Are ratings indicative of talent?

[lolaraewantsitall]

Hi all!

Do you think that ratings and engagement are a good way to accurately judge your skill? I've taken the leap into writing because I genuinely enjoy it, but the perfectionist in me wants to be phenomenal at everything I do lol. Anything less tends to be admittedly a bit demoralizing. How do you objectively tell if you're good at what you do?


Backstory: I'm fairly new to the writing scene, and am a late bloomer in terms of my writing journey. I think those two aspects lead to a lot of my questioning. Almost every writer I've heard of has been writing for as long as they can remember and feel this drive and nagging need to complete a story like they need oxygen. I've always loved reading and always came up with stories in my head, but hated writing. It wasn't until later in life, I realized that had to do with undiagnosed ADHD. Turns out I love storytelling, but it is so stressful for me to collect my thoughts coherently and complete a story quickly and that frustration was mislabeled as hate. Writing is still a challenge for me. I have lists of ideas and notes for them but not many finished stories.

 

[Cuckwannabe111]

Honest opinion here....I think ratings are not a good measure of how talented an author is or is not. I have read stories which had high ratings (4+) that were horribly written, had numerous typographical errors, and had no flow whatsoever. An English Lit teacher would rip it up in front of class. I have also read the occasional story that, in my opinion, was very well written but had a low rating. I feel that the ratings are based upon whether a reader likes the material more than anything. I do know this...I have read comment sections of some stories, and they seem to be full of someone who doesn't like that particular subject. For example, if a cheating wife isn't your thing, why are you reading stories under the "Loving Wives" tab? If force isn't your thing, why read "Reluctance or Non consent" stories?

 

[lolaraewantsitall]

Honest opinion here....I think ratings are not a good measure of how talented an author is or is not. I have read stories which had high ratings (4+) that were horribly written, had numerous typographical errors, and had no flow whatsoever. An English Lit teacher would rip it up in front of class. I have also read the occasional story that, in my opinion, was very well written but had a low rating. I feel that the ratings are based upon whether a reader likes the material more than anything. I do know this...I have read comment sections of some stories, and they seem to be full of someone who doesn't like that particular subject. For example, if a cheating wife isn't your thing, why are you reading stories under the "Loving Wives" tab? If force isn't your thing, why read "Reluctance or Non consent" stories?

Thanks for the reply and insight! I've seen that mentioned in threads before. That the "Loving Wives" category always gets one-bombed by people that hate that kink. I personally couldn't sit through 5 pages of a kink I hate just to crap on it in detail. Heck, I'm selectively too lazy to click on something I know I won't like just to rate it poorly. It seems like a waste of time.

 

[lolaraewantsitall]

Depends on the 'area' you want to get valued. It might be a good measure of how well a writer manages to please the audience, and how well (s)he manages to avoid those who won't like his/her work.

An author may be incredibly bad in grammar, spelling, paragraphing, pacing, painting a realistic picture, etc. etc., but if the readers still get a thrill out of the work, (sometimes measured in ml) all of that doesn't matter. Like, 50 shades... (And taking cover again...)

Thanks for the reply and insight! Also, great point about 50 Shades lol.

 

[Winter_Fare]

Hi all!

Do you think that ratings and engagement are a good way to accurately judge your skill?

No, they're a poor indicator of skill, if you see them as a test, it's more a test of mainstream popularity.

I've taken the leap into writing because I genuinely enjoy it, but the perfectionist in me wants to be phenomenal at everything I do lol. Anything less tends to be admittedly a bit demoralizing.

Most people read stuff and move on without even voting, even if they liked it.

How do you objectively tell if you're good at what you do?

Ask someone who's opinion you value, maybe someone who's own work resonates with you as good.

Backstory: I'm fairly new to the writing scene, and am a late bloomer in terms of my writing journey. I think those two aspects lead to a lot of my questioning. Almost every writer I've heard of has been writing for as long as they can remember and feel this drive and nagging need to complete a story like they need oxygen. I've always loved reading and always came up with stories in my head, but hated writing. It wasn't until later in life, I realized that had to do with undiagnosed ADHD.

Same

Turns out I love storytelling, but it is so stressful for me to collect my thoughts coherently and complete a story quickly and that frustration was mislabeled as hate.

I will argue that I have had a creative imagination since forever but am not always good sorting the wheat from the chaff and getting it down on paper. And between life, work and my own mental health my more ambitious projects will likely not be finished. Sadly, I don't have a drive to finish anything.

