Coming Back from a Break

The last of the Foster Forest stories that will be published here were written eleven months ago. I haven't worked on them since then, except to do a re-write of the first story in the series. I was going to re-write the entire series, toning things down a little bit based on feedback that I'd gotten, and working a bit more with the characters, since I felt that I'd done an inadequate job of really depicting them the way that I see them. Sometimes things don't translate well. And reading them back, I find that I hate Peter, who used to be one of my favorite characters in all of my fiction (the first, lost FF series in particular).

I've always known that I wanted to continue these, even when I was distracted with building the Foster Forest site. I just wasn't sure how to go about doing it. I still am not. I've gotten a fair bit of feedback here, most of it notably negative, and I'm trying to take that appropriately to heart, and then to push forward and continue with what I was doing, following the story the way that I had always intended to write it: with a real evolution in the characters.

Now there's a small problem, for those who have read the stories so far. The characters I want to evolve aren't the adults in the plot, but the children, and their interpersonal relationships with one another. Once you see Chapter 15, you'll understand why, I hope. And re-reading 14 makes me angry. And I'm the one who wrote it!

At any rate, I'm in the process of writing Part 17. I've been working on my new Nery Legacy for a while now (check out my site for the first three or four parts. The most recent two still need to be added there) and I wanted to take a break to work on continuing Foster Forest. The problem is that it's been too long. Although I read part 16 just a couple of days ago, I feel as though I'm feeding more off of the feedback than the story itself. It's causing me to turn Lizzie into something that she isn't. You aren't supposed to like her! At least not at first. So now I'm feeling kind of stuck with regard to how to proceed.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Hopefully part 17 will be up on my blog later on tonight. Is it alright for me to leave a link before it's been loaded here? I have two sites and only one is linked on my Library profile.

Oh, and I wanted to add that I'm experimenting with bringing the word count down to less than 2000 words on Foster Forest chapters (while keeping the same average word count of roughly 4500 on the Nery stories). I think I can be more effective that way, and might wind up with milder content, and feel less pushy with it. We'll have to see. I might wind up doing the opposite, and having longer stories (the first in the Nery Legacy is 10,000+ words long -- really!).

Anyway, I'm open to opinions and suggestions. Please be aware that I'm working on this, and keep the criticism, you know, constructive. I consider myself a pretty good critter, and I can usually take it, but there's a certain formula to giving a good crit ;)

The only thing negative about the series has nothing to do with the writing, it has to do with the child abuse within the story itself. Such abuse of a 10 year girl no matter what her behaviour is looked down upon by society in general. Makes one wonder whether the girls behaviour is not due to the abuse she gets rather then her plain rebellion.

You are an excellent writer and I must admit I had to quit after 6 chapters because of the abuse, however one thing does confuse me. You state you wanted to develop the characters of the children but I saw no hint of this is the chapters I read, maybe it comes later but too late for me.

I see no need to change Lizzie as you say above, the girl clearly needs discipline but she does not need the abuse this series is so obvious in stating. You state we are not suppose to like Lizzie, well I for one did like her for being so strong despite the abusive situation, many children in that situation would act much worse. Lizzie;s character to me was very minor, the series concentrated on Becky and Peter, two adults who have no idea of how to raise a child.

The series is great writing and maybe I missed the entire point of it, but again the only negative thing about this story, and thankfully it is only a story, is the abusive behaviour of the two adults. Your writing and flow are unique to you and could make it very entertaining.

I am getting the feeling that what you are seeing as strong writing is me at my weakest. I don't say that to... inflate my own ego, for lack of a better expression. Clearly there is something here in which I have failed, and failed severely. Many readers are seeing something that is entirely different from what is in my mind when I'm writing the stories.

At this point I have to say that I'm curious as to how the Nery Legacy series will be received. It's a total break from any of my previous writings. Is is entirely dissimilar to anything of mine that you could possibly have read before, because it's unlike anything else I've ever written. So far my beta readers have enjoyed it. I'm wondering how it will go over, because I'm trying to work more with intricate relationship dynamics within a single family, and by the time the series concludes, there will be quite a few relationships within the family structure. It's getting hard to stay in the headspace of a single character in a chapter at this point (which is one reason why they're getting shorter.

