Are we writing Quality?

[pink_silk_glove]

A conclusion I've jumped to after seeing you make the same comments dozens of times. If you genuinely don't feel that way, try to avoid phrases like "plotless unicorn" and "pandering" in future.

Not before you stop taking them completely out of context. The way that you are framing this argument you would think that those things do not exist on this site. I know that you are way smarter than that. Come on, man.

There's a difference between having the experience of writing a story and being able to express an opinion on a story. What's your basis for saying that "the vast majority of readers here don't know much at all"? Do you know them? Do you know their background? Or are you assuming that they "have the mouse in one hand and their privates in the other and they want the slut to pounce the geek NOW dammit!" As I noted above, that's not my experience with readers at all, even allowing for exaggeration. If it were true, most of my stories would be rated in the low 3s.

And once again you take my quote out of context, conveniently omitting the immediate disclaimer that I was exaggerating, and you are taking it face value on purpose to suit your weak argument.

How do I know? Read the comments around here. "Great plot" - there was no plot, "Loved the chemistry between these two" - the dude laid there like a lump while the girl rode him, there was no chemistry. It goes on and on.

And what's your basis for saying that writers know something about writing? Most people here in the AH will tell you they've never had any training. "I had an idea and just started putting words down. I enjoyed it, so I kept doing it." That probably extends to a substantial proportion of Lit's writers. They'll also happily admit they know nothing about literary devices, or even grammar and punctuation. If you admire someone's writing, that's absolutely great. But it doesn't necessarily make them a better or more objective judge than the thousands of readers here.

And there are pros here too. People like yourself who are in the industry, or like KeithD (RiP), a couple others. And there are people who may not be pros but write at a pro or close to pro level. Or Simon who knows his grammar inside out (and probably writes high level too, I just haven't really read him to say). Are you telling me that LC68 or MelissaBaby or RedChamber couldn't give someone some pretty high level beta-read critique? Come on, man. These guys are pretty fuckin' good. Their opinions would definitely mean something. Even you in our chain story. Your critiques are good, even though you didn't have full time to devote. I wish you could have done more but I understand. Erozetta was pretty good. It helped. A lot.

If the writers as a group here don't have much to offer in writing expertise then why are you even in this forum discussing writing with us? (psst: the answer is because some of us actually do know a good bit and it's valuable to share)

 

[SinclairGroupLLP]

I'm the new guy, so take my opinion with a grain of salt. I've been trying to figure this site out for a long time, way longer than I've been writing here, and I still can't wrap my brain around some of it. But, fundamentally, the real issue here is that most of the subjects we're discussing - 'quality' and 'good vs. bad,' and 'pandering' and the like are completely subjective, as are the criteria for red "Hs" what the red H actually means, what the vote totals and page views and follows and likes all mean.

I can see where both SS and PSG are coming from. This is a common issue in any kind of creative environment. What constitutes good? Who decides what's good? Are quality and popularity synonyms or different concepts? Even in non-erotica, these are debates people have constantly. A book wins the Pulitzer Prize but doesn't sell. Is it really that good? Conversely, shouldn't book sales equate with quality? If Harry Potter sells 600 million books, doesn't that mean the writing is good quality? Does that make JK Rowling a better writer than Hemingway or Dickens? If you write a Pulitzer winning book that nobody but the Pulitzer Committee read, does that make you a better author than Danielle Steele or Stephen King?

I'm going to be betray my real-life profession by answering my own questions the way I've been trained: "It depends."

And a lot of that dependence is on your own values and how you choose to define "good" and "bad," as well as "quality" and "shit" (to use a professional term for bad writing).

I understand and agree with SS that most readers here aren't stupid, and their opinions aren't completely uninformed. This is an erotica website. The true cretins aren't reading stories to get off. They're over on xvideos. If you're coming here, you're looking for a higher end kind of jerk off material, one that requires you to use your mind. And, as far as I am concerned, if I am writing something that gets somebody's dick in their hand and pumping, I'm proud of myself. That's as solid a skill, in my book, as how someone looks on a screen, or their skill in bed IRL.

