I'm sure a lot of people wouldn't like this idea (in fact, I'm expecting at least two vehemently opposed replies...so don't let me down), though I really can't find any fault with it personally. In my case, I usually want to know definitively if someone thinks my writing 'sucks' or not. Many times a critiquer won't come out and say that, for fear of being too harsh. That, or he/she will come out and say it indirectly with absolutely no tact.

Anyway, my system bypasses all that worry by focusing attention on a fruit's opinion, thus saving both the writer and critic a lot of headache. It's inspired by the rottentomatoes.com film critic compilation site. However, this 'Fresh Meter' will be using imaginary kumquats instead of tomatoes (for obvious reasons). The grading scale reads as follows:

Grade A (100%) - Totally Fresh
Grade B (75%) - Almost Ripe
Grade C (50%) - Sliced...Oxidizing Fast
Grade D (25%) - Soft and Mealy, Hint of Larvae
Grade E (0%) - Totally Rotten (What the hell is that?)

(Unlike the education system, I have chosen to not skip a letter of the alphabet. It not only makes more logical sense, but will perhaps soften the psychological blow when someone gives me an 'E' on my next F&F post.)

Yeah...I think it just might work. The Kumquat of Literature has spoken! Oh yes...much less hurtful than "your story sucks, I can't understand the main character's motivation or the POV, oh...did I mention your story sucks?"

Not that anyone here at Hatrack says such things.

Inkwell
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"The difference between a writer and someone who says they want to write is merely the width of a postage stamp."
-Anonymous

[This message has been edited by Inkwell (edited May 11, 2006).]
 

What did someone miss in a story? What is the problem? Is sentence structure worth 10%? Plot problems 50%? You attempt to give a uniform weight to something a wholly irregular process.

You also run into issues with grade inflation, but that is another matter all together.
 

Then there are people who feel they can't give somebody a low mark because well umm... it might hurt that person's feelings. And then there are those who belive it is theoir duty to mark it hard because ... you put it out here thereby condemning yourself to hear the truth your writing really sucks. Give it up--never try again.

AS the first responder said this would be entirely too subjective to provide any valid feedback.
 

You can judge craft (setting, quality of writing, of plot, etc.). Originality is much harder, and you run the risk of getting totally skewed opinions anyway. Having 70%, for instance, doesn't really tell anything about the story, and doesn't remove the problem crits vary so much.

Or, let me put it that way: what crits can evaluate is craft. Craft can be taught, and that's where crits come in handy, or writing books. But what you want your crits to evaluate is talent. And that's not something I would honestly feel qualified to judge.
 

we did experiment with a rating system for a little while at Liberty Hall; though a few people liked it, it wasn't very useful for most people.

I know a magazine or two that has used a numeric system in rating their submissions - I can see the value in that, because it helps the editors identify the most successful stories - but I just don't see the value in crits.
 

I tend to be thorough (meaning I point out everything that concerns me) and I like the writer to be able to get a sense of DEGREE of my concern. As I plow through the manuscript, not everything bothers me to the same degree.

On a related track, I know *I* need to be more vigilant at pointing out WHAT WORKS in a critique. I agree with others who say that knowing what works helps a great deal. Maybe the Nit-O-Meter should have a negative scale, and a positive scale.
 

But I guess the fluidity of writing is something that people like me just have to embrace and not stress over. There is always room for improvement in art. Those of us who are perfectionists have good reason to lament: we will never be perfect in art. But maybe we should use that as a tool for growth rather than self-destruction.

Just so everyone knows, this post isn't meant to preach at anyone except myself.
 

unpublishable (F to A-)
publishable, but not really good (A)
publishable (which is essentially A+!)

Sure would be nice if we had a better breakdown, but that's reality--!

 

If, on the other hand, someone tells me they couldn't force themselves to read through my story because of X, Y and Z, then I might have a blunt but valuable response.

In theory, A-E might be useful, but there's no reliable criteria (or training to consistently review that criteria).
 

