Forum: Author Hangout

Because, anecdotally, that's what happens.

A 'recent' chapter of my WIP resulted in a significant boost to its score, almost certainly because it contained an explicit sex scene.

AJ

Certainly I think that implication is usually far more effective. By implication there is the case where "he and she went to bed early but it was 2am before he got to sleep, exhausted". Repeated explanation of prongs and tabs gets boring

It isn't just the tab a into slut b dilemma, but when you keep introducing yet another woman into a continually growing harem situation, you've got to stop and ask 'what the fuck ever happened to the plot in this damn story?'. The sex, ultimately, begins to detract from the story, whether it's popular or not. And some stories are strong without the sex, while others are strong with it.

Even now, I'm contemplating another two teenager harem (including family members) stories, so the appeal of those stories never goes away, even for us 'serious' authors. Instead, it's more 'what's best for the story'. (That said, my new stories will have a LOT less sex than my earlier stories did!)

you've got to stop and ask 'what the fuck ever happened to the plot in this damn story?'

My story "The Preacher's Wife" is about a sexually repressed woman. It originally ended with her sexual liberation. Conflict resolved. End of story.

But readers wanted more sex. This was when I was posting on my own site and ASSTR. So I added 5 more chapters to the original 5. Five chapters of more sex. It did nothing for the plot.

So when I revised the story to post on SOL, I got rid of those extra chapters. On SOL, the story ends where it's supposed to end and it's a stronger/better story for it.

I'm pretty sure I remember lot's of statistical data was provided, proving that stories with no sex are scoring better on SoL.

Unfortunately, that's not a direct cause & effect situation. More likely, it's because the better writers tend to utilize sex less than novice authors, and the better writers also tend to score higher.

The discussion, as much as I recall, was more about 'don't worry about dropping the sex scenes as the stories with the strongest scores DON'T have sex scenes in them'. Nowhere was it stated that readers didn't appreciate sex scenes.

It may be a case of the squeaky wheel getting the grease (or the whinny slut getting the crisco in this case), but it's more likely turning your back on your most popular fans. It's NOT and easy decision for any author, but in the end, the story speaks for itself, and either stands on its own or it doesn't.

The discussion, as much as I recall, was more about 'don't worry about dropping the sex scenes as the stories with the strongest scores DON'T have sex scenes in them'. Nowhere was it stated that readers didn't appreciate sex scenes.

I have to agree with this statement 10,000 percent. The scores tend to reflect story appeal, not sex scene appeal. I well written story will appeal to readers with or without sex scenes. However, poorly written sex scenes or repetitive sex scenes will result in a loss of appeal and a lower score. In some of my stories where I use the sex scenes to advance aspects of the story I fade them out once that job is done.

I have to agree with this statement 10,000 percent. The scores tend to reflect story appeal, not sex scene appeal. I[n] well written story will appeal to readers with or without sex scenes. However, poorly written sex scenes or repetitive sex scenes will result in a loss of appeal and a lower score. In some of my stories where I use the sex scenes to advance aspects of the story I fade them out once that job is done.

In my case, my 'sex scenes' have always been written to advance the story, as I find my characters themselves tend to open up more and admit things (to me, the author) that they won't otherwise, so my sex scenes tend to be unfolding discussion than 'tab A into slut B'.

While my reader enjoy my sex scenes tremendously, they're there to deepen the readers understanding of the characters, rather than catering to anyone's prurient interests.

I also often create a 'family friendly' version for FS (FineStories), even when the story deals with adult issues (say with incest themes), as I think most teenagers can deal with those issues, even if they aren't allowed to read about them. But even then, the stories are generally strong with the sex than without. Go figure.

But even then, the stories are generally strong with the sex than without. Go figure.

Easy to figure, CW. If the sex scenes are advancing the story line or plot or character development, then their removal will weaken the story to some extent.

Mind you, one of the old stories I'm revising is actually growing stronger with removal of some of the sex scenes. I had to amend more than just the scene to move the story along without the sex, but it is becoming a better story for the changes.

I'm pretty sure I remember lot's of statistical data was provided, proving that stories with no sex are scoring better on SoL.

