Forum: Story Discussion and Feedback

Dear Reader...I'd appreciate your thoughts.
Do illustrations improve the reading experience or not?
I recently posted a story titled 'Jason's Mum' which involves non-consensual sex. As an afterthought I decided to add illustrations.

But, here's the thing. Do they add or detract from the reading experience. For example, would it be better just to include a few introductory images which help the reader get an idea of the character? Or is it better to include more graphic sexual images? OR is it better to provide NO images at all and leave everything o the reader's imagination?
After all, the art of writing is about creating images in the mind of the reader.

For me, they are a turn-off, but that's me…

Your mileage may vary… And I have no artistic talent, so my stories weren't illustrated.

Do illustrations improve the reading experience or not?

My $0.02:

It depends on the nature of the story and the nature of the illustrations.

I see dead tree (commercially published by a major publisher) books all the time where the cover art does not match the descriptions in the text of the book of what are presumably the characters depicted in the cover art. I also see cover art where the scene depicted does not match any scene in the story. I find this to be a minor annoyance, especially when I bought a book because I liked the cover art.

How closely do the depictions of characters in the illustrations match descriptions of characters as given in the story text.

Does the illustration represent a scene from the story? If yes, how closely does it match the description of the scene in the story text?

Does the illustration of a scene appear in the same place as the story's description of that scene?

The better the illustrations track the story text, the more helpful/less distracting they are.

If there's a disconnect, the bigger the disconnect, the less helpful/more distracting the illustrations will be.

The quality of the illustrations also matters.

After all, the art of writing is about creating images in the mind of the reader.

As long as the illustrations are telling the same story as the written text, they don't bother me.

For some people, it is a cost factor for the extra data that must be downloaded to read the story. This is particularly true if you are reading on a phone or tablet through a cell connection.

Having read the other responses, I realize I may have misinterpreted the original question.

My stories didn't have illustrations in the text, although they did occasionally have maps to help readers understand where the story was. ("A Charmed Life" had a map of the towns where Jeff grew up as if they weren't submerged by the Quabbin Reservoir...)