What is your lowest rated story, and did you ever figure out the 'Why'?

[pink_silk_glove]

I think this is right. To be blunt about it, for many readers appreciation of a story probably comes down to the single question, "Did it make me come?" I think that's why stories of a certain minimum length tend to do better. People want to settle in with a story, maybe while in bed, feel the buildup of arousal, and then have a good payoff. 750 words is too short for that. Judging from historical results even 3700 words seems to be too short for that. What's considered "short" by Literotica standards is actually fairly long by normal short story standards. The average New Yorker short story is a lot shorter than the typical successful Literotica story.

So then stories in the 'sweet spot' for length scoring better is actually about stroke-ability rather than quality after all.

 

[SimonDoom]

So then stories in the 'sweet spot' for length scoring better is actually about stroke-ability rather than quality after all.

I think this is true for the floor, but not the ceiling. The statistics indicate that readers at Literotica enjoy long, well-developed stories. Longer stories tend to win contests. Longer stories tend to score higher, and by longer I mean stories of 6 Lit pages or more (20,000+ words), which is a lot more than one needs for a good rub off. But at the shorter end they like stories that are long enough to give them an adequate "experience."

 

[pink_silk_glove]

I think this is true for the floor, but not the ceiling. The statistics indicate that readers at Literotica enjoy long, well-developed stories. Longer stories tend to win contests. Longer stories tend to score higher, and by longer I mean stories of 6 Lit pages or more (20,000+ words), which is a lot more than one needs for a good rub off. But at the shorter end they like stories that are long enough to give them an adequate "experience."

The notion that the longer story scoring well is an indication of quality is still just an assumption. I've read (pardon, I've abandoned) several long stories that were of very poor quality (and even forced myself to finish a couple in the 20k range) and the scores vary wildly regardless of quality.

 

[Comshaw]

My worst? This one:

The reason: where it was posted, Loving Wives and the fact I got in a hurry and misspelled the title. It was supposed to be "The Basement Window". I am not disappointed with the score. Because it's a story about a husband maneuvering his wife into a swinging relationship, and that I posted in LW I figured from the git-go the score would be low, a lot lower than what it is. Add to that my stumble with the title and I am very happy with the score.

Comshaw

 

[AllenWoody]

My first chapter in The Order is my lowest. It was one of the very first stories I wrote, and suffered accordingly from my inexperience. It was probably too short to sufficiently set the stage for the coming chapters. Also, I jumped back and forth between two settings in a way that not all readers appreciate. It's a shame in a way because the subsequent chapters are more mature, and include some sex scenes that I remain proud of.

 

[SimonDoom]

The notion that the longer story scoring well is an indication of quality is still just an assumption. I've read (pardon, I've abandoned) several long stories that were of very poor quality (and even forced myself to finish a couple in the 20k range) and the scores vary wildly regardless of quality.

I didn't say that they were better, just that they scored better. I sometimes think Literotica stories are more bloated with unnecessary dialogue than they need to be, so I don't equate long with good.

 

[MelissaBaby]

A good number of these 'lowest' scores aren't very low. Perhaps the thread needs a rule that you;re not allowed to post unless your lowest score is below 4.

I hesitated from posting to the thread for that very reason. But then I noticed that the score on my lowest rated story, Drive In Double Feature had crept up to 4.49. Maybe a little exposure can push it over the H line.

I have a couple of ideas why it scored lower than my other stuff.

One is that it is a light hearted, humorous romp, and at the time, I had only written heavier, more emotionally loaded stories. So, I suspect some of my regular readers may have not responded to it as well as they did my other work.

The other is that I posted it in Erotic Couplings, and the readership there thought the ratio of humor to sex was just too high. I'd probably done better to post it in humor.

 

[Plathfan]

Cudgel thy brains no more about it, for your dull ass will not mend his pace with beating.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

I didn't say that they were better, just that they scored better. I sometimes think Literotica stories are more bloated with unnecessary dialogue than they need to be, so I don't equate long with good.

But you have many many many times in the past.

me: scores are not an indicator of quality

you: that's not true, longer stories tend to score better, indicating quality

We've had this conversation many many times and the one piece of evidence that you consistently bring up is length as if that indicates quality.

