Under-appreciated stories

[Melrick]

Have you ever written a story that you’re particularly proud of but ended up receiving little attention from anyone?  Perhaps it got very few, if any, reviews.  Mine is probably a story called Ripples.  I tried to make it feel as much like a Stephen King story as I could manage, and I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out.  It only got the 1 review.  My stories never get too many more than that normally anyway, but I always wished it had got appreciated more.  Maybe my pride in the story has caused me to be particularly biased towards it, and therefore can’t see it for the average story it really is.  Do you know why your story didn’t get much attention, or is it a puzzle to you?

[SparkyMuse]

The only one I’m writing is the one I’d say I’m proud of. But I can guess a few reasons why it isn’t very interesting for most people. It’s likely very boring, too many explanations of things/monologues of people sitting around talking, pace too slow, chapters are very long, and there isn’t exactly a whole lot of sex. Arguably, not really any, although at one point there’s a bit of innuendo, and I’ve fallen into a bad habit of people winding up crying of blacking out at the end of the various chapters. One of the things I’m trying to get away from.

For me, I’m just going to keep writing whether or not anybody’s reading it. It makes me happy, gives me an out for parts of my insanity, keeps me out of too much trouble. If it’s appreciation, I appreciate it. It’s fun-ish for me, and I suppose that’s all that really counts some days, right? Writing for the sake of writing?

On that note, some say pride is a sin. I don’t think so. I don’t think any of the Seven Sins or Seven Virtues are those things, but rather things that need to be kept in balance, otherwise being too far one way or the other would destroy a person either mentally or spiritually. Basically, like, I have pride in my story, and you have pride in yours, and that’s okay, it’s not a sin, like some people would say it is, but we’re not really treating it like god’s gift to earth, at least I’m not, although I do wish I could get a review, but maybe that’s the way it’s kept in check. Maybe it’s written really well, and the lack of comments is the way of keeping one’s pride in check? Well, except for when it comes to me. I’m just boring. XD Anyways, my guess is, sometimes people really do like a story, but they just don’t have too much to say about it, so they don’t leave a review? Or they’re not an official registered member?

Anyways, point is, maybe people really did like it, but they don’t have anything to say to express their feelings about it?

[BronxWench]

I’m going to have to go read that one, Melrick!

I always expect some of my stories get little to no attention because they might be in obscure fandoms without a huge audience. There’s not a lot I can do about that, and I tend to take those a bit less to heart, because it’s obscure. I also think some are not inclusive of enough kink. I’m equally fine with that, to be honest. I’m not throwing in some gratuitous BDSM, or a rape or three, or (gods forbid) Mpreg because people read that. 

As far as sex goes, I think one story I wrote which relies on a great deal of innuendo and suggestion is probably far sexier than my more explicit work. The mind is a wicked, wicked place, and imaginations are far kinkier than I could ever be.

[GeorgeGlass]

Yeah, I might have to check out “Ripples,” too.

I definitely have a couple of stories that I’m quite proud of but that haven’t garnered much attention (“There’s a New Seraph in Town,” “Backward Glance”). Maybe it’s because they are original stories that are heavier on plot than on porn, and because what sex there is involves unrelated, consenting human adults.   But I have other stories that I’m proud of that have gotten quite a bit of attention (eg, “Quiet,” “Activation Day”), so I can’t complain too much.

[Melrick]

Yeah, non sexy stories definitely get less love than plain old smut, usually.  And original stories also usually get less attention than fan fiction, sadly.  I get more enjoyment out of writing non-smut actually.

10 hours ago, BronxWench said:

As far as sex goes, I think one story I wrote which relies on a great deal of innuendo and suggestion is probably far sexier than my more explicit work. The mind is a wicked, wicked place, and imaginations are far kinkier than I could ever be.

I agree.  I like using my imagination, for porn and non-porn, and it’s hard to do that when you’re being hand-held right through the story.  I guess that’s one reason why I enjoy leaving some of my stories open-ended and allow the reader to come to their own conclusion to various degrees.

[Anesor]

Sometimes trends and demographics make a difference. You can write the most wonderful Quantum Leap story, but if fans have moved on, one good review is excellent. I don’t write that fast, so by the time I finish my draft or my conclusion the attention wave has passed. What people react to can surprise you, too.

I once cross posted over multiple sites to try to see where the fans who liked my style hung out, but that was a huge time sink without being very helpful. I may write sometimes for my own amusement, but I post for comments and selfpublish for money.

[GeorgeGlass]

17 hours ago, Anesor said:

Sometimes trends and demographics make a difference. You can write the most wonderful Quantum Leap story, but if fans have moved on, one good review is excellent. I don’t write that fast, so by the time I finish my draft or my conclusion the attention wave has passed.

