TopShelf TG Fiction in the BigCloset!
Well, I think I am giving up on Fictionmania. The last couple of stories I've posted there have received no comments at all.
I know we aren't supposed to write for the comments, but as someone who considers herself as still learning the craft I rely on comments to show me where I need improvement.
Ah, well.
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Comments
I do not dislike FictionMania...
but I don't really like it all that much either. Some of the stories are too raunchy for my tastes. This site has plenty of good fiction but doesn't seem to go to the lows they do there. Just my 2¢.
I gave up on FM when it
I gave up on FM when it couldn't decide whether I was logged in or not. Someone advised me to delete my browsing history and cookies, but that only worked for a short time. Pity, because the comments were usually very insightful.
I still visit the storytime site now and again. Many of the writers there show great promise, and it's nice to offer them encouragement.
Do people interact as much there?
Seems to me visitors mostly just read there and don't comment as much in the first place. There may be several reasons for that, it's hard to pinpoint what although I do have a suspicion.
It's no mystery to me....
Any negative comment tends to get pounced on, even if the person posting it is polite and offering constructive criticism. I long ago abandoned the forums, as the vitriol was and is particularly abundant there.
Livin' A Ragtime Life,
Rachel
Ah... FM...
...after one attempt and removal, I began again to post my work over there. Someone asked on the Message Board what to do about stories that seem to take on a life of their own and become endless. My reply was that I just post them on FM and they die out on their own. :P
Love, Andrea Lena
I wonder if
that was a sideswipe at Bike, don't know of any other 'endless' stories?
Angharad
Once in a while
Something good shows up over there. If the author doesn't regularly post here I recommend that they do. I guss it's a bit like panning for gold. The little nuggets that show up once in a while make it worth the daily visits. I determined quite a while ago that I will never post there.
Portia
I feel like I need to be hiding in a bank vault
.... 50 feet underground, walled off by 4 feet of reinforced concrete and lead, 2 feet of sound insulation and surrounded by a company of Special Force types so nobody would chance upon me visiting that site as it makes me feel sick and perverted just being there and reading the synopsis of (the vast majority) of the 'stories'.
Ewwww. The incredibly sick imaginations of some folks.
Kim
Out of my comfort zone
but I feel I must defend FM to some degree. First, I only go there to see if there is anything to read. I don't visit the board or any other place. The truth is that some good writers post there. Zapper, Barbie Lee and others although many of them have been 'head-hunted' and bought over here. Much of that stuff is not to my taste, but it is better known it seems than BC. I have no idea on how those who frequent FM see us here, but that doesn't bother me in the slightest. Bailey used a term I'd heard before in a recent story of hers, 'Brain Bleach.' There are times I really need that stuff!
Hugs
Grover
Some of the stories...
are quite excellent. "Change of Orders" is still one of my favorites.
FM and BC
Our audience and the FM audience overlap to a large degree but about 50% of the stories on FM are of a kind that makes up about 10% of what appears here on BC. Nothing wrong with that, those stories get a lot of reads.
BC has more stories and on any particular week, there are usually more stories posted here on BC. But probably more people visit FM, and many of them visit more often.
For me, the main difference is in the attitude of the regulars here and on FM. People are more polite, more tolerant, and more helpful here on BC, it seems to me. I do work hard at encouraging that sort of mindset.
One other big difference is that on FM comments are called "reviews" and are aimed at other readers. Here on BC, comments for a large part are a dialog between author and reader. I like that.
Friday will be, more or less, the 14th anniversary of BC. BC has changed a lot in that time, FM on the other hand has changed very little. It's good that we have both survived and offer people choices.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Anniversary idea
For the anniversary, why not put up the original site how it looked day one. Then you can link back to this main site. I wonder how many people would flip.
Katie Leone (Katie-Leone.com)
Writing is what you do when you put pen to paper, being an author is what you do when you bring words to life
Classic BC...
...can still be reached via the header here, with stories posted between 2001 and 2004, according to the home page. (But don't bother trying to sign in, if my experience is any indication.)
Not quite what you were requesting, but it does give more recent viewers an idea where things stood a decade ago, more or less.
Eric
(a reader, not an admin, then or now)
I gave up on FM too
for me it was then almost every story seemed to be about forced feminization in teenagers.
There are only so many different ways you can craft a story like that. I got totally peed off with that type of story and won't go back to them.
Also a lot of the people there seemed to be very immature in contrast to BC.
I agree....
I mean no offense to anyone here who still posts there, but once it got to the point where the majority of stories had the word "sissy" in the title, I knew it was time to move on.
Livin' A Ragtime Life,
Rachel
FM Is not a Community
Unlike here, FM is just a repository of great, terrible, and in between stories with some small nods at community. In general I see it as a reader resource, not a writer's resource and definitely not a collective. Yet it is semi-regularly judged, most often harshly, as one.
I will not argue for or against a writer leaving the site, or any other, but I will pose one question. Is there someone who reads many of your stories there, who won't read them here?
The answer is yes for me. Those specific readers are more important to me than the non-existent FM collective and are the reason I will post my few and far between stories both here and there.
I didn't even both posting
my latest story to FM. It's sometimes a very hostile place. Plus, as has been noted, comments (when someone bothers) are frequently either sugary slop, or vitriolic nonsense.
Imagination is more important than knowledge
A. Einstein
FM
to tell you the truth I read stories at FM but truth but told I like this site better. Just my 2c.