What takes a story from good to great?

T

TPMcClendon

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When you read a story, what makes you think "that was a great story" and you give it a 5 and maybe even comment? Is it the idea/plot itself? The development of characters and plot? The amount of detail? Dialogue?

For authors who write popular stories, I ask the same questions. What about your stories do you think gets people to love them?
 
I enjoy plausible surprises, I enjoy clever plot kinks and twists, I like writers with the skills of word magicians.
 
With me it's the freshness of the theme and setting, richness of the plot, and the usage and presentation of the language. I want the characters there, but I don't need to learn that one has a wooden leg unless it's significant to the plot, and I prefer figuring out their motivations for myself without being told. I like surprises and twist endings and being wrong about my own conclusions about what's going on and why.
 
When you read a story, what makes you think "that was a great story" and you give it a 5 and maybe even comment? Is it the idea/plot itself? The development of characters and plot? The amount of detail? Dialogue?

For authors who write popular stories, I ask the same questions. What about your stories do you think gets people to love them?

If there were a single easy answer, all the authors here would have little red H's on all their stories. I've been struggling to figure out what works for me--realizing that that might not work for others.

What I've gathered from ratings and comments on my stories is that the ones that get the most fives are the ones with characters readers most identify with (would most like to be) doing things that readers like to fantasize about doing. Now how to make characters that readers want to identify with is another problem; I wish I could do it consistently.

My answer is a fairly decent answer for a smut site, but doesn't fit every kind of literature, or even every kind of smut. Watch a production of King Lear: hey, great story, Bill--5*! But the characters aren't doing something you fantasize about doing--they're lying around dead.
 
JBJ already said my keyword for a great story: Plausibility.

Not to be confused with "realism" - getting ravished by a werewolf or seduced by a sexy vampire is perfectly plausible in a fantasy story for instance. How far you can stretch reality and still retain plausibility depends on the setting and characters, which you create.

The plausibility extends to the characters themselves as well. For instance a wife who suddenly turns evil and disrespectful towards her husband on a constant basis after 15 years of marriage is not plausible. Not unless you have her hit her head or something to change her entire personality.
 
If it really turns me on, I give it a 5.

That's the entire reason I'm reading free amateur stories here at Literotica. To get turned on.
 
What I've gathered from ratings and comments on my stories is that the ones that get the most fives are the ones with characters readers most identify with (would most like to be) doing things that readers like to fantasize about doing. Now how to make characters that readers want to identify with is another problem; I wish I could do it consistently.

Gotta say that I don't think that getting high ratings or nice comments at Literotica has much to do with a story being good, let alone great. So, I wouldn't zip right to a discussion of rating and comments in a discussion of lifting a story from good to great.

But, it's OK with me if you do.
 
Gotta say that I don't think that getting high ratings or nice comments at Literotica has much to do with a story being good, let alone great. So, I wouldn't zip right to a discussion of rating and comments in a discussion of lifting a story from good to great.

But, it's OK with me if you do.

The OP asked what made you give a story a 5.
 
The OP asked what made you give a story a 5.

The thread slug is "What takes a story from good to great?"

And I said it was OK with me if Serafina had that criterion--just that I didn't think it was a good one.

I don't get to have opinions too? How many give opinions and don't then declare the other poster's opinion is fine for them, as I did?

I don't think your criterion is a very good one either--but it seems to be a very popular one, which goes back to my opinion that ratings and comments on Literotica, with a preponderance of readers apparently only looking for stroke no matter how badly worded and plotted, don't have all that much to do with what a "good" or "great" story constitutes. Your opinion pretty much goes to the low-level of reader expectation on Literotica.
 
The thread slug is "What takes a story from good to great?"

And I said it was OK with me if Serafina had that criterion--just that I didn't think it was a good one.

I don't get to have opinions too? How many give opinions and don't then declare the other poster's opinion is fine for them, as I did?

I don't think your criterion is a very good one either--but it seems to be a very popular one, which goes back to my opinion that ratings and comments on Literotica, with a preponderance of readers apparently only looking for stroke no matter how badly worded and plotted, don't have all that much to do with what a "good" or "great" story constitutes. Your opinion pretty much goes to the low-level of reader expectation on Literotica.
I agree that comments and ratings don't decide whether a story is good or not. I've read stories with horrible grammar that have 4.5+ and I've read stories that I loved with not so good ratings. I was just curious, aside from comments and ratings, what people like in stories and what makes them think its better than average. Sorry, I probably mis-worded my question and made it seem like I was asking what makes people rate 5's.
 
