Forum: Editors/Reviewers Hangout

Reviewing a story - how to?

tisoz 🚫

I very recently read a story that may be the best Western I've read in decades. At one point, it reminded me of a Louis L'Amour novel. I wanted to write a review but don't see a link for doing so. After following the link to a couple of reviews the story already has, I want to write one even more as I think they do a disservice to the story. One seemed a bit harsh compared to ratings I've seen other reviewers give other stories (nothing like reading a story with multiple reviewers giving straight 10s and wondering what they were thinking.)

Can an author turn off reviews, or am I just not doing something right?

Replies: anim8ed joyR bk69 Mushroom

anim8ed 🚫

@tisoz

You have to request to become a reviewer from Lazeez. If approved he will do his behind the scene magic that will allow you to access the reviewer portion of the site.

joyR 🚫

@tisoz

Can an author turn off reviews, or am I just not doing something right?

An author can opt out of having their story reviewed, but that is entirely separate to the ability to review stories, as anim8ed explained.

bk69 🚫

@tisoz

One seemed a bit harsh compared to ratings I've seen other reviewers give other stories

You can only really compare a review to other reviews made by the same reviewer.
For example, I never gave a single story a 10-10-10 score. Two stories got a pair of tens, tho..

But if a reviewer regularly gives 10-10-10, a 9-9-7 score is actually much harsher than a 8-8-7 if I had issued it.

Mushroom 🚫

@tisoz

(nothing like reading a story with multiple reviewers giving straight 10s and wondering what they were thinking.)

Over the years, I have noticed that reviews have become more critical than they were years earlier.

Early on, stories that had more than a lightly superficial plot and more than 50k were an exception. So when grading them in comparison to the majority of stories being written, it was not all that hard for them to stand out.

To see this in action, just go to say ASSTR and look through their archives in say 2000. Most were short, and were silly in the extreme. But then you did have the exceptions, and they were normally far above what was seen before.

But then when you look back on them after another 20 years, they are often lacking when compared to even more modern stories. So in reality, in this case what is really being seen is a snapshot into the era in which both the review and story were written.

Kinda like comparing say Tolkien or Howard with more modern Fantasy writers, rather than their own contemporaries. They were miles above those they were competing against in the era, but when compared to similar stories today, they can seem somewhat sophomoric.

richardshagrin 🚫

Ten is for "most amazing" stories. I started out copying other reviewers who thought nearly everything they reviewed was a Ten. But as time and more reviews flowed by, I decided a good story was an eight. A very good story was a nine, and tens were very rare. Sometimes once a month, sometimes not. It is particularly hard to be most amazed by Technical. Look up standard deviations from the mean. Two standard deviations from the mean are rare.
"For an approximately normal data set, the values within one standard deviation of the mean account for about 68% of the set; while within two standard deviations account for about 95%; and within three standard deviations account for about 99.7%."
I have made an assumption that a score of 6 is the mean, 7 is once standard deviation above the mean, and 8 is two standard deviations above the mean. Since 5% is the amount two standard deviations from the mean, two and a half percent is the amount above the two standard deviations above the mean. (And two and a half percent is below two standard deviations from the mean.) I guess I am willing to have two and half percent of stories be most amazing.

Replies: Keet

Keet 🚫

@richardshagrin

But as time and more reviews flowed by, I decided a good story was an eight. A very good story was a nine, and tens were very rare.

That's almost exactly as I vote for stories. I usually don't vote below 7 because with a story that doesn't deserve a 7 I don't get to the end to be able to vote :)

Reply to topic

Forum: Editors/Reviewers Hangout

Reviewing a story - how to?

WARNING! ADULT CONTENT...