At Tangent, where I write reviews, there are always a few stories that don't work for me at all(and it's the same for most reviewers). However, the editor of the mag must have judged them publishable, because he bought them.

I don't believe in that kind of scale; I think it's too simplified. There are stories with flaws that are too big to be ignored (like holes in the plot) but at some point it just becomes a matter of taste, like every artistic thing.

 

My main intention was to get a few people on their soapboxes by sort of getting on my own...one foot, really...and generating discussion (okay, so I took a chance that it would turn into argument and got lucky) of what works and what doesn't work with such a concept as a literary 'Fresh Meter.'

Why I didn't just come out and say I wanted such a discussion is the simple fact that when people have something obviously flawed to argue with they can fully focus not only on the problems, but avoid (for the most part) arguing with each other. It becomes a scathing analysis of an inanimate, immune subject, not a debate between posters. Hate me if you like, but it looks like my unscrupulous plot has worked, so far.

We've constructively established that:

1. There are no guidelines upon which to base such a strict (percentage-wise) grading scale for critiques or literature in general. If one tried to come up with such a scale and average it out, one would have no time to describe other things necessary in a good critique.

2. Variation in the likes and dislikes of individual critiquers makes it difficult to determine whether a system of this type would be fair and balanced...most likely not. However, the same could be said of current critiqueing methods...the writer is still left with the task of interpreting the words of the critiquer and deciding whether or not to heed them.

3.

quote:

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Posted by Elan:
Maybe the Nit-O-Meter should have a negative scale, and a positive scale.

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This is the first effort, unintentionally or otherwise, to fix the idea of a generalized OPINION grading scale (thank you, Elan, for introducing the subject of nits and personal preference, which is the real and intended focus of this scale). Everything mentioned in this discussion so far has assumed, for the most part, that the Fresh Meter would be examining elements of craft (as defined by Silver3). On the contrary...as I said in my first post, this Fresh Meter should leave craft alone. What it should do is provide a "Personally, I liked this" or "Personally, I didn't like this" on a general standing, but more specifically than these two examples.

The writer can still disregard everything you say in either your 'craft analyses' or this opinion rating...but they don't have to deduce from all of your comments whether or not you liked the piece, or otherwise. They have an honestly stated, personal benchmark from you, which should not be compared with the ratings of others because it is an individualized statement, based upon personal opinion...just like approval and disapproval of published material. We have already pointed out that published material isn't necessarily good from everyone's standpoint. Silver3 puts it quite nicely in two instances from the post above:

quote:

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...what makes something publishable is wildly different from place to place. Nothing is without its faults, and nothing is ever "breathtaking for everyone". If it's true for crits (there are people who have vastly different opinions on whether a story works for them) then it stands to reason editors are no different.

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quote:

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There are stories with flaws that are too big to be ignored (like holes in the plot) but at some point it just becomes a matter of taste, like every artistic thing.

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4.

quote:

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Posted by pjp:
In theory, A-E might be useful, but there's no reliable criteria (or training to consistently review that criteria).

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Exactly! That's why 'criteria' are not involved, unless you break down your personal opinion of every story you've read or heard or watched into criteria (which would likely form the basis of your 'craft analyses').

Put simply, we've determined through reasoning and analysis of the current method of doing things that a grading scale of craft, while nice, is not realistic. We have also determined that a grading scale of opinion is highly subjective...like opinion itself, but it is opinion (the opinion of the readers) that sells books. It is the opinion of the editor to buy a story. So, in reality, opinion supercedes craft (though no amount of positive opinion will save a story that does not rely on well-executed elements of craft).

What we need to examine are the potential benefits and detractors of a grading scale based on one's own opinion...something that the writer can look at and say without a shadow of a doubt "okay...Wolf359 really likes this, but he also states what could use improvement". The fact that it is based on one's own opinion and not satellite criteria allows a person to draw from all their experience reading published fiction and writing their own. In that sense, Silver3, we are qualified to judge talent (indirectly), because we are the ones who decide which books to buy and which to pass over. We are the market.

