What have been your strangest reader expectations of your story?

[RedHunter2296]

Hello everyone

I think this topic needs a better explanation so let me write a little more.

As the title says, I would like to see what have been your strangest expectations that your readers have had of your stories or you as writers and how did you take it?

For example, and incidentally this was the story that made me want to write this thread. In my novel a lot of crazy things happen all the time, one day the protagonist is helping repair his mother's house, three days later robbing an ultra-secure bank, then going out to marry ghosts at night and then ending the week in the middle of an air combat against a hostile fleet of ships and stealing their flagship carrier.

Since the story is full of crazy nonsense, I like to balance it with a lot of in-depth research on the subject. For example, during that dogfight, I dedicated a whole chapter just of the protagonist preparing his plane as realistically as possible, from the flight configuration to the equipment, weapons and settings used. Another whole chapter just on the procedures of how an aircraft carrier works, all the manœuvres from getting the plane out of the hangar, final turnarounds, takeoff procedures, explanation of the departure order, how all the runway operators work, all that bullshit. The following chapter covers all air combat, handling techniques, technical language, names of military equipment, even the actual manual for emergency landing procedures of the f-18 super hornet.

As you can see, serious, time-consuming research.Add to that the fact that English is not my native language, plus the planning of the novel in general, characters, development, feelings, those things that every story should have.

Then imagine my surprise when a couple of readers tell me that it was an offense to them that I couldn't even write a 2,000-word chapter a day and that it was ruining the pace of my novel.

Apparently, the biggest problem is that I am not able to write fast enough in comparison to the other authors they read, so I am a bad author and I am the part that is bringing down the whole project, my project.

Each chapter takes me a minimum of at least five hours just to begin whit! That's when I'm already going fast with the whole chapter in my head and I just have to move my fingers.

so my response was literally:

You're reading a free novel on the internet without paying a dollar and they still make complaints.

I am not a slave who works for your entertainment, I do this because I want to and that's it, I don't owe anyone anything here.

I will write this when I feel like it and I will publish the chapters when I feel like it.

If I want I could even finish writing this and never publish it on the internet, you already have more than 200 chapters, are you going to tell me that it is not enough? The Lord of the Rings has 576 thousand words, this story is already at 641 thousand, so you have a story for a while.

So, well, I wanted to see if anyone else has received similar comments this level of ..... "special"

 

[Panthers426]

It really depends, I've gotten a few people who didn't enjoy certain choices I made with the writing, and for the most part, they've been respectful. Though a few comments have also been little more than trashing the work, that's not common.

I tried to be upfront about what this story would be about, and while I will fully admit that it changed a lot from how it started, I think I did it in such a way to make sense and also work within what people would find enjoyable. Red Hand basically went from a super serious Assassin-themed story to something more bordering on Slice of Life that also has an overarching plot and serious moments to ensure that it's never just meandering. While the story is anything but perfect I'm proud of it and I'm grateful that my readers have been kind and thoughtful, even if they don't like something.

As for expectations, I think some people just didn't really understand who Akagi was. I made her to be a very confident person, and some have mistaken that confidence for cockiness. On top that, I think some people just didn't like how much I dove into her emotional state, I really wanted that to be a big core of the story, but maybe I didn't disclose that enough.

 

[RepresentingEnvy]

Hello everyone

I think this topic needs a better explanation so let me write a little more.

As the title says, I would like to see what have been your strangest expectations that your readers have had of your stories or you as writers and how did you take it?

For example, and incidentally this was the story that made me want to write this thread. In my novel a lot of crazy things happen all the time, one day the protagonist is helping repair his mother's house, three days later robbing an ultra-secure bank, then going out to marry ghosts at night and then ending the week in the middle of an air combat against a hostile fleet of ships and stealing their flagship carrier.

Since the story is full of crazy nonsense, I like to balance it with a lot of in-depth research on the subject. For example, during that dogfight, I dedicated a whole chapter just of the protagonist preparing his plane as realistically as possible, from the flight configuration to the equipment, weapons and settings used. Another whole chapter just on the procedures of how an aircraft carrier works, all the manœuvres from getting the plane out of the hangar, final turnarounds, takeoff procedures, explanation of the departure order, how all the runway operators work, all that bullshit. The following chapter covers all air combat, handling techniques, technical language, names of military equipment, even the actual manual for emergency landing procedures of the f-18 super hornet.

As you can see, serious, time-consuming research.Add to that the fact that English is not my native language, plus the planning of the novel in general, characters, development, feelings, those things that every story should have.

