Intelligent Stories that don’t insult you

[AchtungNight]

I know right. Similarly, why don't Nazis just focus more on sympathy and peace? The 30s and 40s would have been a lot nicer.

I know. Makes me want to run off and join the Gypsies. Hey nice girl hiding in an attic, you want to come along?

 

[NoTalentHack]

I know. The weird thing is, they’re fortifying their own prison by being arrogant imbeciles intent on inciting wrath. Instead of, I don’t know, maybe making a community to help people and give them sympathy and peace?

The interesting thing is that's how the incel "movement," for lack of a better term, started. The term "incel" was coined by a woman, and she applied it to herself. The early incel community was open to both men and women, and it was intended to be sort of a support group for people that, for whatever reason, had resigned themselves unwillingly to celibacy and/or lack of romantic affection.

And then a bunch of shit happened. The biggest was that more and more men became involved, and the less decent of them started trying to hit on the women in the community, often aggressively. That drove them way. Before too long, people involved in the MTGOW (Men Going Their Own Way, i.e., guys who wholeheartedly embraced celibacy for various reasons, choosing to focus on male friendships, hobbies, work, etc.), Pick Up Artists (sleazebags that tried to "crack the code" on foolproof ways to get laid), MRAs (men's rights activists, the guys that target the very few places where men are regularly discriminated against in Western society), and other, similarly unsavory types started recruiting from and joining in the incel communities.

I wrote (anonymously, because I'm not an idiot) a field guide to alt-right hate groups in North Texas a few years back. The way those groups operate, in terms of their recruitment and their very porous membership structures in the current era (as opposed to the very siloed structures of the past, i.e., the KKK actively fought with the neo-Nazis, who hated the sovereign citizens, etc.) are almost a carbon copy of the incel movement. No one's sure if that's a conincidence, a sign of the times, the influence of the internet, etc.

But one thing is for sure: there's an incel-to-violent hate group pipeline that runs through the whole thing. It's easy to understand, if odious. "Why, yes, women are treating you awfully. That's because *insert ethnic group here* supports them in doing that, and it's also why you seem more and more women dating *insert other ethnic group here*, because of brainwashing. It's your duty, nay, your right, to put those groups back in their place." They recruit from places where disaffected young men congregate mostly to themselves: gaming forums, some Discords, the various chan boards, etc. There's a great series on the phenomenon on YouTube by Innuendo Studios called "The Alt-Right Playbook," at

In particular, the video "How to Radicalize a Normie" goes heavy into the incel-to-alt-right pipeline, if I remember correctly.

The other interesting pipeline is the incel-to-trans pipeline. It's not talked about as much, but I have a bunch of trans friends from all over the world, and pretty much all of them knows a trans woman who was heavily into Gamergate, chan boards, etc. that is now proudly trans and deeply ashamed of their past. It makes sense; those of us old enough to remember the 70s and 80s probably all knew at least one guy (and it was almost always guys) that was suuuuuuper homophobic in high school or college that ended up coming out of the closet years later. Incel-to-trans is probably similar. "I hate women because I'm mad at myself for not being brave enough to be who I am and/or I'm confused by how I feel and it's easier/less painful to blame it on them than put in the work."

I could talk about this shit for hours. I find it fascinating, albeit horrible and sad. But there's always been movements like this, and there's always been people willing to grift them. This is just the latest face of an old cancer.

 

[KeithD]

I could talk about this shit for hours. I find it fascinating, albeit horrible and sad.

But hopefully on the Political Board rather than the AH.

 

[NoTalentHack]

But hopefully on the Political Board rather than the AH.

Yes, no, absolutely. I meant to say that. I only wanted to talk about where the incel movement comes from and how it operates. I don't want to get into a political kerfuffle in AH. Or anywhere on Literotica, really.

 

[AchtungNight]

Same here. No politics kerfluffles fir me. No hatred catastrophes either. I too am saddened by what you describe, NoTalentHack. Gotta stand firm against Early Sunset when you’re on the Azata path. That reminds me. I need to play Pathfinder WotR again soon!

