Your Most Common Negative Feedback

[sweetnpetite]

Burn the bitch.

Any married female character that isn't 100% faithful. It doesn't usually matter if the male character is unfaithful. Our readers tend to have double standards.

I am working on a story entitled "Adultery". It's about unfaithful people. That should bring in a new level of BTB comments.

Throw in an unfaithful wife and suddenly the readers seem to forget that it's a work of fiction.

 

[Rob_Royale]

So far I've not gotten much negative feedback for my first two stories, but a few commenters have lamented the lack of anal sex.

 

[NoTalentHack]

< Points at name.

I chose it because it was self-deprecating, which is fun for me. It had the added bonus that the least creative folks always go "hur hur hur, guess you are a NoTalentHack hur hur hur." Lets me weed those out quickly. The flip side is that, in a lot of the complimentary comments, I get people telling me to change my handle. C'est la vie.

 

[NoTalentHack]

Sometimes I'm told that my stories end abruptly. I don't understand why they say that; the story eventually has to end. I always try to give a good ending and describe what happens to the characters afterwards, but they act like I need to write several pages of the ending before the story is finally over.


.....

I get that one, too. I tend to take it as a compliment; people really like the story being told, or the characters, and they want to know as much as they can about the world being presented. Occasionally, I'll indulge and write a sequel, if I think there actually is a good story to be told from another character's POV or with some sort of epilogue. Mostly, though, I just ignore the requests. Stories end where they end.

 

[GrantBricksly]

I had somebody actually comment on one of my stories that "This is just not realistic. This would never happen in real life" And All I could think is "dude...this is porn....none of it is realistic.....that's kind of the whole point. I try to keep things reasonably realistic, but I thought it was clear, and not needed to be said that these are fantasies and not meant to be taken as real life.

 

[Seadog777]

I had a person leave a comment about wanting to track me down and kill me.

Anonymous of course

 

[Seadog777]

My most "common" is probably telling me to FTDS.

I get a lot of "that's not realistic" as well.

I find it funny how idiots go to a fictional website and then bitch about stuff not being realistic

 

[AWhoopsieDaisy]

 

[panaflora]

My most "common" is probably telling me to FTDS.

I get a lot of "that's not realistic" as well.

I find it funny how idiots go to a fictional website and then bitch about stuff not being realistic

Also, how they go onto an erotica website, and complain that a single story they read hits one of their personal hot buttons - with literally thousands of other stories devoted to that topic area on the site. Get a life, people.

 

[PastMaster]

My most annyoing comment - and i have had it a few times, is that this or that doesnt work that way. I find it amusing that people will read fiction, accept concepts like Mind Control and then come back saying that techincal or legal aspects of the story are incorrect.

What part of ITS FICTION do they not understacn?

 

[onehitwanda]

What part of ITS FICTION do they not understacn?

Words are hard for invertebrates. We should praise them for trying.

 

[lovecraft68]

Words are hard for invertebrates. We should praise them for trying.

And hand out gold stars, because the ability to type with a hoof is no small feat.

 

[PastMaster]

And hand out gold stars, because the ability to type with a hoof is no small feat.

or should that be no small feet? (sorry couldnt resist)

 

[onehitwanda]

or should that be no small feet? (sorry couldnt resist)

Take this dainty pair of slippers and your coat and get out.

 

[nice90sguy]

but a few commenters have lamented the lack of anal sex.

Assholes.

 

[Duleigh]

My most annyoing comment - and i have had it a few times, is that this or that doesnt work that way.

I write about veterans and aircraft maintainers because of the first commandment (Thou shall write about what thou knowest), and occasionally I get the "expert" who starts their comment with "I'm not a veteran, but I know all about special forces and..." followed up by some of the most ignorant crap I've ever heard. All I can think about is the unique and soul satisfying tortures that a sergeant could inflict on a one stripe airman who said something that singularly stupid.

 

[onehitwanda]

My problem is I've read so much that sometimes I think I know more than I actually do. So when I'm writing I try to at least keep in the areas I know well enough to not commit really obvious blunders.

but I know all about special forces

I have a story about the difference between people who claim to be special forces and the one person I've ever met who I know for a fact was.

In my fitter, thinner youth I used to paraglide - when I still lived in a sunnier part of the world. Anyone who knows the paragliding scene will know there are a lot of egos in it, and the area I used to fly in had these with spades. It seems everyone was in one or other special military brigade of whatever the name is to denote of of these special groups of more-or-less-insane men. I read a bit about military stuff when I was young because my dad was into it and I liked spending time with him so I picked a lot up by osmosis, I guess. So I know a little bit about it and some of things in it.

Anyway, digressing.

My story's about how I was rescued from a tree by someone who I know was ex-Hereford. To use the technical terms, I was up in scratchy conditions without enough lift, the wind changed direction, the lift went away entirely, and I didn't have enough spare height to get out and away from the heavily-forested hillside. So I became an inadvertent dangling branch manager of a sodding great enormous Eucalyptus on a 50 degree hillside that was basically just thorns, mosquitoes and hatred of all things with fewer than six legs.

I fully expected to dangle there for hours while we waited for the fire department to arrive with ropes and rescue gear.

Let me reiterate - this tree was fucking enormous. Gargantuan. An Yggdrasil-class fuck-you-in-particular-Wanda.

(For those of you who have never seen a blue gum, this is it in all its glory. Note the distinctive lack of handy footholds or human-friendly branches. This tree wanted to EAT me, not help anyone free me)

This guy, lets call him F, was maybe mid fourties, 5'9 and might maybe have hit 60 kilos after a big meal. I'd been dangling there for maybe five minutes when he arrived on scene with almost no noise - I looked up and there he was. He took one look, laughed a bit, asked me if I was okay, and then...

