I'm really not sure you're looking at this from the right angle. I understand you griping about a story rated K+ getting less reviews than a story rated M, but I know that I am not the only user skeptical about "Christian fiction." Christian fiction has a VERY specific, limited target audience: Christians who practice their religion outside of a building on Sunday. I'm afraid you'll find that number very few.

When I search out a story, yes, I tend to click stories rated "M," but that's less me searching for a good ol' sex scene and more me searching for more MATURE writing. I don't want to read about high school; I want to read about adults encountering adult problems. Whether this comes in the category of Romance, or Sci-Fi, or Historical doesn't matter; all I want is good writing and a good story covering more aspects of life than "Jock vs. Geek." Searching out stories rated M is my futile attempt to come up with a simple way to find good writing.

Try to tell me that if I looked hard enough I'd find the same in a K+ category. Because truly, if it doesn't have some gritty content, I'm not interested.

Now, what you said about FP having more writers than readers may be true. In fact, I think it's spot-on. What you have to think about is the likelihood of this every changing. You two are saints for going around giving crap writing constructive criticism; I do that myself, but I just don't have time to do it for every thirteen-year-old hopeful. I would, sadly, prefer to read a published book, which might not be of "assured" quality (since some poor writers somehow get published through the industry, too), but at least it's more LIKELY that it'll be a good read and I won't have wasted time reading something neuron-melting.

I don't mean to be critical of you and your friend, I just feel like you are addressing the wrong matters. Religion should have no part in your evaluation of FP reviews; what with today's television-inspired voyeurism, there's no doubt in my mind that people would be wary of Christian fiction. Not even getting into my own religious beliefs, I can tell you that I do not take Christian fiction seriously, and what little I have read I find pretentious and like to propaganda. You havea point about the members of FP being mostly writers and not readers, but I think the better way to go about that is by continuing to lead by example and encouraging people to review other people in return, kind of a Pass-it-On kind of concept, instead of preaching uneducated. :)

Good luck with your own writing! I hope you get lots of reviews.

Interesting but the basic fact is that it's mostly teenagers on this site and more teens like sex than they do god. I mean really, sex is a natural part of life (because living things are supposed to have more than one sexual partner, not that marriage isn't great) and in a stage where males and females are becoming more interested in each other it's obivious that sex would overcome god at this point and life, and frankly if you need reviews to keep writing or to feel better about your writing, you shouldn't be writing in the first place. Stories aren't about you or the amount of reviews you get their about creating a world that others will enjoy. So just my own little opinion but I think that lying about what your story is, is neither the correct thing to do to the readers nor the moral thing to do despite your need for the spirtual section to get more reviews. Sorry if this has hurt your feelings or made you mad, I suppose you'll get around it sooner or later. But I thank you for letting my opinon be expressed and I thank you for allowing me to read yours.

Apparently all the folks who read stuff online are pervs... You've definitely got a point, and I'm glad you made it.

what a good point! you've definitely inspired me to read and review more stories in the future...

by the way, you have a very nice style - simple, elegant, and clear. You vary your sentence length very nicely, one of the great secrets to good writing.

ps. under the influence recommended your writing.

Hello, thanks for this. It was good, I thought, that you made what could have been an essay/rant into a semi-story (i.e. with dialogue between you and your friend). The format works well for what you wanted to express.

I think some of the problem has to do with the relative numbers of stories, too - the Spiritual category (according to FP) currently has 3175 stories, whereas Romance has 32197 - over ten times as many.

By the way, where can I find the story you and your friend wrote? :-)

Thank you so much for writing this! I've noticed that same issue. It's so frustrating. I really appreciate the fact that you performed an experiment to back up your observations (I did a similar experiment and received 48 reviews on just three chapters!). It's refreshing to have someone speak out on this! Thanks!

Great idea! I'll try my best to review more. I hadn't really thought of it before. You know, I haven't really thought about how interesting christian fiction could be. I mean I read the books, but i hadnt thought of reading it online. I hadnt actually even seen the category, I either went straight to fantasy or romance. What I thought spiritual was, was like sprits or ghosts or ya know ? Or maybe like some kind of boring meditative stuff. Not really stories with plots or some form of fullness to it. I didn't really think of it as christian fiction. I do really admire you for starting this project. It was really smart, and its very inspiring, so hopefully you'll be hearing more from me.

Absolutely true. I try to review everything I read. Well, everything that I read that I like, at least. By the way, I love your writing style. Just putting that out there. Now, I must go and review tenfold!

Hear hear! Lol, so well said, me and a friend have thought the exact same thing. :D

I agree with your statement, stories that are rated M (as many of those in the romanxe section are) are generally reviewed more.

In my experience this is because they're read more. And they're read more because generally, if a story is rated M, mature content is indeed involved, and the stories are usually more fully fleshed out and engaging. This may simply be because these stories tend to contain a little bit of sex, a little bit (or a lot) of humor, plot, and the like.

Not to say that the Spiritual section doesnt have its merit, it does, its just not a section where one would think to find a light, easy, fill your saturday afternoon kind of read, unless you're specifically in the mood for something spiritual. The romance section is synonomous with helping people cope with their own personal woes in love and life.

Thats the problem, I think, but its just my opinion

That's so true. I want you to know that right now I'm reviewing as much as I can, though I'm new to fictionpress. Every true writer has to start out as a reader, and just beacuse they do start writing doesn't mean they have to stop reading!

I totally agree! Just as we should love our neighbors as ourselves, and as the greatest of all should be the servant of all, no one should expect to receive reviews unless they take the time to thoughtfully review the works of others. Project Mature Content was a great idea! Also, I'm glad that you stuck to your principles while conducting it. Magnificent work; you're right on!

-Mr.Satire-

P.S. I love your writing style! You have perfect grammar, too!
Keep it up!

I totally agree...There are also many, many stories out there that are not novel-type material. They are only written to please the audience. What happened with writing what YOU want to write, rather that writing what the audience wants. Well, I guess I can answer that question...people are wanting the reveiws. It really is sad when a site like this, that is meant to insipire people creates many of them into crowd-pleasing writers. How are people to grow in thier writing if they continue to do that? Anyway, you made a great point in this piece.

I agree with you; you have a point!

you are definately right about that. my fanfics on get alot fo reviews usually cause they are M or T. i have learned to over rate cause is a pain about ratings.