At least that person left a reason for the one vote. Most people are too chicken to let you know it was them that hated your story.
Yeah, it looked liked she/he had more of a problem with the content of the story rather than your writing abilities but those can always improve. No one is a perfect writer.
I've a couple of other thoughts on this.
I read a lot of schlock on a monthly basis. As a story moderator, I also get the first peek at a lot of very entertaining, imaginative and talented paragraphs, too.
Since the beginning of this year, Lush has made a concerted effort to showcase stories which are a bit more polished than those which show up on our competitor's websites.
We catch a bit of grief for being spelling or grammar nazi's, and we realize that English is not every writer's primary or even secondary language, so some few exceptions are granted.
Really, there should be very few of our author's stories, appearing on site for the first time this year - which should be blasted by a reader for the grammar/spelling/punctuation, etc...
And just like there is a wide range of talent between school age soccer players and those who are at the World Cup games, there is a talent gulf amongst writers.
If a reader has a beef with a story that is strong enough of an urge for that person to actually feel the need to complete the 1 rating with a comment, then by all means. Go for it.
I have seen a few stories here this year, which I am tempted to nail with a 1, but then I would have to devote another 30 seconds of my life explaining why, and my passion to do so is just not there.
I type a lot of smart assed and ridiculing things in the forum, but if I felt strongly enough to critique you, I'd give 'you' my opinion in a private email. I make a big enough ass of myself in the forum on a weekly basis. I don't wish to show people who don't visit the forum, what a crass and queer individual I can be, when others read the comments at the end of stories.
Besides, as a moderator, I catch enough grief lavishing praise on some of our authors (showing favoritism). Imagine what would be whispered or trumpeted if I was knocking stories with 1's and 2's on a regular basis?
The same GQP demanding we move on from January 6th, 2021 is still doing audits of the November 3rd, 2020 election.
@ SnakeOil: It’s great that you got an explanation for the 1* score, and even better that you were able to learn something from it and grow as a writer.
As for me, I’m struggling a bit with giving scoring on the stories I read. I know as a writer I value the feedback, and appreciate the effort readers put into voting or commenting, and so I very much want to give back to the community.
After receiving a 1 vote myself, I’ve been trying to come up with a case where I would actually give a story a score of 1. It would have to be atrociously written as far as grammar and spelling goes. A story like this wouldn’t get verified, so that’s not really a possibility. Otherwise, it would have to be terribly weak writing, with no identifiably sexy elements (even if it’s not something that turns me on), or no provocative content at all. In fact, it would almost have to piss me off to some extent for wasting my time.
I can’t imagine myself ever voting someone a score of 1.
I love telling people their story is great. I hate the idea of giving someone a 1, or even a 2, and want to avoid it. Is this wrong? Should I adjust my standards so a 1 is a viable option in the continuum?
Kisses,
Kinkybelle
I started the site off having a thumbs up or down type system, and moved it to numeric after polling members / authors / surfers.