Forum: Author Hangout

Well, first from what you quoted, I would say it was intended to be some kind of poetry, rather than a story. And no, not all poetry rhymes.

Oh, I get that. I write poetry also, and generally write in non-rhyming quatrains when I do so.

I have even been known to write in doggerel, which once caused some consternation about 27 years ago when I posted one on a BBS which had some calling me on the phone asking if I was OK. I called it simply "The End".

I eat my peas with arsenic,
I want to end my life.
It may sound kind of gruesome,
But it's cleaner than a knife.

My fiancee and I both laughed up a storm, amazed that none of them recognized the children's poem I had used as the basis, and that it was nothing but a silly thing I had tossed off in a couple of minutes.

I haven't really had any interactions with my readers I would consider entertaining.

I agree. I get insightful, annoying and sometimes enjoyable, but few are actually humorous.

He's a real bullshitter and a naval Lieutenant JG. He tells Bob's father that his rank is "equivalent to the Army rank of Colonel, sir."

I got a letter telling me that I had mistaken thhe ranks. They are not equivalent.

Yea, some people loose nuance I have discovered. Such as those who screamed I put no "M/M" tags in "Bohica", because the main character (at the time a large black man) was remembering blowing an ex-boyfriend the night everything changed.

Never mind that the title character is a shape shifting mutant who was born female, he screamed at me for 3 letters over "fooling him into reading gay porn".

Another case where I just shrugged.

When I was a kid, we all knew that a few people in town were either crazy or dumber than a box of rocks.

Now, thanks to the internet, we know the actual number is closer to 50%.

Ain't technology wonderful?

Think about how intelligent the median person is, and realize that fully half the people are less intelligent than that person.

Now, thanks to the internet, we know the actual number is closer to 50%

And here I thought the whole point of the internet was to avoid speaking to actual people.

I was told by one reader that they hated my mentioning the antagonist organization, and that it makes them want to stop reading the story because of their being talked about.

What was the organization: Morons R Us?

The idea that the author is not necessarily the narrator or a character isn't always understood.

To take things a step further, I played a bit with the concept of "unreliable narrative" in one series. The main character as Narrator saw his "girlfriend" as being almost perfect, and forgave her a great many character flaws. And because the reader is "living" their experiences and beliefs, that is what the reader almost always takes away with them.

Which caused a lot of people to scream when even though I had put a lot of clues throughout the narrative that she was not a nice person. The thing is, she never was. Everybody was just seeing her through his eyes, and that is how he saw her.

This is actually an old concept, but until The Joker most never really realized it being used.

I played a bit with the concept of "unreliable narrative" in one series.

Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl nails the unreliable narrator(s).
~ JBB

Seeing your daughter's boobs isn't always a bad thing or creepy. The first time I saw my daughter's boobs was the day they wheeled her out of the E.R. in an incubator. That's when I smiled and realized I was a dad.

The first time I saw my daughter's boobs was the day they wheeled her out of the E.R. in an incubator.

I don't think that's the first indicator maternity staff look at to diagnose a baby's biological gender ;-)

AJ

No. Agents of Chaos i guess they thought it was uninspired or something

Maybe a fan of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and took offense at the acronym?

For me 'Agents of Chaos' sounds like the title of a series that is an offshoot of the 1960s TV comedy series 'Get Smart'.

Except they called it KAOS. Hence, the inspiration for the name of a "character" in one of my stories. Who I called "Kaos".

I loved that story... and that character...

Which is actually a bit of "meta" story. As it was a character inside of the story that was played by another character.

But the "real Kaos" I actually invented in around 1982. And almost exactly as described, and with the same group as the inspiration for the name (and her behavior).

Apparently he thinks my stories are too long, and "shitty". And in 10 years he has never written anything. I really wonder about some people.

Believe it or not, non-authors are actually entitled to their own opinions, and as readers, they often have a point, though they may not be able to express exactly what it is. Then again, an opinion is just an opinion.

Assholes are necessary. Without them we would all be full of shit.

It's not that anyone wants to be 'full of shit', but a few assholes ensure we keep successfully getting rid of the shit we currently have in our lives, but periodic 'purges' of our resident assholes are necessary!

Are you suggesting enforced regular enemas...?? Because some will tell you to stick that right up your...... :)

It was an indirect reference to politicians, and the need to 'purge' them periodically, lest they 'clog up' the system, preventing the body politic from functioning properly. But it applies to blowhards in general, too.

