Tell us about your lowest rated story

[TheRedChamber]

The premise of this thread is simple. Tell us about your currently lowest rated story on this site.

What score did it get? Do you think that score is justified?
Did you know/suspect that this story was going to score so low?
What is it about the story that resulted in this score?
Would you still write/post this story? Would you change anything about it?

The brave can include a link to the story and ask for feedback (and maybe a couple of consolation upvotes.)

Those whose stories are all rated Hot need not play...

 

[Voboy]

Ooh! Fun! My lowest is a 750-worder, so I'll ignore that one.

My next lowest is a story that surprises me. I took it seriously, I'm very proud of it, and I wrote it for a friend (who loved it). It was my first and only serious foray into BDSM, and I think it scores so low because I might not have been as familiar with the "established tropes" as I thought I was. I'm not normally a reader of BDSM, so you could fairly say I didn't do enough research on it? I'm also not any kind of established writer in that world, so I don't know what effect that might have had.

It also subverted the genre somewhat by making the sub a police officer compelled to cuff her Dom during an arrest. I thought that would add interesting tension, but apparently not? The lack of success of that story surprises me, but I blame myself for inadequately immersing myself in that community.

4.15 on just 33 votes total. It's my only story with no comments whatsoever. Seven favorites and 14,100 views or so, so that ain't bad. I've got several other non-H stories, many of which perplex me a bit.

Enjoy, if you wanna!

https://literotica.com/s/sarahs-joy

 

[SimonDoom]

Easy one for me. BTB, Incorporated. https://literotica.com/s/btb-incorporated. Loving Wives (of course). Published January 2, 2017. Score is 3.67. It was around 3.4 in April 2017, so it's risen a little since then, but it's been pretty stable for a few years. It is my only story with a score under 4. It will never crack 4.

It's a burn-the-bitch/cuckold spoof with a twist at the end, told in a parody of Mike Hammer detective story. My detective, Sonny Biggs, is hired by a man who thinks his wife is cheating on him.

It was only my third Lit story and I was still getting my feet wet, so I didn't quite expect the savagery of the comments I got. It was the usual "anti-cuck" shit breed of comments. After my shock passed I found the comments amusing because they were so extreme.

I didn't know what to expect, but I was hoping that I could overcome resistance to these stories with my (to me at the time) obvious literary prowess. Wrong. Both on the expectations and the prowess. Some have thought it's amusing and given me good comments, and over 5 1/2 years later it has over 73,000 views and 41 favorites, so not all is bad. But it did teach me about tempering my expectations when stories don't meet the expectations of what readers expect in a story posted in a certain category.

I absolutely would write this story all over again, knowing the reception it got, and I wouldn't change it. It was a fun silly romp and I had a great time writing it.

 

[MelissaBaby]

My lowest rated story was an entry in the Summer Loving contest. I zipped it out pretty quickly, and it's just a nice light hearted romp.

I can't complain too much, it's at 4.43. The only thing that bugs me is that it is, alphabetically, the first story listed on my author's page. I'm just going to have to come up with a title that will come before it and make sure that story gets a higher score.

Drive In Double Feature

 

[SamScribble]

My lowest scoring story is a 750-word tale. It got 68 votes and barely made it over 4. (I seem to recall there was a bit one-bombing included in the 68 votes.) But it did get three very positive comments.

I guess Lit readers are just not into ‘shorties’.

Here it is: https://literotica.com/s/looking-for-love-5

I re-read it just now. It’s a delight. Pure literature. Six stars! What more can I say?

 

[ElectricBlue]

My lowest is the seventh chapter of a long shaggy dog story in Erotic Horror.

For years, it sat on 3.96, but has crept up to 4.02 over time.

Apparently, even EH readers can't handle father/son incest. Gee, what a surprise! Who knew, lol.

https://literotica.com/s/in-the-library-ch-07

 

[ElectricBlue]

My lowest rated story was an entry in the Summer Loving contest. I zipped it out pretty quickly, and it's just a nice light hearted romp.

I can't complain too much, it's at 4.43. The only thing that bugs me is that it is, alphabetically, the first story listed on my author's page. I'm just going to have to come up with a title that will come before it and make sure that story gets a higher score.

Drive In Double Feature

Another Drive In Double Feature.

 

[KeithD]

I have most of the stories in this account closed for voting (but after they went hot) because I have had a multivoting user trying to pull everything down as it goes up.

My lowest scoring one in the account currently is "The Naive Sailor" (https://www.literotica.com/s/the-naive-sailor), written for the "exactly 750-words" exercise and currently scoring at 3.48. I think the wordage requirement is a major reason the story rates that low but also because it's a Transgender category story--gay sailors taking a young sailor to a Bangkok massage parlor to initiate him with a T-girl. Certainly not everyone's cup of tea, but written for variety's sake, given this would probably be a low-scoring exercise anyway.

