The most reliable indicator of story quality

[yowser]

For professional authors, about the only way to judge if a story is "good" is book sales.

I disagree with the 'only' part. If it's your only source of income, yes, sales are essential both for your livelihood and your craft (and future income.) But I know writers, who while happy with commercial success, get the best charge when other critics (colleagues, other writers, people whose intelligence and discernment they respect) recognise and comment on the quality of their art. Readers who 'got' their work. What went into it, the effort, the competence of the prose. Quality can be subjective, but it's not just an abstract attribute. A good welder knows a good weld when he sees it, I'm happy when someone I respect calls my stuff 'good.'

Like the famous judge (whose name, time and situation escapes me) ruling on pornography: 'I know it when I see it.'

 

[MillieDynamite]

Even great books don't always sell. They must be marketed, and most of us poor independent self-published (or, like me, using a small-time publisher) can't afford to advertise enough to make a lot of money.

I disagree with the 'only' part. If it's your only source of income, yes, sales are essential both for your livelihood and your craft (and future income.) But I know writers, who while happy with commercial success, get the best charge when other critics (colleagues, other writers, people whose intelligence and discernment they respect) recognise and comment on the quality of their art. Readers who 'got' their work. What went into it, the effort, the competence of the prose. Quality can be subjective, but it's not just an abstract attribute. A good welder knows a good weld when he sees it, I'm happy when someone I respect calls my stuff 'good.'

Like the famous judge (whose name, time and situation escapes me) ruling on pornography: 'I know it when I see it.'

 

[SimonDoom]

Like the famous judge (whose name, time and situation escapes me) ruling on pornography: 'I know it when I see it.'

Associate Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart in his concurrence in Jacobellis v. Ohio (1964).

 

[THBGato]

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.

My story The Third Date has 50 favourites on 12k views. I love your new ranking metric! LOL!

(That's not even my best views to favourites ratio, but 50 is a nice round number.)

However, does your system take into account multiple chapters? As a reader, I usually only bother to favourite chapter 1, something I imagine many people do.

 

[yowser]

Associate Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart in his concurrence in Jacobellis v. Ohio (1964).

Thank You. He'll be remembered more for that one line than any judgement he ever rendered.

 

[MillieDynamite]

She's a Bully, has 66 out of 34,948 views which comes in at one for 529.52 views—a little under 2 per thousand. I don't think it's anywhere near my best work. It has a score of 4.44 with 444 votes.

 

[MillieDynamite]

"I know it when I see it," is a somewhat fuzzy criteria.

Thank You. He'll be remembered more for that one line than any judgement he ever rendered.

Thank You. He'll be remembered more for that one line than any judgement he ever rendered.

I disagree with the 'only' part. If it's your only source of income, yes, sales are essential both for your livelihood and your craft (and future income.) But I know writers, who while happy with commercial success, get the best charge when other critics (colleagues, other writers, people whose intelligence and discernment they respect) recognise and comment on the quality of their art. Readers who 'got' their work. What went into it, the effort, the competence of the prose. Quality can be subjective, but it's not just an abstract attribute. A good welder knows a good weld when he sees it, I'm happy when someone I respect calls my stuff 'good.'

Like the famous judge (whose name, time and situation escapes me) ruling on pornography: 'I know it when I see it.'

 

[ElectricBlue]

She's a Bully, has 66 out of 34,948 views which comes in at one for 529.52 views—a little under 2 per thousand. I don't think it's anywhere near my best work. It has a score of 4.44 with 444 votes.

444 votes is a much better metric than 66 faves. Faves are so far down in the noise as to be meaningless.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Funny, I like the the most on my stories even though I don't get that many.

 

[SimonDoom]

I did a view/vote/favorite analysis of my stories in 2019.

Intuitively, I would think the vote:favorite ratio would be more telling than the view:favorite ratio, but it's not helpful to the reader because vote totals aren't usually available to the reader.

At that time, with 24 stories published (I now have 62), my average view:favorite ratio was about 730:1, with a range of 423:1 to 1750:1. Since I write a lot of incest stories, my stories get a lot of views, and that probably compresses the range somewhat relative to authors who don't write incest stories and don't get as many views.

My average vote:favorite ratio at that time was 9.4:1, with a range of 3.7:1 to 33:1.

Interesting fact: the stories at the top and bottom of the range are the same for views and votes. That's interesting!

The "good" story with the low view/vote to favorite ratio was an exhibitionist story along the lines of many of the types of stories I write. I think it's fine but I don't regard it as my best story.

The "worst" story in terms of ratios was a BTB-spoof Loving Wives story. I'm rather proud of that story. It was savaged by many readers, though, because it offended them. It drew a lot of attention and votes, but many of them were extremely negative votes. I don't regard those votes as having anything to do with quality. They're a reflection of the fact that the story (deliberately) did not satisfy the tastes of a huge segment of the Loving Wives readership.

 

[THBGato]

One thing in favour of favourites as a metric is that, unlike scores, trolls can't negatively affect them.

Scores can be deliberately downvoted, but a troll can't make people unfavourite a story.

 

[NotWise]

Maybe this is a good time to ask. Can you define "story quality?"

 

[StillStunned]

Maybe this is a good time to ask. Can you define "story quality?"

A "high-quality story" is:
1. a story that I wrote;
2. a story that I enjoy.

 

[yowser]

Maybe this is a good time to ask. Can you define "story quality?"

I know it when I read it.

 

[AG31]

We all have our own subjective criteria,

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

Especially where erotica is concerned, I think the test is whether it works for someone. And the variety of tastes is probably infinite. I find ratings of all sorts irrelevant to my narrow tastes. I rely on recommendations from people that either share or understand my tastes.

