I'm kind of curious about opinions on why my story got hammered with such a low score in the April Fool's contest. I'm not claiming it's my magnum opus or anything, but it scored a full two points lower than my lowest rated story ever on here.
Most of my stories are getting in the low to mid 7's, which I've been pretty happy with so far. Coming out of the contest with a 4.4 score is wildly discouraging and makes me question whether I should continue publishing here.
Malcom
My guess and this is only guessing is that people may not have liked the ending. She was going to blackmail her friend but there was never anything shown as to what or how thing came about when she proceeded with her plan. The story ended as if it was a to be continued or you are hoping for more chapters.
But I will admit as a short story I myself enjoyed it and made a sticky note to find out after the contest who wrote it to check out if the was other stories.
.02
Your comment about my ending is a valid criticism, and one that was in the back of my mind when I published the story. In the end I decided going too far past April Fools Day didn't let the story be as much about the theme of the contest. If I was to finish the story to my satisfaction, it would probably go more than ten chapters.
A better approach, if you ARE planning on additional chapters, is to add that, not with an explicit statement, as that isn't allowed there, but simply adding a last minute thought by the character in question, such as "Yeah, I'm gonna pay that bitch back," as it'd hold the whole story together, providing more closure, as now, the thread is a direct, rather than an implied one.
Though, I'll admit, I never read the story, not being big on contests, it seems a better resolution, as it's clear there's more to the story once the initial story ends. It's not a "to be continued," yet again, it's implied, even if never get written.
One thing I might say is that for contests, you aren't necessarily getting your readers. You are getting the paid premium members who might have different tastes than the normal people who frequent your stories.
Don't worry too much about one poorly received story. Maybe something just didn't land as intended. Or as palamedes mentioned, it didn't feel like a complete story which could be a factor with contest submissions.
Let your readers find it and see what they say.
All the best,
-ghostwritten
makes me question whether I should continue publishing here.
It really doesn't matter where you post your stories. Some readers will applauded you while others will crucify you.
I haven't read any of your stories so I can't comment on them. Readers view a story in a contest differently from a story you just post.
Most readers typically rate a story on how it makes them feel. They tend to overlook or forgive many flaws. The result is a non-judgmental rating.
In a contest, the readers are not forgiving of flaws and critical of content. They tend to be more judgmental, so they don't rate the story as high as they would if you just posted it.
I just read the description to your story. Your idea of an April Fool's joke is not funny and I doubt I would enjoy the story. If the story content matches the description, there is no wonder the readers scored it so low.
I didn't see any requirements for the contest entries to be "funny", so I don't understand the snark in you saying "there is no wonder the readers scored it so low."
Maybe you're also pushing some kind of agenda against certain story types? This seems to be something that goes on here and is what a few people are telling me in private messages. That's fine, but I'm new here and trying to understand the dynamics of the site. I would appreciate more constructive criticism instead of being trolled over my story description.
I didn't see any requirements for the contest entries to be "funny"
Most people associate April Fools Day with light harted pranks. Not just whatever happens on April 1st.
Sometimes pranks go wrong and have serious consequences, but to be a prank, those serious consequences can't be the intent.
There are people who don't consider Die Hard to be a Christmas move.
It was released around Christmas, It's set at Christmas, with an office Christmas party, but ultimately the story is not about Christmas.
My story matches the contest description, which is an April Fools Day prank gone wrong (or right). The MC tries a prank on her friend at the mall, which goes wrong, resulting in some reluctant fellatio. It's not just a story set on a certain day.
The MC tries a prank on her friend at the mall,
Most people won't see it that way.
On April Fool's Day, April tricks her best friend Rachel into shoplifting at a mall, leading to Rachel's capture by a security guard. To avoid arrest, Rachel is coerced into doing something naughty that is secretly recorded. How far will April go to get her hands on that footage? Footage which could be the key to making all her domination dreams come true.
Tricking someone into committing a crime so you can blackmail them won't meet most people's definition of prank. It could be a good story outside the context of an April Fools prank, but it doesn't fit the context of an April Fools prank.
The description makes it seem like the "gone wrong" part was the intent from the beginning, which means it hasn't "gone wrong".
Sorry, Malcom, but you specifically asked why your story was rated so low. So get off your high horse and face reality. Many readers DON'T consider the content to be the least bit 'funny'. If that was your intent, then simply accept the score and be done with it, as you definitely earned the score you received. While your fans may love that type of content, general readers likely won't.
A scat or a racial attack story would likely have received a similar negative response. So, in that sense, consider yourself lucky, as yours wasn't nearly so bad!
There are people who don't consider Die Hard to be a Christmas move.
