From comments I've seen in the forum, I was under the impression that any review of an SOL story had to be positive.
i just read manddscott's revoe of "The Find" by toms120. The review does not seem to meet that standard.
From comments I've seen in the forum, I was under the impression that any review of an SOL story had to be positive.
i just read manddscott's revoe of "The Find" by toms120. The review does not seem to meet that standard.
If you just read the first sentence of the review, I would agree. I believe the review does "pass muster" as "positive" while offering significant criticism. I will BOLD the positive aspects of the review.
This story reads like someone just typed a stream of consciousness. Even as short as it is, I could not finish it, thus no score for plot or appeal.
Technical score is a D (5). The author really needs a good editor to separate and organize the story. It seems to jump from one point to the other with little cohesion. The story appears to have some real promise, but it is hard to tell. There are paragraphs that are an entire page long because of the lack of separation and some run-on sentences. If this story were properly paced and edited, it would likely be twice as long, without leaving the reader wondering what they just read.
If the author corrects these issues, they can let me know and I would be glad to try to go back and reread the work and re-score it.
It seems the reviewer read the story because they liked the blurb; but were disappointed by the execution. They indicated they would like to read an edited and improved version.
Run on sentences and "wall of text" due to failure to have paragraph breaks are likely to make even a good story difficult to read.
There is no personal attack on the author by the reviewer. There are suggestions for improvement, and a comment that the reviewer would read an improved version of the story and modify the review.
Indeed. Constructive criticism should always be encouraged as it helps authors to grow in their abilities to write a good story. Destructive criticism has absolutely no redeeming qualities and should never be allowed.
There were some stories I saw here years ago which met the "stream of consciousness" criteria, I'd go further and add the words "drug addled" to the description. Even the story descriptions were that bad. The author left over 15 years ago and the stories are premier-only. Some were posted as complete stories, the rest were all yellow-flagged after one chapter.
A review would have to reflect that, maybe some readers would like to have a quick look at what must be about the worst garbage on the site (and yes, there is some competition). I won't name the offerings though because none of her offerings broke 1000 downloads and she does not deserve any more.
I won't name the offerings
I really hate when people do that. Either name the writer or just don't even mention it in the first place. This whole teasing nonsense is just that, irritating nonsense.
There were some stories I saw here years ago which met the "stream of consciousness" criteria, I'd go further and add the words "drug addled" to the description. Even the story descriptions were that bad. The author left over 15 years ago and the stories are premier-only. Some were posted as complete stories, the rest were all yellow-flagged after one chapter.
In a case like that, a constructive criticism would be something along the lines of "Unfinished story that represents stream-of-consciousness style writing. Author could improve by re-writing with more structure and enlisting a good editor to assist. Good points of the story were: xxxxxxxx ... but were mostly lost due to the lack of structure." This type of review points out both the positive and the negative without being destructive and offers a method to improve at the same time.
I sent Pixy a DM with the name of the author, maybe he/she can find redeeming features amongst the garbage.
I shall check them out. Whenever I see 'The worst writer' my inner competitive nature goes "Hold my beer..."
I'm actually feeling a little bit let down. I read breakfast, and I was rather annoyed to find that it wasn't a dogs breakfast.
I see what you mean about it being a "stream-of-consciousness" There were a few typo's but not that many in the grand scheme of things. Yes, it could do with being broken up into more paragraphs.
I would say that it was a 'first draft' of someone with not much time in which to write the thought down (like you have just woken up in the middle of the night and you know that if you go back to sleep, you will have forgotten it all by morning. Been there, got the T-shirt etc etc).
A bit of editing and it wouldn't be that bad. Certainly no worse than that other story we all talked about a few months ago. The political rant one that had someone break into a military camp.... I think that one got deleted?
Edit: It has a current score of 5.85 which in all fairness is better than some of my work, including one of mine that becomes available to read in, two? days...LOL
I found the review to be basically honest and on point. It tries to give some positive directions for the author while warning potential readers of what to expect.
