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I was just thinking about this site. It's the best because of one thing. We have the best authors with regards to TG content. Other sites seem to like the smut value of a story, where as this one encourages well written stories. There is one thing that bothers me though, some of the best don't get good reads. Nancy Cole is one. She has written stories that we should be privileged to read for free and yet, she doesn't get the reads she deserves. I know I'm being selfish and want more of her stories, but well that's just me. I know this is a TG web site, but when you have a chance to read really well written works, don't pass it up, Arecee
Comments
I agree, Nancy Cole's work
I agree, Nancy Cole's work deserves more hits than it gets!
Saless
"But it is also tradition that times *must* and always do change, my friend." - Eddie Murphy, Coming To America
"But it is also tradition that times *must* and always do change, my friend." - Eddie Murphy, Coming To America
Ditto about Nancy
Despite some misunderstandings about my comments ( for some reason ) she does great work.
Kim
With all due respect
Everybody's tastes are different. A well-written story about something I am not interested in reading is going to remain unread by me. That is what happens when you write niche fiction. I loved "A Different Kind of Courage", and at some point I'll buy the other books in that series. The subject matter is interesting and the stories well-written. "A Lion In Waiting" and "No Greater Love" are probably well-written also, but I just don't care for historical or period fiction. No reflection on Nancy's skills.
I don't know how other people feel about her newer stories, I just know my feelings. I would encourage her to write whatever she wants. The audience she gets is going to depend on how appealing her subject matter is to people, and you can't make people read something they don't want to read.
They know they can survive
Content not style
I agree with Withheld. I read a story for its content, not the style of the writing. All the pretty prose in the universe cannot make a story a good read to me, if I'm not interested in the setting, plot and/or characters.
I agree Arecee
I love Nancy's work, I prefer it to many of the others. We are all different and have different tastes, thats what make BCTS the best place. Sometimes you feel like some nuts, sometimes you don't.
Once More Into the Breach
My Dear Arecee -
I will repeat this for the nth time. The number of comments, the number of votes, and the number of hits have absolutely no correlation with the quality of the writing.
Great stories sometimes draw lots of votes, comments, and hits -- just like television evangelist sometimes have viewers that receive their wishes. When it happens everyone says -- see it works.
But truly Arecee -- it doesn't work. What works is self-satisfaction and the appreciation of one or two key readers.
The story I posted today is all about me. I wanted to write a story about a totally unlovable protagonist, just to see if I could make it into a romantic piece. I think it worked, so I'm happy. That's sucess. I could give a big fat R.A. whether it gets any votes, comments, or hits. I entered it in the summer romance contest merely to emphasize to myself that it should be romantic.
You and Nancy should develop a calloused attitude like mine and forget-about-it. Nancy is lucky to have a discrimnating reader such as yourself to critique her writing. What more could she want.
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
I notice a new trend
that stories with loads of comments, seem to have most of the comments written by the author - which somehow defeats the object of commenting.
Angharad
Angharad
Comments on BC are not Reviews
The comments here are not what FM calls reviews. Comments at BC are specifically designed to be available for a dialog between author and reader. At FM, authors are told not to use the reviews to reply to reader comments.
Personally, I think that is what defeats the purpose of having comments, not allowing the author to reply.
Some authors here reply to almost every comment on one of their stories. I do it myself. This may inflate the totals of comments somewhat but I'm convinced that the involvement of the author with the readers is part of the reason BC gets more reader comments per read -- it's more fun to comment at BC because it's just a comment, it's not supposed to be a review, and the author may reply.
Commenters at BC are not assuming a responsibility to other readers, which is what the FM system attempts to foster. The purpose of comments is to encourage the author, not direct the reading habits of other readers.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
I think half the fun of
I think half the fun of posting here is the back and forth between reader and writer. I respond to pretty much all comments on my stories because I like that back and forth, and because I know I like it when writers respond to my comments. I've had some fun conversations here with both readers and writers because of this.
I'm glad you've got BC set up this way Erin, thanks!