Believe it or not, non-authors are actually entitled to their own opinions, and as readers, they often have a point, though they may not be able to express exactly what it is. Then again, an opinion is just an opinion.

Actually, I welcome constructive criticism. I have opened dialog with many who have written to me about something in my writings, and actually had something to say.

And I do listen, sometimes it has even had me make changes in story progression. Not necessarily in what would happen (as that is often already set), but in how I go about doing it.

But just a 2 sentence message that is just an attack (and one of them being my stories are to long), I just flush them. If somebody likes reading 3-4k stories, there are hundreds of thousands of them on ASSTR.

My shortest story on here is 3k, and mostly I posted it as an "artifact" of my earlier writing. And other than 2 others (one a satire and the other a meta-story written as if it was a "story in a story" submitted to one of those sites), my writing in the last decade or so starts at around 22k, and goes up to 760k (even 3 megs if you combine both of the "Country Boy" stories).

When I post a story as having multiple chapters, that should be a first clue it is not the 3k tissue filler that some may want.

And I have decided once I finish posting the last of CBCG on that site, I am not going to bother with any more. So many have complained I "write to long" that I am only finishing because many have thanked me for it and I do not want to leave it there unfinished.

I don't know how such people even exist...

Quite a few I have found obsess over the codes. That is all they look for, and all they care about. Not length, or anything else but the kink they are interested in.

I even had more than a few scream at me over and over because I had written a "gay story", because the narrator was describing having sex with a guy.

A character I had already described as being a mutuant, and had "changed". And apparently they did not even consider how ludicrous an image it would have been if the narrator was remembering an event from years ago as "he" was then. A big black guy, around 6'6", 250 pounds and built like a football player. Just realizing that so many did not "get it" when I described the narrator on a date years prior as wearing a "small dress" and panties and a bra. That alone should have clued them in to things not being quite as they seemed.

And I did not include the "cross-dressing" tag, so obviously something else was at play there.

Actually, I welcome constructive criticism. I have opened dialog with many who have written to me about something in my writings, and actually had something to say.

And I do listen, sometimes it has even had me make changes in story progression. Not necessarily in what would happen (as that is often already set), but in how I go about doing it.

Don't worry. That's all I was suggesting, that you sometimes have a peer beneath the surface see what a reader's criticism is really about, as they'll often attack the most obvious thing, rather than the central story issue you actually need to address. But ... if someone actively despises your story, then there's really nothing more to discuss.

As for your 'too long' complaints, that was ultimately why I switched from the more involved and personal Day-in-the-Life to event-based chapters, as you can skip over the huge character building data dumps, that while fascinating, are often tedious and lead to substantial story bloat!

I do not understand this defense. I understand he has not written anything, but why should he? You offered up what you evidently put some effort into, I'm assuming because he said it was long and you didn't disagree, and he didn't like it at all. The two things are not connected and just because you made the effort to try doesn't compel any reader to do likewise. I'd just take it as it wasn't to his taste. There is no reason to expect critics to try to anything. Critics like him suck because he didn't specify why he considered it shitty, other than it was long and he should have noticed that before starting by its size.

Critics like him suck because he didn't specify why he considered it shitty, other than it was long and he should have noticed that before starting by its size.

Again, you often need to really pull the actual story critique from the immediate responses. Since few readers are actually knowledgable about story construction, they have difficulty pinpointing what it was about a given story that threw them out of it, but if pressed, those details will typically become apparent relatively soon. But it takes an awful lot of 'teasing' to get them to talk (encouragement, not making fun of).

Again, some of my most vocal one-bombers are among my most loyal readers, they may hate one particular aspect of my stories, but they're not about to quite reading them, which I take as the ultimate complement, so I'm willing to forgive the minimal effect of the 1-bombers (i.e. 'haters'). What I won't waste time with, are those who quit the story after only a single page/chapter, as they're simply not interested int he type of stories I write anyway, so their criticisms don't really mean much concerning my stories.

I prefer the longer stories. I am disabled and read a lot. The longer a story is the less often I have to go dumpster diving... oops, I mean searching for another story.

Same here Megansdad.

I hate when a story ends just when I fell in love with the characters. That is why I've tried to write longer stories - for the same reason.

That being said - sometimes I write a short story because I think there is only enough meat on the bone for a nibble.

I hate when a story ends just when I fell in love with the characters. That is why I've tried to write longer stories - for the same reason.