Maybe that explains why my latest Phineas and Ferb story (“Hot Yoga”) has garnered relatively few reviews. It’s been almost 2 years since the show went off the air; maybe the fanbase has moved on.

Ironically, I feel like I can do more with the characters now that the show itself is over.

[Anesor]

Oh, very much. Once the source material has ended, there is a much more solid foundation to write. Even though most fanfic ends up AU, it feels more satisfying to keep it as close to canon for me. If the canon keeps changing, then my clever insights are for nothing… That means I like writing in that sweet spot where  the characters/story I like are finished in canon, but before other fans have lost interest. It looks like Potter and Star Wars will be active for a long time. Bur Buffy and STOS are slowing. I like exploring where canon doesn’t have the time or interest, especially after the ending where there is the freedom to do whatever I want and all the canon is available as both problems and history.

Since I’m now on my third writing fandom, I find it interesting to start getting an idea of the bell curve, the activity level in writing activity across different fandoms. Some books/movies/game releases can choke a living fandom. That is another risk a sa writer, do you incorporate a later release? I know the ending before I start, but my muse has starved when the canon was a desert. (OR writing a fanfic for a MMO end up feeling just as pointless) Keep writing, as long as you are enjoying it. Keep posting as long as people seem interested. Measuring that interest is the tricky part for me.

[CloverReef]

I'm on my phone so I'll keep this short so as not to anger the auto correct gods. 

Definitely the story I loved the most failed to get the reception I expected. It didn't get silence so much as by far the most criticism out of any of my stories, and I've posted some real stinkers that received heaps of nothing but praise. So yeah it was baffling to me that something I thought of as my best work was so negatively received. 

I've also had ones I was so excited about posting. Thought they were so well written and I was convinced they played perfectly to the audience. Then i posted and... crickets. So that was fun lol. You'd think it would be humbling, but I'm quite good at blaming everyone but me. (Okay, so I didn't really keep it short.)

[Anesor]

I find it difficult to write too much to the audience. That is a very good way for my muse to take a powder.  And my shorter stuff tends to get more approval, even if longer stuff gives me more elbow room. Try different lengths if you can.

[Desiderius Price]

I’ve got original, unfinished, stories with a load of warning tags, so, yeah, I kinda feel like my stories are underappreciated given the hit counter and handful of reviews.  However, I also recognize that there’s an element of luck here, either your brilliance is found out, or not.  Some marketing does help the odds, but in the end, it’s still luck.

[Anesor]

Now, can we influence the Luck? Is it phase of the moon? Giving the most annoying talk show host a finger on the fifth Tuesday of the month? Sacrificing chocolate bunnies? (a little harder this time of year) Marketing is hard, and few writers seem to manage to balance output and marketing in a balance that works for them.

Me? I’m hoping to finish a couple projects I’m obsessing on and get back to original stuff. Still looking for an editing method I can live with, with two novels in my trunk.

[Melrick]

If you write original fiction then that tends to get less reviews than fan fiction, but if you’re like me and also write original but non m/m stuff then it gets even less reviews.  And god forbid if you include no sex of any kind in it! lol

[Anesor]

Nah, I’ve written, selfpubbed, and submitted original stuff for the money. The writing group I’m on the edges of seems to have some evidence that it takes at least ten releases until you start getting momentum, shorts or novel length.  But I’m only about a third there after getting derailed with two big health issues last year. The heat varies considerably depending on the genre out there, and there are a lot of published works and best sellers in my genre that are successful without much sex. I choose where I put it based on the response I want, and cash is very nice in lieu of reviews. My two active fanfics are a hurt/friendship post-disaster and a very slow build and I’m hoping to finish both by July so I can get at least a score original shorts out before the end of the year.

[Desiderius Price]

Cash *is* a review, IMO.

[Gandalfs-Beard]

One thing I’ve found, is that it’s hard to tell how much love a story is getting without even just a “fave” or “kudos” system, so it’s even more important for people enjoying our stories to leave reviews. So when people don’t review, it can be a bit demoralising and there’s really no way to tell if folk liked the story or not. 

Anyway, yes, I’m really pleased—to this day—how my first “major” fanfic turned out (I still think it holds up better than some of my other more recent shorter fics), and unfortunately, it languishes unnoticed... to this day. 