One big difference is that in the past, I've always assumed that my stories were to be set in an alternate universe of some sort. The way that we handle spanking in fiction is entirely unrealistic in the modern world (at least in general, unless we're talking about pure consensual romantic spanking). This time, I'm doing the best that I can to set the story in a moderately realistic modern... redneck... culture.

I think that what's most significant this time also is that I'm not trying to squeeze a spanking into every chapter. That helps to stop me from having to stretch to fit one in, I think.

Since these will be loaded here, I hope that it's okay to give the link. I'm cautious about doing this.

Nery Legacy Chapter 1

You should be able to use the "newer post" link to get through all six of these that have been posted so far. If anybody reads these and finds glaring errors, please let me know. They've all had a beta read, but I don't know that there aren't any mistakes.

Just for the record; there is one character you aren't supposed to like, maybe two, and both are adults. There is a reason for the behavior of both of them, and in both cases I plan on making the reasons apparent when I can get into the right perspective and the story allows me to bring it out. Right now, at the point the story is at, there's just no way. This is an issue of "trust the writer."

Though right now, I'm not sure that I trust myself.

I started to read Foster Forest, but quickly decided that it was not to my taste. I respect the fact that others on this site have different fantasies than I do, and I avoid making moral judgments about people based on their sensual imaginations.

That's what I like so much about this website. Everyone understands that other people are different, and avoid criticizing them for writing stories that don't appeal to that individual reader. I also appreciate the fact that we are all mature enough to understand that writing an erotic story about something illegal or immoral is not the same thing as condoning such an action in real life, and that we respect each other enough to assume that we can all distinguish between reality and fantasy.

Anyway, best of luck to you, Storm.

All our stories are written first in the authors mind and then on paper, sometimes that transfer will change things but overall it generally is a reliable guide to what the author's thought are. When those papers are published those written words go into the mind of the reader and of course no one can see it from exactly the same view as the author did.

When I write stories I look at what I put down and ask myself if I did not know the background of this story that is in my head, does it make sense to the reader. You say you always assumed your stories are in a alternate universe, that's good in your mind but how does the readers to pick up that mind set. Stories in an alternate universe are one thing, but that does not transfer to a reader unless we tell them.

Your comment about our "modern redneck culture" makes me laugh, I would think this site shows that the vast majority of people on it are not "redneck" by any means however I do not want to go into definitions. Point is if we think of our stories being published on a site and we have a view of the culture on the site, and we want our stories to be read, enjoyed and overall accepted then we accept that we have to write to that culture. We can change some things and over time perhaps influence others to a way of thinking but it can take years.

My main suggestion is this, do not worry about what others think or say, just write the best you know how and let the readers decide. Every author on here has some readers who will never open their stories and some who will open their stories first, so be it. One of the frequent writers on here commented once saying "I hate formulae's", so just write and let the readers decide. I think you know none of us can make everyone happy, so instead you be happy with what you write and if you stay within the guidelines of what the site administrators allow, then write to your hearts content.

In conclusion Storm, it comes down to you writing a story and send it in, never mind what I or anyone says or comments. As the song says "Don't Worry, Be Happy". You as a author will have those readers who enjoy your style and writing just as we all do. If you make one reader have a better day your story has done it's job.

I'm waiting until the entire series is posted before reading, but based on the comments it seems to a well written one. Only with well stories do people relate that well to the characters. Caring what happens to them, reacting emotionally to what happens to them - that's a sign a good writing.

I too have problems with "will the reader understand it? am I leaving out background issues?" when writing. Especially when it comes to mysteries or things like that. Since I know the plot I can't sense the suspense that a reader will (or at least hopefully will) get when he reads.

When it comes to writing I always say to write what you enjoy - otherwise there's a spark missing from the story. Sometimes my stories go in unplanned places (almost as if the characters come alive and insist "no, I'm doing this - not that!") but sometimes that works out well.

Don't worry about readers that interpret things differently than you planned. I've lost count of the number of comments I've gotten that made me re-read the story to make sure it was the one I thought it was. People with different backgrounds view things through different eyes - that's a given. As long as people are reading, that's the main thing.

