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Comments and feedback.
I want to ask a question:
Commenters, guests, authors. What are the things that make you WANT to comment on a story? What kinds of things do you need to see, need to be able to talk about, to make commenting worthwhile?
In my time here, comments have ebbed and flowed. We're on an ebb right now, to be sure, and there are reasons for that -- a lot of general convo has moved to the Discord rather than taking place below stories here, and there are more places around the web as a whole for TG folks to find community and media that they like. Despite that, we still have a great community here, one that's always growing and adapting, and we have some of the most fantastic TG fic authors on the web.
Writers: as an author, you should be proud of what you've created regardless of the amount of response it gets. Every read is potentially someone who needed that exact story, and I want ALL of our authors to be proud of that work, the community they've built, and the lives they've improved by being here.
And, commenters? The same goes for each and every one of you.
Nobody should be left feeling that their contributions are inadequate. Every one of us makes this community stronger, and every one of us are giving something back just by being here.
But.
Back to my question.
I know that there are a few things authors CAN do to improve the likelihood of getting more active feedback. Responding back to comments in turn, for one. Engaging with readers via additional blogs and other forms of discussion. Even asking for specific kinds of feedback and information. All of this helps, because it's ways to make the reader(s) feel like they're part of the experience of the story.
Are there any other things that, as readers and commenters, you find particularly good to comment about, or that makes you want to engage with the story more?
Likewise, are there things that make commenting difficult or unattractive to you?
All in all, the point of having a community is that we're all in this together. Nobody is here to provide something directly to anyone else. Nobody owes anyone else anything, whether that's new chapters of favorite stories, new stories about favorite characters or from favorite authors... or feedback on the content that IS created. We all provide the things we do because we want to provide them.
Every person's contributions make BC a better place.
-Melanie E.
Comments
Commenting is hard
While commenting may not take as much time as writing the original story, it still requires thoughtful consideration. Crafting valuable insights that contribute to the discussion is a commendable effort. We appreciate the dedication of our active members who consistently engage in the conversation. It often takes years for a new member to take it on themselves to comment.
Your friend
Crash
I can’t really say
It’s a good question and one I should take time to think about. Some stories lend themselves to comments and others do not. Some are so breathtaking that I am figuratively out of breath: the author has said something so well that what I could say seems insignificant. “A Longer War” or anything else by Cyclist comes to mind.
Also, I read most of Bike before I realized the importance of the kudos button. I’m not going to go back and click it on every page. Ang is about 2500 below where she should be because of my slowness.
Failure to thrive.
When I was writing, I was often hung out to dry
Sometimes the people most in need of a story
are the ones who can't make themselves known.
You write complex, often niche-within-a-niche stories that deal with things a lot of other authors won't touch. True, that can limit the audience you reach... but it also makes your work that much more unique of an inclusion in any library it's part of.
Melanie E.
Not so much the story
It's not so much about the story content or style. It has more to do with me at the time I read the story. When it comes to comments, I operate under a handicap. Until about a year ago, I didn't read comments on my own work for about six month after it posted. The reason was a fragile ego and lack of confidence in my ablity as a writer.
Each of my stories was like a child. When I posted it it was like sending my child out in the world by themselves. I couldn't bear to read a negative comment so I didn't even look. This attitude colored my thinking on the worth of comments.
I know some authors can write serials and post on the fly. These authors often read their comments and use the feedback to help them shape the story that follows. This is a foreign idea to me. As an author, the story is mine and the idea that some else might influence it is unthinkable. This attitude also cripples my tendency to comment.
For me it's kudos that tell the story. I've set an arbitrary number of kudos for a successful story; 100 kudos its a success.
Now, all that said, I'm trying to break that mindset. I will, going forward (I started the about 6 months ago) always click the kudos button. I will also read other people's comments. They well sometimes inspire me to comment; particularly if I feel the commenter missed the point.
I'm more likely to feel like commenting if the storyline engaged me, but the author didn't do a very good job of presenting it. That leads to a ticklish situation. Remember I wouldn't read my comments because I didn't want to hear that about my work. Add to that all criticism should be constructive. Between those two ideas, it stifles my comments.