 

[Winter_Fare]

These two are my worst, running pretty much neck and neck.

Three Hours

4.22 with 55 votes.

I don't think it's a bad little story, 1.8k words and definitely not my worst work. It's short, and there's no sex in it, in fact I submitted it to the non erotic category but Laurel disagreed and it's in Lesbian sex.

Debtor's Kiss

4.23 with 48 votes

It's an N/C reluctance shortie, only 1.5k words. I'm not sure why it didn't do well *shrug* again, not my worst work.

 

[Escierto]

All my stories are low scoring but that’s fine because I don’t give a fuck. I only write them as recollections of my actual experiences. People hate reality!! My two pure fiction stories score ok.

 

[lovecraft68]

I think I'll fall under the majority of people who respond with a LW story
Thanks for the Roses from 2014 sitting pretty at 2.71, for perspective I have 139 other stories and my next lowest score is 4.10, and I have two other stories in LW one is around 4.25 the other 4.53.

The story with this one is its meant to be a satire, its a deliberately over the top mockery of a cuck story, and I posted it with the thought, let's see if the hyenas can figure out they're getting their chain yanked and this isn't meant to be a serious story...the score tells me they're dumber than a box of rocks, but I will admit some of the comments are still among my favorites to this day

https://literotica.com/s/thanks-for-the-roses

Editing to add this score is on 500+ votes...and as it was a contest entry, I imagine a bunch of bombs were deleted early on.

 

[lovecraft68]

My lowest rated story was an entry in the Summer Loving contest. I zipped it out pretty quickly, and it's just a nice light hearted romp.

I can't complain too much, it's at 4.43. The only thing that bugs me is that it is, alphabetically, the first story listed on my author's page. I'm just going to have to come up with a title that will come before it and make sure that story gets a higher score.

Drive In Double Feature

I'd leave it, here's why. When people want to troll you they go to your list and start at the top, so the first one listed will get the most hits from personal trolls. My first on the list was once well above 4.6 and over the years is now barely over 4. Doesn't help its BDSM so doesn't have a lot of votes to be able to withstand bombing like most of my others do.

 

[tenyari]

Mi Amante - this was a super short story I wrote for a challenge to keep a story under a certain word limit. I'm a very wordy person so that was not easy, and it was not very successful.

The story is not posted here. Not sure if I ever tried to post it here.
It has a 4.37 out of 9 score on another website. Dramatically below anything else I've ever written. I don't blame people for not liking it.

 

[gunhilltrain]

These two are my worst, running pretty much neck and neck.

Three Hours

4.22 with 55 votes.

I don't think it's a bad little story, 1.8k words and definitely not my worst work. It's short, and there's no sex in it, in fact I submitted it to the non erotic category but Laurel disagreed and it's in Lesbian sex.

Debtor's Kiss

4.23 with 48 votes

It's an N/C reluctance shortie, only 1.5k words. I'm not sure why it didn't do well *shrug* again, not my worst work.

4.22 and 4.23 are quite respectable scores to me.

I have mentioned this before, but my lowest-rated series consists of four stories about real-life Andy Warhol shooter Valerie Solanas (June 1968). The one comment I got (now gone, although I don't think I removed it myself) was that she was a mentally-ill criminal and thus not a worthy topic. I still like the series anyway. It starts with:

Valerie in New York Ch. 01

 

[Rustyoznail]

Excluding the 750 word challenge, my lowest is a story I wrote for a Halloween Comp. It went into ScfFi and is currently sitting at 3.89/19.

http://literotica.com/s/festival-of-the-lost

I'm not surprised at the score. I took the 25 lines of dialogue for Tess Everis, a NPC in the video game "Destiny" and tried to work a story around them. It was a challenge I'd set myself, and I'm happy with the result. It left people, including the Guardian, unfulfilled though.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Excluding the 750 word challenge, my lowest is a story I wrote for a Halloween Comp. It went into ScfFi and is currently sitting at 3.89/19.

http://literotica.com/s/festival-of-the-lost

I'm not surprised at the score. I took the 25 lines of dialogue for Tess Everis, a NPC in the video game "Destiny" and tried to work a story around them. It was a challenge I'd set myself, and I'm happy with the result. It left people, including the Guardian, unfulfilled though.

3.89 is also not that bad, although that may depend on what your expectations were.

 

[neuroparenthetical]

There's some close competition, but currently, BBC Love And Understanding gets the nod at 3.44/25. One-bombed to death from the outset, 'cuck shit in the wrong category' was the first judgment rendered.

It's an interesting commentary on how the SF/F category is the mother of all hilariously-overbroad catch-alls. The story focuses heavily on near-future body modding, plus a few extra near-future flourishes just to hold it all together, and it's set in a fictional, sex-positive utopia.

First comment: wrong category. Yup.

