When you've written something that's crap ...

[BlackShanglan]

Just read back over some of my first submissions to the site - the "Sweetness and Servitude" series.

Dear God, it's awful.

Badly overwritten, hideously sweet and sentimental at parts ... I was most ashamed.

Now the question is, what do I do with the buggers?

I don't really want to revise. I know that I could make it better, but really it's just stroke and I would rather concentrate on newer projects that have a little more depth and interest to them. I suppose some day I might revise if I was bored and restive, but really it looks like a lot of work for a not especially impressive result.

So do I leave them up, or take them down? Some people seem to like them; they've gotten decent votes and some pleasant PC's, and I don't entirely hate the premise. The last chapter I think worth saving. But on the other hand, I wince to think that if someone wants to see what sorts of things I write, s/he might pick one of those and think that's my goal. *cringe*

What would you do?

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

Just read back over some of my first submissions to the site - the "Sweetness and Servitude" series.

Dear God, it's awful.

Badly overwritten, hideously sweet and sentimental at parts ... I was most ashamed.

Now the question is, what do I do with the buggers?

I don't really want to revise. I know that I could make it better, but really it's just stroke and I would rather concentrate on newer projects that have a little more depth and interest to them. I suppose some day I might revise if I was bored and restive, but really it looks like a lot of work for a not especially impressive result.

So do I leave them up, or take them down? Some people seem to like them; they've gotten decent votes and some pleasant PC's, and I don't entirely hate the premise. The last chapter I think worth saving. But on the other hand, I wince to think that if someone wants to see what sorts of things I write, s/he might pick one of those and think that's my goal. *cringe*

What would you do?

Leave 'em. As you said, some folks seem to like them. If nothing else, they'll be a constant reminder of how much you've improved as a writer.

Rumple Foreskin

 

[BlackShanglan]

Leave 'em. As you said, some folks seem to like them. If nothing else, they'll be a constant reminder of how much you've improved as a writer.

Rumple Foreskin

Ah. The Literotica equivalent of having Watson at my elbow to whisper "Norbury" in my ear?

Not a bad idea.

 

[SlickTony]

I Would Have to Read it to Believe It

Having just read your newest opus, Will, I am having trouble believing that anything you could write could be crap. Still, I suppose it's possible. I know I've come back to stuff I wrote a long time ago and saw where it could stand some improvement.

I don't think, however, that the author should remove it. He does a service to neophyte writers leaving it where they can see it and follow the writer's development, and realize what they can aspire to.

 

[carsonshepherd]

I removed stories from Lit. I did it because I was never going to finish the series; it was something I wrote for myself, not Lit, and I discovered it was too personal for Lit. But this is different. Leave them, they're there. And just don't re-read them, ever ever ever again

(ew these new smilies are icky!)

 

[Guest]

 

[SeaCat]

Hell I'm leaving mine up. I go back every now and then just to humble myself. (If you think some of the ones I've posted here are bad, you should read some I wrote a couple years ago. Thank god I didn't know about this place then.)

Cat

 

[yui]

Leave them. I feel the same way about everything I have posted. But pulling them off seems less than honorable in some way. Almost like cheating, maybe?

 

[BlackShanglan]

Leave them. I feel the same way about everything I have posted. But pulling them off seems less than honorable in some way. Almost like cheating, maybe?

Yes. This also crossed my mine. It seems sort of ... fair, to own to one's errors.

Thanks, Tony, on the comments on the newest. I'm quite happy with it at the moment.

I do think I am getting better. At least ... the last time I re-read the Hesperus, I was braced to hate it and was actually thinking it would be a revision run-through where I could pull another thousand words out of it. But I was ... happy.

How odd. Pleasant. Yet almost a little dissapointing.

Felt the same way with Pope's diary today. I can't tell if I am writing better, or if I just need more time to see the flaws in those. Only time will tell, I suppose.

Shanglan

 

[lucky-E-leven]

I understand all of the replies for leave them up, but I've asked myself this same question many times. I sometimes worry that someone will read one or two of my stories that I'm least happy with and think that all my writing is that way. Sort of a lose/lose situation, if you ask me. If they like them, they may be disappointed that the rest of my work is different, and if they don't like them they won't read any of the other work.



I'd probably be less worried about it if I had more work out there and felt my style was more solidified.

~lucky (brain hurts all of a sudden)

 

[brightlyiburn]

I don't have bad stories. I just have stories that aren't as good as they are now. That's how you've got to look at it. It's evolution!

Here's a question: What do you do when you think you probably have called it quits on a series but you're afraid to take it down because of what your readers might do to you?

 

[Guest]

I took Striped Shirt down and rewrote it. Changed POV, made some linear corrections, added some, deleted some, wrote a new ending. It's doing a lot better than it was before, but I made the mistake of submitting it in BDSM and even now that it's moved, I don't think it will get the score I think it aught to.

Still not great by any means but not bad. And certainly not the crap story it was.

 

[carsonshepherd]

I don't have bad stories. I just have stories that aren't as good as they are now. That's how you've got to look at it. It's evolution!

Here's a question: What do you do when you think you probably have called it quits on a series but you're afraid to take it down because of what your readers might do to you?

I took it down. Warned in my member page I was going to do it, then did it. The stories belong to me.

 

[brightlyiburn]

I took it down. Warned in my member page I was going to do it, then did it. The stories belong to me.

You're a brave man.

But then, maybe you've never been threatened with a spork. A female spork. Named Sebastian.

Do you see why I'm scared here!?