I also understand and agree with PSG that the voting system here isn't indicative of quality, and I'll even go so far as to say that even the numbers of views and votes doesn't always line up with quality, either. For example - my Valentine's Day story. I know that shit is good. I made my partner cry with that story, and in a good way. Yet while the ratings are good, it's got abysmal views compared to others in the contest and I think I've got the ignominous distinction of being the only 4.6+ rated story that doesn't have a single comment, lol. I know I wrote that well, but I also know that the folks coming here, looking for a Valentine's Day story probably didn't expect to read about St. Valentine getting his head chopped off for marrying Christian soldiers, either. I know I'm not going to win the contest, but I know what I wrote was quality, regardless of the metrics.

And that gets to what I think is the fundamental point PSG makes and continues to make - the site has plenty of metrics, but none of those actually equate to a non-subjective statement that 'this story is good.' For those who are caught up in the metrics, you can do things to juice them, and if that's all you care about, you're probably not going to last very long. I agree completely, having been someone who started off writing saying to myself "I don't care whether anybody likes this" and then was suddenly obsessed with the metrics for three weeks until I got over myself.

Yet, at the same time, there has to be some way to separate the wheat from the chaff. There is a writer in my genre who is absurdly prolific, had 40xs the number of followers I do, yet every time I see his name pop up in the new feed, I groan, because his stories are short, formulaic, weirdly specific and yet not at the same time, and I just don't like them. I think my shit is way better. But I'm sure he disagrees, and his fans apparently like what he's doing.

Anyway, that's enough procrastination. The tl;dr is you guys are both right. Hug it out, and somebody go read my Valentine's Day story and give me a comment for the love of Christ.

 

[StillStunned]

This discussion has taken up too much of my time already. I've argued my position, now I'll bow out before we derail the thread any further.

 

[SimonDoom]

And I agree. I just don't understand why you always have to disagree with me when we are so close to the same stance. All that I've ever said was that if you are taking scores to be an accurate measure of the quality of your work (which most of us are doing) you are fooling yourself. I'm not saying and never ever have said, "you guys can't write like me because I write high quality and you guys don't," which is usually the conclusion jumped to by most when I make these claims. I never remark on my own stories. I never remark on anyone's specific stories. I never call anyone out. I never ever ever say that someone is a lesser writer for writing a plotless unicorn (despite the fact that that may bore me personally - that is MY problem and mine alone). I HAVE said that writing a plotless unicorn (on top the fact that it's exceedingly predictable) handcuffs your ability to achieve quality because you take plot and motive and character depth out of your arsenal of quality, and in order to achieve quality your prose, voicing and immersion has to really shine to make up for the loss, so it's harder to achieve. But the vast majority of stories on lit are NOT very good quality at all (that's okay), yet almost half of them get Red Hs. If we look at this scientifically, 45% of stories are Red H and maybe 20% of stories are of a selected calibre of quality, then AT BEST (assuming that quality IS a prime indicator of score which it isn't by a long shot) AT BEST approx 42% of Red H stories are any good (the reality is much lower than that). Yet pretty much anyone who gets a Red H is all proud of being a good writer because the Red H proves it. I'm not trying to say that anyone is or isn't a bad writer. I never have. I'm just saying that if your measure of quality is the score, don't kid yourself.

I feel like the disagreement arises because you don't come to grips with what I actually say, so I don't know what your position is, and you have a tendency to overgeneralize and use hyperbole in describing Literotica reader tastes. It's tedious to deal with all the exaggeration and generalization that isn't actually based on anything.

