I expect simple behaviours here. Friendship, and love. Any advice should be from the perspective of the person asking, not the person giving! We have had to make new membership moderated to combat the huge number of spammers who register
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13751
I have long held the view that authors develop to be better by being encouraged. I do this in my way by publishing their stories. I try to major on the good things, especially in public.
Sometimes I have published stories where the authorship has degraded over time. I handle this by email suggesting that they are not producing the work they once did. I have declined subsequent tales sometimes based on a private critique. Often that has been resubmitted later in a far better state.
I don't publish stories I dislike.
When I see them on other sites I don't write to the author. If it's shit I stop reading. Sometimes that's in the first sentence, other times after chapter 18 or more!
When I see them as submissions that give me a challenge. I try to explain what it would take in editing to be successful.
We have a long tradition here of being magnanimous when talking of a story. In the best tradition of being magnanimous, one needs to learn to say nothing at all if one has nothing good to say.