The most reliable indicator of story quality

[onehitwanda]

My tastes must be so far different than others. Just tried another high ranker. Couldn't even finish the first page.

Art is subjective; it speaks to our emotions.

The stories I write appeal to me; they won't necessarily appeal to you, and that is right and proper. How boring a world it would be if we all liked the same things.

As for me: I need a hook to get me interested, and as an example I will once again put @Bramblethorn on the spot for one of my favourite openings to any story ever:

"I'm thinking of becoming a kept woman," said Anjali, as calmly as if she'd been commenting on the quality of the café's coffee.

Anjali's Red Scarf, chapter 1

Another example would be the opening to "Assassin's Apprentice" by Robin Hobb, who is unlikely to ever move out of my top three authors.

A history of the Six Duchies is of necessity a history of its ruling family, the Farseers. A complete telling would reach back beyond the founding of the First Duchy, and if such names were remembered, would tell us of the Outislanders raiding from the Sea, visiting as pirates a shore more temperate and gentler than the icy beaches of the Out Islands. But we do not know the names of these earliest forebears.

And of the first real king, little more than his name and some extravagent legends remain. Taker his name was, quite simply, and perhaps with that naming began the tradition that daughters and sons of his lineage would be given names that would shape their lives and beings.

I'm not spiritual, but I have a strong belief in the power of names. Naming things creates them, calls them - look at the power of naming a character in a story, a Simone is a far different person to a Penelope, for example.

I don't know where I'm going with this rambling other than that there's no accounting for taste. I know what I like, and what I like is seasonal and changeable as the sea - bar some constants.

A story needs a twist of darkness, a dash of sadness and someone that I can love. Give me that, and I will love you for it. If you can make me cry, well then, you've done your job, and I will thank you for it.

 

[Plathfan]

Art is subjective

Art is subjective in enjoyment but measurable in quality. The statue of David is a masterpiece, whether or not you admire sculpture or marble. Similarly, quality writing follows objective criteria, independent of personal preference. Some brilliant writing irritates me, while certain popular works are so poorly crafted that understanding their appeal to the masses would require a serious drop in IQ.

 

[StillStunned]

Art is subjective in enjoyment but measurable in quality. The statue of David is a masterpiece, whether or not you admire sculpture or marble. Similarly, quality writing follows objective criteria, independent of personal preference. Some brilliant writing irritates me, while certain popular works are so poorly crafted that understanding their appeal to the masses would require a serious drop in IQ.

Thanks for chipping in. Sometimes writers forget that a reader's perspective can also be very useful.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Art is subjective in enjoyment but measurable in quality. The statue of David is a masterpiece, whether or not you admire sculpture or marble. Similarly, quality writing follows objective criteria, independent of personal preference. Some brilliant writing irritates me, while certain popular works are so poorly crafted that understanding their appeal to the masses would require a serious drop in IQ.

I partly agree. It depends a lot on the art form but especially on the epoch of art in question. Traditional art forms - music, literature, painting, sculpture, etc. are more prone to such objective criteria. There is a huge number of them to compare and there has been a very long time period since they were created, so the criticism had more than enough to ripen properly. So much art theory has been written about those.
But that's far less so when it comes to modern art. Personally, I would call a substantial part of modern art pure junk. There are objective reasons to call it so, but many modern artists claim that their very style demands such extravagant forms.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

What I actually said was that the perspectives of 100 random and impartial readers carry more weight regarding the quality of your writing than the opinions of a handful of writers you've chosen because of similarities in style.

Yes, which I and yowser disagree with, yet you have no problem with yowser and big time problems with me.

I said this ...

Do you really want to know how well you are writing or how well you are improving as a writer? Befriend a couple of good writers here that you respect, that you admire their skills, that are into your genres/kinks and get them to read your stuff and tell you what they think. That will be a FAR FAR better measure than scores and comments.

... to which you said ...

Why should the opinions of dozens, hundreds or thousands of readers carry less weight than the opinions of a small group of handpicked writers? If you're asking for feedback from writers you admire, you're limited to a group who are predisposed to share your tastes and ideas of quality. A hundred readers chosen at random will give you a much more objective opinion.

... so you clearly do not agree with me and you do not agree with yowser ... to which I said ...

Because they actually know something about writing. The vast majority of the readers here don't know much at all (and that's okay - for the zillionth time). So you'd rather be judged by 100 people who don't really know what they're talking about than to seek the advice of 2 or 3 who do? Of course 2 or 3 is a small sample, yes 100 admired writers would be better but try and find 100 in here. We just wrote chain story together, helped each other outline edit and proof. What is a better opinion of your work, 50 random porn fans or 5 peer writers of decent caliber giving you full beta reads? You know the answer (psst: it's the 5 proper beta readers).

... to which you doubled down with ...

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 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.

... so you basically said that the AH writers are poor judges of quality writing, on par with the readership, but you are on record (many times) saying that your good scores are a definite indicator of your quality ... to which I said ...

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)

... I used even YOU as an example (among many others) of someone in the AH who had pro experience and would know a thing or two about quality writing, so if you can't even agree that YOU are a good judge of it (and you claim to pay the bills doing this!!), then who the hell are you to tell anyone that the porn throng readership is? ... to which you took the passive-aggro pseudo high-road by letting me have the last word while actually getting in the last word yourself ...

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.

And since you had the chance to denounce yowser's quote equally to mine and refused to do so, this proves that really this is just personal against me and therefore your opinions on the topic are null and void. There's nothing that you can say about now. Too late. You took your stance.

 

[StillStunned]

And since you had the chance to denounce yowser's quote equally to mine and refused to do so, this proves that really this is just personal against me and therefore your opinions on the topic are null and void. There's nothing that you can say about now. Too late. You took your stance.

You dug through pages of posts and found one from nearly three months ago and felt the need to drag me into it. Don't talk to me about making it personal.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

You dug through pages of posts and found one from nearly three months ago and felt the need to drag me into it. Don't talk to me about making it personal.

First, this is all from the same thread last week. Second, I'm defending myself against you specifically as you are the one attacking me in this thread. Would you expect me to argue against someone else? Would that make it not personal? Get real.