These are personal problems.
However, some stories or episodes just lead to me needing to say something. If the author happens to give his protagonist an situation and reaction that mirrors my life, I'll almost always say so. If a story is presented as a serial and the author leaves me hanging with a particularly succinct manor that might move me to comment on how well crafted it was.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
I don't think that's what we should expect
If you're a writer, sharing your story with fellow writers that you know well and whose opinions you trust, it's quite common to ask a specific question. For example, "I'm not quite sure about the pacing in the scene with Grandfather", or "Do you think I've got too many characters in the Science Club?" Even "Did the joke about the piano work, for you?" or "Is the ending too sugary sweet? I have another in mind..."
That's while the story is still fixable.
When you share a story with a small group of writers in that way (and read their work in return, and enjoy the process) you get real feedback. I know that people here are doing this, via PMs and emails, before stories appear.
To expect something similar at a later stage is a mistake. Readers don't have an implied contract with you and they're not invested in your work at all. Many aren't going to finish what they have a quick look at and some are good enough to apply the maxim, "If you have nothing nice to say, say nothing."
I wonder if Stephen King, Iain Banks, Douglas Adams or Enid Bylton cared about what (dreadful word incoming...) 'fans' told them about their stories? And in what proportion to copies sold? Vanishingly small, I should think. Personally, I don't worry about comments, therefore.
I might worry more about the medium. The fact that 'Summer With Aunt Ashley' (2018) got 22,500 reads (and 31k on Fictionmania) and 250 of those 'thumb' things despite being a parody of tranny fiction in which none of the usual things happen to the main character... it suggests that BigCloset was different, back then.
Sugar and Spiiice – TG Fiction by Bryony Marsh
I Guarantee You it Was Different Then
I wish I could get all of our authors back! I wish I could get our commenters back too!
I just keep on wishing :( No one can make my wish come true :(
Sephrena
My music representing me
Unite, Ending 2, Full Mode - Accel World: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7N6_EQp4490
Unite, Ending 2, Instrumental Only, Full Mode - Accel World: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwIhOF7QA8I
We are hardly suffering for authors or commenters
or content in general. While I would love to see any number of our older members return to activity, I also feel that it is important that we figure out ways to grow and adapt to the new meta of what the internet is becoming, rather than simply clinging to what it once was. Part of that is figuring out what we need to do to attract new talent without abandoning/losing those we already have.
Think of things not as a loss, but as a constant evolution: so long as we never forget who and what we were, the future can only be something even better, if we work to make it so.
Melanie E.
I didn't specify any particular questions for authors to ask :)
Merely that they could. They could ask for outfit suggestions, or places in X where the characters could go, or for readers to vote on which love interest they like most, or any number of things. None of these have to be directly related to the story, really, but all of them can be useful ways to engage with the readership, even just for a bit of fun.
Melanie E.
Stephen King
Stephen King writes mainly for his wife's approval, or so he said in his book On Writing.
Last Wednesday, I traveled to Bangor, Maine to stare through the iron gates garnished with gargoyles, at Stephen King's house. It's huge and spooky.
Of all the how to write books I've read On Writing is one of the best.
Stephen King no longer lives in Bangor.
Bangor is pronounced Bang gore by the locals. I wax pronouncing it like a firecracker and was soundly corrected.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Big houses can be useful for plots
Yesterday, I was at Woollaton Hall, Nottingham to photograph the Deer rut (Red and Fallow Deer)
The hall featured in one of the Batman films. Quite gothic in style. The place was used for a Girl Guide Sleepover the night before. As it is Halloween month, I'm sure that a few tricks were played on the girls.
Your post got me thinking about using a 'notorious' house in a story. One day perhaps.
Samantha
The thing that triggers me to write a comment?
Finishing a story or story chapter.
:)
Emma
Varieties of comment ....
There are stories which are so well done that i need to say more than a kudos;
there's stories which deserve more than one kudosssss - and a comment is the only way to do it.
There are other times when a point feels so skew from BC-normal that i have to say so.
...
