Mood as a filterable feature

[zamu]

Mood/Setting Tone as a filterable feature of stories

Premise:

The ability to denote and filter based on the mood of stories would be a huge boon and would allow people to avoid the big problem of not meeting user expectations.​

Reasoning:

I feel that a lot of the reason people end up with huge swathes of low ratings by not properly communicating the mood of their story strongly enough. Readers pick up stories due to interesting premises or matching some set of tags and then begin reading the story. At some point in the future, the reader is disenfranchised with their time investment as the story takes a large mood shift that, from the reader's perspective, they didn't sign up for and thus rate the story negatively. Having the author make a clear statement of what the overall mood of the story will before ever posting their first chapter would help immensely.​

Of course, this could be implemented in tags, but as they seem to be something the author gets to arbitrarily choose, they aren't really a great tool for this.​

Expected Behavior:

• Each story would have an objective mood attribute that can be used to filter which stories are displayed in queries/listings.
• The mood attribute is not arbitrary. It is selected out of curated set of moods.
• Author should be able to change the mood as the story progresses.
• Make it clear to users that it is overall mood

Assumptions:

• Mood is multifaceted and can be interpreted subjectively. Therefore breaking tone down into components might be a better way to demonstrate the tone to users to avoid the simplistic tones such as happy or sad.
  • Think Grim-Noble vs Bright-Dark or idealistic-realistic vs romantic-cynical (ie. LOTR is NobleDark or idealistic romantic story). The former probably better expresses Mood.

Other notes: Maybe allow users to vote towards changing the mood attribute with votes? Some authors might forget (or even maliciously ignore) shifts in mood.

​

 

[yansusustories]

Everything on this is either "everything is glorious and victory assured" or "everything is shit and everyone is shit".

Regarding this: I think that's why it's an axis. Like, those four moods should be the far ends of it and there's things in the middle. But I don't think that'd be very easy to show and make searchable? Like, you'd need words for different stages on the axis and then people would definitely disagree about when which threshold is reached.

 

[Moonpearl]

Regarding this: I think that's why it's an axis. Like, those four moods should be the far ends of it and there's things in the middle. But I don't think that'd be very easy to show and make searchable? Like, you'd need words for different stages on the axis and then people would definitely disagree about when which threshold is reached.

Even then, I don't think I could fit my stories on a diagram like that. I can't fit any of the books I've read or the series I've watched there, either.

 

[zamu]

I do get that, yes. But my point is: If authors are unable to choose a mood because they don't understand what fits their story / nothing fits their story well, and readers' votes are unreliable because they might not actually read far enough into the story (you calculated yourself how long it'd take them and how many will reach that point before voting?), then the moods that come out of that might just be wrong. Which, in turn, means that readers would once again pointlessly read something they don't want.

In regard to this and your further explanation:

I have never in my life heard of this before and I feel like 'bleeding into the lexicon of fantasy' brings up another problem: This only seems to be relevant for a certain kind of story? Like, I see that this might have a huge impact on anything in the fantasy genre that deals with adventure and stuff but ... other genres? Like, what the fuck do romance novels do? Comedy? School Life? Slice of Life? Just examples but these all strike me as genres that would have (in large parts if they're not mixed with something fantasy or similar) no part in this at all? Or am I still not understanding these 'moods'?


To be honest, I still have no idea Truth be told, the longer I think about it, the more I feel that I'm really not sure if I get these 'moods'. Which is pretty much what I meant when I said you'd have to have very good explanations or this would end up in a mess. But maybe it's because I just can't really reconcile that with genres outside of fantasy yet? Like, seriously, can you give me an example of where you'd put a romance novel or something?

It's on the author to convey the mood of the story via synopses and the tags at the moment. If they convey it poorly, it's on the author for not conveying it correctly. If this is implemented or not, it still is an issue, but this helps strongly mitigate things as it provides a concrete, constructive point to mention in reviews and provides a filter in the series finder.

As for the readers voting on mood, it's fairly easy to normalize the weigh of a vote by the percentage the reader has actually read the story, so that's a non-issue.

