Some Thoughts on Reviews, Comprehensiveness, and 'best' short stories

[alecaustin]

So let's talk a little bit about short fiction reviews, the rhetoric of 'best', and stuff like that.

Neil Clarke had an editorial recently in which he argued that short fiction reviews don't have much value - his proxy for 'value' being whether they drive readership, in terms of measurable impact on incoming web traffic. With some exceptions - he

Comments

[sartorias]

I pretty much agree with everything you said here, though I'd love to hear more about maximizers and satisficers

[alecaustin]

I'm back in your neck of the woods again, so I definitely hear you on the broiling hot. (Thankfully, both my current and soon-to-be-current apartments have AC.)

The literature on Maximizers vs Satisficers is derived from Barry Schwartz's The Paradox of Choice, in which he argues that people who are willing to make decisions which will produce merely good results, rather than spending a lot of effort searching for the 'best' version of something, tend to be happier. Basically, the opportunity costs which the Maximizers incur in trying to make the optimal decision in one arena keep them from reaching more good outcomes in other arenas, and also mean they're more anxious about whether they actually made the right choice or not. (Obviously everyone is a maximizer some of the time and a satisficer some of the time.)

[sartorias]

Thank you! Have to think on that. (When thinking can actually be done.)

[rushthatspeaks]

I pretty much agree. There are several Big-Name Venues who regularly read and review Magazine I Work For, and any of us editors can tell you accurately and quickly when we buy a story what Regular Reviewers will think of it. We do not allow it to influence which stories we buy-- mostly these predictions have amusement value, in the 'oh hey x is going to like us for a change, but y is gonna be pissed' way-- but the fact that I could do this starting about a month after I began working there does make me substantially doubt the value of the reviews.

Which does not necessarily say anything about the value of the reviews qua reviews, although overall I think that it may be difficult to review short stories well at the lengths reviewers tend to use. I suspect that if the reviews were limited to one hundred words or so they would be a great deal more helpful to passersby. I think this because reviewers would then not be able to fit in as much summary, and summarizing the entire short story in the review is a thing that happens a lot. It's

[alecaustin]

I've heard from other editors that the Big-Name Venues' responses are largely predictable, so it makes sense that you can anticipate them at the moment of acquisition.

Your points about the templates people use to review short fiction are interesting, and I think they probably play into the increased effectiveness of story recommendations relative to reviews. Where is the value in reading a summary of a story? (There's a reason we tell people not to summarize stories in cover letters.) Even putting aside the author's intention, summarizing a story - instead of describing some of its properties or appeals - is more likely to make readers think they know what the story is about, and decide that they don't need to actually read it.