Really This Bad?

[StolenTurtle]

It seems as of late, whenever I submit a new story the ratings are decent in the beginning, then they seem to suddenly plummet.

Outside of the obvious misspelling of the word "brassiere", do you really think this story is that bad? Or do I have a huge hate group that seems set on deliberately rating anything I submit nowadays a 1 vote.

I keep getting low ratings, but no one is commenting to tell me why they don't like it.

http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=383858

Just curious to see what everyone thinks.

-StolenTurtle

 

[RaLaWrites]

I just rated the story you posted recently and I think it was lovely. I forgot to leave a comment on the actual story (which I'll do right now).

I wouldn't worry about that too much. I posted a story last month which was at 4.80. Recently, someone voted and it dropped down to 4.71 momentarily, then went back up to 4.73.

The more people rate your story, the more the story's average rating fluctuates. I wouldn't worrry about it too much.

P.S. -- are you looking to make "Melted" into a series? I hope so!

 

[StolenTurtle]

RaLaWrites,

Thank you for your reply, rating and comment. That means a lot to me.

Normally, I wouldn't worry about the ratings as I do know they can fluctuate drastically, especially when a story is first posted, but so far my story has 55 votes and is sitting at a rating of 4.20. With over 50 votes already, the rating isn't going to change much in or out of my favor very easily.

I'm just confused why so many people decided they didn't like it. If there's something wrong with it that seems to resonate across the board to my readers, I certainly would like to know what it is for future writings.

Thanks again!

-StolenTurtle

 

[starrkers]

4.20 is not a bad score y'know. If you know you have a few personal trolls and discount them, that puts the score in the damned fine range.

I know about personal trolls, got one who manages to vote 1 on everything I write so that it's the first vote usually sure messes with the early scoring! Then his buddies roll in later...

When the sweeps are done - do you know about sweeps? Every now and then, about once a month usually, more often when a themed contest is running, the powers that be run programs through everyone's votes and knock out fraudulent or troll votes. How this is done is a deep dark secret.

Anyhow, just after the sweeps, I have a whole bunch of red Hs. Within days one of my personal trols rolls through and votes 1 on every submission. And I lose a lot of them.

My member page today for instance, still shows 15 Hs. But it will catch up with the scores sometime today (he was obviously busy overnight my time) and I'll be down to 8.

Seeing as a lot of my stuff has less than 20 votes, he can make a splash. Eventually either he'll get bored with this game or I'll garner enough votes that he won't have an impact. In the meantime, I guess it keeps him off the streets

I just checked your member page and noticed this story is the first you've put up since they tweaked the scoring system. They've changed the wording over the buttons to vote, as well as turning them into pretty stars. It has had a bit of an impact in the voting trends. 5 votes a little harder to come by now. So that may have affected your score too.

 

[sr71plt]

My experience with the voting is the same as Starrkers relates--down to the 1 zapper who lies in wait for something of mine to post.

 

[Guest]

Or, turn off voting and steal the trolly's power over your writing and start valuing Public Comments more (sans the comment trolls of course).

 

[YummyTiger]

I know exactly what you mean StolenTurtle. I have only submitted a few stories so far, but mine seem to be following your same trend. Start out strong and then slowly decline to around 4.2-4.3 range with little to no comments. Kind of frustrating, but hey I did get two positive comments.

Starrkers: I don't know, seems that the submissions I read that are around 4.20 level are usually not very good. Also, with so many red Hs out there, I would think that if your story doesn't get a red H, it will be disregarded by the majority of readers after its initial push.

 

[kromen]

I liked the story and voted on it. I wish there was a little more description in the characters but It was still a good read. I only worry when my votes drop below three. If I get nothing but 5's across the board, then i need a literary agent and I'm nowhere near that yet. Quid pro quo? I have had a review in such a lonnnnng time. LOL

 

[StolenTurtle]

Ooh, too funny! You deducted a point from me for my "brazier" misspelling, then you subsequently misspelled "misspelling."

Priceless.

I'll take a look at your stories too!

Thanks for reading.