I have ALWAYS been a ratings skeptic at this site, and have always expressed myself as such in this forum. I have come to believe that the red H is worthless, and the site would be better if they got rid of it or drastically changed the way it is awarded (I've offered my own prescription for that). To that extent, we agree. But I'm also very clear that I think ratings--ON AVERAGE--mean something, even if they don't mean everything, and I have tried to express this with my hypothetical about 100 stories with a 4.7 and 100 with a 4.2. It is my strong view that the difference in average quality would be substantial. If you agree with me, then we agree. If you don't, then that's where our disagreement lies. We either disagree about what the facts are, or we have different tastes. I know for a fact from 20 years of reading stories here that I am significantly more likely to find a story I like if it has a 4.7 score than if it has a 4.2 score, even though the correlation is far from perfect. I cannot speak for your tastes, but I can speak for mine, and I know this to be true.

Here's another hypothetical. Let's say you take an incest story, with a decent story line, and you submit two versions of it, one with horrible grammar, spelling, prose, and punctuation, and one with near perfect grammar, spelling, prose, and punctuation. Story two almost certainly will do substantially better, even though, in my experience, incest readers aren't TOO picky about mechanical issues. So, all things being equal, quality matters, and it can matter quite a lot. The point that I believe we agree on is that there are many other things that matter to Lit readers and that determine the score. True enough. But one has to be careful about taking that truth and turning it into a disparaging generalization about what "Lit readers" like. They're diverse and they like many things. Many do like quality. I do, and other authors here have voiced similar views. I've had well over 2000 comments on my stories and I know many of my readers do. Some of them are obviously discerning and intelligent.

 

[SimonDoom]

I'm the new guy, so take my opinion with a grain of salt. I've been trying to figure this site out for a long time, way longer than I've been writing here, and I still can't wrap my brain around some of it. But, fundamentally, the real issue here is that most of the subjects we're discussing - 'quality' and 'good vs. bad,' and 'pandering' and the like are completely subjective, as are the criteria for red "Hs" what the red H actually means, what the vote totals and page views and follows and likes all mean.

I can see where both SS and PSG are coming from. This is a common issue in any kind of creative environment. What constitutes good? Who decides what's good? Are quality and popularity synonyms or different concepts? Even in non-erotica, these are debates people have constantly. A book wins the Pulitzer Prize but doesn't sell. Is it really that good? Conversely, shouldn't book sales equate with quality? If Harry Potter sells 600 million books, doesn't that mean the writing is good quality? Does that make JK Rowling a better writer than Hemingway or Dickens? If you write a Pulitzer winning book that nobody but the Pulitzer Committee read, does that make you a better author than Danielle Steele or Stephen King?

I take the view that it's neither entirely objective nor entirely subjective. I believe in quality, but I have to admit my own personal views about what's good are significantly subjective. I'm not willing to concede that they are entirely subjective, even though I may have a hard time explaining why.

I don't believe popularity and quality are remotely the same thing, but I also don't believe, unlike some snooty readers, that they are mutually exclusive. That's why I think the "Are you writing for yourself and your own standards or pandering to the masses?" debate is somewhat beside the point.

I'm going to be betray my real-life profession by answering my own questions the way I've been trained: "It depends."

Sounds like you and I may have the same profession.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

Late to the game, but I think so, but how do you judge quality? I get good scores and lots positive comments. Readers reach out to me and thank me for writing what I write. i guess that equates to quality, but there are far more people that have never read anything I've written and wouldn't care to because it's not what they're looking for.

Quality is so subjective, especially in the arts. I can see and touch the quality in my handmade Luchese boots and I can feel it when I slip them on. That kind of quality is tactile, it can be measured. But in writing...

Titanic won 11 academy awards. Does that make it a better movie that Young Frankenstein? I'd postulate not. But that's me.
I watched Titanic once and enjoyed it for what it was. I've watched Young Frankenstein at least a dozen times and will watch it again and again. Which has higher quality? The Academy says Titanic, and they're the 'experts.' I disagree.

Is quality just craftsmanship, or is it appropriateness for the task at hand? Titanic and Young Frankenstein are very different movies intended for very different audiences. They both did what they were designed to do and, depending on audience, continue to offer that value. Which has higher Quality?