And once in a while, especially when a long story has been long left unfinished i so want to ask for completion - with minimal result.
But I love having comments - even deeply critical ones if they make me think about what I've written.
Thanks folks
I'm afraid I don't enjoy
I'm afraid I don't enjoy writing "thank you" or "... was great" comments. Writers are likely to have to make do with a thumbs-up there.
I am much more likely to make comments that engage with the story.
Oh, and I am afraid I neither kudo or comment on most stories that end up with the main character and a boy together - that is not my thing. I guess it would spoil the surprise, but I wish the tags indicated stories where that happens and I could chose not to read them.
Writer Burnout
Writers on this site get no pay. The lack of Kudos and comments make many just give up. :(
Different tastes.
I'm not much of a fan of lesbian stories, and will often skim the end of a story or wait 'til a multi-part story is done so I CAN check to avoid reading them. We've talked about having tags for that kind of thing before, but it's a difficult subject to discuss given that, often, who the person ends up with is intended to be a Plot Point, and one that writers might not want to give away.
(For future reference, though, I'll give away mine: I almost ALWAYS have male love interests.)
-Melanie E.
To me, how you get there can be more important……
Than the destination, so to speak. But then again, I am pansexual, so whether the love interest is male or female is not at issue - but rather the journey to finding the relationship.
D. Eden
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus
Reminds Me of an Old Joke
The Potato family sat down to dinner--Mother Potato and her three daughters.
Midway through the meal, the eldest daughter spoke up. "I have an announcement to make. I'm getting married!"
The other daughters squealed with surprise as Mother Potato exclaimed, "Married! That's wonderful! And who are you marrying."
"I'm marrying a russet!"
"A russet!" replied Mother Potato with pride. "Oh, a Russet is a fine tater, a fine tater indeed!"
As the family shared in the eldest daughter's joy, the middle daughter spoke up, "I too, am getting married! I'm marrying an Idaho!"
"An Idaho!" said Mother Potato with joy. "Oh, an Idaho is a fine tater, a fine tater indeed!"
Once again, the room came alive with laughter and excited planning for the future, when the youngest Potato daughter interrupted. "Mother, I’m getting married, as well!"
"Really?" said Mother Potato with sincere excitement. "All of my lovely daughters married! What wonderful news! And who, pray tell, are you marrying, youngest daughter?"
"I'm marrying Lester Holt!"
"LESTER HOLT?!" Mother Potato sniffed. "But he's just a common tater.”
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Sounds like a "dad joke"
It's all groan
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
Groan……..
That was just soooooooo bad, lol.
D. Eden
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus
Better...
Better a common tater than an ornery spud. :)
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
As someone who reads and comments here a lot…….
What makes me comment more than anything, is being engaged in the story. I find that this goes one of two ways, and is always due to the story stirring an emotional response in me.
That response is often due to my being able to relate to the story from personal experience, or because the story brings back memories of an event or time within my own life. Sometimes these experiences or memories are good - but often they are not. But the fact that the author made me feel is generally what elicits a comment. These are good comments.
The second reason is that the story makes me feel bad, or even sometimes disgusted. This is usually due to forced feminization stories. When that happens, I usually comment - but it is based on not liking the story or the genre in general. Any story that glorifies hurting or humiliating another person, or forcing them to do things against their will not only makes me angry, but usually has me crying and feeling upset that there are people who actually like or enjoy reading it! There is too much of this in the world without glorifying it; I have seen evil up close and personal.
And sometimes I comment simply because it is an author I truly enjoy. I look for the opportunity to do this. I try to comment to encourage when I can.
D. Eden
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus
Different Strokes
Many people feel extremely guilty about cross-dressing. Their guilt might be reduced if they can believe that they're being forced to be feminine.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Nancy Friday
She said as much in her book, My Secret Garden. The idea was in not being held responsible since being forced took the act of crossdressing out of one's hands. You might remember her from her appearances on Tom Snyder's Tomorrow Show.
Love, Andrea Lena
Sorry, but I don't agree Jill. I'm with Dallas.
I totally agree with you Dallas. Forced Fem is an absolute red light for me. I'm afraid that if a story drifts into that without me spotting it coming, I drop it like the proverbial hot potato.