-StolenTurtle

 

[Elianna]

At first I thrived on the ratings, but then I realized that they (the good and the bad) were not an accurate reflection of my writing. Just because something is popular doesn't mean it's good. There are many stories I have read on this site that don't get the ratings I believe they deserve.

Starr and SR are also correct; there are trolls out there who love to 1-bomb your story simply because they can. It means nothing except that there are mean-spirited people on Lit.

Write for yourself and not the ratings... or write for the people you know appreciate your stories. That's what makes it worthwhile anywawy.

 

[elfin_odalisque]

It seems as of late, whenever I submit a new story the ratings are decent in the beginning, then they seem to suddenly plummet.

Outside of the obvious misspelling of the word "brassiere", do you really think this story is that bad? Or do I have a huge hate group that seems set on deliberately rating anything I submit nowadays a 1 vote.

I keep getting low ratings, but no one is commenting to tell me why they don't like it.

http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=383858

Just curious to see what everyone thinks.

-StolenTurtle

Forget trolls for a moment. A score of 4.3 is well above average on the new voting system. Only about 10% of stories hit the pink square these days and you should look at the captions above 4 and 5 stars to judge your rating - it's pretty good.

On a critique basis, I am not sure why you posted Melted in Interracial. The category focusses on exploring specific issues of multiracial sex - usually the sophisticated case of black dudes with whopping dongs. What you have written is a bittersweet erotic story where the skin colors are different. You might have done better in Romance as some IR fans might feel let down.

I enjoyed your story but I think it needs a serious edit. Never mind 'brazier', or even 'chocolat[e]y', I was a bit bemused by 'every pore of his body flushed'.

Your paragraphs are a bit long for the screen - 6 to 8 lines is usually max - and dialogue should start a new para.

I go with the comment that the characters are not developed enough. In a lovely story where the interplay between Kyle and Brenda is the plot, a tad more teasing out of feelings/frustrations would have been nice. You leave hanging Brenda's final choice between Kyle and Randy - which I like - but you don't really suggest that Brenda is torn.

Good story, well written and - in all honesty - a pretty good rating.

Elle

 

[evanslily]

Forget trolls for a moment. A score of 4.3 is well above average on the new voting system. Only about 10% of stories hit the pink square these days and you should look at the captions above 4 and 5 stars to judge your rating - it's pretty good.

On a critique basis, I am not sure why you posted Melted in Interracial. The category focusses on exploring specific issues of multiracial sex - usually the sophisticated case of black dudes with whopping dongs. What you have written is a bittersweet erotic story where the skin colors are different. You might have done better in Romance as some IR fans might feel let down.

I enjoyed your story but I think it needs a serious edit. Never mind 'brazier', or even 'chocolat[e]y', I was a bit bemused by 'every pore of his body flushed'.

Your paragraphs are a bit long for the screen - 6 to 8 lines is usually max - and dialogue should start a new para.

I go with the comment that the characters are not developed enough. In a lovely story where the interplay between Kyle and Brenda is the plot, a tad more teasing out of feelings/frustrations would have been nice. You leave hanging Brenda's final choice between Kyle and Randy - which I like - but you don't really suggest that Brenda is torn.

Good story, well written and - in all honesty - a pretty good rating.

Elle

What she said

But in particular, I think your problem is chiefly with the category. As Elle says, people who read the interracial category are looking for a particular type of story. Think of what you'd be looking at if you wanted to see interracial porn movies--and I think you'll get closer to what people are expecting to read in the interracial Literotica category. Obviously, that's not true for all readers, that's a sweeping generalisation, but it might explain some of your lower votes.

Your stories are probably much better suited to Romance or Erotic Couplings. I noticed what you said on your bio page about withdrawing 'The Trip' (hey, I was enjoying that one - I wondered what'd happened to it!) but a quick google shows me that that story was in the interracial category too... I realise that you probably thought that's where your stories belong but I don't think they do.