But whether a story on Lit does or does not address my tastes, I think it is "good" if I remember it for days, months or years.

 

[XerXesXu]

Thank You. He'll be remembered more for that one line than any judgement he ever rendered.

Much to his embarrassment.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

The only way I can discern the quality of a story is by reading it. You might say that maybe those things are used as incentive to pick a read, not for me.

 

[yowser]

I think we've agreed that the notion of a 'quality' story is complicated, involves subjective criteria, and is difficult to identify. Lit's array of scoring metrics have ambiguous value. I mentioned the half-serious bit about 'knowing it when I read it,' and I do think it is possible to tease out some aspects of what quality entails. Lots of times when I notice a quality effort, there is a lot going on semi-consciously in my head that allows me to form that judgment, but it takes some analysis to tease out how I ended up with my critique.

Here's an experimental stab at trying to evaluate a Lit-tale by something other than gut-reaction principles.

I've used (and designed) rubrics in the past for a variety of professional activities: grant proposals, hiring, tenure and promotion evaluations. Here's one I brainstormed up for Lit-stories, and in my limited testing it holds up pretty well. Obviously subjective, and surely flawed, it's a start. Give it a whirl yourself on a handful of stories or create your own (and better) version but this approach is my attempt to establish some sort of benchmark standards for 'quality.'

1.Does the story show imagination? (doesn't rely on standard tropes, adopts an intriguing take on arousal and attraction, is unique in some way.)

2.Is the story competently written? (serviceable prose, decent flow, suitable transitions, devoid of glaring spelling and grammatical errors.)

3.Does the story make me see, feel, think? (perceptive narrator and/or characters, immersive descriptions, pleasing sound to the words.)

4.Does the story engage me, make me want to read on? (Do I have confidence with the writer and their characters? Are the characters believable, can I get inside their heads? As a reader, do I find myself wanting to know what happens in the end?)

My bonus points, entirely idiosyncratic, include demonstration of such qualities as intelligence, subtlety, and humor.

Give it a scale, say 1-4, with '1' as dismal and '4' as excellent, and my quality reads would have at least 2 '4' scores and nothing below a '3.'

 

[PennameWombat]

<snip>
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.”

If I go strictly by that criteria, then my 'best' story is relatively long (35K words) and has essentially no sex in it, despite not being in Non-Erotic (it's in SF&F.) I call it my "barely R, possibly PG-13 rated story" (for those familiar with US movie ratings.) That would tell me that... no sex on an erotica site.

But then, my story close behind that, is a novel length (70K words) story with scads of sex. So... uh, lots of sex on an erotica site. But personally, I published the latter in 2020 and with more experience writing, I see 'flaws' in it, but clearly readers enjoy it.

The former is one of my highest rated, but both have the 'H'.

When I sort all of my stories (yeah, I have a spreadsheet, I'm just a nerd) on this basis, it's... not clear. A couple of stories with a high ratio on this have relatively low ratings, and vice-versa. So based on my stories, I can't really use this to 'know' much of anything about "my" readers. Even if I first sort by Category then by this ratio... it's mostly just a spreadsheet exercise.

 

[mildlyaroused]

When people discuss stats like this, I'm always tempted to express the caveat that these strategies work (fairly well) for comparing stories within categories. But not between categories. The readership and engagement patterns between categories are simply too diverse to properly compare things any more accurately than on an apple-to-orange basis.

Story contents also plays a huge role. Out of the I/T stories I've written, the uncle/niece one has a much higher rating but a much lower favourite-to-view ratio than the brother/sister one. If I had to guess, I'd say that brother/sister is a more popular pairing, so there are more readers favouriting that story to come back to it later.

Anyway, putting a score to fiction has never worked very well. By what metrics are we voting? Literary merit or ability to titillate? Moralistic reasons? Each voter has a different interpretation of the 1-5 stars system. Every voter has the right to be a contrarian. Basically, searching for a statistical measure of quality is a losing battle. (in my opinion).

 

[Britva415]

The only way I can discern the quality of a story is by reading it. You might say that maybe those things are used as incentive to pick a read, not for me.

How do you pick what to read?

How do you decide to stop reading it, if it turns out it sucks?

 

[SimonDoom]

How do you pick what to read?

How do you decide to stop reading it, if it turns out it sucks?

Speaking just for myself, I can usually tell whether I will like a story within a few paragraphs. So it takes me no more than a 30 second investment to figure it out. That's probably less time than what's needed poring over numbers and comparing them and calculating ratios.

 

[THBGato]

Speaking just for myself, I can usually tell whether I will like a story within a few paragraphs. So it takes me no more than a 30 second investment to figure it out.

Yeah, same. I usually give a story three or four paragraphs to grab me.

I don't look at favourites at all when deciding to read something, but a high score will often sway me to open something. Mostly it's title and subtitle that hooks me in, though obviously if I follow the author then I'm more likely to give it a whirl regardless.

 

[SimonDoom]

Yeah, same. I usually give a story three or four paragraphs to grab me.

I don't look at favourites at all when deciding to read something, but a high score will often sway me to open something. Mostly it's title and subtitle that hooks me in, though obviously if I follow the author then I'm more likely to give it a whirl regardless.

Sometimes I'll decide to read a story by a particular author for the first time. I'll look over the story list, see what looks interesting, and I might use the score as a way of choosing from among several stories by that author in a particular category.

 

[ElectricBlue]

How do you pick what to read?

Mostly from looking at someone's faves list, who has faved one of my stories. I figure there's going to be something in common.

How do you decide to stop reading it, if it turns out it sucks?

How hard can it be to decide that? Like those above, I'm usually gone within a couple of hundred words if a story isn't for me. It's not rocket science!