Emily’s NEW positivity and being nice to each other thread

I had to pronouce "tulip" the American way before I could laugh. Unfortunately the effort in mental accent adjustment stifled my laugh, which emerged as a British titter.
 
I had to pronouce "tulip" the American way before I could laugh. Unfortunately the effort in mental accent adjustment stifled my laugh, which emerged as a British titter.

I wasn't aware there were different pronunciations.

It's a terrible pun, regardless, but I couldn't help myself. If all it got was a titter, I'll take it.
 
Ah, the multiplicity of language.
Tittering one way or another, I'm sure.

33297-glance-daddy-my-hooters-are-so-giant.gif
 
I want to give a shoutout to @johnapplesmith348, who by my count has started following me no fewer than four times.

I don't know whether John has been repeatedly disappointed by my stories, but is forgiving enough to give me all these extra chances, or whether he persists in following me despite someone or something purging me from his Followed Authors list. But whatever it is, I appreciate his doggedness and constancy.

John, if you're reading this: thank you for your support!
 
Hey y’all! I’ve never been on the forums before!

I’m wondering if I should just stop writing?

My two newest stories got a one-star and a two-star rating within just 12 hours of publishing, and that freaked me out a bit - the two newest installments in Frankenstein’s Awakening are the chapters that I’m the most proud of. So I panicked and closed audience voting.

I love love LOVE writing these, but if I'm just embarrassing myself by posting them here then maybe I should stop.
 
Hey y’all! I’ve never been on the forums before!

I’m wondering if I should just stop writing?

My two newest stories got a one-star and a two-star rating within just 12 hours of publishing, and that freaked me out a bit - the two newest installments in Frankenstein’s Awakening are the chapters that I’m the most proud of. So I panicked and closed audience voting.

I love love LOVE writing these, but if I'm just embarrassing myself by posting them here then maybe I should stop.
Post with votes turned off or ignore the ratings. And if you get good feedback, treasure it. It's what I do.

Post a link to your stories on this board and I'll gladly review them if they interest me. Others might also. It is appreciated (but not required) if you read and review our stories in exchange.
 
Hey y’all! I’ve never been on the forums before!

I’m wondering if I should just stop writing?

My two newest stories got a one-star and a two-star rating within just 12 hours of publishing, and that freaked me out a bit - the two newest installments in Frankenstein’s Awakening are the chapters that I’m the most proud of. So I panicked and closed audience voting.

I love love LOVE writing these, but if I'm just embarrassing myself by posting them here then maybe I should stop.
You are overreacting. Turn voting back on and be patient.

Chapters 2 through 5 all have fewer than 1000 views. On average I get about 1 vote per 90 views, so if your averages are the same it means you have no more than around 10 total votes for each story. You cannot intuit anything at all from the first 10 votes that a story receives. You can get some idea of where readers stand when you get to around 50 votes. Before that, the score is highly volatile and at the whim of nasty downvoting trolls.
 
I love love LOVE writing these, but if I'm just embarrassing myself by posting them here then maybe I should stop.
I skimmed your latest. There's room for improvement, but no, it's not embarassing. Keep at it, if you love it, do it for it's own sake and learn and improve. Read the stories of people on the forum here. There are some damn good writers here, and you'll pick up some skills just by osmosis. And you can always ask here, or follow the threads where technique is discussed.

I'd re-open the voting (if that is allowed?). That feedback is valuable, and you'll often find that the early avg rating can change a lot with more votes. Don't just leave that 1 hanging out there.

One specific thing, your author's note comes off a bit passive-aggressive and defensive. A writer interested in an audience needs to put on a brave front, even if he's not feeling it. And you'll probably find that even faking confidence makes it start coming out for real in your writing.
 
Don't give up: I've had a quick glance at your first story, and you have a pleasant style, and it's an interesting concept. So stick at at. More writers is always a good thing.

If you're open to some suggestions (from someone who's been around for less than a year, not some revered guru), you might try some of the following:

Make your chapters longer. I know that when you first start writing anything that covers more than one or two pages in Word seems like an epic, but here on Lit there's a preference for longer works, particularly in the lower-traffic categories such as Non-Erotic and Non-Human. See if you can put together something in the region of 6-8,000 words.

Before submitting for publication, run your story through Read Aloud in Word or some other text-to-speech function. This will help you spot typos. From my quick glance at your story I didn't see any, but I did spot one contraction in an otherwise formal style. Read Aloud helps you to maintain consistency too.

And lastly, but this is more of a nerdy thing, if you're going to write about Frankenstein, be sure to refer to "Adam" as a creature, not a monster. That's part of the point of the story: it's about Man playing in God's domain and "creating" another being. I quote Gary Larson:

1714768588249.png
 
BTW, seeing this thread get bumped again reminded me that @EmilyMiller has been conspicuously absent lately. ??? She's been a fixture on AH since I started participating here.
 
BTW, seeing this thread get bumped again reminded me that @EmilyMiller has been conspicuously absent lately. ??? She's been a fixture on AH since I started participating here.
She got fed up with some ongoing hostility, I believe. She was in the Bear thread, I think, but she didn't seem to be her usual upbeat self.

ETA: Not many people were their usual upbeat self in that thread, I suppose.
 
ETA: Not many people were their usual upbeat self in that thread, I suppose.
No, whenever this forum gets even close to political topics, it goes off the rails.

I try to avoid it, because if I got started, the rails themselves would get twisted up like there was a tornado during an earthquake. I can get that fix on Xwitter.
 
Back
Top