He climbed up bare-handed, no ropes, no safety equipment.

This tree was a sodding leviathan, and he just scampered up like a squirrel. He got out onto the branch that grabbed me and untangled my paraglider wing. Then he used the paraglider's risers and wing to lower me to the ground, some 3 meters and change, by himself, and chucked everything down after.

Then he came down the same way he went up - no ropes, just boots and his bare hands.

Twenty people knew I was hanging in the tree. He was the one who came to check I was okay. He was the one who put himself at risk to save me. He could have stayed on the ground and kept an eye on me until the Fire Department got there. But he wasn't that kind of man, and I think he enjoyed the challenge.

Almost every person I've heard claim to be hard or strong or from the Paras or whatever other nonsense they spew gets evaluated against one very simple criterion - do I reckon they could climb a bluegum and get a daft bint down out of it.

I don't reckon many of them could.

Honestly I don't know why I wrote all this, but it felt nice to think about F. I hope he got to go back to the Falklands and settle there like he always wanted to.

 

[Bazzle]

My writing style is that I am as drunk as my protagonists!

 

[panaflora]

My most annyoing comment - and i have had it a few times, is that this or that doesnt work that way. I find it amusing that people will read fiction, accept concepts like Mind Control and then come back saying that techincal or legal aspects of the story are incorrect.

What part of ITS FICTION do they not understacn?

Pretty much all of it. I once had a full paragraph comment that started off with "I know it's fiction, but..."
The commenter proceeded to warp the entire timeline of the story because of a monumental misconception.

I stewed for a couple of days before I disappeared that one.

 

[Duleigh]

Honestly I don't know why I wrote all this

That's a great story, you should use that as a basis for a [Lit] story!

In Colorado the paragliders were quite active and one afternoon I was taking grandchildren for a ride to a park on the top of Lookout Mountain. The road to get there is a beautiful, winding mountain road and it was a glorious warm early summer day. As we drove I heard the kids in the back seat cheering and yelling at someone then I noticed that there was a paraglider who caught some great lift cruising along right next to us and she was waving to the kids in the back of my SUV.

It was an amazing sight I wish I could have video recorded it. And of course, as the paraglider swung out into open air the kids in the backseat shouted, "Grandpa! Do that again!"

 

[onehitwanda]

That's a great story, you should use that as a basis for a [Lit] story!

In Colorado the paragliders were quite active and one afternoon I was taking grandchildren for a ride to a park on the top of Lookout Mountain. The road to get there is a beautiful, winding mountain road and it was a glorious warm early summer day. As we drove I heard the kids in the back seat cheering and yelling at someone then I noticed that there was a paraglider who caught some great lift cruising along right next to us and she was waving to the kids in the back of my SUV.

It was an amazing sight I wish I could have video recorded it. And of course, as the paraglider swung out into open air the kids in the backseat shouted, "Grandpa! Do that again!"

Honestly it's the closest I've ever felt to being a bird. I got to fly in the Alps one memorable occasion - just me and the mountains and the forever view. Near perfect silence apart from the slight whistle of the wind in the lines and the occasional rustle of the canopy. The kick in the pit of your stomach when you catch a bit of a thermal.

You're up there and all the heartache and cares and admin and disappointments are left behind on the ground - they can't get you when you're a bird. But it's something you have to live; you can't be a part-time pilot because it will get you killed. And when you live somewhere where it's flyable less than 5% of the year, well, the writing's on the wall.

I miss the freedom of it, but I don't miss the weather chasing and faffing and moments of visceral fear that come with it. There's a reason I went back to sailing. I still get the wind in the rigging and the curve of fabric and the peace. But everything happens more slowly and I don't have to worry about when last my reserve parachute was packed.

Am I glad I did it? Absolutely. Do I still look up at the paragliders and wish? Of course.

Would I ever do it again?
No. I've done it enough and am content with that.

 

[Rob_Royale]

comment with "I'm not a veteran, but I know all about special forces and..." followed up by some of the most ignorant crap I've ever heard.

You mean reading Tom Clancy doesn't make me an expert on all things military?

 

[PastMaster]

You mean reading Tom Clancy doesn't make me an expert on all things military?

It does - but only if you read two or more of his books.

 

[TadOverdon]

Also, "I couldn't like any of the characters."

That's fair.

 

[Bramblethorn]

My most annyoing comment - and i have had it a few times, is that this or that doesnt work that way. I find it amusing that people will read fiction, accept concepts like Mind Control and then come back saying that techincal or legal aspects of the story are incorrect.

What part of ITS FICTION do they not understacn?

That's too simple.

All stories are a mix of fiction and fact. Even the most fantastical of stories depends on readers being able to assume that a lot of stuff works the same way it does in the real world. Tolkien explains how elves and trolls and magical rings work, but he doesn't need to explain things like "being stabbed is bad for you", "horses are fast but they can't fly", or "being rejected by your dad sucks".

Part of the author's job is to convey to the readers how much they can assume from real life and how much they can't. That's a complicated dance and it's impossible to satisfy every reader, but if you're getting a lot of complaints about it then it's probably worth considering whether you could be conveying this more clearly.

There's also a vast difference between fictional license for the sake of a good story (dragons are cool, don't talk to me about the aerodynamics) and something that reads like "author doesn't know what they're talking about". Just because readers give us a pass on the former doesn't mean they're going to accept the latter.