Any more thoughts? Clarifications? Ideas? I particularly like seeing that last one. How would you make the Opinion 'Fresh Meter' work?

Inkwell
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"The difference between a writer and someone who says they want to write is merely the width of a postage stamp."
-Anonymous

[This message has been edited by Inkwell (edited May 11, 2006).]
 

Case in point.

Inkwell
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"The difference between a writer and someone who says they want to write is merely the width of a postage stamp."
-Anonymous
 

Perhaps it is not the critique technique of people offering critiques that needs adjustment here.
 

And if you only get a handful of crits (say, 20, let me be generous) they're not statistically significant because:

a. Too few samples. 20 is way fewer than the number of readers you're expecting.

b. Inadequate premise: publishing is not writing a story that pleases a lot of people. It's writing a story that satisfies a narrow segment of the market, ie the magazine's readers. What Deep Magic's readers judges "good" is still terribly different from what Chizine's readers define as "good".
 

quote:

---

Posted by Beth:
So the primary intent of the scale is to keep your feelings from getting hurt?
Perhaps it is not the critique technique of people offering critiques that needs adjustment here.

---

No, the intent of the scale is not to keep my feelings from getting hurt...I have much thicker skin than I used to, especially after posting some of the unmitigated crap that I have in F&F over the past two years.

The intent of the scale is to boil down the critiquer's own opinion to a simple statement, instead of making the writer glean what he can only guess to be opinion from everything else the critiquer says. I'm not saying that every critiquer here or elsewhere is so vauge...many do state whether they like something or not, clearly. But some are vauge, and on more than a few occasions I've seen useless debates (and even arguments) break out over misinterpretations (i.e., the critiquer said five things, three of which seemed contradictory to the writer for whatever reason, prompting the writer to make a reply that annoyed the critiquer, etc.).

Honestly, you can throw out the Fresh Meter idea for all I care. It has flaws, to be sure, and I would gladly embrace a better alternative.

Frankly, Beth, I'm puzzled as to why you felt the need to make this about me. I've tried to be objective (except for the attempts at humor in the first post), and if I've failed in that I'm prepared to apologize to everyone. If you or anyone else feels that I'm being unreasonable, I'm ready to quietly bow out...because I respect your opinion and have found your input to be consistently helpful in the past.

That's another thing you learn here at Hatrack (the easy way or the hard way): sometimes it's better to just let an issue go than pursue fruitless disagreement.

I had hoped that we could collectively approach the problem and try to come up with a solution that would not hinder those critiquers who aren't vauge, yet help the ones who are. I know I've been guilty of being too vauge at times...rushing to post something before work and not giving it my full attention, or merely posting for the sake of posting. Perhaps that's why I decided to start this discussion...perhaps it is about me, from the culpable side of the issue.

Inkwell
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"The difference between a writer and someone who says they want to write is merely the width of a postage stamp."
-Anonymous

[This message has been edited by Inkwell (edited May 11, 2006).]
 

You did make a number of statements about harsh critiques, which made me wonder if that was your true intent in creating this system.

But mostly it makes me cranky that after several people explained, at length, why they thought this was a bad idea, you said, "How would you make the Opinion 'Fresh Meter' work?" If you think, after the comments made, that most of the people in this conversation are convinced that this is a good idea and are ready to move on to refining the implementation, you are not listening. Shifting the conversation from "I think this is a good idea" to "How can we best design this scale" is a manipulative move akin to a salesperson asking "so did you want to schedule an appointment for Tuesday or Wednesday?" when you have not agreed to schedule an appointment at all.

or, perhaps I should say: E.
 

quote:

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Who then, is the better critic? One who understands writing from the inside but comments with a bias, or the reader who consumes the end product without the bias of a writer?

---

The better critic is the one who pays me.

I've yet to get a penny from another writer.

Personally, I think that any scale which reduces reactions to numbers, for lack of a better word, sucks.

I'd rather have a bad reaction in prose than a good reaction reduced to a "10" or an "A+".

