canadianspankeecanadianspankee:
I don't know if I agree with this, sometimes I write and hope to get a reaction, good, bad or indifferent is all the same sometimes, but I do want a reaction.
Sorry, I should have been more specific. The original poster talked about "a strong negative reaction" and that's the sort of reaction I was referring to. I stand by my assertion that I don't think anyone here would do that.
kovkov:
The situations where I think rewrites can make sense are situations where readers' reactions indicate that characters or events are not coming across the way the author intended - especially if such situations interfere with readers' enjoyment.
I agree with the first half of this sentence - if the story the author wanted to tell isn't being told then a rewrite is in order. As for the second half... The thing is, if the author reads it and enjoys the story then at least one reader enjoyed it - so how can anyone say that "the readers" don't enjoy it? When writing you write first for yourself and then for the readers - and if the readers have a problem then maybe you're posting to the wrong site.
When it comes to stories, it's all a matter of personal taste and countless people have mentioned "I started to read blah but found it wasn't my thing so stopped". Should stories be rewritten for those readers?
The problem with "this story demands a rewrite" is that it caters to a mob mentality - and where do you draw the line? For example, I'm not a huge fan of M/M stories - should I be replying to all of them, telling the author to change Frank to Francine so that I can enjoy the story more?
Then you have the hot button issues - politics and religion come to mind. The thing is, no one would write a story that includes one of those topics just for a negative reaction - they would write it to show their own point of view. Maybe you won't agree with their point of view but that doesn't mean the author is trying to piss you off.
For example, one of my stories deals with emotion abuse verse paddling in a catholic school - painting a picture where those who weren't paddled were "lectured" and those who were lectured often envied the paddled. I'm sure it offended some people - but I didn't write it to offend, just to show that there are worse things then paddling. I selected a catholic school for the setting because it allowed for more guilt (guilt about letting down your religion) but I could have borrowed a page from the movie "Kes" and set it in a secular school. In that scene the headmaster bemoans that he's wasting his time trying to teach boys who are too stupid to learn, who are incapable of thought, and are basically trash - then he canes them on the hand.
Should I go back and rewrite the story I wrote because of negative reaction? Of course not.
And I have had negative reactions for some stories. For example, someone thought that 'Cinderella and the Slave Girls' was a very dark story and in some ways it is - as is practically every story that deals with slavery in anyway. You can't have a dark element like slavery without its darkness seeping into the rest of the story. Did I rewrite it? No. If hundreds of people said "Wow - what a dark story!" then would I rewrite it? No - and part of the reason is another thread, where someone basically said "I like dark stories - which ones are dark?".
This community already has a gatekeeper. I'm sure that if I was going to write a snuff story disguised as a spanking one that it wouldn't be accepted by the librarians. If I was going write a <insert the most disgusting thing you can think of> type of story the librarians would say "no, it doesn't fit the library" - which is a much better way of handling things then saying "I don't like this so you should change it".
If you read a story and you don't like it, my advice is to rewrite it - turning it into something you do enjoy. Just change the names somewhat, maybe vary the situation slightly, and "fix it". Then see if people enjoy your story more. I'm betting that both stories will have fans, but those fans will be different people.
Goodgulf