I was going through 'My Stories' list today. I do it every day to see if anyone has left a comment. Anyway, I noticed the very poor reception that two of my stories received: Five Love Stories en Brochette, and Bobbie and the Glass Ceiling. The later was about a golf tournament, and I can understand the lack of interest. Unfortunately for those who didn't read it, there was a tremendous amount of information there pertinent to the whole Cynthia Chronicles series. That story required quite a bit of research, and probably took six months to shape up. That's okay.
Five Love Stories is a different matter. That novel received the poorest response of anything I wrote. It averaged only four Kudos per part. I guess it might have been too mainline. It was a rather convoluted story dealing with five love stories wrapped around the love story of the two main characters. The story addresses a transgendered character who had passed away many years before the story began. It addressed an intersexed (AIS) character (actually two). We had strong heterosexual love, two same sex lovers, bi sexuality, murder, mystery, and a lot of love in a fairly real world scenario. I often wonder why it turned so many readers off. Maybe it was because to understand about the characters one had to read the four previous novels. I don't know, and unless you read it through, you probably can't tell me.
The irony is that a novel that required lengthy research and care in writing would only get four kudos per post, and I don't feel that it was that bad a story. On the contrary, I felt it was as well written as anything I've posted here. On the other side of the coin is a two hundred word piece that I wrote in a few hours has received 54 Kudos in just a few days.
"De gustibus disputandem non est."
Comments
Non compus mentus....
...I'm crazy about you! Seriously - you're a terrific author with a keen sense of the human condition that transcends being...trans, and addresses the far bigger picture!
Love, Andrea Lena
Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder
The same applies to stories/music/art
If you are happy with your work then that is what really matters (IMHO). If other people like it then even better.
I have a story of mine that I love re-reading when I'm down. Would I publish it? Never in a million years and certainly not here. The reason I like it is that it takes a normally taboo subject (not child porn I hasten to add) and adds a new twist on to it. The moral is that nothing is as it seems.
As to giving Kudos points, I probably should give out more than I should. I guess that I've been lucky in the points that people have given me in the past.
What matters more to me than Kudos points are the comments to my stories. Hitting the Kudos button takes but a second. Writing a comment takes longer. That why I value it.
I can't recall ever reading your stories but as you have taken time to comment on mine, I'll search them out and give them a read.
Disappointment?
It looks like both stories were written before the current kudo system was implemented.
Therefore you could only get kudos from readers who went back to read the stories at a later time.
Even the Bike episodes only have 10-20 kudos before September 2010 and then jump to >80.
Martina
Kudo's
When the site was revamped a few years ago, one of the consequences was that the previous equivalent to "kudos", which were called "votes", all disappeared. This had the effect of leaving stories written prior to the revamp looking as if they were unpopular, which of course they weren't.
Portia, I suspect some of yours got caught in the interregnum, because there is certainly nothing wrong with those that I've read,
Joanne
I think this topic
and that of comments, is a regular chestnut amongst authors here and I'm not sure there are any answers. As Martina suggested, some of the older offerings don't acquire many kudos because they've been around longer than the kudos system. There is also the matter of casual readers who don't sign in and therefore can't vote or comment and for all sorts of reasons have a one way relationship with the site.
A phenomena I witness regularly is why Bike gets more kudos than my other stuff. The recent concluding chapter of SNAFU has had three times as many hits as last night's Bike but has fewer kudos, the fact that it's twice or more longer than an average Bike doesn't seem to matter.
Then I suspect in the real world there are talented authors who pour their life and soul into a book and sell very few and there's Dan Brown.
Angharad
question?
was it posted before the current kudo system? those four per chapter could be people discovering it
I think the story was before my time
but now that you've mentioned it, I'll take a boo at it.
There's no proportionality
My experience has been that solos always attract more kudos than serials, three or more times as many. I try not to get frustrated when something I have researched and crafted seems to have less appeal than a piece of fluff that went from brain to keyboard in a matter of hours.
Hugs
-
You can't choose your relatives but you can choose your family.
Maybe it was too much
I'm not sure if I've ever read any of your work. I'd have to painstakingly go through my personal archive and check to see who authored each story. I'm a 'dine and dash" reader; which means I bring up the printer friendly page and cut and past it into my word processor to read off line. (An old habit from my dial-up days. It also allows me to put bookmarks in longer pieces to easily find where I left off.) I have all the stories I've read, that are longer than one page in an archive on my hard drive. I know that this sometimes results in my not getting back to do the kudos on some stories. It kind of depends on what real life is doing to me at the time.
As to your concerns. Perhaps you tried to be all things to all people. You, from your description, went far afield and covered a lot of ground. The lack of kudos could easily be that you gave too little attention to any one area resulting in no one who read it getting all they wanted from it.
I know that I didn't read the story in question. Quite probably because the tags turned me away. You see, I read stories that appear they will speak to me on a personal level. I'm very strongly heterosexual according to my plumbing, which makes me lesbian according to my brain sex. As a result, seeing stories that tag "lesbian", "homosexual" or "bisexual" will cause me to skip them, because I think I won't be able to identify with any of the characters. For me, it's all about putting myself in the mindset of the protagonist to vicariously live their life.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
Funny the opposite works for me
Heterosexual bores the hell out of me as I am post op and am lesbian and maybe bi-curious, in my head so any lesbian labelled story I like. Portia's stories tends to be about heterosexual women though so I stopped reading. Tanya Allan writes really good stories but it has a similar issue so I have mostly stopped reading her stuff.
Thing is if the story does not interest it does not interest. My only suggestion to the author is if you do not find a suitable audience in this site then try other venues, fictioneer maybe, maybe even put it up for free on Kindle and see how that goes.
Kim
Stories and Kudos
Being a fan of the writing /story talents of you and quite a few other authors here I can understand the desire for comments and kudos. I used to give kudos quite frequently until the system stopped working. I also have to admit that I have at times gotten so wrapped up in a multi-chapter story that I just plan forgot to hit the button (CRS?). I just this past week noted the kudo button was operable again. The entire California saga is a fantastic read. You brought back lots of memories for me of the years i spent based in the San Joaquin Valley and in the High Desert so vivid were your descriptions of the various locations. Don't let our forgetfulness/laziness or whatever excuse for not commenting /giving kudos keep you from writing and sharing your talent.
Be well and enjoy life
When life throws tomatoes at you, make spaghetti sauce.
I love your work, Portia!
I love your work, Portia!
I know I read both stories and liked them.
As others have said those stories were put up before the "Kudo" system was implemented, and unfortunately the old "Votes" didn't get converted to Kudos. I'm sure your stories had many votes.
I'm going to go back and give Kudos. In fact I think it's time to go back and reread all your stories. It'll be a pleasure.
Kris
{I leave a trail of Kudos as I browse the site. Be careful where you step!}
Five love stories
It took me a while to find this - why not include a link in the message?
I have read for just a few minutes and would say that when the prologue starts, it looks well-written and interesting, but you do a fantastic job of discouraging readers with the introduction. Is that boring or what? I think you'd have to be very dedicated reader to get as far as the prologue.
The first few lines have to sell the story to the reader; make them not want to put down the story until the end. This does the opposite.
Hope that's useful
Charlotte