Winning Categorically

[smy3th]

Winning Categorically

This is a guide to getting a high score based on category. I looked at the Top Lists in each category (left out a few like non-English).

Based on the top lists:

Romances get scores as high as 4.98 with many well above 4.90. A good romance has a good chance of a very high score. In fact, the whole seven pages of the Romance Top List was 4.85 and above. Some other categories didn't have any stories as high as 4.85. Partly this probably reflects that Romance gets a lot of submissions, but also that it is very possible to get a high score.

Lesbian: The highest rated stories are in the 4.87-4.88 range. A Lesbian story is going to have a hard time beating a good romance.

Loving Wives, NonConsent / Reluctance, Anal and Toys / Masturbation have the lowest top ratings. The highest rated L-W stories are 4.84 (2 stories) dropping quickly to 4.80 (#'s 3 &4) The highest rated NonCon stories are 4.81s. The highest rated Anal stories are 4.83 and 4.82. The highest Toys/Mast ratings are 4.83 dropping quickly to 4.79. These categories are not going win contests except in their own categories. Interracial doesn't get many high scores either. My suspicion is there are a lot of "haters" in these categories who drag down the scores, but that's just a guess.

Mature gets loads of votes, but no scores over 4.86. You will qualify quickly, but you will lose.

Non Human and Sci-Fi / FAntasy get some scores in the 4.93-4.92 range and lots of votes. Looks like two good areas to pick up votes with some chance of a high score.

Novels and Novellas have lots of stories with high scores and many votes. I think if people read all the way through a novel, they must have liked it or they would have quit reading, so they are likely to give 5s. But writing a novel is a lot of work just to enter a contest.

BDSM, Exhibitionist/Voyeur, First Time, Gay Male, Groups, Non-Erotic all have high scores hovering around 4.90 or just below that. Not hopeless, but not the most likely place to find an overall winner. First Time stories get a lot of votes though.

Humor and Satire don't get very many votes, and usually don't score above 4.89. Not only will the score probably be low but it may be hard to get enough votes to qualify. And the more votes you get, the lower the score is likely to be.

Most other categories get high scores in the 4.85 to 4.88 range.

There are some categores that have a few very highly rated stories with few votes, which will probably drop as soon as they get more votes. Incest /Taboo for example had two 5.00s when I looked, but they had 24 and 21 votes respectively. The #3 was only rated 4.90, and #4 was down to 4.88.

Any rating over 4.94 in any category is likely to be a temporary anomoly which will drop when it gets more votes.

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

True, but I'll take my #1 and #3 on the Humor list...at least for the next 20 minutes

 

[smy3th]

True, but I'll take my #1 and #3 on the Humor list...at least for the next 20 minutes

All glory is fleeting. Enjoy it while it lasts. You are down to #2 and #95 already.

The interesting thing relative to my post is that the #2 only has a 4.83 rating. The category essentially assures that your story can't win, no matter how good it is. I'm not sure if just posting the same story in another category might change it's score. If for example you simply posted it in "Non-Erotic" or "Sci-Fi Fantasy, it might have a chance at a better score. Or, it might just get killed because it didn't fit what people in the other category were expecting. It may be the category, or it may be that people just don't vote as high for humor as they do for sex or love.

 

[RonClarkeson]

But why don't readers vote?

I submitted a story 3rd November, it has had 24,000 readers yet only 41 voted.
Am I doing something wrong?

 

[smy3th]

I submitted a story 3rd November, it has had 24,000 readers yet only 41 voted.
Am I doing something wrong?

What category is it in? Actually, that ratio is not all that bad.

Don't know if this applies, but I think stroke stories may not get too many votes because the reader is too busy cleaning up the cum juice to bother voting. Also, they often aren't really into literary criticism.

p.s. put a link to your stories somewhere in your signature or profile or something.

 

[RonClarkeson]

My Story Link

What category is it in? Actually, that ratio is not all that bad.

Don't know if this applies, but I think stroke stories may not get too many votes because the reader is too busy cleaning up the cum juice to bother voting. Also, they often aren't really into literary criticism.

p.s. put a link to your stories somewhere in your signature or profile or something.

http://english.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=281966

 

[FallingToFly]

Bottom line is: unless you are one of the extremely prolific and incredibly popular authors (Selena, RHF, Danielle, Ogg, Aurora, DGHear, ohio and Liar come to mind automatically, although there are many, many others) you can only expect 1-2 votes per thousand views. Right now Impossible Gifts is my anomaly, with 19 votes and a little under 1000 views.

