What I wish I knew starting out

[burgwad]

That's how you (personally) give criticism but what does that have to do with you receiving criticism?



It's a lesson about the obvious not always being the right choice. Positive is good and negative is bad sounds obvious but when you think deeper it's actually the negative feedback that helps one far more. With the planes, the obvious thing is to patch the armour over the damage, but thinking deeper, these planes survived hits to those spots, and so would likely survive hits to those spots again, whereas the planes that did not survive were almost certainly hit where the surviving planes were not, and therefore the untouched spots on the surviving planes are actually the vulnerable spots.

Yes those planes survived by the grace of God, but next time they will survive because their armor will be improved, not luck at all. Why? Because they took a deeper look at the feedback rather than going with the obvious instinct.

Listen to your negative feedback. That is where you will improve your armor (skills).

Let me show my hand, because this is getting a little confusing, and I’m a tired parent. Get excited! I have negative feedback for you.

Speaking from a background in organizational psychology, it is folly to expect a worker to grow and excel in the absence of positive feedback. Too much criticism, regardless of its accuracy, wears on a person. Organizational research overwhelmingly assures us that kinder paths to success not only exist, but are far more reliable.

Yet the myth of the eminence of negative feedback persists. The argument against wanting or needing validation, of labeling this weak or unserlous, has enough logical coherence to make it believable. It’s also got that dogmatic oomph that people crave. But it’s just dogma. Its oomph fizzles under empirical scrutiny.

Listen. The problem goes like this. You gotta let humans know when they’re doing a good job (for best results: accurately and sincerely), or (1) they’ll resent you, (2) they’ll consequently underperform for you, and (3) when their subsequent underperformance only elicits increased negative feedback, then they will enter the burnout loop of resenting you that much more, performing that much worse, and eliciting that much additional performance-worsening criticism. Rage, rinse, repeat.

Yes, it’s admittedly less chest-thumpingly cool to say positive feedback is important. Feeling warm and fuzzy is not inherently cool-looking. Alas. Let me assure you, my chosen field of study is rife with boring, uncool facts.

Now before you hop back in with a heady rejoinder about the non-applicability of behavioral science to this, the highest and most venerated art of writing smut (or its lesser cousin, writing in general), know this. It is well past my bedtime. Good night!

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Listen. The problem goes like this. You gotta let humans know when they’re doing a good job (for best results: accurately and sincerely), or (1) they’ll resent you, (2) they’ll consequently underperform for you, and (3) when their subsequent underperformance only elicits increased negative feedback, then they will enter the burnout loop of resenting you that much more, performing that much worse, and eliciting that much additional performance-worsening criticism. Rage, rinse, repeat.

None of that applies here because the dynamic between a hobby writer and a critic is completely different than an employee and a boss.

We write for fun and we want to get better because we want to. In a job (the vast vast vast majority of jobs) we work because we have to and we please the boss to keep our job, not necessarily to improve our skills, so the number one impetus by far is to just please the boss, and the only way to know that is to have the boss tell you that you're good. If the boss praises us, the stress goes down, the morale improves, we get better productivity.

In hobby writing (or any craft/art) there is no (dis)stress. At least there shouldn't be. We enjoy it because we want to write. Most of us enjoy it a bit less (or sometimes a lot less) if we get negative feedback or don't get enough nice positive feedback. The degree to which the feedback impacts your enjoyment/inspiration tells you why you like to write. If negative feedback discourages you from writing, then you are writing more for affirmation than the joy of the craft itself. How much? 51-49? 60-40? 80-20? If the odd negative comment or losing a Red H bums you out a little bit then you probably prioritize the joy of writing but still care about what people think of you (red flag of the ego). How much 80-20 writing? 90-10? 60-40? If you really do care about your craft and want to improve, you will be 90-10 for writing or up and you won't need any sugar coating on your negative feedback. You won't take it personally. If you need a little pat on the back before you get any criticism, you are letting your ego look for a way to discredit the criticism so that you can dismiss it. Any outright dismissed criticism is a missed opportunity to improve. If you need your feedback to keep your morale up then perhaps you don't love the craft of writing as much as you think that you do. This is not an insult, just a valuable perspective. You might think that you write 100% for the joy of writing but maybe you write it 85% joy and 15% for praise of others (ego) - not quite what you thought.

 

[Cagivagurl]

1. Literotica is just one free self-publishing erotica platform of - if not many - a solid few. Don’t mistake Lit’s readers’ norms and preferences for universal genre truths. Its readers skew porny. Anon presence is strikingly robust, and regrettably unmitigated. But dialog among fellow writers is, for better and worse, unmatched here. So it’s got that (i.e., this) going for it.
2. Longer works generally fair better in separately uploaded chapters than as hulking single-post time-gobblers. Do good by your big babies, and ease them into the world.
3. By and large, people who admire your work will give you the most useful feedback (1) because they believe in you and (2) because they want you to keep creating.
4. Come to these forums. Participate a little. Find your kindred spirits. Attempt friendly one-on-one correspondence with a few. Learn their processes, heed their advice, and please never ask the female ones for nudes.
5. Write with love and confidence. It will come back to you in time. Don’t pander to the masses - and Literotica has some of the massiest - or you will burn yourself out on second guesses and self-doubts.
6. Delete shitty comments. There is no shame in maintaining a civil comment thread. And it’s fun to do! You can select which putrid invectives to delete from the “My Works” page, if you click the little speech bubble button beside your published story.

You lot have anything you wish you could tell yourself back when you were just starting out?

