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Are Lit ratings a good guide of success!

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georgie57

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I posted a story on Lit finally, and found myself anxiously watching its rating. (It started well, then slipped, and averaged out at 4.2) What do people think this rating really indicates? Is it a sign of anything much really, and if so, what is a good score? Or don't you think they matter
 
I wish I knew.
I've been writing for myself for about 15 years. Then I was brave enough to show a few friends some stuff I had written and they said it was good. But it's hard to know if friends aren't just saying that to not hurt your feelings.
Then I got brave enough to post stuff here and even though I have had some good comments and like you my ratings have leveled off at around 4.3 (which my kids keep saying that's out of 5 and you're not happy) and yeah that is pretty good I guess, but I strive for perfect and not seeing 5 out of 5 makes me feel like maybe what I write is crappy.

I think like any other art, and yes to me writing is art, you'll have people that love it and some that hate it. You can't please everyone can you?

I am trying to be happy with my less than perfect rating, and really that should just encourage me to write even better next time!
 
The ratings are as important as you want them to be. Most readers don't vote; and many of those who do vote, vote out of spite. (I'll show you, you smart arse author!)

It's disappointing when something that you thought was pretty successful struggles to get above three, but that doesn't really tell you anything about the quality of the story. In one bad 24-hour period, I lost 14 red Hs. Ask yourself: does that tell you anything useful?
 
I admit seeing those broken hearts and reading that someone has un-favorited a story of yours is well...heartbreaking.
A few people have said that sometimes someone will favorite a story to come back and read it, then un-favorite it after they read it, but still it does put a frown on my face when I see that little broken heart!
 
They're good for bragging and....and...uh, nope that's it.
 
CoffeeWithMonkeys said:
I admit seeing those broken hearts and reading that someone has un-favorited a story of yours is well...heartbreaking.
A few people have said that sometimes someone will favorite a story to come back and read it, then un-favorite it after they read it, but still it does put a frown on my face when I see that little broken heart!
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So what proof do YOU need to convince YOU of your talent and skill? It's obvious you have both, but what will convince YOU?
 
NOIRTRASH said:
So what proof do YOU need to convince YOU of your talent and skill? It's obvious you have both, but what will convince YOU?
Click to expand...

Sadly, I honesty don't know if anything ever will. It took so much for me to put something I've written out for the world to read. I shared with a handful of friends about a year or so ago, but that was it. They all told me they loved what I had written but I thought, they're my friends and don't want to hurt my feelings.

I will never think what I write is the best shit ever, like a couple people I've seen here seem to think about themselves...but hopefully one day I'll be happy with what I've written. If what I write makes me happy, then that should be good enough!
But knowing that and actually executing that are two different things.
 
All a rating might indicate is the relative popularity of that story within its category.

A higher rating might also indicate that you have made fewer enemies on the Lit Boards.

Popularity as shown by the rating does not necessarily equate to the quality of the story, but it can. A well written story can have a high rating. It could also have a low rating because the subject matter annoys people (or you have enemies!).
 
CoffeeWithMonkeys said:
Sadly, I honesty don't know if anything ever will. It took so much for me to put something I've written out for the world to read. I shared with a handful of friends about a year or so ago, but that was it. They all told me they loved what I had written but I thought, they're my friends and don't want to hurt my feelings.

I will never think what I write is the best shit ever, like a couple people I've seen here seem to think about themselves...but hopefully one day I'll be happy with what I've written. If what I write makes me happy, then that should be good enough!
But knowing that and actually executing that are two different things.
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You need to change your account to DOUBTING THOMAS.
 
I recently discovered what drives views, and what lotsa views mean.

One of my tales got close to 60,000 views in no time at all. It had tons of favorites though the score barely held around 4.00, I forfeit a whole point being NOIRTTRASH. The trick is incest with a happy ending. The views were repeats of the same readers.
 
NOIRTRASH said:
You need to change your account to DOUBTING THOMAS.
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Maybe I should.
Or I wish I could just suck it up and think maybe what I write is ok, maybe even enjoyable to someone.


"I'm good enough. I'm smart enough. And doggone it, people like me."
Anyone remember this, from SNL I think. Maybe I can say it every day and think heck this could be true of me!
 
CoffeeWithMonkeys said:
Maybe I should.
Or I wish I could just suck it up and think maybe what I write is ok, maybe even enjoyable to someone.


"I'm good enough. I'm smart enough. And doggone it, people like me."
Anyone remember this, from SNL I think. Maybe I can say it every day and think heck this could be true of me!
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I don't need an answer. WHO DO YOU WANNA IMPRESS? Because it seems to me you already get favorable feedback from many.
 
