A Letter to Readers

First -- thank you.

Anyone who creates at any level enjoys knowing people take time from their busy lives to spend it with an artist's creation(s). It is one of the many perks of writing and posting on Literotica. That is, knowing how many people actually took the time to sit in front of their screen and let the story or stories transport them, if even just for a few minutes, to another time and place.

To put ourselves in front of another's work, and get from it something beneficial, or memorable, is a great joy. It can be listening to music, or standing in front of a great sculpting, or, in the case of Literotica fans, it's reading a story. It's how we relax. It's how we learn. It's how we find out our commonality in a world that constantly tries to pit us against each other. Art is a sanctuary of sorts.

If you're an older reader, a story may spark a memory of a time, or place, or even a long forgotten incident with a loved one. If you're young, you get the opportunity to experience the many entwinings that make up the way humans express themselves sexually and sensually, and maybe even find out something about yourself you'd like to explore further.

If you're a female, regardless of your age, you find out the many ways males act out their fantasies on paper. One would hope you'd forgive the obsession over one body part or another. You can also find out you're not alone in your wants and needs, and that many, and I repeat many, females the world over lust in similar ways or completely opposite from yourself and others. It makes one wonder if the spectrum of human desire is not as vast as the universe.

If you're a male, again regardless of your age, you find out how broad that range of possibility stretches to infinity as the canvasses are painted with too many images to categorize. If you're open to learning, you can read between the lines of writing by female ( or lgbtvq) authors to find out more than one person shares your own fetishes, anxieties, tastes, and sexual proclivities. You might also find the one thing many female writers ask of their fictional men; Is respect.

And of course, all the variations on the themes in the Lit categories can teach us each a little something about our own personal likes and dislikes.

I, too have favorite categories, authors, and stories. One I'll mention is "Navigation" for the quality of both the writing and the storytelling. It may not be everyone's cup of tea, which you can find out in the comments section of that story, but if you want to know first rate writing, it's a must read.

As far as I'm concerned, story telling is the most important attribute. Writing style is second. But, if you find someone who is both a great writer and a master story teller, you hold on to that person's name with the same care a person would who just found a huge vein of gold.

For me, I like to experiment with various writing challenges. I've posted a couple of stories that only use dialogue, with no other writing form to move the plot along. They are tough to write, they don't get as many readers, and the scores tend to be lower in the voting category. But that's okay. Dialogue for me is difficult, so I challenge myself to be better at it, and in the stories that do well with readers, I think I've only ever received one or two negative comments about the story's dialogue.

There are one or two other writer's tools I try to avoid. One is too much local color. I find stories that depict a small town, or a neighborhood in great detail to be someone else's story, and I've a more difficult time relating (and yes, "Navigation" is an exception) as it's not my "neck of the woods".

Stories that use general descriptors allow me to put the final brush strokes on the canvas. If a writer tells me the couple pitched a tent at the top of a hill overlooking a lake, that scene could be anywhere in the world. I'm therefore able to bring my own past experience with tents, and hills, and lakes to the fore of my imagination and it helps allow me to slip into the story and get lost quicker.

The other tool is flashback. In novels, short stories, movies, and even in comic books or other literary categories, I find myself waiting for the next flashback as soon as the first is over. But please don't let me mislead you. Set up is different from flashback if it comes early in the piece, and then releases the story to run its course in "real" time (linear time).

But writing is how I learn about myself. Reading is how I learn about others. And I hope someday, when I'm old, sitting on a porch somewhere, I'm not too old to enjoy a lit story.

There. I've had my little say. I want to reiterate how much I appreciate each and every person who reads, and writes the stories on this site. I'd also like to thank the hosts, as they've created a meeting place for hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people to slip from one form of reality to another, and not have to pay too high a price (other than a few minutes of their time) to find a few moment's enjoyment in a harsh existence.

Now you know a little about my love of reading and writing. I've left the comments for this post open so I can find out more about how you enjoy reading, or writing, or both.

Je vous remercie

谢谢

Gracias

Tak

ありがとうございました

धन्यवाद

شكرا

Vielen Dank

Mauruuru koe

And, of course

Thank you...