I don't. But my wife thinks "The Holiday" is the best Christmas movie ever. Is it really a Christmas movie?
Then again, I always thought the movie "Ben Hur" was about the Romans subjecting the Jews and how that affected one prominent Jewish family. And then one day I saw the full title of the move: "Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ." So it wasn't even a movie about the subjugation of Jews. It was about Christ and how any suffering Jew could find reprieve by following Him.
I didn't see any requirements for the contest entries to be "funny",
What you encountered was not a contest requirement. You encountered human nature.
Remember that I said a reader's vote is based on their feelings about your story. You wrote a story about betrayal and using other people for your character's betterment. April Fools' pranks are supposed to be pranks that don't hurt the person who is pranked.
Your readers had a very negative opinion of your story. Therefore, they gave your story a poor rating.
so I don't understand the snark in you saying "there is no wonder the readers scored it so low."
You asked why you got a low score, and I gave you my opinion. You can call my opinion snarky, but your readers did not like the content of your story and rated it accordingly.
Actually, I think it's the nature of the contest. If the contest was a "new short story", or a "betrayal contest", then people would've been expecting it and thus rating it higher. Yet pulling that for an April Fool's 'Prank' story contest was an example of 'not reading the room'.
Stories fail for any number of reasons, yet it can be predicted, if you're consciously trying to be controversial. Again, those stories are fine, yet it was tone-deaf considering the Contest's context.
It's because competitions can only be voted on by paying premium members. Personally, I think that because they pay, they are a lot more discerning than those that read for free.
In the past, I went through all the previous competitions and the competitors, and checked their story score against their (non competition) story average. For almost all of them, the competition entries are their lowest scoring story in their library.
And yes, that includes me 😂
The small few who manage to buck that trend, tend to be the authors who normally score low to mid nine anyway.
The question I think we should actually be asking, is "Does this actually harm the existence of the competition?" Especially in the long run.
For me, it was a 'yes'. I attempted it once, not with any serious intention of actually winning, (be serious!) but just to try something new. In the past, I have even tried to promote enthusiasm for them in the forums. Which worked for a bit.
However, you can't hide the beast for long and once kicked in the goolies, not many come back for a second strike. As for me, my take on it was, "Well, fuck you premier payers...."
Thin skinned? Possibly. I'm certainly not going to deny that I don't like having my ego massaged once in awhile. And I have noticed that the majority who submit a piece, never do so again, and I totally understand why.
*Edit* Added a missing 'the'.
Thanks for the reply. I understand what you're saying, but I just feel like something strange happened. I'll just drop it for now. You're right though, I'm very unlikely to enter another contest like this.
I should have clarified that the contest I entered was the Halloween one, but to be honest, the voting behaviour in all the contests is the same, so technically, nothing strange happened with the recent April fools one. Votes were cast on par with previous, you were just not expecting the result.
It's at this point I feel there should be a meme picture with the caption, "And this is why we can't have nice things...."
I will also repeat as others said. I am not a paid premium member. I see the contest, some titles and authors look interesting. But I cannot read then vote for 6 months. Yes, I'm OK with the rules, I respect this site and all the authors here.
You as a contestant need to remember to publicize your contest entries at 6 months so that us non-members are reminded to read your story!
remember to publicize your contest entries at 6 months so that us non-members are reminded to read your story!
Only the 3 winners remain in the Premier area for the 6 months. The others become available in the free area when the contest winners are announced.
Not addressing specifically the story in question, but contests in general: I "vote" in contests, but I "score" other stories.
In general, when I start reading a story, I reach a decision about whether I like it or not. If I don't, I usually say, "I am not into the same kinks as the target audience." Then I stop reading it, and don't give it a score at all.
If I do give a story a score, it's because I read it to the end, so I give it a score of at least "OK." Also, at that point, I score matching my feeling to the word scores ("Excellent," "Good," etc.). The effect is that the average score I give is probably around 7.3.
On the other hand, for a contest, I try to read as much as I can of all the entries, and then I give a score to all of them - even the ones I disliked so much I couldn't finish them. Those scores are then relative to the pool. To maximize the weight of my opinion, I have to spread the scores as widely as possible. If there are two stories, I will give one a 10, the other a 0. In this case, I think I gave my favorite a 10, my second choice a 9, and I certainly spread the scores on the other stories all the way down to 0. The effect was that the average score I gave on the contest was probably slightly less than 5.
Supposing that other voters do something similar (if less calculated) the scores in contests will naturally end up being lower than for regular stories (at least, on average).
I repeat my original comment, though: this is not an opinion about the specific story by H. Malcolm Walker. I do not recall what score I gave that story, and it isn't relevant to my point. My point is that there is a reason why scores in contests may be lower than in general.