As for it's being specific to fantasy, that's not really the case. Look at my reponse to Moonpearl above where I discuss a cartoon comedy and how it's noblebright while having somber touching episodes. Below are descriptions of the Grim-Noble vs Bright-Dark axes which I posted earlier which might make things make a bit more sense.

[...]

• A noble setting isn't one where everyone is good, more like one where people are active. The actions of a single hero can change the world, and a single big villain can ruin it: there are important people, who are so either by birth, rank or sheer willpower, and every single one of these people MATTER.
• In a grim world, no matter what you do, an individual can't secure more than an individual victory, if even that, because the rest of the world is too big/scared/powerless/selfish to act upon his impulse.
• Now, a bright world is one full of opportunity, of wondrous sights to behold. It doesn't mean that it has to be MLP, it can be dangerous, but your first instinct when looking at a new location should be awe and wonder: people may adventure to save the world, but they leave town with a smile upon their face, eager to see what comes next. The shadow of Risk is largely erased by the glint of Adventure. In a bright world, it's quite possible for people to go on adventure just for the hell of it, since the journey is its own reward. Resurrection, or at least means to heal grave injuries, is usually accessible, to counterbalance the fact that the risks out there are real.
• A dark world is one where life sucks, and something or someone is poised to kill everybody else in the story - whether it be demon overlords, 'nids, or even the lack of water, if this threat has its way everyone dies and they die for good. If you lose an arm, you play a cripple. In the extreme cases, even when you win a fight, your career is over (i.e. gangrene). This means that, even though people may be ready to help (noble), they'll need a damn good reason to do so, since stepping out of line is so dangerous (dark).

[...]

A romance can occur in a grimdark setting where everything is hopeless and bleak except the romance itself providing that contrast which can be very nice. A dramatic coming-of-age story can occur in a bleak novel that is set in a high school where the protagonist has no one they can trust and they are bullied. You can say that real life is just a grimbright setting with no individual action being able to change the coarse of humanity, but there is still inherit hope. As I mentioned before in other replies, nothing mentions that an individual scene has to concord with the mood of the story. To really make scene impactful you can use the contrast the mood of a scene and the mood of the story to make readers pay attention (eg. Futurama's Jurrasic Bark ending or the beginning of Up).

These just plain don't work if you're writing enough depth and variety into your stories... Everything on this is either "everything is glorious and victory assured" or "everything is shit and everyone is shit".

A world should be far more complicated than that. Maybe resurrection and victory is easy for the powerful, but peasants are still going to die or suffer in wars. Maybe things are relatively happy, but your characters are all abuse victims and there's no easy fix for the PTSD. Maybe some people are murderers and some people are saints.

With your broad strokes, I can't categorise ANY of my stories easily.

Besides, that categorisation list is made for a tabletop war game. It doesn't need the depth of a real story. It was never designed to be tossed onto real fiction.

As a reader, I would find this feature pretty useless and, as a writer, it would put me off uploading my stuff here altogether.

Not at all. You can definitely have nuanced moods or even juxtapose the settings with the mood and tone of your story. Look at Overlord as a great example. If you look at it from the perspective of Ainz, the world is a bright and awe inspiring place with new interesting facets to research. From the other characters the world looks like a difficult venture, but there is still hope. And from the perspective of the reader you get a great nuanced experience and you feel for both the secondary cast and Ainz.

Another example can be High School of the Dead. The setting is terribly grim and dark (there is a zombie outbreak and no help is coming), but the mood of the story is one of hope as the cast of characters works together to strive.

So I don't think that there is much difficulty in being able to differentiate and describe a story within some set of axes. The issue is one that
yansusustories did bring up, how do you select a set of axes that is easily understood and hard to misunderstand.

 

[zamu]

[...]

As a reader, I would find this feature pretty useless and, as a writer, it would put me off uploading my stuff here altogether.

Also, just because you feel that there is little value, does not mean that other people cannot and will not derive value from such a feature. This is also why the suggestion forum exists to discuss the suggestions. If you could avoid adding a mood would that be enough to still allow you to upload? If so then cool! Then people like me who want to find stories that are light and heartwarming can just filter and see those and people that don't care can just ignore the feature.

