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Scores… again

NC-Retired 🚫

But this time as an observation and not criticism. I love to logon and scroll the front page for new stories or chapters of ongoing serials, author blog entries and such.

Today there were several new chapters displayed of stories I am reading as they post.

I love looking at the score that the story has earned, whatever it is, and then next to that is the score I gave it.

Today, the overall scores matched my scores. 8.18 general, mine 8. Blah blah.

Two ways to view that coincidence. I'm with the many or the many are with me in our evaluation.

The ones that really stand out are those tales that I score 9 or 10 and the masses have given it a score that totals ~7.5-ish.

What have I missed? Or are the masses not seeing how good the tale really is?

Ah well. Just another tiny drop in the bucket of reasons I've been a subscriber for 20+ years.

sunseeker 🚫

@NC-Retired

comes down to different strokes for different folks. Not everyone likes the same thing so others don't think the tale is as good as you do.

I can relate cause I'm not reading many of the current high rated stories, I just figure "looks like many like it" while I didn't for whatever reason.

To each their own...

SunSeeker

Dominions Son 🚫

@sunseeker

Not everyone likes the same thing so others don't think the tale is as good as you do.

As an example, as a reader, I am not a fan of the minimalist "nothing that doesn't directly advance the plot" approach to story telling.

A story with no setting, no scenery, is not worth reading.

Replies:   Vincent Berg
Vincent Berg 🚫

@Dominions Son

That's the key, as it's not so much 'minimal storytelling' as it is a general 'cleanup' form having read through the entire story—thus you know which story threads never 'played out' (i.e. were never successfully completed), yet 'scenery' is considered 'setting a story in a specific time and place', and like character development, are just as vital—if not more so—than the plot itself is.

One is making a story feel 'real' or 'authentic', no matter how unreal the story universe (by sharing the common values most often cherished in each separate universe) and the other is simply sweeping up all the things we first planned planned to develop, yet never did.

And, at least for me, I try to focus on keeping my stories shorter, rather than routinely writing epics which essentially go on forever, though the dull, more boring segments, so in most cases, I instead jump from one 'episode' to another, to skip over those 'slower' segments entirely, just as I write a bar or restaurant scene, by leaping directly to the most vital elements of the dialogue, not the same-old, 'how's the wife and kids? Yeah, mine are fine too? So how's the job?'

That ends up being a LOT of text, which doesn't advance the story at all, as it's just 'filler', adding text for not real purpose at all.

Thus it's a more structured way of keeping the overall word-count down. You're not dropping anything essential to the story, you're just not wasting your readers valuable time, and instead you're writing concise text.

But, if you prefer those more roundabout story elements, than please read another story, as mine will only piss you off, anyway! ;)

Again, I never write for the masses, instead I write to challenge myself—writing the kinds of story no one else will, the more unusual, less orthodox, unusual stories I've long cherished.

Vincent Berg 🚫

@sunseeker

That gets back to the 'do I bother downvoting a story I couldn't be bothered to read' theme, as most stories take time to find their 'voice', as they usually get better, the further into the story you continue.

Thus, for many of us, if we choose not to read a story, we simply don't vote at all. Then, when we finally check out the completed story, we get a fairer picture or the whole story, rather than just the roughest, broadest strokes.

Replies:   Switch Blayde
Switch Blayde 🚫
Updated:

@Vincent Berg

as most stories take time to find their 'voice', as they usually get better, the further into the story you continue.

You said your writing is influenced by the publishing industry. That statement is not true in traditional publishing. You need to get the reader's attention quickly.

There's a famous librarian whose name I don't remember, but I guess is someone of importance in literature. Her rule-of-thumb is 90 pages. After 90 pages she either keeps reading or quits. Maybe because I'm a slow reader, but my threshold is less than 90 pages.

On SOL, I find the opposite to be true for long stories. Many start out good and then get boring.

Replies:   palamedes  Vincent Berg
palamedes 🚫

@Switch Blayde

I believe that was Nancy Pearl's Rule of 50

Nancy Pearl of Seattle, Washington - Washington Center for the Book at Seattle Public Library

but was also a librarian for Detroit, Michigan and Tulsa, Oklahoma.

