Ego Check: Bad Stories with Good Ratings

[Not2Pervy]

I think we’ve all encountered this phenomenon: finding an author with multiple stories that score very well, many 4.8 and above, not in niche categories, earning hundreds of votes, and yet when you dip into the stories they strike you as surprisingly poorly written.

I’m not so interested in theories about why or how this happens. I’ve seen that discussed multiple times. I’m more interested in how does that make you feel, and how do you deal with those feelings?

Pretty sure I’m not alone in finding it discouraging.

 

[Not2Pervy]

Just to clarify: I don’t think I’m especially good. The stuff I’m referring to is writing that I think nearly anyone on this forum would agree simply fails to measure up in multiple ways, as in, it’s simply bad.

 

[NotWise]

I've never had the experience. I've heard others complain about it, and I don't understand the problem. What can be so discouraging about someone else's rating?

 

[MelissaBaby]

I don't pay any attention to other people's ratings, unless I'm competing against them in a contest. I only judge my ratings against the standard I set for myself.

 

[lovecraft68]

This is story/author shaming, period.

The idea that other authors should find it discouraging smacks of saying they're better.

Things here are way to subjective to play this game. The story someone thinks is bad, others enjoy and the other way around.

Stop worrying about what other authors and stories are doing and be concerned with your own work is my advice.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

I've tried to read some highly rated stories and contest winners. Never made it more than half way down the first page.

People liked them though, so just shows different tastes.

 

[Not2Pervy]

I don't pay any attention to other people's ratings, unless I'm competing against them in a contest. I only judge my ratings against the standard I set for myself.

That’s the best way to play it, of course. I’m trying to have a more mature, more evolved attitude, but it’s not always easy.

 

[SimonDoom]

I've felt the same way about scores since early in my experience here, and I feel the same way now. Scores are not meaningless, in my opinion-- a hundred stories with a score of 4.8 will, on average, be better than a hundred stories with a score of 4.3. But there are so many variables, random factors, and peculiarities of taste involved that it doesn't surprise me when I see stories with high ratings that don't suit my taste.

The answer simply is not to care too much about scores. Enjoy when you get a high score. Don't fret about others' scores. Focus on more worthwhile things. There are so many worthwhile, positive things to focus on when publishing stories here that this seems like something not worth spending any time thinking about.

 

[MelissaBaby]

That’s the best way to play it, of course. I’m trying to have a more mature, more evolved attitude, but it’s not always easy.

The key is to remember that ratings are extremely subjective. Readers in different categories vote based on different criteria. Brilliantly written stories on touchy subjects can get lower scores than much poorer quality stories that hit the right buttons. Writers with a lot of loyal followers have a built in advantage. There are a lot of reasons why any given story gets a particular rating. The playing field is never level, so direct comparisons are pretty much meaningless.

 

[Nynah]

I don't find it discouraging. Authors who have multiple stories over 4.8 with hundreds of votes have clearly found something that works for them, and a large portion of the readership seems to enjoy what they write, so good for them. This is a free website but the barrier to entry to get published is actually fairly high, given how many people seem to be rejected for AI-use / formatting snafus, etc. If an author is able to navigate that, get published and accrue a following? That's success by most measures, even if their stories are "poorly written" by some subjective AH metric.

 

[filthytrancendence]

One of my best friend's favorite catchphrases is, "that depends what you mean by bad." He says it pretty much every time I ask him anything in the neighborhood of "isn't X bad?"

He does it because he's an irritating pedant on purpose to fuck with me. But he's also always right.

When you see something that you're tempted to call 'overrated,' what that means 10 times out of 10 is that your criteria for judging it is different than the criteria being used by the larger audience. Everybody's got a different level of deviation from the wider audience. And I think the closer you get to an artistic medium, the more likely your opinion is to deviate from the average in one direction or the other.

It's perilous to draw conclusions from these deviations. That includes allowing it to balloon into disappointment. Is rating even the thing you're chasing? If it is, it might be worth digging into the story despite your distaste for it in order to try and identify why it's resonated with an audience. I think a lot of writers bounce off of 'poorly written' stuff a little too easily. I get why. We're staring at our stuff all the time and we see all the errors we would have fixed. But it's possible to read something riddled with errors and still pick out something to learn from or at least think about.

You don't have to do that, of course. But if you want something truly productive to do with the rating envy, there it is. If not, just let it slide off your back like so much water.

 

[Britva415]

I don't understand the problem. What can be so discouraging about someone else's rating?

The idea that other authors should find it discouraging smacks of saying they're better.

I wonder if there's some kind of FOMO along the lines of - that other person's H rating on their shitty story is pulling undeserved eyeballs away from my own writing. Which of course would make them lash out.

Ego ego ego.

 

[SinclairGroupLLP]

I get angry about the opposite. Interracial, my usual category is a tough one on authors - it’s usually rare for non-500+ follower authors to get above 4.5, sometimes even 4. So I tend to go out of my way to read the lowest scores one first.

Often, but not always, the score is deserved - some people are really bad at writing dialogue, let me tell you - but I always find a couple of diamonds in those low scores. I think it’s far more disheartening for a good story to get a sub 4 than it is for a shitty story to get a 4.7+.

