I regretted sending that survey almost immediately when I considered how much corporate surveys irk me. Who am I, Lowe’s Home Improvement? Rate your experience on your last visit. I bought a paintbrush for Chrissakes. I don’t need to fill out a damn survey. I imagined some of you being mildly irked like me over another survey. For that, I apologize.
Ten questions? What was I thinking?
That said, I do care what you think of my writing. I’m trying to improve and I’m seeking a path forward. I figured, who knows this work more than those who’ve read the story?
In your replies, something else dawned on me. Sure, you know the story and the characters but not in painstaking detail as I do. I have lived in this fiction for twelve years. I can’t expect a reader to recall every damn scene. The survey was a bit too much but I did get some thoughtful replies.
I have known for some time that publishing Punks first was a mistake. I believe much of the dislike towards Tina resulted from me introducing her as a woman cheating on her husband with Joe. There was no context to that affair. No matter how much background I offered she was a dirty adulterer in the minds of many readers and that scarlet letter cannot be washed off.
The survey supported this. Tina got roughed up a bit.
It’s not like I didn’t know this back when I first published Punks. I opened that story with my main female character doing the worst thing. I received some very harsh comments in my early chapters. It started in Ch.02 - Her Husband’s Bed. I was trying to create a salacious act and I got ripped for it.
“Unfaithful women are fucking whores!”
“I hate wives who cheat. You’re garbage for writing this.”
“Cheaters suck and you suck at writing.”
I don’t recall all the nasty troll comments but they were mostly inarticulate crap with typos and no punctuation. You know, my kind of people. Of course, I made matters worse by replying.
“I’m sorry you weren’t man enough to satisfy your wife and she had to go outside the marriage to get what she needed.”
“It’s a fucking porn site, people! Grow the fuck up!”
There were so many negative responses I shut off anonymous comments to disarm the trolls and kill the distraction. Infidelity is a common theme in erotica. I could not understand the backlash and I had not yet grown a thick enough skin to deal with it.
Eventually, other authors informed me in the writer’s hangout that there are male readers who will attack all tales of female infidelity and then one-bomb that author… whether they read the work or not. Men who cheat do not get this treatment. Infer what you wish from that.
So, once a chapter lost its yellow NEW tag after one week I turned off the ratings. That’s why 33 of 37 Punks chapters have no comments or ratings. I disarmed the haters. That was a rookie mistake because my ratings weren’t terrible. They just weren’t great.
Also in those early chapters, I had my first run-in with moderators for rejected content. I didn't know what my violation was because they didn't clearly explain it. Then they didn't reply to my request for more info. I got butt hurt and didn't resend that submission for 22 months. There's a big gap in the dates between chapters five and six, another rookie mistake.
From the start, I put Tina in a deep hole. Had I started from the beginning, when Joe was seventeen, I believe she would have faired better. I did readers a disservice by rolling out this story during the cheating years. That will be remedied in my 2025 rewrite… I hope.
As I expected, Jenna and Sofie got some love in the survey. I have always strived to create female characters for Joe to ‘fall in love with’ that challenged his sick devotion to Tina. This is a big part of his struggle. I want readers to fall for them too. The fact many think Joe should dump T for Jenna is fantastic. They fell into the Jenna trap.
Postcards seem to be the most popular series and I believe it is the best creative writing in my punks universe. The Providence chapters in All The Young Punks were mentioned also. Punks, as expected, is the least-liked series… further supporting my rewrite plan.
I was not surprised that the music scene I created was the main attraction for some readers. Years ago this tale started as the struggles of a teenager but once I gave Joe a guitar it changed focus and my love for music took over. That can only take you so far. In the end, it’s the relationships that make the story.
One reader pointed to the Tierra del Fuego chapter in Postcards as a highlight. I like that chapter, especially the Santos character. I felt Joe’s arrival at the end of the world was a little anti-climactic after all he’d been through to get there. I could have done better but there were no women down there. Joe wasn’t getting into Santos’ pants.
One reader dislikes my teasers about future writing. Hey, I’m just trying to keep you in the loop. I dropped 150 chapters on Lit and now the cupboard is bare. It will take time for me to develop my new stories. I’ll try to not overdo those updates.
Another reader said my writing is too much in Joe’s head. Well, yes, the first scene in chapter one is Joe in a therapy session. His trauma and anxiety are the source of most of his issues. His struggle between the ears is foundational to the character.
A few readers said they planned on reading the entire thing over again. That’s a lot of work and I appreciate the sentiment. If you’re serious about this I have one request. Could you please start over on Royal Road or Wattpad? I don’t even care which one. I’m publishing Sons of Providence on both.
First of all, I will be requesting to have all my Lit works deleted… eventually. I must go through the mods for that. Ugh. Secondly, you’ll be getting the latest, best, and cleanest version of Joe’s story on these other platforms. I’m hoping one of these sites works out. I’m trying to not be impatient.
More than one punk reader expressed hope that I would kiss and make up with Lit. That will never happen. I am done with moderators.
I’m also rewriting the cheating years. I’m on chapter fifteen when Jasmine enters the story, which was once chapter 11. It was moved back to make room for reunion scenes and the China cat drama. I’m fussing over the erotic scenes pondering how much should stay and how much should go. It’s not as easy as I thought it would be.