I disagree with point 2. Longer stories are possibly more popular in some categories. In my opinion.

Cagivagurl

 

[lovecraft68]

I disagree with point 2. Longer stories are possibly more popular in some categories. In my opinion.

Cagivagurl

Depends on motivation. A long single story will generally score well, but with less votes because the length is daunting to some.

If you do a long chapter series, you can get the benefit of 10 chapters in having a small reader base, but they're all voting fives and you can be another fraud dominating top lists with a 'story' that's not a story because its just going on and on and not going to end.

 

[THBGato]

I wish I'd known how addictive Literotica can be, and how much of my leisure time it would eat into. It's certainly not an addiction that is ruining my life at large, but it has definitely been chomping away at some of the more nourishing, beneficial activities I've enjoyed over the years. That said, it is certainly a lot of fun... it's just time suckage personified.

Preach!

 

[gunhilltrain]

Oh, no. People who admire your work will give you the flattery you most desire, as long as you keep delivering the content they expect. But the moment your content strays from those expectations, you'll encounter an epic tantrum that could rival a comic book store owner tearing up fresh issues over an unsatisfying ending.

Once you realize that, by and large, sex-obsessed people don’t rank in the top decile for intelligence or mental stability, your expectations adjust, and everything falls into proportion.

Arguably by writing here we have shown that we are "sex-interested" people I might say. So far, in six years, I haven't gotten enough consistent comments to determine if I'm meeting anybody's expectations or not. Sometimes I get no comments at all. Each comment that does come in appears to be a "one-off," spontaneous event. Then the person, even if they not anonymous, moves on to something else.

 

[gunhilltrain]

If I met my future self and asked him for advice and he gave me nothing? I’d call him a coward to his face and slap him.

Also, on a tangent: If you had to fuck either your past self or your future self, which would you choose? Would they enjoy it?

Since I'm nearing seventy, I don't have much future self left. Most of the significant events of my life are over and done with. As to fucking myself, one way or the other, I'm not gay enough to be interested in that. It is true that the oldest character I've ever written about was about forty-five.

 

[WeShallUnclench]

1. Literotica is just one free self-publishing erotica platform of - if not many - a solid few.

This right there. Got any recommendations?
Might wanna see how my stories perform in different settings.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Telling a writer what they did right gives me a chance to prove I can say true-feeling things about their work before they decide whether they want to hear my complaints.

That's not to say I don't appreciate your jet-armor metaphor. In addition to being a compelling (if, uh, grim) analogy about feedback, it's a testament to collaborative, interdisciplinary problem-solving. I think your point is that the pilot only proffers his insight (i.e., useful feedback) by virtue of his having survived a massacre (i.e., a brutal education on the weak points of his [air-] craft). Right? All those bullet holes elsewhere, useless information?

Okay. Fair enough. Yet I can't help noticing that the only pilots who live to fly another day in this metaphor are those whose jets have but for the grace of God avoided direct fire on their weak points.

About that bullet-hole analogy. In World War II, it was discovered that they could only examine the hits on planes that survived. They needed to see the holes in the ones that got shot down, which of course they couldn't.

Now I can't connect that to writing. Maybe you can?

 

[gunhilltrain]

This right there. Got any recommendations?
Might wanna see how my stories perform in different settings.

Lit is a bit touchy (I think) about mentioning competing sites on the boards. I could send you a PM about a couple it you wish. Of course, every site has its limitations.

 

[burgwad]

This right there. Got any recommendations?
Might wanna see how my stories perform in different settings.

AO3 has a waitlist for signing up, but it’s usually just a week or two to get the invite. Unlike here on Lit, you get a ton of control over your own work, including after it’s published. The readership there is still anon-rich, but AO3’s front-and-center tagging system helps to guide trolls and fans alike toward stuff they’re liable to enjoy rather than dunk on. I also found the general vibes between writers on AO3 to be more inviting and supportive, less jaded and sink-or-swim than here on Lit.

 

[burgwad]

Lit is a bit touchy (I think) about mentioning competing sites on the boards. I could send you a PM about a couple it you wish. Of course, every site has its limitations.

Oops. I guess we’ll see how my previous comment fares, won’t we?

 

[PrimalDual]

So far, in six years, I haven't gotten enough consistent comments to determine if I'm meeting anybody's expectations or not. Sometimes I get no comments at all.

I suppose, after a certain point, "the dog that didn't bark" becomes the clue that solves the mystery.

The question then becomes whether to live with it, or to change something. Not that I am remotely qualified to advise.

 

[WeShallUnclench]

Lit is a bit touchy (I think) about mentioning competing sites on the boards. I could send you a PM about a couple it you wish. Of course, every site has its limitations.

thanks, I would enjoy some suggestions via PM!

 

[gunhilltrain]

I suppose, after a certain point, "the dog that didn't bark" becomes the clue that solves the mystery.

The question then becomes whether to live with it, or to change something. Not that I am remotely qualified to advise.

After this many years, I'm happy enough. I know both the strengths and weaknesses of the readers and the site. It's been a pretty good ride so far.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Oops. I guess we’ll see how my previous comment fares, won’t we?

I wouldn't worry about it. I can't even confirm if it's true or not; I've never been called out when I've done it myself. There is a bit of paranoia on AH at times because the site management (all two of them) is kind of remote. Who knows what The Wizard is really thinking? Once in a while a forum moderator will intervene if a discussion gets too nasty or they will move it to another board if it is too far off-topic.