The most reliable indicator of story quality

[Not2Pervy]

I think I saw it proposed here before but after a couple years worth of reflection I’ve come to the conclusion that the most reliable indicator a story is “good” isn’t a high rating, or one with a lot of favorites, views, comments, or even one that makes the top lists or wins contests.

To me, there is an excellent chance that a story which has a high ratio of favorites to views is going to be an enjoyable read. I will even propose a standard: Any story with less than one favorite per thousand views is likely to have some significant flaws. A story with more than two favorites per thousand views is likely to be pretty decent. A story approaching or exceeding three favorites per thousand views is likely to be really fun.

Evaluating in this way corrects for some of the bias inherent in the categories, where Loving Wives ratings tend to be lower, and Romance or Mature slightly higher. It also corrects somewhat for the tendency for a story to be penalized in the ratings because it doesn’t exactly fit the expectations of regular readers in a category.

No measure is perfect, and I do think that contest winners can be penalized by this measure because they attract a lot of readers who wouldn’t otherwise have clicked on a story, but those stories don’t suffer for lack of attention.

If I as a reader want a reliable indicator a story will be engaging and satisfying I look to a high favorites to views ratio. As an author too, using this indicator provides me with a good way to “feel better” about some of my stories that weren’t rated quite as highly as I thought they might be, or that failed to achieve the coveted red “H.”

 

[StillStunned]

My stories range from 1 favourite per 250 views to 1 per 3000 views. Most fall in the 1:600-1:1000 range. I wouldn't say that those with the higher ratio are by definition better.

"Fairytale of New York", for instance, is 1:1600, while "Too Cold Not to Fuck" is at 1:600. But "Fairytale", while hailed by other writers as beautiful and deeply emotional, is a somewhat quirky love story about trolls. "Too Cold" is a tiny fragment about a brother and a sister sharing a sleeping bag. The former is non-standard for SF&F, while the latter hits the mark for a large part of the I/T readership.

 

[lovecraft68]

The honest answer is there is not one.

10 people can read a story and five can like it, five can hate it.

The scoring system is a bit flawed, comments are rarer than votes and most are either 'best ever' or "you suck' with the constructive ones that offer some insight seem few and far between.

People favoriting a story can also just be them saving it for later, and you don't ever know for sure if they read it.

There are also trolls who just go around bombing or saying something nasty and it has nothing to do with the story, and there's an entire category that just enjoys trashing most things put there.

For me, its comes down do I feel I did my best with it? If so, there's my measure. Nothing else here is either consistent or genuine enough

 

[BobbyBrandt]

"Views" is one of the most insignificant statistic for a story since it only measures first-page contact by a reader.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

We all have our own subjective criteria, often suited to make our own stories seem better. For some people that's a conscious choice, for others, it's not. Those who do it unconsciously are usually more vigorous and heated in defending their criteria as being the "right" one. And to be honest, there's nothing wrong with all that. Among other reasons, writing is also about making us feel good.
But what I wanted to point out most is that "Good story" is an undefined expression. Is that a well-written story? One with vivid characters and an interesting plot? Is it one that appeals to most people? Is it the one that prompts the most reactions?
These criteria are not necessarily overlapping so what's "good" for you isn't necessarily "good" for someone else, be that author or reader.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

I wonder if Laurel has thought about encouraging reviewers to appear, people who just post their reactions to stories, so readers can think "Hey, I like the same stories as JoeLlamaFetish. I'll subscribe to his reviews."

(I never considered it until I just invented Joe, but I'd bet money there are real llama fetishists out there.)

-Rocco

 

[StillStunned]

(I never considered it until I just invented Joe, but I'd bet money there are real llama fetishists out there.)

I bet they spit on other, more everyday fetishes.

 

[StillStunned]

Also:

An Argentine goucho called Bruno
Said, "There is one thing I do know:
A woman is fine,
A sheep is divine,
But a llama is numero uno!"

 

[SimonDoom]

I did a view:favorite calculation for all my stories a few years ago. Looking over the results, I can't say I see a connection between the ratio and my own personal opinion of the stories. The other trouble with this measure is it takes too long to calculate. That's more effort than I want to go to for an uncertain result.