All told, I probably have less than 300 votes scattered over something like thrity submissions. Most readers DON'T vote, and truthfully, most readers go staright for their favorite category/author/stories and ignore everything else. Authors who have a following get better scores and better vote ratios, but it's not something you can realistically expect to have a lot of. The best is to just post your story, take the comments with a grain of salt (from both sides of the fence) and be glad that you're getting read at all.

 

[Guest]

Monthly Contest

I am not sure if this is the right place to bring this up, but when are they going to post the monthly category nominees and reader's choice awards? I saw that they are only up to April 2006 in the Awards and Contests Thread.

 

[rgraham666]

Good question.

Wish I has an answer.

 

[JamesSD]

Winning Categorically

This is a guide to getting a high score based on category. I looked at the Top Lists in each category (left out a few like non-English).

Based on the top lists:

Romances get scores as high as 4.98 with many well above 4.90. A good romance has a good chance of a very high score. In fact, the whole seven pages of the Romance Top List was 4.85 and above. Some other categories didn't have any stories as high as 4.85. Partly this probably reflects that Romance gets a lot of submissions, but also that it is very possible to get a high score.

Lesbian: The highest rated stories are in the 4.87-4.88 range. A Lesbian story is going to have a hard time beating a good romance.

Loving Wives, NonConsent / Reluctance, Anal and Toys / Masturbation have the lowest top ratings. The highest rated L-W stories are 4.84 (2 stories) dropping quickly to 4.80 (#'s 3 &4) The highest rated NonCon stories are 4.81s. The highest rated Anal stories are 4.83 and 4.82. The highest Toys/Mast ratings are 4.83 dropping quickly to 4.79. These categories are not going win contests except in their own categories. Interracial doesn't get many high scores either. My suspicion is there are a lot of "haters" in these categories who drag down the scores, but that's just a guess.

Mature gets loads of votes, but no scores over 4.86. You will qualify quickly, but you will lose.

Non Human and Sci-Fi / FAntasy get some scores in the 4.93-4.92 range and lots of votes. Looks like two good areas to pick up votes with some chance of a high score.

Novels and Novellas have lots of stories with high scores and many votes. I think if people read all the way through a novel, they must have liked it or they would have quit reading, so they are likely to give 5s. But writing a novel is a lot of work just to enter a contest.

BDSM, Exhibitionist/Voyeur, First Time, Gay Male, Groups, Non-Erotic all have high scores hovering around 4.90 or just below that. Not hopeless, but not the most likely place to find an overall winner. First Time stories get a lot of votes though.

Humor and Satire don't get very many votes, and usually don't score above 4.89. Not only will the score probably be low but it may be hard to get enough votes to qualify. And the more votes you get, the lower the score is likely to be.

Most other categories get high scores in the 4.85 to 4.88 range.

There are some categores that have a few very highly rated stories with few votes, which will probably drop as soon as they get more votes. Incest /Taboo for example had two 5.00s when I looked, but they had 24 and 21 votes respectively. The #3 was only rated 4.90, and #4 was down to 4.88.

Any rating over 4.94 in any category is likely to be a temporary anomoly which will drop when it gets more votes.

I've studied this before, so I'll chip in.

Romance is definitely a "softer" category when it comes to votes. It has one of the highest rates of red "H"s along with Incest.

Loving Wives has been discussed in many other threads. It's impossible to make everyone happy there. Anal is one of those categories where most do well, but few do outstanding. End of the day, there aren't many creative plot things you can do with an anal story.

Humor is very subjective, and as such is very hard to score high.

If you're talking about contest submissions, bear in mind that people outside of the category's usual audience likely will read it. That could definitely drag down things like Sci-Fi and Non-Human.

Really, if a high score is your goal, your best bet is to write a romance story, with a strong plot, and hot sex scenes. Of course, any story with a strong plot and hot sex scenes usually does pretty well

 

[smy3th]

Really, if a high score is your goal, your best bet is to write a romance story, with a strong plot, and hot sex scenes. Of course, any story with a strong plot and hot sex scenes usually does pretty well

Yep, that's what I concluded, so that's what I wrote. Strange thing is, until I wrote it, I had no idea I was even capable of doing that.

 

[JamesSD]

I submitted a story 3rd November, it has had 24,000 readers yet only 41 voted.
Am I doing something wrong?

My "Best" is 110 reads/vote. My worst is 585. My "average" is around 300 reads per vote. My celebrity and review/essays have the worst vote ratios.

My older stories tend to have better vote/read ratios, probably because once they're off the new story list readers are more likely to be interested in them than just browsing what's new.

Your 600 reads/vote ratio isn't that low for a new story. There are a bunch of good threads on number of votes if you do a search.

 

[S-Des]

I don't think LW will ever win a contest. It's a shame that it makes a difference, but it does.