Just my thoughts

 

[xspy4u]

Find your interest group

I'm brand new to submitting stories (so my insight may be of less value) but there are a few things to consider. First writers have ego's and you wouldn't submit something you didn't think was a "5" so it could be your craft needs work. Second writer's have ego so it's possible that some like to "1" bomb others to keep their stories ranked high. My submissions (3) are a series so what has been of most interest to me is the progressive reads - 20K for chap 1, 9K for chap 2 and 7K for 3...and the ratings go up for each chapter. The point is that by trying your hand at a series you find your interest group. When I get down to 10 reads I'll stop submitting Oh and don't write "quickly dashed" its redundant

 

[StolenTurtle]

Evanslily,

Thanks for this! I've always put my stories in the I/R category because I felt that if I didn't, people would squawk about an I/R couple being outside of the I/R category. Maybe I will try changing the category. To be honest with you, the thought never even occurred to me.

I'll try removing it and resubmitting it under a different category and see if anything changes. If not, then I'll know the story itself is just crap, lol!

Thanks! And I'm so glad you liked "The Trip". Maybe I'll thinking about popping that one in a different category too...

Thanks again!

-StolenTurtle

 

[StolenTurtle]

I'm brand new to submitting stories (so my insight may be of less value) but there are a few things to consider. First writers have ego's and you wouldn't submit something you didn't think was a "5" so it could be your craft needs work. Second writer's have ego so it's possible that some like to "1" bomb others to keep their stories ranked high. My submissions (3) are a series so what has been of most interest to me is the progressive reads - 20K for chap 1, 9K for chap 2 and 7K for 3...and the ratings go up for each chapter. The point is that by trying your hand at a series you find your interest group. When I get down to 10 reads I'll stop submitting Oh and don't write "quickly dashed" its redundant

Same thing happened to me and my series "The Trip". I removed it because it felt like people were not really interested in following such a long story. Evanslily suggested maybe swapping categories. I just might do that - I might just be posting my stories in the wrong area.

Yes, my craft needs work, but that's why I write and post - to get better. I'm certainly no Hemingway but I'm a pretty good writer, good enough anyway for my publisher to approach me and ask me to write for them, so I'm pretty psyched! (But we do get editors assigned to us to help us hone our craft.) I'm also in college taking a fiction writing class, so I'm trying to get there. All the feedback I can get, (good or bad) is helpful in every way.

It seems that everyone loves my story "A New Beginning" but just about everything I've written after that hasn't been anywhere near as popular as my very first piece of erotic fiction. I've no idea why. I like "A New Beginning" but to be honest, I really don't think it's as great as everyone's making it out to be. Just my opinion.

Thanks for the advice. I'm going to try reposting this story in another category and see if anything changes!

-StolenTurtle

 

[StolenTurtle]

At first I thrived on the ratings, but then I realized that they (the good and the bad) were not an accurate reflection of my writing. Just because something is popular doesn't mean it's good. There are many stories I have read on this site that don't get the ratings I believe they deserve.

Starr and SR are also correct; there are trolls out there who love to 1-bomb your story simply because they can. It means nothing except that there are mean-spirited people on Lit.

Write for yourself and not the ratings... or write for the people you know appreciate your stories. That's what makes it worthwhile anywawy.

Yeah, I really do think I'm a victim of some kind of lit hate group. There's NO WAY my story should have had 77 votes on its first day. That seems a bit excessive to me. In days past, I wouldn't have nearly that many votes, even when my story had a little red "H" next to it. I do understand there are more readers on lit now than there were before, but 77 votes? I don't know...something fishy's going on...

Thanks for responding!

-StolenTurtle

 

[Shwenn]

You can see how individual people voted?

How do you do that?

 

[Shwenn]

Also, I wanted to add, my favorite stuff isn't the most popular stuff in the world.

Don't you rather want some people to love your stuff and the rest can read somebody else?

I've got a 4.2 on one chapter and that story is garnering emails from fans who are dogging me to put up the next installment. "Where is it? How long do you think it will be? You're not going to stop writing this, are you?"

So, clearly it doesn't suck at all...

Write for your readers and screw the rest.

