Rating System

On developing my personal rating system for stories on Authonomy.

When judging a freelance book, one not officially published, one needs to have a system to show which ones stick out from the rest. After all, it really is hard to get anyone interested in reading unpublished material, which usually turns out to have a myriad of problems. Many of us have perused the internet looking for budding authors trying to find that unrecognized talent. However, scanning the internet usually proves more a burden than anything else. More often than not you come across stories with terrible grammar and spelling, atrocious character designs, bad storylines and stories written for the express purpose of preaching at you like an infant.

I’m here to help folks find the good ones, and trust me, they are out there. Think of me as your scout as I read through tomes of online fiction trying to find those talented souls worth a second look. To the end of making sure these stories really are high quality, I’ve developed a rating system to tell you just how good each story is and why.

On the surface this system may appear like your normal 1-10 rating system, but it’s not. Each point means something. So here are the ten points. (Sometimes a person can get a half point or ¾ points if their work merits it and there are extra credit points to be had.)

1.       Spelling/grammar:

Stories online generally have no professional editing, and thus often have terrible grammar. However every so often that person comes along who seems to have mistaken their calling to be an English teacher, for a calling to be a fiction writer. 

• ½- This means the grammar and spelling is admittedly bad but manageable, as in, you’ll still understand what you’re reading on a basic level. Understand, a bad rating here, and I’ll have to say the story isn’t easy to recommend. You won’t be seeing any stories with a less than ½ grammar rating on this blog.
• ¾- This means the grammar and spelling are top notch as far as what you’d expect from someone without a professional editor. Mistakes are present and visible, but they’re easy to overlook and no readability is sacrificed.
• 1 – If this person made a mistake, I didn’t see it.

2.       Interesting plot:

Oh Muse, for a good idea. Most people have one swimming around in their heads, they just don’t know how to pen it. A story that everyone will enjoy. And then every so often a terrible one gets penned really well… what can you do? 

• ½- Look, if I think a story is based on a terrible idea, I won’t bring it here. However some ideas will only interest you if you are going through a certain period in your life, or share a certain political view. This is like the story of the eco-terrorist. Yea, might be good, but if you’re not particularly interested in environmentalism just now, you’re not gonna care.
• ¾- Every so often a story comes along with an admittedly niche market idea, but it just works so well it stands out anyway. Like “Cat in the Hat” was so obviously for young kids, with themes only they would really care about, but it was so well done and unique it’s remembered into adulthood.
• 1 – This means that the story, while probably well targeted at a certain audience, can be enjoyed by anyone.

3.       Good direction

Well we’ve all seen it. A story written so terribly you can’t figure out what’s going on. Oh good grammar maybe, and maybe a good basic concept, but following it beginning to end is a nightmare due to scenes that don’t go anywhere, characters that are introduced and dropped for no reason and perhaps even an ending where you can’t figure out how it really got there.

• ½- This is another field where if I see absolutely terrible execution I probably won’t be blogging on it. However if the story is pretty decent, but a few scenes I think really didn’t work or a few characters looked like they didn’t need to be there, I still won’t give a full point.
• 1 – This means even though the story may not have gone the way I preferred (say a character I liked died at some point), I still felt it was easy to follow and made sense.

4.       Author interest

Many good stories are left online and I’ll read them and think they’re wonderful… only to look at the date they were posted and realize the author probably doesn’t care about them anymore. Normally I’ll assume interest, but sometimes it looks like if you become a fan of a story, it will unfortunately be one that the writer himself believes has no future, or just doesn’t care about.

• 1 – Obviously the author either is or is not putting effort into the story.

5.       Believable main characters (yes, one story can have more than one main character)

“Main characters”, to me, aren’t just the characters the book centers on, but also characters that show up so often, they might as well be the center. Like Rom Wesley in Harry Potter.

Look, we’ve all come across them in movies and literature. Characters so preposterously good, resilient, evil or even stupid, that even given the circumstances of the story, no way could they exist.

