Why Has the Quality of Submissions to Literotica Plummeted so Dramatically?

[moewest1749]

What’s a VE, please?

Hey GroverLang,

What oggbashan said

 

[Polyacrylate]

It's those damn millennials, ruining everything.

I used to use a plug-in for Chrome that auto-changed "millennials" to "lizard people." It made news stories about consumer habits seem far, far more interesting.

 

[Vix_Giovanni]

I've not asked Mr Niven, but my sorta-sis with multiple titles on the NYT-BS list hinted that anybody can and will write a lousy first draft with too many wrong words in wrong places. It's worrisome, or worse. Paid authors chatting on their work hover over the current first draft. First draft ain't shit. Shut up and rewrite.

Huh. I would've thought it meant that people say that their work is only in their first draft, but in truth they've been working on it for hours and they're just saying that because they don't want such harsh criticism. (At least not yet.)

I mean I really don't know but that was what I was guessing. I am partially guilty so it was the first thing that made sense to me.

Thanks; I wasn’t sure if it was an industry term or something. But it seems a useful concept, with at least two meaningful interpretations. I’m possibly misquoting, but didn’t Michael Crichton also say, “Writing should really be called ‘revising’”....

One poster above mentioned the series "Threads..." I tried reading it but didn't like it. Doesn't mean it's not a great story, but it's not my cup of tea....

Maybe another poster mentioned it too, and so this comment was for them and not me. If it’s for me, I just want to clarify because the concerns in your response seemed off-base to my comment (maybe my response to the OP was too snarkily sarcastic to be sensible.) I brought up “Threads” as an example of one of the stories that have become “canonic” on the site, in that they have highly consistent word of mouth sharing, a high volume of high votes and—most significantly—many years (decades) in publication.

I’ve never read Threads. I don’t think it would be my cup of tea either. But the fact that you’ve read it though it’s not your cup of tea and I’ve never read it but am familiar with the story demonstrates my point.

I didn’t cite it as a benchmark of what is/not great writing. I have no opinion on its “quality” or any other story’s “quality,” except that all us writers have high-quality guts to write and post stories regardless of recognition for our work.

It's those damn millennials, ruining everything.

Lol mebbe we are. I write all of my stories on my phone.

https://thumbs.gfycat.com/IllfatedUnluckyFluke-size_restricted.gif

 

[MelissaBaby]

Lol mebbe we are. I write all of my stories on my phone.

https://thumbs.gfycat.com/IllfatedUnluckyFluke-size_restricted.gif

You're a millennial, you know how to use your phone.

 

[NotWise]

Maybe another poster mentioned it too, and so this comment was for them and not me. If it’s for me, I just want to clarify because the concerns in your response seemed off-base to my comment (maybe my response to the OP was too snarkily sarcastic to be sensible.)

Hey wait! "Snarkily" is a word?

Probably another Millennial thing.

 

[oggbashan]

The quality of *my* stories is improving, on the whole. Quality of readers, definitely dropping. I blame the Internet.

My view is different. I can still write crap among the good stories but some of the recent criticism has been intelligent and helpful. Even some of the trolls show that they have read my story in depth and assumed the characters are real in real situations.

 

[Hypoxia]

I'll return to Niven's fifth point.

If you've nothing to say, say it any way you like. Stylistic innovations, contorted story lines or none, exotic or genderless pronouns, internal inconsistencies, the recipe for preparing your lover as a cannibal banquet: feel free. If what you have to say is important and/or difficult to follow, use the simplest language possible. If the reader doesn't get it, then let it not be your fault.​

Low-quality works are likely the product of authors having nothing to say and saying it loudly. I do not know their share of LIT submissions over time. But I do know the first rule in How A Writer Works: Know what you want to say. Otherwise do something else.

 

[Handley_Page]

Quote: "Dear authors (and lurkers),

I’d really like to know what you think has caused the sad phenomenon indicated in the title of this thread.

Let me clarify if need be.

