Bad Reviews

[H Dean]

So, you are suggesting that quality of writing should not be considered in the review? I, for one, would not wish to remain ignorant of my failures. I want to know where my stories failed and where they succeeded. If my grammatical mistakes made my story unreadable, I would expect my reviewers to tell me so. If my choice of verbiage was awkward, I would want to be told. If my sentences were structured in such a way that it made my story hard to follow, I would want to know.

On the other hand, I suppose that some authors cannot take honest and fair critisism. Perhaps those authors could request their offerings have the review feature turned off. It would certainly help those who bother to offer reviews. It would be a dead on indicator as to who wants honest critisism and who doesn't.

What bothers me is that a small minority of English speaking reviewers behave as “superior people” spelling the lessons to the “barbarians that spoil the language”, while most of them probably do not speak a single word of a foreign language!

Perhaps you are projecting your own feelings of inferiority onto those who bother to review. I doubt that any reviewer feels "superior" to the "barbarians". In fact, I would offer that most are trying to help, including me.

Most of the writers simply write a story for the story or for the pleasure to do it and write in a kind of “non-perfect” International English. Of course we are aware of this!

Most people write in a "non-perfect English". Many times this "non-perfect English" makes a story difficult to read. Part of telling a story is being able to paint a picture. When "non-perfect English" clouds that picture it can ruin a good story. You want that ignored?

The comments of some of this minority are quite arrogant and do hurt. You feel they consider you as an “illiterate” while you communicate in several other languages.

Again, you are projecting your own insecurities. No one called you an illiterate or even hinted at it. Those are your own words. If your feelings get hurt (as they did by Heycarrianne - and her review was spot on) you shouldn't post your story where others might comment.

Negative comments are something that any artist must accept. If you can't accept negative comments then...well, don't be an artist.