Forum: Story Discussion and Feedback

The problem in my opinion is with the raters.

I watched a movie last night on Netflix that I never heard of. I watched it because it said it was a thriller. I like thrillers. I watched it because the Rotten Tomatoes rating was something like 6.9 or 7. That's a good rating for Rotten Tomatoes.

The movie was awful. I can't believe it was rated that high. So those raters should be hanged.

I don't agree with many ratings on SOL and elsewhere. Not everyone has the same tastes as me so they wouldn't rate a story the same as I would. We probably even use different criteria.

I recall many writers saying things that indicate they are rating the author not the story.

Wouldn't that be readers who rate stories and/or authors?

I posted this as a blog a few days ago, but I think it applies to this discussion also, because it might be an example of raters ratng the author, not the story:

Sometimes I get the feeling that I'm writing the same stuff over and over, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Here are the scores of my most active posts, based on weekly downloads:

6.99, 6.86, 7.09, 7.00, 7.80. 6.81, 7.01, 6.67, 7.18

So, at least I'm consistent. I guess I've found my lane and should stay in it, even though it can be frustrating.

The movie was awful

What was the movie?

What was the movie?

"A House of Dynamite." A 2025 movie.

It wasn't even a thriller. It started as one when a missile is heading to the U.S. and will hit in 19 minutes if they can't intercept it. But then that same 19 minutes is repeated from another POV, and then another POV, and then another. Talk about boring. And where was the thrill when you knew what was going to happen after the 1st POV?

I don't recommend it.

Watched that a couple of days ago. It was sort of okay, but the ending was pointless. I think Kathryn Bigelow was aiming for rage bait, as I doubt those close to her said ending it like that was going to be a good thing.

It's certainly soured a lot of people and it's going to hit the viewership of her next film hard.

Edit: What The Critical Drinker thinks of it... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4LKuvAikso

"Or lower"?

Any chance you're talking about the 1-bombers?

If, as an author, you monitor your scores regularly, you can reverse engineer a score from time to time. I can count on any story I write getting a handful of ratings of "1" even though the average score is well above 7. Their rating pretty clearly has nothing to do with story quality. I've never understood why some people feel the need to do just slam a story for the sake of slamming it.

About 20 years ago, there actually was a pattern. Any story that cropped up into the top 20 immediately started getting all these low votes to push it back out of the top 20. That doesn't seem to be the pattern these days because the 1 votes show up before the story can crack the top lists. I can guarantee that one of the first votes I get (on the first day a story starts) will be a 1.

I'm not the only author who gets 1-bombed, but it's a major reason I've stopped taking scores seriously.

l was referring to the 1-bombers and the readers who have said they give an automatic 10 because the author put out work to write the story or the author happens to be a favorite of theirs.

Anything that is below an 8 is borderline unreadable.

I beg your pardon

It is amazing what hides until published.

This is true even with an editor, a proofreader, and a slew of beta readers!

and give a high rating to each chapter.

That is going to mean that ratings are skewed.

Nope. Each time they rate a chapter it isn't a new score. It replaces the old score given. One score per story.

I don't see the point of a chapter-by-chapter scoring.

Some readers (and authors) see it as a form of feedback to the author. Crumbly mentioned that a lot.

Also, some stories are never-ending. Those would never get a score. Or if they are real long and do end, let's say at 200 chapters, that's a long time to wait for a score.

If I abandon ship half-way, it gets a zero.

I used to be like that. If I didn't finish the story, I didn't feel justified to give it a score. I've changed my mind.

There's a reason I abandon a story. If it's simply not something I want to read, I don't score it. But the others get a score that is based on the reason I abandoned it.

There's a reason I abandon a story. If it's simply not something I want to read, I don't score it.

If the story doesn't appeal to you, shouldn't you score it to reflect that? The story score is supposed to reflect appeal.

AJ

If the story doesn't appeal to you, shouldn't you score it to reflect that?

I don't think it's fair to do that. Maybe I'm simply not in the mood to read a story like it at the time. Or maybe it wasn't what I expected so I stop reading. Just because it didn't appeal to me doesn't mean it's not a good story. I don't punish authors for writing what doesn't appeal to me.

Do you care to expand on that. I find it an intriguing idea.

If I abandon a story because it's not my kind of story, I don't score it. It wouldn't be fair to do so.

But if I abandon a story based on the way it's written, I think it deserves a score. It may be unreadable, such as the spelling, punctuation, paragraphing, dialogue, or simply how the author puts two sentences together. I don't have to finish it to score it as "pretty bad" or something else.

Maybe I quit a story because it bores me. The grammar might be good, but there's more to a story than that. I believe that's also a reason for scoring it without finishing it. If the story can't keep my interest or doesn't make me want to turn the pages, it's less than good. Probably less than not bad.