My fic The Adventures of Bilbo and Tauriel (aka The Adventures of Bilbo and Itaril) is quite possibly (?) the first fanfic based on The Hobbit films to appear online, as it was written and posted on a Hobbit forum in the Autumn of 2009 while casting had only just begun (and when the proposed female elf character was named Itaril) and before the scripts were even complete, and a few months later I posted it at ff.net. And that’s probably one of the reasons it never got very far—it came out way too soon. It’s important to “catch the wave” of “less popular” franchises at just the right time as Anesor pointed out. And yeah, I know it seems weird to call a Tolkien property “less popular,” but compared to Potterverse and Naruto, Tolkien stuff is very under-represented in fanfic-world.

I’m fairly certain that the other major factors in my fic’s poor showing are that it is a Bilbo/Tauriel pairing in a fandom dominated by Bilbo/Thorin and Kili/Tauriel pairings, and also that the sex is only implied at best. People like smut, and they tend to like detailed smut.

Personally, though I have by and large conceded to the gods of smut and given the audience what they want in some of my fics, my general writing preferences actually tend to be on the same page as BronxWench’s. And indeed, when it comes right down to it, I really don’t let the audience have that much input, even when I am playing to them—my stories tend to be planned out to a certain degree, and I only allow the characters to drive any alterations to the plot (characterisation always comes first in my book).  

 

Edited May 27, 2017 by Gandalfs-Beard

[Desiderius Price]

46 minutes ago, Gandalfs-Beard said:

One thing I’ve found, is that it’s hard to tell how much love a story is getting without even just a “fave” or “kudos” system, so it’s even more important for people enjoying our stories to leave reviews. So when people don’t review, it can be a bit demoralising and there’s really no way to tell if folk liked the story or not.

It’s tough to tell.  My best metric has been to record the dragon prints (hit counter).  When I see that it goes up a hundred hits in a day after I post a chapter, consistently, then it’s reasonable to conclude that there are people who are enjoying it.  Some people say it doesn’t matter, but it does, because I wouldn’t put as much effort in to polish/post the chapters otherwise.

And when you get somebody who’s reviewing, consistently, cherish them   

[Gandalfs-Beard]

3 minutes ago, Desiderius Price said:

When I see that it goes up a hundred hits in a day after I post a chapter, consistently, then it’s reasonable to conclude that there are people who are enjoying it.

Very true!

Still, it’s nice to actually get feedback, and I even cherish mixed reviews, and negative reviews which I wholly disagree with as long as they’re not trollish.

[sweetmamajama]

On 22.5.2017. at 10:32 AM, CloverReef said:

I'm on my phone so I'll keep this short so as not to anger the auto correct gods. 

Definitely the story I loved the most failed to get the reception I expected. It didn't get silence so much as by far the most criticism out of any of my stories, and I've posted some real stinkers that received heaps of nothing but praise. So yeah it was baffling to me that something I thought of as my best work was so negatively received. 

I've also had ones I was so excited about posting. Thought they were so well written and I was convinced they played perfectly to the audience. Then i posted and... crickets. So that was fun lol. You'd think it would be humbling, but I'm quite good at blaming everyone but me. (Okay, so I didn't really keep it short.)

Aww my poor bobo! What story are you talking about? Crawling within?

[sweetmamajama]

But to answer the actual thread: I'm currently writing a story that in my opinion is my best (though that isn't saying much...) both in writing style and plot. And out of all of my stories it received the least lovin! I had stories (on other websites btw) that were total shit and ppl loved it! And its so bad I feel really embarrassed now by the shittynes of the plot that didn't make sense, the characters that were ether empty shells or sadistic fuckers and all of the grammatical errors. And it was my most beloved story… ppl suck!

[Anesor]

7 hours ago, Gandalfs-Beard said:

Still, it’s nice to actually get feedback, and I even cherish mixed reviews, and negative reviews which I wholly disagree with as long as they’re not trollish.

Yeah, I got one recently where the reader thought my lead hated a group. They don’t, they’re just uncomfortable about slavery and free will issues that are to be addressed later in the storyline.  But I had no idea where the dislike came from, which bled over into how another character was treated. I finally figured it out earlier, awaiting for confirmation, that the hating character used a pronoun when cursing the slavers and they thought it was cursing the slaves. I try to keep alert to pronouns like that, but it sneaks up on you. Comments like that confuse me, especially as the chapter I’m drafting is way later.  But after confusion, annoyance, and quick to anger about  what I hope is a good guy character, clarifying wasn’t an issue. I’ve found with some reviewers, addressing it is better in the long run. The mot trollish one wandered off to bother someone else,

59 minutes ago, sweetmamajama said:

But to answer the actual thread: I'm currently writing a story that in my opinion is my best (though that isn't saying much...) both in writing style and plot. And out of all of my stories it received the least lovin! I had stories (on other websites btw) that were total shit and ppl loved it! And its so bad I feel really embarrassed now by the shittynes of the plot that didn't make sense, the characters that were ether empty shells or sadistic fuckers and all of the grammatical errors. And it was my most beloved story… ppl suck!