 

[Otto26]

3.96, 386 votes, 39 favorites, 195K views. Fucking Machine.

The story didn't deliver on the title. Readers expected a huge amount of machine-driven sex (probably degrading) and got a mildly humorous story with a single, light, consensual sex scene. A few told me they understood the pun I made with the title and appreciated it, but most people didn't get it. Which is fine. I scribbled that story in an afternoon, made corrections and alterations a week later, ran it by my editor and threw it up on the site. Not my greatest work.

 

[SimonDoom]

But you have many many many times in the past.

me: scores are not an indicator of quality

you: that's not true, longer stories tend to score better, indicating quality

We've had this conversation many many times and the one piece of evidence that you consistently bring up is length as if that indicates quality.

That's not what I've said.

I believe there is some correlation between scores and quality, enough that it's significant. I can say with confidence that if I read 100 stories with a score of 4.8 and 100 scores of 4.4 I will believe that the 4.8 stories are on average significantly better--according to my subjective standards. I have consistently said this. Score is not a guarantee of quality, but it's a statistically significant indicator. I think this is where we have disagreed. This is all entirely subjective, of course, because there's no objective way of saying whose taste is better.

I don't think length correlates much with quality, once a story is up to about 5000 words or so. Stories shorter than that are often undeveloped and, in my opinion, unsatisfying. But beyond that it makes little difference to me. My personal sweet spot for enjoyable Literotica stories is probably 5000 to 15,000 words, but there are many exceptions.

It's also true that longer stories tend to score higher, but I think that's for reasons other than my own subjective standards about what makes stories better. Part of it is that many readers seem to like longer stories than I do. Another reason is reader attrition: with a longer story, the only readers who stick around to the end to give it a score are those who like it, so there's an element of survivor bias.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

That's not what I've said.

I believe there is some correlation between scores and quality, enough that it's significant. I can say with confidence that if I read 100 stories with a score of 4.8 and 100 scores of 4.4 I will believe that the 4.8 stories are on average significantly better--according to my subjective standards. I have consistently said this. Score is not a guarantee of quality, but it's a statistically significant indicator. I think this is where we have disagreed. This is all entirely subjective, of course, because there's no objective way of saying whose taste is better.

I don't think length correlates much with quality, once a story is up to about 5000 words or so. Stories shorter than that are often undeveloped and, in my opinion, unsatisfying. But beyond that it makes little difference to me. My personal sweet spot for enjoyable Literotica stories is probably 5000 to 15,000 words, but there are many exceptions.

It's also true that longer stories tend to score higher, but I think that's for reasons other than my own subjective standards about what makes stories better. Part of it is that many readers seem to like longer stories than I do. Another reason is reader attrition: with a longer story, the only readers who stick around to the end to give it a score are those who like it, so there's an element of survivor bias.

Survivor bias, or maybe the authors of longer stories took the time and made the effort to develop the story and characters into something engaging that people care about. Having said that, two of my higher rated stories are 2 or three pages, so…

YMMV

 

[TruthwithaTwist]

Besides my 750 word stories, my worst one is my 2022 April Fools story. Reading it back, I get why. The story is/was solid, but I didn’t develop the characters enough for readers to invest. Instead, they came off as a bitch, a slut … and me as a bit of a sucker.

One of those stories that was good when in my head, and was mostly true, but I didn’t do it justice on the page.

(Ironically, all three of my lowest rated stories suffer from the same thing. Me not communicating the events well to the page.)

 

[SimonDoom]

Survivor bias, or maybe the authors of longer stories took the time and made the effort to develop the story and characters into something engaging that people care about. Having said that, two of my higher rated stories are 2 or three pages, so…

YMMV

Of course. I don't mean to say it's the only reason longer stories score well, but it's one of the reasons.

It might be fair to say that while a 15,000 word story isn't automatically better than a 5,000 word story there are more 5000 word stories with slapdash efforts at characterization and plot development, dragging the average down.

 

[YDB95]

And the loser is...Turnabout, at 3.73, my worst performer by over a tenth of a point.

- Do you agree with the score, or does it confuse you?