If I abandon a story because it's not my kind of story, I don't score it. It wouldn't be fair to do so.

That doesn't seem fair to SOL readers who might be considering reading the story. If the story has so little appeal to you that you stop reading it, to me that would be a strong reason for scoring the story's appeal.

AJ

If the story has so little appeal to you that you stop reading it, to me that would be a strong reason for scoring the story's appeal.

If I stop reading a story because the content doesn't appeal to me, why would I give it a low score? I don't only want stories on SOL that appeal to ME. I don't like SciFi and Fantasy. Should I score them low because they don't appeal to me? I don't like mushy romance. Those might not appeal to me, but might appeal to others.

I don't like SciFi and Fantasy. Should I score them low because they don't appeal to me?

If you start to read them in spite of the story genre, description and codes, then yes.

Unfortunately there's no way to force readers to rate a story once they start to read it without pissing people off.

AJ

If you start to read them in spite of the story genre, description and codes, then yes.

I don't rule out any story by genre or tags. If the description sounds interesting, I give it a try. But when I realize I won't like it, I stop reading. Not because it's a badly written story, but because it doesn't appeal to me.

but because it doesn't appeal to me.

But that's the very thing you're supposed to be voting on! The story's appeal to you.

You shouldn't care what others might think or how they might vote - that's up to them.

AJ

But that's the very thing you're supposed to be voting on! The story's appeal to you.

I don't agree. SOL is a better place when people ignore stories that don't appeal to them — but might appeal to someone else.

With your logic, I should review the tags for every story and give the ones with tags I don't like a low score (or even a 1). If I don't like 2nd-person stories, should I just 1-bomb them all so maybe people would stop writing them? That would be disastrous for the site and for those who like 2nd-person stories.

And where would I draw the line? Maybe I come to SOL for sex stories I can't get mainstream. So would I automatically 1-bomb a "no sex" story because they don't appeal to me? I don't think so.

I don't agree. SOL is a better place when people ignore stories that don't appeal to them — but might appeal to someone else.

But the site wants your vote on a story. If you're worrying about what's best for the site, you're overthinking things. Even on the minimum number of votes for a story's score to become public, your vote would only represent 5% of the total.

With your logic, I should review the tags for every story and give the ones with tags I don't like a low score (or even a 1).

Of course not. If you haven't even read a single sentence of the story, you don't know whether it would appeal to you. The author might have written a cracking good story with a great plot and brilliant characterisation that you would have enjoyed despite the tags.

AJ

Maybe I come to SOL for sex stories I can't get mainstream. So would I automatically 1-bomb a "no sex" story because they don't appeal to me? I don't think so.

Sidebar to this discussion. A few days ago, I looked at the list of "Top 50 Classic Short Stories", something I don't think I'd done before. The first thing I noticed is that almost all of them were either 'No sex' or 'Minimal sex'.

If the unappealing content hadn't been flagged (either in the description or the tags), then give it a lower score.

I don't exclude any tags. I'm rather open-minded.

MM isn't my thing, but I might start a story with the MM tag. If it turns out to be a major part of the story, I stop reading. I'm not going to vote it down and punish the author because I don't like MM stories.

I also don't believe every tag needs to be listed. And I don't buy the argument that all squick tags are required. Who's to say what a squick tag is. It's obvious to the person who is squicked by it, but it may not be true for others. Okay, "scat" might be a universal squick, but what about "cheating" and "incest"? I know people who are squicked by those.

I have a story where a really bad guy kills an old lady while fucking her but I don't have the "snuff" tag. It was not a sexual thing. It was to show how evil he was. The reader shouldn't punish me for not having that tag. The reader should hate the character. But when to include tags is another topic.

Then again, if it's the type of story you dislike (overly violent, gay sex scenes, or transexuals), then why punish someone for your personal hangups.

That said, not only is there no zero votes, but I don't give 1-bombs (unless the author really pisses me off!). We all benefit from a wider diversity of stories, so limiting content in that way is a disservice to the entire site.

However, if the story really is that bad, I will vote to reflect that, more often 2-5 rather and a soul-crushing 1-bomb.

They put in the effort, so they deserve more respect than those who've never even tried. So low-scores are more informative than purely punitive ones.

if it's the type of story you dislike (overly violent, gay sex scenes, or transexuals), then why punish someone for your personal hangups.

That's why I said: "If it's simply not something I want to read, I don't score it."

Again, I've always done that when reading, vote on each chapter, as it once used to mean something. But now that authors can't see those chapter votes, it's essentially meaningless. Yet it's essentially for knowing which chapters work and which don't, a natural part of developing your writing craft.

In a 500 or a 1,000-vote story, it's enough, but with thousands of votes, it doesn't mean much. In the end, it's punishing the authors, not helping the readers. Yet after endless complaints about scoring, Lazeez wisely decided to shut the debate down entirely, as it was deserved.