There's NO bad author's on Lit

Many authors...

Rant and gripe about anonymous comments, but I prefer them. They are much more honest than signed commentary.

Dredge up your darkest feelings and tell me what you really think.

In my most humble opinion, the most cowardly thing an author can do is to delete an unfavorable comment.
 
Rant and gripe about anonymous comments, but I prefer them. They are much more honest than signed commentary.

Dredge up your darkest feelings and tell me what you really think.

In my most humble opinion, the most cowardly thing an author can do is to delete an unfavorable comment.

I wasn’t aware you could delete comments.
I’d never do that either though. Comments are the most important way of understanding your weaknesses and perhaps help you in striving towards a better story.
I tend to say it from the heart in my comments but I do shy away from saying anything if a certain story wasn’t to my liking.
Let’s be honest, what’s for me, may not be for you, etc.
 
I think Equinox meant there can be an author's story or an author's pen and you meant there are no bad authors (plural) on Lit. I disagree, I believe just by the law of averages there are plenty of bad authors though I don't know who they are and wouldn't publicly say so anyway.

I understand not giving a story a low vote especially knowing how much effort it takes to write any story but if a reader (who in some cases is also a writer) is giving their honest opinion I don't think they are doing something wrong. Same way if someone doesn't feel they are qualified to judge a story. They probably aren't being hypocritical but think I'm not expert enough to give proper criticism but I know if I like or not and vote accordingly. And that's the key. Different people judge a story on different criteria and if honest it can't be wrong (though could be misguided).

Also one can write from the heart as you say yet also write in a technically proficient style. I read one of your stories and when I get a chance I will comment on it but I will say I liked it.
 
So you perceive yourself to be an author in learning, yet expert enough in reading to comment and score in the belief your opinion counts?
Isn’t that rather hypocritical?

Not really. But, I suppose it's all a matter of subjective perception. :D

Ah, well. Enough of a break. Back to my latest Rorschach.
 
I'm surprised at the reticence so many people have about voting, or about giving scores lower than five. The voting tools are there for people to use. If people didn't use them, or if people gave only 5s, then there would be no way to tell the difference between stories. One can't reasonably want all stories to get those little red Hs; only the stories that deserve them should get them. It does no service to a writer to give him/her a false indication of the quality of his/her writing.

If you actually care about the score, then you should want it to be accurate, and the only way it's going to be accurate is readers take advantage of the full range of score options.

If you don't care about the score, then it doesn't matter anyway what readers do.
 
I'm surprised at the reticence so many people have about voting, or about giving scores lower than five.

Keep in mind, the question was posted on the Author's forum. Presumably, everyone here knows what it feels like to have a story's score drop. A bit of empathy for fellow writers is to be expected.

But the vast majority of readers/voters are not writers themselves. I suspect you would get very different answers if this question was posted on the General Board. It's the masses of readers who ultimately decide a story's score. This small subset in the AH can only hope to give a bit of moral support - or least avoid adding insult to injury.
 
Keep in mind, the question was posted on the Author's forum. Presumably, everyone here knows what it feels like to have a story's score drop. A bit of empathy for fellow writers is to be expected.

But the vast majority of readers/voters are not writers themselves. I suspect you would get very different answers if this question was posted on the General Board. It's the masses of readers who ultimately decide a story's score. This small subset in the AH can only hope to give a bit of moral support - or least avoid adding insult to injury.

I understand. I've gotten bad, sometimes vicious, sometimes stupid comments, and I've watched in frustration as a story's score hovers just below that 4.5 line, or gets close to it only to get knocked back down by a bad vote. But it would do me no good as an author to receive only 5s, because presumably everyone else would, too, and scores would mean nothing.
 
I'm surprised at the reticence so many people have about voting, or about giving scores lower than five. The voting tools are there for people to use. If people didn't use them, or if people gave only 5s, then there would be no way to tell the difference between stories.

Well, well, well. The light finally came on. People do both of those things with voting and a lot more. The results are meaningless.

But you're wrong that there is no other way to tell the difference between stories. You know the difference between mainstream stories, yet you've probably never had the opportunity to VOTE for them or even been asked your opinion.

I've read countless cover blurbs or reviews (all really just comments) of Jim Harrison, Cormac McCarthy, Kurt Vonnegut, Margaret Atwood, Daniel Woodrell and other favorites, but I've never cast a single vote for them.

rj
 
Well, well, well. The light finally came on. People do both of those things with voting and a lot more. The results are meaningless.

But you're wrong that there is no other way to tell the difference between stories. You know the difference between mainstream stories, yet you've probably never had the opportunity to VOTE for them or even been asked your opinion.