Ok, so there are some numbers that I would like to see in reaction to my story, but those are in the amount box of the check from my publisher.
 

Fresh meter: E

Somehow making it easier to tell whether the reviewer liked your story: A

Whatever the solution is, I'm certain that it can't boil down to requiring that the reviewer give a single number, for the reasons cited above. My own information-theoretic version of the reasons is this: whatever function the reviewer runs your story through to produce a single, real-valued output will remove so much information as to make the number almost meaningless.

My funny thought is that you might ask the reviewer.

[This message has been edited by trousercuit (edited May 11, 2006).]
 

So let me pose the matter another way, as I should have in the first place: do you think this so-called issue merits a solution? Would adhering to some kind of mutually agreeable representation of opinion prove beneficial, if only to reduce the occurrence of misunderstandings in critiques? Or are you content to stick with the way things are, since trying to remedy such a random problem might only make matters worse?

Inkwell
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"The difference between a writer and someone who says they want to write is merely the width of a postage stamp."
-Anonymous

[This message has been edited by Inkwell (edited May 11, 2006).]
 

For one, here at hatrack, you've chosen to have your work critiqued by people who probably know how to express themselves in prose. Why constrain that?

Who cares a nit whether they "like" your work. If they cannot point out the flaws that make it a less than ideal story, the "like" factor matters not at all.

The responsibility for getting what you really want out of a crit is up to the writer. If you are looking for particular focus in the critique, ask for it. Most people will be happy to answer direct questions about your work.

If a bad critique is going to throw you out of the game, then maybe you shouldn't be playing until you get a thicker skin. Even in the speculative market, the tastes are so varied that no one is going to appeal to everyone. There are even people out there that think Douglas Adams's work was lame.

Mining a critique for useful information is a skill we all need to develop. If we structure all critiques, we limit the areas of the story that are critiqued. The responsiblity of a good critique is not on the one writing it. It's on the one reading the critique. Unless you paid for it, the critique was done as a kindness. If you want to get a full, solid critique everytime, I'd reccomend a professional. I think current rates are about $2.50 per page and up.

[This message has been edited by pantros (edited May 11, 2006).]
 

I think the matter boils down to trusting that the critiquer wants to help the writer, not hinder him, and that most instances where clarity is called into question are unintentional. Where those instances escalate, they are also unfortunate. We're all human, after all...we make mistakes.

Except, of course, those that aren't human...I've heard from a reliable source that we have several 'vampire robots' lurking hereabouts, disguised as Hatrackers.

Subsequently, my next thread will be titled 'Literary Witchhunt: How We Should Counter the Robot Invasion.'

Inkwell
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"The difference between a writer and someone who says they want to write is merely the width of a postage stamp."
-Anonymous
 

can we start this conversation over? I am not sure that I completely understand the core problem you're trying to address.
 

Perhaps he is one of the vampire robots. Beth, get 'im.

Inkwell
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"The difference between a writer and someone who says they want to write is merely the width of a postage stamp."
-Anonymous

[This message has been edited by Inkwell (edited May 11, 2006).]
 

I take that comment seriously. Regardless of how off the wall someone's opinion might be, I never completely discount it... after all, it is probably the same opinion 1000 other people out there in the vast ocean of fantasy fiction readers might hold as well.

However, I also rely on my own common sense. If I know a scene NEEDS to be in a story, I don't yank it out because someone said it doesn't make sense. Instead, I try to analyze what didn't make sense and to craft that scene a little tighter. Every opinion usually serves to make my writing stronger.

There are exceptions... I've had critiques suggesting I change my grammar or sentence structure by people who obviously failed sixth grade English...

you simply have to learn to sort the wheat from the chaff.

[This message has been edited by Elan (edited May 12, 2006).]
 

This model does have certain merits. If you look at the world of webcomics and bloggers (there's a bit of overlap), this is exactly how the artists figure out whether they're cut out for it. It has certain limitations, though. For example, if you are not ready to simply give a huge amount of content away for free...no, let me revise that, if you are not willing to pay a fair amount in time, money, and tears to give that content away, then you won't get anywhere. Also, you will be giving that content away. You won't get paid much for the content you actually judge using this method. And while it's not about the money, you also lose a lot of excellent resources that a traditional publisher can bring to promoting your work.

