8L Stats: Average rating by category and page length

[MillieDynamite]

Happy endings, who writes those?

Let's just say that when I was a young man, I might have preferred a shorter erotic story. At this age, I like more buildup, and a longer happy ending.

 

[Plathfan]

I remember you calling LW readers intelligent. That's quite a change there.

When it comes to voting, stupidity knows no bounds. However, based on my experience with readers, comments, and personal acquaintances, it’s clear that, on average, they are more intelligent. Perhaps troubled or scarred, but not stupid, certainly when compared to the freaks from I/T, the imbeciles from Romance, or even some of our beloved companions. Noncon readers are also relatively clever, but in the wrong way.

There are some gems in 750 words, but forcing it just to participate in an event is absurd.

I’d rather read a 1K word piece by an inexperienced novice than waste hours on an experienced wordsmith who drains my brain with a spoon.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I’d rather read a 1K word piece by an inexperienced novice than waste hours on an experienced wordsmith who drains my brain with a spoon.

It's a matter of preference. I enjoy the build-up and the depth it creates, and I am not talking (just) about sex here.

Perhaps troubled or scarred, but not stupid, certainly when compared to the freaks from I/T, the imbeciles from Romance, or even some of our beloved companions. Noncon readers are also relatively clever, but in the wrong way.

 

[SimonDoom]

when compared to the freaks from I/T,

 

[Plathfan]

I enjoy the build-up and the depth it creates, and I am not talking (just) about sex here.

I enjoy it too, but only when every word serves a purpose. As I’ve said, a freestyle stream-of-consciousness can only be done right by geniuses. We lack those.

 

[NotWise]

My tentative theory is not that longer stories are objectively "better" but that in the case of EROTIC stories, there's a minimum sweet spot that delivers a satisfying erotic experience to a plurality of readers, and that minimum sweet spot is over 7000 words.

By the standards of classic, published, well-regarded short stories, Lit stories are rather long. They're longer than the average short story published in The New Yorker or other well known platforms for short stories. The average O Henry story is about 3500 words. That's shorter than one Lit page. So I think it's hard to say longer is better. But there's something going on in terms of reader satisfaction.

To me, the most important thing to keep in mind about scoring is that the votes are heavily biased to the high side. If there were no bias, then the median score would probably be about three, but from 8letters work, the median score is actually close to 4.5.

I'm bucking the usual opinions of other writers, but I think that most voters are out to reward authors for what we do. The more you give them to reward you for, the more likely you are to get a high score. Longer stories definitely count as "more." More arousing counts as "more." The effort to produce cleaner text with fewer mistakes probably counts as "more," but that's probably getting to the point where you're asking readers to discern too much detail.

I don't know how many voters respond to what most authors think of as high quality in writing. There are some, but they may be a fairly small minority.

 

[SouthernCrossfire]

To me, the most important thing to keep in mind about scoring is that the votes are heavily biased to the high side. If there were no bias, then the median score would probably be about three, but from 8letters work, the median score is actually close to 4.5.

I'm bucking the usual opinions of other writers, but I think that most voters are out to reward authors for what we do. <snip>

I agree on both points NotWise makes above, particularly since Lit's a free site and many readers are getting a lot of enjoyment, in whatever form, out of it.

The only way the scores might be balanced would be to ensure that every reader votes on every story they read, but how could that be measured and be enforced? Make them assign a vote to the story they've just finished prior to being allowed access to the next story? I'm not sure if that would be technically possible but I'm fairly sure that it would turn a lot of readers off, possibly driving them to other sites, and possibly some number of authors, some of whom would probably follow the readers.

Based on that, I don't expect to see any significant change in scoring or that inflated median score.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

I'm bucking the usual opinions of other writers, but I think that most voters are out to reward authors for what we do. The more you give them to reward you for, the more likely you are to get a high score

More accurately, the voters reward stories that they agree with and agree with how they are written, not how well they are written.

 

[NotWise]

More accurately, the voters reward stories that they agree with and agree with how they are written, not how well they are written.

Your rephrasing may not explain why longer stories get higher scores.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Let's just say that when I was a young man, I might have preferred a shorter erotic story. At this age, I like more buildup, and a longer happy ending.

Even at sixteen I was stretching things out. What's the rush?

I'm inclined to think there's a bunch of folk here with the shortest shortest fuse, or they should be seeing a doctor.

 

[TheLobster]

I'm inclined to think there's a bunch of folk here with the shortest shortest fuse, or they should be seeing a doctor.

“So, how premature are we talking about, exactly?”

He swallowed. “Two thousand words, doctor. Sometimes less.”

“Oh dear!”

 

[Gamblnluck]

So it's not all LW stories get low ratings. Is that there are rating ranges in LW for certain plot lines. "February Sucks" is considered the best of the first type of plot line, and it has a 3.93 rating.

Feb Sucks is not considered the 'best'. It IS considered one of the most INFLUENTIAL because it grabbed your guts and wrenched them. It had a visceral effect and elevated the reader's blood pressure. Few stories can do that.

The less than four rating was because of the way the story resolved. Many found it terribly unsatisfactory, hence the multitude of alternate endings. (Almost nobody messes with the first half or better of the story before the wife returned home.)

