What's your most underrated work?

[RichardWark]

A lot of us have received very nice words and ratings for our works, but is there one that you put your heart and soul into, or just had fun writing, that you were so confident (or at least so hopeful) about that you could almost see the little red "H" even before you sent it in and were prepared for the congratulatory comments only to see it pass relatively unnoticed and underrated? Why do you think that happened - miscategorized, published at the wrong time, maybe not as good, in hindsight, as you thought? Your own Literotica "Heaven's Gate."

Put a link here so it can get that second chance.

I have one, but I'll let the thread go on first.

Richard Wark
Wark2002

 

[RetroFan]

I've got two works like that. They didn't score badly or attract strong negative comments, they just sort of flopped.

I like the Heaven's Gate analogy, and one I published in 2016, an Erotic Couplings story called 'The Coal Miner & the Conservative' was definitely my Heaven's Gate. The story was set during the 1984 Coal Miner's strike in England, and was about a young miner who meets a stuck-up girl from a rich family who has very different views from him which she is not afraid to express. They fight like cat and dog, but distaste turns to passion and before the day is out they're in bed together. I put so much effort into this story, writing about the political themes and creating interesting characters but when it was published it sank without trace.

Another story I wrote late last year was a simple enough Lesbian sex story called 'Marcie & Ramona's Sapphic Saturday'. It is set on Long Island New York in 1961, and is about a rich Jewish girl named Marcie who is carrying on a secret lesbian affair with Ramona, the daughter of the rich family's live-in Latina housekeeper. When I published it I thought who wouldn't want to go back 60 years to more simple times and watch two 18-year-old girls, a pretty Jewish American Princess and a hot Latina who grew up in Brooklyn get into each other's panties and go skinny dipping in the pool? As it turned out, the readers on this site, as the story to date only has 5200 views, very small for this category. I've written other Lesbian stories that got way more views. Can never work out why this story attracted so little interest.

 

[lovecraft68]

The entire Siblings with Benefits series.

On the surface the scores are good, most of the 39 chapters are 4.70 ish, but they were 4.8ish and have been trolled over the years, but hardly anyone read it.

This story simply put was too dark and real for this site where most taboo is fun and fluffy. The story where I touched upon mental illness, the despair of drug addiction, the pain and longing of forbidden love etc...was getting about 50 votes per chapter while "Mommy has big titties" was getting 1k.

The grammar was rough being the first thing I ever wrote and it had some other technical issues, but as far as story and raw power and emotion there is nothing like it here in that category other than Beyond the Borderline-a long two part mom son train wreck.

I always felt deserved more attention than it received, but in a way the fact it was little read is kind of a badge of honor because as my favorite comment of all time stated "may be interesting and well written, but too stark in its reality, I won't be continuing."

It was shocking in a category most people consider extreme by its nature.

Link to chapter one....only 2 pages, but the melancholy tone is there from the start and I'm proud of the sex scene which comes out of nowhere and is....well I got a lot of 'what the fuck was that?" feedback...this is where I learned taboo fans aren't fond of rough sex in their fun fantasies.

https://www.literotica.com/s/siblings-with-benefits-ch-01

 

[SyleusSnow]

Oh, I've always thought my first Halloween tale Damn Dumb Demon deserved a little more love.

I packed a lot into it: humor, romance, risky sex, bisexuality, a plot twist and home-made ghost cookies. What's not to love?

Apparently a lot, judging by score and other response metrics

 

[MillieDynamite]

Oh, I've always thought my first Halloween tale Damn Dumb Demon deserved a little more love.

I packed a lot into it: humor, romance, risky sex, bisexuality, a plot twist and home-made ghost cookies. What's not to love?

Apparently a lot, judging by score and other response metrics

I believe most of my work doesn't deserve to be liked enough for me to think any of it is underrated. I have fans, I have haters, and I have enough of both to be happy.

 

[yowser]

Plenty of mine that I thought were clever, amusing, original etc. often more or less fell off the charts, but (going by how you posed the question) the winner in the category of 'the most disappointingly received story' was House of Doors.

I threw a great deal of energy into it, placing it in a new category for me, with fancy word-work and cerebral head-spins, in-jokes and references, and it was written in a style different from my usual. In retrospect, hardly surprising that so few read it.

 

[NotWise]

If you'd asked the question at a different time, the answer would be different. Right now, my most neglected story is my only NonCon contribution, Quarter to Midnight. The link is to part one of two.

Both parts of the story came out on a day when there were more than 180 new stories, so there was a lot of competition. It's now one of my least-viewed stories and least voted stories. Part 1 has never broken 4.5, Part 2 is just over it. Maybe it's one of those things where some people really like it, and some people don't, but there just aren't enough votes for me to tell.

Briefly, the main female character is trying to escape a gang life and manages to get a job as a maid for the main male character, who has some issues. The two parts are almost different stories because the characters' relationship evolves.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Plenty of mine that I thought were clever, amusing, original etc. often more or less fell off the charts, but (going by how you posed the question) the winner in the category of 'the most disappointingly received story' was House of Doors.