Usually I like to comment on stories which have engaged my interest. I'm afraid that rarely do "magical" transformations make me want to comment, but anything which has characters in whom I have invested emotional capital, thinking about whilst away from this site, that makes me want to comment.
This might seem a little parochial, but also stories where the author has described a place which I can see in my minds eye. Several authors here describe real places I know and love, Bronwen, Maddy, Ang, Gill, Sam, Suzi & Marianne to name but a few. That usually provokes a comment.
In my defense, I haven't been commenting very much lately, as I have suffered a bereavement, and suddenly it feels so difficult, so very difficult, to say something positive.
Apologies to all of the above, and many others, for my radio silence.
Lucy xx
"Lately it occurs to me..
what a long strange trip its been."
forced feminization
I can empathize with the concern regarding someone being forced. I've written three stories the that commentators have labeled as Forced Fem. I can only see one of them as falling into that sub-genre. And that on just on the edge. So like so many facets of a story, the labeling is subjective.
The first of these was "Dumb Bet." A commentator said that anyone who writes forced femme should read it to see how it was done. Somehow, that story didn't meet the threshold to move into to the forced femme realm; not even close. Yet a reader saw it as such.
The next one ("If It Was Your Husband") after discussing it with you I could see how you could see it that way, but I was oblivious to that when I was writing it.
The last one I knew I was skating close to the edge and even crossing the line for a few. "Great Aunt Frances" was forced for about three paragraphs and the protagonist got on board with what was going on and enjoyed it even to the point of volunteering to experience it again.
So that leaves me with the question; how much "force" is required to call it forced femme?
I'm sure you can answer that, but I can't.
As to why people like to read it; I have a good idea. Simply put, it's guilt. They have the desire to cross-dress and have been made to feel guilty about it. So for them, identifying with someone who's forced takes away the guilt... they were forced and didn't have any choice.
When the forced aspect reaches physical or blackmail that is too far into the forced femme realm for me to enjoy it. I'll generally just bail and not continue to read the story,
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
“Forced” does not always require physicality…….
Or even blackmail. As you mentioned, in your story “If It Was Your Husband”, the wife did not use physical force - and I wouldn’t say that she blackmailed her husband either. She coerced him into femininity, which I suppose could be considered emotional blackmail. She took advantage of his sympathy and feelings for his friend, and she did things to him without discussing them with him in advance, not to mention bringing others in on what she was doing without discussing it with him beforehand. Hence the forced portion of the story. Things were done to him without his foreknowledge or consent - the whole idea of “it is better to ask forgiveness than permission” should not apply here, but that is what your character’s wife did.
This has always been one of my biggest problems when a character claims that they love the person they are doing this to - as well as the apparent disregard for the safety of the person they are feminizing. Your story was very good, and very well written, but as you and I discussed at that time the wife’s actions did bother me.
I just read a story in which the wife, with the aide of two friends (one a psychiatrist and one a gynecologist) used a mind altering drug to make her husband more susceptible to hypnotism, and then after the insertion of certain trigger phrases and actions, used ongoing hypnotherapy and audio tapes to feminize him. The psychiatrist admitted to having done it to others before, and the gynecologist admitted to being involved as well providing the hormones to physically feminize men while the psychiatrist’s programs did so mentally and emotionally.
This was all done as revenge against the husband - all because a friend of his drugged the wife with a date rape drug, supposedly to see how it worked before using it on someone else. When the husband found out what his friend had done, he threw him out of the house in anger, and protected his wife - putting her safely to bed. He tearfully apologizes to his wife under hypnosis after she figures it out and confronts him, telling her what happened and how he reacted to his friend and took care of her when he found out. Yet she and her friends still go through with their vindictive plan to feminize him. The wife then carries out their plan to feminize him repeatedly over multiple weeks.
