YAST

[nice90sguy]

Not quite Yet Another Score Thread...

Do experienced writers here have a good ability to predict the likely scores their stories are going to get, before they've published them here? Or are they (like me) surprised by the unexpectedly high/low scores they eventually receive?

 

[KeithD]

I'm often surprised. That the stories often have much different results at other Web sites just tells me that outcomes are widely variable here at Lit., with few patterns that hold--everything depending on what readers show up that day and what their mode is that day.

I'll add, though, that the stories that surprise me most are the more literary stories that score lower here than on other sites and the heated sex stories that tend to score higher here than on other sites--which has me snorting sometimes when board posters comment on Lit. being on the high-brow side of content.

 

[MelissaBaby]

My scores are pretty consistent. 54 of 63 stories are in a .20 range. So I can pretty much guess what the next one will do.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

I can sometimes do an EWAG. The 750 word stories generally score rather lower, for instance. I do get surprised on occasion.

 

[SimonDoom]

Yes and no. I write and publish a wide variety of types of stories, in different categories, of different lengths, and with widely varying tones. I've become accustomed to the fact that certain kinds of stories score lower than other kinds of stories. But within my body of stories, I don't see scores having anything to do with quality. There's no correlation, in my opinion. As a consequence, I've developed a ho-hum attitude toward scores. Sometimes I'm surprised or disappointed, but most of the time I have a decent idea of the range within which my story's score likely will fall.

My mean story score, among 54 stories, is about 4.54, with a standard deviation of about .25. The mean score is pulled down by 750-word stories, of which I have 7, and by two odd-ball Loving Wives-related stories, which are my only two stories with scores under 4.

 

[NoJo]

I had "Christmas Number 1" syndrome (as in "About a Boy") when one of my stories here blew up, to my complete surprise, and was on the toplists for a year or two. It totally distorted my view of myself as a writer, in a bad way.

I also won 1st prize in a national screenwriting contest, which was even worse. It took me two years of humiliating rejection (wow, some of the letters were really bitchy -- shudder) and a lot of disappointment to realise I was no screenwriter, and that the prize meant worse than nothing.

 

[nice90sguy]

“The life of every individual is really always a tragedy, but gone through in detail, it has the character of a comedy.”
--Arthur Schopenhauer

Not sure how that applies to this thread, but a nice quote nonetheless

 

[ElectricBlue]

I write in too many categories, so only vaguely, because each category has its own foibles.

I think I write with a high degree of consistency, so I usually expect to land within a certain score band, but when a story does take off and does really well, that comes as a welcome surprise. There must be some kind of weird story gravitational effect going on, because how do people know it's a good one, when it's been off the front page for months?

 

[djrip]

"Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right."
-- Stewie Griffin

 

[Voboy]

I think vaguely about what I'm likely to receive, and in general I can predict it successfully within about .10. It comes from knowledge of what seems to work in the specific categories to which I've most frequently posted. When I have to post in a less-familiar category, I have no clue what I'm likely to wind up with.

However. I do get completely shocked by my scores about, oh, 5% of the time let's say.

 

[NotWise]

My stories usually rate within a familiar range. If a score falls below that range then I look for reasons why. If it strays above that range then I bask in the glory.

 

[Candy_Kane54]

I have noticed that including any current politics in my stories tend to depress the score.