The most reliable indicator of story quality

[TheWritingGroup]

For me it's a two-step process. I read the title and description, and toss out about 75% of stories right there. It's not fair, but if there's a typo in the description I'm likely to think "Skip!" Typos in the story are going to happen, but letting one through in the description bugs me. Like I say, I know it's not fair, but it's how I react.

I don't use "Hot" as a criterion, but I only rarely click on anything scoring below 4. I have that much confidence in my fellow readers.

If I can figure out the premise of a story, I can eliminate another big chunk because some concepts don't interest me. I'm not going to tell someone else what to like, but (for instance) I don't enjoy scat or furry stuff, so I skip any stories that emphasize those things.

Then it's intuition, meaning I can't actually tell you why I choose to click through on only some of the remaining stories.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

Above anything else, I avoid reading any story that is obviously not finished, regardless of who wrote it or how enticing it might be. Incomplete works are a showstopper for me every time. That being said, I have favored the first part of a story before reading it and then gone back to track its progress until completion.

While I am patient when writing and submitting my own stories, I have little patience waiting for someone to post all of theirs. So, if the submissions linger more than a few weeks before the completed story is posted, I move on.

 

[Wifetheif]

While I have a nice proportion of red H stories, some of my highest rated stories have no comments. Lots of views, pleased readers, but little actual engagement. On the other hand, my stories that hang around the 4.4 mark (Which seems to be the majority) get lots of comments and engagement. I'm not sure why. My recently published https://www.literotica.com/s/hanahs-mannikin-adventure has over 2K reads and is near the very top of my high scoring stories but not a single comment. It may be that a well-told tale is satisfaction itself. Whatever the reason, it's odd. What a TON of engagement? Post in Loving Wives! There scores literally do not matter.

 

[PapaRomantic]

How do you pick what to read?

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

I use the 'H' as a first qualifier for whether I will read a story or not. Then I will look at the title and description second. However, this would mean I would never read what I think is one of my best stories, which has a 3.53 rating in the Loving Wives category because the wife got away with it. That point is not even close to the main point in the story, but it's what voters there consider when they vote. So I'm being a bit of a hypocrite to myself with my standards for reading a story or not.

I detest poor grammar (drilled into my head in school) and even reading a highly rated story with grammar issues, I'll stop reading it. And then sometimes things are put in that just don't belong. I was reading an I/T story last night where two cats were killed, and that was a big 'nope.' It had the magic 'H' qualifier.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

How do you pick what to read?

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

Here, the summary, sometimes the tags. It's rare that I stop reading something, but if it really sucks, I'll stop when I see it sucking.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Perfect grammar comes off as strange in dialog, as very few people use perfect grammar when speaking. And some folks have atrocious grammar when they talk. Therefore, some characters should use copious amounts of slang and a sprinkling of their speech idiosyncrasies, such as yestideay.

I use the 'H' as a first qualifier for whether I will read a story or not. Then I will look at the title and description second. However, this would mean I would never read what I think is one of my best stories, which has a 3.53 rating in the Loving Wives category because the wife got away with it. That point is not even close to the main point in the story, but it's what voters there consider when they vote. So I'm being a bit of a hypocrite to myself with my standards for reading a story or not.

I detest poor grammar (drilled into my head in school) and even reading a highly rated story with grammar issues, I'll stop reading it. And then sometimes things are put in that just don't belong. I was reading an I/T story last night where two cats were killed, and that was a big 'nope.' It had the magic 'H' qualifier.

 

[Belegon]

my lowest ratio of favorites to views is 1/1447. That's on my only story published since I returned to Lit. Most of my other stories were published on the site between 2003 and 2008, and they seem to all be in the 1/3500 range.

 

[glynndah]

I have many stories, and their authors, that I really like here on Lit but I frequently forget to favorite them.

 

[Zootonius]

My favorite cartoon on ratings:

 

[Cagivagurl]

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.”

IMO...
There is no magic method. I have read stories with 4.8 stars which I thought were awful.
I have read stories scoring 2.8 which were excellent...

There are to many variables to consider. Content, writing ability, genre, category...