 

[pink_silk_glove]

I view it as 90% of the people who read my stories don't vote, don't favor, and don't leave comments. Then there are the 10% who might vote, favor, or comment if the story hits them just right. I don't give a shit about the first group. I don't care if I bored them with my plot. I don't care if they just skip ahead to the sex scenes. I don't care if my style of writing makes them quickly hit "Back" on their browser. They have chosen to ghost themselves; to not leave a trace that they have opened my story beyond giving it one more click on the view counter. If they aren't willing to take the few seconds to vote, I'm not going to take the few seconds to think about them.

OTOH, I think a lot about the 10% who might vote, favor, or comment. They are the ones who determine the success of my stories. Their votes, favorites, and comments are used by the 90% to determine if they'll read my story. And, as far as I can tell, those people like my plots.

So you're only writing for applause, not to be critiqued. That's fine. You care about the scores and the faves and such. If you want more of that, you'll have to attract the other 99%.

 

[AchtungNight]

So you're only writing for applause, not to be critiqued. That's fine. You care about the scores and the faves and such. If you want more of that, you'll have to attract the other 99%.

But how are we supposed to attract the other 99% if they never tell us what they want?

An eternal question of artists.

 

[AG31]

What stories have you read that were really satisfying because they were believable and well constructed?

Here is an example of writing that does and doesn’t insult intelligence. Throughout the thread, that would be redefined as not being believable and taking one “out of the moment” (credit to @pink_silk_glove ) Pink_silk_glove's post

Early on in this thread I cited examples of erotica that I thought did not insult intelligence.

List of stories

One of the citations was a new-to-me story by @KeithD , currently available only on Amazon KeithD's stories. It is book 10 in his Hardesty series. I was impressed.

I went on to read the first book in his series, available here on Literotica, along with books 2 through 6. I was happy to be impressed for the same reasons. It’s milieu was certainly not (I hope) a realistic depiction of a D.C. “vice homicide” unit. But it easily allowed for the willing suspension of disbelief.

I eagerly went on to read books 2 and 3, but was disappointed. They did not sweep me up. The sex scenes struck me as being mailed in. I zeroed in on this: Books 2 and 3 were just loaded with scenes where our hero knocked on a door for reasons unrelated to sex and was met by some submissive that immediately wanted to be screwed by him, and off they went. In books 10 and 1, I was impressed by how he was able to create a plot that led naturally to almost wall-to-wall hot and heavy sexual encounters. But those encounters flowed organically out of the plot. The sex in books 2 and 3 took me “out of the moment.” Otherwise the writing in all of the books was very competent.

I don’t think it’s necessary to read these books to get the point, and I should alert all that the stories are about very rough GM BDSM. So avoid if that’s not your thing.

I’ll definitely read books 4-9.

P.S. @electricblue66 (Is this the best way to ring their bell?)

 

[AG31]

Does it have sexual heat? I've toyed with this--not requiring developed characters for the story to be erotica. I've even done what I thought was erotic where you can't even quite discern the gender of the players.

Can you give us links to a couple such stories?

 

[Sexecclectic]

Here is ann example of writing that does and doesn’t insult intelligence. Throughout the thread, that would be redefined as not being believable and taking one “out of the moment” (credit to @pink_silk_glove ) Pink_silk_glove's post

Early on in this thread I cited examples of erotica that I thought did not insult intelligence.

List of stories

One of the citations was a new-to-me story by @KeithD , currently available only on Amazon KeithD's stories. It is book 10 in his Hardesty series. I was impressed.

I went on to read the first book in his series, available here on Literotica, along with books 2 through 6. I was happy to be impressed for the same reasons. It’s milieu was certainly not (I hope) a realistic depiction of a D.C. “vice homicide” unit. But it easily allowed for the willing suspension of disbelief.

I eagerly went on to read books 2 and 3, but was disappointed. They did not sweep me up. The sex scenes struck me as being mailed in. I zeroed in on this: Books 2 and 3 were just loaded with scenes where our hero knocked on a door for reasons unrelated to sex and was met by some submissive that immediately wanted to be screwed by him, and off they went. In books 10 and 1, I was impressed by how he was able to create a plot that led naturally to almost wall-to-wall hot and heavy sexual encounters. But those encounters flowed organically out of the plot. The sex in books 2 and 3 took me “out of the moment.” Otherwise the writing in all of the books was very competent.