 

[Gamblnluck]

I think to most of the LW readership, a LW tale without cheating is bread without butter.

More or less true. It is like trying to write a war story without bombs and bullets. You take out what is essential. A good LW story has to have some degree of angst, some kind of conflict, to be widely successful. A plot with sex alone is not gonna cut it.

 

[Gamblnluck]

More accurately, the voters reward stories that they agree with and agree with how they are written, not how well they are written.

Of course. Most people would not give something that offends a high rating. The same goes for anything in life.

 

[mirafrida]

I'm not a LW reader. Occasionally, I check in on the category to try to understand the madness. What I found is that the majority of LW stories follow this plot line:
1. The husband-narrator is in a happy marriage
2. (Optional) Some ominous changes results in the wife pulling away while the husband continues to love her faithfully
3. Wife cheats on husband
4. Husband finds out wife has cheated on him (can happen at the same time as #3)
5. Resolution, which can be of four kinds:
5a. The husband takes the wife back. Restoration At All Cost (RAAC)
5b. The husband refuses to have anything more to do with his wife. He may try to destroy her life and make her miserable for cheating on him. Burn The Bitch (BTB)
5c. The husband accepts that his wife is going to cheat on him. Cuckold
5d. Story ends before the husband decides what to do about his cheating wife

...

Now, there are plenty of stories published in LW that don't follow the above plot lines. From what I've seen, their ratings are in the 4's and are not much different than other categories.

Very interesting. However, I will say my one foray into LW didn't (I believe) follow this pattern at all, and it's my lowest rated by a good margin**. It's more RAAC oriented than anything else, I guess, but my sense has always been that it annoyed the BTB folks a lot, while not leaving the RAAC folks feeling strongly inclined to jump in and defend it.

My personal takeaway was that you defy the LW tropes at your peril.

On the other hand, perhaps it's just that this particular offering of mine was "best appreciated by the rare discriminating palate" (read: a fairly sucky story).


**well, in competition with my epic poetry, which is disdained for other reasons, probably obvious to everyone but me.

 

[mirafrida]

The only way the scores might be balanced would be to ensure that every reader votes on every story they read, but how could that be measured and be enforced? Make them assign a vote to the story they've just finished prior to being allowed access to the next story?

You're halfway there! The answer to the endless ratings issue is obvious, requring just a couple of simple tweaks to the site's functionality.

A) You can't read another story until you've rated the one you already read.
B) BUT, you also can't vote on the story you just read until you've taken a multiple-choice test demonstrating that you read it closely, all the way to the end.

Now why won't Lit just implement this immediately?!?!

 

[lovecraft68]

I remember you calling LW readers intelligent. That's quite a change there.

 

[SouthernCrossfire]

Now why won't Lit just implement this immediately?!?!

Exactly! And drive away even more readers!

 

[NotWise]

You're halfway there! The answer to the endless ratings issue is obvious, requring just a couple of simple tweaks to the site's functionality.

A) You can't read another story until you've rated the one you already read.
B) BUT, you also can't vote on the story you just read until you've taken a multiple-choice test demonstrating that you read it closely, all the way to the end.

Now why won't Lit just implement this immediately?!?!

Don't forget:

C) The voter is mailed an affidavit that must be signed and returned to Lit before their vote is counted.

 

[SimonDoom]

You're halfway there! The answer to the endless ratings issue is obvious, requring just a couple of simple tweaks to the site's functionality.

A) You can't read another story until you've rated the one you already read.
B) BUT, you also can't vote on the story you just read until you've taken a multiple-choice test demonstrating that you read it closely, all the way to the end.

Now why won't Lit just implement this immediately?!?!

Excellent ideas. I recommend literacy tests, too. And personality tests, and a background check. Readers should provide references.

Literotica would be SO attractive to readers if it did that. Think of the benefits.

 

[SouthernCrossfire]

While not quite A Modest Proposal, the point is made. Scoring is what it is and expecting Lit to change the scoring to benefit authors (a very small percentage of the membership?) at the detriment to readers and viewership isn’t going to happen.

 

[lovecraft68]

While not quite A Modest Proposal, the point is made. Scoring is what it is and expecting Lit to change the scoring to benefit authors (a very small percentage of the membership?) at the detriment to readers and viewership isn’t going to happen.

Scoring isn't the only thing authors have asked to change and none of it ever has, nor will it be, heard or cared about.

The site cares about one thing, traffic. We bring the traffic so one would think our voices would be taken seriously, but long ago the attitude with 'management' became, we're the biggest site, you don't like it, leave. They have adhered to that ever since and have plenty of brown nosers here who will regurgitate that message.

So everything here falls under it is what it is, and can you let it go at that?

 

[VallesMarineris]

Happy endings, who writes those?

I do!

In most of my series I like to structure the plot so that the final chapter could end with the line:

"And they all fucked happily ever after."

I never actually include that sentence, but that's the implication I like to leave with the reader.

 

[MillieDynamite]

My editor/publisher's own stories often end with a reference to a previous or future story and end with, "But that's another story."