For me personally, there's no strong numerical predictor of whether I'll enjoy a story. I'll admit to a very rough correlation between scores and the likelihood I'll enjoy the story, but it's highly unreliable. There have been countless stories with scores over 4.8 that I've begun reading and then decided, "Nope. That's not for me."

The most reliable indicators for me are a) getting a feel for what the story is about from the title, tagline, category, and tags, and b) knowing who the author is. There are certain authors whose style is appealing enough to me that I have a fairly high degree of confidence that if the subject is appealing I will enjoy the story. But this is a time consuming method, because I have to read a whole story by the author first to know whether I'll like their other stories too.

 

[NotWise]

I almost ignore favorites because I don't know what the reader is using their "favorites" list for. Different readers use favorites for different reasons, and they aren't all positive. Some readers have thousands of favorites, and from watching how those readers add stories to their lists I'd guess that they haven't read a lot of them.

And now we have favorites + lists filing the same purposes where previously we only had favorites. I don't think you can compare the number of favorites on old stories to the number of favorites on new stories. It's an apples-oranges comparison.

 

[mrs_mackenzie]

Scanning through my stories, my I/T works average about 1:1000. My non-I/T works vary from 1:1000 to 1:250 with no clear pattern.

I don't think I write I/T stories significantly worse than other categories, so more likely my ratio is worse because I/T gets a lot of views compared to other categories. I don't think that says anything about me as a writer or the quality of the story, it's just the nature of the category.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

Also:

An Argentine goucho called Bruno
Said, "There is one thing I do know:
A woman is fine,
A sheep is divine,
But a llama is numero uno!"

His Arab neighbor the sheik
said "Bruno, it's not as you speak.
while llamas are fun,
they're not number one.
It's camels that are truly 'on fleek'."

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

@StillStunned I'm thinking you and me... A thing. We could like go around to various pubs and do limerick readings until they either get us drunk on good beer or throw us out. You in?

 

[StillStunned]

@StillStunned I'm thinking you and me... A thing. We could like go around to various pubs and do limerick readings until they either get us drunk on good beer or throw us out. You in?

I'm in! That, at least, will be a reliable indicator of quality!

 

[SimonDoom]

His Arab neighbor the sheik
said "Bruno, it's not as you speak.
while llamas are fun,
they're not number one.
It's camels that are truly 'on fleek'."

His Incan friend said, "Sheik, I will bet
I'll make you change your mind yet.
If it's hooves that you seek
To please you, my sheik,
Then alpacas, friend, are where it's at."

 

[SimonDoom]

Also:

An Argentine goucho called Bruno
Said, "There is one thing I do know:
A woman is fine,
A sheep is divine,
But a llama is numero uno!"

Ever seen "Llamas with Hats"? If not, Google it.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

His Incan friend said, "Sheik, I will bet
I'll make you change your mind yet.
If it's hooves that you seek
To please you, my sheik,
Then alpacas, friend, are where it's at."

Camels, Alpacas and llamas??
The onus is falling upon us
to prove tongue in cheek
is of what we speak
lest Laurel and Manu doth ban us.

 

[Erozetta]

I find the most reliable indicator of story quality to be reading the story.

My taste is often at odds with that of most people. What I like is varied and I don't know if I'll like it or not unless I read it. The metrics available tell me nothing of the likelihood of me enjoying the story. I used to use a favorites to comments ratio to indicate quality as it seemed people weren't just saving the story, but have read it and commented on it in a fairly proportional way. That, to me, meant it had something of quality going.

One example of this is "Yearning to Blow" by Lylavyolet I rolled my eyes at the title and description I expected it to be a lowbrow blowjob romp. There wasn't a ton of views, it had a decent score, a fair number of favorites to views, and its also on a significant number of reading lists, yet only 8 comments, one of which is mine and one of which came after mine. It seemed like it could be a mixed bag quality wise if so few people opted to comment on it vs favorite it.

I admittedly went into the story expecting to trudge through it out of obligation, but I quickly found myself enjoying it as a very well written "sub leading the scene indirectly" story. If I hadn't been asked to read it, I never would've clicked into it because the hearts to comments ratio and the significant number of reading lists suggested it was one that fell into "curious" territory with readers and landed on many "TBR" lists, but with only 6 comments before mine, and 1 after, it didn't really seem all that widely read to me. I can't see how many votes it had, I know it was at least 10, but that told me very little about how many people actually liked it from reading it and how many liked it as a reminder to read it later.