Neither. I think it's a decent story of a chauvinist pig who gets a taste of his own medicine, but I'm not surprised it got voted down to the extent it did. First of all, Nonconsent is not everyone's cup of tea (I have otherwise avoided it myself for the most part). Second, it's an easy target for the folks who think anyone who opposes treating women like pieces of meat "hates men". A reader's comment even predicted as much when it was new.

- How do you see that story compared to higher rated ones you wrote? Does the ranking between your stories feel arbitrary?

I don't see any fundamental difference, except that most of my other sex scenes are among people who love or at least respect one another.

- Did you learn something from the experience, that allowed you to adjust your writing from there on (if yes, what) ?

Not that I'm conscious of. Now as then, I just write what I like and hope others like it too. Usually they do, occasionally they don't. I long ago stopped trying to guess which would be which.

- Do you feel the score has more to do with writing quality & story design (aka your skill?), or simple audience preference?

Definitely the latter. Like I said, I don't see any fundamental difference with my other stories.

- Was it one of your earliest stories, or a "surprise flop" much later?

It was one of my earliest, one of the first ten or so.

 

[MadeleineSinha]

I hesitated from posting to the thread for that very reason. But then I noticed that the score on my lowest rated story, Drive In Double Feature had crept up to 4.49. Maybe a little exposure can push it over the H line.

I have a couple of ideas why it scored lower than my other stuff.

One is that it is a light hearted, humorous romp, and at the time, I had only written heavier, more emotionally loaded stories. So, I suspect some of my regular readers may have not responded to it as well as they did my other work.

The other is that I posted it in Erotic Couplings, and the readership there thought the ratio of humor to sex was just too high. I'd probably done better to post it in humor.

Voted
Hope it helps

 

[Flybynite1892]

You can name the specific story and score, but you can also keep it more abstract.

To elaborate:

- Do you agree with the score, or does it confuse you?

- How do you see that story compared to higher rated ones you wrote? Does the ranking between your stories feel arbitrary?

- Did you learn something from the experience, that allowed you to adjust your writing from there on (if yes, what) ?

- Do you feel the score has more to do with writing quality & story design (aka your skill?), or simple audience preference?

- Was it one of your earliest stories, or a "surprise flop" much later?

My lowest was 3.86; it was part of a short-lived series called The Fantasy List, which I never finished, in part because of how this all went. It was a pretty hardcore cuckolding story, with tons of humiliation and cruelty and stuff. I published it in BDSM, not Loving Wives, and people still weren't that into it. I think two things were at work here: the first was a lot of people seemed to like the first chapter of that story, and I don't think they felt like the second installment delivered. The second is that I don't think people liked the characters. Like it just wasn't fun to read for that reason.

I learned a lot from that though. I try to keep things from getting too heavy or dark and I just try to have more fun with it myself. I write pretty exclusively in that BDSM category so the whole premise is oftentimes people being at least sort of mean to each other, but I get more mileage out of keeping things a little lighter. I'm also trying to write submissive characters who are more interesting - not just passive people that things happen to - but that's an ongoing process.

 

[Mastered_again]

I try to keep things from getting too heavy or dark and I just try to have more fun with it myself. I write pretty exclusively in that BDSM category so the whole premise is oftentimes people being at least sort of mean to each other, but I get more mileage out of keeping things a little lighter. I'm also trying to write submissive characters who are more interesting - not just passive people that things happen to - but that's an ongoing process.

I'd agree with that in two ways. In my one BDSM story, the both the dom and sub were fully developed characters (1st person from the sub's POV) and kept it more stern than cruel. Wasn't my highest scorer, but received some the most memorable feedback, public and private.

The second is more general in that any story would score higher with multidimensional (as opposed to flat) characters, everything else being equal.

In any category except LW, that is. From what I understand that's an alternate universe where marauding bands of gunslinger trolls shoot up the town all regular like.

 

[Rob_Royale]

Oh yes. What's Good For The Gander has a 3.4 rating for the following reasons.
1. It's 750 words.
2. It's a loving wives story.
3. Features two fairly unlikable cheating characters.
4. No bitch is burned.