The point being that there was no physical force involved - but it was still done to the husband without his knowledge or consent. That makes it forced fem as far as I am concerned, and the fact that the author tries to make out that the husband is happy after the fact and the relationship between husband and wife is supposedly better does not make the acts of the wife and her friends acceptable. The ends do not justify the means. And the supposition that two medical professionals would be involved in this (and supposedly it was not their first time) is essentially the same as what Nazi doctors did to innocents in concentration camps during the Second World War. Forced fem is wrong, no matter how you write it. Yes, some examples are worse, but the name says it all - forced.
D. Eden
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus
Manipulation
There is a very fine line between motivation and manipulation.
Exploring fine lines can make a backbone for good fiction.
Inserting subliminal messages into movies to manipulate people into buying popcorn seems wrong. Pumping the smell of hot popcorn into the seating area of a theater seems less aggregious.
However, if we start eliminating stories based on the troupe aren't we on the road to extinction?
There are some lines. Sexual abuse of children is a prime example. But we have to be mindful that good storytelling pushes boundaries and be tolerant.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
I will agree
The story you describe is forced femme without the need of physical force or blackmail. The husband was deprived of the ability to make the discussion of whether to cooperate with the idea. There is no doubt that story is well over the line of force femme. I also agree that it's ludicrous to portray two medical professionals as being participants. What happened the Hippocratic Oath? Do no harm. Ha!!
I usually steer clear of stories where hypnotism is a plot device to make a person desire or accept feminization. That is a form of denying a person free will.
For me the grey area is when a person of their own free will takes a dare or makes a bet and honors the loss of the bet. To some that is forced femme. I can't always see that as being true forced femme. I just completed reading "Halloween Holdover" It starts out as a bet, but then the protagonist gets trapped after the bet is completed and even after repeatedly expressing the desire to revert is coerced into remain as he was for the bet by it being for the good of the many. OK, there was some personal gain, 300 grand personal gain, but still the original bet was fulfilled and he was not allowed to revert. While the story was well written and almost believable, I felt uncomfortable with the outcome and as you say, the journey to get there.
So we are not totally at odds on this idea, but I see a grey area where you see it as black and white with no grey area.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
Krunch advice
Let old ol’ Krunch tell you how to get comments. As someone with three fans, a smaller number of comments, and two-thirds of a time share in Piscataway, NJ, I think I know a little something about winding people up.
First up you gotta have characters that people can relate to so they can complain about how your characters made dumb choices and how they would have done something different. That really gets them going.
The second thing is to play on everyone’s inherent desire for resolution and closure. Don’t give them either. That really gets them going. Stick the narrative knife in and twist. And when people don’t think they can take anymore tension, twist the knife some more. Once people are trying to figure out how to solve your characters’ problems, you got em.
And then eventually after you set all the mouse traps, arrange all the dominoes, wind all cuckoo clocks, light the dynamite fuses, whatever other metaphors - give them the big resolution. The resolution hits harder after you got everyone all worked up and craving it in their bones.
And, if you can, try to stick to a known schedule so people know when to read things. It's hard to build an audience if people don't know where and when to look for your stuff.
You do those things and people will yell at you for sure.
I don't read many stories any more
One reason I don't comment on many stories is that I don't read that many stories here any more. This may be because I've already read so many and I've gotten to recognize the popular tropes, to the point that they bore me -- if I get the feeling that a story involves them, I just pass them by. And there are quite a few that are just badly written. Also, I transitioned 8 years ago, so the stuff that a lot of stories go on and on about are just my life now -- or else they aren't and just come off as silly.
I also don't have a lot of time to sit down and read story after story. I may see a story I feel like reading (or by one of the authors I trust) every few days or so. And I mostly skip the stories with many, many parts -- I want stories that have a beginning, a middle, and an end, and the ones with lots of parts often don't.
Finally, even if a story impresses me, it often takes days or weeks for me to be able to say anything sensible, and by then, people have stopped commenting (or reading?) it, and the author may not even notice I've commented. If a story engages me and means something to me, I'm more likely to send a PM to the author.
Late comments are great!
A comment on an old story is like an unexpected visit from an old friend, and is guaranteed to bring a smile to any author. As for not being noticed . . . maybe there’s an active author who doesn’t look at the stats on their “my stories” page from time to time. But I doubt there are many. ;-)
Emma
Comments being noticed
Under "My Account" is a "Track" button and I always look at that at least once a day, more if I have just posted a chapter.