Yeah that discussion comes up every now and then. When it came up several months back I spent many hours going through the top scores lists compiling stats on the various sex level categories and their scores. The results were in favour of the better scoring stories being no sex stories, however most were longer and all stories with better crafted story lines.

As I recall, the conclusions were that about the same percentage of No Sex, Minimal Sex, and Some Sex made it into the very high range, then there was some drop-off for Much Sex stories and a large drop-off for Stroke stories.

True, and when the analysis was done on downloads only it was much the same with a few skewed points indicating a possible interest in lower scoring stroke stories at some level.

Yeah that discussion comes up every now and then.

OK. I didn't bother looking for the previous thread, but I did find a spreadsheet of some of the stats I put together back then. It's from 12 July 2017 and I've made an image of the page which is available on my story DropBox folder with a direct link of:

www.dropbox.com/s/51wx2c3ak0c418v/SoL%20stats%20July%202017.jpg?dl=0

The info is the raw data from the Top 50 lists of the time.

The data you presented made me curious for the two stroke stories scoring 9+, but I couldn't find any. Please don't tell they were removed from SoL!

More likely the score has decreased due to the increasing number of votes since then. I don't know, as I don't know what stories they were. I simply got the top 50 lists and counted up the numbers for each group, then put them in a spreadsheet which i didn't keep, then I got together the figures for all of the stories then posted, which is what's in the image.

The highest scoring stroke story I could find is a story with a sore of 8.64 and 1064 kb

I looked it up. I didn't read it, but is it really a stroke story? It has the "slow" story code which SOL defines as: "There is a story and plot development before any sex occurs. Not a stroke story."

That sounds as if the writers of no-sex stories are better story tellers or perhaps they just put more work into writing a good story than stroke story authors do.

So what. I picked the 2 extremes for comparison. I recognize there are defined points between the extremes but chose to not address them.

That sounds as if the writers of no-sex stories are better story tellers or perhaps they just put more work into writing a good story than stroke story authors do.

I'm not sure if either statement is true or false. What I feel I can safely infer from the data available is that the stories that score higher tend to be better written with better plots, even the ones with sex scenes. However, there appears to be more better written stories with no sex scenes than with sex scenes. Please keep in mind we're talking about the top 50 of over 40,000 stories, which is a very low sample quantity.

Although the sex scene resulted in a boost to the score of my WIP, overall there's actually quite a strong negative correlation between the scores of my stories and the amount of sex they contain.

Perhaps I'm really crap at writing sex scenes (ie a man) ;)

AJ

Perhaps I'm really crap at writing sex scenes (ie a man) ;)

The key to being a writer on SOL is that you are writing to a predominately straight white male audience, so while it may hurt you as an author, it's unlikely to harm you much on SOL. As I've said, I've largely given up on most of my sex scenes, even though they score better than my other chapters, largely because of a very small vocal minority (only 3 readers) who bitch about the story 'not making sense' after they 'skip over' the sex scenes.

My sex scenes DO advance the plot, so skipping them is clearly a foolish move, and I hate changing my writing style because of a couple morons, but it's just frustrating to deal with people who can't figure out that, if a story doesn't make sense after skipping a chapter, you should back up and reread the bypassed section which left you befuddled.

I guess that's a case of catering to the lowest common denominator—the moron class—to avoiding the issue altogether.

Now, when I write a story (like my current one) which has a strong incest theme, I largely avoid the entire driving impetus.

In this case, I'd view that as a well formulated and reasonable response.

It's much more a testament on the reader's capability, as those few simply don't know how to read a book.

I've been forced to bypass large sections of books before, as they sometimes drone on endlessly, but if you're mildly literate, you skim, you don't just bypass chapters and then expect the story to make a lick of sense.

That's what I meant by the 'lowest common denominator'. I don't consider them jerks, just semi-literate. Every serious student learns how to skim extensive research material, ignoring anything not relevant to their topic. Those who never learned that likely relied exclusively on Cliff Notes.

My sex scenes DO advance the plot, so skipping them is clearly a foolish move, and I hate changing my writing style because of a couple morons, but it's just frustrating to deal with people who can't figure out that, if a story doesn't make sense after skipping a chapter, you should back up and reread the bypassed section which left you befuddled.