It could be they loved it because it was better than what they usually saw, even if you were dissatisfied.  If any of their comments had substance, don’t worry too much.  Over polishing a story makes it an orphan too, as stories don’t mean much if they aren’t shared.

[mastershakeme]

On 5/15/2017 at 9:33 AM, Melrick said:

Have you ever written a story that you’re particularly proud of but ended up receiving little attention from anyone?  Perhaps it got very few, if any, reviews.  Mine is probably a story called Ripples.  I tried to make it feel as much like a Stephen King story as I could manage, and I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out.  It only got the 1 review.  My stories never get too many more than that normally anyway, but I always wished it had got appreciated more.  Maybe my pride in the story has caused me to be particularly biased towards it, and therefore can’t see it for the average story it really is.  Do you know why your story didn’t get much attention, or is it a puzzle to you?

I checked one of your stories out, I won’t say which one because I’m embarrassed lol. I don’t read M/F but… you write a good sex scene sir! 

I’m not new to AFF, but I also have never been a large contributor… I’m glad i saw this topic because that’s why I’m here on the forums... A few months back I too posted a story which I felt was one of my best works. The old ones had maybe 100 comments each, I was so sure I wouldn’t have an issue and I’d get some feedback, but 2 comments…. lol. It really scared me and made me doubt myself. I did a lot of editing and I’m back to post again, but since that happened to me, I’m seeing how much of an affect I can have on my fellow writers. We can always offer each other encouragement. We can show each other support. We can really make someone’s day by leaving them a simple message. I feel VERY socially awkward, but I’m here to give support. Because like all humans, I need a little support too :-P I’m going back to leave you a comment, Melrick  Nice to meet you!

[mastershakeme]

On 5/22/2017 at 4:32 AM, CloverReef said:

I'm on my phone so I'll keep this short so as not to anger the auto correct gods. 

Definitely the story I loved the most failed to get the reception I expected. It didn't get silence so much as by far the most criticism out of any of my stories, and I've posted some real stinkers that received heaps of nothing but praise. So yeah it was baffling to me that something I thought of as my best work was so negatively received. 

I've also had ones I was so excited about posting. Thought they were so well written and I was convinced they played perfectly to the audience. Then i posted and... crickets. So that was fun lol. You'd think it would be humbling, but I'm quite good at blaming everyone but me. (Okay, so I didn't really keep it short.)

I wish i would have talked to you about this in more depth… I solely blamed myself and ran off site crying, deleting everything in my wake! I’m just playing it off like it’s cool, but it wasn’t  lol!!! it’s only cuz you and @Tcr and @sweetmamajama held my hand and rubbed my back and told me it was going to be ok that I’m back trying again!!! We can’t let people affect us this negatively (or at least I shouldn’t, jesus) Anyways, as always, it’s good to know I’m not alone. 

[Melrick]

5 hours ago, mastershakeme said:

I checked one of your stories out, I won’t say which one because I’m embarrassed lol. I don’t read M/F but… you write a good sex scene sir! 

I’m not new to AFF, but I also have never been a large contributor… I’m glad i saw this topic because that’s why I’m here on the forums... A few months back I too posted a story which I felt was one of my best works. The old ones had maybe 100 comments each, I was so sure I wouldn’t have an issue and I’d get some feedback, but 2 comments…. lol. It really scared me and made me doubt myself. I did a lot of editing and I’m back to post again, but since that happened to me, I’m seeing how much of an affect I can have on my fellow writers. We can always offer each other encouragement. We can show each other support. We can really make someone’s day by leaving them a simple message. I feel VERY socially awkward, but I’m here to give support. Because like all humans, I need a little support too :-P I’m going back to leave you a comment, Melrick  Nice to meet you!

I know which story it was!   And speaking of under-appreciated. lol  But at least that story had 3 (now 4) reviews, so I’m happy with that.  Thanks for the review!  And nice to meet you too!

[sweetmamajama]

10 hours ago, mastershakeme said:

 I solely blamed myself and ran off site crying, deleting everything in my wake! I’m just playing it off like it’s cool, but it wasn’t  lol!!! it’s only cuz you and @Tcr and @sweetmamajama held my hand and rubbed my back and told me it was going to be ok that I’m back trying again!!!

Aww boo! Why didya put me last bitch?!

I didn't know u deleted anything?