Writing Does NOT Equal Endorsment!

[Nyctoria]

LMAO...

Yep... because I have random gods, racism, people with values that conflict with modern society, slavery, and a bunch of other crap in my writing, I must believe in and support those things, right?

Such a dumb argument.

Seriously, if you have nobs who complain about that kind of stuff, feel free to try to convince them of your choice to write it that way, but in the end, it is better to ignore/block. Life sucks bad enough; you don't need some keyboard warrior trying to take the moral high ground with you for a creative writing piece.

They will try to *1 bomb your story or take it down to make you stop writing if they are motivated enough.

Usually the argument is used to conceal their jealousy over your story having more engagement than them.

 

[OtherSlater]

LMAO...

Yep... because I have random gods, racism, people with values that conflict with modern society, slavery, and a bunch of other crap in my writing, I must believe in and support those things, right?

Such a dumb argument.

Seriously, if you have nobs who complain about that kind of stuff, feel free to try to convince them of your choice to write it that way, but in the end, it is better to ignore/block. Life sucks bad enough; you don't need some keyboard warrior trying to take the moral high ground with you for a creative writing piece.

I do, but now my rating is low on that hellsite, and it's annoying. they only read 13 chapters and assumed that much outta me, and now my place on the site sinks because of it

They will try to *1 bomb your story or take it down to make you stop writing if they are motivated enough.

Usually the argument is used to conceal their jealousy over your story having more engagement than them.

They do that alot in RR. it's a very common tactic I heard because for some reason they don't have a gatekeep in place. I think in order to review a book you need to read alot more than THIRTEEN chapters

 

[Juia_Darkcrest]

They will try to *1 bomb your story or take it down to make you stop writing if they are motivated enough.

Usually the argument is used to conceal their jealousy over your story having more engagement than them.

Ahh, well, you can't help people being assholes.

Speaking off 1* reviews... I had one for the longest time... no idea why... then I realised a month or two ago that I had indeed 1 starred my own novel by accident!

What a day!

 

[TinaMigarlo]

Wha about Hitler

he's interesting to read about, if you can find stuff that gets past the whole wartime hype.
weird facts...
he liked american cinema movies. He used to throw lavish parties, to show his films off.
his favorites? Shirley Temple.
I mean, its hard to get your head around.
its freaking hitler, the personification fo evil incarnate?
he's throwing "come watch Shirley Temple" parties.

he did everything short of banning smoking. health fanatic.
Eva Braun had to go outside to smoke, and brush her teeth afterwards.
he had digestion trouble, he ate very little meat, he was one step away from a vegetarian.
there's no end to the pictures of him smiling and doting on animals. dogs, squirrels, etc.

he rarely if ever drank alcohol. The only beer pictures? Him celebrating the "beer hall putsch" anniversary.
before politics? He was a failed artist. Oil painting.
he was against cities sprawling out and taking over, he espoused the importance of forests and country.
he was against big banks and corporations running roughshod with too much influence.
he stayed up late, working. Drinking herbal tea.

I know, its hard to separate Hitler the man, from... who he was and what he did.
but when you do?
most *liberals* think descriptions of him sound wonderful.
its simply the most bizarre thing, ever.

here's a weird one.
today's "we need population for the economy" is not a modern phenomenon.
post WWI germany, had the same issue. Their solution to get the people breeding?
zero interest loan, to any healthy young couple that got married. To buy a little farm and house.
20% *off* the principal of that zero interest loan, for each child you have.
have 5 children after getting married?
you're small farm and house, were essentially *free*
you were only out the payments you made up until then, and those payments went down with each birth.

you could write a small novella on the man.
describing his daily life, his beliefs, what he was like outside of work.
never mentioning his name, or the later politics thereof.
he sounds like a *saint*
then, the big reveal, on the last page.... who you liked all thru the book.

I know, spooky.