Which puts you in the 1% of SoL writers who do that. There's one SoL author who's work I like, but I find I can skip every damn sex scene he has and not miss a single word of the plot. Mind you, if you miss a single discussion over morning coffee scene you're in big trouble with lost plot action. However, I'm like you CW, the sex scenes are the to advance the plot or the characters.

That's just bad writing and it could apply equally well to any particular kind of scene an author favors. It is not a problem unique to sex scenes.

That's almost the definition of 'gun porn' or the other multitude of 'porn' phrases. It's not that those passes aren't appreciated by a particular audience, but that they don't speak to the vast majority of readers, and they don't advance the plot.

If you include something exclusively for a particular segment of your readers, you're essentially just writing porn, whatever the topic. While great authors can make beautiful literature out of blatant sex scenes. There much more to great writing that playing to an established fan base.

The only outlier was that one which probably everybody except me Rues you ever writing.

As you say Ross, every author needs at least one or two of those stories (though hopefully no more than that), in order to stretch themselves as authors. While it helps them develop their breadth, they're not always fan favorites (who typically just want more of the same).

My conclusion was the score for your WIP was not an outlier; it was part of an obvious progression

I hadn't realised that. I suspect it's because my experiments are subconsciously deviating towards SOL-friendlier stories.

I want to keep this nym for experimental stories, so I'll probably steer clear of straight SciFi stories. Oh well, 'Nuns in Space' was on a backburner anyway :(

AJ

As you may remember, the nuns didn't have any habits to get into ;)

AJ

Didn't the pope say masturbating was ok as long as it didn't get out of hand?

Didn't the pope say masturbating was ok as long as it didn't get out of hand?

Thus you demonstrate one of the dividing lines between Papists and Christians - which are not the same thing.

I was referencing the pun in the statement only. I found it funny. No offense was meant towards anyone's religious sentiments.

For myself, I have had advanced theological training. When my brain fried the part of it responsible for religious sentiments was one of the areas that burned. To be honest, I miss it dearly. Now, religion other than in a Jungian sense is as interesting to me as watching paint dry.

Being that I am still dealing with the fallout from my illness the comfort of religion would be appreciated. I'm just out of luck. That's one reason I resonate with my Northern heritage. In the Sagas, even the Gods got fucked. It makes it all a bit bearable. :)

No offense was meant towards anyone's religious sentiments.

None was taken, i was simply commenting on the differences between what the scriptures teach and what the church leaders teach - - which is a major disconnection in all of the organised religions.

You'll hear no argument from me there. They even teach classes on it. I know, I took them. lol

I don't know why you even believe adding more sex scenes would mean pandering to the reader or that you'd receive a higher score.

Well, in my own case, my strongest feedback has traditionally been for my sex scenes. That's difficult to turn your back on. My stories may be stronger now, but I also don't receive the feedback I once did.

Whatever ... In AJ's case I'm already sure his readers mainly were expressing their relief that the sex scene they encountered wasn't gay.

Who wants unhappy sex and romance? 'D

I have to admit the story title and description aren't exactly irresistible flypapers :(

AJ

Doesn't mean that the MC shouldn't have sex anymore, just that the reader doesn't need an explicit account what happens in the bedroom.

That's sorta like the '3 "s" stories', where each day they detail precisely how the character shits, showers and shaves. It's really more than we need to know the first time, but after the twentieth chapter, you're likely to dump the entire story because you're so sick of hearing the same ... shit, over and over!

To be meaningful, those numbers need to be compared with the total number of stories in each of those categories.

AJ

Thanks. I now know what the subject must be to get a nine-plus score for a short story.

Object lesson: honoring the fallen works better than gun-porn any day.

When I feel like spending the time on it I'll have to do that exercise again to see if the percentages have changed a lot.

I just repopulated the spreadsheet with the latest stats and they're available at:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/3h3e30rrfavko27/SoL%20stats%20April%202018.jpg?dl=0

There doesn't seem to be a huge shift in them. The only 9 score stroke story is title Cyber sex.

That story doesn't display a score for me.

The process I used was to use the Complex Category Search page to run 2 searches. On both pages I selected the score value and the sex level, on one I selected the category of + 2nd POV while the other had - 2nd POV, then I added the 2 results together. The only story to show for a 9 score Stroke was Cyber-sex. Because the search results gave all the stories for the score above the one selected I started at the top, added the two results together, then subtracted the values for the higher scored stories already counted to get the results for each lower level score.