Gotta say that I don't think that getting high ratings or nice comments at Literotica has much to do with a story being good, let alone great. So, I wouldn't zip right to a discussion of rating and comments in a discussion of lifting a story from good to great.

But, it's OK with me if you do.

Good point. I also mentioned comments, but perhaps should have emphasized them more than I did. And of course a story has got to satisfy me.

But in the end, if this site is where your stories are going, there aren't that many signs to tell you if you're doing well. Ratings, comments, your own feeling about your work--what else is there?
 
I'll go even further to alienate the responders to this question (which tells me a lot on what is getting the top ratings at Literotica :rolleyes:). The telephone book is plausible. Writing the same hackneyed plotline with the same hackneyed characters that remain in the limited horizons and neighborhood of a "born and raised on the same block" high schooler is very plausible. That's the major criterion for lifting a story to either good or great? No wonder we have what we have lots of in the story file here--and on top lists.
 
Good point. I also mentioned comments, but perhaps should have emphasized them more than I did. And of course a story has got to satisfy me.

But in the end, if this site is where your stories are going, there aren't that many signs to tell you if you're doing well. Ratings, comments, your own feeling about your work--what else is there?

Thanks. If you have confidence in your writing, I think you write to satisfy and stretch yourself, not for ratings and nice comments on a Web site like Literotica. You post your stories here, I think, because the readership is so large that you can't help but hitting some readers who appreciate you showing how high and wide your imagination and storytelling ability can take you--without being a slave to what I see in a lot responses here on what lifts a good story to a great one and what 5s are give out for.
 
Some kind of emotional connection with the Characters...sometimes it's just a good farce or story that grips the readers in some other way...maybe the readers get an emotional attachment to the situation.

Of course good writing goes a long way but you could be a great writer but if it's not a good story with some ups and downs and turns and twists and drama and conflict of some kind, readers won't like it.
 
This post made me think about some of my favorites and why they're favorites. And I realized that, like Serafina says, there's no hard-and-fast rule. There's a different reason for each one. So I picked out a handful and decided to rec them with good and bad points. Huzzah!

Hunted by furrybert
Totally implausible in my opinion. Lost count of how many times I said WTF?! Redeemed by one of the hottest alpha male characters ever, descriptive sex with edgy dialogue, and the simple fact that it kicks down the door of what's allowed on Lit. 5*

Charlotte and the Colonel by angelfeathers
Typos galore. Shamelessly abuses exclamation points. Dodgy storyline. Redeemed by a 1st-person narrator so real I could reach out and touch her and a plotline that gets progressively dirtier and dirtier until I thought my head was going to explode from all the dirtywrongness. This author gets tension. 5*

Make Me Into an Anal Whore, Daddy by DrMick
Absolute garbage. No redeeming qualities whatsoever. Possibly the most preposterous premise I've ever encountered. Hit just about every kink I have. 5*

My Alter Ego Dirty Old Man by lovelyladyfaire
This author couldn't spell or punctuate if her life depended on it. But this story has some of the most playful, inventive sex I've read, fully realized characters, and a kickass sense of humour. 5*

Fishin' Trip by texaz45
Just read this one last night. It has zero plot or character development. And insanely hot description. The kind that makes me gnash my teeth in author jealousy. 5*

A Good Student by dr_mabeuse
The total package. Destroyed me. I wasn't right for months. 5*
 
Thanks. If you have confidence in your writing, I think you write to satisfy and stretch yourself, not for ratings and nice comments on a Web site like Literotica. You post your stories here, I think, because the readership is so large that you can't help but hitting some readers who appreciate you showing how high and wide your imagination and storytelling ability can take you--without being a slave to what I see in a lot responses here on what lifts a good story to a great one and what 5s are give out for.

How do you gain confidence in your writing? I haven't been around here a long time, but long enough to have seen lots of threads like this one, and in every one of them, a certain set of people says that you should write to please yourself and ignore the ratings, comments and trolls. Does all confidence come from within, or does it matter what other people think?

If you have confidence in your writing, how do you know it's well placed? Lots of people like their own writing and wonder why no one else does. That's because most people are shitty writers and don't know it. They make up the dark matter of the literary universe. How can they improve if they don't pay attention to what people are saying about them?