I know and acknowledge Sturgeon’s law (“90% of everything is crap”), which is why I don’t talk about the vast majority of submissions that are bad today and have been that way since the day Literotica went online. But what I talk about is the remaining 10 % and the evident qualitative decline observable in that upper range which has come down like a crashing truss in recent years. I remember a time when good stories where submitted and published on the regular, and ambitious authors like dr_mabeuse and Colleen Thomas conversed openly and actively in this community, not only inspiring each other but their readership as well. And I remember truly astonishing works of art to adorn this site, every once in a while, like ”Will” by BlackShanglan or “Narcissa” by villanova (the latter author, tellingly, having deleted her entire oeuvre from this site).

Where are the heirs of those authors, where are their stories today?

Show them to me. Try it. Try hard. Good luck in your search around here!

If I search the different story hubs these days for the latest submissions, all I find is one-pagers, stroke shit, never-ending serials of soapy “hardcore” romance, and leftovers that the submitter didn’t know where else to place—and not a single pearl cast before swine.

So, what gives?

Sincerely
–AJ "


It has taken me a while to assemble my thoughts on your interesting question.

[1] Fashions can change. What's suddenly 'hot' one year may not be top of the pops months later.
Furthermore, one may, I think, allow that a 'good' story may not be the rich source of 'stroke' material, but be literate, well-written & entertaining.

[2] An author may loose interest in writing 'strokathons' and may well feel the need to expand his/her style in what might be a more challenging manner.

[3] You asked who were/ are the successors to authors like dr_mabeuse and Colleen Thomas, as if these are the pinnacle of writing talent. They may be, but they are not alone.
I suggest you have a look at:-
Malraux ('Jonas Agonistes' or 'Save One Love');
DreamCloud (The Rehab), and
OggBashan ('Mrs Jones & I', 'Men at Arms' or "Christmas Truce")
to name only three.

PS. One thing I forgot was the changing face of 'education'. What's taught one year may be considered "improper" a year or two later.

 

[SimonDoom]

To take the question posed in this thread seriously (assuming we want to do that, or think we should), we need a decent sample size of stories from the "old days" (what is that -- 10 years ago or more? I don't know) so we can construct a reasonable estimate of the quality of stories from way back then.

So I would suggest that anyone promoting the OP's viewpoint assist in compiling a list of authors and stories from the alleged Golden Years of Literotica. Maybe 20 will do it. Then we can scour the alleged desert of contemporary Literotica to see if its more recent offerings hold their own against their forebears.

It actually might be an interesting exercise, even if you think the premise of this thread is silly (I do), because it would be worthwhile to dig up the really great stories from the past and acquaint more recent authors and readers with them, and to look closely at the great stories of the present. People are more likely to scrutinize something closely when a contest is involved and the interested parties' dander is up.

 

[Latenight_Pondering]

removed

 

[PWilton]

I think there's several reasons things aren't what they used to be.

1. The site appears kind of dated and things like the news feed haven't been updated in a long time. New authors and users may be turned off by that.

2. Responses from the admins to posts have been taking longer and longer, every story comment has to be moderated, even on your own work! (my avatar change has to be moderated ffs!), and you can forget trying to post a correction. I've been told those always go to the back of the line which is weird, but whatever. All of these elements can push both veteran and new authors to look for other outlets. I'm personally getting to that level of frustration.

3. There are a lot more platforms these days for this kind of work. The kindle books are a good example, take a look at how many authors are flooding Amazon (again, 90% crap).

4. This isn't the same internet anymore, a lot of readers have moved to mobile devices and I don't know how optimized this site is for that.

I'm sure there are a million and two reasons why I'm wrong but this is what I've noticed.

In defense of Literotica, it has many advantages:

• It is free.
• It is relatively safe.
• It includes a very wide variety of sexual proclivities.
• I am anonymous.
• It has an Ignore List (thankfully!)

 

[ElectricBlue]

...and you can forget trying to post a correction. I've been told those always go to the back of the line which is weird, but whatever.

Not true. I had an Edit go through a couple of weeks back to fix an html glitch, which was done in three days. The difference might be asking nicely and explaining exactly what the problem was - it was my mistake, but was fixed quickly.

The usual reported delay on resubmits is in relation to stories rejected for appalling grammar or content breaches - I suspect Laurel gets a little tired of those and bumps them to the back of the queue, just because she can. If you bad-mouth the site, which some people constantly do, you can hardly expect the boss to be nice.