One of its sister pieces fared better in Incest/Taboo. I wonder how it would've fared in SF/F or Mind Control instead. I'm actually a little disappointed with myself that I didn't I didn't put it in SF/F. I think all of my other pieces set in that near-future Earth are in it.

These categories, though, right? Crazy.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Mi Amante - this was a super short story I wrote for a challenge to keep a story under a certain word limit. I'm a very wordy person so that was not easy, and it was not very successful.

The story is not posted here. Not sure if I ever tried to post it here.
It has a 4.37 out of 9 score on another website. Dramatically below anything else I've ever written. I don't blame people for not liking it.

That may be the site that only allows registered members to vote. Thus the scores there are usually better than on Lit. It's also a much smaller site and the number of votes will not be very high.

 

[NotWise]

"That Little Bitch" -- my second story for Lit -- rates 4.19. The main reasons for the score are that It's 1.9K words and it went into I/T with a non-incest taboo theme. The awful editing may have contributed, too. It was actually pretty successful at getting views and votes.

I think it has the score it deserves. I posted it in the first place as a personal challenge to write short and "short" turned out to be unpopular, so I wouldn't do it again.

 

[Rustyoznail]

3.89 is also not that bad, although that may depend on what your expectations were.

True, but at the time it did ruin my red "H" streak. I didn't have high expectations for it because I knew it was going to be very niche. It would probably do well at a fanfic site - if I could be bothered looking for one. I can't even remember why I decided to challenge myself. It was 2019...

 

[Lifestyle66]

My lowest rated story is my recent Geek Pride entry "The User Guide - A Geek Pride Story". Currently, it has climbed UP to 1.91 with 89 votes and over 10,000 views.

The story is about a geek husband writing a user guide for his wife's sexual requirements. It provides hints of their swinger experiences, and the later scene is a gangbang. It trolls the LW haters because it's about a strong-willed wife whose husband enjoys their sex together, without stopping her from enjoying others, too.

The exceedingly low score is due to posting it in Loving Wives to deliberately poke the trolls there, receiving one comment: "EAT SHIT AND DIE!" But several authors thought the user guide half was good. I only added the poker game gangbang scene to make it appropriate for the LW category.

https://literotica.com/s/the-user-guide-a-geek-pride-story

 

[jaykaythree]

With a score of 4.11 (over 72 votes), it's this one:

https://literotica.com/s/one-in-seven One In Seven.

My guesses as to why, are that people liked it, but didn't really 'like' it, because it's classified as a First Time, yet more accurately occupies a middle ground between First Time and Romance. It doesn't end on the note of having my leads walk away into the sunset with happy memories of each other and of that first time. There's a relationship that forms, but when the leads go off to separate colleges, their relationship is placed on hiatus, where it remains as of the present day. There's no HEA yet, and not really any HFN. that's probably why it got voted so low, because it's cliffhanging right now (the last paragraph is, in fact, set in January of this year, its publication date).

Wait a minute ... are we talking stories only, or poems as well?

 

[Comshaw]

My lowest scoring is one I put in LW (surprise huh). Actually I screwed up big time when I posted it, not because I put it in LW, but because, of all the stupid mistakes I could make, I did a bigun', I misspelled the title. It was supposed to be, "The Basement Window". In my haste I lost the n so the title is "The Basement Widow". Because of that I kinda figure I deserve some of the low votes. It's running at 4.15 with 373 votes and 19 comments. A bunch of those comments are from the haters in LW because of the premise of the story.

https://literotica.com/s/the-basement-widow

That's mine.


Comshaw

 

[Bramblethorn]

Ooh! Fun! My lowest is a 750-worder, so I'll ignore that one.

My next lowest is a story that surprises me. I took it seriously, I'm very proud of it, and I wrote it for a friend (who loved it). It was my first and only serious foray into BDSM, and I think it scores so low because I might not have been as familiar with the "established tropes" as I thought I was. I'm not normally a reader of BDSM, so you could fairly say I didn't do enough research on it? I'm also not any kind of established writer in that world, so I don't know what effect that might have had.

It also subverted the genre somewhat by making the sub a police officer compelled to cuff her Dom during an arrest. I thought that would add interesting tension, but apparently not? The lack of success of that story surprises me, but I blame myself for inadequately immersing myself in that community.

Haven't read it and can't comment on the authenticity, but: I think a lot of the readers in that category want the men in charge, full stop, and are uncomfortable with that kind of reversal. Male submission of any kind can get a harsh reaction, which is ridiculous.

 

[Voboy]

Haven't read it and can't comment on the authenticity, but: I think a lot of the readers in that category want the men in charge, full stop, and are uncomfortable with that kind of reversal. Male submission of any kind can get a harsh reaction, which is ridiculous.

The friend I wrote it for loved it.

So? It was a success, from my end. I enjoyed writing it and I like that it's not trope-y. But the Dom is never submissive; I tried to write it as entirely her conflict. SHE was the one terrified of cuffing him.