(F)or a contest, I try to read as much as I can of all the entries, and then I give a score to all of them - even the ones I disliked so much I couldn't finish them. Those scores are then relative to the pool. To maximize the weight of my opinion, I have to spread the scores as widely as possible. If there are two stories, I will give one a 10, the other a 0. In this case, I think I gave my favorite a 10, my second choice a 9, and I certainly spread the scores on the other stories all the way down to 0. The effect was that the average score I gave on the contest was probably slightly less than 5.
I can understand your perspective on voting for stories in contests on SoL.
My perspective is to only give a story a 0 if it is utterly Unreadable.
For a contest I would typically vote 🗳 the top story an 8 (possibly a 9; only an Exceptional story compared to all stories on SoL, not just the current contest entries, would earn a 10) 😀 At the bottom of the scale ⚖ would be a 3. To "earn" a 1 or 2 a story would have numerous misspelling, grammar errors, and other technical errors, as well as minimal entertainment value. 😉
I realize that my limited range of votes 🗳 won't have as big an impact for what I think are the best and worst stories in a particular contest. 😕
Now I am curious about how other voters in Contests use a narrowed range similar to mine; versus an extreme 0 to 10 range? 🤔
Now I am curious about how other voters in Contests use a narrowed range similar to mine; versus an extreme 0 to 10 range?
I'm curious as to how Lazeez would like contest stories to be scored.
I didn't think it was to compare one entry to another like you suggest. I thought the contest stories would be read and scored like any story not in the contest. That is, you read only those that interest you and you score them like you would any other story on SOL. And then at the close of voting, the 3 stories with the highest scores wins 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place.
Again, a score of zero and perfect score of 10 should be equally as rare, as nines are hard enough to achieve, given the weighted scoring system, so purposely given those extreme scores only hurts everyone, not just those you specifically dislike.
Instead, the best strategy is to score stories by categories, so if you like three different stories for entirely different reasons, then assign each an eight, and save nines and tens for the truly exceptional ones.
As for zeros, you should only give those if they make your eyes bleed, because they're SO damn hard to read, and even then, I prefer giving a five rather than a zero, as it marks it as "needs improvement", not "stop writing and NEVER post to SOL again". That's a bit drastic, no matter how bad it is, as most one scores are due to other factors (most often politics (i.e. the perceived political leanings of entirely fictional characters)).
As for zeros, you should only give those if they make your eyes bleed, because they're SO damn hard to read, and even then, I prefer giving a five rather than a zero, as it marks it as "needs improvement", not "stop writing and NEVER post to SOL again".
Not for contest voting, but I've given a "story" a 1 (I think that's the lowest.) which currently shows in the voting pull down as "You call that a story?" exactly once. Not because the writing was bad, or hard to read, but because it was literally not a story. It was a political rant without even the pretense of putting a story around it.
Yep, that certainly qualifies, as imposing your own political views on an entirely fictional character is as bad as a story with no basis but expressing your private personal opinion. A story is either fictional, or it's non-fiction. It's literally that simple (one of the few cases you can apply "literally" literally.) ;)
Yep, that certainly qualifies, as imposing your own political views on an entirely fictional character is as bad as a story with no basis but expressing your private personal opinion.
You seemed to have missed my point, the "story" I was referring to didn't even make the pretense of putting a story around the rant. In other words, there was no fictional character for the author to impose his views on.
(Sigh!) Yeah, I got that. My point, and I DID have one, is that ranting about your political opinion, is JUST as unpopular as tainting a story with a heavy political slant. They're two sides of the same coin.
Yet, us disagreeing on every single thing I post, is a long-time trait of our conversations, so now, I'm pretty used to it. As you never seem to change your tune, always attacking whatever I say. So, I'm guessing you see me, and my comments, the same way, taking an approach you personally can't stand.
If so, then tough nuggies! I ain't going to stop responding to discussions, just because YOU dislike me. I've never respected bullies, and I never plan on starting. So let's just agree to despise each other, and let it slide a time or two?
Nah, I wasn't expecting you to, as again ...
Your approach is logical. However, it can create issues during and after the contest ends.
Note: Your post indicates a range of 0-10 which is 11 ratings. I think you meant a range of 1-10, which is SOL's rating range.
During the contest, your artificially low ratings may prevent a story from placing (i.e. 1st, 2nd, or 3rd) and receiving a 4th or lower placement. An artificially high ratings may also result in a story placing in the contest instead of receiving a 4th place position, or lower.
