TUG STORY READING HABITS *POLL*

[bondagefreak]

Generally speaking, when looking for new stories to read, how much time would you say you normally spend on a story before deciding whether or not to move on or to keep reading? Do stories need to grab your attention in the first few paragraphs or are you the type who'll read an entire chapter or two before deciding whether you want to continue or not?

Vote on the poll and feel free to share any comments you might have.

[WhereAmI]

I spend 5 minutes, consider the subject and composition of the characters (M/M M/m F/M F/m m/m m/f. Etc.) , length of the story and chapters ( short chapters are better). How many characters are wrapped in sleeping bags or sacks in the first 5 minutes, depending on the writer!!!!

[Redman]

It varies for me. Sometimes I'm hooked in the first sentence. Sometimes it takes a few paragraphs. And even then it can change. My moods have actually affected my reading and comprehension at times, and I have to approach things later. I don't like to average it, but if the alternative is your week-old boot socks, I'll go ahead and ballpark it at 3-5 minutes.

*Still gets the toxic sock.*

[Red86]

I selected 3-5 since that's about my average but in all honesty, it can vary from story to story and depending on my mood at the time.

The 1st thing that needs to grab my attention is a story title and character type (I.E. M/M, M/F, etc....). Once I find something that looks interesting, then I'll start reading. I always try to read the full 1st chapter at the very least. I've definitely had a few stories start off where I didn't think I'd like the story but after giving it a chance, it surprised me.

Chapter length can be another determining factor. I prefer characters that aren't to short but also not super long. If it's a long 1st chapter and it hasn't grabbed my full attention in those 3 to 5 mins, there's a chance I could click off and look for something else. But if the 1st chapter did grab my attention, then the following chapters being slightly long, are not an issue.

Sexual tones can be another deciding factor for me. If the story is more heavily focused on sex or sexual themes vs the bondage, it will have a harder time keeping my interests. I don't fault any author that includes or goes heavy with that stuff, but I need the right balance if I'm to read a story. Most of the authors I follow and have written many stories, have seemed to of found the right balance. I try to give every new author I come across a chance but it can be iffy on my mood at the time.

Not every story has to jump right to the bondage either. Character development in the beginning is good to but there's also the balance. I am trying my best to branch out and read more stories, even ones I don't think initially would be what I'm looking for but again, it all goes back to my mood at that particular time.

[tiedinbluetights]

I'd say 30 seconds to one minute, on top of the 10 seconds or so it takes me to read the title and gender tags and decide to click or not on the story.

What habit I've tried to shake but have not succeeded in doing so, arises for very long multi-chapter stories, that have read times in the high hundreds and even thousands of minutes. Basically, I'd love to comment, on the first couple of chapters that I did read, but feel silly doing so when the story is already at chapter 79 or 132 etc. I did comment once or twice, but then stopped as I even have yet to return to those stories.

[DeeperThanRed]

I'll usually try and give the first chapter a go but it usually becomes quickly appearent whether or not I'll vibe with a story.

Proper punctuation and aragraph breaks are imporant to me. I get English isn't the first language of a lot of users (it's not mine either) but I can't deal with giants walls of text with zero editing.

I almost always read M/M stories but I sometimes give F/M stories a shot too if the concept is interesting.

It also helps immensely if the author adds some visuals or starts with some descriptions. I fully admit being a bit of a YA reader in this regard: Ilike being ableto picture the characters and the setting in my head.

[KidnappedCowboy]

One to three minutes for me. I can tell by then whether I'm into the story and want to continue.

[Jeffpa1967]

I said 3 to 5. I read a few paragraphs to get a sense of it. I don't mind a few paragraphs to setup the story, characters, etc. I unfortunately include mundane things in my stories to help visualize it better.

[FelixSH]

I don't think time is the right measurement for me, with this question. My first focus is on it being M/M or m/m (in rare cases, if the title suggests it to be simple and fun, so completely non-sexual, and the characters having a good time), I would include f/m. Not F/M, because with adults, the chance of it being non-sexual is basically 0.

Then, I often realize that I'm in the Mature section, because the sexual overtones will be a part of it pretty soon (which is good, I prefer to know that from the start). So I stop. As soon as that is clear, but that depends on the story. Same if it is too intense, which is probably on a level of intensity that is rather light for many others. But again, that gets clear pretty soon, often, but sometimes it will take time.

If it's something I'm generally into, be it bullying to a certain degree, or just really innocent fun, I'm in. Not any more time needed. I mean, maybe I forget something here, but I think that's how it works for me. If it's a real memory, from childhood games, or just tie-up experiments (you know what I mean, more memories than the stories we normally have here), I will most often read it, because they are nearly always just nice.

But it's not like with regular books, where I will read a bunch of pages, and then stop. And even there, it's not time, I will likely read quite a few pages before giving up, assuming it might getting better. You can never really tell, so I give it time.

[bondagefreak]

Thanks for the votes and comments so far, guys. It's much too early to draw any conclusions yet, but even so, these preliminary results are still interesting to analyse. If I were to extrapolate anything out of the poll responses so far, it would be that authors generally have under three minutes to make a good impression and get the average reader hooked & interested. In many cases, they even have under a minute.

This is good and useful information to have. Let's see if this trend holds up as more votes are cast.

[Esploratore]

Interesting idea for a topic, because I've been thinking about that myself as well, as a reader: when it comes to myself there's a couple of categories I like in terms of gender tags and a couple I don't even open cause they're not my thing, if it's something I open, then I go look for the dialogue and if I see something I like I'm likely to read it all; if I don't see anything interesting I will still give a quick check across the the story to see if I find anything that catches my eye, and for very long stories that can definitely take a few mins, I'd say 2-3 mins is good as an average though, since majority aren't super long, and I do the same also for other sites, like deviantart for example.

There's been times where I didn't find anything that caught my eye till after 50% of the story, but what I saw after still got me interested and I ended up reading it all.

[copperfox]

My vote was for 1-3 minutes. Obviously, there’s some content that’s just not as appealing to me, but I’ll quickly scan a story just to see if it might pique my interest. A story’s format is also often a key factor. If the story is full of long, run-on sentences or isn’t nicely split into paragraphs, it’s that much harder for me to read (and thereby keep my interest). Personally, bad formatting makes it really difficult to understand the “flow” of the story. If it takes too much time/effort for me to understand, then I’ll generally opt to back out and read something else.

[SashaMoh]

I spend 5 minutes, consider the subject and composition of the characters (M/M M/m F/M F/m m/m m/f. Etc.) , length of the story and chapters ( short chapters are better). How many characters are wrapped in sleeping bags or sacks in the first 5 minutes, depending on the writer!!!!

I second the sleeping bags and sacks criteria

Definitely not the only stories I’m interested in but it’s an automatic win button for me!

[thespy]

It depends really.

First, the title has to spark some kind of curiosity in me for me to be interested in reading it, and then I read the first few paragraphs to see what we are dealing with, if all of that works then I usually read the entire first chapter and then decide if its something I would like to continue.

[JFBound1]

30s. Check the writer, check the genders of the people in the story, make sure they're actually adults, etc