Writing is still a challenge for me. I have lists of ideas and notes for them but not many finished stories.

Please don't beat yourself up about it. I'm lucky if I manage to put the bin out once a week and remember to make dinner some days. Take every win as it comes x

 

[lolaraewantsitall]

No, they're a poor indicator of skill, if you see them as a test, it's more a test of mainstream popularity.

Most people read stuff and move on without even voting, even if they liked it.

Ask someone who's opinion you value, maybe someone who's own work resonates with you as good.

Same

I will argue that I have had a creative imagination since forever but am not always good sorting the wheat from the chaff and getting it down on paper. And between life, work and my own mental health my more ambitious projects will likely not be finished. Sadly, I don't have a drive to finish anything.


Please don't beat yourself up about it. I'm lucky if I manage to put the bin out once a week and remember to make dinner some days. Take every win as it comes x

Thanks for the reply and insight!

Your response was refreshing, especially coming from a fellow ADHDer. I try not to be too hard on myself, but the perfectionist part of my brain is a sadist lol. I'll keep what you said in mind. Thanks again!

 

[stickygirl]

Thanks Winters and Lolarae for being upfront about your mental health. No one can fix how you are, but making your life a little less fraught is within everyone else's ability so long as we understand. Maybe write a couple of stories that put your message across - it doesn't have to preach. I do that with transgender themes or ASD and it gives my writing a focus.

As for ratings - you can't please all the people etc. When someone you respect gives you good feedback - that's real praise. Write for yourself but bring us along too

 

[lolaraewantsitall]

Thanks Winters and Lolarae for being upfront about your mental health. No one can fix how you are, but making your life a little less fraught is within everyone else's ability so long as we understand. Maybe write a couple of stories that put your message across - it doesn't have to preach. I do that with transgender themes and it gives my writing a focus.

As for ratings - you can't please all the people etc. When someone you respect gives you good feedback - that's real praise. Write for yourself but bring us along too

Thanks for the reply and insight!

Including personal experiences is a great idea! I'll have to work on including it into stories seamlessly. Thanks again =)

 

[lolaraewantsitall]

Just be careful when including things that matter to you. Rude comments hurt extra when it becomes personal.

Good point! I'm a sensitive person so that's definitely something to keep into consideration.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Ratings are possibly more indicative of whether you've given the readers what they expected from the category, title and tagline. If you're story ticks the boxes and isn't too badly written, it'll do well.

If your story is a little different then despite any heads-up in your intro, it's less likely to score well because the nature of Lit scoring is 5 is a default and then you can lose points. You only need to disappoint a few people for scores to plummet.

Until you have say 20 votes, scores are fairly meaningless, but some categories readers don't vote much. (glares at Gay Male - would it kill you guys to tap the screen once after your fap?) Other readers are very opinionated (Anal) and give 200 votes where GM would give 2...

 

[lolaraewantsitall]

Ratings are possibly more indicative of whether you've given the readers what they expected from the category, title and tagline. If you're story ticks the boxes and isn't too badly written, it'll do well.

If your story is a little different then despite any heads-up in your intro, it's less likely to score well because the nature of Lit scoring is 5 is a default and then you can lose points. You only need to disappoint a few people for scores to plummet.

Until you have say 20 votes, scores are fairly meaningless, but some categories readers don't vote much. (glares at Gay Male - would it kill you guys to tap the screen once after your fap?) Other readers are very opinionated (Anal) and give 200 votes where GM would give 2...

Thanks for the reply and insight!

Also, your last few sentences made me chuckle lol.

 

[oggbashan]

I used to run The Authors' Hangout Last Place (tm) contest with every themed contest. After the last sweep, and the winners had been declared, authors were able to nominate their story for the Last Place contest for having the lowest rating and/or the fewest votes.

Most of those stories were well-written and deserved better but they were either in unpopular categories or the premise didn't attract votes.

If a winner of the main contest waited too long after the announcement, that story might win both the main contest and the Last Place contest as people 1-bombed the winner either out of jealousy or saying - "That won? It wasn't good enough to win."

 

[ChloeTzang]

Do you think that ratings and engagement are a good way to accurately judge your skill? I've taken the leap into writing because I genuinely enjoy it, but the perfectionist in me wants to be phenomenal at everything I do lol. Anything less tends to be admittedly a bit demoralizing. How do you objectively tell if you're good at what you do?