It will tell you if there has been another comment on anything you have posted or commented on since you first joined BC. The list is arranged by date of latest post (by anyone) so it is easy to discover something new.
That is the easy way to see if someone has commented on your writings or if others have added to a comment you made on, for example, someone else's blog.
Penny
2 Cents
I'll toss my 2 cents in. Comments are the only real way I can discover if I'm connecting with an audience. Everyone likes kudos, but I've seen where some readers say they drop a kudo on a story to say thanks for submitting a story even if they don't really like it. Great. That makes it merely a participation trophy. At one time there was a committed cadre of commenters who provided useful feedback. Some have sadly died, but a lot are still around, just not commenting on anything I write. As I'm sure many here know, comments are really the only "pay" authors here get. You just spent hours or days or weeks on a story, you put it out there and all you get are crickets. You wonder if it was a dud or what. And if you think the story sucked, say why instead of just "that sucked",
And on the subject of forced fem, I'll go on a limb and state that most of my stories are forced at some level "Hey Chris. Come on, pretend to be my girlfriend tonight. It's for an hour, tops." Forced is more interesting as it frankly forces a character into a role they're not equiped to deal with and we see how they react. Sado-masochism aside...although...
And not to piss anyone off, but I'm just not interested in "lesbian" stories. I don't even read them. Other than the clothes, what has the character changed? They liked each other before and they like each other after. I'm more interested in how someone's life has changed and what changes with the MC's interpersonal dynamics.
Anyway, bottom-line, I want to hear from the readers and comments are the best way to do that.
Melanie
Comments, I've had a few
But I must say, and in a kind way. They have their place, but in the end, I write things my way.
I read the comments to my own stories and enjoy some of the suggestions on how the commenter thinks things are going to go. Sometimes, I look at what I've written in a future chapter and add a few lines. Back when I started writing, I was chastised for something I put into a song lyric for the Patsy stories. I had Disneyland near Orlando, because it rhymed with band at the end of the next line. It took a while, and it did get me to fully research places before I put them into a story. It sometimes takes longer to do the research than to do the writing. I do learn a lot about places and events that I didn't know.
I enjoy writing, and it doesn't matter to me if there are people who don't read my stories, just as there are some authors that I don't read. There are two situations where the comment thing changed what I had planned. One was when I set up a Patreon account and put a story on it. The lack of comment, or anything else, put a stop to that. The second was when I thought that I would expand my readership with a story on Fictionmania. The first chapter got a couple of scathing reviews, one of which snarked at the lack of TG or sex in the posting. Most of you that read my stuff know that this sort of content often doesn't happen for a couple of chapters. I never put the second chapter up, the only time I've cut a story short. That will never happen on BC, because I finish every story before the first posting; no writing on the fly for me, I have a good dozen stories that have been deleted, maybe two or three chapters written, because I ran out of steam with them. If I stop posting, it's because I may have keeled over.
I welcome any comments and thank those who do comment on my stories. Sometimes I may add a comment to the list. One thing I will do, and that is carry on any conversations from messages sent directly to me. It is a pleasure to communicate with you in a meaningful way.
Marianne
Discord?
What's that?
Seriously... You have the ability to comment right there at the bottom of the story. Why go to another system to comment or perhaps I have got the wrong end of the stick?
To all readers. Please take a few moments to comment on the story. Good or bad, it does not matter.
Samantha
"Good or bad" doesn't matter?
So I should write comments like: "boring" or "too long" or "don't like superheros"? Or "I'll have to think about this one"?
BTW, some of my favorite stories didn't become so until a year or so after I first read them. At first they were "meh"
A comment should...
reflect what you are feeling/thinking after reading the piece. If it is boring then that can be useful feedback to the author. I'd rather have that than the 'emperor's new clothes' effect.
Every writer strives to produce their best work all the time. Sometimes, a piece is 'iffy'. The comments should reflect that.
