Krytan

Okay, I'm a little different than your average Tom, Dick and Harry. I don't like reading sex scenes. I skip over them. If thats all the story has, meaning no plot just sex, like a cheap skin flick, then I'm outta there and on to another story. Romance is good. Emotional ties are great, and the development of feeling, trust, closeness, love, freindship, is awesome in stories. I love stories where there is conflict, then revelation and then compassion and healing and the whole gambit of emotions. I like to cry and laugh and get embarrassed and feel victory and defeat throughout a great story. I want a story to move me. If a sex scene is well done then yes it moves me and i read through it, but thats very seldom in online stories. Most sex stories online, the reader is into a full blown sex scene no later than the 2nd paragraph. Most people just don't live like that. Meet, say hi and jump their bones. What ever happened to the shy, embarrassed boys who have to trick there way into seeing their best friend naked by daring them to play a strip game? Oh the boy wants to see and be seen naked, but how? Unless things have changed more than I know, boys don't just strip naked and go at it even with friends they have known all their lives. They may want to, but the trick is how to work circumstances around to get to that place. Most boys I know, are more worried about getting caught and having eveyone at school find out. Social disaster. So like others have said, boy meets boy, boy jumps other boys bones, they have passionate sex and live happily ever after, is bull and I dont read such stories.

I am a fantasy freak. I love stories about Elves, Dragons, Wizards and magic. I have made attempts at writing stories in this genre but am very unsuccessful. I just don't have what it takes to envision an original saga. I can write, not very good, a short story, but epics, no way. But in my mind I see all kinds of possiblities in this genre. A boy who is sold to elves, who through love of a young elf, finds a peculair magic that is more powerful than any the elves themsleves possess. A boy is sent into a dragons lair to care for the young dragons needs and discovers the dragon through its magic can change into the human form of a youngling boy. An urchin boy with no way of support apprentices himself with an old wizard that has lived the hermit life way to long. Together they find what each has missed out in their lives. And lastly, boys with magic. Magic to do whatever they desire. Invisibility to spy on friends. Potions that make people do stupid stuff. You just don't find much along this line of story telling. "The Kandric Saga, is one of my online favorite stories in this genre, but unfortunately, episodes are few and very far between. So this is what I would like to see more of in stories.

Actually, I prefer very limited descriptions of characters. I prefer to envision them in my own minds eye. I have seen a few places where artists try to draw characters for a story, and personally I don't like that, because the view of the character that I have never matches what is drawn. I prefer to get my vision of the character by the actions and language of the character. "Whats wrong Billy, can't see over the steering wheel? When's your growth spurt going to take effect? When you're 80?" That tells me so much more than, "Billy is a boy of 13 who weighs 90 pounds and stands 4'10 inches." I think readers each have an age group, a type of character they like and etc, so if a writer can be vague about the specifics of the character then the reader can envision that character as they like, which would make the story more appealing to a larger range of readers? Does that make sense? Personally, I skip over the description parts of a story many times, just for this reason.

I think it depends on the writer and what he/she thinks of their story. If they wrote the story for profit, then by all means make the changes and publish the story and make your money. But, if the writer poured their soul into a story and worked with it day in and day out to make it perfectly the way they want it to be expressed, could that writer then agree to have it chopped up, so that it becomes politically correct and therefore marketable? I don't see how any artist can change their work of art, to make it acceptable to others, after they have given of themselves to the work. Could Michelangelo put a loincloth on "David"? It would change the art, and therefore not be the same piece any longer. For a writer it wouldn't be the same story any longer. It wouldn't be their story any longer. Although many writers sell their stories to movie companies, who change the story line so much it doesn't even resemble the original book. One of the latest I have seen is Eragon. The movie just barely resembles the book.

Barret Oliver