That being said - sometimes I write a short story because I think there is only enough meat on the bone for a nibble.

Same with me. I still write a lot of short stories, because a lot of my ideas really only fit in that format.

Then again, more than 1 of my long stories started as a short one. Where once I was finished I realized I really liked the story and settings, and decided to just keep going.

Both Okinawa and Country Boy actually started as a single chapter short story. But I kept going back to them over and over again.

I wonder if he was a non-native English speaker and everything got lost in translation.

Actually, I think it is somebody who has used way to many drugs to be honest. I did go through his writings, and they are almost all the same. And interestingly, very lowly rated (they have a simply "thumb up/down" system). And most have like 10+ comments, literally all his.

Still waiting for him to steal my idea. It would be funny to see what he does with it.

I just received this email, regarding 'A True History'.

That very message is Juvenile, boring, and repetitive.

Probably another that prefers stories that can fit on the back of a box of cereal.

That very message is

why I'm waiting until Chapter 33 is posted to turn voting on.

Would you consider writing a story about this please?

Here is the premise:

The protagonist is a nebbish pervert.

Each chapter begins with a vignette of a story he did not write. The rest of the chapter continues with him making comments (in all caps) and how he reacts.

"OMG, this story is too long! How do I take breaks and come back and read it later? I am just going to comment to the author that they need shorter stories"

and it focuses on how he goes about his day and fails miserably at other stuff too like he does writing criticism.

Then the next chapter its a short story with very little detail.

"Oh my god, You call this a story? It was way too short. What day was the protagonist born on? Why didn't you start when he was in diapers and lead up to this part of his life on a day to day basis so we know what happens BEFORE the story?"

and so on. The story concludes when he is in hell and he is fucking a beautiful woman.

Another guy walks past and says how unfair that is, because he is being led to an agonizing pit to be boiled in his own balogna.

"How dare you question that woman's punishment!"

Would you consider writing a story about this please?

Here is the premise:

The protagonist is a nebbish pervert.

Each chapter begins with a vignette of a story he did not write. The rest of the chapter continues with him making comments (in all caps) and how he reacts.

One of the concepts I have had sitting in the background is kind of like that actually. In it, I would have a "fictitious author" write some really horrid stories (which I would actually lift from 25+ year old ASSTR ones and dead tree pulp erotica). Each in response to "fixing" stories they have read here for various reasons.

Generally upset because the "authors" are not writing as they wish. Say not making a character bang his mother-sister-teacher (because that is a kink of the "author), involving an animal, or some other extreme kink that is only the interest of the "author" and nobody else.

And yea, seen that also. I have had so many when I was first writing Country Boy that said Pete should get involved with Rosie (the girlfriend's mother), or even get with the mother, sister, and girlfriend all in a group scene. They did not seem to get that I was not writing "that kind of story", and I largely dismissed them when they continued to insist that would make the story "better".

I have read so many really bad 2-4k stories over the decades, I am sure I would have a goldmine of "extremely bad erotica" I could mine for such clips. I just hope that if I eventually do it, any original authors would understand the joke and not get pissed thinking I am mocking them. Even I am guilty of writing some like that 25+ years ago (and would even include some of my own from that era to mock myself). And thankfully most of us either quit, or got better as the years went on.

The only erotica author from that era I can think of that always wrote "good stories" is Anne Douglas. Very few from the early days wrote such well crafted stories.

and Father something-or-other (I can't remember entirely)

Father Ignatious maybe? Lots of BDSM and stuff like that, also highly rated in the early Celeste reviews.

Yes, there were some, but they tended to be exceptions. I wish I had thought at the time to save Celeste's reviews of my stories. But I was not thinking of it at the time, and now they seem to be lost to time.

USENET archive is gone? I thought Google had taken that role on.

It is still there, but searching it is almost impossible now.

The search on-site has been broken for about a year now, and the site where Celeste posted her reviews has been gone for ages. I can find some of them when I try a backwards search, but not all of them.

USENET archive is gone? I thought Google had taken that role on.

Google "Wayback Machine".

No,him.

No,him? What does that even mean? They didn't like the main male protagonist, they like him better as a female, or are they bitching that the story isn't religious enough (misspelled "no hymns")? ;)

@Mushroom

Probably another that prefers stories that can fit on the back of a box of cereal.

That's why most non-porn authors eventually switch over to all no-sex stories, because while porn enthusiasts simply need a story just long enough to beat one off, those looking for plot want something they can sink their teeth into.