I tried, over the last week, to read the story but consistently gave up after about 3 or 4 chapters. A big part of it is the sudden change from 1st POV to 3rd POV and back to another character's(?!) 1st POV without any indication. It is very difficult to decipher which character 'I' is referring to in each sentence. Run-on sentences aren't too bad in the first few chapters, but the confusion about 'I' is completely killing any immersion in the story.
I dont bother with reviews anymore because they are absolutely useless in giving you an inkling as to whether a story is readable or not.
My basic rule of thumb is, if a story is under an 8 score, it is unreadable, unless you know the author from other much better works. Every single story I've read that is under an 8 score I have basically not been able to finish for one reason or another. Just another one yesterday, I swear the author must have had some sort of advanced ADHD or something. One chapter in and we got aliens, time travel, main character dead, main character alive and fully healed, conspiracy, new love interest. mind reading and so many characters introduced I had no idea who anyone was. No getting to know any of the characters. No normal reactions from people to incredible things happening. Just rapid fire advancements to the plot without any time to appreciate any of them. And of course, the main character didn't question for a second any of the amazing shit happening to him, which is a staple of unreadable stories.
if a story is under an 8 score, it is unreadable
I don't have a single story 8 or higher (the score displayed, not the raw score).
People may not like my stories for any number of reasons, but unreadable? No way!
I don't have a single story 8 or higher (the score displayed, not the raw score).
People may not like my stories for any number of reasons, but unreadable? No way!
I've read a couple of SB's stories. His stories are not generally what I'm looking for as a reader here, but unreadable? I'll second SB's comment: No way.
You could be a rare exception, although I think it would be the first I've come across in literal hundreds of stories below an 8 I've tried to read. I haven't read any of yours. I'll read your Massacre story to ight or tomorrow and let you know.
in literal hundreds of stories below an 8 I've tried to read
There are over 53K stories on SOL, of which less than 3K have a score of 8 or more.
Your sample size is too small to mean anything.
Lets be generous an say you've looked at 999 stories with a score of less than 8. That would mean you looked at approximately 1.9% of the stories with a score below 8.
I've read a significant enough sample group . . . and came away wanting.
Ok, find me a story rated under a 5 that you think is good and let me read it. Find a story that is rated around a 6. Around a 7. I'll read all 3. Since you believe there to be like weird hidden gems all over.
I've read a significant enough sample group
It would only be statistically significant if the sample were properly randomized, which I seriously doubt is the case.
Ok, find me a story rated under a 5 that you think is good and let me read it. Find a story that is rated around a 6. Around a 7. I'll read all 3. Since you believe there to be like weird hidden gems all over.
Not my job.
Under 5 would be pushing it and a much smaller set of stories (around 10K).
The bulk of the stories on the site (around 35K stories) are in the score range of 6-7.99.
Are stories in that score range likely to be up to the quality of dead tree published novels? No. Are they likely to be unreadable to any reasonable standard there of? Also No.
If you really want a recommendation in that range, anything by Switch Blayde.
https://storiesonline.net/a/switch-blayde
His stories are generally well written and score in the rage of 6.12-7.95
weird hidden gems
Try stories by Rachel Ross and her pseudonyms like rache for a wide variety of scores that all seem readable to me.
OK, finished your "High School Massacre" story. Wasn't unreadable at all. It is scored about where it should be which is right at an 8.
The story was good, but like a couple chapters in I knew pretty much everything that was going to happen. In fact, as soon as I read "Lincoln Steele", I pretty much knew how the story would go. There are a lot of nitpicky things that bother me personally but I don't really degrade a story for, such as the whole "classified" business and how inaccurate mostly everything relating to guns was, but I can bet other people take those things seriously and downgrade a story for those reasons. Fix those things, change the name of the main guy, give him a darker backstory and give the villain some semblance of humanity and make the mother not the most unlikable character in the history of literature and this story would probably be a 9+.
So maybe I will amend my earlier statement:
"If a story is under an 8 score, it is almost always unreadable."