 

[Britva415]

If this discussion were made from the point of view of a reader, it would have a whole different thrust.

 

[filthytrancendence]

it would have a whole different thrust.

More erratic, and yet also more forceful, I should think.

 

[Britva415]

 

[Bamagan]

I think we’ve all encountered this phenomenon: finding an author with multiple stories that score very well, many 4.8 and above, not in niche categories, earning hundreds of votes, and yet when you dip into the stories they strike you as surprisingly poorly written.

I’m not so interested in theories about why or how this happens. I’ve seen that discussed multiple times. I’m more interested in how does that make you feel, and how do you deal with those feelings?

Pretty sure I’m not alone in finding it discouraging.

I think that the majority of voters here more-or-less take the voting rubric at face value. Ranging from hate to love, it's asking for an emotional response to the content in question, not a technical, analytical, or intellectual one (but obviously some people factor things like that into their vote). The nature of the stories here likely means that there's an impetus for voting high if they at least got the reader aroused, or helped them climax. It does not usually take a perfectly crafted story to do that, any more than a gourmet meal is necessary to satisfy one's hunger, except in the cases of people with highly 'refined' tastes. There's a common trope in smut that seems applicable: what the story (or author) lacks in experience is made up for with enthusiasm.

Since most readers are (presumably) not also writers, they are likely less critical of compositional flaws until they get to the point of making a story difficult to follow. As writers who are usually looking to improve, and who mostly rely on self-editing, we are probably prone to getting hung up on things in other people's stories that we would correct if they were in our own draft. Sometimes those are true errors, sometimes they're pet peeves or simply matters of style. It's an occupational hazard of sorts. It probably means authors are easier to jostle out of 'the mood' when encountering things like that, so it's not unexpected if it means reacting with 'meh' to a story many others found hot. It might just be an issue of calibration.

 

[RetroFan]

If you want to keep your ego in check as a writer, submit a story in Loving Wives. Even the better rated and higher viewed stories there will have some negative - and without doubt strongly worded - criticism about them.

 

[TheLobster]

I’m more interested in how does that make you feel, and how do you deal with those feelings?

I pull out from my secret drawer a long glove made of scintillating, light crimson silk, and after clearing my throat with deliberate flourish I say to myself, “well, obviously, it’s because this author writes stories with zero conflict, where the skanky unicorn girl jumps on the limp cardboard male character out of sheer horniness and nothing else.”

 

[Not2Pervy]

Is rating even the thing you're chasing? If it is, it might be worth digging into the story despite your distaste for it in order to try and identify why it's resonated with an audience.

I think this is solid advice. And I must say for the one writer whose clumsy prose offended my tastes, upon analysis they did do a pretty good job, IMO, of slowly building up to the erotic payoff. Although I’ve known that can be a factor in a story earning higher scores, it may be more important than artful use of language, vividly drawn characters, or many other standard measures of “good” writing.

So kudos to you, Mr/Ms X, for doing that thing you do well enough to really hit home with a wide swath of readers. As for me, I’ve had success here beyond what I would have ever thought possible, and I am grateful. I know I still have many lessons to learn.

 

[THBGato]

I can only think of one writer this possibly applies to in Lesbian Sex. To be clear, I adore that writer's stories.

The writing is plain, for the most part, the narrative style simple - straightforward 1st person, past tense, chronological, addressing the reader.

But the stories, oh the stories! They have such an emotional heft to them, that they pack a punch way above the weight of the prose that carries them.

For me, these are 5 star stories and regular re-reads.

I don't know if this is quite what you are talking about - writing average, scores high. But it's not about the writing, it's about the story.

Flip that around, there's a brilliant new writer in LS and EV. Pure poetry. But her scores are mid to low 4s and I think it's because they are emotionally exhausting and readers can't relate or engage.

So, is that what's going on?

 

[Not2Pervy]

Honestly, the stories that prompted this post were mostly in Group Sex and I/T and would likely for most tastes be what is commonly referred to as “strokers.” What hit me as “bad” writing was a real mood killer but clearly many others were not similarly affected.

For what it’s worth (probably not much), from what I’ve seen I would say the general quality of the writing in the Lesbian category, although not what I typically read, is probably higher than any other category.

 

[Not2Pervy]

So, is that what's going on?

Sorry. Meant to reply above.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I’m more interested in how does that make you feel, and how do you deal with those feelings?

It's a shrug from me. Generally speaking, I find highly rated stories in my main categories of interest are in fact quite well written and deserve their scores. But then, I tend to find stories that interest me from checking out followers, and other stories they like. There's a double filter effect going on there. I rarely if ever browse the new story lists, so the higher scores I see are written by like-minded authors and the scores long-standing, which I think lessens the popularity effect.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

I pull out from my secret drawer a long glove made of scintillating, light crimson silk, and after clearing my throat with deliberate flourish I say to myself, “well, obviously, it’s because this author writes stories with zero conflict, where the skanky unicorn girl jumps on the limp cardboard male character out of sheer horniness and nothing else.”

Whatever. -.-