My views have fallen off a cliff since the new mobile site launched as well. The ones I'd been watching, which had been steadily advancing, are down to 10% or less of what they were the day before the soft launch.
I didn't have a single hit on any of the three at the top of my watch list the day of the launch.
Yesterday when I looked, the view counts on the mobile side and the desktop side didn't match, either. The mobile side was lower in all cases I checked. Today, the few random checks I did match up between desktop and mobile.
I'm not sure if it's an oversight, but on the mobile "My stories" link, at the bottom of each page of stories there's a previous and next button, with a box in the middle showing the current page. That box is editable, but changing it does not jump to a page. It simply reloads page 1.
It's either broken functionality, or that page # listing should be made not editable by the user, so it doesn't appear to be a means to jump to a later page. I really hope it's a glitch that needs a tweak, because having to scroll one page at a time through a list as long as mine is enough for me to stick to viewing the full site on my mobile device.
Come to think of it, the same applies to the "My Comments" link on mobile, so I suspect any listing that could have multiple pages shows the editable but non-functional page # listing.
In my case, "My Comments" is also seriously glitched out. The most recent comment showing is from two weeks ago. With "All" selected, it shows one like from yesterday, and everything else for several pages afterward shows a like on the same story, from a user "Unknown" 4 days ago.
As it stands, the mobile site appears to be solid from a reader's standpoint, but I doubt I'll be using it at all as an author. The inability to jump through paginated listings is a deal breaker for me.
You need 20 posts to add links.
Hit the word games to boost your post # up if you need to.
Another pair of self-editing tips:
After you've let it sit and simmer for a couple of days, read it in a completely different font size/face from what you wrote it in. I go from Times New Roman 14 pt. to Tahoma 16 pt. The change in position of the words on the screen can make errors jump out at you.
Grab a text-to-speech program, and let it read the story aloud. Even the free versions do a reasonable job with this. Errors that your eyes will skim over will jump out at you when the voice says them. It's easy to have a typo such as "He" instead of "Her" that you won't see, but you'll absolutely hear it when read back.
The off pronunciation of some words ( they all seem to choke on "pussy" and "wind" LOL ) helps me stay focused, and not get caught up in the story.
It's a tie between Madeline Kahn and Teri Garr, due to the regular viewings of Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein in our house.
Petersburg, Indiana.
One stoplight for most of my life, though it was up to 3 by the time I moved. The Moose Lodge had a hitching post out back that saw regular use.
Giant flathead catfish and big old channel cats in the White River, if you were lucky enough to have a grandfather who knew where to find them at the bottom of 90 degree, five foot high sections of the bank.
If you took time to explore, you could cross four counties without your tires touching pavement for more than a few seconds.
Dodge City, a riverside community comprised as much by converted buses as houses — all up on stilts — so named because of the two Dodge City signs stolen from Kansas eons before, and used to mark the limits of the unofficial community. Every imaginable type of street and advertising sign decorated the trees and power poles between. Many of the cabins and other dwellings still had outhouses in use, and probably do to this day. If you had an in such as a locally famous fisherman grandfather, you could make good money selling snapping turtles that you had let sit in five gallon buckets of clean water for a couple of days to flush all the muck out of them.
Take the correct left turn after passing through Dodge City, and you're on Stink Road. There is where many locals took their giant flatheads, hung them from the trees, and cleaned them. After driving around all day showing them off to everyone, of course. Massive sun-bleached skulls hanging from worn rope all along the road. A macabre trophy case for generations.
Not far away were Augusta Pit and Killer Pit, where you could hurl yourself off 40 and 60 foot cliffs to the water far below. For the less adventurous who couldn't handle the big cliff at Augusta — Lardass — there was the 10 foot high Little One, and the Stair Steps. For the insane, there was the cliff called Near Miss. So named because there was a giant bolder sticking out from the cliff, and if you were lucky, you barely missed it on the way down. The rope swing up on the cliff could send you flying halfway across the pit.