She even has her own action figure.

Replies:   Grey Wolf
Grey Wolf 🚫

@palamedes

50 makes sense. I seldom abandon stories. One of my examples of nearly doing so is Umberto Eco's Foucalt's Pendulum. Perhaps it was me at the time, but the first 50ish pages were painful.

The rest was blissful.

I have to wonder how many people bailed out before the going got good.

Replies:   palamedes
palamedes 🚫

@Grey Wolf

I have to wonder how many people bailed out before the going got good.

I can understand and relate as I have never finished or even wanted to go back and try reading the book The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold.

I made it as far as the rapist/murder hiding the bodies of his victims in a quicksand pit. The why I stopped was it became to much at the time for me as a week prior I assisted on recovering 4 children at the bottom of a water filled stone quarry because this was the fathers way of stopping his child support payments. Even after 20 years I do not believe I will ever be able to read this book do to anger issues.

Vincent Berg 🚫
Updated:

@Switch Blayde

I never claimed to write traditional stories or even anything a traditional publisher would touch with a hundred-foot pole. I've always chose the stories that most challenge ME, so I opted to self-publish, as I had NO desire to write 'normal' stories.

However, I always intended to write the more 'literary stories', focusing on the higher-crafted, better-written stories. Whether I've succeeded on that has always been a matter of personal opinion, so I'm happy with my own, dedicated fan base, as I've NEVER once wanted to be 'Popular' either. As it just ain't who I IS!

I love writing a decent yarn, yet I prefer the stories which challenge me, both personally and how I view the world. So why would I care how many readers actively HATE me? They ain't MY readers!

And yes, on SOL, you also have great writers and horrendous writers, yet mostly we have those who write their stories to suit their own 'squicks' (i.e. their own perverted preference, so once again, it's easy to spot those stories we care to read, and which we don't want to be exposed to.

And yes, I've read many wonderfully written stories that actively turned my stomach, yet I still loved their beauty, wherever those stories carried me along.

In short, get over yourself. SOL readers will either adore or despise you, and in the end, there's really NOTHING you can do about it. As always, we each write to OUR readers, since we're most familiar with how they think and what they most desire in their stories.

As it is, I'm likely the LEAST popular SOL author, yet I'm proud of that, no matter what everyone else thinks of it.

Replies:   Switch Blayde
Switch Blayde 🚫

@Vincent Berg

I was responding to your comment, "as most stories take time to find their 'voice'" and previous comments that I can't provide a direct quote that your writing is guided by what we find in traditional publishing.

I may have misunderstood you, but I assumed we shared a belief. I don't write what I would write if I were trying to be traditionally published, but I try to write how those traditionally published stories are written.

When I did try to traditionally publish, the feedback from the publisher's submission editor was eye-opening. Since I had never been formally trained in writing fiction, it was new to me. I spent years studying the craft of writing fiction, reading about things like, show, don't tell, active rather than passive voice, head-hopping, verbs bring a story to life (not adverbs), don't write purple prose, etc.

So although I write what I want to write, I keep the above advice in mind when crafting a story. That's what I thought you said you did. And because I thought you said that, I was surprised that you said it was okay for "stories to take their time to find their 'voice'." The people whose advice I take when writing would disagree. Some say you have to hook the reader with the first sentence or first paragraph. That's bullshit. But you do have to get them interested in the plot and especially the characters for them to keep reading.

Replies:   Vincent Berg
Vincent Berg 🚫

@Switch Blayde

Yeah, we think along the same lines, yet as you said, I generally like to develop my stories more slowly, establish what's normal, before the initial 'instigating event', so readers can see the impact of that instigating event.

Yet when you 'start with an action scene', the focus is entirely different. I seek to attract curious readers in the whole story, not use a specific 'hook' to draw them in immediately. Again, I prefer writing unusual stories, but beginning the story slowly generally works better for me, while it probably wouldn't for most authors.