I don’t think it’s necessary to read these books to get the point, and I should alert all that the stories are about very rough GM BDSM. So avoid if that’s not your thing.

I’ll definitely read books 4-9.

P.S. @electricblue66 (Is this the best way to ring their bell?)

Thanks for the suggestions and all the input on the thread. I will check out your recommendations. I am also a fan of KeithD’s writing. I stand in awe of someone who can produce the quantity of stories he has, and still write quality stories, with new ideas that are memorable.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

But how are we supposed to attract the other 99% if they never tell us what they want?

An eternal question of artists.

Scroll up to what I wrote above. They tell me and I'm telling you: they want to stroke.

Now it means nothing to me because I refuse to pander since I absolutely in no way care about scores, but I can pass this knowledge on to all of you who want more positive feedback and higher scores. Make no mistake, looking for higher scores is pandering at least to an extent, often a fairly large extent.

If you want to tap into the 99% ...

1 - Cut back on your plot, keep the smut ratio up. Personally, my smut ratio hovers between 10 and 30%. This is much too low. The knuckle on the scroll wheel finger gets tired and I get dropped. I know this. They've told me so. Get that up over 50%, over 70% if you can. Heck if you can pull off 100%.

2 - Use a unicorn. In a het pairing this is a slutty girl and won't hurt at all if she has a pornographic and/or bimbo figure. Failing that, the female should at the very least be very very willing and most likely will have to take all initiative in escalating from flirting to petting to fucking (or whichever other kink is required). This female unicorn does not need a reason to be attracted to the male character. The reader could take or leave that.

Now many of you may dismiss me as being cynical, deriding immature testosterone. I wish that I was. The truth is that I have chatted with a few hundred of that 99% who don't vote or comment over the past four or five years and it's just the honest truth. This is what they want. These are the facts.

Beyond the facts I have surmised my own theories as to why. I'm guessing that it all stems from porn-click culture these days that allows instant gratification requiring no skill nor game on the part of the viewer. This likely conditions people to engage sexual encounters with no skill nor game at all. Which in turn leads to fantasies based on literally getting lucky with a skanky girl who wants him for no reason. Why? Because he can't provide one. Make your male lead simply get lucky and the 99% will relate.

Even if you do not agree with my theory, I can tell you from experience beyond any doubt that far and away the most common element to the fantasies of the silent 99% is simply getting lucky with a slutty girl with little to no build up or plot getting in the way of the hanky-panky. I can't guarantee that if you write this sort of stuff that the 99% will actually start voting, but if you want to try to crack that market, this is exactly what they're looking for. I would strongly suggest starting there.

 

[StillStunned]

1 - Cut back on your plot, keep the smut ratio up. Personally, my smut ratio hovers between 10 and 30%. This is much too low. The knuckle on the scroll wheel finger gets tired and I get dropped. I know this. They've told me so. Get that up over 50%, over 70% if you can. Heck if you can pull off 100%.

2 - Use a unicorn. In a het pairing this is a slutty girl and won't hurt at all if she has a pornographic and/or bimbo figure. Failing that, the female should at the very least be very very willing and most likely will have to take all initiative in escalating from flirting to petting to fucking (or whichever other kink is required). This female unicorn does not need a reason to be attracted to the male character. The reader could take or leave that.

Just last night I submitted a story exactly like that. Because sometimes that's what I like to write and, like you say, that's what people like to read. Including me.

That said, I like to think the characters are believable, their actions are relatable and the situation is within the margins of what's realistic.

Sometimes people have sex because they're horny. There doesn't need to be any handwringing or angst or deeper motivation. They're young, the sun is shining and there's no-one to tell them not to. Does that insult anyone's intelligence or seem unrealistic?

 

[MelissaBaby]

But how are we supposed to attract the other 99% if they never tell us what they want?

An eternal question of artists.

As The Replacements sang:

The ones love us best are the ones we'll lay to rest
And visit their graves on holidays at best
The ones that love us least are the ones we'll die to please
If it's any consolation, I don't begin to understand them

 

[pink_silk_glove]

As The Replacements sang:

The ones love us best are the ones we'll lay to rest
And visit their graves on holidays at best
The ones that love us least are the ones we'll die to please
If it's any consolation, I don't begin to understand them

Oh I love that song. I have that CD packed away somewhere in the basement.