You watch Titanic again, I'll laugh along with Mel Brookes.

 

[SinclairGroupLLP]

Sounds like you and I may have the same profession.

After the amount of training we've had, it's a wonder we can string two sentences together that anybody wants to actually read, lol.

 

[AwkwardMD]

"I have my own standards of inspiration, motivation, and productivity. My results don't look like anyone elses. I am hacking my own path through the trees and some readers have followed me into the forest."

-Zen and the Art of Smut Writing, Me

 

[Shuntwell]

Here's another hypothetical. Let's say you take an incest story, with a decent story line, and you submit two versions of it, one with horrible grammar, spelling, prose, and punctuation, and one with near perfect grammar, spelling, prose, and punctuation. Story two almost certainly will do substantially better, even though, in my experience, incest readers aren't TOO picky about mechanical issues. So, all things being equal, quality matters, and it can matter quite a lot.

I feel this is somewhat of a dubious example where all things are not equal. Of course people will prefer readable to a garbled mess. I think a more reasonable comparison is you write a story with basic grammar and few typos where dialogue is correctly punctuated, nothing fancy, and you also take the same story, workshop it with a couple of fellow writers you consider competent for two weeks and you submit that story.

Will the two versions get similar responses or will one outshine the other? And will it be worth the extra time and effort?

I would say if the only place you planned to publish it was this site, then it wouldn't get a significantly better reception. That doesn't mean quality doesn't matter, it means it doesn't increase in value in a linear fashion.

 

[SimonDoom]

I feel this is somewhat of a dubious example where all things are not equal. Of course people will prefer readable to a garbled mess. I think a more reasonable comparison is you write a story with basic grammar and few typos where dialogue is correctly punctuated, nothing fancy, and you also take the same story, workshop it with a couple of fellow writers you consider competent for two weeks and you submit that story.

Will the two versions get similar responses or will one outshine the other? And will it be worth the extra time and effort?

I would say if the only place you planned to publish it was this site, then it wouldn't get a significantly better reception. That doesn't mean quality doesn't matter, it means it doesn't increase in value in a linear fashion.

I think that's mostly true. Quality matters up to a certain point, but beyond that it won't make a big difference at Literotica. It may make a difference elsewhere. It will make a difference to some readers, including me.

 

[Gamblnluck]

I looked at a recent scene in one of my stories. It is not nearly as descriptive as some authors. I was concentrating more on the dialog than the environment. I didn't even say they were outdoors in one scene. I assumed the reader would realize they were when I said barbecue and one character talked about gunfire a short distance away. (They were talking about the teenagers shooting at a range on the property.) I still think it was a 'quality' work.
Another scene was in a diner. I did not describe the tables or their surface as that did not matter to the story line. I had some characters slide into a booth while another sat at a table a few tables away. Again my concentration was on the dialog and getting the 'feel'. Many of the images were ignored.

 

[AwkwardMD]

Everything everywhere always, in the realm of subjectivity, suffers from diminishing returns.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

I think that's mostly true. Quality matters up to a certain point, but beyond that it won't make a big difference at Literotica. It may make a difference elsewhere. It will make a difference to some readers, including me.

It will depend on how you define quality. Is it grammar? Is it character development? Is it a cohesive story? Is it orgasm count?
While grammar definitely matters, it does not alone define the quality of a story.
As i noted in a previous post, quality is very subjective and is as much dependent on the audience as it is our skills as writers. What I think is a classic, you may think is crap. Our opinions of quality are not the same and we're both right.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Interesting topic. I would say that maybe the better question would be whether there is such a thing as "objective quality."
Ask five different authors here about what they think quality in writing is and there will likely be some overlap, but there will also be a lot of differences in opinion.
Is foreshadowing, is using poetic language, is maybe describing people and objects in vivid detail necessarily a sign of "quality writing?"
To put things in Lit lingo, are those writers who build up the erotic tension, conflict, or seduction before releasing them in some scene necessarily better writers than those who go straight to business?

