This is a blog post I made but I felt it may also belong on the forum. Just scanning some of the posts here I think I am not alone in my experience.
Let me begin by saying Occam's Razor tells me the simplest answer is that I could be a terrible writer or at the very least wrote a terrible story.
I am reminded there have been many musicians I really enjoyed who later released a song I didn't like. It doesn't usually work like that for authors. You may like Pearl Jam's first album but later work wasn't as slick/radio friendly as an example. It doesn't make them bad musicians or take away what I liked about them. It just means that I don't get into the new stuff. I wouldn't send them a nastygram about it though.
As an example, I can't stand 50 shades of gray.
The Batman of BDSM: Handsome billionaire with way too much time on his hands. He sits around all day drinking champagne in limousines dealing with a woman he wants to have sex with when he could just as easily HIRE professional BDSM models to come give him the time of his life. The story does nothing for me because I cannot relate to any of it. That being said, would I downvote it a 1 of "You call this a story?" if it were on this site?
No! It is obviously a story and enough people liked it that they made it into a series, movies, you can even buy their official sex toys.
I am caught up with my Homeowner's Association Story and just editing chapters now. I had some spare creativity and did a little writing exercise.
I won't say I never get negative feedback on that story but it's been mostly positive. That means to me that I am capable of telling an enjoyable story. I recently received a very lengthy comment on the story that said something along the lines of:
"Hey, (I have a short attention span) and only read the first part of your story and the last part. The characters suck, you suck. They would never be there. It is totally implausible. Charity is a sex-doll with no personality, etc." etc.
He totally missed every point in the story. The story is supposed to be a fish out of water story. It is based on another story with the same premise that was never completed. The idea is what would happen if a Kinky couple with a vanilla family moved to a kink friendly community.
Yes, the family is dysfunctional and flawed. I love characters like that. They have the most potential for growth/change. They are also the most real.
Implausible? On a site where stories are about mind control, and alien invasions? Yeah, it is. That's why its a fantasy story and not a true story.
Charity is the first selfless, true loving submissive I've ever written as a main character. She is based on dozens of women I've known who are JUST like here. Had he read the middle he'd see that she does reveal her inner thoughts to the main character. She laughs, she has insecurities, she worries, she has a jaded past that she is ashamed of and regret. She doesn't do that throughout the story though or it would not be special when she opens up to him.
He is also not going to write that his father is a God-King of all Omnscience. As a teenager, he respect his father but he thinks he is wrong sometimes and doesn't always understand his motivations. His father is flawed as well, he makes mistakes and he learns from them.
That is the whole fucking point of the story.
That being said, I value feedback like this because someone took the time to read and write about how they completely misunderstood everything. It isn't "Constructive" because I am not going to change one fucking thing about how I write the story because of his short attention span. In fact, if anything he confirmed me for me that this story isn't for his type of audience. The people who have patiently been with this through every chapter and are enjoying the subtle changes are my target audience. I am writing it for myself and that is who I am as well.
What I am talking about today is not that kind of feedback.
I usually write in 1st person. I like to put myself in the perspective of someone telling a story from their point of view. in the case of HOA its a kid so wet behind the ears, desperate for sex that he reminds me of me at that age. I can relate to him.
There are a lot of positives to writing that 1st person POV. The best is that you don't have to reveal the true motivations of other characters. You can surprise the reader at the same time as the person telling the story. You can also demonstrate their evolution over time. In the case of the HOA story, he is intended to be wet behind the ears and shy. Over time, he will (hopefully) grow in confidence and evolve.
I decided to write "The Hot Mom" in third person. This too has advantages especially for a short story like this one. My original outline called for 6 chapters. You can get right into things without a lot of exposition as an impartial narrator. It is admittedly not a style of writing I would consider my forte'
However, I had edited the story, checked it for grammar and did my best to make the first chapter pop. I wanted to try something different for me. Instead of my normal slow plodding pace of getting started where I develop the characters I jumped right into a sexual situation.
Author's sometimes use this device where they get the reader's attention and then say "Six months later.." in the second chapter and start from the beginning so they can develop the character. My plan was to do that except in Chapter Two add the twist of setting the events three days after the 1st chapter but having the main character flashback on what brought her to this situation. As I said, this is a pretty common writing technique I've seen but one I've never done before.
In Hotmom, I base her on the idea of a "Hot Wife" who likes having her husband's permission to be a slut. It allows her to be nasty without it feeling like it was all her idea.
Except in this case, she is divorced and close to her son so the son is the surrogate husband for this purpose.
I posted it last night. I received three comments all within 15 minutes from three different users saying
"This is Garbage" pretty much.
I think we all know what constructive feedback is. However, for sake of discussion let me clear: That isn't constructive.
"I didn't like this story because (it had many grammatical errors and was difficult to understand)"
There are some people who ignore story codes and the description and read the story. Then they get pissy because they don't like stories with those elements. That isn't constructive feedback either. It'd be like if I hated BDSM and went to see 50 shades of Gray and then said "It sucked".
"Okay, but it was exactly what they told you it was going to be"
Don't go to a steak restaurant if you are a vegan and rate it bad because you don't like steak.
Now, it is entirely possibly the person who left those comments was the same guy. On the Internet, you can easily create three accounts. You can also post with multiple pen names. The accounts were all a word and then 4 numbers. They also emailed me some snotty grams like "Please stop." and nothing else.
My initial reaction was as I said earlier: It is very possible I made a huge mistake with this story and did it poorly. However, even if I did, put yourselves in the shoes of a new author on this site.
Imagine you finally get the courage to put a story out there. Instead of helping you get better, you get a barrage of snotgrams telling you basically to never write again.
If you have recently been swarmed by negative comments like mine please contact me. I don't want to post their user names because everyone is entitled to their opinion. However, if it turns out they are swarming other people the same way (Which I am going to go out on a limb and say they probably are) then I will turn it over to the web admin and ask them to handle it.
The webmaster spends a lot of time and resources on this site and it shows. Ultimately, they will do what is best for the site.