I'm not aware of work ever being censured on WW - unless you count another member saying that they think it isn't terrible good  or, as Sharley says, more shocking than that group's members are comfortable with

As far as work being censored goes, I don't know if anything's ever been deleted except spam.

Very occasionally comments on forum threads which are personally offensive have had to be dealt with, but that's the case with any forum.

Understood and agreed, Gaius and Emma. I really appreciate your interest and others' and the time you've taken.

Yes, I was given the bum's rush by a penguin on the door of a review group who had only read the 'dust jacket' from which my upload is an excerpt - drafted since that happened and in response, as you perceptively guessed. His attitude surprised me because I was active in that group about a year ago until my membership lapsed - no problems at all back then, just 'normal r&r'.

That group is the 18+ sister group of a YA group I was active in previously; again, no problems for about 3 months, until a couple of them turned nasty and the owners banned my novel. "I would never let my kids (aged over 13) read that", etc. I know it's an old joke but a conservative is a liberal with a teenage daughter.

Criticism is one thing, censorship another. TBH the most helpful reviews I've had have been the most (constructively) critical. A Marmite effect is only to be expected when you share a story like mine. What's surprised me is that, out of (without counting, something like) 50 reviews I've had, only 5 or 6 have been opposed to my novel on principle (and they were split between constructive/malicious and critical/censorious).

So far, I've only had one teen reader/reviewer - a girl aged 15 from London who gave me 4/5 for 28 chapters (5/5 for one and 3/5 for one). It's thanks to her excellence at spotting my blind spots, and her suggestions that gave me new story ideas, that I'm rewriting it as a trilogy.

Based on all you and others have said, I take nothing for granted but I'm encouraged. I strive to shock readers only as they would like to be shocked by a good story.

 

Yes very warm welcome to everyone who has just joined - it's a really super site.  You will get an awful lot from it, as I have done.  More than I can possibly say in terms of support and education.

who had only read the 'dust jacket' from which my upload is an excerpt

Just a thought, but does your dust jacket say what you think it does?

Tone is part of understanding a piece as it helps readers form an impression of the narrator. There is a rather different nuance to the vision of a quivering child mumbling "I don't like eggs," than to those same words declared as an edict by a burly giant who is heavily armed and facing you down. In both cases, I would try to serve something other than eggs but from rather different motivations. 

G


 

Haha Gaius, very striking metaphor. It may be a bad habit of mine and worth a rethink, but (if you can stand the cliches) in nonfiction prose I tend to call a spade a spade rather than beating around the bush.

That said, I shouldn't have called my upload a 'dust jacket' because only the first 2 paragraphs would actually be on the dust jacket.