 

[zamu]

Personally, I'd rather see us have mood-tags that could be highlighted by a different color or something (similar to how the completed-status of a story shows). Those would likely be more accessible to people who have no prior acquaintance with these axis moods and would likely be more widely-applicable as well.
We already have stuff like 'heartwarming' that I would totally see as a mood of story and it would likely be easier to add further 'mood tags' (e.g., we could totally add something like a grim-mood or noble-mood tag for the fantasy stories that might need this) and change their appearance than to implement a whole new feature as well.

The issue is that tags are very subjective and up to author fiat. Moods attributes would be a bit more rigid. I do agree with the points you two are making though and they are valid, but I feel that it's mainly the issue that you brought up earlier that people just don't understand the nuances and meanings behind the words and get stuck on the labels.

 

[Moonpearl]

Also, just because you feel that there is little value, does not mean that other people cannot and will not derive value from such a feature. This is also why the suggestion forum exists to discuss the suggestions. If you could avoid adding a mood would that be enough to still allow you to upload? If so then cool! Then people like me who want to find stories that are light and heartwarming can just filter and see those and people that don't care can just ignore the feature.

Yes, I would be fine if mood wasn't compulsory. However, that could negatively affect the exposure of people who don't wish to put their story in a relatively shallow box.

Honestly, authors not being able to represent their work is just a problem we all have to live with as webnovel readers. Maybe if we could increase the number of reviews left on stories, that would solve the issue much more tidily.

 

[yansusustories]

Also, just because you feel that there is little value, does not mean that other people cannot and will not derive value from such a feature. This is also why the suggestion forum exists to discuss the suggestions.

Just mentioning this here real quick: I'm really happy we're able to have a civilized discussion about this! In general, I still think this might be a good addition but I'm really fuzzy on how this could be made to work well.

As for the readers voting on mood, it's fairly easy to normalize the weigh of a vote by the percentage the reader has actually read the story, so that's a non-issue.

I really like this idea for dealing with that problem. Not sure how difficult it would be to implement but I'll leave that to people smarter than me to figure out

Having that out of the way, there's this thing that I'm still having trouble with:

It's on the author to convey the mood of the story via synopses and the tags at the moment. If they convey it poorly, it's on the author for not conveying it correctly. If this is implemented or not, it still is an issue, but this helps strongly mitigate things as it provides a concrete, constructive point to mention in reviews and provides a filter in the series finder.

Not at all. You can definitely have nuanced moods or even juxtapose the settings with the mood and tone of your story.

So I don't think that there is much difficulty in being able to differentiate and describe a story within some set of axes. The issue is one that
yansusustories did bring up, how do you select a set of axes that is easily understood and hard to misunderstand.

I still don't see how. Like, from what I imagine right now, you'd basically have four moods to choose from for each story where you could basically pick two. So, you'd have to give the story a label from each axis (or maybe just one would also be alright if it's not compulsory anyway?) and those would be the extreme ends unless you had labels for what's in-between. Are there such labels (or would you have any idea of what to make up for that)? Because I can't really see how you'd get the more nuanced moods otherwise in labeling. (Not questioning that they're naturally there in writing but I'm just wondering about how - as the author or a reader - you'd actually pick anything that shows this nuanced mood?)

Personally, I know none of the examples you mentioned () so that might make understanding it a bit hard for me but just from this one:

Look at Overlord as a great example. If you look at it from the perspective of Ainz, the world is a bright and awe inspiring place with new interesting facets to research. From the other characters the world looks like a difficult venture, but there is still hope. And from the perspective of the reader you get a great nuanced experience and you feel for both the secondary cast and Ainz.

I see a major problem if I understand it right. Like, what would you put as the label? I mean, I get it. The world is nuanced. No question about that. But you'd need to decide on a label as the author. That's what we're talking about, right? So what label do you give there if it is nuanced and totally depends on which character's perspective you use.
Personally again: I'm mostly writing multiple PoV stories so I couldn't just say 'Oh, it's mood X depending on the MC' because I frankly just don't have one. What do you do then? Because it would change from each character to another so ... you could basically use every mood?