• ½- Guilty as charged, I love me some unrealistic characters. Chuck Norris, Superman, the Three Stooges. I can’t give characters like this a full point, but darn it, I still think they’re worth looking at. I'll give this point if the character is lovable in spite.
• ¾- Many times, like Superman, a character comes along whom isn't really believable, but is nonetheless relatable, essentially, if you couldn't be persuaded their personality was real, you could easily still feel for them.
• 1 – This means I really think that given the circumstances of the story, the people in the story really could exist.

6.       Likeable main characters

Whether I can relate to them or not, do I like your characters? We’ve all seen stories where a cast of annoying or pointless characters are paraded through the pages and we just don’t ultimately care what happens to them, even if we do believe they could exist. Yes I might believe your Hitler like character COULD exist, but I still don’t like him.

• 1 – I either think they have merit or I don’t. If they don’t elicit a response from me I won’t recommend them.
• +1m extra credit- Yes, I will give extra credit if I read a character in the story character that I think will stick with me for a while.+1 if a character or two is memorable.

7.       Likeable supporting characters

 All stories have them. Like Commissioner Gordon in “Batman”. They’re characters that play a role, but they’re really not our focus.  Even if the character exists solely to point our protagonist in the right direction, were they interesting and well created, or did they just chew the scenery? Even a main antagonist can be listed as a supporting character in my book, if they don’t show up much in the story proper. 

• ¾- This means the story had a number of good supporting characters, and I can even name them, but seemed to shuffle in several folks who had no real reason to be there other than to get killed or say, “sorry, your princess is in another castle” or fill another cliché roll. This is only in reference to characters that actually meant something to the story in their own right, not the two hundred soldiers who died, or the off screen murders or other folks who were only RELATED to the plot.
• 1 – I liked them all.
• +1m extra credit- Extra credit if any were memorable.

8.       Good scene description. 

I so would have murdered Charles Dickens on this. Look folks, you’re not being paid by the word, so stop devoting so much time to describing book selves that happen to be in the same room as your main character.

• ½- This means the descriptions are good, but often they don’t really seem to have a purpose. Dickens explaining what someone’s handkerchief looked like for no reason in a scene where his main character is being imprison and tormented, would probably have earned this.
• 1 – The descriptions were beautiful and purposeful.

9.       Targeting

 Let’s face it, every so often that children’s novel comes along that makes constant sexual references, or a novel supposedly directed at girls comes along, with more strong male characters than female and a female lead that is constantly getting captured. It does happen sometimes where an author just doesn’t look like he would appeal well to his intended audience. 

• 1 – I’m not even judging whether I’m IN the target demographic, just if I think it would reach them. For instance, I am a guy, but I do talk to girls and I can often tell if something may appeal to them.

1        Broad appeal

Every story SHOULD have a target audience. However it is also best to write so that people outside that audience can still get something out of it. The story about pink unicorns in fairy land all named after different varieties of cake is probably well targeted at little girls, but I would imagine their fathers or brothers would be embarrassed to be seen with it. Conversely the story of a big muscle bound guy with very little respect for women toting guns around like toys looking for something to shoot, probably isn’t going to win many female viewers. (In fact, on the “little respect for women” note, I’m probably not going to be recommending that story anyway.) 

• 1 – It either can or cannot be seen as something everyone can get in to. (Note, a broad appeal rating, does not mean your kids can get into the story. This doesn’t rate the need for parental guidance.)

In all a story can earn a rating of 12, but if they don’t, that doesn’t mean the story sucks. It just means it may have been written with a certain audience in mind or the author lost interest or is inexperienced or has a style that doesn’t lend well to this rating system. If it’s on the blog, chances are I think it’s worth a look. You probably won’t be seeing many below five ratings here anyway. 

Also, side note, a 3/4^ths rating on grammar should NOT be seen as a death knell. It just means the writer couldn’t afford a professional editor for their unpublished novel that they wrote in their spare time. C’mon, don’t be stingy. A 10.75 rating is NOT bad just because it implies an author said “he” once or twice when he should have said “him”.