As I write this, my latest story, "Family Jewels" has 1250 reads and 81 kudos.
And not a single comment.
I know that I've ranted about this before but COME ON!
I'm grateful for the kudos, but WHY aren't there any comments? Weren't any of those 1250 readers moved enough by the story to say something about it?
Even something negative.
I don't appreciate comments that say "Your story stank." No writer does. And, truth to tell, comments where the person seems to take delight in pointing out typos are no fun either.
But the comment where the person says why they didn't like the story or challenges me about a choice I made in writing the story are actually useful. They make me think about what I wrote. They improve my writing because I've put thought into the process.
Sometimes, negative comments even create a new story. Case in point, the Bikini Beach story "Swim Date" generated so much negative response that I wrote its "sequel" of sorts "Teaching Sally" to explain what happened. And the Altered Fates story "The Wife" was written in response to comments, positive and negative, about the earlier "The Husband."
So it's in your interest, readers, to comment on my stories.
The same is true to one degree or another for other writers' stories. So let's see some damned comments!
Comments
Clicks do not equal reads....
I clicked the link, noticed the format, and drove on. I don't like stories formatted like movie scrips, can't stand it when authors write things like "giggle" instead of "She giggled" or transcripts. such as this one. I went back and read it, and it's fine, but it's not the sort of thing I usually read. it was worth a "chuckle".
We are obviously doing something wrong
I've also seen a pretty dramatic fall off in comments recently. not so much Kudos but the feedback that comments give us writers.
For me, perhaps it is because I don't write stories that are more in the Fantasy genre than anything else?
I don't write stories involving High School, cheerleaders and jocks (school was a long time ago and still gives me nightmares around the bullying and physical assaults I had to endure). TBH, they really have been done to death many times over.
As a result, of the lack of feedback, I am considering just not posting here any more.
It seems that some of us are basically talking to ourselves.
"hello? Is there anyone there".
"Speak to us? (please)"
Samantha
Nothing wrong
As far as I am concerned, you're doing nothing wrong.
I can guarantee that if a story appears with your name on it, I will read it. I don't read everything on here but there is a short list of authors who I will read whatever they post.
The reasons I don't read everything on here are several. One is pressure of time. So many things happening in Real Life right now that I just don't have time to sit down and spend time reading.
Another is that, because of time issues, I tend not to read any single post that has more than ~15,000 words, simply because they take too long to get through. (A very few of those which look interesting I'll pull off and reformat to read on the train. Reformatting takes time and effort, rinse, repeat.)
A third is that some authors struggle to write stuff in an easily readable format (yes, I'm being kind). Some are new to writing, I'll let them off. They still have to develop, as I did. Others, though, there is really no excuse.
The final one, of course, is that if I am reading I'm not writing! I really should be spending more time writing but some of the stories here are sooooo good... However, that doesn't help with progressing my own output.
So, bottom line, I'll kudo any story I think merits it, but regrettably I'll only comment if it is appropriate. I don't see the value in just saying "I liked this too". That, after all, is what kudos are for.
Penny
Note to BC staff!
TG Storytime has a feature, with which you can download a chapter or story withone click in .epub format. That would help people like Penny Lane (above). That might be difficult to incorporate or code though, I don't know. The format can be read on a smartphone (android) with the ReadEra app.
Monique S
Printable view can be
Printable view can be imported into calibre reasonably easily. it's not perfect, but then calibre can export .epub or various other versions.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
We had that for awhie
The code for it was hosted on another website and they kept changing the interface, it got to be too much of a hassle to maintain. As someone pointed out on this thread, the Printer Friendly feature can be combined with the free program Calibre to accomplish the same thing. Printer Friendly can be used to produce a .pdf file for input to Calibre.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
It is possibly a recurring theme
for me here, Samantha. To me it feels like the time a cople of years back, when I decided to stop posting on TG Storytime.
Like you I don't (wih the exception of "What if?" and "Fighting the Homm" much fantasy stuff, neither are my heroines under thirty. Then it becomes more and more difficult to avoid the stereotypical topics. Even Viper II, when Viper topped 2000 reads with almost every installment, now runs around 500, if that. Nevertheless I still get around 100 Kudos each time, but comments are rare.
If I was a marketeer I'd probably say the market is more than saturated. Interestingly enough my new one "The Princess of Lights" seems to attract quite a lot of lesbians as readers on Amazon, what I understand, as I read quite some Lez romances recently and there, too, really unusual plot lines seem more and more rare. Woman meets woman they struggle with their feelings for a moment and then fuck each others brain out appears to be the common plot line. Actual (romantic) is rare, but I found some really lovely well written ones (about one in ten I'd give it as ods). In that genre, though, the average age of the MCs is between early twenties and early thirties.
But then, with several million books on Amazon, almost any conceivale plot line has probably already been explored. And anyway, Samantha, people like us, who write clear and understandable mostly properly spelled English seem to rapidly go out of fashion.