There are many sources of feedback here. You can ask for feedback in the feedback forum--I tried that once and got nothing useful--some vapid observations, a little back-patting, and some critiques of my punctuation from sad Strunk & White addicts. A nice volunteer editor turned up somewhere along the way, and then disappeared without a trace. So I decided to listen to my readers--study their comments and try to analyze what they seemed to like and not like.

And you know what? I think it's been working rather well for me. But I freely admit that I'm not writing just to please myself: I rather like the idea of making readers happy, and maybe even turning them on.
 
How do you gain confidence in your writing? I haven't been around here a long time, but long enough to have seen lots of threads like this one, and in every one of them, a certain set of people says that you should write to please yourself and ignore the ratings, comments and trolls. Does all confidence come from within, or does it matter what other people think?

If you have confidence in your writing, how do you know it's well placed? Lots of people like their own writing and wonder why no one else does. That's because most people are shitty writers and don't know it. They make up the dark matter of the literary universe. How can they improve if they don't pay attention to what people are saying about them?

There are many sources of feedback here. You can ask for feedback in the feedback forum--I tried that once and got nothing useful--some vapid observations, a little back-patting, and some critiques of my punctuation from sad Strunk & White addicts. A nice volunteer editor turned up somewhere along the way, and then disappeared without a trace. So I decided to listen to my readers--study their comments and try to analyze what they seemed to like and not like.

And you know what? I think it's been working rather well for me. But I freely admit that I'm not writing just to please myself: I rather like the idea of making readers happy, and maybe even turning them on.

You gotta learn whats good and what isn't, then pay attention to who agrees with you and who whines. There are always more whiners than admirers. There are 1000s of popular, best seller writers who create shit. I don't know why but dogs love to eat cat shit. Many readers do the same.
 
This post made me think about some of my favorites and why they're favorites. And I realized that, like Serafina says, there's no hard-and-fast rule. There's a different reason for each one. So I picked out a handful and decided to rec them with good and bad points. Huzzah!

Hunted by furrybert
Totally implausible in my opinion. Lost count of how many times I said WTF?! Redeemed by one of the hottest alpha male characters ever, descriptive sex with edgy dialogue, and the simple fact that it kicks down the door of what's allowed on Lit. 5*

Charlotte and the Colonel by angelfeathers
Typos galore. Shamelessly abuses exclamation points. Dodgy storyline. Redeemed by a 1st-person narrator so real I could reach out and touch her and a plotline that gets progressively dirtier and dirtier until I thought my head was going to explode from all the dirtywrongness. This author gets tension. 5*

Make Me Into an Anal Whore, Daddy by DrMick
Absolute garbage. No redeeming qualities whatsoever. Possibly the most preposterous premise I've ever encountered. Hit just about every kink I have. 5*

My Alter Ego Dirty Old Man by lovelyladyfaire
This author couldn't spell or punctuate if her life depended on it. But this story has some of the most playful, inventive sex I've read, fully realized characters, and a kickass sense of humour. 5*

Fishin' Trip by texaz45
Just read this one last night. It has zero plot or character development. And insanely hot description. The kind that makes me gnash my teeth in author jealousy. 5*

A Good Student by dr_mabeuse
The total package. Destroyed me. I wasn't right for months. 5*

Yours is the dum shit post of the day. I invite you to sample some James Joyce crème de merde schizophrenic word salad and return with a verdict. Too stupid.
 
You gotta learn whats good and what isn't, then pay attention to who agrees with you and who whines. There are always more whiners than admirers. There are 1000s of popular, best seller writers who create shit. I don't know why but dogs love to eat cat shit. Many readers do the same.

I can tell from all your posts in this forum, JBJ, that you spend a lot of time thinking about what's good writing and what's not. I spent a large proportion of a lifetime reading good writing (and some shit) before I ever dared to try to tell a story. And yet it's really fucking hard for me to tell whether a piece of mine is decent or not.

Follow your own star, folks: but know that the memory hole has sucked down legions of writers who believed in themselves and never understood why the world didn't recognize their genius.
 
How do you gain confidence in your writing? I haven't been around here a long time, but long enough to have seen lots of threads like this one, and in every one of them, a certain set of people says that you should write to please yourself and ignore the ratings, comments and trolls. Does all confidence come from within, or does it matter what other people think?

If you have confidence in your writing, how do you know it's well placed? Lots of people like their own writing and wonder why no one else does. That's because most people are shitty writers and don't know it. They make up the dark matter of the literary universe. How can they improve if they don't pay attention to what people are saying about them?