Basically, all of the metrics on the site are no better an indicator of quality than blindly jumping into a story and reading it for yourself.

 

[Bazzle]

I wonder if Laurel has thought about encouraging reviewers to appear, people who just post their reactions to stories, so readers can think "Hey, I like the same stories as JoeLlamaFetish. I'll subscribe to his reviews."

(I never considered it until I just invented Joe, but I'd bet money there are real llama fetishists out there.)

-Rocco

If I get any sensible comments, I will post them on my social media...the fact that I dont...means that I dont..

 

[StillStunned]

It would be totally inappropriate to post this video here:

 

[SimonDoom]

Camels, Alpacas and llamas??
The onus is falling upon us
to prove tongue in cheek
is of what we speak
lest Laurel and Manu doth ban us.

You're right, our talk might stir the pot
And put you, Stillstunned, and me in a spot
But thought it's quite risky
I'll bet you a whisky
That Laurel thinks those critters are hot.

 

[intim8]

Any story with less than one favorite per thousand views is likely to have some significant flaws. A story with more than two favorites per thousand views is likely to be pretty decent. A story approaching or exceeding three favorites per thousand views is likely to be really fun.

By that metric, I'm all over the place. My worst has 0.58 per thousand views, and is my second highest rated. My best has 6.2 per thousand views, and is my highest rated story. The rest cluster on either side of 1.

I suspect number of votes per thousand views is probably also a good metric. And probably comments per thousand views as well. Even if votes and comments are negative, it means the readers were engaged. Driving someone to anger might not be the goal, but the opposite of love isn't hate, it is indifference.

That high favorited story has ratios of 57.5 votes per thousand views, and 4.5 comments.

 

[intim8]

"Views" is one of the most insignificant statistic for a story since it only measures first-page contact by a reader.

That just makes the ratios even more significant. Because fav/vote/comment means the reader read beyond that.

 

[NotWise]

That just makes the ratios even more significant. Because fav/vote/comment means the reader read beyond that.

There's nothing about favorites, votes or comments that requires the reader to read the story first. That's especially true with favorites; I've seen readers favorite most of my catalogue at the same time when they probably didn't read any of them.

 

[ronde]

The honest answer is there is not one.

10 people can read a story and five can like it, five can hate it.

The scoring system is a bit flawed, comments are rarer than votes and most are either 'best ever' or "you suck' with the constructive ones that offer some insight seem few and far between.

People favoriting a story can also just be them saving it for later, and you don't ever know for sure if they read it.

There are also trolls who just go around bombing or saying something nasty and it has nothing to do with the story, and there's an entire category that just enjoys trashing most things put there.

For me, its comes down do I feel I did my best with it? If so, there's my measure. Nothing else here is either consistent or genuine enough

Whether a story is "good" or not depends upon why you're writing the story. If you're a professional author, meaning you get paid to write, your motivations are probably much different from those of us who write stories because we enjoy writing stories. Both professionals and amateurs have similar problems in judging what "good" really means.

For professional authors, about the only way to judge if a story is "good" is book sales. That corresponds to views here. Neither tells the author if the book or story was "good". It just tells the author how many people bought the book or clicked on the title of the story. They may have read it and loved it, read it and hated it, or read it and deemed it just so-so. Book sales are what keep professional authors employed, so they tend to write what seems to sell the best. Most of us here tend to write about what interests us.

Professional authors do get comments, but just like comments on Lit stories, they're far from being objective. It's not all that unusual for a best-seller to get terrible reviews by professional book critics.

What I think happens here on Lit is about the same as happens with books and stories written for profit. Most readers find an author who writes what they like to read and that results in the number of views, votes, and comments as well as the story being kept in a reader's list of favorites. Readers who like what you write will keep reading your stories until something changes their opinion.

In the end, because we write for enjoyment, the only judge can be the author's opinion of how a story turned out.

If you're really concerned about improving the number of views and votes, one relatively useful statistic is to multiply the rating by the number of votes. I don't remember the name of the Lit member who proposed this, but it is useful. Multiply the story rating by the number of votes for each story. Then average the resulting numbers. Then, look down the list and pick out the highest and lowest and try to figure out why those stories are where they are. You might be surprised when you begin to see trends.