The rating says far from everything about the quality of a story. But there seems to be a correlation. High ranked stories tend to, in my experience, on average be better stories than lower ranked ones. I rarely find stories below 4 that are worth reading. But I also find stories above 4.5 that are complete shit, so there is lots of variation.
 
That's it in a nutshell.

[/B]QUOTE=tomlitilia;80248360]The rating says far from everything about the quality of a story. But there seems to be a correlation. High ranked stories tend to, in my experience, on average be better stories than lower ranked ones. I rarely find stories below 4 that are worth reading. But I also find stories above 4.5 that are complete shit, so there is lots of variation.[/QUOTE]
 
NOIRTRASH said:
I don't need an answer. WHO DO YOU WANNA IMPRESS? Because it seems to me you already get favorable feedback from many.
Click to expand...

What impresses me is the number of views and responses of any kind on Literotica - votes, favorites, comments and feedback - compared with posting a story on almost any other site.

Whether all the views are genuine doesn't matter except to compare one of my stories against another. But the total number of views added together for all my stories is a fantastic number.
 
tomlitilia said:
The rating says far from everything about the quality of a story. But there seems to be a correlation. High ranked stories tend to, in my experience, on average be better stories than lower ranked ones. I rarely find stories below 4 that are worth reading. But I also find stories above 4.5 that are complete shit, so there is lots of variation.
Click to expand...

LIT scores suffer from two fatal problems: The scores aren't reliable or valid.
 
georgie57 said:
I posted a story on Lit finally, and found myself anxiously watching its rating. (It started well, then slipped, and averaged out at 4.2) What do people think this rating really indicates? Is it a sign of anything much really, and if so, what is a good score? Or don't you think they matter
Click to expand...

They vote, if they vote, on a scale from 1 to 5. You have to figure, at least I do, that anything over 2.5 is fairly good. Anything over a 4 has to be fantastic. Between 4.5 and 5, brilliant.

You have a 4.2. I'm always pleased with a 4.2. Yes, I would prefer a 4.5 or a 5, but a 4.2 is really good in my book.
 
georgie57 said:
I posted a story on Lit finally, and found myself anxiously watching its rating. (It started well, then slipped, and averaged out at 4.2) What do people think this rating really indicates? Is it a sign of anything much really, and if so, what is a good score? Or don't you think they matter
Click to expand...
My opinion (and it may apply only to Incest/Taboo as that's the only category I read/write) is that the scores IMHO relate more to the premise of the story than the quality of writing. My first two postings (Heather and Michael Ch 01 and Ch 02) have a 4.47 and a 4.66 score despite the fact the writing is filled with errors, the characters are shallow and they wind up having sex...just because. But the story had a very strong premise and hit a lot of the buttons that readers in the I/T category enjoying having pressed.

Just glancing at your story, it's in the "Exhibitionist & Voyeur" category and it's about "A young man has his first gay experience, and more." My guess is that your low score is more tied to the fact that your story has gay sex in it than any other thing. Gay sex in the I/T category always gets a low score and I'm guessing it's the same in the E&V category. If you moved your story to Gay Male (probably delete and re-post), you might get a better score.
 
8letters said:
Just glancing at your story, it's in the "Exhibitionist & Voyeur" category and it's about "A young man has his first gay experience, and more." My guess is that your low score is more tied to the fact that your story has gay sex in it than any other thing. Gay sex in the I/T category always gets a low score and I'm guessing it's the same in the E&V category. If you moved your story to Gay Male (probably delete and re-post), you might get a better score.
Click to expand...

If your story does have a gay relationship/encounter in it, this advice is probably spot on.

First, though, what do you consider "success" to be for the stories you post here?

Beyond that, no, there are too many games going on with the scoring that don't relate to the context of the story itself for the rating to have a great deal of meaning in connection to story quality.
 
Each category should be taken on its own. If you are looking at the incest category, and its below 4ish, I wouldn't read it. The scene could be poorly written with bad grammar, no build up past maybe "Johnny walked in the room, Mom wus siting their own da beed, toples her 36FFF tits were perky, amazing, 'wanna fuk?'" and it would still get close to 4 points. However, loving wives is absolutely brutal. It could be a story that should win awards that you have posted there, and it will be a bad rating, because people have their own opinion on what loving wives should be.
 
Jay321 said:
Each category should be taken on its own. If you are looking at the incest category, and its below 4ish, I wouldn't read it. The scene could be poorly written with bad grammar, no . . .
Click to expand...

But it's just as likely that someone is just playing games with the author on anything the author posts. There's just too much of that going on here to be that reliant on rating generalizations.
 
I try to stay out of the politics here. I guess if I wanted to do that I should not have gotten on the boards...


(BTW: avoiding the politics is why I edited that post on the other thread that you liked)
 
You don't have to be on the boards for a gamester or someone who just doesn't think what you write should be permitted at Literotica to pick your stories out for special attention.
 
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