Then imagine my surprise when a couple of readers tell me that it was an offense to them that I couldn't even write a 2,000-word chapter a day and that it was ruining the pace of my novel.

Apparently, the biggest problem is that I am not able to write fast enough in comparison to the other authors they read, so I am a bad author and I am the part that is bringing down the whole project, my project.

Each chapter takes me a minimum of at least five hours just to begin whit! That's when I'm already going fast with the whole chapter in my head and I just have to move my fingers.

so my response was literally:



So, well, I wanted to see if anyone else has received similar comments this level of ..... "special"

I have had reader expectations of a lot of chapters. When I started releasing one story, I was quite literally releasing one chapter every day. A reader said that I should have had 10 chapters up at the very beginning.

Another reader expectation was expecting me to come up with a lot of explanations for everything. Not even things that are related to the plot, or even aspects of world building that are significant.

The last reader expectation I can think of was when I was writing my first web novel, and people expecting the writing to be much better.

 

[APieceOfRock]

Spoonfeeding.
I read some comments and reviews and I feel like those readers only skimmed through the story. They say that things happen randomly but don't stop to think about the dialogue and context clues I gave them in previous chapters. I really want my readers to come to conclusion on their own instead of writing it all out.
To quote an example from a reviewer who knows how to pierce together clues themselves:

"People seems to throw the term "torture pr0n" around without any care. Any misfortune I see the progronist encounter is justified since there's a clear reason behind it. I think people either skim through the story or don't give enough attention to details.

I think the consensus is that it something bad happens to the protagonist and there's no immediate gratification, it's torture pr0n. Even if the misfortune is reasonable and caused by the protagonist herself not thinking carefully before actin, it's torture pr0n

I think that her way of pinsihing the protagonist for her action is much better than oh no the protagonist fought fiercely and now she's injured but don't worry because she'll be healed by the start of next arc

Many people also complain about the character Dark which I also don't understand. We have an Arc that introduce the existence of demon lords relics. We have another arc that also has a relic of demon lords. Surprise surprise, a demon appears, and people still complains that it's out of nowhere."

 

[RedHunter2296]

Spoonfeeding.
I read some comments and reviews and I feel like those readers only skimmed through the story. They say that things happen randomly but don't stop to think about the dialogue and context clues I gave them in previous chapters. I really want my readers to come to conclusion on their own instead of writing it all out.
To quote an example from a reviewer who knows how to pierce together clues themselves:

"People seems to throw the term "torture pr0n" around without any care. Any misfortune I see the progronist encounter is justified since there's a clear reason behind it. I think people either skim through the story or don't give enough attention to details.

I think the consensus is that it something bad happens to the protagonist and there's no immediate gratification, it's torture pr0n. Even if the misfortune is reasonable and caused by the protagonist herself not thinking carefully before actin, it's torture pr0n

I think that her way of pinsihing the protagonist for her action is much better than oh no the protagonist fought fiercely and now she's injured but don't worry because she'll be healed by the start of next arc

Many people also complain about the character Dark which I also don't understand. We have an Arc that introduce the existence of demon lords relics. We have another arc that also has a relic of demon lords. Surprise surprise, a demon appears, and people still complains that it's out of nowhere."

Oh I know that feeling!

My novel has a very past background, focused on the civilization of Atlantis.

But since my novel was created from the beginning with the idea that it would be quite long, I took the decision to only reveal little by little about that civilization, first the clues that it existed, then evidence, and so on.

But in the early days people complained a lot for not putting all the lore at the beginning of the story.

Well that's supposed to be because the story is centered on the protagonsite doing main character stuff. I'm not going to do 100 chapters just from the bible just to put the context of how someone becomes king in europe in the present times.

It's like being bad at Naruto for not telling the whole story of the village and the families in the first 10 chapters just because you don't understand why Sasuke's brother betrays his family.

 

[Paul_Tromba]

When I was still on RR, several readers sent me comments telling me how my story about supernatural beings and time travel wasn't good because it wasn't a LITRPG as they had thought. I told them "I apologize for my story not being to their liking but it has no LITRPG tags nor any indicators that it would be a LITRPG. If you were convinced of it despite this, then that is on you. I do this for myself, on my own time, and without requesting payment of any kind so I will write as I so choose. If you have any constructive, or at the very least, meaningful insight on how to better the story, grammar, or characters then feel free to do so. However, I will not stoop down to writing stories I do not like for the sake of the entitled masses."

There were others who just straight-up told me to leave the site in a very mean manner because "the MC isn't OP" and "there's no system." Really got on my nerves. One dude even told me to kill myself because I refused to change the story and make the MC their ideal copy-paste OP protagonist.