What I have found, is. You read based on category and description. If I like it, I remember the writer and if I see something pop up written by them. I'll read it...
Finding a trustworthy group of writers is hard in Lit, because for every story I enjoy. There are a thousand I don't...

Readers save (Favourite) stories for more reasons than liking it... Most probably to read later.

Cagivagurl

 

[mirafrida]

I view favorites, scores, and comments as each reflecting fairly distinct aspects of reader response.

- Rating is driven by some combination of "getting the lowest common-denominator-reader off" and category/kink policing.
- Favorites reflect striking a particularly strong resonance (and perhaps corresponding desire to reread) among a subset of readers.
- Comments result from triggering the meta-impulse to connect with the author, whether to reward, punish, or inquire/dialogue.

The three appear only loosely coupled to me, if at all. Different stories will end up landing on different combinations.

I'm not sure any map reliably to what I would think of as "quality."

 

[pink_silk_glove]

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)

I said this last week and stillstunned pretty much laughed in my face as he told me to stuff it, at any rate he disagrees with this so he better come put you in your place too.

 

[StillStunned]

I said this last week and stillstunned pretty much laughed in my face as he told me to stuff it, at any rate he disagrees with this so he better come put you in your place too.

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.

You might feel flattered by the writers' feedback, but it's going to be inherently more biased and limited than what you get from the readers. And it's easy to say "but those readers are uncultured wankers, and my favourite writers are excellent judges of quality," but the fact is that you don't know who the readers are and where they're coming from. As I explained in that same thread, I have all kinds of different stories that diverge widely from the simple stroke stuff - and I'm sure I'm not the only one here - and plenty of readers have enjoyed them. That seems to indicate a readership that's more than a tribe of uncultured wankers.

Also, disagreeing with you is not the same as laughing in your face and telling you to stuff it.

 

[Duleigh]

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.

I fully agree, I express that score in percentages ((# of Favorites) / (# of Views))*100. The story has to be a few months old before the numbers make sense. My very highest score is 50% (0.5) my lowest scores came from 2006 which was before favorites were a thing.

I also noticed that my contest winners have very low ratios. I believe that's because in a contest you're flooded with views and folks don't seem to favorite stories that win, place or show as often as they favorite a 'hidden gem' that they stumbled across.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

I've never paid much attention to this before, but took the time to do the number-crunching.

N2P - First off, thanks for raising the thought. It's definitely worth examination and we should, I think, be willing to look at things in different ways.

That said, I cannot see any particular correlation for my own yarns, in terms of scores, in terms of contest/event winners, in terms of comments or, utterly subjectively, in terms of which of my stories I am fondest of.

 

[AG31]

Maybe this has already been mentioned up thread, but you'd think, on a sight dedicated to erotica, that a lot of the weight in ratings would be from whether or not people were turned on. And, of course, that's an exceedingly variable sort of thing. It's not like the Lit audience are primarily interested in literary quality. Maybe AH members are, but... hey...

In other words, how can you pay a lot of attention to ratings?

 

[Comshaw]

Maybe this has already been mentioned up thread, but you'd think, on a sight dedicated to erotica, that a lot of the weight in ratings would be from whether or not people were turned on. And, of course, that's an exceedingly variable sort of thing. It's not like the Lit audience are primarily interested in literary quality. Maybe AH members are, but... hey...

In other words, how can you pay a lot of attention to ratings?

And why should turning on the reader not be a measure of a "good story" on an erotic site? I've seen many a grump about highly rated stories that are literary trash. Why do these stories get high scores if they are so bad? Maybe they aren't the best put together, or use a plethora of 5 dollar words, or the punctuation is off or the spelling is atrocious. What they do is what the reader expects them to do, be a flame for the reader's libido. I've always argued that if a story does what it sets out to do, it's a success. And on this site, in this context, if the reader gets off to it it doesn't matter if the i's are dotted, the punctuation is correct or the plot line is perfect.