 

[AG31]

Scroll up to what I wrote above. They tell me and I'm telling you: they want to stroke.

Now it means nothing to me because I refuse to pander since I absolutely in no way care about scores, but I can pass this knowledge on to all of you who want more positive feedback and higher scores. Make no mistake, looking for higher scores is pandering at least to an extent, often a fairly large extent.

If you want to tap into the 99% ...

1 - Cut back on your plot, keep the smut ratio up. Personally, my smut ratio hovers between 10 and 30%. This is much too low. The knuckle on the scroll wheel finger gets tired and I get dropped. I know this. They've told me so. Get that up over 50%, over 70% if you can. Heck if you can pull off 100%.

2 - Use a unicorn. In a het pairing this is a slutty girl and won't hurt at all if she has a pornographic and/or bimbo figure. Failing that, the female should at the very least be very very willing and most likely will have to take all initiative in escalating from flirting to petting to fucking (or whichever other kink is required). This female unicorn does not need a reason to be attracted to the male character. The reader could take or leave that.

Now many of you may dismiss me as being cynical, deriding immature testosterone. I wish that I was. The truth is that I have chatted with a few hundred of that 99% who don't vote or comment over the past four or five years and it's just the honest truth. This is what they want. These are the facts.

Beyond the facts I have surmised my own theories as to why. I'm guessing that it all stems from porn-click culture these days that allows instant gratification requiring no skill nor game on the part of the viewer. This likely conditions people to engage sexual encounters with no skill nor game at all. Which in turn leads to fantasies based on literally getting lucky with a skanky girl who wants him for no reason. Why? Because he can't provide one. Make your male lead simply get lucky and the 99% will relate.

Even if you do not agree with my theory, I can tell you from experience beyond any doubt that far and away the most common element to the fantasies of the silent 99% is simply getting lucky with a slutty girl with little to no build up or plot getting in the way of the hanky-panky. I can't guarantee that if you write this sort of stuff that the 99% will actually start voting, but if you want to try to crack that market, this is exactly what they're looking for. I would strongly suggest starting there.

This is an intelligent analysis, perhaps helpful to @AchtungNight , but I'd like to see a place in your thinking that doesn't equate a high ratio of "arousal" to "plot/character" with "pandering" and "smut." Consider The Story of O. The "arousal" to "plot/character" ratio is practically 100%, but the book is a classic. Why should erotica be considered "pandering" if it is in the erotica genre in the first place? I consider "pandering," letting down on careful craftsmanship. And I don't equate craftsmanship with a focus on plot/character. More about that later.

@KeithD @electricblue66

 

[AG31]

You can. You either + Quote, and the post gets pulled into your reply, or you can click on the post number. It will come up on a tab of its own, copy that url, and insert it as a link into your post (the link paper-clip looking icon).

The click on the post number works like a charm, but I don't understand the + Quote approach. What is the "Quote?" What I'd like to do, beyond linking to another post is literally copy the text of more than one other person's post into mine. For example, here we see a quote from you, because I'm replying to you. But could I somehow also display quotes from other people, in this same message, that have the same format?

 

[AG31]

That's what +Quote does. You click it on any post you want to quote then in the reply area click "quote" (it should show up as a box you can click around the reply box somewhere when you have multiple quotes selected.) and select or delete the quotes listed as needed.

Quotes the above posts as an example

Ahhh!!! The Quote button!!! Thanks so much!!

 

[AG31]

See my edited post for more details. I went back and experimented to get the correct steps listed.

Yep! Thanks much again!

 

[djrip]

Scroll up to what I wrote above. They tell me and I'm telling you: they want to stroke.

Now it means nothing to me because I refuse to pander since I absolutely in no way care about scores, but I can pass this knowledge on to all of you who want more positive feedback and higher scores. Make no mistake, looking for higher scores is pandering at least to an extent, often a fairly large extent.

If you want to tap into the 99% ...

1 - Cut back on your plot, keep the smut ratio up. Personally, my smut ratio hovers between 10 and 30%. This is much too low. The knuckle on the scroll wheel finger gets tired and I get dropped. I know this. They've told me so. Get that up over 50%, over 70% if you can. Heck if you can pull off 100%.