On Webnovel, when I was first starting out writing in 2018, this dude left me a one-star rating after 15 chapters and wrote over 1k words telling me how it was the worst story he had ever read in extreme detail. He even picked apart the story and shit on every chapter with 2-4 sentences for each. I almost gave up writing then and there.

 

[Panthers426]

When I was still on RR, several readers sent me comments telling me how my story about supernatural beings and time travel wasn't good because it wasn't a LITRPG as they had thought. I told them "I apologize for my story not being to their liking but it has no LITRPG tags nor any indicators that it would be a LITRPG. If you were convinced of it despite this, then that is on you. I do this for myself, on my own time, and without requesting payment of any kind so I will write as I so choose. If you have any constructive, or at the very least, meaningful insight on how to better the story, grammar, or characters then feel free to do so. However, I will not stoop down to writing stories I do not like for the sake of the entitled masses."

There were others who just straight-up told me to leave the site in a very mean manner because "the MC isn't OP" and "there's no system." Really got on my nerves. One dude even told me to kill myself because I refused to change the story and make the MC their ideal copy-paste OP protagonist.

And that kind of stuff is why I don't use RR!

 

[Jerynboe]

I have readers that get surprisingly salty whenever my MC takes an L, especially when one of the entities that runs my story’s System (who are established minor characters) does not favor him.
My MC is a bit of a narcissist who thinks with his dick and has personally offended one of the three GMs, but it sometimes feels like some of my readers have gotten the impression that he is a paranoid 400 IQ tactical genius who is preordained to get all the nice things from the system.

 

[Deleted member 54065]

Hello everyone

I think this topic needs a better explanation so let me write a little more.

As the title says, I would like to see what have been your strangest expectations that your readers have had of your stories or you as writers and how did you take it?

For example, and incidentally this was the story that made me want to write this thread. In my novel a lot of crazy things happen all the time, one day the protagonist is helping repair his mother's house, three days later robbing an ultra-secure bank, then going out to marry ghosts at night and then ending the week in the middle of an air combat against a hostile fleet of ships and stealing their flagship carrier.

Since the story is full of crazy nonsense, I like to balance it with a lot of in-depth research on the subject. For example, during that dogfight, I dedicated a whole chapter just of the protagonist preparing his plane as realistically as possible, from the flight configuration to the equipment, weapons and settings used. Another whole chapter just on the procedures of how an aircraft carrier works, all the manœuvres from getting the plane out of the hangar, final turnarounds, takeoff procedures, explanation of the departure order, how all the runway operators work, all that bullshit. The following chapter covers all air combat, handling techniques, technical language, names of military equipment, even the actual manual for emergency landing procedures of the f-18 super hornet.

As you can see, serious, time-consuming research.Add to that the fact that English is not my native language, plus the planning of the novel in general, characters, development, feelings, those things that every story should have.

Then imagine my surprise when a couple of readers tell me that it was an offense to them that I couldn't even write a 2,000-word chapter a day and that it was ruining the pace of my novel.

Apparently, the biggest problem is that I am not able to write fast enough in comparison to the other authors they read, so I am a bad author and I am the part that is bringing down the whole project, my project.

Each chapter takes me a minimum of at least five hours just to begin whit! That's when I'm already going fast with the whole chapter in my head and I just have to move my fingers.

so my response was literally:



So, well, I wanted to see if anyone else has received similar comments this level of ..... "special"

Sex. Sex. And more sex, simply because my tags are harem and isekai.

And yeah they dropped it when they realized I won't put in sex coz my works are being read by my students.

I experienced this at the RoyalRoad and ScribbleHub main sites.

 

[RepresentingEnvy]

When I was still on RR, several readers sent me comments telling me how my story about supernatural beings and time travel wasn't good because it wasn't a LITRPG as they had thought. I told them "I apologize for my story not being to their liking but it has no LITRPG tags nor any indicators that it would be a LITRPG. If you were convinced of it despite this, then that is on you. I do this for myself, on my own time, and without requesting payment of any kind so I will write as I so choose. If you have any constructive, or at the very least, meaningful insight on how to better the story, grammar, or characters then feel free to do so. However, I will not stoop down to writing stories I do not like for the sake of the entitled masses."

There were others who just straight-up told me to leave the site in a very mean manner because "the MC isn't OP" and "there's no system." Really got on my nerves. One dude even told me to kill myself because I refused to change the story and make the MC their ideal copy-paste OP protagonist.