As for votes, I never worked it out to votes per thousand views because it varies based on the emotional level of the stories I write. My Romance story was at 410 votes at only 20,000 views, but the Exhibitionist story was at 112 for 35,000. I have an LW story with 61,000 views, but only 130 votes, but the others average much higher. It just depends on the type of story and what buttons are pushed.

 

[slyc_willie]

No Write to Vote

I don't believe in writing just for votes. Certainly, I appreciate them, and have even bitched in other threads about losing votes to sweeps (but that's in a contest). But to write a story just to assure yourself of a high-vote outcome?

Sounds like you're whoring yourself out, there.

Write what you want, put it in the category in which it best fits. The votes will come if it's good.

 

[smy3th]

I don't believe in writing just for votes. Certainly, I appreciate them, and have even bitched in other threads about losing votes to sweeps (but that's in a contest). But to write a story just to assure yourself of a high-vote outcome?

Sounds like you're whoring yourself out, there.

Write what you want, put it in the category in which it best fits. The votes will come if it's good.

Well, it wasn't quite like that. I didn't do the analysis of the categories until today, long after I wrote the story. What I actually did was that I read a story that really hit me as: "Whoa - now THAT's literature!" and started thinking about what it was about it that made it such a good story. (It's the plot - duh!) and then I wondered if I could write something like that, so I tried. It also struck me that the category that had the best mix of attractive elements was Romance, because romantic stories have romance (duh), plot, drama, often tragedy or struggle, emotional impact, opportunity for humor, and of course, opportunity for sex. Many of the other categories are rather limited, often limited to just basically just sex. Sex is great and I like sex stories, that's why I'm here, but a stroke story won't generally have provide the opportunity for the overall emotional impact.

 

[S-Des]

Well, it wasn't quite like that. I didn't do the analysis of the categories until today, long after I wrote the story. What I actually did was that I read a story that really hit me as: "Whoa - now THAT's literature!" and started thinking about what it was about it that made it such a good story. (It's the plot - duh!) and then I wondered if I could write something like that, so I tried. It also struck me that the category that had the best mix of attractive elements was Romance, because romantic stories have romance (duh), plot, drama, often tragedy or struggle, emotional impact, opportunity for humor, and of course, opportunity for sex. Many of the other categories are rather limited, often limited to just basically just sex. Sex is great and I like sex stories, that's why I'm here, but a stroke story won't generally have provide the opportunity for the overall emotional impact.

I think LW stories have the ability for the most emotional impact (which is the main reason the scores are lower...too many people can't separate their emotions from their critique of the writing). To me, you take a couple under duress (often with children involved) and look at their actions, motives, deceptions, and resolution. It's fascinating and can involve just about any other category (although the readers are sticklers for realism, so sci-fi probably wouldn't work). The demanding nature of the readers makes you go through your work with a fine-toothed comb to deal with any inconsistencies (real or perceived).

 

[smy3th]

I think LW stories have the ability for the most emotional impact (which is the main reason the scores are lower...too many people can't separate their emotions from their critique of the writing). To me, you take a couple under duress (often with children involved) and look at their actions, motives, deceptions, and resolution. It's fascinating and can involve just about any other category (although the readers are sticklers for realism, so sci-fi probably wouldn't work). The demanding nature of the readers makes you go through your work with a fine-toothed comb to deal with any inconsistencies (real or perceived).

I think that in many categories, people tend to react with their voting more as to whether they approved of what happened in the story, or whether they think it fits what they are expecting in the category rather than to the writing as such. Loving Wives has a tension between those who think it should be about monogamous married couples who are faithful to each other vs. another group that thinks it should be about wives gettin' some lovin' on the side, and they beat each other's stories up if they don't conform to their view of the category. At least, that's what I've inferred. You can't please both groups, so the scores get dragged down by the group you offend.

 

[DG Hear]

Both are right!

I think that in many categories, people tend to react with their voting more as to whether they approved of what happened in the story, or whether they think it fits what they are expecting in the category rather than to the writing as such. Loving Wives has a tension between those who think it should be about monogamous married couples who are faithful to each other vs. another group that thinks it should be about wives gettin' some lovin' on the side, and they beat each other's stories up if they don't conform to their view of the category. At least, that's what I've inferred. You can't please both groups, so the scores get dragged down by the group you offend.

I believe that you and S-Des are both write. People are drawn to the conflict of a loving wife story. They vote according to what they think they would have done in the same situation. So of course you get two complete oppsite opinions. It makes for a lot of readers but lower votes. I still would like to see a cheaters catagory and loving wives be just that.

To, all writers: Write what you feel, write your opinions, enjoy what you are writing, do it for yourself. The comments and votes are nice to get but the bottom line is, Are you pleased with what you wrote? The thank you's and nay-sayers will always be there.
DG Hear