I threw a great deal of energy into it, placing it in a new category for me, with fancy word-work and cerebral head-spins, in-jokes and references, and it was written in a style different from my usual. In retrospect, hardly surprising that so few read it.

My cuckold stories are both the best received and the worst. The most likes, favorites, and put in libraries. The most votes at opposite ends (where you can see those vote distributions) The most comments of hate and support.

All the cuckold stories are from reader request with them giving me story they want written. This is what I'd like stuff that makes people feel something, horny, happy, angry, all feelings I can live with. However, I'm considering not doing request any more because of the polar opposite responses and personal attacks in comments.

 

[TxRad]

Anything I wrote that went into LW's.

My own fault.

 

[MelissaBaby]

I have 58 submissions and 57 red H's, so I guess I ought to say it's the one little misfit, my entry for last year's Summer Lovin' contest.

Drive-In Double Feature was just meant to be a fun little diversion. i didn't think it was likely to be a contest winner, but I thought it was a 4.5 story.

I think it may have not appealed to a lot of my regular readers because it was quite a bit fluffier than what I usually write.

 

[TadOverdon]

No idea.

 

[WinsomeWeb]

Plenty of mine that I thought were clever, amusing, original etc. often more or less fell off the charts, but (going by how you posed the question) the winner in the category of 'the most disappointingly received story' was House of Doors.

I threw a great deal of energy into it, placing it in a new category for me, with fancy word-work and cerebral head-spins, in-jokes and references, and it was written in a style different from my usual. In retrospect, hardly surprising that so few read it.

I don't remember what exact process led me to this story, but I read it around Christmas, I think, and it was exceptional. One of my favourites.

 

[NotWise]

I have 58 submissions and 57 red H's, so I guess I ought to say it's the one little misfit, my entry for last year's Summer Lovin' contest.

Drive-In Double Feature was just meant to be a fun little diversion. i didn't think it was likely to be a contest winner, but I thought it was a 4.5 story.

I think it may have not appealed to a lot of my regular readers because it was quite a bit fluffier than what I usually write.

I really liked Drive-in Double Feature. Fun little diversions are right down my alley.

 

[SamScribble]

My disappointment is that I have several stories that currently have low scores – 4.35, 4.41. This is not to say that they have always had low scores. I think that pretty much every story that I have ever posted has had a red H at some stage. Many still have their red H. But more than a few have been bombed to just below a red H – 4.49, 4.48. And some have been ‘demoted’ repeatedly. Up they come; down they go.

Perhaps even more disappointing is the fact that I can’t be arsed to find somewhere else to post them.

 

[MetaBob]

A lot of us have received very nice words and ratings for our works, but is there one that you put your heart and soul into, or just had fun writing, that you were so confident (or at least so hopeful) about that you could almost see the little red "H" even before you sent it in and were prepared for the congratulatory comments only to see it pass relatively unnoticed and underrated? Why do you think that happened - miscategorized, published at the wrong time, maybe not as good, in hindsight, as you thought? Your own Literotica "Heaven's Gate."

Put a link here so it can get that second chance.

Easy: Crossings. Volume 3 of a continuing series; the link's in my signature, below. Synopses for the first two installments are at the end of Crossings chapter 1. Volume 4 is in development, but probably not soon.

I experimented with sentence and paragraph structure in my earlier writing here, which was tremendously helpful to me as a writer and I thought it all worked, but many readers don't appreciate that. By the time I wrote Crossings, I was coming back to structures that don't seem to jar those readers, but by that point, the only people still reading that multi-book series were fans, of which there weren't enough.

Oddly, the book that I experimented with sentence and paragraph structures the most (Volume 2 of the same series) was the one that got the highest red H proportion: Cascade Fire.

Bottom line, though ratings for the nine installments for Crossings are good, only one received enough ratings to be eligible for a red H. It got one.

 

[RichardWark]

I have written in another thread about my disappointment that "Aphrodite," which was a very personal story and a long time in the making (from pre-Literotica days) but some of its failings were pointed out in the thread by another writer and, while I don't particularly agree with them, I can see and understand gthe criticism. It's also very dark, especially for "Romance." I just wasn't sure where to put it. Since there was no explicit sex in it, it might have found a more receptive audience in "Non-profit."

I really wish, though, "I Want to Dance with You Forever" had done just a little better. Its rating is well over 4.0, as are the rest, so I really can't complain. It was part of the same mosaic as "Aphrodite." I thought I had the milieu right, the contemporary references and music right, nicely drawn characters, and a decent sex scene at the end. Obviously, I misjudged it, but it is also possible that "Romance" is such a popular category that it just kind of blew through a and never got a chance to gain an audience.

Having said that, I have no real complaints. I have enjoyed submitting here and feel my few submissions have done pretty well.

Richard Wark
Wark2002

https://www.literotica.com/stories/memberpage.php?uid=5430653&page=submissions

 

[BiscuitHammer]

Oh, jeez...

I guess 'underrated' would be the wrong term for me to use, since it implies a fault in judgement on the reader's part. But a story that I wish had done better was 'Miracle On RR34'. At the end of the day, I really wrote it for myself and to indulge my own sense of humour, so I might be asking a little much of others in that regard.

