My Expectations Aren't Often Met.

I won't deny that I am one hell of a fussy bitch when it comes to the things I read. It's natural to have great expectations (like the book) when given the chance to read others' work. Here are my expectations.

1. While I love reading others' work, sometimes I wonder if they put any effort into it. Ah, the times I have almost flipped the universe when I see a misplaced capital or a word misspelled. One tiny error often 

results in me having a little eye twitch, but a story consisting entirely of:

they mde lve He pushd her agnst the bd and then...

Come on, who doesn't get irritated at that? If you're going to post up a story, at least get spell check and grammar check on the chapter. Even if you don't have it on the computer, there are plenty programs online for such things.

2. An entire chapter has to consist of at least 300 words in my mind. Especially if so much is happening during this chapter. I have a hissy fit whenever I see such short chapters, because not only do I feel disappointed because of the lack of information often displayed in said chapter, but it makes for a very short and unthrilling read.

   If you are going to post up chapters, make sure you put in enough detail and action to keep us interested, otherwise you may as well keep it in your head.

3. Author Notes in the middle of chapters, or basically throughout, always irritate me. Maybe it's because they end up cutting off the seriousness or realism of the story, or maybe it's because they feel the need to explain everything while the chapter is still going on.

If something is actually important and needs to be said, say it in the memo, or at the end of the chapter. There is no need to irritate us by placing it in the middle of the chapter.

4. While I said description was important, full out murderous description of characters is not to my taste. Description is best for scenery or something of the sort. Leave something to the imagination when it comes to describing people, especially when it comes to first person. How often do you look in the mirror and do a full out description of what you look like and what you are wearing? You don't, and neither should your character.

So go full out with the description, but not too much when it comes to characters.

5. Some stories consist entirely of dialogue and while this works in certain things such as the first chapter of 72 hours where they are on a TV show and it is basically a script (with information on the set in brackets like this), this does not make for a good read in other situations. One thing I tend to do when criticizing stories is that I take away all the spacing between dialogue and see how much space it has taken.

While dialogue is good and definitely necessary, you need to balance between the description and the dialogue in order to get a good story. Make sure to add in details of how the person is reacting, their surrounding, and the atmosphere before posting up the story. This isn't a manga, you can't put in just dialogue and expect people to know what is going on.