FEEBDBACK

Frustrating isn't it? But you can't force people to comment. I did get involved once with a site that offers some incentive. The idea is that you critique other peoples work then they critique yours. Awful stuff some of it. There's a rating system. Didn't work for me. Maybe I wasn't diplomatic enough. I tried to be honest in my critiques and people got upset.

As Chucks says commenting can be a painful process for both those who get the comments and those who make them. Because of this it takes time for people to evaluate who is likely to respond well... and of course it's nearly Christmas. However, to get back to your original question Justabout, the point of this site is to be a portal for those who wish to display their hopes and fears, dreams and nightmares, observations and imaginations. ABCtales does this very well and it does it for free! Through this portal your work is available to a huge number of readers and you can only hope that, occasionally, others will read and appreciate it, and, maybe even be moved enough to respond to it. It seems to me that you are mistaking the 'forums' for the whole site... a huge number of people use this site as 'guests' and although they don't comment they do read... There is a huge amount of talent on this site and perhaps your posting this thread may make a few forumers read your work, but only time and/or talent will make your work popular. If you are really interested in developing your talent I think that ABC has plans to provide such a service in the New Year (could be wrong). Over time, friendships and alliances do form on any site and if you wish to get comments on your work simply keep commenting on other peoples pieces and eventually you may find that they will return the 'favour'. A Very Merry Christmas to you!

I think we all have our own ideas of what constitutes good writing. One man's John Le Carre is another man's Tom Clancy so to speak. Some worship Martin Amis, others think he's a pretentious arsehole. Positive criticism is a delicate art in itself. Hence the need to be diplomatic or leave innocuous comments that won't cause offence. As a general rule if a piece of writing doesn't grab me in some way I don't comment.

The trouble is feedback is difficult to moderate even with just a simple star scoring system. I also post on a site where stories accumulate scores and comments. Sadly scores become manipulated by fans and enemies so they finally become meaningless. Comments can be helpful and encouraging - but they can also be ill-informed drivel. Very few people actually have the skill to undertake proper literary criticism of plot, characterisation, pace, dialogue, ideas, creativity, etc. So the comments will usually reflect whether the reader liked the characters not whether they are well drawn. Youwriteon is a site backed by the Arts Council with fair/detailed feedback but it can only be done by other authors and the site only publishes the first chapters of stories.

We have looked at this from many different angles over the years. It seems that the more you are on here and the more you comment yourself, the more likely it is that you will get feedback. That seems reasonable enough but we will continue to encourage users to leave good comments in 2009.