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Author's favorites vs. Reader Favorites

ShyTammy

ShyTammy

Space Age Trans Girl
Joined
Apr 17, 2003
Posts
9
So I have been writing on Lit for a little while now and have enough stories to have gotten some good feedback. One interesting thing I found is that the stories I loved writing most are the lowest rated, while others are rated much higher. Don't get me wrong I love all of my stories like children. The one in particular that I really enjoyed writing is Pleasure Dome if you are curious what I am talking about. Anyway, I was wondering if other author's ran into the same thing?
 
ShyTammy said:
Anyway, I was wondering if other author's ran into the same thing?
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For me it's a mixed bag. The stories that I struggle to write usually are less popular. I probably work them over for so long that they become over thought. On the other hand, some chapters I've really enjoyed writing ended up being the lowest-rated in their story. But then, those chapters have no sex. They just tell a story that I like, so I guess the result isn't surprising.
 
I've noticed as I've been writing over the years that whatever I'm working on or whatever my most recent story is winds up being my "favorite". When readers agree, that's awesome. :)
 
Generally the ones I feel I have "written best" go well with readers too. I am occasionally surprised when a story does really well when compared to its stable mates, it means I've done something "right". Problem is to figure out what that was!
 
Some that I think are better than others don't do as well, yes. What surprises me is when one from years ago that I wouldn't rate even in the top half gets favorited.
 
Yeah, I've mentioned this before.

Sometimes I'll write a story and think, "That's one of the best things I've ever made." And it'll get a so-so reaction in terms of views/score/favs.

Other times I'll think, "Not bad." And it'll get huge numbers.

My most popular story, "Quarantined with Mom" was something I wasn't sure if it was very good or not. In fact, I remembered thinking that the quality was lower than my other stories (in terms plausibility, build up, ect...) and readers might not like it.

As it turned out, people loved it, it did big numbers, and I started writing more of my incest stories in that manner.

But yeah, it can be a bummer when stories that I really think are great get less of a reaction.
 
Bummer

HeyAll said:
But yeah, it can be a bummer when stories that I really think are great get less of a reaction.
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I think it is really weird. One of my favorites I can understand because it is a bit artsy, but it is like in the 3's and I didn't think it was that bad. The other that is just not making it has what I think is some really hot kinky sex in the middle of a series and though it didn't quite flop, the response has been really lack luster. Weird.
 
NotWise said:
For me it's a mixed bag. The stories that I struggle to write usually are less popular. I probably work them over for so long that they become over thought. On the other hand, some chapters I've really enjoyed writing ended up being the lowest-rated in their story. But then, those chapters have no sex. They just tell a story that I like, so I guess the result isn't surprising.
Click to expand...

For me it is almost the opposite. The stories I struggle with writing tend to do really well. The ones that I write for the pure fun of it aren't doing so well.
 
ShyTammy said:
For me it is almost the opposite. The stories I struggle with writing tend to do really well. The ones that I write for the pure fun of it aren't doing so well.
Click to expand...

My problem is slightly different. My two highest rated stories have NO comments. They are rated hot by very large margins. One has been up for several years it's pushing a 4.76 and has been read thousands of times.It is also one of my finest stories and one of my best love stories. WHY no feedback. The other is more recent a sequel to one of my most commented on hot stories several years old for which I have received TONS of requests for a sequel. Pushing a 4.77 and not ONE comment. It too is among my favorite stories. On the other hand, my "loving wives" stories get 40 or 50 responses regularly. It's really weird to be both so thoroughly enjoyed, yes also so completely ignored.
 
I think my favorite story is usually the most recen onet. And correcting for category bias (mainly LW), there is a general trend with higher scores for my later stories. So readers and I seem to agree that I'm improving :)
 
Last edited:
I must be in the minority in that my favourite stories of mine are the ones that are highest rated on my profile.

My big hang up isn't so much my ratings, but that one of my favourite stories barely has any views. It's a celebrity story about Natalie Portman and my only explanation is she's not as popular as she use to be. Meanwhile I write a story about Emma Watson and I end up eclipsing all my other views put together.
 
Wifetheif said:
My problem is slightly different. My two highest rated stories have NO comments. They are rated hot by very large margins. One has been up for several years it's pushing a 4.76 and has been read thousands of times.It is also one of my finest stories and one of my best love stories. WHY no feedback. The other is more recent a sequel to one of my most commented on hot stories several years old for which I have received TONS of requests for a sequel. Pushing a 4.77 and not ONE comment. It too is among my favorite stories. On the other hand, my "loving wives" stories get 40 or 50 responses regularly. It's really weird to be both so thoroughly enjoyed, yes also so completely ignored.
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I've often wondered what drives comments as well. Are they just more common in certain categories, for instance?
 