Even if I am one of those who believe that there is such a thing called "objective quality of writing" I am not sure exactly what that is, or how significant it is, nor where the "objective" part stops and personal preferences begin.
More than that, is quality writing that which most readers here recognize as something they like? Are popular writers also good writers then? I would hardly agree with that.

We all write here but I feel more at home with music as an example. What makes some music - quality music? As someone with a certain musical talent and education, I would claim that quality music is complex music, one that is rich in harmonies and counterpoint but also one that can inspire thoughts and emotions.
That being said we can easily see that the most popular music these days is very, very simplistic. Just go through the list of most viewed music videos on YouTube and you will see that something like 95% of pop songs that top that list are simple 1,4,5,6 loop beats. Not much richness or complexity in those, yet people clearly like them.

I don't know if the analogy I presented is a good one though. Music is different from writing in a fundamental way. The ability to "hear" music is something people are mostly born with, and that innate ability can only be enhanced through education. Most people can't really hear music beyond its basic components.
But I don't know that there is such a thing as an innate ability to "read" literature.

 

[Plathfan]

Most "we" wouldn’t recognize quality even if it fucked them in the face.

 

[AG31]

What's your basis for saying that "the vast majority of readers here don't know much at all"? Do you know them? Do you know their background?.

Seconded here.

 

[AG31]

Literotica is a different animal. Quality in Literotica is more about content than the actual story telling.

You'd think. But I can't get over how many people in AH are clearly most interested in being authors of good stories more than arousing their readers. Not a bad thing. Just interesting.

 

[yowser]

Discussion of quality tends to be a circular endeavor, not necessarily pointless, since there are some intelligent positions taken by the crew here, but inevitably there is wheelspin over definitions.

Lit is an interesting landscape, and one part of its appeal to me is that the doors are wide open. We've got folks with portfolios in the mainstream press who are tossing out their gems for free here, as well as folks who are testing their wings with their very first erotic story. Of course the results will be all over the map, and for the most part, the offerings are neither good nor satisfying.

The limited metrics have even more limited value in the quality discussion. All I will say is that I think most of us, one time or another, have read a story and gone 'huh? How in the world did that mess of a tale end up with a Scarlet H?'

For me there are several elements that make for a 'quality' read. A certain level of technical sophistication/ability is necessary for my enjoyment - I can live with obvious typos and goofs, but if things get too sloppy then I start wondering if the writer has given me a decent effort (and for me that matters.) I like that my first date has at least come to the door with a clean shirt.

Finding an interesting plot or character (usually one is enough, both and I am singing) can carry a story a long way. I like perceptive writers with characters who are alive: they notice things, see, hear, smell, let me know there are well-functioning nerves in there. A story with a unique plot line, or at least a good spin off the usual, gets me interested.

And nothing beats anticipation, the superglue of arousal. Does the erotic interest increase over the tale? For me that's probably the most important part. A flat start won't fly, but even just an initial ember can get most interesting in the right hands. Confident hands don't need to be flawless, I mentally tell the author, and I really want to trust you, but please write so that you don't let me down.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

I can see where both SS and PSG are coming from. This is a common issue in any kind of creative environment. What constitutes good? Who decides what's good? Are quality and popularity synonyms or different concepts? Even in non-erotica, these are debates people have constantly. A book wins the Pulitzer Prize but doesn't sell. Is it really that good? Conversely, shouldn't book sales equate with quality? If Harry Potter sells 600 million books, doesn't that mean the writing is good quality? Does that make JK Rowling a better writer than Hemingway or Dickens? If you write a Pulitzer winning book that nobody but the Pulitzer Committee read, does that make you a better author than Danielle Steele or Stephen King?