That's why you usually see it formalized and turned into a statistic when a third party is evaluating an already published work. Because people who are actually using this method of feedback for their work in real life like to get something a little more useful than a number. They have forums, and they check them, because they want to find out what specific things work and which things don't.

In the end, you just have to trust that if the person giving you a critique understands written English well enough to be a good judge of your prose, the critique will be understandable.
 

No wait, that is slightly misleading. The humor is there...

I give everyone's (or mostly so) ability to interpret humor on this particular specific thread an E.

And if anyone gives me back an E for saying so, I will give you a far far lower letter.

oh yes

-leafy
 

quote:

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Perhaps he is one of the vampire robots. Beth, get 'im.

---

Yeah, well everything is a function to me. I've been doing theoretical computer science way too long.

Oh, and it's vampire robot monkey, you cretin. I'll not have you misrepresenting my species willy-nilly, helter-skelter-like.

Leaf:

Here's my analysis of the humor situation. Inkwell's initial post had plenty, but it was ignored. Clearly, his idea was met with such vehemence as to cancel all humorous content. It's like what would happen if you followed up a really funny Mentos commercial (assuming they exist) with a declaration that it's the favorite of aborted fetuses everywhere.

Or like if you told a Libertarian that you didn't like Atlas Shrugged because its pages gave you hemorrhoids, or told that joke about a CEO, a Rabbi, and a King to a die-hard Marxist.

Sacred cowburgers, man, sacred cowburgers.

[This message has been edited by trousercuit (edited May 13, 2006).]
 

Giving me a grade doesn't help me fix the story. We're posting because we want to make it better, not know how good it is.
 

j/k

hahahahahahahahahahahahaha
mentos

-leaf
 

-leaf
 

I think your grading system works very well for you. Personally I would like that type of input by anyone if they used the system consistantly. Unfortunately, such a system may not work for everyone because stories are so subjective to personal tastes.

Rob

 

It's called "how many times would I be willing to watch this?" Basically, when you watch the first episode, if you are unwilling to watch any of it over, and don't want to watch the next episode, and had to force yourself to watch the whole episode, then it scores something less than one.

If, on the other hand, you find yourself watching the entire series through for the twelth time or so, and you're still not bored of it, then it gets a 10.

Okay, so I guess that I can't think of many difficulties in adapting this to writing, except for one. See...I very rarely give 10s even to finished, published works. I have given a few to works submitted for critique here on the boards...er, not that I've actually said "I could read this ten times and not get tired of it." That's not the real problem, though. Most stuff that needs critique is going to be closer to the one or less than one catagory. Frankly, anything more than a three is pretty good, probably only a revision or two away from being published.

Factor in that a lot of readers never read anything more than twice, and you can see that it's not going to be the most encouraging feedback system. I didn't invent it as a feedback system anyway, I invented it as a way to rate finished works for the benefit of someone trying to decide whether to watch them (pointlessly, since I was frustrated in my initial attempt to sign up on animenfo and I don't care enough about it to try again).

If you think about it for half a second, the same thing is true of these kinds of ratings systems generally. They aren't supposed to give the artist useful feedback on creating something, they're to inform the audience of whether it's worth seeing.
 

[This message has been edited by Spaceman (edited May 25, 2006).]
 

quote:

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When I post a story, I don't care so much that you liked it or didn't like it, but why. If you tell me, "Your story is awesome, 94%!" it's not telling me what the missing 6% is, or why you graded it so well. If you tell me, "Dude? That's a 3% story right there." So what? Tell me that I forgot to name the main character until page 36, that I wrote it in second person future, and that you will hate the use of run on sentences for the rest of your life or at least until you figure out where you car is parked because you lost it yesterday.
Giving me a grade doesn't help me fix the story. We're posting because we want to make it better, not know how good it is.

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