Saless
"But it is also tradition that times *must* and always do change, my friend." - Eddie Murphy, Coming To America
"But it is also tradition that times *must* and always do change, my friend." - Eddie Murphy, Coming To America
Hear, hear!
Stories in general. So many fiction sites one sees have stories that seem to be a collection of "scenes" rather than a coherent story with a plot, sort of like The Perils of Pauline. Has it been five minutes already? Time to tie poor Pauline to the railroad tracks/sawmill feed table/time bomb/cart heading toward the cliff again.
The Nancy Cole story you mention is an excellent case in point. The TG element is minimal (if indeed it exists at all yet) but the story is compelling as a story of desperate chances in a harrowing but realistic situation, yet our "hero/heroine" perseveres, indeed thrives in some ways, never opting for the coward's temptation to pull the covers overhead, but out and about trying to do something about the mess everyone is in the thick of.
Danielle's latest story is the first I've seen that is driven in a major way by a religious transformation, or at least a first religious transformation that doesn't amount to a tract, on top of a gender transformation. Double, double, toil and trouble; Fire burn, and caldron bubble. The tension lies in how these competing transformations may resolve themselves, the conflict between… revenge? duty? love? There's an old John Lennon tune, All you need is Love, but is it really? So many of us settle for much less.
Angharad's perennial favourite has mostly ordinary life at its centre, organising meals, coping with children, dealing with the odd bigot or criminal along the way, as ordinary people do. We don't all lurk in bat caves, waiting for the Bat Signal flashed into the sky before we burst into action, zooming down the dual carriageway in our rocket-propelled and armoured speedster; we putter along in our Fiats, Subarus (in my case) and Morris Minors, wait for the traffic light to change, work in ordinary offices or shops, and never blow up buildings, or throw automobiles at one another.
Like Eastenders, or All in the Family, the trick about depicting ordinary life is seeing that it's interesting — it manages to capture all our attentions well enough, after all — and that every episode doesn't have to have an airplane falling out of the sky, a nuclear bomb ticking in the cellar, or a runaway planet hurtling toward Earth.
Heck, most of the time, just balancing the cheque book is all the excitement I can stand. Some months, it raises the hair on the back of my neck, and I have to go lie down to recuperate.
Cheers,
Puddin'
-
Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
Gall in the Family
Ahhh yes, ordinary life. Like Archie strutting around like a peacock after he saved the life of a tall, classy dame in a taxi. . .only to find out she's a man.
As I recall, this story, way ahead of it's time, was handled quite well.
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
It was...
It was actually a knock-off of the British show, Till Death Us Do Part, where Archie replaced Alf as the white working-class bigot of the family who longed for those Happy Days when the "coloreds" and "The Jews" knew their place and ordinary white people were in charge.
Archie was set off by a "long-haired" son-in-law and a wife who, every once in a long while, told Archie to shut up and stop being an idiot. It was very effective, and situations like that were constantly being set up, in which Archie himself would usually discover the gap between the right-wing talk-jocks he loved to listen to on the radio and television, and the people he actually encountered in real life. Black people were all lazy shiftless bums, until he met Mr Jones, or whomever, who helped him with a problem, homosexuals were godless deviants, until that nice Clarence down the street is revealed to be a queer. From the show's situations, it appears that Archie and his family are, in fact, the only white people within a four-mile radius, so Archie really is, as he fears, surrounded by "ethnics." The show dealt forthrightly with racism, homosexuality, women's liberation, hippies (long-haired intellectuals), rape, miscarriage, breast cancer, menopause, anti-semitism, impotence, and many other topics, although not as forthrightly as the British equivalent, the USA still being inhabited by a large number of people who faint dead away at the sound of a curse word, their British equivalents all having emigrated to the US sometime after the death of Queen Victoria. Many British and French shows are censored here, with bleeps and black bars replacing audio and video content respectively. It was number one in the US ratings for five years or so, the most popular show on television.
Cheers,
Puddin'
-
Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
And it's still ageless
I'm sure All in the Family still makes those same people squirm when confronted by their bigotry, Arecee