I've read countless cover blurbs or reviews (all really just comments) of Jim Harrison, Cormac McCarthy, Kurt Vonnegut, Margaret Atwood, Daniel Woodrell and other favorites, but I've never cast a single vote for them.

rj

I think it's obvious what I meant, but I suppose it would help for me to clarify. I meant that if only 5s were given there would be no way of telling the difference between stories FROM THE SCORES.
Obviously, one can tell the difference between stories by reading them. But if people adopt a habit of giving only 5s then scoring becomes meaningless as a way of differentiating between stories. So it makes no sense to adopt such a habit, or to want others to do so.

I understand your view that scoring is meaningless and I would agree that it's noisy and imperfect, but I don't agree it's meaningless. I think that if 100 Lit authors were to read 100 stories rated 4.0 and 100 stories rated 4.7, without knowing what the scores were, and asked to rate the stories themselves, the 4.7 group of stories would get a statistically higher score than the 4.0 group of stories. And that means it's not meaningless; the scores do, to some degree, track what most people, including authors, consider "quality," and the score is a rough, but useful, proxy for quality. Obviously, it's only rough. Many factors, some of them quite silly, influence story scores. But at a macro level, with a sufficient sample size, I think they would be meaningful. This is my impression, having read a lot of Lit stories over a lot of years. Your experience may quite different, and if so your opinion about scores is valid. But I don't share it.
 
Author's intent

I maintain Nathan Brazil as pen name with which to dispense satire and cause debate.

The stories I release under this banner are designed to incite. For Nathan, receiving lots of 1 bombs is a given, and low-rated stories are the result.

My other pen name has 100% red hots... That pen name persona is friendly and soothing to a fault.

Both me... but wildly different results. Consequently I tend to have little faith in the scores. I follow them, but I can't take them too seriously.
 
Same here.

Strangely enough, another GM story account (I have some that aren't GM and score very nicely) I opened to show to myself that my sr71plt account is heavily trolled "just because it's me" has shown that I still get higher average scores under this account. So, go figure. :D

Also, contrary to what some of the high brows who post to AH hold about everyone on Lit. wanting better literary quality, my experience is that raunch (and lots of words, no matter what they are) gets the best reception on Lit. That doesn't really surprise me. The bottom line reality is that this is a porn story site--and that most of the readers come here to dip in; read, without giving any evidence they've been here; and pull out.
 
I think that if 100 Lit authors were to read 100 stories rated 4.0 and 100 stories rated 4.7, without knowing what the scores were, and asked to rate the stories themselves, the 4.7 group of stories would get a statistically higher score than the 4.0 group of stories. And that means it's not meaningless; the scores do, to some degree, track what most people, including authors, consider "quality," and the score is a rough, but useful, proxy for quality. Obviously, it's only rough. Many factors, some of them quite silly, influence story scores. But at a macro level, with a sufficient sample size, I think they would be meaningful.

Agree this - scores are meaningful in the sense that there's a really big sample pool here on Lit being driven by tens of thousands of people over time, each judging by whatever criteria they choose, and the end result is an empirically based look at subjective opinions.

They're of little use to compare the relative merit of one writer against another specific writer (because our individual styles, content, fan bases etc... will be so very different); but to compare one writer against 99 others or 499 others, as the pool gets larger, I'm inclined to think there's some overall measure of merit (the mass of human behaviour being what it is).

Within an individual writer's own body of work, once it gets past a certain size (20 - 30 pieces, maybe?), I think it gives a reasonable indicator which pieces of that writer's work are "better" than others.

It's a bit like diving - you know a 9 is better than a 3, and you know a belly flop when you see one. So many judges can't be wrong.
 
No bad authors?

I disagree. There are bad authors on Literotica. I can be one of them myself.

There are bad stories. There are stories that are unpopular. There are stories which are deliberately provocative and irritating.

And there are good stories.

But the voting and rating doesn't measure good against bad. All they measure is relative popularity. Chapter 22 of a series of sex scenes with the same characters behaving as they did in Chapter 01 to 21 is likely to be rated highly because those who read and vote on Chapter 22 have persevered since Chapter 01 and like the premise. A stand-alone story might get a good rating if it is in a popular category and mainstream. An obscure fetish? That will be unpopular and low rated.

Popularity rules! Building a fan base by writing similar stories over and over again makes for higher ratings.

There's nothing wrong with popularity. But the ratings measure that and nothing else. They don't measure literary merit, challenging themes, good storytelling or fierce conflicts.
 
I disagree. There are bad authors on Literotica. I can be one of them myself.

There are bad stories. There are stories that are unpopular. There are stories which are deliberately provocative and irritating.

And there are good stories.

But the voting and rating doesn't measure good against bad. All they measure is relative popularity. Chapter 22 of a series of sex scenes with the same characters behaving as they did in Chapter 01 to 21 is likely to be rated highly because those who read and vote on Chapter 22 have persevered since Chapter 01 and like the premise. A stand-alone story might get a good rating if it is in a popular category and mainstream. An obscure fetish? That will be unpopular and low rated.

