Non-English stories

[Leana_M]

Hi everyone,

As a French author, I post quite a few short stories on this site, exclusively in French. The “Views” tab shows me that most of my stories have between 1,000 and 5,000 views. So, I have three questions:

- Does the term “View” refer only to clicks on the story, or to scrolling through the entire story?

- These numbers seem very high to me for an English-language site. So, English-speaking friends, do you often read stories that aren’t in your language? If so, what motivates you to do so?

Thank you for your feedback.

 

[anthrodisiac]

A view is anytime someone clicks on your story, not them fully reading it. A lot of those clicks are probably bots scrawling over the site, not an actual person reading it (which is a bummer, as someone who has a similar number of views as you, 11k being my highest, which is a pittance compared to a lot of other writers around here).

I don't tend to read non-English stories, because the translations lose a lot of what I really appreciate about writing: the author's voice. That, to me, is one of the most magical elements of a story. It's where the soul of the story lives, in the way the author tells the story. Using AI or translate tools to read it (since I don't speak any other languages fluently enough to read them) would give me the gist of the story, but it's like I'm getting it second-hand, from a writer with a different soul. The story just isn't the same.

 

[Leana_M]

Thanks for the clarification, and I completely understand your point of view on this.

 

[THBGato]

- These numbers seem very high to me for an English-language site. So, English-speaking friends, do you often read stories that aren’t in your language? If so, what motivates you to do so?

I read in Spanish occasionally. There are very few Spanish stories on this site, and they get very few views.

I have read a few in French too, mais ma français c'est vraiment mal, donc seulment las histoires courtes.