Ouch! - Discussion
Added 2018-04-20 20:51:01 +0000 UTCMedusa Ch. 05 doesn't seem to be reviewing as well as other Medusa chapters, on Literotica at least.
Now, as a professional game dev, I'm used to negative feedback. It's useful, it lets you know what people like or don't like. If someone commented something like 'I disliked this scene because of A B C,' that is very useful to me, though not necessarily for the reasons you may think.
If there's one thing you learn as a game dev, it's that:
- Players usually know when they hate something (not always, but usually. sometimes the dislike is actually buried, subconscious, and takes time to surface)
- Players rarely know exactly what it is they hate about it
- Player suggestions on how to fix the thing they hate are almost unanimously useless, if not destructive to the quality of the game
That isn't to say players are dumb, just ignorant of the thousand systems plugging into each other to make a game work the way it does. But that does mean that I have to do a nasty, soul-crushing thing in order to make use of feedback: I need to dig through it, tear it apart, analyze it, and figure out exactly what's going on or what's useful.
See this feedback for Medusa Ch. 05:
"Nothing
Five pages of practically nothing but angst and needlessly drawn out set up. Even the sex was boring. And the characters are honestly becoming less and less likable. I'll give the next chapter a final shot."
Ouch! What can I make of this?
Needlessly drawn out set up: well, it's a slow-paced story and events need context to have weight. Context takes time to build! The first sex scene between Jack and Antoinette would have fallen pretty flat without the context I built for it.
Sex was boring: I write long sex scenes that are rarely rough and tumble, or terribly extreme. It's just not my style. That's a take-it-or-leave-it element of my stories.
Angst and less likable: ah, something I can use. This chapter of the story is a lull between main events, and I wrote it to purposefully create some animosity between various characters, and their situation in general. It's an angsty chapter. But did I go too far, and shoot my characters in their feet? People like Medusa's sweetheart attitude and Darian's fun-but-cocky attitude. If I go too far and ruin that, readers may stop reading it, even if I am writing it all with the intent to fuel context for future scenes.
Thanks to this feedback, brutal as it was, I have something to consider as I write.
AND that goes for you readers as well. Leave feedback and I'll gladly have a conversation about it. Be brutal, tell me if you hate something. I'm not going to be offended (sad, sure, but not offended), and while I won't bend over to kowtow to feedback I disagree with, I'd love to discuss the things you readers dislike, as much as like.
Comments
Agreed. Can't have highs without lows, and to have patience to read through lows so the highs have more power, weight, and context is becoming a lost art.
Novus Animus
2018-04-28 21:31:18 +0000 UTCI recently had a discussion about a similar subject with a fellow Patron of different Literotica author. I spent decades reading books before I starting reading stories online, so the idea of reading only one chapter at a time (even if those chapters are much longer that what would be seen in a regular book) is not something I tend to look at the same way as others who are more used to reading single chapters. Full stories need time to develop. They need time to set-up and wrap-up plots, time to flesh out characters (heroes and villains). I don't dislike a chapter if it includes those types of developments because I know that these are just setting the stage for what comes next. I think a small part of it is that many people these days (especially those who grew up with internet) have developed a desire for immediate gratification, and if the chapter doesn't give them what they want right away, they get upset. Clearly that is not the only reason and some reasons (such as those noted above by FungleJungle) are perfectly valid and well-thought out, but I would advise taking the complaints with a grain of salt, especially if they are coming from anon comments.
LunarLilith
2018-04-28 16:27:43 +0000 UTCI liked it, if i HAD to make a suggestion, it would be that a fair size chunk of the chapter was focused on the "Villains" of the story. Maybe that is what people did not like? Also i would suggest that you do not read the annon comments. Every story i see on lit. when i get to the end and read the comments the ones written by people with accounts are generally either praising the author or giving CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM, which is helpful. The annon comments are for the most part people who seem to be there just to shit on the story/author. As you said above with a story like this you need to build the world, which takes time and which is what makes the story both memorable and more enjoyable. The annon commentor was probably looking for a stroke story about a snake woman and did not like what he got. Don't worry about it. Looking forward to the next chapter :)
Jared
2018-04-22 00:13:40 +0000 UTC