That's easy. No. Popularity does not equal good. The Spice Girls, Rico Suave and Katy Perry and countless other low quality acts have all taken turns as the #1 popular act in the world. All kinds of bad movies have made bank and topped the lists. They sold a whack ton of PT Cruisers back in the day but everyone that I know who has owned or rented one said it was crap.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

I have ALWAYS been a ratings skeptic at this site, and have always expressed myself as such in this forum. I have come to believe that the red H is worthless, and the site would be better if they got rid of it or drastically changed the way it is awarded (I've offered my own prescription for that). To that extent, we agree. But I'm also very clear that I think ratings--ON AVERAGE--mean something, even if they don't mean everything, and I have tried to express this with my hypothetical about 100 stories with a 4.7 and 100 with a 4.2. It is my strong view that the difference in average quality would be substantial. If you agree with me, then we agree. If you don't, then that's where our disagreement lies. We either disagree about what the facts are, or we have different tastes. I know for a fact from 20 years of reading stories here that I am significantly more likely to find a story I like if it has a 4.7 score than if it has a 4.2 score, even though the correlation is far from perfect. I cannot speak for your tastes, but I can speak for mine, and I know this to be true.

The issue with your stance towards my mine is that you dismiss it entirely because it is 'baseless'. Yet I base my standards on exactly what you base yours on. By judging what I read here. We probably have different standards of quality sure, everyone does, but ours are also generally the same. We value many of the same things, probably in slightly different doses. We both believe in good flowing prose, we both appreciate immersion and detail at least to a degree, characters that at least step above the standard cardboard, and some overall imagination. I understand that from what I can tell from talking to you, I probably desire a little more plot and conflict than you do and that's fine. I also believe that both of us have a strong sense of what's good even if it's something not quite of our tastes, we are willing to at least give it credit. Now since I read stories and I judge quality similarly to you but I also use the same methods as you (reading stories and anecdotally or otherwise judging their merits - which is really the only way that one can do it on this site) and if you can dismiss my claims as baseless, then you must also dismiss your own. And THAT is the flaw in your arguments against me and it is a fatal one. If you can give that up, we can agree on almost everything and forgive the small variance in our personal tastes (that part is easy of course). Yet at every turn you shoot me down for my methods despite the fact that your methods are identical, at least in how you have described your methods to me multiple times.

 

[bestkeptsecret678]

If a reader is still thinking about my story a few hours later, or the next day, or a week or month later, then I’d say it met a standard of quality.

As you can tell, I’m not an accomplished writer in any respect, but see our fundamental objectives as creators to be:

1- To express (for ourselves)
2- To entertain (for everyone else)

 

[mirafrida]

A short diversion prompted by a few recent threads…

Thank you for sharing! My first response to the passage is that this notion of quality works very well for student papers, especially when the referents of comparison adhere to a set prompt. But how does it work when you are trying to assess the "quality" of Ulysses vs. The Quiet American (or, if you like, the quality of Apocalypse Now vs. Star Wars). My guess is not so well...

 

[pink_silk_glove]

But one has to be careful about taking that truth and turning it into a disparaging generalization about what "Lit readers" like.

Here's another thing, and you are hardly the only one who does this, you are one of the lesser offenders on this issue actually (and I appreciate that) but you do do it from time to time as you have just done here. No matter how many disclaimers and qualifications I make to ensure that I am clear that my statements about the stories, the writers, the readers or anything else about the culture of lit, that these are not meant as judgments and certainly never condemnations, but simply observations and neutrally observed reality of things, the conclusion that is so often jumped to is "that bitch PSG is judging and condemning again" and nothing can be further from the truth. If there's an opinion that we don't like, we can twist it, break it, yank it completely from context, shame it and cancel it. And that is what's going on with a statement like this. It is NOT true at all. Never has been, never will be. If what I say about the culture here is disparaging, then the only way to not judge, condemn, knock or insult is to never bring up the subject. And where else should we be talking about these subjects? Isn't this the writers' forum?