But c'mon... a girl has sex with Santa, gets punish-sexed by Krampus, and is caught in an overnight war between them while helping the man in red save Christmas?

Not to mention Santa's jizz apparently tastes like eggnog.

I guess I wish people enjoyed it the way I do. Different from underrated, but what I can contribute.

 

[Blind_Justice]

I have two which don't receive the love they deserve. First is "Nikym's Predicament", which mixes high fantasy, horror and sex in an {I think} interesting way.. Apart from one very nice comment, reception has been rather tepid.

The second is "The Making of 'A Little Heresy'", a thinly veiled H.P. Lovecraft homage. I tried a slow build, lots of mood and atmosphere before things got ugly and I'm happy with all the research which went into it. One of my few "real world" stories. It got utterly nuked during a Halloween contest.

Or maybe I just suck at Horror.

 

[CyranoJ]

As I mentioned in another thread recently, The Ballad of Little Bird heads the list of underperforming stories for me. Perhaps I just tried to get a little too clever with the narrative structure, but it also probably didn't help that I posted it in a pretty sleepy category and it sank from view too rapidly to garner much in the way of reactions pro- or con.

 

[RejectReality]

Hmmm.... I'm going to have to say LST3K Ep. 08: The Fandom Menace

I don't know whether it was bad timing, the fact that it was the only recent ( at the time ) non-contest story in the series, or it just didn't hit the way I thought it should have, but it underperformed.

https://literotica.com/s/lst3k-ep-08-the-fandom-menace

 

[LAHomedog]

"Dakota Learns She Is A Submissive, Part 1" One of my three favorite stories that I have written and submitted on here and it was a ratings dog. In the 3s for most of its time and just in the last month reached a 4.

I had planned it to be a long, multi-part series, but I realize now I made two mistakes. The wrong title, and the wrong category. The submissive was designed to be introduced in Part 3 or 4. I keep meaning to ask Lit to delete it, rewrite it, and resubmit with a new title, category, etc., but life keeps getting in the way. I had more time while in full quarantine

I will go back and do it though because I am personally enthralled with the character of Dakota as I imagine her in my mind's eye.

https://www.literotica.com/s/dakota-learns-shes-submissive-pt-01

 

[Omenainen]

Fun idea for a thread. I have a few that haven’t done so well, and for the most part I know why and kind of agree. And okay, I kind of know for this one, too. But my addition to this list is my sci-fi story Into the Deep.

It’s only 3.2k words long, one lit page. On the day it was published there were so many sci-fi stories that it was way down the list from the get go, neatly sandwiched between chapter 18 of one series and chapter 19 of another So my guess is it’s too concise for the category, nobody there knows or cares about my work, and it didn’t get much visibility when published. Many of mine are contest entries but that one wasn’t. Anyway, what it sums up to is only 2.2k views. I liked the story myself and would have wanted for it to get more attention.

My other frustration was my masturbation story. For a long time it was stuck just below 4.5, and I was like come on, this is a story about masturbating with toys, put in category “Toys & Masturbation”, how come this is not hot? I’ve been downvoted before for including a penis in my lesbian smut and I fully understand that, but I was very puzzled about this. But, as it has since climbed over the threshold to hot, it’s not eligible for this thread anymore.

Oh yes and then there was my humor story in the last years Amorous Goods event. I still think it is funny and don’t understand how the readers wouldn’t agree. But maybe my sense of humor just sucks. Who knows. I don’t, except for that I won’t be publishing in Humor & Satire again

 

[Rustyoznail]

I wrote a story based on the 25 lines a non playable character speaks in a video game called “Destiny”. And they were all she could use. I wanted to do my own stretch goal…

So. It didn’t do well - currently 3.94. It went into Sci-fi (low views) and the NPC only gave the male character a blowjob (never a good thing. Readers want the intercourse.) because I ran out of dialogue.

Ah well.

https://www.literotica.com/s/festival-of-the-lost

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Hmm...

Out of the 184 submissions I have the ones that hurt the most are those that are just below that threshold of 4.5, yet I really don't worry about scores. Mostly, it's about the comments and how many of those I get and of what type.

But to answer the OPs question...

It's called Two Movies. Of course it's in LW and is about cheating spouses. What else. I thought it a cute little story.

Now the story with the most comments is Reality with 77 still there. I'm pretty sure there were some I deleted for being slurs against me personally or other commenters.

 

[MillieDynamite]

I have 58 submissions and 57 red H's, so I guess I ought to say it's the one little misfit, my entry for last year's Summer Lovin' contest.

Drive-In Double Feature was just meant to be a fun little diversion. i didn't think it was likely to be a contest winner, but I thought it was a 4.5 story.

I think it may have not appealed to a lot of my regular readers because it was quite a bit fluffier than what I usually write.

I'm a little jealous of your success. Even so, "I shall endeavor to persevere." Variation of a line Chief Dan George from the The Outlaw Josey Wales,

"They took our pictures. And the newspapers said, "Indians vow to endeavor to persevere."

We thought about it for a long time, "Endeavor to persevere." And when we had thought about it long enough, we declared war on the Union."