 

[starrkers]

You can see how individual people voted?

How do you do that?

No, you can't.

You can only tell what value a vote was if you know the score before it hit. For example, a story with a score of 4.58 and 12 votes that drops to 4.31 with 13 votes, was hit with a 1. One with 4.80 and 49 votes that falls to 4.72 with 50 votes was hit with a 1.

The more votes you have, the less it shows. But if you have a high voting story, it only takes one 1 to knock it down, but a lot of 5s to bring it back up.

 

[DeeZire]

You could always watch your scores, and after the sweep, when the red H comes back, you could then turn off voting for that particular story. I did that on two of mine, mainly because the link to my anti-troll story is in my sig line, and I expect my scores to suffer because of it.

I admit I get envious when I visit a writer's story list and see a red H next to every single one, but these are great writers, so it's understandable that the multitude of 5s would balance out the 1s.

 

[Shwenn]

No, you can't.

Damn!

I want that so bad, I would be willing to write the php code for literotica in order to get it.

The average just means less than nothing to me. Hell, at least give us the mean and the mode. I would settle for just knowing the mode.

 

[SueandSteve]

I enjoyed your story. Well written, a bit of humour. Good one.

 

[rockitt]

Really this bad?

Stolen Turtle -
The story wasn't bad at all.
I'm new, today, to these boards and don't know about the rating system, so I won't comment on those.
I've read most of the other answers and agree with most of them.

I would like to add a few comments.
Cutting down the size of your paragraphs is paramount.
Online, as in most forms except book form, you have to break the paragraph rules you've always learned.

White space is what you desire. Look at your page after it is done. If it's filled with words, it is hard to read and hard to keep on the line you are reading.

You're done for the moment with writing, now you have to be a graphic designer. Cut your paragraphs down.

You can even leave a space between lines sometimes if it's appropriate.
If you tend to write long sentences, which flow more than one line, often each sentence, or a very few, can be an individual paragraph.
Then use the blank lines to be your paragraph breaks.

Here's a quick lesson about white space.
Take one of your stories, or cut and paste another one from literotica.
Paste it into word.
Do a save as.
Take out all paragraphs. Make the whole story one big paragraph.
Just one page is enough to let you see what the absence of white space does to a story.
It's unreadable.
Exit your story but don't save changes.
Go back to original cut and paste.
Now make every sentence into a paragraph. Where the paragraph breaks normally were, leave a blank line.

This may not be what you want, but it will be infinitley more readable.
Go into designer mode and reach some sort of compromise if you have to.
Even short sentences as a paragraph can be good.
Really.
They read easy.
They flow.
They seem more natural.

After you've made your story the best read you can, then make it the easiest read you can.
You can do this after the story is written.

This won't do anything about trolls looking to give people lower ratings, but it will make the story much more enjoyable to read.

Remember, a story is just that, a story you are telling.
Tell your story in print just as you would a story you were telling someone with your voice.
We don't normally speak for minutes without breaks.

And finally, forget the rules and what others think of your story.
It's your story, write it how you want it to be.
When you're finished, do a quick spell check and then set it aside for a while.
Then check it again, and again. If you can, have someone else read it.
Ask them about the flow of the story.
Ask them if it was easy to read, if it was enjoyable, if it was easy to understand.
That's much more important than a few words spelled wrong, although you should never allow that either.

When you're done, read it one more time.
Are you proud of your work? Then send it in; if not, don't.
Change it or scrap it.

 

[starrkers]

Stolen Turtle -
The story wasn't bad at all.
I'm new, today, to these boards and don't know about the rating system, so I won't comment on those.
I've read most of the other answers and agree with most of them.

I would like to add a few comments.
Cutting down the size of your paragraphs is paramount.
Online, as in most forms except book form, you have to break the paragraph rules you've always learned.

White space is what you desire. Look at your page after it is done. If it's filled with words, it is hard to read and hard to keep on the line you are reading.

You're done for the moment with writing, now you have to be a graphic designer. Cut your paragraphs down.

