Your Most Common Negative Feedback

[RetroFan]

I've written a lot of stories across many categories, and have received lots of associated feedback over the years some positive, some neutral and some negative.

Of your negative comments, what is the one that comes up most frequently? For mine, it is complaints that my stories are boring, especially in Incest/Taboo and Loving Wives, although I've had the same comment in other categories. Some of the LW readers seemed to think that I wrote and posted boring stories in this category just to annoy them, while the IT fans didn't seem to appreciate my attempts to make them laugh or to take them on holidays to interesting places in Australia.

What are your experiences?

 

[TheRedChamber]

“I enjoyed the plot, but I couldn't wank to it”

Big flaw in erotica...

 

[lovecraft68]

Other than things like I'm a sick fuck or other trolling comments not to be taken seriously, the two I get most often is
Too long....as I like to do slow burns.
Grammar/proofreader....I can't deny these. My grammar has improved dramatically over the years, but still needs some work.

Way back in high school in creative writing class several of my assignments came back with variations of "A for creativity and story, C(or even D) for technical writing.

It still seems accurate

 

[NotWise]

My most common complaint is probably "your story's not done."

I reserve the right to say when my story is done, thank you.

 

[EarlyMorningLight]

Don’t have many up yet, but so far the worst pushback I got was for a story where I didn’t give it a cliched HEA ending.

 

[gunhilltrain]

“I enjoyed the plot, but I couldn't wank to it”

Big flaw in erotica...

If they can't wank to it, then that's their problem, not yours. Besides, not every erotic story has to be a "stroke story." If it is, fine, but it doesn't have to be. I even have one Non-erotic story on here and several essays that have little or nothing to do with sex. I'm already on three sites, and that's about all I wish to deal with so I put it on Lit. Besides, the non-erotic stuff has done passably well (by my standards) with the readers here.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Don’t have many up yet, but so far the worst pushback I got was for a story where I didn’t give it a cliched HEA ending.

In the era we live in, "happy" endings are rare indeed over the long run. Besides, your three scores so far have been great, so don't worry about it.

 

[Emotional]

You should have made it longer

 

[YDB95]

1. "Too long"
2. "Not erotic" (because my characters don't just jump in bed in the first paragraph)
3. And a few diehard hecklers will still say my female characters ought to get a Brazilian. I've been here long enough that you should know, if you don't like bushy pussies, don't read my stories!

 

[Northstar4695]

I usually miss a few typos. I try to edit for them very carefully, but a few mistakes always slip through and I have sometimes gotten constructive feedback about it.

 

[SimonDoom]

The most common complaint is that they dont like the subject matter, usually because the story is about a wife who has extramarital sex.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I had an anon drop by and say

Good god!
Four pages of insecurity and introspection. Do you even know what erotica is?

But since I had seven other comments saying otherwise, and the story's got a good solid score, I think I might, and they're an outlier.

 

[DreamingOfMyEx]

My most common complaint is probably "your story's not done."

I reserve the right to say when my story is done, thank you.

That's it? I think this comment should have been longer.

 

[Duleigh]

That's it? I think this comment should have been longer.

That's hilarious.

I used to write short form strokers but got bored with that and took a chance on long form stories, multi chapter novels and novella series. Sometimes I think I write boring long form stories, but I get a lot of encouragement, most of my negative feedback is grammatical, mostly mixing the past with present tense. I've been working hard to fix that issue. The majority of my writing outside of Lit has been technical which is all present tense, and almost all stories inside lit are past tense.

 

[thomas1965]

The most common complaint is that they dont like the subject matter, usually because the story is about a wife who has extramarital sex.

I understand this from a first time reader in this category. The name of the category is misleading. Who would associate loving with cheating?

 

[thomas1965]

I had an anon drop by and say
Four pages of insecurity and introspection. Do you even know what erotica is?

It's more the reader who didn't know the difference between erotica and porn.

 

[jsmiam]

Calling one of the women in the threesome the wrong name. That haaaate it when that happens. (So do the readers! ;-)

Proofreading. Wordiness. At times pointing to a specific typo or error. Mostly it’s stuff where I can’t get upset and say they’re untrue.

Now and then there’s the person who doesn’t like the premise. I had one commenter who critiqued the specifics of how much cum there can be. In that case they were taking language elements too literally. I did say “filled”, but no beakers were used in the filling of that vagina.

Hmm. Beaker from the m_ü_p_p_ē_t_s getting lucky. There’s a plot bunny!

 

[BobbyBrandt]

Grammar Nazies who can't distinguish between narrative and dialogue

 

[BiscuitHammer]

Hmmmmm... broadly speaking, it's rage against my progressive values showing up in my stories. My women tend to be sexually liberated, maintaining that air even if they're in a committed monogamous relationship. The result is the frothing hatred in comments about what sluts the characters are, and they should have acid thrown in their face, etc. The usual incel crap.

I've stood up quite a few times for indigenous people, leading to comments about me hating white people.

Which is hilarious, because if you read my Alexaverse, the four main characters are Aryan gods. Three of them are tall, blond, and blue-eyed, and the fourth has shining bronze hair and golden-amber eyes. I've had to work hard (and mostly failed) to keep the 'Great White Saviour' trope from coming into play.

But somehow I hate white people. Durrrrr...

So recapping, most of my negative reviews are about liberated women and apparently I hate white people.

Why am I always the last person to find out these things?

 

[Candy_Kane54]

Occasionally, I'll rush a story to print and get called out for not editing it properly. It is a valid complaint.

 

[Quinn_McMullen]

Burn the bitch.

Any married female character that isn't 100% faithful. It doesn't usually matter if the male character is unfaithful. Our readers tend to have double standards.

I am working on a story entitled "Adultery". It's about unfaithful people. That should bring in a new level of BTB comments.

 

[Bubo_bubo]

I think my most common complaints are all on one story. Paraphrasing here but it's essentially, "Marital rape doesn't exist" or "Giving in is still consenting."

Yikes. I sincerely hope that is some incel mouthbreather and not an actually married person.

 

[lovecraft68]

I think my most common complaints are all on one story. Paraphrasing here but it's essentially, "Marital rape doesn't exist" or "Giving in is still consenting."

In general-of course it probably depends on the category-a lot of men don't seem to know, or want to know, what consent is.

Not that anyone has the time for this, but if you were to write the exact same story, but have the man in the woman's place, suddenly they'd be whining it was rape.

Because that's all many male readers do on this site is whine.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

At first it was about grammar. I have improved on that, so now it is mostly about not covering their kink, whilst I did cover some kink they do not like. To be honest though, I haven't gotten a really bad comment yet.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Too many kinks, with big words, British words at that. Tough shit.
Sometimes that I have too much non-sexual content before/during/after the sex. Which is sometimes a valid point, but you want more editing, you pay me... The day job gets prose as perfectly concise as I can get it; Lit is what I spew out for fun. Editing my own prose is fun in moderation, but when I get bored I post and start in a new one.