On Webnovel, when I was first starting out writing in 2018, this dude left me a one-star rating after 15 chapters and wrote over 1k words telling me how it was the worst story he had ever read in extreme detail. He even picked apart the story and shit on every chapter with 2-4 sentences for each. I almost gave up writing then and there.

I did post on RR before as well, and I got a similar reception. Some commenters asking me to always see the MCs stats.

 

[Paul_Tromba]

I did post on RR before as well, and I got a similar reception. Some commenters asking me to always see the MCs stats.

I feel your pain.

 

[Deleted member 54065]

Another strange expectation I received was from a fellow SH user. He says my MC is too kind for his own good, and I was like, "I got a main character who's powerless, and just got summoned in an unfamiliar world, and you guys want him going around with machine guns blazing? And you guys also wanted logic in an illogical setting?"

Yeah, so that's when I started not to care for reader feedbacks unless it helps me improve my work (aligns with my plans for the story).

 

[RynnTheTired]

I recently had someone call it an "immediate immersion breaker" that there's no profanity in my story. Like...do you really not know anyone who doesn't swear? Are you not familiar with the concept of family-friendly entertainment?

I also once had a reader try to convince me that the dragons in my story needed to be bigger (they're small to medium dog-sized). Because dragons are supposed to be big and powerful and ferocious, not small and cute.

 

[doravg]

Well, back when I posted on Royal Road the readers there went up in arms at chapter 130ish because I pulled a NTR on them. They would have rather had death and war, then a peaceful arch where the good nature of my little apple nymph could shine through. The book was written as a fairy tale. It brought me joy, and a war in the book would have ruined that.

But did the readers on RR care? No! My rating sunk, and I kept getting commends like: The Grotto could have won the war, or don't marry the nymph to the prince!

Some people just can't let a story take them on a journey.

Happy writing, everyone!

 

[expentio]

Yeah, the "you don't write enough" comment on free chapters (don't even do monetarization). I've got one that told me my story develops too slowly and I don't even write enough. All of this in quite the condescending tone after " ending with that he's going to drop it.
But the weird was, some chapters later, when I started an interlude series of another character in the same story, there was this comment by the same guy:

"I'm sorry if this offends you, but readers have been waiting for this chapter for a whole week, and you published this nonsense. You could post side chapters as a bonus in the middle of the week. Readers will be pleasantly surprised, not disappointed with their patience."

That one put me off.

Also, got recently a review that basically said my story is well-written and there's nothing bad about it, but then gave a bad rating because it's not their cup of tea.

 

[melchi]

I have had some readers that didn't like how things were going but never anyone being disrespectful.

I guess I am lucky.

 

[J_Chemist]

• That my story was a necromancer story.
• That my grammar would be perfect and/or that I would care to make it perfect.
• That I would listen to the suggestions of someone who's already openly said they didn't like it yet continue to comment. In most cases, I'd ask the why and take it into consideration, but they said they hated the premise and never got off that wagon.
• Had someone question almost every decision in the beginning without letting the story actually develop. They wanted it right then and there. My story is a progression story.

 

[RedHunter2296]

Well, back when I posted on Royal Road the readers there went up in arms at chapter 130ish because I pulled a NTR on them. They would have rather had death and war, then a peaceful arch where the good nature of my little apple nymph could shine through. The book was written as a fairy tale. It brought me joy, and a war in the book would have ruined that.

But did the readers on RR care? No! My rating sunk, and I kept getting commends like: The Grotto could have won the war, or don't marry the nymph to the prince!

Some people just can't let a story take them on a journey.

Happy writing, everyone!

yes, the typical: I like this story, I like cars and deadly combats, therefore this story must have modified cars to look like tanks, if it doesn't have cars the author betrayed me, even if the story is a medieval world tale for children of 5 years old or less similar to the little prince.

Yeah, the "you don't write enough" comment on free chapters (don't even do mentuzation). I've got one that told me my story develops too slowly and I don't even write enough. All of this in quite the condescending tone after " ending with that he's going to drop it.
But the weird was, some chapters later, when I started an interlude series of another character in the same story, there was this comment by the same guy:

"I'm sorry if this offends you, but readers have been waiting for this chapter for a whole week, and you published this nonsense. You could post side chapters as a bonus in the middle of the week. Readers will be pleasantly surprised, not disappointed with their patience."

That one put me off.

Also, got recently a review that basically said my story is well-written and there's nothing bad about it, but then gave a bad rating because it's not their cup of tea.

Don't pay attention to them, as I said at the beginning nobody here is charging for their stories, and if they were, most of them are donations, not commissions, so nobody owes anything to anybody. You just follow the rhythm you want to take, and if they really like your story they wait, otherwise, well, it's just unpleasant people who complain even about free stuff.