If you don't revise your ratings when the contest ends, then story you would normally rate as 6 could receive a 1. The story you would normally rate as 8 or 9 could receive a 10, and etc for the rest of your 1-10 range.
I am also curious about how you rate a category's stories if there are more than 10 stories in the category. If you only rate 10 stories, then that can skew the results when you take into account the other raters.
To me, the best way to rate contest stories is to rate them using your rating system for non-contest stories. Then the results won't be skewed by artificially high and low ratings. You also won't have to update the scores on your rated and unrated stories. Assuming, that you would give those stories you read and didn't rate, a rating after the contest.
Since I started posting in the Forum, I have noticed that there are several methods by which a Reader scores a story. The average reader combines 2, or more, of the methods when they rate a story. These methods include, but not limited to:
• Personnel Appeal
• Grammar/Readability
• Story Line – is there one and how the author develops it.
• Sexual Activity – type of sexual activity and amount/percentage of sex scenes
With one exception, I don't participate in contests. That exception is, when contest entries appear in my New Stories feed, I read the stories that appeal to me. If I finish the story, I rate it. If I don't finish it, I may or may not rate it depending on the problem I had with the story.
Obviously, I have no reasons to complain about the scores my own contest entries received, but your post troubles me a little bit.
To maximize the weight of my opinion, I have to spread the scores as widely as possible.
Here's my heretic question: what makes your opinion so important that you want it to count more than the opinions of other, moderately scoring members? Mind that the contests are not about the voting members, they are about the entries and their authors. Inflating your impact should not be a motivation or even a consideration. Sorry, but your post reads like that.
The contests are about attracting new paying members to the site. Overly critical scoring will lessen the appeal of the contests for future members and future contestants.
If there are two stories, I will give one a 10, the other a 0. In this case, I think I gave my favorite a 10, my second choice a 9, and I certainly spread the scores on the other stories all the way down to 0. The effect was that the average score I gave on the contest was probably slightly less than 5.
Please keep in mind that all scores are weighted, so a "6" will already give a story a sub-par net score. The effect is that all entries below your Nº4 are punished. Given the time constraints all competitors face, the entries are not so far apart in their appeal or quality to justify a 1-10 spread (there is no "0"). This means that the stories least appealing to you will get hammered, even though they may be average for many readers.
As we saw in the OP's post, this has the potential to discourage writers, and that cannot be in our interest. The OP's story is not my cup of tea, but who is to say that he and others don't have the potential for writing exceptional stories in the future? There are several authors on SOL who started out with pure stroke and things that squicked readers, but went on to create true marvels.
So, my appeal is to be less harsh to the perceivedly weaker entries and more reluctant with the nines and tens. You may profit from that in the future.
There are several authors on SOL who started out with pure stroke and things that squicked readers, but went on to create true marvels.
I hope that's true of the OP. I read the story. The nuts and bolts of the story are good so he was the technical alility, but the story itself has few redeeming qualities IMO. The characters are all unlikable and I didn't find the sex content erotic.
AJ
Argon, this is a good point, as is REP's. I never considered this from either of those perspectives.
I just presumed that everybody voting in a contest would be giving their favorite story a 10 and their least favorites very low scores. That seemed to me to be how most people vote in other situations. It also seemed natural to rate contest entries relative to each other, and not relative to the outside world. The discussion here makes it sound as if that is a minority approach.
Pixy's comment makes it sound as if contest scores generally end up lower than other stories. If it isn't because many others are voting the way I do, then it is less clear what is causing that.
If I remember correctly (which happens less frequently as I age) the scoring system is different. For regular stories, there is a drop-down list of options, with "Excellent - Very Good - Good - Neither Good nor Bad - ...". For the Clitorides, there are radio buttons for First/Second/Third. For this contest, there was a drop-down, but with number values.
REP observes that the scores from contests (other than Clitorides) carry over to become the regular score for the posted stories, so I have an obligation to give normal scores. I never thought about the voting that way. I will have to go back through those stories and correct that.
Thank you all for the feedback.
Pixy's comment makes it sound as if contest scores generally end up lower than other stories. If it isn't because many others are voting the way I do, then it is less clear what is causing that.
First, thanks for not being ticked off!
The reasons for the lower scores IMO is that our stories are normally read by people who are attracted by our tags, and getting their needs stroked (figuratively), they tend to overshoot with their scores. In a contest however, fetish stories in general compete against mainstream male fantasies, like starting over, picking up a cute, desperate girl by the road side, or the nerd-gets-the-hot-girl trope (to which I pandered shamelessly in my entry). Guess who comes out on top and who ends up in the middling 6es? Still, the smaller numbers of fetish aficionados will score the middle-of-the-road stuff lower, affecting those scores as well. That's my guess.