I stand by my statements that the readership here aren't terribly literate in general. I don't expect them to be. It's a porn site. And my experiences here bear that out. AND I'm totally okay with that. i was okay with that before I ever joined. It's not judgmental. it's not a knock. It's just real. It's exactly what we should expect it to be and it's all cool. I've never said that it wasn't. The only thing incongruous about it is that the majority of the writers here believe that a lower-literate audience rating them highly confirms that they are all good writers. I'm not judging the writers or their abilities, I'm judging their own measurement methods of their abilities. We all might be good writers, that's not the point. The point is that it's hardly the best way to measure your skills. How is that not a more than fair comment? That is all that I've ever been trying to say. Yet I'm on the top 5 most hated list here for it. I've had my catalog bombed over this ... multiple times! That's how petty the detractors can be.

It's not important to know who is better than who. I never care about that. I have no desire to be the best writer here. I certainly have no desire to be acknowledged as one of the best here or 'get my due' from my peers or the adoring public. I'm too old and wise for that because I've long learned the misery that it brings. Fuck it. None of that will actually improve my writing. What I am interested in is offering the readership the best damn shit that I feel that I can offer every time that hit submit. Not everybody does that. That's okay too, it's a hobby site. You may not like my story but I guarantee that you are getting my best effort every time. That is what I enjoy. And the logical extension of this - and this is important - is that with each story I am always learning to get better. If the readers tell you that you are great, if they vault you to the top of the lists, and that is how you judge how good you are, the chances of you improving your craft plummet. You have no incentive to get better. And ultimately that is what I want to get across, but first one must understand the nature of the feedback here (which is valid! - never denied that) before you can apply it to judging your own skills. Only then can we open the doors to improve our writing in ways that we never thought of, and grow as artists. But most people in here don't want to hear that. They don't want to hear the truth that their Red Hs might not mean that they are as good as they think they are. It's too painful for the ego. I'm trying to tell you all, let go of that ego, your writing will get better and you will enjoy the craft more and in ways that you never thought of.

Nope. It's just that cunt pink spouting bitter arrogance again.

Choice is yours, AH.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Thank you for sharing! My first response to the passage is that this notion of quality works very well for student papers, especially when the referents of comparison adhere to a set prompt. But how does it work when you are trying to assess the "quality" of Ulysses vs. The Quiet American (or, if you like, the quality of Apocalypse Now vs. Star Wars). My guess is not so well...

I would say that the quality of those two movies is quite comparable. they are both high quality. They are both cutting edge cinematography. Both had several strong performances. Both were impeccably directed. Both were pulled off masterfully. Apocalypse was more ambitious and probably more difficult to do. It had a script with very deep nuance running all through it and was probably the most ambitious screen adaptation ever made. I prefer Apocalypse because I'm into those deep gritty nuanced stories. That does not necessarily make it better quality. Star Wars was groundbreaking in special effects. It was a tremendous achievement. It has a relatively simple story that we have all heard before (small group of heroes defies long odds against catastrophe to overcome) yet we are enthralled by the great storytelling, easily lovable characters and the vivid imagination of the setting(s). It is superbly done. On the other hand it is a testament to the script and the performances in Apocalypse that these not easily likeable characters still have us gripped. Are we really rooting for Willard or do we just need to find out what happens to him? Is he the good guy or only the least bad? Doesn't matter, we're gripped. Both of these movies take us somewhere incredible, trekking across the galaxy or deep into the Cambodian jungle and make us believe that we are there.

Which one is higher quality? I don't really believe in ties, but I think that it's close enough to not matter.

 

[AG31]

We both believe in good flowing prose,

What about harsh, rough prose, meant to convey exactly that, and doing it well?

If a reader is still thinking about my story a few hours later, or the next day, or a week or month later, then I’d say it met a standard of quality.

Yes, that's probably the most salient marker for me of quality writing (or movie making). Do I remember it, whether or not I "liked" it? I remember watching African Queen vividly, and that was almost 70 years ago. I remember the feeling of reading Crime and Punishment, in a paperback left at the house by my uncle, almost as long ago.