July 25th, 2012 at 02:19am
Listen to the good, but take the bad into consideration too. Read through the negative comments, take the constructive criticism and work it into your story.
I definitely look for good grammar and punctuation, I'm kind of weird in the way that I can't read a story if the spelling is really bad and the punctuation is all over the place. If you need help with it, get an editor to help you out, like Charity said.
But yeah, not everyone is going to like the things you write. I used to not post things unless I thought tons of people would like them, but that was pointless because you still get the people who hate romance or hate comedy or hate vampires. You kind of just have to roll with it and keep on writing even if people hate the things you write. You're never going to get better if you don't try! :)
Use the good comments to encourage to write more, and use the negative ones to improve your writing. Not everyone's going to like it, but at least they're giving you some pointers on how to make it better. Don't stop just because of what someone thinks. Always write for yourself.
I look for something that captivates me straight away. It doesn't matter what genre or what characters it has, just as long as it's a good read. I don't like vampires and werewolves in particular, but if there's a really awesome story out there about that, then I'll read it and enjoy it. Same goes for leaving better comments. It doesn't matter if I don't like crime stories or whatever - if it's good, it'll get a good comment regardless of the genre.