On another note, is the scoring system flawed? Damn straight it is. But I've never seen a scoring system that can't be gamed by someone. On another site I am a part of the administrator tried to make the scoring system fair. They limited it to registered users and decreed that any vote 3 and below had to be accompanied by a comment of why. Guess what? Yeah, using anonymous sites the trolls still came. And the comments: "You suck" "A piece of shit" "Go kill yourself" The admin then decided the comments should be 5 words or longer. Did that help? Nope. The insults just got longer. The last time I looked that's where it was left. So yeah, NO scoring system is foolproof or can't be scammed. And even if there was one why should the site do so? They're here to make money and are amenable to doing something to make it better for us, but somewhere along the line the cost/benefit falls too far to the side of cost.

It's all subjective anyway. Yes you can judge the quality of the product, spelling, punctuation, plot, etc., but you can't judge what a person is going to like. And in the end, no matter how many "I write for myself" statements are made, we ALL put our stories out here looking for something from the readers. It could be we want them to like what we wrote, or maybe hate it. Anyone that says differently, but still posts their stories here, is a prevaricator of the first order. If the "I write for myself" statement was true, those stories would be in a notebook or computer file reserved for the eyes of the writer.

I think I done talked enough.


Comshaw

 

[AG31]

I've always argued that if a story does what it sets out to do, it's a success.

I couldn't agree more!!

we ALL put our stories out here looking for something from the readers.

I put mine out to find like-minded people. I've found that there aren't many. But that's useful info! I'm not interested in the opinions of readers who are not like minded in the first place. So the ratings system is irrelevant to me.

 

[MillieDynamite]

I don't think, on Literotica, you can know what quality a story is until you read it. High scores don't ensure quality writing. Low scores don't mean the story is poorly written. There are so many people reading (or at least starting) stories, some of whom decide in the first few paragraphs they hate the story, they jump to the end and downvote it. Hearts given are great to know people liked it, but it is a much better indication of what kink they like than your story is good.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

I guess this thread is as good as any. Just read a story mainly based on the high rating. I was curious more than anything. Why is it rated so high? Can it be that good?


Well, not to me it wasn't. As improbable as any I've read, or written. The whole set up is off. Not bad, just not 'great' like the 4.6 Red H and 44 favorites implied it might be. And amidst it all, a glaring typo smacked me in the face and completely distracted me.

How the hell can you mistake developing for enveloping when talking about THAT moment??????

And I'm sorry, no SHE didn't take the guy in THERE to do the deed. Slutty and sleazey as she may want to be to impress the guy's buddies, THAT ain't the place.

Not more than a 3 for me.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

I don't think, on Literotica, you can know what quality a story is until you read it. High scores don't ensure quality writing. Low scores don't mean the story is poorly written. There are so many people reading (or at least starting) stories, some of whom decide in the first few paragraphs they hate the story, they jump to the end and downvote it. Hearts given are great to know people liked it, but it is a much better indication of what kink they like than your story is good.

People here raved about my 750 that only topped out at 3.91

I think the judgement is better here.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

Caught by another high scoring red H beside a title.

Another Dud for me. Entirely improbable and far too fast to the nookie.

 

[sinfantasy]

There is also the factor of story length. Some of the stories are pure smut (this is a sex story site after all), and then there are stories that take the Erotica route with solid plots, character building, realistic dialogue, laughs, tears, and every other strong emotion. Then there are rare gems who manage both in the delicate art of touching readers' kinks and fantasies.

There are so many factors. One could stick to specific kinks and categories and build a solid fan base. OR you can follow the category trend and template (This is argumentative, but I have seen scores being punished for trying something different.)

It's disheartening when you get personal attacks in the comments. It's even more disappointing when the reader simply misses the subtility you worked so hard to put in. Some of the comments make me bang my head, (I am not talking only about my stories.)

Ultimately, as the thumb rule Reader is always right though.

I sometimes do keyword searches depending on my mood to find stories while ignoring the scores, categories, and descriptions. Its the least efficient method but I am happy that I have come across gems of stories that I might never have read otherwise.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

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

 

[AG31]

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

Yup. It interests me when authors that I think are really good have a lot of Hs, but I'd never use that as a reason to read a story.