Hey! If you're here, it probably means I've read/reviewed/favorited your story. If I gave you some criticism, I hope it helped. If I loved it, congrats on a good job. Good luck with future projects!

This account is old, old, old, but I'm keeping it up for reviewing purposes. And for a chance to rant, at least on this page.

This site is filled with authors wanting to share their stories, maybe just for fun and maybe for experience for their future career. If you share a story on this site, you probably hope it will be read, right? So, coming from one of the site's many readers, I wanted to share a few things that bother me. More likely, I will have automatically stopped reading the story, if I even opened it.

1. Summaries. Honestly, it's better to at least attempt summarizing it in the few lines you're given, rather than wasting it on something inane like 'best story ever! lol just read lol r&r!' or 'summary sucks. Story is better!' Also, including in your summary something similar to 'come on, give it a shot. just read it' will not actually induce me to 'give your story a shot'.

I'll give your story a chance if you write something in the summary that will actually make me want to read it. Summaries are what get readers to click on your story. Make them interesting!

2. Chat-speak. What kind of author would actually use chat-speak in her stories, or even in summaries? If you want people to read it, make it easy to read and clearly laid out. Dnt typ liek ds. I've seen quite a number of stories that actually used, "She smield at hm b4 turnign bak 2 her frends." Okay, maybe that's exaggerated just a tad, but I've seen stories go pretty close to that.

Get a beta reader if you don't know how to spell check it yourself or if you just want a second opinion.

3. If you write a story, please have it proofread. More than once, preferably, because things can be missed. Typos, especially obvious ones, and other grammatical errors are other deterring factors for me and, I'm sure, many other readers out there. I think they're very distracting, and makes it quite difficult to focus on the actual story, as I usually end up only noticing the typos.

No one expects perfection, but at least make it look like you tried.

Sorry I spent this entire thing ranting (and probably sounding like a snob), but I have read some pretty good stories on this site, so I know it's all possible.

'The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience.'

'It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.'