 

[MelissaBaby]

Voted
Hope it helps

It did! Thank you. After four years (almost to the day) it finally got a HOT rating.

 

[FantasySharer1]

https://literotica.com/s/letter-to-cuckold-your-wife-and-sis

It's a horrible story. It took almost zero thought and was very literally just putting one of my own fantasies onto paper. I cared almost nothing for the reader, their masturbatory pleasure, the character development, the plot, just nothing. I wrote it to jerk off to sometimes and I'm surprised it's not a 1.00 rated story. I'm almost ashamed I published it but did so just in case someone else gets off on the same fantasy. For anyone who isn't into cuckolding their brother-in-law and holding over his head that you are fucking his sister and his wife - the story isn't for you.

And even if that's your fantasy, the story is less a story and more just a fantasy one-sided script-letter.

So to the world, I am sorry.

My other stories are only slightly better. The truth is, I have a different account that I use to write the stuff that really matters to me and those have done much better because I actually put effort into them.

 

[Pabiporffor]

If You're Going to Cheat, Cheat Big

Only 4.14 at the minute. It's low rating is largely down to it being a diarrhoerotical offering. It was my first story here and I didn't put much effort into it out of fear I'd have technical issues uploading.

It's told from a first person view point of an aroused woman who chances upon a failed toilet hook up and steps in after the girl storms off. It's short and sweet but the characters lack depth and the storyline unimaginative.

But it did teach me how lit works and no matter how crap a story there's always people who love it.

 

[WeShallUnclench]

Anyway, my lit experience up to this point is certainly of the "I would not call a rating over 4 low" variety;

A recent contest entry of mine doesn't cease to amaze me: so far it seems to flip consistently between 1 (or 2) and 5 star ratings (I have checked, reverse calculating every new vote based on the average).

If I were to guess, I would say it's because the sex scene in it is very short and merely the abrupt culmination of tension that has been building over the course of the story. It also requires you to accept the premise that the female lead is wet enough that underwater sex doesn't wash away all the lubricant to the point of being unpleasant.

Oh yeah, and the male character never gets to climax.

And there is a recurring joke about truly awful garden gnomes.

Typing this has the simultaneous effect that I now love my story more than ever, and starting to grasp (grumpily) why it attracts hate from some people (up to half of the audience).

EDIT:
On a general note, I am really starting to feel my lower scores have to do with what I find personally entertaining and kinky to write and to read (I basically write the stories I cannot find elsewhere).
In terms of strict writing quality, I firmly believe that even all of my lowest stories are better than some of the 4+ that essentially come down to gushing over how hot the characters are and how hot it is that they are having sex, you guys, with no regards for story structure, avoiding repetitions or even grammar.

Note that I never got a truly nasty comment, so far. Even the one I am most unhappy with was still insightful - they insisted on what more sex acts they wanted to see in there (driving home the "oh yeah, some people just come here to be turned on" point).

The most useful feedback so far, I ironically got on my "H" story (sidenote, I don't personally feel it is necessarily my hottest story). It taught me that in my writing flow, I have to make sure the world building and character profiles stay "on model" in a way the reader will understand; I can't just assume the in-story world and logic are as clear to them as it is to me.

 

[burgwad]

I'm not going to count my WIWAW entry that is my lowest scoring.

Instead, I have My Daughter's Friend

It's a 750 word story published outside of the challenge. It was an experiment in style. First person present tense with no quotation. I was inspired to try it after reviewing Momscrolling by @burgwad

I'm not surprised that it's low. Comments were mixed, and the ratings show that readers didn't like it. Whether it would have done better during the 750 challenge, who knows?

Ah, how they hate Momscrolling. Easily my worst score (~2.0). I wanted to simulate the creeping anxiety of endless doomscrolling, and yeah, the results speak for themselves.

But I get it. Momscrolling is torture for most folks to read. I enjoy it, but I’m strange. And while I can remain proud of how I wrote the mother, I admit I feel bad most people can’t tolerate reading her story.

 

[RetroFan]

Literotica's Entire Story Catalogue = Every movie ever made

'Body Swap With Sister's Boyfriend' by RetroFan = Freddy Got Fingered (2001)

RetroFan = Tom Green