Samantha
"Negative" feedback
You can very well write a comment that expresses that you don't like a story and why. Preferably in a constructive way. However, what you shouldn't do is to be mean or cruel.
Maybe I shouldn't be trying to talk around this.
A big part of the point of this blog was about getting people to think about how to positively reinforce commenters and understand what makes commenters feel like sharing their thoughts.
I'm not sure people are getting that. Instead I'm seeing a lot of folks expressing a sense that they're owed comments, or almost demanding them, or promoting negativity in comments and about the state of stories on the site.
Why?
We have great stories going up daily. We have tons of active users, authors and commenters alike.
Blaming someone -- anyone -- because something isn't working out how you'd wanted it to usually doesn't help with anything. That goes doubly so when it comes to communities like ours, where that negativity is less likely to inspire someone else to do what you want and more likely to just make them stop participating entirely.
I've got... a lot more I want to say about this, but sometimes it's best to think through the things we want to say, and how they're going to be read and interpreted by others, before or even rather than saying them.
-Melanie E.
Thanks for the redirect, Mel
I’d add that things in print are often read more negatively than intended, because the nuances of speech and non-verbal communication that would have softened them are absent.
To your point, I know I value comments as an author, so I try very hard to be good about leaving comments when I am engaging the site as a reader instead. Even if a story leaves me wanting more, or leaves me cold, there is always something in it that I liked (or I wouldn’t have finished it). Highlighting things I liked is easy, and authors seem to appreciate the feedback.
With respect to my own stories, they generally do decently for kudos but better than average for comments. I think the latter is mostly because I invariably engage with everyone who leaves a comment — substantively when I can — and maybe a bit because I’m good about leaving comments on things I read. People know, by these things, how much I appreciate comments and invest in them.
I hope that doesn’t sound like horn-tooting. I don’t mean it to. What it is, is a philosophy of engagement that is intended to strengthen our community.
Emma
Speaking from personal experience
I don't find a problem with comments and kudos in the sense that I still get about the same ratio of kudos/comments to hits. Possibly even a little bit higher.
What has happened over time is that the number of hits has decreased. That is not only due me posting less interesting stories but a general trend. Though September has been MUCH better than August.
However, I maintain that one problem is that we compare with the "Golden Days" of this site. The site is still a very good one, even if not as great as it was a few years ago. And yes, the trend is worrying. If someone find a solution: Great!
Still, let's enjoy the site while we still have it.
Golden Days
Maybe our roses colored glasses are creating a bias?
When waxing nostalgia, it might be good to remember that everything about BC wasn't better in the past.
People used to drop their dainty little gloves with much greater frequency.
One of the sites most active commenters would stalk you with unwanted sexual advances. As he is dead I won't name him.
Another prolific writer had child molesting inclinations that snuck into her fiction.
We had one writer whose love of animals pushed proprietary boundaries.
Members were suspended frequently.
There were less than twenty new stories each week.
A lot of the authors were barely capable of basic syntax.
To suggest that BC is going in the wrong direction is a gross misrepresentation and doesn't give credit to what Erin does. She has gently, and not so gently, steered this site at great personal cost.
The current group of writers is much better on average than at any time in the past.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Good points
If kudos and comments are the coin of the realm, I’d say that the supply of goods (stories) has gone up relative to demand (reader hours), thus leading to deflation in the form of fewer kudos and comments per story. But unlike the real world, authors here don’t depend on the “market” for their stories to eat (thank God!). We simply have to recalibrate our expectations to match the site’s success in attracting authors. Or, find ways to increase readership generally.
Emma
Those were the days....
And you knew who you were then
girls were girls and so were some men
Sister we could use a maid who could Hoover again
Oy, the way Lou Reed played
songs that made the Pride parade
Girls like me hoped we weren't made
Those were the days
Didn't need no Sanctuary state
ev'rybody watched her weight
gee our old Dodge Minivan ran great
Those were the days
Love, Andrea Lena
Giggles!
Love it, ‘Drea! I can hear Jean Stapleton now . . . .
Emma
Comment modus operandi
I just passed my 14th anniversary as a registered user here on BigCloset. And I want to share a bit of a retrospect on my long time here in the community as a reader and also as a commenter.