Nope. Ratings and engagement are a measure of what the Literotica audience in a particular category enjoy, that's all. Know yourself and what you want to achieve, and if its high ratings and engagement on Literotica, study the category you want to write in and what works for the readers and work to that. I've done that and it's fun when you write a targeted story and see the views soar and the ratings go up and down like a yo yo as readers war with trolls, especially in the competitions, but over time I've gravitated mostly to writing what I have fun writing.

How do you objectively tell? Depends what you're aiming for. If its a high rating in a specific category, you know when you're up there in the 4.8+ ratings for that story. But that may not necessarily reflect really good writing so much as you've hit the spot for your audience. It is objective though.

On the other hand, good writing is a lot more subjective. Me, if I enjoy re-reading one of my own stories, that does it for me, and then I look at things like the more technical stuff -grammar, spelling, characterization, consistency, repetition, plot.... improving my plotting is a big thing for me because I'm really not good at that for anything more than a straight linear flow.

 

[lovecraft68]

Simply put, no.

 

[Winter_Fare]

unequivocally not. If you get really high ratings It means you've reached the highest common denominator.

And that doesn't even touch on the weird fraction of writers that make fifteen plus accounts and go around talking to themselves on message boards and skew the stats with multiple votes.
But it's all entertainment.

 

[Lifestyle66]

Do you think that ratings and engagement are a good way to accurately judge your skill?

Backstory: I'm fairly new to the writing scene, and am a late bloomer in terms of my writing journey.

I've seen that mentioned in threads before. That the "Loving Wives" category always gets one-bombed by people that hate that kink.

It was only two years ago that I started (late in life) to try my hand at writing fiction, so 'Welcome to the club'.

Take the ratings and comments as a guide to improve your writing, but they are not objectively a one-for-one indicator.
The readers in different categories are looking for different things and will generally reward or disparage your story based on meeting their expectations. But they can be overly critical in some categories, such as Loving Wives. They might prefer stories focused on the female POV, possibly looking for short story wank-off material, or even the slow build of tension or romance in longer stories before subtly alluding to sex. The ratings might be affected by the day-of-the-week it publishes as to which random sampling of readers sees it. The story title and description lines might make one story selected more than others, just as your author penname here suggest something of your personality. And even any one reader might change their tastes from one day to the next.

Once you get over any obsession with ratings (yes, I was obsessed watching the averages for the first year), I learned I can have fun writing even with my LW story "A Gathering of Trolls" specifically written to attract the 1-bombs! I wrote that in just two days, and it's at 2.86 with 159 ratings!

So, take pride in your work and take any criticism in stride. But have fun!

 

[TarnishedPenny]

OK, I'm the type who spends a lot of time pulling on doors clearly marked PUSH, so I'm going to say 'Yes'.

Yes, to a certain degree.

With caveats.

Those caveats include the reality that this is indeed a popularity rating, not a judgement by serious, high-domed, tenured Professors of Erotic Literature (and, these days, there might actually be some of those).

Second, the voting is skewed, sometimes by overenthusiastic fans, sometimes by cheating authors (subset, sometimes apparently on an industrial level) and most often by spiteful trolls. The site attempts to correct, but there are ways around that. So a score of 4.6 is not necessarily 'better' than 4.5'.

Third, it's a small subject board and people vote for what turns them on. I'll get to that.

That said, a story scoring (and I'm just picking numbers at random) 4.75 is almost certainly a better read than one scoring 2.75. That one fact is reasonably good evidence that high-scoring writers generally have better plots, better characters and have a basic understanding of grammar and spelling. Exceptions test the rule, not prove it.

And, while saying that people vote for things that turn them on may be so, people are generally going to be more easily turned on by something well-written.

That it is essentially a popularity contest is also true, but so what? So's the New York Times best-sellers list. And judgements by serious experts and radio panels have so often recommended books I myself have found turgid, dense and not all that enjoyable. I guess my point here is that people come here to be entertained. They want to enjoy themselves. The stories here are all read for pleasure, so what's wrong with it being a popularity rating?

Awaits incoming brimstone.

 

[Voboy]

You know when you're good.

You know when your story is good.

The votes/ratings are a good indicator of whether you're missing the mark for the category you're submitting in. If you've judged your category properly, in other words, your story should rate well. To me, that's the main thing that a high score indicates. So if a high score is what you're going for, or you're looking to actually win a contest, then getting that decision correct is important, I guess.