 

[Latenight_Pondering]

>>bumps them to the back of the queue, just because she can. If you bad-mouth the site, which some people constantly do, you can hardly expect the boss to be nice

You make a very good point. I have removed my critique, in the future I will make sure any public opinions conform to the perceived expectations of the site.

 

[ElectricBlue]

>>bumps them to the back of the queue, just because she can. If you bad-mouth the site, which some people constantly do, you can hardly expect the boss to be nice

You make a very good point. I have removed my critique, in the future I will make sure any public opinions conform to the perceived expectations of the site.

Being polite gets you a lot further in life, I find .

It's not a matter of "opinions conforming with expectations," it's a matter of levelling criticism with some courtesy, with an understanding of the age of the site and the constraints it functions under, and remembering that none of us are walking in the door with a couple of million bucks to fix it.

The last time I looked, there's one hell of a lot of content available here for nothing, and writers don't pay a cent to post their scribblings. In my world, that's a pretty good deal.

It is what it is - and as I challenged someone a while ago, show me the superior alternatives.

 

[sethp]

I still think the Quality of the site is high.

There are more stories being submitted than ever, that of course will cause more bad stories than ever, but the good stories are still really good and the great authors are still really great.

My summary is that the quality of lit submissions is as high as it ever was. The problem is progress and change. All things change. Authors die, quit and write more infrequently. We want the old authors back and things to be the way they always were. We disregard the new authors only because they aren't the old authors and cry about the lack of quality when what many of you really want to say is...

I miss the authors of 10 years ago. Why aren't they still writing and why aren't there more clones of those authors?

The reality is, just like in Music. Led Zeppelin is in the past. There will never be another Led Zeppelin. You need to look for the new " ". It won't be called Led Zeppelin and it won't sound like Led Zeppelin and Radio sure won't play it.

Move on peeps. Mentor the new Authors just like Pennlady, Meg1 and several others mentored me. Vote, comment and favorite the good ones. Offer to edit and proof read. Inhabit the Authors forum. Be lively. The greatness of Lit starts with you. Write/post/edit/vote/comment/rate/mentor/create threads/Pm each other/moderate.

It's in your hands. The Authors and stories are here, you just don't want to admit it.

 

[SimonDoom]

>>bumps them to the back of the queue, just because she can. If you bad-mouth the site, which some people constantly do, you can hardly expect the boss to be nice

You make a very good point. I have removed my critique, in the future I will make sure any public opinions conform to the perceived expectations of the site.

Your critique didn't seem over-the-line to me. You said what you said but without unnecessary snark or rancor or nasty adjectives. These are all common complaints.

Everyone who's been here for a while realizes (a) it's free, (b) it has an enormous amount of content, (c) it has an enormous number of readers, and (d) it is, improbably, run by two people, pretty much. So complaints have to be put in perspective.

But it's fair to be concerned about the long-term prospects for this site if it is unable to keep up with the competition. This site is the only one I use to publish stories, and I'd like to see it continue to succeed.

 

[MelissaBaby]

The thread rolls on, the posters get older, the past glows more golden.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

The last time I looked, there's one hell of a lot of content available here for nothing, and writers don't pay a cent to post their scribblings. In my world, that's a pretty good deal.

It is what it is - and as I challenged someone a while ago, show me the superior alternatives.

Bingo!

 

[TarnishedPenny]

The thread rolls on, the posters get older, the past glows more golden.

And nostalgia ain’t what it used to be.

 

[Hypoxia]

The reality is, just like in Music. Led Zeppelin is in the past. There will never be another Led Zeppelin. You need to look for the new " ". It won't be called Led Zeppelin and it won't sound like Led Zeppelin...

A Brit music site ran a poll sometime back, asking for the best rock musicians. Not bands -- individuals. Who would make the greatest supergroup? I'm thinking Hendrix, Joplin, Daltry, Clapton, Entwhistle, Morrison, Mercury, Keith Moon... The results:

Best rock singer: Robert Plant
Best rock guitarist: Jimmy Page
Best rock bassist: John Paul Jones
Best rock drummer: John Bonham​

Funny 'bout that.