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I think it depends on how and why they're bad, but personally, if it's something that I wouldn't want to acknowledge authorship of today, I'd get out the hook and pull it.

If you don't like them because your interest or themes have changed, that's one thing, and I think I'd leave them up. You were there once and now you've moved on. But if they're bad because your skills as a writer were bad, then they're obviously not your best work, and I'd pull the suckers. No one wants to feature thier juvenalia.

---dr.M.

 

[OhMissScarlett]

I'm going through the same feelings right now about the first story I posted on Lit called 'Earth Day Field Trip'. Since it's the first story alphabetically on my member page, it gets the most hits of all my stories. EDFT was written in a day and not a very good example of my writing as it is now. A steady stream of loving feedback and a multitude of votes have convinced me to leave it up for the time being. My solution right now is to title my next story something that comes before it alphabetically.

P.S. Shanglan, if you do pull Sweetness & Servitude, let me know in advance so I can tell my mom, that's her favourite on Lit.

 

[BlackShanglan]

P.S. Shanglan, if you do pull Sweetness & Servitude, let me know in advance so I can tell my mom, that's her favourite on Lit.

Just when I thought nothing could persuade me to revise it ...



Cheers, Scarlett. That was nice to hear.

 

[elsol]

I don't take them down, but I also never read them again.

ElSol

 

[oggbashan]

I have a good line of crap...

...and every posted story is still there.

The only one I have edited and replaced was the disastrous entry for this year's Valentine Contest 'Hard and Soft'.

I know there are typos and flaws in some of my posted stories. Some day I'll get round to editing them out.

Two stories are bad: 'Hen Party' and Stag Party'. If I rewrite them I'll leave the originals as a dire warning to myself.

Some stories I didn't like at all once posted seemed to be popular with someone. The only PC on 'Bagged at the Opera' is so effusive (and much appreciated by me) that I haven't dared to change a word of that story.

Og

 

[gauchecritic]

I was just thinking the other day about the stroke I posted when I first started at Lit, and about it not being 'mature' writing. Bit obvious and predictable and not up to my present standards.

I was casually (read painstakingly obsessive) looking through the Public Messages on my stories and noticed a new one (on a story posted before PMs were available) which to my great and sudden surprise and delight was from someone who I respect as an editor, writer, poster and all round general good bod. which was very favourable about the actual writing (I still owe him a note of thanks).

Obviously I re-read the story and it was exactly as I thought it to be in the first place. But the craft was in actual fact no less than what I consider my now more mature writing.

So perhaps it's not quite as bad as you think it is Shang. Maybe it's less refined, more of a diamond in the rough, but ultimately contains the talent which your later work happens to display to better effect.

 

[Weird Harold]

Just read back over some of my first submissions to the site - the "Sweetness and Servitude" series.

Dear God, it's awful.

Badly overwritten, hideously sweet and sentimental at parts ... I was most ashamed.

Now the question is, what do I do with the buggers?

Another vote for leaving them from me.

I've always felt that once a story was published (posted) that it was pretty much locked in stone unless there is some serious flaw in it -- like part of it is missing or corrupted.

Other than that, I think it's a better use of your time to write something new thn to obsess over past errors and devote energy to continual rewriting of old business.

If you're going to re-publish an old story, fixing known problems is a good idea, but "fixing" and "refixing" posted stories is, IMHO, a waste of time.

 

[pop_54]

All of my stuff's crap so I don't have the luxury of choice to take any one down It's my crap though, and has attracted multiples of tens of thousands of readers over the years, where the hell else could I get that sort of readership, it all stays.

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

POP!

It's about time you came dragging your sorry ass back. What's up, how's it hanging, and getting any lately? (sorry, that's all the guy-type hello-cliche's I can think of)

I'll admit to bringing downt the very first story I wrote, in part because the formatting was fouled up and I wanted to try something with the POV. I replaced it with two versions of the same story: Nurse Made from a female POV, and Nurse Nailed from a male POV.

Rumple Foreskin

 

[pop_54]

POP!

It's about time you came dragging your sorry ass back. What's up, how's it hanging, and getting any lately? (sorry, that's all the guy-type hello-cliche's I can think of)

I'll admit to bringing downt the very first story I wrote, in part because the formatting was fouled up and I wanted to try something with the POV. I replaced it with two versions of the same story: Nurse Made from a female POV, and Nurse Nailed from a male POV.

Rumple Foreskin

Hello Rump's mate, nice to be back, been a bit dicky, and then had last years tax matters to catch up on, God how RL fucks with real life

 

[Lisa Denton]

Hi Shanglan, I gave you a good feedback and vote on one chapter, I forget what number, just a few days ago. What are your feedbacks and comments telling you?

If you are really unhappy with it you will of course delete, but you felt good enough at one time to post, not just one story but chapters of it.

Suggestion: Maybe you could change the titles, re-submit each one the same or slightly edited, with the title the same except add on the end of each title "My earliest work."

That way if people didn't think it was great they might look at a later one and see something they like better.

I deleted one story, I was unhappy with it, I rushed it, I had too much going on around me to be thinking straight and immediately after submitting, wished I hadn't. Some people liked it, I think it was a good story idea but it wasn't well-written, editing it gave me headaches, and I rushed into submitting it to get it off my mind. Deleting it worked even better.

I didn't have to consider it, or even think about it. If you are unsure I would not delete until you are positive, my suggestion of "my earliest work" is to try to give you some ideas of not deleting, I am sure you can come up with others. See ya.