Had a discussion the other day about how each decade seems to have a different writing styles and topics.
out of curiosity which of oldest stories that are not behind the premium wall would you recommend
Had a discussion the other day about how each decade seems to have a different writing styles and topics.
out of curiosity which of oldest stories that are not behind the premium wall would you recommend
This should actually be under "Story Recommendations" and not "Lost Stories".
https://storiesonline.net/s/40600/brick would be a good place to start - it is from 2003 - and there are several other stories by the same author dated the same year. I believe Don Lockwood posted them to AssTr first and moved to SOL that year.
https://storiesonline.net/s/40985/toms-diary is pretty much a stroke story with some young characters, it was posted 2003/4 by Gina Marie Wylie.
https://storiesonline.net/s/47245/the-power-and-the-price (Fick Suck) is from 2006. He has a couple of stories from 2005 but I can't remember how good they are.
"Naked in School" was a "thing" back then and https://storiesonline.net/s/43132/meredith-and-derek-naked-in-school is from 2004/5. CWatson also wrote some other ones (as did Don Lockwood).
https://storiesonline.net/a/Heathen57 has some from 2003/4/5, "A Friend in Need" was his most ambitious work.
https://storiesonline.net/a/Vulgar_Argot wrote a lot back then, I think he also imported them from AssTr.
https://storiesonline.net/a/Shrink42 is/was a shrink and his stories reflect that, Banner Year was written 2005/6/7 and is probably his most popular.
https://storiesonline.net/a/lazlo-zalezac wrote a hell of a lot, and much of that was in that era.
Most other authors from back then are inactive and archived now.
Dang, I did not realize I was one of the old farts. I admit I've been taken aback at times at the memorial list.
The biggest difference I have experienced from the "aughts" is the stories with driving, complex plots or with big character development. There was a premium on fiction that included sex rather than stories about sex, which was reflected in the scoring. The gold standard was the fiction plot that wove sex into the engine that drove the plot. Wowzers! There were then and still are plenty of "just sex stories."
The second difference between then and now is the permission to make mistakes. My early stories had lots of presentation grammar mistakes, such as quote signs and the comma or period. People forgave and explained, urging me to correct AND to continue writing. Today, a harshness has entered the criticism, and with it, a petty arrogance and condescension. Still, there are plenty of generous and kind people on SOL, but the harshness I have seen on other social media has crept in.
The third difference is the sentence structure and the vocabulary. Pick up any Clifford Simak sci-fi novel from the 1950's and you will read incredibly long sentences in every paragraph; he was praised for this skill. Each generation since, longer, more complicated sentences have been unpacked. The phenomenon has happened with vocabulary too, especially in the last twenty-five years. Readers prefer less obscure and fewer "high brow" words (i.e. gregarious or friendly), but they still prefer lots of different vocabulary. The best example is the comparison between Roget's Thesaurus and the one provided in Microsoft 365 - two different world views.
Apropos of this posting, I uploaded this evening a re-edited version of my 2005 story, "Grains of Sands" to correct all those grammar mistakes and poor word choices. There were bunches and bunches, Oh lordy.
I remember back in the mid 80's to late 90's when access was through UseNet. I would access ASSM (alt.sex.stories.moderated) with newreader software and subscribe to a news server. Many ISP's (like AOL) would block access to certain news servers. Of course, most of this was done through dial up modems. My first was a 1200 bit/sec. My current modem supports 2000 gigabit/sec.
Some of the authors took the time to proofread their work, and it was well written. For others, the writing was sometimes atrocious. A friend of mine in the local computer group commented that some of his ninth grade students could write better, except they didn't know the subject matter.
I discovered user groups in the early 80s and found a lot of interesting stuff buried in various alt.sex.... groups. I wasn't looking for stories back then, and much of the "stuff" I found would probably get you a visit from the FBI or DHS now.
ninth grade students could write better, except they didn't know the subject matter
Oh, some of them probably did.