You can even leave a space between lines sometimes if it's appropriate.
If you tend to write long sentences, which flow more than one line, often each sentence, or a very few, can be an individual paragraph.
Then use the blank lines to be your paragraph breaks.

Here's a quick lesson about white space.
Take one of your stories, or cut and paste another one from literotica.
Paste it into word.
Do a save as.
Take out all paragraphs. Make the whole story one big paragraph.
Just one page is enough to let you see what the absence of white space does to a story.
It's unreadable.
Exit your story but don't save changes.
Go back to original cut and paste.
Now make every sentence into a paragraph. Where the paragraph breaks normally were, leave a blank line.

This may not be what you want, but it will be infinitley more readable.
Go into designer mode and reach some sort of compromise if you have to.
Even short sentences as a paragraph can be good.
Really.
They read easy.
They flow.
They seem more natural.

After you've made your story the best read you can, then make it the easiest read you can.
You can do this after the story is written.

This won't do anything about trolls looking to give people lower ratings, but it will make the story much more enjoyable to read.

Remember, a story is just that, a story you are telling.
Tell your story in print just as you would a story you were telling someone with your voice.
We don't normally speak for minutes without breaks.

And finally, forget the rules and what others think of your story.
It's your story, write it how you want it to be.
When you're finished, do a quick spell check and then set it aside for a while.
Then check it again, and again. If you can, have someone else read it.
Ask them about the flow of the story.
Ask them if it was easy to read, if it was enjoyable, if it was easy to understand.
That's much more important than a few words spelled wrong, although you should never allow that either.

When you're done, read it one more time.
Are you proud of your work? Then send it in; if not, don't.
Change it or scrap it.

I am tempted to ask the mods of the Editors forum and the Librarian of the AH to copy this post and add it to the writers and editors help threads.

Well said and sound advice.

 

[rockitt]

Really this bad?

Stolen Turtle -
The story wasn't bad at all.
I'm new, today, to these boards and don't know about the rating system, so I won't comment on those.
I've read most of the other answers and agree with most of them.

I would like to add a few comments.
Cutting down the size of your paragraphs is paramount.
Online, as in most forms except book form, you have to break the paragraph rules you've always learned.

White space is what you desire. Look at your page after it is done. If it's filled with words, it is hard to read and hard to keep on the line you are reading.

You're done for the moment with writing, now you have to be a graphic designer. Cut your paragraphs down.

You can even leave a space between lines sometimes if it's appropriate.
If you tend to write long sentences, which flow more than one line, often each sentence, or a very few, can be an individual paragraph.
Then use the blank lines to be your paragraph breaks.

Here's a quick lesson about white space.
Take one of your stories, or cut and paste another one from literotica.
Paste it into word.
Do a save as.
Take out all paragraphs. Make the whole story one big paragraph.
Just one page is enough to let you see what the absence of white space does to a story.
It's unreadable.
Exit your story but don't save changes.
Go back to original cut and paste.
Now make every sentence into a paragraph. Where the paragraph breaks normally were, leave a blank line.

This may not be what you want, but it will be infinitley more readable.
Go into designer mode and reach some sort of compromise if you have to.
Even short sentences as a paragraph can be good.
Really.
They read easy.
They flow.
They seem more natural.

After you've made your story the best read you can, then make it the easiest read you can.
You can do this after the story is written.

This won't do anything about trolls looking to give people lower ratings, but it will make the story much more enjoyable to read.

Remember, a story is just that, a story you are telling.
Tell your story in print just as you would a story you were telling someone with your voice.
We don't normally speak for minutes without breaks.

And finally, forget the rules and what others think of your story.
It's your story, write it how you want it to be.
When you're finished, do a quick spell check and then set it aside for a while.
Then check it again, and again. If you can, have someone else read it.
Ask them about the flow of the story.
Ask them if it was easy to read, if it was enjoyable, if it was easy to understand.
That's much more important than a few words spelled wrong, although you should never allow that either.

When you're done, read it one more time.
Are you proud of your work? Then send it in; if not, don't.
Change it or scrap it.