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I'm not new to TG fiction writing. At Fictionmania I have 25 stories published. All under my writing handle Danielle J. It was shalimar who talked me into posting my stories here.
Earlier this week, I published my my most recent story. Altered Fates- Only the Strong can forgive. This story was a labor of love for me.
Currently I've gotten just three reader comments, one of which came from someone(John) who helped give me input while I was writing my story. So in reality, only Cathy and aardvark have said anything. Thank you to both of you but otherwise the lack of reply is rather discouraging. Yes my story is long, but I've gotten more replies in less time for longer work at FM. Look at my GS story For Daniel, for proof.
Maybe I'm just down, for at present I am again fighting health issues. I didn't write anything for nearly two years because of this and other reasons. Also I submitted this story to someone at FM over two weeks ago who's taken a few days to get a long story ready for me, but I'm still waiting with no end in sight. Depression and bad health kept me from writing for a long time, and right now I feel like I'm sinking again. Someone can say you write for yourself, but if no one appreciates it other than the author, thw writer has reason to feel his time and effort is wasted. Why write then?
Maybe I'm expecting too much, my stories when posted to Crystal's Storysite have been ignored too.
Danielle
Don't Despair
I've had over 75,000 hits on my contributions to BCTS over the last three years. During that time I've received about 1.6 comments per 100 hits.
Some of my personal favorite stories, the ones I think are the best, have received few, if any, comments and very few hits.
I've also posted over twenty stories at FM and have received many more comments here, than there, in general.
I haven't read any of your stories except for one short one, which I thought was interesting. I rarely read magical, sci-fi, altered fate, or universe stories, but there is a large readership here who does. Many of the better writers here write your kind of story and seemed to like it here.
Good luck to you, you are very welcome here. By the way, shalimar is a nice person and you're lucky to have her as a friend.
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Comments
Hi Danielle,
I am a relatively new author, new to TG writing and trying to develope my writing ability. I too have found the number of comments to be disappointing, but I can't criticise because I am not a big comment poster myself.
I have been reading Only the Strong Survive, but can't finish it yet, due to both pressure and personal circumstances (I will be at a friends funeral this afternoon).
I interpret this post as a need for feedback, so I hope you won't be offended if I give you some honest feedback from my own tinpot perspective. I would have liked this kind of feedback for my own stories.
You have produced a strong story that deals with powerful issues and I respect you for that. This makes it the kind of story I want to read and my inability to pull many of those out of other sites is why I contribute and read here, where there seem to be a higher percentage of intelligent stories, rather than on FM.
One of the personal difficulties I have had with the story is that I identified more strongly with Loc than with Jeff, so I have found it hard to maintain my interest after her death. I know you want to explore Jeff's coming to terms with his new life and I will read on, but dealing with death here means I have to delay.
A less personal observation is that I feel you keep switching viewpoint. This means that we get little snippets of how each character feels but little depth. It is more like the book of a film than a book. I can see what you are trying to do here, but to bring this many characters through requires stronger characterisation of each and you might benefit from concentrating on a smaller number of key characters.
On the positive side you have written a powerful story that examines character and reaction to circumstances and which is far more searching than many of the simple fantasies we are presented with. I look forward to reading more in the future.
With love,
Tara.
x
The strangest journeys start with a single step.
The strangest journeys start with a single step.
A comment on comments
Even though most of my stories are pretty short, I always pour everything I've got into them. Whenever I see someone comment on a story I've written, it always makes me smile. It lets me know that not only was someone interested enough in my story to read it, but they were moved to the point of making a comment.
It can be pretty hard to predict what will or won't elicit the most comments. There've been some stories I thought were particularly well written that only got a couple of comments. There've been others I thought were fine but not particularly exceptional that have gotten a lot of comments.
Sometimes it seems a matter of timing. If I post a story around the same time as other authors, the comments seem to be more spread out between us than if there's been a bit of lag between when I and the next author has posted.
Then there's the expectations of your readers to consider. The first story I posted here got three comments as well. As I continued posting stories, I found some of them seemed to get more comments. I'm assuming the more you post, the more of a following you will develop and the more likely people seem to be inclined towards leaving comments.
There's also the thinking that goes something like, "Ah, I see someone else has already said everything I could say," or "how can I possibly put into words how this story has affected me?" There's probably lots of other thought processes as well.
One more thing to remember. It wasn't so long ago that readers didn't have such a convenient means of letting authors know how they felt about stories. Yes, you could snail-mail a letter to the publisher and hope that it'd eventually get to the author, but they didn't list the author's phone number or anything so you could call them up as soon as you finished reading.
I imagine a lot of readers think of electronic publications in a similar way to printed publications and don't really think of communicating with the author directly. It doesn't mean they don't like what we've written. It just means it wasn't something that came to mind as a possible option.
I hope what I've written makes sense. It's quarter after three right now and I'm feeling a little loopy from having my sleep schedule knocked off kilter. If this whole thing doesn't make any sense at all, feel free to ask me questions, or just skip over this to something else that's a bit more coherent. :)
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Heather Rose Brown
Author of Bobby's Rainy Day Adventure
From the cheap seats
I write mostly silly stuff with the occasional serious one-off thrown in.
It was an enjoyable detour to read and comment on Only the Strong..., Danielle.
There is no predicting what will catch the readers eye. I do notice the long stories often have more of a lag in comments, unless it is a very well known author here writing in a popular series. Julie_O and her Fresh Start/Coeds series comes to mind. It takes time to read a long story. Stories that are aimed at a highly specialized subject tend to get fewer responces as well.
In my own Whateley Academey Fan Fic I have had sizeable responses -- ten or more -- or none. No pattern other than when there is more action or something that elicits strong emotion, the responces often soar.
Some people don't like the magical transformation stoies so they usually won't read them. Some see medalion of Zulu or SRU and run away, others love those stories.
Timing may have something to do with it as well.
Ultimately we all write for ourselves or for some *target* imagined reader. Look at aardvark's current epic. The termite eater is well known here. Sappho got numerous comments as did his spin on Julie_O's Fruit of the Vine. A Concubines Tale elictied strong comments too. When The Warrior from Batuk posted, it got little comment at first. I posted comments to get the ball rolling as I had read a late draft for feedback. Now that people know it is out there he appears to be picking up interest. But as a Zhor/Gor fantacy/alien world story it may have less interest to some readers. Length can hurt too. We are so *instant* these days.
John in Wauwatosa
John in Wauwatosa
TYPICAL
I am known not to post a lot. I have been working on my stories plus the other problem of reading one of the largest files. Yes, I do download most of the stories so I can read it offline. So forgive me while I try to move my real life aka WORK (sorry about this particular 4-letter word) around. I will try to get to the story soon and then respond.
IMMORTAL
- JOHN 3:16 (KJV) BIBLE