Monique S
I'm reading and enjoying your stories
Though I'm behind on all of my reading here after two weeks without internet last month. I enjoy comments on my stories so I should probably leave more of them. The truth is that I hate to just say the obvious or me too. Over half of the comments I have started to write have just been deleted for that reason or I think the author might not appreciate what I have to say being on a public forum. If I think you have something very wrong you'll get a P.M.
I leave trivial comments anyways.
If I don't have anything more specific so say I will say something simple like "Thanks for the story." To me, this tells the author that I think the story is good enough and appreciated enough to be worth commenting on, even if I have nothing special to comment about. To me, it tells them that I'd love to see another chapter posted or another short story.
Ebb & Flow
It seems to me that there is a cycle to comments, they surge then decline. IIRC comments seem to decrease about this time of the year. It seems to be kind of a post-holiday pre-spring mental slump people experience every year. It has nothing to do with the quality of what is being posted, people just have a mental fatigue going that inhibits verbosity.
You may be partially a victim of your own success. We have come to expect more from you and certain others, so it takes more to jog those comments. I personally comment about things in a story that others may not, and sonetimes it just seems to take more out of me to bring those observations of mine to the forefront.
Add to that, my health has been a large factor, the last several months I have been in severe respiratory distress as mucus buildup in my lungs has severely impacted my ability to breath. This is very pronounced at nighttime or whenever I'm in a reclining position. (Just had a birthday, my odds of seeing anymore are not great.) But as you can imagine, this really impacts my commenting on stories.
And in general, what has been posted lately by everybody has not hit the marks for me. Out-n-out fantasy, the large amount of non-TG stories, and certain story universes leave me digging for things to read. I've taken to rereading certain author's works a second, third, fourth or more times. These do not trigger many comments from me, I've said it all already.
There is another discussion going on right now about why do you write, that has a lot that applies here. If people haven't read it, they should.
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
Many people just don't dare to.
Commenting a story by a very well known and respected author is not that easy for many people - including me. It is only human to feel a bit intimidated by the big names.
In addition, many people here are just more shy than average, for different reasons. Me, for example - I love to read, the amount of freely available stories is what attracts me to BC. However, I'm a sci-fi fan, not a trans person in any way, trans is for me a form of sci-fi / fantasy, beyond what I read here I am totally clueless about the things trans. Before finding BC, I didn't knew that gay and trans are different things!... So, I am afraid that while commenting here, I will inadvertently say something extremely stupid and / or offensive to the people here. And I have learned that they deserve much better than what the life served them.
Jack Chalker
I knew Jack Chalker fairly well for several decades before his untimely death. He's remembered for writing a lot of stories with sex changes, often with multiple changes, The Identity Matrix is probably the best known to this community.
Jack used to say that he was just interested in writing about what happened to people when they had unusual experiences or were changed in odd ways. He wasn't specifically into M2F or F2M transformations.
Chalker
I used to meet him at cons, back when our biggest connection was we were both Carl Barks fans. :) When he started writing transformation fiction and succeeding with it, I met him a few more times but barely had a real conversation. Somewhere I have archived the interview he did on FM chat.
He loved ferries. I've missed reading new stuff from him and seeing him at cons now and then. I admired his ability to take an idea and twist and tweak it in fiction to examine all its folds and implications. Re-read Identity Matrix last year to set up the aliens in it as the villains in a SciFi game I was running. :)
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Missing him.
He brought something special to his books, I never got to meet him, but he was always one of my favorite authors, I was glad he was able to bring his "Well of souls" series to a good end. I've recently started recollecting his works after trimming my library back to a portable size many years ago.
I like Jack Chalker a lot
And my view of transformations (including other than sex changes) is the same as his. I am interested in how people deal with an unusual change, in them or in their surroundings. M2F or F2M transformations do not attract me more than eg. race or species transformations.
But, to the original question: your stories are read and liked. I very rarely put kudos on a story not because I like very few ones, but because I just tend to forget doing it. Don't think that people ignore you, it is not true! They love your stories, even if they don't comment on them.
If you really need some feedback on a story, please do not hesitate to open a topic, like now. I am sure that a lot of people would reply and support you. If I am around, I will certainly do.
Comments!
I write few comments. Some to share information I have on a subject I feel is germane to the author and audience in the hope of avoiding cognitive dissonance with the story. Some to share research to try to help answer a question like this one. Rarely to object to an authorial choice (I hope politely). I punch the Kudo button often as that says I liked this. Often the comments others left express my feelings better than I could have. Maybe I should just add “ditto” as a comment? I started your script, but didn’t finish it. The style just didn’t work for me. Plot and characters were fine. Simply my idiosyncrasy and nothing shading you. You are one of the authors I always check out. (Yes there are some I won’t check anymore too. Their anonymity protected.) I do drop off some stories before the end as my interest wanes. Some I return to later. You keep writing here, please.
BAK 0.25tspgirl
I've noticed the same thing
Comments are way down for my stuff, too, but then I've been splitting my last couple of stories into chapters. I have also noticed a drastic reduction in hits (by and order of magnitude) over the 10 years I've been on BC, which I assume translates into fewer people on the site. Comments are nice, but as I said elsewhere, I write because the ideas keep flooding my brain.