Initially I read over 90% of the stories posted, and I also commented quite a bit. As someone who grew up in a multilingual and multicultural environment, fluent in three languages with passable knowledge in two more and an acquaintance with at least another half a dozen, I have been personally disgusted by the parochial attitude of superiority I experienced from the so-called Americans living in Yankee-land that 90% of America that is located outside of the United States of America should not be considered as America and that anybody who is not fluent in English should be considered subhuman. And worst of all, that Paraguay and Uruguay are one and the same country.
(I am not trying to offend anybody, but that is the experience I had at age 11 living in northern Indiana for a year in 1981.)
While trying to be “helpful” with my comments, I started to correct authors in public comments. Especially when they used the horrible results from Google Translate to add some cultural color and diversity to their story. As a court licensed translator I felt that I was an authority with the ability and obligation to offer “constructive feedback”. Unfortunately I realized too late that my public comments might have been a huge contributing factor in discouraging at least one author and “killing” one of her better stories half way through. I was painfully reminded of that story when a recent blog post asked if that specific story would ever get completed.
I have since learned to offer praise in public comments, and criticism or corrections in private messages to the author.
Unfortunately the BigCloset community has suffered quite a bit of drama from several authors, due to “negative” public comments. Many of these authors posted either very niche or even sub-niche stories, or about social borderline issues. And due to very fragile egos involved in those dramas, we have also lost many very well written stories that address some very important issues of today's society.
Way back when I would also read all the comments. And I got really annoyed by the very frequent non-comments of “Yay! First comment!” or “Nice story!” I got so annoyed be some of those “prolific” commenters that I put them on my ignore user list. I find these cookie cutter comments worthless, since that is what the kudos button is there for.
Nowadays there is a less than 50% chance that I will read the comment section of a story. Mainly when the story or chapter has triggered an eureka moment, a profound emotional reaction or a moment of reflection. And there is a less than 1% chance that I will go back and check for replies to my comments.
I think that Patricia and Eden might have identified a significant correlation between story genre and personal struggle. When I first got on the internet in the late 1990s, I was struggling with a lot of guilt regarding my [gender] identity, the emotional baggage of a “fire and brimstone” religious intolerance and the resulting social, emotional and economic mobbing. Thus stories of forced feminization, bondage and sado-masochism became a virtual stress-relief and over-pressure-valve.
Ever since I acknowledged my own diversity, and even more so since I have been able to live my “true” identity, those genres have lost their allure and fascination.
And as I have been grappling with a lot of my psychological and PTSD issues, consent has become ever more important to me. Not only in fiction, but also in real life. I have come to realize that a lot of my triggers originate from “the end justifies the means”, “it is easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission” and “we have always done it this way”.
Personally I am a strong supporter and proponent of the “Safe, Sane, Consensual” principle.
I has been stated many times before in both blogs and comments, but it still bears repeating. There is no obligation to read any story here on BigCloset or any other story site. Nobody is forced to read a story they do not like. If you do not like a genre or story element, nobody forces you to read or continue reading that specific story!! Stop reading and move on to a different story!
Comments like “I hate this story!” or “This is disgusting!” are not helpful at all. Especially in a public comment. Just stop reading and move on to a different story!
I remember a story that was posted some time ago that engaged me on the premise of the main plot. But as the story progressed, it started to become apparent that [tobacco] smoking was becoming an ever increasing plot device. After a private message exchange with the author about this issue, I decided to stay with the story until its resolution and end. But I have not read any other story by that author.
There is another author (that shall remain unnamed) that I first discovered on different story sites before also posting here on BCTS, that I will not read anymore. That is because they use sexual abuse and rape of minors as the main plot device, albeit covered with a thin vernier of discipline and education.
As others in previous comments have so eloquently stated: If a story makes you uncomfortable or even sick, drop it! Maybe even like that proverbial hot potato!!
Some times it might be useful to contact an author by private message about an issue that you find troubling. That can help clarify if it is a one off or if it is a constant. Thus help you decide for yourself if you want to keep going, drop the story or drop the author.