By: Randy Gillis
As a writer (okay,
typist), I try to challenge myself, to expand, to move out of my comfort zone
and grow. As I mentioned in an earlier
post, I’ve been trying my hand at gay erotic fiction writing. I recently submitted some of my work to an
on-line site. I won’t tell you its name
because the people who run it are a bunch of idiots who should burst into
flames and have to roll around it broken glass to put themselves out! (Deep breath)
Instead, I will simply share with you their response:
Thank you for your submission to ssssss sssssss sssss-off.com. While your writing talent is obvious in your submission, we feel that it could use a polish before posting it on our site. With our target reader in mind, we would like to offer the following guidelines (suggestions really).
Rule #1 for writing for a
niche audience: Less metaphor, more dirty whore.
While phrases like
‘merging into one’ and ‘spiritual glue’ are certainly lofty in their ambitions,
metaphors that go beyond ‘as a rock’ or ‘like a geyser,’ tend to be lost on our
readers. They slow the process down, if
you know what we mean. Anything that
interrupts the rhythm is…an irritant. When
you consider that most of our readers will be multi-tasking after a certain
point in the story, the last thing they’ll be interested in is a clever turn of
a phrase. We like to think of our site
as mental lube. 
Rule #2 for writing for a
niche audience:
Less plot, more cock.The plot of your story has obviously been carefully planned. Who knew you could work a 3 act structure into a 1000 word story, complete with a crisis/realization. For our readers, plots tend to get in the way. Keep it simple. One location with a familiar scenario that hopefully involves a cop or a mechanic and you’re half-way there. If our readers wanted plots…..they wouldn’t’ be our readers. The most successful posts on our site accomplish great things with surprisingly few words. We don’t want a landslide of complaints from a group of grumpy pumpers do we?
Rule #3 for writing for a niche audience: Less life-mate, more life escape.
Romance as a literary
theme is certainly a concept worthy of exploration, but not on our site. Yours is the first submission in our site’s
history that actually ended with a commitment ceremony. Though we found it charming (and a little
sad), our readers won’t. In fact, a
large portion of our readers visit our site to escape from relationships, not
to be reminded of them. However, if you
would be willing to change a few pronouns and make the appropriate plumbing
adjustments, we would happily post the piece in our lesbian section.Rule #4 for writing for a niche audience: Less love.
The word ‘love’ should be avoided at all costs, unless it’s in reference to a body part or activity. Love is an unrealistic expectation for many of our readers and a vague concept for the rest, unlike say, having a fourgy with the mailman, cable guy and gardener while playing hooky from work (just one example). The same proviso about our lesbian section mentioned in Rule 3 applies to rule 4.
Sincerely,
Xxxx xxxxxx
Xxxxxxxxxx xxxx-off.com
Well, there it is. This is what you get for trying to raise the
bar. A bitch-slap reminder of the only
‘bar’ that matters, apparently.
After a couple of days of
contemplating acts of violence, I contemplated their suggestions. I read the story again and realized that it
wouldn’t take too much to adjust it to meet their guidelines. I could easily move the story from a 19th
century French country estate where, over one holiday gathering, Count Francois
Demarie conquers his demons and finds true love in the arms of Julien the
stable boy, to Earl’s Body Shop in modern day Des Moines, where Hank figures
out a new way to knock a few bucks off his repair bill (What? They said to use something familiar). Now, if I could just figure out how to get a
cop involved…………
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