Popularity rules! Building a fan base by writing similar stories over and over again makes for higher ratings.

There's nothing wrong with popularity. But the ratings measure that and nothing else. They don't measure literary merit, challenging themes, good storytelling or fierce conflicts.

Word.
 
Respect to all on this page, but!

Wow, I’m delighted that, people’s I view to be well educated and informed (all above posters) thanks for your opinions, they’re valued and appreciated.
However, the crutch of the question remains unanswered.
Can you give a five if the content touches your heart yet the technique is lacking, thoughts?
 
Wow, I’m delighted that, people’s I view to be well educated and informed (all above posters) thanks for your opinions, they’re valued and appreciated.
However, the crutch of the question remains unanswered.
Can you give a five if the content touches your heart yet the technique is lacking, thoughts?

Sure. If it's a good story and I can understand what the author's saying, I'm not going to fuss over minor technical issues unless I've been asked for a critique. It's like listening to an old record, a few pops and crackles here and there don't matter. What I've read of yours has been in that class.

But sometimes the technical stuff makes it harder to get into the content. If I have to pause and try to figure out what the author's trying to say... it's like listening to a record on an old player that stops every five seconds and needs to be restarted. No matter how good the concept might be, I can't get into it if there's too much distraction.
 
...

However, the crutch of the question remains unanswered.
Can you give a five if the content touches your heart yet the technique is lacking, thoughts?

Yes. If the content has had that effect it is a good story, an example of story-telling. The flaws don't matter if the message affects you.
 
Wow, I’m delighted that, people’s I view to be well educated and informed (all above posters) thanks for your opinions, they’re valued and appreciated.
However, the crutch of the question remains unanswered.
Can you give a five if the content touches your heart yet the technique is lacking, thoughts?

Up to a certain point, yes. But if spelling and grammar and other technical errors are too egregious then it will interfere with my ability to enjoy the story, and I won't be able to give it a 5.
 
Ratings mean nothing. I wouldn't worry about that, it's all corrupt.

Not friggin bothered about any of that shit, they can please themselves.
I don't need a bottle of champers and a prize. Ah, fuck off. I don't want anything
but a certain few fans. They can stick their prize and bottle of champers up their arse,
I don't need nobody!

What matters is do you have your own fan base? I do.
 
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Wow, I’m delighted that, people’s I view to be well educated and informed (all above posters) thanks for your opinions, they’re valued and appreciated.
However, the crutch of the question remains unanswered.
Can you give a five if the content touches your heart yet the technique is lacking, thoughts?

I'm curious, are your postings examples of your writing or do you utilize an editor?
 
Wow, I’m delighted that, people’s I view to be well educated and informed (all above posters) thanks for your opinions, they’re valued and appreciated.
However, the crutch of the question remains unanswered.
Can you give a five if the content touches your heart yet the technique is lacking, thoughts?

I'm a professional editor and writer, so, no I couldn't give a 5 to a published piece that is significantly lacking in technique--especially if this persisted across the writer's works that I'd read. Technicals are part of the package. But if I was encountering substandard technicals, I wouldn't be getting to the end of the work or voting on it at all.
 
Can you give a five if the content touches your heart yet the technique is lacking, thoughts?

I'll forgive occasional technical errors in writing, more so if the story somehow puts its hooks in, but if there are glitches in every paragraph I quickly grind to a halt and I'll stop reading, back out, no score given. If I do finish, and my lingering thought is "get an editor," it might get a four if the content glitters.

Having said that, one of my favourite stories here is a complete technical train wreck (it would have been a nightmare to edit), but it had such a raw intensity to it. It really was a diamond in the rough. But that's very rare.
 
Wow, I’m delighted that, people’s I view to be well educated and informed (all above posters) thanks for your opinions, they’re valued and appreciated.
However, the crutch of the question remains unanswered.
Can you give a five if the content touches your heart yet the technique is lacking, thoughts?

You can do anything you want. There are no rules as to how you vote or what your criteria is, and no one here can or should tell you different.

As to the title, I'm going to have to disagree with that. There are a lot of bad authors on Lit. Lots and lots in fact. The majority, in fact.

Either through poor syntax, dire dialog, no plotting ability, one dimensional and one aspect characters, or just plain no ability to string together sentences that actually flow together.

The reality is that Lit is the original cauldron of all different levels of ability. All the way from stories written by a nine year old (seemingly), to professional writer level.

The thing is though, do the writers get any better because they keep writing here? That's the biggie for me.

In terms of writing ability and my personal comments on them, I'd rather offer pointers in how to get better than to just say "give it up". I try not to ever disparage a writer for being crap - although, damn, sometimes it's hard. Although that said, I do tend to comment negatively when the subject matter is ill thought out, or the characters all 100% repugnant in their behaviors.
 
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