DragonflySong said:
I've often wondered what drives comments as well. Are they just more common in certain categories, for instance?
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Category related, definitely, but there's no logic to it. I have a three part story, all high scores, yet the first part got a lot of comments, the second part (which has the highest score of the three) far fewer comments.

I've found that those stories of mine which are "outside the norm here on Lit" bring the largest number of comments, and I think comments also attract comments.
 
I find that has been the case for me! My earliest (and, in my mind, least-refined) works have been the most viewed and most favorited.

That being said, some of my less-viewed work has also received some very positive feedback, so I'm glad people enjoy it. I think I've had a chance to hone my craft and some of those pieces are ones that I think I've actually managed to do fairly well (though obviously I can always improve).
 
Letting people know you're interested in reading/seeing their comments with an author's note at the end of your story can help. Occasionally, I'll reply to an especially provocative comment. A few times, I've replied with a PM, too.

As for my favorites vs my readers' favorites - I find the most success with the stories where I've worked the hardest to make it a good story. There are a few fluff pieces that have inexplicably done well, too. But mostly, the stories that attract my passion score the best.
 
I find, based on my limited experience, that my own view of the quality of a story bears no relation to how it does in terms of views/votes/favorites/rating. My highest rated story is my lowest viewed story. My lowest-rated story, by far, was, until recently, my most voted upon story. I've written two stories that were rated somewhat lower than I thought they might be, but which got plenty of views, votes, and favorites.

My impression is that if you write something that is good but somewhat outside the norm of what is expected in the category in which it is submitted, it may do just fine in terms of favorites, votes, and views, but the rating may suffer because some people will rate your story poorly for not delivering what they expected, even if it's good.
 
What drives me nuts, is the "Anonymous" comments that appear to seek out those stories that they know they hate just to post negative comments.
 
Mymantoy999 said:
What drives me nuts, is the "Anonymous" comments that appear to seek out those stories that they know they hate just to post negative comments.
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Here you have the power to drive this commenters nuts just by deleting their comment.
 
ShyTammy said:
One interesting thing I found is that the stories I loved writing most are the lowest rated, while others are rated much higher.
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It's perplexing, to be sure. It seems that in the categories where I usually write, Gay Male and Crossdressing, the audience doesn't seem to want anything but straight to the sex masturbation fodder (which is what this site is about, really), and my favorite story, with my favorite two characters, 'Ladies Night at the Leather Bar' attracted little in the way of votes, 'favoriting', or comments. It's the same on another site as well. But the one anonymous comment it received was marvelous - they truly 'got' what it was about.

I get it: when I'm in the midst of a nice wank and a story ends and I pick another, I don't want my mind to wander while I read about complex characters or setups - I want to get straight to the gooey stuff.

It's the difference between porn and erotica, but I think most people on these sites are looking for straight up 'make me cum' porn, and there is certainly no faulting them for that.

It's just the nature of the beast.
 
I post extensively in GM here (several times more stories than the next most prolific GM author here) and have a few in Crossdressing. No, they don't comment too much, but that's pretty much across the board for GM on the Internet. They read and vote at a lower rate than some other categories here--but they participate in that at this site as much as I see them do on any other site, including solely GM sites. So, that's all relative. I also don't see much in the way of homophobia comments/votes (a few). They do, in my experience, respond to the sex-filled better than the less-sex GM stories, but I get good reaction--and enthusiastic comments--to the more complex stories. It isn't like they are ignored or unappreciated.

So, the bottom line is that, for GM and Crossdressing, this site will probably give you better reception than most others.
 
My two favourite stories are also my two lowest scoring - I have assumed that I like them best because they're personal to me, but maybe that makes them slightly less accessible to some of the readers on here.

The trouble with the ratings is that it only takes one score of 1 to completely skew the score, even if everyone else thinks the story is great!
 
Naughty_Penpal said:
The trouble with the ratings is that it only takes one score of 1 to completely skew the score, even if everyone else thinks the story is great!
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Only when the number of scores is very low - once you have around 40 or so scores, your story has pretty much settled into its steady state score. The random and contest sweeps then take care of the 1-bombs, so you might see your score fluctuate every once in a while.
 
Yes! Me too!

Stories that I think are awesome get lukewarm responses, while stories I just kind of throw together get better scores. Of course, I either way, I write them for myself, just for kicks, so I never lose sleep over scores or feedback.
 
Yup

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's least favorite stories to write were the Sherlock Holmes stories and his most popular, memorable and famous stories were the Sherlock Holmes stories.

Sometimes irony can be pretty ironic.
 
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