Aight so, this is a scale I've come up with based on reading a few thousand books (both ebooks and traditional) as well as my experience from writing. It only exists because I saw how off and varying everyone's reviews were so I made this objective boi.
The scale's main purpose is to judge and quantify the delivery of the story, i.e. the style. It assesses how well the image meant to be portrayed by the author is conveyed to the reader. Since a writing style has a lot of interreacting elements to it, it's not uncommon for one word to change the rating from a 5/10 to a 7/10.
There's another boi that grades the plot, characters, etc. but that's more of a subset of this scale since it can only be used effectively after around a 6/10 (it uses the same 1-10 format though, just different focus).
Anyways here's a general overview you can use as a guideline:
0 to 2: Mtl grammar, reader sacrifices iq to understand
3 to 4: Poor grammar, to the point the reader's autocorrect gets rid of any style that may be there and thus needs to fill in parts of the story left by the gaps. This creates many different versions of the same paragraph.
Wn's average books are around a 3 to 4.
4 to 5: Grammar is either mid or the style itself is drier than popeye's biscuits. Basically the style will make the most epic of scenes read boring af.
5 to 6: Now we're getting somewhere. The image portrayed form the style is lacking many background elements and perhaps one or two main components so the reader only sees about half or a quarter of the image w/o putting any work to fill the rest in.
6 to 7: we got about 3/4s of the intended image to be delivered successfully.
7 to 8: Congrats, full image has been delivered, but it's lacking the atmosphere and realistic-ness of life. Transistions between scenes may be sloppy
8 to 9: Reader is watching a movie, the boi has forgotten they're turning the pages and is completely immersed
9 to 10: The reader may remember the book as an actual movie from how fluid it is. From facial expressions to the dog barking on the street, no detail is left behind.
(note: this is assuming they didn't binge anime or tv beforehand, bc I did that once w/ manhua and accidentally remembered a novel as a manhua. Was trippy.)
10+: The reader can't tell the difference between the book and a dream, or even reality. Congrats you've completed the Author tech tree of life.
KEEP IN MIND, ye mfers, "the image intended to be delivered" is just that. An image. Dialogue, atmosphere, mood, emotions, etc. are not included. Also, this is just a vague boi and the definitions are not the be all and end all. I may rate something that's 7.5 as a 5.1 bc the flow is choppy (which is why jumping scales is common.)
Some side notes, I can grade a work down to the 0.01 decimal w/ enough snacks. However, I won't do it for anything below a 6 because it's pointless. snacks → brain power↑
Ping me in the inkstone server if you want a quick grading of a chapter (please don't send your work there xD just lmk you want an idea of how I'd grade your piece and we'll move to dms).
I may or may not offer additional advice to improve it depending on snacks at hand so try your luck.
For those wondering how I'd grade my book, first off, make sure you aren't listening aggressively.
My early chapters sucked. I'd say 5 to 6? Not sure if they'll still be there by the time anyone reads this though since I'm editing the boi. If there's a patch notes in the author's thoughts then it's been edited.
Latest chaps are between a 6 to an 8 depending on where you're reading at. Some bits may be a 9 by now. For those who dismiss my book simply because there's no contract, keep in mind I've been offered an exclusive and non-exclusive, I just chose not to accept either.
For those wondering how I'll know what an 8+ will look like, it's quite simple. How do we know something is extravagant or looks expensive if we've never been involved with the high class life? It's basically like that + over analyzing each word, possible combos, replacements, etc. and topped off with impressions while reading.
Like I've said before, I've read a few thousand bois by now from all over the place on the scale. It's enough data to extrapolate unknown information and w/ previously mentioned analysis, any holes there can be filled.