2 - Use a unicorn. In a het pairing this is a slutty girl and won't hurt at all if she has a pornographic and/or bimbo figure. Failing that, the female should at the very least be very very willing and most likely will have to take all initiative in escalating from flirting to petting to fucking (or whichever other kink is required). This female unicorn does not need a reason to be attracted to the male character. The reader could take or leave that.

Now many of you may dismiss me as being cynical, deriding immature testosterone. I wish that I was. The truth is that I have chatted with a few hundred of that 99% who don't vote or comment over the past four or five years and it's just the honest truth. This is what they want. These are the facts.

Beyond the facts I have surmised my own theories as to why. I'm guessing that it all stems from porn-click culture these days that allows instant gratification requiring no skill nor game on the part of the viewer. This likely conditions people to engage sexual encounters with no skill nor game at all. Which in turn leads to fantasies based on literally getting lucky with a skanky girl who wants him for no reason. Why? Because he can't provide one. Make your male lead simply get lucky and the 99% will relate.

Even if you do not agree with my theory, I can tell you from experience beyond any doubt that far and away the most common element to the fantasies of the silent 99% is simply getting lucky with a slutty girl with little to no build up or plot getting in the way of the hanky-panky. I can't guarantee that if you write this sort of stuff that the 99% will actually start voting, but if you want to try to crack that market, this is exactly what they're looking for. I would strongly suggest starting there.

Yep, this sounds like most of my stuff. Not because I care about the 99%; like 8letters says, I'm interested in comments, and votes, which come from about 5% of the readers. The 95% who don't interact in any way beyond adding to the view count, they leave me no reason at all to care what they think. But by coincidence, I like similar things to what you say they like, and write like it. So here we are.

To me, however, a "unicorn" is specifically a bisexual woman who is interested in joining an established m/f couple for a threesome or an ongoing three-way relationship. And yes I've had one of those in a couple of my stories.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

This is an intelligent analysis, perhaps helpful to @AchtungNight , but I'd like to see a place in your thinking that doesn't equate a high ratio of "arousal" to "plot/character" with "pandering" and "smut." Consider The Story of O. The "arousal" to "plot/character" ratio is practically 100%, but the book is a classic. Why should erotica be considered "pandering" if it is in the erotica genre in the first place? I consider "pandering," letting down on careful craftsmanship. And I don't equate craftsmanship with a focus on plot/character. More about that later.

@KeithD @electricblue66

I never said that writing pure smut equals pandering. If you write what you feel like writing, the stories that are in your heart, and that happens to be pure stroke material, it's not pandering. I do understand that what I said above might be a little confusing, but what I said was, writing for scores is pandering, and if you want to score with the masses, write smut.

The Story of O (which I've never read but of course I know about it) would be hard pressed to be called a work of pandering considering how the industry at the time was loathe to touch it - it was so far off the beaten path. However, the fact that over time it has become such a classic just goes to show how important kink is over plot with the masses of erotica readership.

Personally I write stuff that is plot heavy, with deeper characters and plausible and/or intriguing motive. This makes me probably the least popular author here - and I don't mind that. I write from my imagination and my heart stories that I believe in and I put them out there.

If you write pure smut from your heart and imagination that you believe in and put it out there, you are doing the same as me, the content is just different.

However, if you one is writing (in whole or in part) to get higher scores or more bouquet comments, that is pandering, regardless of plot smut ratio or other content, that is pandering. And there's nothing wrong with that. But see how many here in AH will get their noses out of joint when I suggest so.

How many authors here posts stuff like "I don't care about the scores, but I just like to see that Red H"? Well that means that they care about the scores, come on. Or how many say "I don't care about the negative comments, I just delete them"? Well that means that they care about the negative comments. If they really didn't care they wouldn't bother deleting them. Hello?

And every couple of weeks someone pops in here to start a thread that goes something like "I'm just not getting enough scores and comments, I think I should just quit". Well, if you want more votes and comments, you're going to have to broaden your audience. You're going to have to start pandering.