 

[OtherSlater]

he's interesting to read about, if you can find stuff that gets past the whole wartime hype.
weird facts...
he liked american cinema movies. He used to throw lavish parties, to show his films off.
his favorites? Shirley Temple.
I mean, its hard to get your head around.
its freaking hitler, the personification fo evil incarnate?
he's throwing "come watch Shirley Temple" parties.

he did everything short of banning smoking. health fanatic.
Eva Braun had to go outside to smoke, and brush her teeth afterwards.
he had digestion trouble, he ate very little meat, he was one step away from a vegetarian.
there's no end to the pictures of him smiling and doting on animals. dogs, squirrels, etc.

he rarely if ever drank alcohol. The only beer pictures? Him celebrating the "beer hall putsch" anniversary.
before politics? He was a failed artist. Oil painting.
he was against cities sprawling out and taking over, he espoused the importance of forests and country.
he was against big banks and corporations running roughshod with too much influence.
he stayed up late, working. Drinking herbal tea.

I know, its hard to separate Hitler the man, from... who he was and what he did.
but when you do?
most *liberals* think descriptions of him sound wonderful.
its simply the most bizarre thing, ever.

here's a weird one.
today's "we need population for the economy" is not a modern phenomenon.
post WWI germany, had the same issue. Their solution to get the people breeding?
zero interest loan, to any healthy young couple that got married. To buy a little farm and house.
20% *off* the principal of that zero interest loan, for each child you have.
have 5 children after getting married?
you're small farm and house, were essentially *free*
you were only out the payments you made up until then, and those payments went down with each birth.

you could write a small novella on the man.
describing his daily life, his beliefs, what he was like outside of work.
never mentioning his name, or the later politics thereof.
he sounds like a *saint*
then, the big reveal, on the last page.... who you liked all thru the book.

I know, spooky.

...Stay on topic.

 

[OokamiOkuri]

Ahh, well, you can't help people being assholes.

Speaking off 1* reviews... I had one for the longest time... no idea why... then I realised a month or two ago that I had indeed 1 starred my own novel by accident!

What a day!

This is smart.

You will be safe from a random troll.

A random troll browsing the latest updates would often look for stories with no 1* and 1 starred them.

If your story get multiple 1* on the same time, it's from the same person with many alts.

This will no longer be the work of a random troll, but a targeted attack.

 

[TinaMigarlo]

back to on topic.

to play devil's advocate, though.
not like I didn't have early versions of my work get panned. I mean panned *hard*.
this was before I was here.
now, I'm still not exactly setting the world on fire, but I have a small readership. Finally.
I seem to gain a reader or two, every day or two. And I can live with that.

the things I got *panned* for, though.
I started changing them.
Like, a half dozen things kept coming up.
Now?
the stories are the same stories.
I just fixed mechanical issues.
reworked a few things structurally.

I never did take it personally, when I got panned.
I was able to change things and the way I did them, w/o changing the core story.
And I went from zero readers, to now I have a tiny readership, that grows by one at a time.
its something.

Mind you, I'm a fish totally out of water, anywhere I go in the WN world.
I write trad pub style. Very traditional genres, at least my mainstream stuff.
I can't do one sentence paragraphs. I insist on trying this.
It makes me, what. I'm attempting to sell oranges, on an apple site, basically.
so? a tiny readership, growing one at a time. That's some measure of success, if only a little bit.

I'm working on a novel that's "on meta". IE, in a genre appreciated on WN sites.
I want to see if I can write to what the market wants, even in my trad pub style, if that's at all do-able.
I felt like a complete sell-out, forcing myself to write in genre/tag that was popular.
I was surprised, though. Once I got going after the first chapter or two... I sunk my teeth in and enjoyed the story.
its *nothing* I would have *ever* tried... w/o getting panned daily back where I came from.

but... adjusting what I did that I was panned for? Helped.

 

[DionysusWriter]

Joking aside, I don't understand why you're bothered by receiving hate. I practically write for that reason.

 

[Peagreene]

Joking aside, I don't understand why you're bothered by receiving hate. I practically write for that reason.

Some write to receive hate, some to tell a good story.

 

[laccoff_mawning]

To be fair, if a story has an action and there is no consequence to that action, even much later down the line, then I'd argue that the writing does equal endorsement. Because you're saying, in your fictional world, that action doesn't have any consequences.

You obviously have a lot of different ways to showcase these consequences to the reader. Most of these ways aren't going to be outright and immediate retribution, but there does need to be an acknowledgement somewhere of 'hey, this is bad'. Especially if it's the MC doing the actions.