Goodgulf

The problem that I have is that I don't feel that the comments have been in the least bit constructive. The series was written nearly a year ago at this point with no updates in 11 months. At the time that I was writing, I was surrounded (and often still am surrounded) by stories of young children being stripped nude and beaten with a belt. Comparatively speaking, I'd say that what I'm writing is pretty mild. Maybe I need to read more selectively, but one might consider that when writing to an audience, an author begins to interpret what appears to be popular in the genre, and then write to the people who have been leaving the most positive comments. If the stories that get the most comments are brutal, then... I don't know, maybe you can see my point.

At this point, I think that continuing the series beyond where it is would be incredibly foolish. Not only is it virtually impossible for me to find the momentum that I once had, but I have clearly not been productive in the writing.

There are two things that I probably am going to do, however.

The first relates to the current series posted on here. I'm going to write a short series of stories illustrating Becky's life with her father shortly after immigrating. In conjunction, I'm also going to do a little sideline of stories dealing with her relationship with her father as a woman in her twenties, and the way that he treats her. I think that this insight might be invaluable, and of course it deals with the character at an age that I think most people will feel is acceptable (16 and 26).

The second is that I'm going to shift my gears a little bit with the series that I'm currently working on (the Nery Legacy) and begin working more on writing from the perspective of the children. I'm having a slightly difficult time with this. In reality, I'm a switch, leaning bottom, in spite of a dominant personality, but I find it easier to write dominant males than any other character type. Strangely, I'm also female. We'll see how this goes.

Each website is going to attract different sorts of readers who will have different tastes. I have belonged to several Yahoo groups and have seen this to be the case. The LSF has an eclectic assortment of stories, but most would appear to lean toward either both spanker and recipient being adults or the recipient being an older teen. Some authors on this site write mild spanking stories and some write stories where the spankings are brutal. As a reader, when I figure out how a particular author writes, I will make a point of always reading that writer's work or never even opening that writer's stories based on my personal preference. I try not to criticize the works of writers who write a style of story that I don't particularly care for. I just don't read more of their stories.

As a writer, I would suggest that you focus on writing what works for you, instead of being worried about what works for your audience. I write the kind of stories that I like to read. I am not into F/M stories. I have written stories where an adult male character could probably use a good spanking, and I have had comments suggesting that I write a follow-up story that gives the man a spanking. I thank the responder for his/her comment and explain that I don't write those types of stories.

If you look at the stats of the library, you will notice that about 20 people comment a great deal, and the vast majority comment very little. It may be that you have an audience of appreciative followers, but that they fall into the category of those who don't leave comments. The handful of those of us who comment a great deal may fall into the category of those who are not enamored of your type of story. As a result, you may not be getting the feedback that you want because the ones who will take time to comment are not into that particular type of kink. Unfortunately, I don't know how you can get the feedback you would like on this site. The best I can suggest is to look and see how many people read your stories. If the readership numbers are good, then clearly you're meeting someone's desires. Just keep in mind that over a lengthy series, the number of readers of subsequent stories in the series tends to go down.

I guess that I try to always be constructive. I'm generally considered to be a very good critter. I have a way of doing a critique that tends to put the emphasis on the positive instead of on the negative. And I only very rarely comment on something that I don't like. I don't see the point; why waste my time telling an author what I don't like? I'd rather spend my time trying to encourage people to do more.

Not everything is great. I also have personal preferences. F/M does nothing for me, but I can enjoy a well-written M/M story. I'll almost never open something that's F/M though.

What's disappointing for me is that even before I chose to submit my work here, I'd started work on a new series. Five chapters were written before I had any feedback here at all. And now I wonder if, once they're loaded, anybody will bother to read and comment on them. To make things even more frustrating, the action so far is mostly M/F and M/f (teen). Soon enough there will be some M/M (teen, but 18). In many ways it's a total break from what I've been writing, but I guess that my concern is that I've already put everybody off by writing to a particular audience who wanted something of a sort that I might consider way over the top (and of course, my stories don't even come close to what I'm talking about).

I'm pretty sensitive. I can take criticism, even if it isn't wholly positive. But the vast majority of the comments that I've gotten have been discouraging and unhelpful. My point is that I think it's better not to get any comments than to get comments of the type that make you want to quit. That's only my opinion of course, and now I feel like I'm whining. Ultimately, what it comes down to is the fact that I'm just very disappointed. I was going somewhere with a series that I now feel I can't complete.

I guess that's okay. I have two other writing projects going on right now, so it's not as though I'm not busy.