There are many sources of feedback here. You can ask for feedback in the feedback forum--I tried that once and got nothing useful--some vapid observations, a little back-patting, and some critiques of my punctuation from sad Strunk & White addicts. A nice volunteer editor turned up somewhere along the way, and then disappeared without a trace. So I decided to listen to my readers--study their comments and try to analyze what they seemed to like and not like.

And you know what? I think it's been working rather well for me. But I freely admit that I'm not writing just to please myself: I rather like the idea of making readers happy, and maybe even turning them on.

You need to be aware of the venue. In the marketplace, if you're clearing a profit and if the reviews you see from people who had to actually pay to read you are, on the whole, favorable, you have a basis to gain confidence in your writing. Above all if you are satisfied with what you are writing, that's a clue--or, if you're not, if you satisfied after you work it over again.

Literotica is a free read/write site, though. If you enjoyed the experience, that's good enough. If you sense that you are improving the more you write, that's even better. If you came here for high ratings and praise, then, yes, you should write to the lowest common denominator for receiving that here. And if that satisfies you, good enough. If you want to set higher standards for yourself, you self-confidence comes in how you yourself feel about what you wrote--despite what others say, unless they are giving specific criticism that you accept as something you want to take on board.

Probably the most satisfied and confident writer on Literotica is SamuelX, who types away (perhaps writing the same story over and over again) despite receiving abysmal ratings and comments. But he's the most prolific writer--by far--on the Web site, and that seems to give him enough self-confidence to enjoy what he does. And he doesn't post on the forum looking for the Holy Grail or easy button to accolades and a tiara.

I think one road to self-confidence is not to compare yourself unduly with others. Really, if someone else (in your judgment) is a shitty writer or isn't writing to your specifications, that's their issue not yours, nor need it have anything to do with what you're writing.
 
You need to be aware of the venue. In the marketplace, if you're clearing a profit and if the reviews you see from people who had to actually pay to read you are, on the whole, favorable, you have a basis to gain confidence in your writing. Above all if you are satisfied with what you are writing, that's a clue--or, if you're not, if you satisfied after you work it over again.

Literotica is a free read/write site, though. If you enjoyed the experience, that's good enough. If you sense that you are improving the more you write, that's even better. If you came here for high ratings and praise, then, yes, you should write to the lowest common denominator for receiving that here. And if that satisfies you, good enough. If you want to set higher standards for yourself, you self-confidence comes in how you yourself feel about what you wrote--despite what others say, unless they are giving specific criticism that you accept as something you want to take on board.

Probably the most satisfied and confident writer on Literotica is SamuelX, who types away (perhaps writing the same story over and over again) despite receiving abysmal ratings and comments. But he's the most prolific writer--by far--on the Web site, and that seems to give him enough self-confidence to enjoy what he does. And he doesn't post on the forum looking for the Holy Grail or easy button to accolades and a tiara.

I think one road to self-confidence is not to compare yourself unduly with others. Really, if someone else (in your judgment) is a shitty writer or isn't writing to your specifications, that's their issue not yours, nor need it have anything to do with what you're writing.
I agree with what you're saying. I wasn't looking for an easy way to good ratings and comments tho. I enjoy the experience of writing and in the end I don't care what others think (unless its constructive, and I believe it will help me improve). I originally was just curious what people like when reading stories.
 
I can tell from all your posts in this forum, JBJ, that you spend a lot of time thinking about what's good writing and what's not. I spent a large proportion of a lifetime reading good writing (and some shit) before I ever dared to try to tell a story. And yet it's really fucking hard for me to tell whether a piece of mine is decent or not.

Follow your own star, folks: but know that the memory hole has sucked down legions of writers who believed in themselves and never understood why the world didn't recognize their genius.

People know, intuitively, how to cobble stories together. They know what powerful hooks are, they know what crises are, and they know how to resolve things. What they don't do is sweat and toil. Its my experience that if your wares are THAT good you cant keep them down.
 
I agree with what you're saying. I wasn't looking for an easy way to good ratings and comments tho. I enjoy the experience of writing and in the end I don't care what others think (unless its constructive, and I believe it will help me improve). I originally was just curious what people like when reading stories.

Yeah, I got that. I just was disappointed in how "majoring in the minors" some of the responses were. I know folks tend to vote at the polls on a single factor--and often one of minutia rather than of "greater good" import--but that's sort of a depressing idea that they would.
 
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