Email Private Feedback?

[THBGato]

Well congrats on writing and congratulations on receiving so much feedback. That's amazing!

Seems like you have 3 options to me:
1. Create a new email address solely for the purposes of corresponding with readers/other writers here.

2. Reply to them via a public comment. They may see it.

3. Send them feedback. Unless they have checked the "no anonymous feedback" box you don't need to include your email address.

 

[BadOboist]

Well congrats on writing and congratulations on receiving so much feedback. That's amazing!

Seems like you have 3 options to me:
1. Create a new email address solely for the purposes of corresponding with readers/other writers here.

2. Reply to them via a public comment. They may see it.

3. Send them feedback. Unless they have checked the "no anonymous feedback" box you don't need to include your email address.

Thank you!

 

[Britva415]

Of the emails I got via the private feedback function last year, only 3 of them were to comment on a story I'd written

3 out of how many?

 

[Britva415]

About the constructiveness of feedback, Neil Gaiman once wrote that we must listen when readers say there is something wrong, but not to the solutions they suggest.

I bet Neil Gaiman doesn’t regard matters purely of taste to be indicators of “something wrong.”

 

[PapaRomantic]

3 out of how many?

Don't know because every regular DM I get goes to that email also.

 

[BadOboist]

I bet Neil Gaiman doesn’t regard matters purely of taste to be indicators of “something wrong.”

Oh, certainly. But my point is that when reading erotica, people seek a kind of indirect sensorial stimulation that is very personal, whereas, when one reads a regular tale, it is still possible to thoroughly enjoy it even if, for instance, the character the author wanted the reader to identify with doesn't work for that end with that reader. The involvement is less personal, therefore it depends less on highly personal matters of (in erotica, sexual) taste.

It's not an accident that we use the same word ("taste") for the influx of the papillae on our tongue and what we like better between alternatives. Both are highly personal and touch something much deeper inside us than the influx of other senses (except, perhaps, that of smell). If I hated the taste of bacon, a small piece of it would make me hate a dish; as I love it, a "meh" dish can be saved by adding copious amounts of it.

Erotica, in a way, is like food: whether one likes that particular tale is a matter of very personal taste, and the reactions to what would in another context be a quite lateral "spice", merely adding to the general interest, are uncommonly strong. "Regular" fiction, on the other hand, would be more like some kind of visual art: less personal, needing much more to provoke strong disgust or arousal.

With less personal involvement, when a reader of non-erotic stories says, "It doesn't work," it has a higher chance of being due to some structural problem in storytelling than with personal taste ("It doesn't work <b>for me</b>").

BTW, inverting the equation, that's why it's so hard to draw a line between "literary erotica" and "fap story": if the indirect stimulation works well for the reader, it is possible to jump from "we were a normal family" to "I looked at my relative, and they looked <b>goooooood</b>", and it will still work. Personal taste/arousal can patch over storytelling issues that in a non-erotic context would kill the story.

 

[Imstillfun]

I get 5-10 a week out of 90 stories. A lot are people who want to chat. I don’t do that but I answer all emails unless they become stalkerish.

I get a lot of story requests as well

 

[jsmiam]

Someone, a regular, and I don’t recall (a) who or (b) if they’re still a regular used to talk about the unusual quantity of emails they got. I don’t recall who though. I’d pick about 3 to 6 years ago if forced to guess when it was.

I bet someone else here can contribute add more clues, and ultimately lead to figuring out the answer

 

[jsmiam]

Also, a public service announcement - PSA - I almost shouldn’t say this since it could give bad people ideas.

For a sorta good reason (allowing the commenter anonymity) but an unequal (kinda worse) and opposite reason, there’s no mechanism in place to know that the email address listed as the reply to address really belongs to the comment submitter.

So, shenan - igans are possible.