I usually count on my writing and my nonstandard development to attract readers to my stories, since I tend to focus on new approaches. Again, I write the stories which most 'challenge me', not the traditional stories everyone else expects to see. Thus my readers tend to appreciate my approach, yet sometimes, more traditional readers don't appreciate my slower, slow-development approach.

Like you, most of my fans also loved Zombie Leza yet the blowback from those who've never read any of my stories, convinced me some bridges are just too far for most to easily cross.

Luckily, both Sci-Fi and Fantasy, my usual genres, take more time to start, due to the 'world building' required to set them up. So those genres are more about 'the meaning of life' issues, allowing me to wax philosophically. Again, fans of traditional horror stories have NO interest in those alternate ways of writing, they want the more traditional horror tropes, not dealing with shifting perspectives.

So, the next time I try an 'alternate horror' story, I simply won't label it as a "Horror" story. ;)

Replies:   Lumpy
Lumpy 🚫

@Vincent Berg

I think rules like "start with action" doesn't necessarily mean action, more so start with the story happening and then fill in back story as you go, rather than dumping world building on them before they figure out what the story they're reading is. (although there are exceptions. I find pure action stories, meaning not sci-fi or fantasy or genre's like that, do best with actual action beats up front to set the tone)

Replies:   awnlee jawking
awnlee jawking 🚫

@Lumpy

I think rules like "start with action" doesn't necessarily mean action

Some 'writing experts' suggest exactly that, but I think it's more a case of giving the reader a reason for wanting to read more. That can take many forms, interesting characters for example. I dislike flashforwards.

AJ

Vincent Berg 🚫

@NC-Retired

What have I missed? Or are the masses not seeing how good the tale really is?

Sadly, it's the nature of 'averaging' and 'means', so compared to all the other stories, the ending scores are mostly 'averages' rather than a precise score which most voters assign to it.

In short, in numeric terms, it's the nature of the beast, your scores are precise, the others are 'average means' (i.e. the mid-point of ALL the scores), so the scoring of any comes out looking muddled, at best.

awnlee jawking 🚫

@NC-Retired

The ones that really stand out are those tales that I score 9 or 10 and the masses have given it a score that totals ~7.5-ish.

When you award a 9 for a 7.5 story, you're could well be matching the masses' median score for the story.

When you award an 8 for an 8.18 story, you're definitely awarding a score below the masses' median.

AJ

REP 🚫
Updated:

@NC-Retired

What have I missed? Or are the masses not seeing how good the tale really is?

The masses have a different opinion of what is good than you do. Therefore, their rating is higher or lower than yours.

I don't like being pulled out of the flow of a story because the author wrote a sentence that makes no sense. If I have to stop and try to determine what the author is trying to say, it annoys me, and when multiple occurrences occur, I lower the score that I would have given the story.

What frequently happens is the author was editing a sentence and left words in the sentence that should have been deleted or they omitted/deleted words that should have been included. Use of inappropriate homonyms (e.g. there, their, and they're) is also annoying; don't forget the confusion between 'then' and 'than'. There are also references to characters that refer to males as she and females as he.

Things like the above may not annoy you, but it annoys some of us, and annoyed readers don't typically hand out scores of 9 and 10.

One of the things that really annoy me is authors who cut themselves off from their readers by not allowing comments. The typical reasons given are their readers are providing negative comments or attacking them. To a certain extent, this is justifiable. However, a lot of that negative feedback is about what a reader does not like about a story. A few months ago, an author stated that he welcomed constructive feedback from his readers. So I sent him a feedback email that identified what I believed were problems with his story and suggestions as to how to improve his writing. He apparently could not handle the fact that a reader had the audacity to point out problems with his story and writing. He sent me a nasty email accusing me of attacking him and then blocked me to prevent me from ever contacting him in the future.

Replies:   Switch Blayde
Switch Blayde 🚫

@REP

One of the things that really annoy me is authors who cut themselves off from their readers by not allowing comments.

I don't allow comments, but not because of negativeness. It's for other reasons. But I welcome feedback (emails) and reply to every one. And I don't remember ever getting an email feedback that I felt attacked me or my writing.

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