Now, you have to remember the moment a story has a single vote is has a score within the system, however the system will not display a score until 20 votes have been registered for it. Thus Cyber-sex will have between 1 to 19 votes so it has a score, but being less than 20 votes it doesn't display.

Stories with no votes at all are in the group listed as None in the stats I provided. Those stories will either have not yet had a vote given them by anyone or the voting is turned off.

Because he's counting stories without any displayed score. Sorting by score eliminates the stories without score. 148 stories 9+ without sorting but only 100 stories when sorted. If you want to count stories without a displayed score, fine, but I view that as faulty statistic.

The stories without any scores at all are counted on the line None in the stats I provided. What you're arguing about are the stories that have a score but the score isn't displayed because there is 1 or more votes but less than 20 votes, which is the point the display of the score is triggered. To do the stats in the way you suggest would drop over 1,000 stories from the total.

Why do you want a story with less than sixteen votes (which is the threshold IIRC) listed in a statistic focused on scores?

Because they have a score it's just not displayed. So do you make the cut after 1 vote, 20 votes or 200 votes.

In a statistic centered on scores you only count stories which display a score.

Well, we'll have to disagree, because I've counted the stories which have a score, not just the ones that display a score. I analysed the scores, not the displays.

SoL has 41,880 stories.

There are 41,082 stories that have scores, thus there are 798 stories with a score which isn't displayed.

There are 35,592 stories which have scores displayed.

So that means there are 6,288 without displayed scores, with 5,490 stories being ones with no scores at all or they have the scoring turned off.

The stats I collected and presented show every story based on the score it has within the system with a total disregard of if it's displayed or not, because having the score places it in the scored category.

You can insist all you like about what should and shouldn't count based on what is displayed, but that varies with what the score is within the system If you want to do stats based on what's displayed, then feel free to prepare your own, but know you'll be dumping 768 scored stories and 5,490 unscored stories from the stats, thus you should base the percentages on the lower figure of the 35,592 of the stories with a displayed score and not the total number of stories on the site which is 41,880.

I would have thought that stories should only be considered when they have enough votes for the murgling algorithm to kick in.

AJ

I would have thought that stories should only be considered when they have enough votes for the murgling algorithm to kick in.

the system for the vote calculating was established long, long ago when when every vote was included, but it didn't display until 20 votes were made. Over time a number of authors bitched about the voting system, so it's been changed at different points. The last time there were any changes Lazeez entered into a lengthy dialogue with the authors, but only a few were interested. As a result of that dialogue the system was changed, and most of the authors agreed with the changes. That change included the slicing out of outlier votes of 5% at both ends. The only thing that was changed was the algorithm, not the display process.

The end result is as soon as a single vote is cast the story has a vote, but it isn't displayed. Thus you know it has less than 20 votes if the score isn't shown. However, what you see is the same as if it has no votes at all.

I may be wrong but it's my understanding that the algorithm doesn't kick in until 20 votes have been cast, one of the reasons the score isn't shown until then. And not only do the outliers get pruned, but the score gets rectified based on the median score of recent stories.

AJ

I may be wrong but it's my understanding that the algorithm doesn't kick in until 20 votes have been cast, one of the reasons the score isn't shown until then. And not only do the outliers get pruned, but the score gets rectified based on the median score of recent stories.

Lazeez would be the only person who can give you a clear answer on the algorithm. However, if I were writing that script it would have to have certain routines in it to get the best answer. I would expect the algorithm is in operation from the first vote, but it would have a zero affect until the 20th vote is cast due to it being a fractional value not being passed on.

I'm not saying this is how it works, but it is a way it could work.

The adjustment for the mean value could be done before all this or after all this, and is a lot more complex, so I'll leave it alone. Since it doesn't affect the process below.

Sub-routines would calculate the number of outlier votes to subtract, one routine for each end of the total list. Those routines would also have to round down to the nearest whole number to have it work right. Then it would identify the scores to match the number just calculated, and add up the sum of those scores. Those figures would be passed to the main routine.

