criticism

[chance52]

ok, i understand that someone's particular writing style or subject in the story isn't for everyone and that's fine. but the way for people to get better at writing is practice and being told their deficiencies. i don't mind being told that something from my stories was out of place but if you're going to give my story a negative rating, at least tell me why. that's how i am going to get better as well as everyone else that writes on here. i get that most people just get on here to have a little read and probably just get off, but if you're rating the stories, a little input can go a long way in developing a writers ability and skill in creating stories for everyone to enjoy. so help the writers out and tell them what you enjoyed or didn't enjoy about a particular story. they took the time to write it for you to read. a little criticism or appraisal won't take you near as long as it did for them to write it.

[snowleopard3200]

Originally Posted by chance52

ok, i understand that someone's particular writing style or subject in the story isn't for everyone and that's fine. but the way for people to get better at writing is practice and being told their deficiencies. i don't mind being told that something from my stories was out of place but if you're going to give my story a negative rating, at least tell me why. that's how i am going to get better as well as everyone else that writes on here. i get that most people just get on here to have a little read and probably just get off, but if you're rating the stories, a little input can go a long way in developing a writers ability and skill in creating stories for everyone to enjoy. so help the writers out and tell them what you enjoyed or didn't enjoy about a particular story. they took the time to write it for you to read. a little criticism or appraisal won't take you near as long as it did for them to write it.

I have to agree with you with the stories; in the main site I have had many stories shot to pieces by a dumping of negative ratings by a troll or such being, and no reasons given.

On the other hand though; thanks to advice from many of the authors here who do help beginning authors, especially, in my case Ejls and ELP, their pointers helped adjust the quirks of my style well.

[Dizzyworks673]

I too agree with both of you, I love comments good or bad. I get tons of good positive on the stories site and no real negative feed back. I mainly get what people do or don't want to see in the next chapters but nothing that says why they don't like my writing style. The main critisism I face all the time has to do with spelling not style.

The entry I did for the CAW 11 here on the forum gave me a lot to think about with the feedback and I'm going to deconstruct my entry and move things around before I post it as the first chapter to an overall bigger story again.

Daddycums hit on this topic with the negitive ratings, some people will vote down storys on the stories page and I assume on the forum too to keep their story up at the top of the lists. It may have nothing to do with critisism keeping you down but someone trying to boost their own work.

I agree that if I get a negative vote I would like to know why that was too. If it's simply to bump me down the list then so be it just tell me so, that way I don't have to wonder if it was my writing.

[crackedjaguar@hotmail.com]

I'll take things that would be nice for 100 Alex!

[Danolo]

Well, I haven't read your stories.. so I cannot comment on them, but I can suggest something.

Start each sentence with a capital letter.
Keep paragraphs short - the long paragraphs that run on and on just make me want to pass them by.

Just my 2 cents worth.

Originally Posted by chance52

ok, i understand that someone's particular writing style or subject in the story isn't for everyone and that's fine. but the way for people to get better at writing is practice and being told their deficiencies. i don't mind being told that something from my stories was out of place but if you're going to give my story a negative rating, at least tell me why. that's how i am going to get better as well as everyone else that writes on here. i get that most people just get on here to have a little read and probably just get off, but if you're rating the stories, a little input can go a long way in developing a writers ability and skill in creating stories for everyone to enjoy. so help the writers out and tell them what you enjoyed or didn't enjoy about a particular story. they took the time to write it for you to read. a little criticism or appraisal won't take you near as long as it did for them to write it.

[Twistedsister]

Yep..the main site has that problem, votng ppl down without telling u why, the admins have gotta know the profile and what % of there votes are negative and if all are negative they should pm them a warning. Because not every story is a bad one. Or maybe once they reach 50 negative votes, they are warned there account maybe banned. Seems a mess the voting system..i wonder how the other sites.cope with this problem.
I have had stories at 97-100% then bam! Suddenly dump a heap of negatives votes and its 75-90% without saying why.

[Dizzyworks673]

Originally Posted by Twistedsister

Yep..the main site has that problem, votng ppl down without telling u why, the admins have gotta know the profile and what % of there votes are negative and if all are negative they should pm them a warning. Because not every story is a bad one. Or maybe once they reach 50 negative votes, they are warned there account maybe banned. Seems a mess the voting system..i wonder how the other sites.cope with this problem.
I have had stories at 97-100% then bam! Suddenly dump a heap of negatives votes and its 75-90% without saying why.

I know what you mean every time I hit higher than 97% I get a bunch of negative votes. I don't mind negative votes as long as I know why. I would like to know why they might not like my stories as I do take suggestions.

[chance52]

you all seem to have valid points. it seems to me that some people crack out some negative ratings just to make their stories look better or put them higher up on the list. when are people going to stop being so childish? it almost looks like there are single individuals that just give mass negative reviews to single stories, giving it several negative reviews at a time. i've seen my stories take 3 to 5 negative hits at a time in a matter of minutes. the site doesn't track IP addresses to limit individuals to only give one review per story. it takes a lot of work to put restrictions on IP addresses and without financial assets from the site, there's not much of a point. i guess we can just hope people with grow up and acting like kids.

[Daddycums]

i absolutely agree. As a writer, I enjoy constructive criticism. A lot of people have given me suggestions on my writing, and I try to evaluate each of those suggestions to see if they would really improve my writing, and sometimes I do go with the suggestions.

Admittedly, it sometimes takes a thick skin to read those criticisms, but overall I believe they're a net benefit.

As a reader, I try to offer helpful advice, and often there's a trick to doing it tactfully. But I believe most authors on this site are intelligent enough to recognize the spirit in which the criticism is offered.