In the opposite direction you could find Titty Pits, The Road Between The Two Ponds, ( which was often as not, the road in the two ponds ) and Mile-long Pond. The farmers who were the only residents of the area had a strict MYOB policy. The treacherous and sometimes underwater roads meant that only the most adventurous of Bunny Cops would attempt the journey. So if you had jacked-up trucks, you could have underage drinking parties with virtually no chance of getting busted. Even if they did come out, you could see the headlights from miles away, and hide everybody underage before they arrived.
The spillway off Pride's Creek was the ultimate place to take kids on their first fishing trip. Barely 10 foot wide in any direction, it was absolutely crammed with fish. In such crowded conditions, competition was fierce. You could stick anything on a hook and get a bite. Suction cup plastic bats from the 25 cent machines at the grocery store. A chunk of broken shoe lace. The ribbon string of a mylar birthday balloon. Anything. Crappie, Bluegill, Yellow Belly Catfish, Small Mouth Bass... They were all in there.
Folks were not amused when they built a golf course at Pride's Creek and tried to restrict access to that spillway.
The beach at Pride's Creek, with all the girls in their bikinis. Old Ben Scout Reservation, where the campsite Troop #241 cleared and established is officially and perpetually reserved for us and our progeny, whenever we want to use it, a short jaunt from the mess hall. The cabin at Parker's Lake. The pool at Petersburg elementary, where every time Jump by Van Halen would come over the speakers, you could be sure that Tuba would climb the high dive and do a butt-buster that would splash half the water out of the pool and wash small children up on the deck. Sadly, the pool and the school were both demolished in the tornado of 1990, which immediately followed torrential rains that left the Moose Baseball Field under four feet of White River water.
Still have my "Hell or High Water" t-shirt, as well as a 40 ounce bottle of donated water from Miller, and a 12 oz. can donated by Budweiser.
I digress. Petersburg is home, and always will be. Need the assistance of the family that moved up here to watch my autistic son while I'm at work, or my ass would absolutely be right back down there where I truly belong.
I've been clicking on the username, going to the profile, and reporting the profile with the reason "Comment Spammer". Does that get the job done?
Your personal taste is your personal taste. Certainly can't fault you for that. Since you're writing the type of stories that meet your bar for suspension of disbelief, you're serving others who share that taste. That's the way to go about it, so kudos!
There are a lot of people who want that unbelievable, world-shattering orgasm fantasy, though. Other writers like myself are serving that market.
Not really enough information to determine the appropriate category. From what little is there, my first guess is Exhibition. If she ends up cheating on hubby, that's a whole different story, though.
There are a lot of categories, and each one has a description at the top. Blink through any you think could fit the story and read the description. That should give you some initial guidance.
Can't speak to pasting from a Mac program. I know it doesn't like copy-paste from my Wordperfect documents, so I end up having to paste as plain text and put the italics in manually in the submission window.
Italics can get hard on the eyes quickly. I have characters communicating telepathically in one of my storylines, and I use italics to denote that, so I've been able to pick up on it, and got a lot of feedback about it.
Using different names for her is a solid demarcation. Cruder word choices for the ogre could be another way. Or, perhaps go the opposite way and have him speak clinically. Find something that contrasts sharply with the Dr. Jeckel half.
The stepped up physicality is another solid indicator that the ogre is in control. Why not give him some physical tics that the Dr. half never exhibits? Again, contrast him with the doctor. Maybe the ogre is vain, if the Doc isn't.
Hell, maybe the ogre favors the opposite hand. That is a good one, now that I think about it. Passing a flogger from one hand to the other when the ogre takes over is a nice hard cue.
The point is, I'd try to demonstrate the two halves without using italics or any other font-based demarcations. Make the narrative do that heavy lifting. It will be easier on the reader's eyes, and make both halves more compelling.
The question is a little too vague. I've been told a 5k word story was "a little long" before. (Followed by praise, so not just a polite way of saying, "It sucked" LOL ) Everyone has their own setting of what's "long".
My personal setting is anything that can be a single submission here is a short story, though 10k words is pushing through the no-man's land between short and long.
Like most everyone else has said, it depends upon the story. A good story can sometimes go on too long and lose its luster, or sometimes end far too quickly. The ones that resolve the major threads and end on the right note ( not always a happy one ) are my preference, regardless of the word count.
I have three currently at 260 or less away, so I know how agonizing that wait can be.