The next time they complain, take out a new chapter just to say that you are going to slow down the novela and show them exactly the comment that says you don't get things out on time, and see who will agree with most of them.

And I know that last one too, comments like: "It was a good story but it turns out it was harem, 1 star now" (even though he wasn't planning on leaving any to begin with and his favorite genre was Cristiano ronaldo and Messi).

 

[Tsuru]

Hello everyone

I think this topic needs a better explanation so let me write a little more.

As the title says, I would like to see what have been your strangest expectations that your readers have had of your stories or you as writers and how did you take it?

For example, and incidentally this was the story that made me want to write this thread. In my novel a lot of crazy things happen all the time, one day the protagonist is helping repair his mother's house, three days later robbing an ultra-secure bank, then going out to marry ghosts at night and then ending the week in the middle of an air combat against a hostile fleet of ships and stealing their flagship carrier.

Since the story is full of crazy nonsense, I like to balance it with a lot of in-depth research on the subject. For example, during that dogfight, I dedicated a whole chapter just of the protagonist preparing his plane as realistically as possible, from the flight configuration to the equipment, weapons and settings used. Another whole chapter just on the procedures of how an aircraft carrier works, all the manœuvres from getting the plane out of the hangar, final turnarounds, takeoff procedures, explanation of the departure order, how all the runway operators work, all that bullshit. The following chapter covers all air combat, handling techniques, technical language, names of military equipment, even the actual manual for emergency landing procedures of the f-18 super hornet.

As you can see, serious, time-consuming research.Add to that the fact that English is not my native language, plus the planning of the novel in general, characters, development, feelings, those things that every story should have.

Then imagine my surprise when a couple of readers tell me that it was an offense to them that I couldn't even write a 2,000-word chapter a day and that it was ruining the pace of my novel.

Apparently, the biggest problem is that I am not able to write fast enough in comparison to the other authors they read, so I am a bad author and I am the part that is bringing down the whole project, my project.

Each chapter takes me a minimum of at least five hours just to begin whit! That's when I'm already going fast with the whole chapter in my head and I just have to move my fingers.

so my response was literally:



So, well, I wanted to see if anyone else has received similar comments this level of ..... "special"

i summarized/TLDRed your words :

"I write as much as the octopus chinese WN writers and their high quality writing+long hours researchs, BUT WITHOUT GETTING SALARIES LIKE THEY DO, so STFU"



but yeah. Totally siding with you.

Also like a fav chinese author once said "Quality of readers nowadays dropped" (with a big angry rant, mocking them with facts).
Which is quite correct as its GEN-Z full of mesugakis, mesuhikis, normies, and karens, unlike before "men of culture" (lonely introverted people on internet/gentlemen)

Chinese authors post 4ch/day, using 10hours to write
because for them its FULL TIME JOB, as its paywalled there with ton of readers, AND/OR word-count salary
--------------------------------------------------
You are a good author that make logical point.

and Interestingly, i got a interesting reversed version of this/you
where the author reply in same way BUT TOTALLY IN THE WRONG and toxic
no sure if you know the guy, its whatsawhizzer
a early author (r18 helping a ton as a early poster here)

Well, in comments, we commenters mentioned typos,
and somehow, he was mega pissed of like "stop bothering/STFU" kind of anger.
and Explaining "its PDF format. Its arduous to change the typos, so stop TYPO POINTING ! EXPECIALLY as you guys are free readers and not paid users from MY website" (not exactly this words, but it was like this)
Of course, sadly his comments deleted. Gosh i should have screenshoted it. Talking like a arrogant onlyfans to simps that dont pay... (onlyfans not existing at that time, but perfect analogy)

And in SLAVE HAREM series (quite old series, kinda stuck at the top rankings in search function)
This time the comments not all deleted. But basically, lot users like me mention "Gosh, why do MC do this bothersome process !?", some mentioning directly OR subtly to "assassinate the shitty arrogant slave merchant"
(in short the MC look very beta)
Then author replied arrogantly, with half bullshit reasons, that the MC can't do that. Mostly that it will cause troubles.

(despite though MC is op, far border village, not lot bodyguards, adventurer guild leader and villagers saved probably never will report MC in the impossible possibility they witness MC doing it, etc etc that could give ton of possibilities compared to BETA METHOD of "paying unfair sum" to redeem the slave)

TLDR : I mid finger him and his shitty arrogance

 

[HungrySheep]

Mostly spoonfeeding and being upset with bad things happening. I've never seen chapter length come up as a complaint but I think that's a safe one to ignore.