And now, since you are in favor of receiving constructive criticism, let me offer some. People tend to write the way they practice, so let me suggest that you put just a little more effort into your forum postings. You don't have to write a masterpiece with each post, but as Danelo mentioned, you should use appropriate capitalization. The shift key is your friend.

[Dizzyworks673]

Suggestions can be great and take your stories to places you never expected. I completely changed the direction of my main story I'm writing because of suggestions it got. It was though peoples comments that I also realized one of my major mysteries was way to easy to figure out and I decided to move the story in another direction. That is something most writers don't get to utilize as they write the whole book and publish. It's been a great expirence to post chapter by chapter and see where everyone thinks things are going and then give it to them or change directions.

[snowleopard3200]

Chance52, while I value having good reviews and good scorings for my stories; I understand all too clearly about having a story going great and in minutes it gets crushed by the negative trolls who live in the story site.

One of my most recent, the "Brother Davis, Miss Minn, and the Mysterious Book" was posted in a three part series in the story site; it went good for the first hour or so, then got savaged with between 12-19 negatives all but instantly.

I had four great comments left, and one negative in which they stated as Miss Minn mentioned in passing having slept with a woman once it turned them off.

Sometimes you never know how people will react.

One thing you may not be aware of; in the story site, when someone casts a vote while signed in, and its their first vote for that particular story, it counts as FOUR good/bad votes. So that can impact a story score fast.

[Twistedsister]

Originally Posted by Daddycums

i absolutely agree. As a writer, I enjoy constructive criticism. A lot of people have given me suggestions on my writing, and I try to evaluate each of those suggestions to see if they would really improve my writing, and sometimes I do go with the suggestions.

Admittedly, it sometimes takes a thick skin to read those criticisms, but overall I believe they're a net benefit.

As a reader, I try to offer helpful advice, and often there's a trick to doing it tactfully. But I believe most authors on this site are intelligent enough to recognize the spirit in which the criticism is offered.

And now, since you are in favor of receiving constructive criticism, let me offer some. People tend to write the way they practice, so let me suggest that you put just a little more effort into your forum postings. You don't have to write a masterpiece with each post, but as Danelo mentioned, you should use appropriate capitalization. The shift key is your friend.

There in turn is another problem..

My earlier stories are written differently to the way i write now.

I use to write and my stories looked like a wall of words, which i corrected later on. Thanks to some helpful criticism.

There's the problem...

I want to re-write them and i have with some, but admin or the powers that be wont remove the old stories, that i have email them to do so..

Maybe that's the problem..

If they don't act on your requests, what make us think they are going to weed out silly vindictive anti-votes on our stories?

[haramiru]

I'd definitely agree that people are either trolling or trying to make their stuff rise to the top.

My first story was hanging on at the bottom of the "recent stories" list, and then it suddenly got two negative votes and was bumped off the list. It'll never get enough votes to get back into popularity..

I just uploaded my second story, which was doing fine, but then it picked up two negative votes within minutes of each other, dropping it to 80% - also means it'll be invisible forever.

I would just attribute this later occasion to the luck of the draw, except that ALL of the recently uploaded stories are now at 80% or so. It looks like someone just took two accounts and voted negative on each recent story, I doubt they even bothered to read it.

If I were the admins, I'd look at the speed of voting and if someone's voting negative on a bunch of stories without enough time to have actually READ them (I don't care who you are, you can't read one story a minute for five minutes) your voting should SILENTLY stop counting. As in, your account is assumed to be a troll and your votes are forever ignored by the system (but it doesn't tell you this when you vote).

[hornypixy]

i've been fairly lucky so far on the main site - my stories seem to be doing ok. all in the low to mid-nineties, with more positive comments than negatives ones. I've read and re-read my stories after they were posted and most of my issues lie in the grammar departement. I'm working on that. I've never put one of my stories on the forum; but decided to be brave with my next one. Keep an eye out for it if you want to. If you like reading deep and meaningful stories of tortured souls and broken hearts and the healing of past wounds . . . you probably won't like it. But if you're into some lively conversation and humour, give it a try.

I've seen many of the old-timers complain about the rating system and how unknown votes brings things down. Im going to be honest about this - im good with languages. But with maths... not so much. Can somebody please explain how the rating system works? I know its probably a stupid question, but id rather ask a stupid question and get an intelligent answer than not ask and still be stupid about it.

Also, what i absolutely hate (and i don't know if the rest of you feel the same way about it) but for some reason, people seem to be using the comment function as an advertising board for free sexual favours and pics. Really, people, i live in South Africa. Telling me you're a hot 18 year old who wants to suck cocks and send guys pictures of your boobs is not helping me in any way, even if you leave your number. Or is that the public's not-so-subtle way of telling me they want more voyeurism and phonesex in my stories?

[ahorsewithnoname]

Originally Posted by Twistedsister

If they don't act on your requests, what make us think they are going to weed out silly vindictive anti-votes on our stories?

Keep in mind that there is very, very, very little financial incentive for the site owners to do anything with regards to this portion of the site.

Revenue.

There is no revenue earned via the Forums. There is no revenue earned via the Story section. Revenue is earned where there is advertising. Until someone can prove without a shadow of a doubt that there is a correlation to the number of viewers here in these two aforementioned sections and to those sections with advertising, we should simply count our blessings that these sections exist.

[Carl31]

I never trash a persons work my self dont know why people do I am just great full they they are kind enouth to share them hear with us if anything should encourage for more.

As for haters well there are always going to be people like that best advise I can give is ignore them.