Story Composition, Simple or Complex

[Shorngirl]

I have a question. I love to write, and sometimes the ideas I have involve a longer story line to create the plot. I do find that, as far as reception here (which really shouldn’t be a concern, to be honest), the shorter stories are generally more well received. Am I imagining this? I hate to think I’m boring anyone with a long story. I know this board is considered erotic fiction, and as such, can be constrained by a certain set of unique parameters. (need I say more) Don’t get me wrong, my writing is not driven by how many likes, or comments I receive,(my editor aways warned against reading reviews of my novels, be they good or bad) I’m just interested in opinions concerning this topic. Thank you for your consideration.

Claire

[klaatu48]

I’ve also found shorter stories are better received. I think it’s just a matter of taste — kind of the difference between whether someone wants a “pizza delivery guy” type porn or kind-of-a-real-movie erotica.

Unfortunately for the pizza people, part of what interest me in this fetish is the potential loss of something meaningful, and you need a bit of build up to understand why a woman might be hesitant to part with her hair, so I rarely cut to the chase, so to speak. I just judge a story’s success by the reaction of what I would consider my target audience, and I don’t worry about their overall popularity.

That said, I do try to learn from the stories that are more successful, but only to incorporate the lessons into the new stories in a way that works, rather than trying to repeat the same success over and over.

[Ginger Herten]

My most popular stories have been the ones where I’m just fictionalizing things that I’m actually feeling and add a happy ending. I assume they will be unpopular, because frankly I just kind of prattle along and drivel about my character’s feeling, and next thing you know I’m up around 10k words.

Like my most liked story, “Something New,” is just me pretending that the straight farmer woman I had a crush on was actually a lesbian. My second most popular story “Mistakes” was about my feelings after having lunch in a diner parkinglot with the exgirlfriend I was so not over, but in reality controlling bitch is her type and she’s happier with the controlling bitch than she was with laid back me.

I’ve written shorter simple fantasies, they aren’t as loved. It surprised me. My sci-fi, dystopian future and urban fantasy stories, which tend to be shorter, aren’t all that popular either. I plan to keep writing them when the ideas pop into my head anyway.

I get the impulse to want to write things people will like, but I find that rarely actually leads to people loving them. I think it’s a bit like dating and the very cliche advice about being yourself. I never really understood that till I realized how happy the exgf “Mistakes” was based on was with the controlling bitch. I considered trying to win her back by being a controlling bitch, but it wouldn’t have worked in the long run. I would have just driven myself crazy trying to constantly pretend to be someone I wasn’t, and eventually I would have slipped back into my relaxed ways and just let her be herself, and she’d have just gone back to the actual controlling bitch again.

As for what I want to read, short and simple or long and complex? Just depends on my mood.

[Fancy Doors]

Definitely an interesting topic you bring up. I do tend to like reading the longer ones myself, I definitely relate to what Klaatu said with longer stories creating more of a build up and feeling of someone losing something meaningful (their hair).

Writing these long ones I do find difficult however so often I find myself writing somewhat shorter ones (5k or so words) often in 1 sitting. Hopefully when I get back to writing I’ll be able to switch up between some long drawn out ones and more to the point, succinct stories.

Anyways that’s just my opinion about it all!

[Author]

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