Also, we write under a deadline for contests which affects story length. There is a weak correlation between story length and score (R square ~0.5) to guess from my own works.
the nerd-gets-the-hot-girl trope (to which I pandered shamelessly in my entry).
Just read your story. Really good. Glad you won. But it's not the nerd getting the hot girl trope. It's two rejects coming out on top.
By the way, I wouldn't have coded the story as minimal sex. I would say it's no sex.
Thanks for everyone's opinions, good or bad. I appreciate that you took the time to leave them. I think my original question has been answered to my satisfaction, so I'm no longer going to monitor this post. Happy reading and writing to everyone out there.
I am a rather picky reader, so many of the offerings in the most recent contests don't interest me except for one or two. Do to this I've hesitated in scoring the few I've read. As to me it seem you need to read several in order to select a score.
@ Argon
The contests are about attracting new paying members to the site. Overly critical scoring will lessen the appeal of the contests for future members and future contestants.
It is my understanding, that competitions are a means to try and entice regular (free) users to take out a subscription (ie upgrade their access), rather than to entice completely new cash cows to the site (Generally speaking, most people will 'try before they buy' when/if possible). There needs to be some perk that allows those who pay the bills to feel superior to the freeloaders. Library perks/functionality and voting rights are part of that mechanism.
Eventually, writers can gain Premier Accounts (but not voting accounts) but that is not free. In order to do so, they have to provide content for the site, for free. That is the trade-off.
I actually doubt overly critical scoring has any impact what-so-ever on paying members, but I do believe it's destructive to those writing content for the competitions. In the past, they have been cancelled due to low submissions. If you drive away those creating the content for competitions to the extent they are cancelled, then you risk also removing one of the main perks for having a paid account. It's a classic case of shooting ones-self in the foot.
What is the solution? I have no idea.
@ Diamond Porter
Pixy's comment makes it sound as if contest scores generally end up lower than other stories. If it isn't because many others are voting the way I do, then it is less clear what is causing that.
The truth of the matter is easily checked by going to any competition, clicking on the submitters name and checking the submitted story's final score against the average of the rest of their content. Like I said earlier, with the exception of a small few, the majority of contest submitters get pummelled. As to why that happens, I don't think there is that much mystery, other than voters are simply more critical/discerning.
@ Argon
Also, we write under a deadline for contests which affects story length.
Not strictly applicable. There is a Valentines, Halloween and Christmas competition every year. Miss the deadline for one, simply finish and polish it up for submission the following year. If there is an infrequent one, like say an April fools competition, or other specific holiday dropped at short notice, then any deadline could be problematic to submitters. If you go through distant forum posts, you will see me chastise/recommend adjustment, to Laz on the very subject of giving potential partakers the time in which to create quality content (I do believe his response equated roughly to "it happens every year, sort your own diary/admin out…").
In a contest however, fetish stories in general compete against mainstream male fantasies, like starting over, picking up a cute, desperate girl by the road side, or the nerd-gets-the-hot-girl trope (to which I pandered shamelessly in my entry). Guess who comes out on top and who ends up in the middling 6es? Still, the smaller numbers of fetish aficionados will score the middle-of-the-road stuff lower, affecting those scores as well. That's my guess.
There has always been a case where a specific genre gains more readership and greater scores because, well, reasons… I've raised this before in the forums. Want good scores? Then simply write about an ex USA military vet having a sexual relationship with his daughter (or daughters!). I have noticed those three genres (Mil, Mf, incest) tend to automatically score higher than other categories. Equally, there are categories that are automatic score killers (looking at you scat, mm, etc, etc).
Yes, there are outliers to that, but if you look at the stories containing problematic content for the majority of readers that score well, it's because the stories themselves are well written. Like REALLY well written. The point of my thread on that subject was how writers could 'game' their way to a better score average, and how they could equally sabotage their score average by including the 'objectionable' content.
Taking that observation, you could help 'improve' contest writing scores by writing to the majority. The issue with that, is you could eventually end up with all the competition entries being the same. Which brings us back to the initial problem of scorers being their own worst enemy, which runs the (distant, but possible) outcome of making the site overall, stale, and ultimately boring.
@ rustyken
I am a rather picky reader, so many of the offerings in the most recent contests don't interest me except for one or two. Do to this I've hesitated in scoring the few I've read. As to me it seem you need to read several in order to select a score.
Which to me, feels like compounding the hidden problem. Unfortunately, I have no answer as to how to fix it, other than to 'request' all potential voters to read content they have no desire to read (leading to bias issues).
Over-all conclusion?
Fuck knows.
Feel free to discus and pick holes in my opinion… LOL