I guess the next question is, if we don't care about feedback or anything, why bother posting stories at all. Well, for me, writing is a form of connecting. You convey emotions to the reader through the page. Feedback tells you how you are connecting. When I say that I don't care about the scores, I say it because specifically lit's scoring system is total rubbish. One person's 5 is another's 4 is another's 3. If the scores had any accuracy at all I'd probably start caring about them at least in some way. Number of votes (or votes to hits ratio) actually does tell you a little bit. Internet readers are lazy as fuck. If they actually got off their ass to click any one of the stars at the bottom of the page that took some effort (seriously) so you connected. Comments are where you really get serious feedback. I like comments but unlike most of the authors here I honestly do not care if the comments are positive or negative. Any comment means that there was a strong connection, since actually typing out a comment is some work your your ass. The comment tells you the nature of the connection made, did they love/hate the plot swings, did they identify with the hero, the villain, the sidekick fluffer, or maybe they just thought it was straight up hot - or not. Then you have an idea of how well you are connecting and you can take that info forward and improve as a writer.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Sometimes people have sex because they're horny. There doesn't need to be any handwringing or angst or deeper motivation. They're young, the sun is shining and there's no-one to tell them not to. Does that insult anyone's intelligence or seem unrealistic?

Depends on how well you present your story. Nevertheless it sounds like a hopelessly boring plot that would need to be savagely well-written and probably laced with charm and humor to hold any of my interest at all. But then, who the fuck am I? Just one opinion (totally serious).

 

[SimonDoom]

Surely, I must have insulted somebody…

A buttload of White Castle fans, I should think.

 

[MelissaBaby]

A buttload of White Castle fans, I should think.

I'd put up a defense, but I can't get past the phrase "buttload of White Castles"

 

[AG31]

I never said that writing pure smut equals pandering. If you write what you feel like writing, the stories that are in your heart, and that happens to be pure stroke material, it's not pandering.

OK, I agree now with your definition of pandering. And for the second time I see the term "stroke." Very handy. More on that later.

I do understand that what I said above might be a little confusing, but what I said was, writing for scores is pandering, and if you want to score with the masses, write smut.

What is "smut?" I guess you mean "stuff that engenders arousal." Right?

The Story of O (which I've never read but of course I know about it) would be hard pressed to be called a work of pandering considering how the industry at the time was loathe to touch it - it was so far off the beaten path. However, the fact that over time it has become such a classic just goes to show how important kink is over plot with the masses of erotica readership.

So... A high arousal vs character/plot ratio can work to the success of pandering, but does not necessarily constitute pandering. The author's motive is critical.

If you write pure smut from your heart and imagination that you believe in and put it out there, you are doing the same as me, the content is just different.

Absolutely! Well said (except for the use of the term "smut," more on that later. )

Well, for me, writing is a form of connecting. You convey emotions to the reader through the page. Feedback tells you how you are connecting.

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! I've been noodling about this stuff in a very focussed way since January 2021 and I had not been able to articulate why I wanted feedback on my stories. "Connecting" does it. It doesn't need any more definition. It's a basic human need. I know my niche is very small and I don't expect or even want high counts of anything. I do want to find readers with whom I can connect.

I like comments but unlike most of the authors here I honestly do not care if the comments are positive or negative.

Somewhere today I said that very thing. But I'm on such a hyper Literotica roll that I don't know where I said it.

The comment tells you the nature of the connection made, did they love/hate the plot swings, did they identify with the hero, the villain, the sidekick fluffer, or maybe they just thought it was straight up hot - or not. Then you have an idea of how well you are connecting and you can take that info forward and improve as a writer.

And thank you yet again for pointing out that "connecting" does not mean "affirming." Of course I'm happy to find readers who affirm what I'm doing. But I'm also happy to engage readers who want to talk about my stuff. Connecting!!!!!

 

[StillStunned]

Depends on how well you present your story. Nevertheless it sounds like a hopelessly boring plot that would need to be savagely well-written and probably laced with charm and humor to hold any of my interest at all. But then, who the fuck am I? Just one opinion (totally serious).

The way I see it, not every story needs to be a long-term relationship. Sometimes a one-night stand can be great, or even a quick snog and grope in an empty hallway before you go your separate ways. A bit of fun that society tries to tell you is wrong, but you can't bring yourself to feel guilty over.