But it's not an indicator of talent. You know if you're a talented writer, I think, regardless of your scores.

 

[TadOverdon]

They're a good way to find out whether or not people like or dislike your work a lot.

Getting paid is an even better way.

 

[SimonDoom]

I think when people say things like "definitely not" they are overstating the case, somewhat.

Every positive indicator means SOMETHING. Not much perhaps, but something. I feel extremely confident that if I read 100 Literotica stories with a 4.6 score and 100 Literotica stories with a 4.1 score the 4.6 stories will be, on average, better. It's just an average, but it's still meaningful data.

There are many factors that mitigate the usefulness of scores as a point of comparison: differences between categories, whether the story "fits" the category and its readers' expectations, whether the author writes stories that go down easily or challenge readers, whether the author has trolls downvoting his or her stories. But that doesn't change the fact that given sufficient sampling story scores do serve SOME useful purpose.

That's not the same thing as talent, though. A score may reflect, in some way, the quality of a story, but it says nothing about your talent. Talent comes in a variety of forms. Some people are good storytellers but weak on writing mechanics. Others know writing mechanics but are weaker on storytelling. In general, Lit readers like good stories and are rather forgiving on things like grammar and prose style.

My advice is, don't fret about scores, and don't fret about "talent." It doesn't take that much talent to write a decent story that will get well-received at Literotica. Just write, be attentive, and see how it goes.

 

[KeithD]

Are ratings a good index of writing skill on a games-playing, open-use Internet story site? No. They can be a factor in determining skill, but there's too much at play for them to be reliable by themselves.

 

[MelissaBaby]

OK, I'm the type who spends a lot of time pulling on doors clearly marked PUSH, so I'm going to say 'Yes'.

Yes, to a certain degree.

With caveats.

Those caveats include the reality that this is indeed a popularity rating, not a judgement by serious, high-domed, tenured Professors of Erotic Literature (and, these days, there might actually be some of those).

Second, the voting is skewed, sometimes by overenthusiastic fans, sometimes by cheating authors (subset, sometimes apparently on an industrial level) and most often by spiteful trolls. The site attempts to correct, but there are ways around that. So a score of 4.6 is not necessarily 'better' than 4.5'.

Third, it's a small subject board and people vote for what turns them on. I'll get to that.

That said, a story scoring (and I'm just picking numbers at random) 4.75 is almost certainly a better read than one scoring 2.75. That one fact is reasonably good evidence that high-scoring writers generally have better plots, better characters and have a basic understanding of grammar and spelling. Exceptions test the rule, not prove it.

And, while saying that people vote for things that turn them on may be so, people are generally going to be more easily turned on by something well-written.

That it is essentially a popularity contest is also true, but so what? So's the New York Times best-sellers list. And judgements by serious experts and radio panels have so often recommended books I myself have found turgid, dense and not all that enjoyable. I guess my point here is that people come here to be entertained. They want to enjoy themselves. The stories here are all read for pleasure, so what's wrong with it being a popularity rating?

Awaits incoming brimstone.

I agree. They are an indication of talent, but they are not determinative. Yes, there are people with limited talent that manage to get high scores by playing to the lowest common denominator, cheating through alternate accounts, etc. And they must be read in context, taking category, subject matter and the author's following into consideration. But overall, higher scoring stories are likely to be better.

I usually get pretty high scores. My stories are almost always in the 30 day top lists. And I am a little bit competitive about it. So, I often read the other top stories. I've never read one yet that I thought did not deserve it's score, even when they were not to my taste. The majority of high scores are well earned.

 

[MelissaBaby]

You know when you're good.

You know when your story is good.

The votes/ratings are a good indicator of whether you're missing the mark for the category you're submitting in. If you've judged your category properly, in other words, your story should rate well. To me, that's the main thing that a high score indicates. So if a high score is what you're going for, or you're looking to actually win a contest, then getting that decision correct is important, I guess.

But it's not an indicator of talent. You know if you're a talented writer, I think, regardless of your scores.

There are many people who know they are talented writers, and are not.

 

[KeithD]

Which is not something I need to worry about or try to keep track of enough to make the assertion.

 

[lovecraft68]

They're a good way to find out whether or not people like or dislike your work a lot.

Getting paid is an even better way.

When the same person comments on your stories here its nice, but when the same person reviews all your books they had to pay to buy its a better indication they really enjoy it