Back to measuring LIT story quality. Can we tally Favorites over time? What is the evolving ratio of Faves vs submissions?

 

[ElectricBlue]

A Brit music site ran a poll sometime back, asking for the best rock musicians. Not bands -- individuals. Who would make the greatest supergroup? I'm thinking Hendrix, Joplin, Daltry, Clapton, Entwhistle, Morrison, Mercury, Keith Moon... The results:

Best rock singer: Robert Plant
Best rock guitarist: Jimmy Page
Best rock bassist: John Paul Jones
Best rock drummer: John Bonham​

Funny 'bout that.

Back to measuring LIT story quality. Can we tally Favorites over time? What is the evolving ratio of Faves vs submissions?

I read Jeff Beck's bio not so long ago - two very, very intriguing, "fuuuck, can you imagine?" possibilities came up:

The first - Roger Waters asked Beck to join the Floyd before he asked David Gilmour, but Beck had just formed The Jeff Beck Group, so he was busy.

The second - Jagger asked Beck to come along to a rehearsal when they were looking for a replacement for Brian Jones. Beck did so, and was impressed by the work ethic of Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman. He was less impressed with Keith, who didn't turn up until 1.00 am. Jagger rang Beck the next day, "Still interested?" "No fucking way, you guys are just too lazy, no fucking discipline." Words to that effect. So Mick rang Mick Taylor instead.

Back on topic - I want somebody to thoroughly data-mine Lit as an anthropological study. It's been done a few times, but not a really deep analysis. It would be fascinating.

 

[SimonDoom]

Back on topic - I want somebody to thoroughly data-mine Lit as an anthropological study. It's been done a few times, but not a really deep analysis. It would be fascinating.

What do you think it might show?

 

[ElectricBlue]

What do you think it might show?

Twenty year's of cultural shift, what was taboo back then isn't now, that kind of thing. There's vague demographic data, too, in people's profiles - setting aside those who deliberately obscure age and gender - my gut feel is, on the 80/20 rule of human behaviour, a sufficient number of profiles are accurate enough to draw some conclusions.

Put it this way, the data set is bigger than your five-hundred response Gallup poll, and they get pretty close to the end result (here in Australia, at least, where 97% of those eligible to vote actually do so, and the parties fall over backwards to profile us all).

People en mass do predictable things, and Lit's mass of readers is pretty big, so there's something buried away in there, without doubt.

Somebody has a link to a study done five or six years ago which was interesting - I don't know where to find it, but someone will know.

 

[SamScribble]

I’ve been re-reading a few old favourites lately. Many 20th-century English, Irish, American, Australian writers. Some slightly smutty (J P Donleavy, Henry Miller, John Updike, Norman Mailer, et al); some quite straight-laced. It’s interesting to discover what has happened in the space where their prose hit my brain then and is hitting my brain again umpteen years later.

Donleavy’s The Ginger Man is as much fun as it was the first time. Ditto Robert Drewe’s Our Sunshine. Two or three of E L Doctorow’s novels have stood the test of time, as has most of John le Carré’s oeuvre. I haven’t got to Graham Greene yet, but I don’t think that he is going to disappoint.

But there are more than a few ‘old favourites’ that no longer deserve their place on the favourites shelf. I guess my point is that we remember the past through a particular lens.

A friend pointed me at Lit. I still recall how appallingly-written most of the stories were. And yet they proudly bore their little red Hs.

Because it was easy, I posted a few stories of my own. And, surprise, surprise, I too had a smattering of red Hs.

I’m not sure that much has changed. Not really.

 

[Hypoxia]

I’ve been re-reading a few old favourites lately.

My old brain (what's left of it) is comfortable reading classic SF of the 1940's-80's. Some remains classic. Much is funny re: forecast technology. Still landline phones and room-size computers. And future folks smoke. Tobacco. Yikes. Not to mention rampant sexism, racism, nationalism, etc. Some old Hugo winners likely wouldn't make the cut now. But they're what SF writers built on.

And old LIT stories are what the current crop are built on. I suspect more than a few of y'all had similar reactions as when I first read here, thinking, "I can write better than THAT!" or "Hey, that gives me an idea," or "That's how I want to write when I grow up." We've some great drama here, even in LW. Dig it up.