I've read and enjoyed quite a number below 8. I've also tried some well above 8 that I was unable to finish for technical / grammar / style / construction reasons (not plot / squicks / whatever).
I do think the ratings are a useful guide in most cases. There's definitely a trend of higher quality at higher ratings. Of course, there's also a familiarity effect where people who don't like an author don't read later stories, so scores go up.
But sometimes the high rating seems to be 'I love the plot of this, and I'll ignore the technical aspects', which is of course just fine, but if I can't get past the technical aspects (and I can get past a lot), it won't work, no matter how cool the story might be. If it's written in an odd tense or the author flips tenses back and forth or ... whatever ... not for me, move on.
My basic rule of thumb is, if a story is under an 8 score, it is unreadable
I've just been reminded of the existence of my novel, 'Gay!', which is currently sitting on 7.98.
If some of you good people could give it a few 10s to nudge it up to 8.00, muyoso could read it and discover that not every story at 8 or above is necessarily readable.
(For those who don't get British humour, that's not a serious suggestion. I loathe all attempts to game the scoring system.)
AJ
I wonder how many of the 8+ scoring stories you did NOT like. The scoring is merely an indication how readers liked the story and says very little about the quality. "Quality" is a pretty subjective measurement because everybody likes something different. You should select the stories that appeal to what you like based on tags and descriptions and then start reading from highest to lowest score. I am willing to bet that you will read multiple 7+ scoring stories that you like better than some of the 8+ scoring stories.
There was a time when I did the same: use advanced search and just filter only 9+ stories and later 8-9 stories. I found that I really didn't like some, so I determined that just a high score says very little about the chance I would like the story, only that a lot of other readers liked it.
ETA: reply should be @muyoso
Tags don't matter to me at all. SOL would need to add tags for "dogshit dialogue" and "unrealistic characters" and "boring predictable plot" and "superhero syndrome" if tags would be helpful in determining if a story was going to be godawful or not. Yes, there are a lot of stories above a score of 8 that I have hated. I never claimed that only stories below an 8 score are bad.
I always took the position that reviews were a way to spotlight a story that others might find interesting.
If there were problems with the story, I'd usually PM the author.
"This would benefit from an editor/proofreading" would probably be my most negative point
LOL! I have 26 stories here, five of which score below 8, but 3 of those won writing contests here on SOL.
Scores are like crowd intelligence, or lack thereof, and much influenced by the subject matter, genre and personal squicks.
On the other hand, a review represents a single person's impression, who most likely likes the story and the genre, and is also influenced by the above likes and dislikes.
That being said, I use the score for my selections, but I put my cut-off lower and I consider the genre and the tags, too. I could name at least 3 writers here whose work I read and re-read with enjoyment, and they only crack the 8.0 barrier with half their stories.
How do I get the filter system to show me a list of all writers where at least half of their stories were rated 8.0 or higher? I'd settle for 7.0+ if necessary.
-ZM
What filter system are you referring to?
There is no search system for authors that I am aware of other than a very simple name search on the main author list page.
Quick search (on the home page), Category search, and Advanced search all work on stories, not authors.
The category search and advanced search will let you limit stories by a score range, but that only works on individual stories, not authors.
There are three filters in your account settings that will apply to all story lists.
One hides older stories from before the age 14 minimum rule was established that have characters that are under 14.
One hides stories with tags that you select.
The last filter allows you to exclude selected authors, but you must choose specific authors to exclude by pen name. There is no query type rule you can apply to this.
From the home page click "Advanced Search"
then scroll down to "Other Meta Data:"
and in the "score" the box marked "From" enter your lowest rated score you wish to see (example 7.65) and in the "To" box place your highest choice of rating (example 10)
then you can hit enter or scroll down and click "start search" for the results.
on the page showing your results of the search you can click "Score" to place the search results in order of highest to lowest or click "Score" again will then show the list from lowest score to highest.
If you click "Author" it will list all your result in alphabetical order of Author name and the Authors story in order of lowest to highest score.