How do you judge your own work?

[MillieDynamite]

Enough is never enough. We all want more than enough.

That is true. A 4 to me means mostly right. A 3 means something went wrong. Maybe I was expecting it to be higher? I guess the comments were what threw me the most. There was a lot more anger than I expected. Also, "too much sex?" I thought that was the goal here...

 

[pink_silk_glove]

But as of late, I have been beset with anxiety about my writing. I have called every aspect of my supposed 'talent' into question, the prose, the hooks, everything. Is there too much dialogue? Is this boring my audience to tears? This isn't just an issue with erotica, either. It extends to the non-erotic writing that I do as well. And I tried to calm myself down by going with that old, "Write for yourself first, and then other people second." I think a lot of it comes from a lack of peer review, too. Outside of Literotica, there is no one in my family or circle of friends that ever has the time or the interest to read my stuff. Even my own wife doesn't do it. If no one wants to read it, how will I know if it's any good? And if no one wants to read it, isn't that a sign that it ISN'T good?

As far as Literotica goes, the last story I submitted was an Incest/Taboo story called Casual Saturday (Get it? Like Casual Fri..anyway.) It's the first incest story I've written and posted on here and years. I banked on the idea that because it's about a family that's so casual with free use and fucking each other, especially with the way the mom responds to all the sex, that the nonchalant attitude was going to be just as hot as the sexual descriptions. And I thought, mainly because writing it was getting me so turned on that I couldn't sit still (even after masturbating) that I had a supposed hit on my hands. But the feedback hasn't been as expected.

And it's sitting at a 4.34.

Well what I see here is quite obvious. You think that you're writing for yourself first and audience second, but in reality you're not. You're writing for the audience reaction first.

I say this every time to anyone who will listen (and pretty much nobody does) because it could not be more true. The score tells you absolutely nothing about how good your work is. There is no rubric, no criteria and every reader votes for their own reasoning and that reasoning varies wildly and erratically from reader to reader. One person's 4 is another's 1 and is another's 5. So the scores tell you absolutely nothing (with the possible exception of novels/novellas and even there it tells scant little). The scores are little more than vanity, and you are basing your judgement of your own work on this useless little number. So let that idea go, ignore the score and you will instantly get a more accurate picture of the response to your work.

Think about it. There are people out there reading your stuff and thinking it's absolutely great until in the middle of page 3 someone sticks a thumb in someone's ass and they're turned off right there, stop and give you a 1 without even finishing. Your votes are likely full of shit like that, so why base your opinion on the score?

Comments are a different thing. Comments actually tell you something about the connection made with the reader. Comments are opinions and they vary just as wildly as the scores, but you get some reasons why they felt what they felt. That's what's important. Some comments are garbage, even positive ones. You will get positive feedback and some of it will be helpful to you, but don't get too hung up on the bouquets. You will get negative feedback. Negative feedback comes in two categories. Trolling spite hate and constructive criticism. Dismiss the trolls. Just ignore them (although I have found legitimate feedback even in a troll comment before). Constructive criticism is your friend. It tells you when in the story the connection between you and the reader weakened. Then you can decide whether you should have written it differently or not. Each time that you do this, you improve as a writer.

Remember: "Great story! 5 stars!" ...

and: "why did you bother? this sucks" ...

both tell you the exact same thing. NOTHING. So if you're happy that you got a lot of "Great story! 5 stars!" and think that that means you must be good, you're fooling yourself.

So what am I left with? I used to think "If I think it's good, then others will" and "If I feel like something is wrong and needs to change, there's a good chance others will." Now it's a crapshoot. Could be good, could be crap.

If you think it's good, that's most important. It's not that what the audience thinks is not important at all. It's a tricky thing. You write to be read, so obviously the reader means something. You are trying to make some sort of connection after all. But the statement that you made here that I quote, read it carefully. It sounds awfully more like you are writing to be judged (and positively dammit) rather than writing to make that connection. Well, people judge, and when they do they don't care about your feelings. Why should they? How can they? Everyone has different feelings and they don't know you at all. This is just reality.

Write to make that connection, whether you want to connect with a wide broad audience or with a smaller niche that compels you. It's tricky but it's true. Life is full of stuff like that. If you're true to yourself and true to your ideas, your audience will start connecting. That is what matters.

 

[DarkCosmos]

My advice FWIW: judge your stories based solely on how happy you are with them, how much you enjoyed writing them, and how much you've grown as an author since the last time you hit 'publish'.

Easier said than done, but hey. It's an attitude that helps off-set the inevitably cruel voting.

A hundred percent agree. I would also add to that, however, that anyone who finds enjoyment in your story, regardless of what the majority of people say, is another small way I judge the merit of my work. I've posted numerous stories on numerous sites over the years and have been lucky enough that most of them have been received favorably by readers. But not all of them do as well as I would hope.

But even then, I still take comfort in knowing that there are people actively enjoying my work, no matter how few. I always say, write for yourself first, write for the people you know will enjoy your writing second, then write for a general audience third. That's been my formula and it's done well for me so far.

 

[Whanmore]

with a beer in one hand and my dick in the other lol