A friend of mine in the local computer group commented that some of his ninth grade students could write better, except they didn't know the subject matter.
I question sometimes if many of the authors really know the subject matter. I can't remember the number of times I have read something in here and just shook my head at some of the things they wrote.
There was a premium on fiction that included sex rather than stories about sex
You have a selective memory, as in "only the good stuff".
Today, a harshness has entered the criticism, and with it, a petty arrogance and condescension.
Ok, as someone who can't write and can only carp, I don't get the mails and can't judge. What I do remember is some authors simply saying "I don't write to get this abuse, fuck you all - I'm leaving" (or words to that effect).
I'll have a look at your new version of "Grains of Sands", and I consider the original version to be a better story than the one I put forward. That was in there as an early story from you and something I felt was from another era. Sorry!
No apology necessary. I wrote to learn how to write better. I, too, remember a few authors lambasting their detractors and storming off the site. I was demonized(!) for my portrayal of Christianity in my tale, "The Evolutionist." The critic was so infuriated, he went through my entire catalog and gave me a "1" on every story. Eh, growing a thicker skin is part of the publishing process. Lazeez provides a well moderated platform. As such, going back to the original question, he helped many of us develop our voices.
Yeah, religion, like politics, can be a touchy, sensitive subject, which is why, back in our days, they were subject not openly spoken of over a meal where people couldn't easily storm out without going hungry. Now that, it seems people are simply more provocative during family functions, actually trying to piss off as many people as possible.
I miss those kinder and gentler social roles, as it didn't actual squelch those behaviors, just hid them from plain sight and this kids.
You have a selective memory, as in "only the good stuff".
Actually, it was a bit of both back then.
I actually started archiving a lot of stories in the early 1990s when we were still passing them around on BBS sites. And that continued into the ASSM era and later. And my collection is mostly from then until the early 2000s, and is rather big. As in over 1.4 gigs and almost 10,000 stories.
And some are absolutely horrible, some are at least worth a chuckle. And some are interesting as they are a peek back in that era. Things like TV parodies were big at one point, including Alf, 90210, Buffy, Married With Children, and the X-Files. And of course from that era I have close to a hundred based on Sailor Moon.
And before the craze of "Do-Over", there was a lot of "Mind Control" stories. I must have around a hundred of them from the mid-late 1990s.
Sometimes I do look into my archives, and often shake my head at what was written back then. But for every five pieces of absolute trash, we also had something by say Amy Douglas or Gina Marie Wylie.
The biggest difference I have experienced from the "aughts" is the stories with driving, complex plots or with big character development. There was a premium on fiction that included sex rather than stories about sex, which was reflected in the scoring. The gold standard was the fiction plot that wove sex into the engine that drove the plot. Wowzers! There were then and still are plenty of "just sex stories."
I can see that myself, as I started writing in the 1990s.
The majority of stories back then were really short, as in 20k and less was probably the norm. And I remember when I wrote a long form story of over 200k, and a lot of people wondered why I would ever write or post a story that long.
Today, the length has mostly increased a lot. But the quality can often times be just as bad or worse.
I would add https://storiesonline.net/s/35148/robin by John Smith, from 2001. It also has a good epilogue that tells what happens after they ride off into the sunset.
Will need your account to be set to full access since it does have under 14 year old characters.
His other stories are good also.
The dates mentioned on SOL aren't always correct.
It is the date the story was added to the site and not the date the story was written.
If you do a Category Search on Novel-Pocketbook
you will find books from 1960-1980. Most (all?) of them are premium, but can readily be found with a title/author internet search.
Otherwise, to have quality and correct dates, I suggest following this year by year:
https://clitoridesawards.org/archives/1999
The dates mentioned on SOL aren't always correct.
This I know very well.
Some of my stories posted here with dates in the 2000s were actually written between 1995 and 1998. They floated around on places like ASSM and a few other sites before this became pretty much the only place I post on.