I've seen people seem willing to just say that writing =/= real life so it's fine, but it isn't fine.

Of course, there are just cases where the reader can't actually read. I just wanted to mention the above argument for sake of authors.

 

[DionysusWriter]

To be fair, if a story has an action and there is no consequence to that action, even much later down the line, then I'd argue that the writing does equal endorsement. Because you're saying, in your fictional world, that action doesn't have any consequences.

You obviously have a lot of different ways to showcase these consequences to the reader. Most of these ways aren't going to be outright and immediate retribution, but there does need to be an acknowledgement somewhere of 'hey, this is bad'. Especially if it's the MC doing the actions.

I've seen people seem willing to just say that writing =/= real life so it's fine, but it isn't fine.

Of course, there are just cases where the reader can't actually read. I just wanted to mention the above argument for sake of authors.

Why isn´t it fine? Who dictates the obligation of authors to moralize their works?

Why is there a need to acknowledge "this is bad"?

I'm sorry, but I don't like the prescriptive argument about how a literary work has to be (morally). These are the kinds of arguments that later lead to calls for censorship.

 

[tentacle_master]

I feel like each time I delve into more sensitive topics in my stories, there will be SOMEBODY out there who thinks I like what I'm writing about because I don't outright say "Hey! this is bad!" I must love what's happening. Media literacy is only getting worse because people put their feelings of the author into account before judging the art. In Ultraviolence, the prologue is very gory. I chose this because I wanted high before the comedown. You see the ULTRAVIOLENCE the boom, you get a slice of life. It's a slow burn. But for some reason, some people think I like it?? Then again I don't get this problem here, which is why I came here. Other than the AI nastiness (And the PAY ARTISTS !! Post that had the AI bros who already disliked me look at my work in bad faith) It's calm here. This happened on RR. They cannot read anything that isn't a harem LitRPG, I swear.

I heard RR audience hate harem instead?

 

[empalgepuk]

I'd show PoV or make emphasis of a character who feels that something is wrong.

For example, my MC is an ex-slave. He reacts negatively to slavery in general. He even wants to dismantle it, even if he knows it's impossible. Of course I have to portray the slavery itself to make that point.

If a reader accuses me that I am pro slavery, I'd just shrug and move on. Reading comprehension is a luxury for this kind of people.

 

[Jerynboe]

Wait, including something in my story doesn’t mean I endorse it? I guess I’ll need to find a better way to communicate my love of racism, slavery, abuse (spousal and otherwise), unsafe human testing, torture, cult tactics, and fascism.

 

[AliceMoonvale]

I'm of the opinion that depicting something dark doesn't mean you endorse it.
(But also of the personal opinion to condemn authors that explicitly write about particular illegal activities/subjects on things that involve children and animals. #hot take)

But I also don’t think readers are wrong to react strongly if the framing in your story feels ambiguous to them. Different platforms have different tolerance levels and expectations.

In the specific case of Royal Road, a majority of people there simply have the preference of not reading smut because often it doesn't add much to the story. Then there is also the subject of young readers not liking to read about penis and vagina, and the site probably not wanting to turn into a porn story site in where they'd lose out on advertisers, etc. The core opinions is just that RR readers just simply don't like smut and harems much, and they're allowed to have those opinions.

And it all boils down to the simple idea that readers aren’t obligated to interpret your work the way you intended. Once something is published, people will read it through their own lenses. (Austitically or not) Interpretation isn’t controllable. People don't know you, they can't read your mind. Some readers are just more sensitive to certain material/themes. Not to mention, a platform's culture can shape how people react. Everything changes depending on which site you go on. Here, RR, A03, Honeyfeed. All very different from each other.

 

[laccoff_mawning]

Why is there a need to acknowledge "this is bad"?

A story is one of the ways in which a human communicates. Then what does a human communicate in their story? Fiction stories certainly don't communicate physical, factual information, so it must communicate some form of metaphysical information. In other words, a story exists to communicate something philosophical. If a story fails to communicate any form of philosophy, it has failed in it's job as a story.

