No Feedback? - Must be one of Og's.

Thank you for those who do vote, give feedback and PCs on my stuff. There are very few of you.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Betsy, Elsie, Virginia, Marachaivo, Betty, Georgie; dates, flashbacks, parentheticals within parentheticals... And all that in like the first fifth of a Lit page. This is a very tough read, Gauche. Halfway down the first page and I still don't know where we are, or when, or exactly what's going on.

Personally, I really don't like the letter as a fictional device. Stories told as letters are always sad and tragic, no matter what they profess to be about (show me one that's not.) The form just screams pathos from the start, and so I stay away from them. If other people feel like me, then you're probably right when you say that works against you.

I also think that Sci-Fi fans like to plunge right into their Sci Fi worlds right from the start. They're expecting something pretty fantastic, and so they want to get their bearings right away. This one has no sense of time or place, which is frustrating.

The other thing is that, half a page into it, I still don't know what it's about. I guess the narrator killed someone, but from that little teaser we go to this dinner party where people are having sex, and I'm lost. If you don;t hook me in the first half Lit page, I rarely go any farther.

Anyhow, that would account for the lack of votes/comments. As for views, I really can't say. I only have one sci-fi story up, and I know that's gotten a lot fewer views than my other stuff, so maybe the genre's just not that popular.

But as I say. A tough read. Very tough.

--Zoot

 

[Guest]

I consider "After Midnight" to be one of my better works, but I think I'm gonna have to pay people to read it and comment. There's a doozey of a twist about a third of the way in and another at the end. I thought it made it better. Maybe I was wrong.

I've noticed that the sci-fi catagory is pretty sparse, as far as stories goes, and most of those by the same few authors. It may simply be that a science fiction plot gets in the way of good stroke.

 

[elsol]

.
I've noticed that the sci-fi catagory is pretty sparse, as far as stories goes, and most of those by the same few authors. It may simply be that a science fiction plot gets in the way of good stroke.

I think sci-fi people want more sci-fi than stroke.

I've written a couple of sci-fi erotica stories because other people wrote them and I couldn't stomach that they didn't follow the genre's form.

Specifically, someone wrote a 'fembot' story but didn't use the sci-fi robot's dehumanization of an issue to talk about it.

It drove me UP THE FUCKING WALL until I wrote my own fembot story to basically say 'This is how it's done!'

I found an explanation for it on a comedy channel the other day...

'Nerds hate when you get their obsession wrong.'

Sincerely,
ElSol

 

[Guest]

I think sci-fi people want more sci-fi than stroke.
...
Sincerely,
ElSol

Agreed.

The problem is there aren't that many people into the sci-fi thing. At least not here.

 

[elsol]

Agreed.

The problem is there aren't that many people into the sci-fi thing. At least not here.

Yeah... I'm looking to translate my fembot story for Literotica but the theme does not fly as an +18 story.

The original story was about using fem-bots as 'sexual education' for young boys (sexual education was defined as properly leading boys to manhood on a psychological, social, emotional, and sexual level).

I also pretty much slammed the implied argument in fembot stories (as read by me) that the best woman was a fake one by having the most important relationships and events in the boy's life continue to be with someone of flesh and blood.

I can lift my second 'theme', but the first one is nearly impossible to use at the college level +18 age (too late in my opinion to be believable).

If anyone has an alternative possible way to attack the story, i'd love to hear it. I'm even willing to accept a 'stunted' growth thing as long as there is a plausible explanation for a college freshman to be stunted down to the age of a boy just beginning to get wood.

Sincerely,
ElSol

 

[Belegon]

My sci-fi entry is my lowest voted story in number of votes ( 32 for a 3.66) and I think most of them are from my "regular" readers, not the Sci-fi crowd..

Here is The Interrogation .

Gauche, haven't read yours yet, but I will put it on my list...Dran, I think I already hit yours, but I'll look and see if I remember it...I need to start doing comments everytime so I know if I have voted or not...

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

Sci-Fi can be a bitch!

So much more background information may be required than most other genres, nonetheless, readers of Sci-Fi wish to get into the flow of the story just as quickly as readers of any other genre.

The same thing is true of historical stories. Granted, if you have done your research and the background is historically accurate, you can take the attitude, that if the reader does not understand the setting, that is the reader's problem.

Any writer with this sort of attitude, isn't going to get many reads.

For many months, I have been trying to write a Sci-Fi story which would be a cinch to tell if it could be done as a film. Unfortunately, it never will be a film, and so I must find some written format which can carry the story, without boring the reader to self destruction.