The main routine would take the total count of the scores, add them up and also add up the total values of the scores. Then it would subtract the two outlier numbers from the sub-routines for both the number of votes and the values of scores at 5% of the total each. This would result in an adjusted value for the number of scores and the sum of those scores before calculating an average score.

Now if you call the values RV for Raw Vote, and OV for Outlier Vote you should have something along the lines of:

Subtract OV top and OV bottom counts from RV vote for New Vote Count.

Subtract OV top and OV bottom totals from RV score for New Vote Total

Divide New Vote Total by New Vote Count for score. Display if Vote Count is 20 or greater.

With this it will only use whole numbers for the votes it cuts, and it won't cut any votes until there are 20 votes because it won't get a whole number until then. Thus the figure passed from the routines to the main program would be zero until the total vote count reaches 20 votes. However, it will still provide you with a score value even thought there are less than 20 votes.

edit to add: And the next set of changes to the OV counts would be at 40 total votes.

I may be wrong but it's my understanding that the algorithm doesn't kick in until 20 votes have been cast,

I believe the story is scored, but the score isn't displayed until there are 20 votes. The author sees it in the stats, though, even if the general public doesn't.

Hypothetically, it occurred to me that a devious author might post a story with scoring switched off, wait until all interest tailed off, switch on scoring, award themselves a ten then switch scoring off again. The story would then come out top in searches, even though no score is visible.

I, for one, am definitely not going to test that theory, and I hope no-one else does either.

AJ

Category search with score of 1 or greater specified, sort by score ascending.

advanced search allows you to search with a lower and an upper score value. stories with scores between 1 and 2 has 17 listed with only 4 being displayed, and two of them are 1.67. The largest is 25 KB, with eleven of 6 KB or less.

I also did a Category search for 9.9 or higher and got 27 hits, and none of them had a visible score displayed.

there are 27 stories on SoL with a perfect score of 10

How did you find that? I did an Advanced Search with scores from 9 to 10 sorted by score in descending order and there were no 10s. The highest score is 9.62.

Simple, I searched for a score of 10.

ETA: Category Search not Advanced Search.

I did that with Category Search (a score of 10 or more) and got no matches (I put a - in front of 2nd POV to choose a category).

ETA: I think I found a BUG!

When I did my search, I sorted by "score" and found no matches.
When I did the same search, but sorted by "name," a list of stories came up with no score.

sort by score will only ever display stories with a score available for display because it sorts on the visible score, also Category search will not run unless you select one category or more.

edit to add: I forgot to say when you run a search without asking it to sort by score it will show results with a score but not enough votes to display the score.

Category search will not run unless you select one category or more.

I did select a category. Actually, negatively selected it by checking the - for 2nd POV.

edit to add: I forgot to say when you run a search without asking it to sort by score it will show results with a score but not enough votes to display the score.

I did a search on a score of 10. When I sorted it by score, I got no results. When I sorted it by name, I got a bunch with no scores. Are you telling me they all have perfect 10s but not enough to display?

Are you telling me they all have perfect 10s but not enough to display?

That's what it's implying. a few votes of 10 but not enough to break the display barrier. So if the only person to vote on the story votes a 10 then it will be in the list as a undisplayed 10 until there's enough votes to display the results.

Hypothetically, it occurred to me that a devious author might post a story with scoring switched off, wait until all interest tailed off, switch on scoring, award themselves a ten then switch scoring off again. The story would then come out top in searches, even though no score is visible.

You could do that, but it would probably discourage readers. If they sort by score, that sort uses the visible score only, so if there is no visible score then it won't display. If the number of votes is below the display level and the reader sorts by any other options it will look to them as if no one bothered to score the story. So there is no gain, and lots to lose, by doing what's suggested.

Do that again but before you count the stories sort them by score. Then you'll see only stories with a displayed score.

And the counts would be out by those with one vote or more and less than 20 votes. There are 100 stories listed for any sex level with a score of 9 or more when sorted by score, but when sorted by name there are 148 stories because there are 48 stories with a vote but not yet enough to display a score.

Also, it really could be just 1 score with a 9 from the author

A story with a single vote of 10 would be listed in the 9-10 group on the stats I presented. As would a story with 19 votes of 10 or 19 votes of 9. In all three cases no score would be displayed because it hasn't broken the 20 vote threshold for having it displayed, but the value would still be in the system.