If you put femdom in the title, lots of people will read it.
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Lets be clear about one thing, being compared to Vicki Tern is a compliment.
I wish it on all of you. Really, She is one of the best TG writers ever. I’ve read every one of her stories and some multiple times. Jack and Jill, which I believe was her first (I found it on Sapphire’s site when there were only ten or so stories there and it was the only site you could find on your 24K modem), is a touchstone for me. The Birthday Gift (I think), which she wrote with Rhonda Wagram, is a novel-length tour de force of the femdom genre. There are many of her stories I don’t love, and I don’t understand why she keeps writing essentially the same story, but my God, I surely wish I could create prose like hers.
BTW, my characters are nothing like hers. Hers are iconic, playing a role we all know and aren’t surprised to discover. Mine are flawed and messy. They don’t understand what's happening to them and they struggle to cope. Vicki’s girls are always in control, and her men always willing to be taken advantage of. Mine skate on thin ice in a heavy fog.
Anyway, since comments on Symphony and my blog about it seem dominated by whether or not it’s a femdom story, I did what I do naturally: I analyzed the comments about the story. Here’s my summary.
Chapter 1
Eight comments
Five allusions to femdom and/or VT
Five compliments mixed with other observations
Four mentions of Vicki Tern
One unalloyed compliment
Chapter II
One comment — a compliment with an allusion to femdom
Chapter III
Nine comments
Readers to the rescue!
Five compliments
Five mentions of the debate and/or femdom
Kristina feel obliged to defend not commenting
And then there’s Gwen
Chapter IV
Two comments
Finally, some readers get past the debate and recognize that the story demonstrates some insight into what happens to T-girls.
Two compliments
Two recognitions of insights in the story
Jo-Anne figures the story out
Sephrena does too and supplies context
Chapter V
Four comments
Three compliments
Four allusions to femdom
Kristina recognizes an insight
And then there’s Jezzi
Chapter VI
Only one so far
Gwen!
A compliment and recognition of an insight
And bizarre blue makeup — gotta love her.
So what does this teach us? The remarks about femdom and Vicki Tern seem to have really skewed readers’ views of the story, though we can’t know what those who haven’t commented, but who have voted might think.
As an author, I want meaningful feedback. I think this story is sprinkled with some really cool observations about human behavior in general and about the lives of T-girls in particular. I thought the scene in the gym when Sara unthinkingly shows her “nipples” was brilliant, and Rebecca was brilliant for setting it up.
I thought readers would really resonate to how hard Sara tried to manipulate Phillip to do things for her, including protect her from Buster and not try to hit hard serves to Bobby.
During her date with Phillip, Sara was totally lit up, even before she started drinking. She made a great recovery from her afternoon of high anxiety, but she was still so anxious she did and said all kinds of things that were totally unimaginable to her only a day before.
I thought the discovery of the quote from Eleanor Roosevelt would hit every single T-girl who lived with any shame or guilt in the gut. It sure did me.
Readers, it seems, thought all this was totally blah.
Well, there I go again, lamenting the insufficiency of comments. Will I never learn?
Probably not. But am I wrong?