Perhaps, I should just give up, but I think the story could be fun, provided the proper method of telling it can be found. And so, I keep searching.



In passing, the only story of mine in Sci-Fi/Fantasy was also a Winter Holiday entree (with Santa Claus as a character) and is doing better than it deserves. One of my stories in Mind Control uses a Sci-Fi/Fantasy device which could have qualified it for that category also, and so far, it has collected the lowest score. (It also has the most reads and votes, being my first published story.)

 

[gauchecritic]

As I suspected. Genre v. stroke and of course my own inimitable vague yet convoluted style. (sorry Zoot I don't know how to write any other way).

The title and blurb has never struck me as a profitable way to induce readership, although I do admit when looking through Incest stories step-relatives or cousins rarely get me to even begin reading, 40 year olds (with the body of a 20 year old) in Mature stories just puts me off all together and the oft-looked for cuckolding in Loving Wives leaves me cold. I shall have to think more seriously in future about soliciting through titles and blurb.

I could explain away (to my own satisfaction at least) most of the objections, but that wouldn't make the objections less concrete. I asked for crit. and got it. Thank you for that.

You have all been extremely helpful, for which I give thanks to each and every one.

So, sci-fi first, a much bigger hook instead of hints and stear clear of first person letters but I really cannot reconcile K.I.S.S with sci-fi. I hate you Zoot.

Thanks Elsol, you've given me an idea for a fembot story.

 

[elsol]

Thanks Elsol, you've given me an idea for a fembot story.

AWESOME!

Sincerely,
ElSol

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Hey. I wrote a fembot story, and it was one of my highest rated:

http://english.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=68460

I think there are a lot of guys who'd be happier with a robot than a real woman, and probably a lot of women who'd feel the same way about guybots.

I had a ball with the story, mainly in giving the bot all these Windows-type software options: (a) scream on orgasm, (b) gasp on orgasm, (d) say *blank* on orgasm (d) randomize response.

Level of profanity during sex: 1(none)--10 (most).

Vaginal response during orgasm: (a) flex, (b) peristaltic, (c) flutter, (d) suction, (d) randomize, (e) none

I remember doing a thing about how kissing software was all aftermarket, because it was much more complicated than fucking software, so it was too expensive to come preloaded.

In fact, the worst part of the story was that I got carried away with all this software stuff. Still, it was fun.

 

[oggbashan]

Gauche, I think you should ask advice from Colleen Thomas. She has 4 stories on the 1st page of the SciFi/Fantasy Top List to my 1. I think hers and mine are more fantasy than SciFi but for both you have to create a different world in the first few paras or you have lost the reader.

I think that is what happened to this one.

Og

 

[Guest]

 

[Guy Delphine]

Hey. I wrote a fembot story, and it was one of my highest rated:

http://english.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=68460
fun.

Hey I like your story, mabeuse, very Gibson.

 

[Quiet_Cool]

It's a tough category, but it depends on different things as well. Fantasy (meaning medieval style fantasy) seems to draw many more votes than sci-fi. Also, it helps if you start out with some kind of action, I think.

One of my older stories (A Warrior's Tale: Elvin Encounter) has been posted for over three years, but received both votes and feedback immediately following submission. It's got 31440 views and 103 votes, most of them of course, received early after it's posting. It was fantasy, and started out with a confrontation (well, sort of a confrontation).

The last one I submitted, just a month or so ago (The Spirit of Frankenstein) has only 8 votes and 1338 views (3 PCs).

The latter is undeniably the better story, but it has neither the fast start, nor the fantasy setting.

Maybe the category itself is losing interest. Seems like back when it was fairly well read.

Q_C

 

[bicuriousosaur]

I always wanted to do a erotic science fiction story based on the bibical myth surrounding the Succubus.

My Starlight Rangers idea also have some good sex scenes (though, more like the new BattleStar Galatica).

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

I just can't get into the sci-fi.

 

[Liar]

Some of the best as well as some of the worst stories I've read here have been Sci-fi. It's very easy to do it wrong. In your case Gauche, I don't think it's the genre that's the proiblem though. I found the story rewarding, but it took some major digging to get into and through, something that the average reader is not prepared to bother with.

#L

ps. Uuh. forgot to vote. brb...

 

[gauchecritic]

I found the story rewarding, but it took some major digging to get into and through, something that the average reader is not prepared to bother with.

#L

That about fits with Zoot's view, hard work does not make for light reading.