I'm sorry, but I don't like the prescriptive argument about how a literary work has to be (morally). These are the kinds of arguments that later lead to calls for censorship.

I understand the argument could be used to promote censorship, but that doesn't mean the argument implies censorship. The problem isn't with the argument itself; the problem is with whatever illogic is used to conclude that censorship is an effective solution.

 

[Kay_Ship]

I’d also like to add that you can no longer lay down clues that only get revisited or revealed way later, and you can't start a plotline with the characters misinterpreting clues because of their lack of knowledge.

Everything must be explained at point-blank, no time for setups, no patience to let it play out and if the characters make a mistake that's because the author is stupid and not because the readers have more knowledge of events than the characters.

Average users can't read.

I will put something out in a chapter and some readers will pick up on it instantly. They usually say something like "i can't wait to find out about X..."

Me too, reader, me too. I only actually like i know whats going on.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Also to add context: I got a negative review on RR, which is fine, whatever, but in the 12 chapters they read they said:
I had a small penis and was raging at nothing (way to assume my gender! Also It's clear that Jackie is angry at the wider government for poor policing and lack of justice)
UV is just violent fantasy of mine (I don't think so, but whatever)
Said basically I would never confront or fight anyone (What?)
Had never thought of the ramifications of taking a life (I do. Quite explicitly in Chapter Six)
Said that the antagonists are one note (they only read 12 chapters, and the main baddie is mentioned the whole time and introduced in chapter 13. the henchmen are... henchmen. I didn't know I had to write backstory for cannon fodder. John Wick is an awful movie by their logic).

It's clear they just, didn't read my story. And disrespected me for some reason??

Even worse - they read enough to feel your story might challenge another for a spot on Rising Stars and had to do everything to make it look bad and maybe even discourage you from continuing. That's a tactic there.

The last time I checked there, I still had only one review and it was clear I didn't challenge anyone. It's one of my favorite reviews, really... took about 5x as many words, but, essentially: "The author did what he set out to do in these four chapters. I didn't like it. 3 out of 5 stars."

 

[OtherSlater]

I'm of the opinion that depicting something dark doesn't mean you endorse it.
(But also of the personal opinion to condemn authors that explicitly write about particular illegal activities/subjects on things that involve children and animals. #hot take)

But I also don’t think readers are wrong to react strongly if the framing in your story feels ambiguous to them. Different platforms have different tolerance levels and expectations.

In the specific case of Royal Road, a majority of people there simply have the preference of not reading smut because often it doesn't add much to the story. Then there is also the subject of young readers not liking to read about penis and vagina, and the site probably not wanting to turn into a porn story site in where they'd lose out on advertisers, etc. The core opinions is just that RR readers just simply don't like smut and harems much, and they're allowed to have those opinions.

And it all boils down to the simple idea that readers aren’t obligated to interpret your work the way you intended. Once something is published, people will read it through their own lenses. (Austitically or not) Interpretation isn’t controllable. People don't know you, they can't read your mind. Some readers are just more sensitive to certain material/themes. Not to mention, a platform's culture can shape how people react. Everything changes depending on which site you go on. Here, RR, A03, Honeyfeed. All very different from each other.

It's one thing to interpret my work, it's another to be wrong. Like outright. And saying my work is just a violent fantasy is literally wrong.

 

[AliceMoonvale]

It's one thing to interpret my work, it's another to be wrong. Like outright. And saying my work is just a violent fantasy is literally wrong.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and how they perceive something. There's definitely a difference between a factual error and an interpretation, but themes are experiences and not facts. If a reader finds the subtext of your story buried under violence or w/e you got going on in your story, and it connects different dots, it's not inherently a 'wrong' interpretation, it's just a reflection of how the story was understood by that person. As far as I'm concerned, no author has 100% control over how their audience processes dark themes, regardless of their intent.

That being said, out of curiosity, I did find this person who left the review on your story on RR. They were pretty harsh and immature, but overall, I wouldn't dwell on it. Plenty of people like that exist, not worth hanging your head on every negative comment you get. At the end of the day, there will likely be other people who equally have a different reaction than you hoped for. Nothing you can really do about it aside from improvement or simply move on and keep writing.