One of the best signs that your stories are gaining popularity and that your writing skills are developing in a very positive manner is when you receive the anonymous '1' vote. You've obviously made someone jealous. No doubt if they had a valuable and intelligent opinion they would have offered constructive criticism to go along with a low vote, but just the fact that they do it anonymously is proof enough of their jealousy.
I think it very odd that really good stories by a wide range of Lush's top notch authors keep getting threes. Most of these authors seldom or almost never publish a bad story here. I'm wondering whether or not people score merely on popularity i.e. if they like you, 4 or 5, or if they don't 3 or lower. Are people truly looking at the quality of the story or seeing that it was written by _________ and they don't like ________ sp bam click that three? Even worse are the scores of 1s and 2s without any constructive criticism.
I mostly score stories in the 3-5 range. If I score a 3, I leave a comment as to why or send the author a PM.
Low numbers don't bother me in the slightest - my writer's hide is tough these days: I put my stories up, knowing that someone will shoot them down. That's the way of the world. I accept that. On the other side of the coin, neither do high numbers make me feel great.
I really like that I can see how many views there have been of a story.
Feedback - actual words written by someone who has bothered to write something having read my story. That's precious. I came to Lush precisely to get some feedback having been writing into the void that is the magazine world. It's a pretty miserable and lonely existence for a writer with only the odd comment from an editor to feed her passion. I admit that I was losing my passion. Publication itself used to be enough. But even that was losing it's pulling power. Writing was becoming like a second job. I went searching for something and found Lush...
Lush has become my playground; this is where I have my writing fun. It's so liberating to shake-off the word-limits and the genre driven demands of my other erotic writing. This is my writer's sandpit. I unleash; I draw inspiration. I love it.
I've had limited experience with this phenomenon on Lush, as I've received very few votes on my (two) stories. I get that it takes time, but the relevant portion I have to say is this: when deciding if criticism affects me emotionally, I run through a sort of a flow chart in my head.
First, is it somebody whose opinion I know I don't care about? If it is, screw it. If I do or might care about what they have to say, we move on.
Did they leave me any feedback, or just let me know that they didn't like it. If they didn't, they may have simply not enjoyed it, or they may have thought something was wrong, but without any further information, I just assume that it wasn't their cup of tea and it doesn't bug me so much as it might otherwise.
If they left me legitimate criticism, I ask what my estimation is of their qualification to judge my writing? Sometimes editors aren't writers so I don't judge somebody simply based on their own talent for writing, but it's a starting place. If I can't determine it, then I tend to take it in the middle, as long as I don't outright disagree with what they had to say. If I do, that's their opinion, and that's okay.
If I can determine that their ability to critique my work is high, then I take it a little hard, if they have something to say that I'm not sure of, or agree with. I hate few things in life more than failing to meet my own standards.
If it's somebody in my personal life I care a great deal about, then I get quite upset, from time to time. My girlfriend and I had an enormous fight about a piece I wrote a while back, and it didn't help that she was right. Some of it was because she skipped a piece by mistake, and so it seemed to not make sense and it felt quite negative in its tone. After being really upset for quite a few hours, I decided the only thing to do was delete it and dismantle my account here. Instead, I read it again, several times and finally wrote another two drafts, and she really liked the final.
So, in answer to the original question of "how do we deal with it?", I deal with it through this lengthy process of deciding how much I care, and if I do, I find the best thing is to rework it until it's acceptable to my eyes, and see what people think again.
Though I haven't had any "bad" scores here... on other sites I have. At first I did get upset & offended, until some nice readers contacted me (via e-mail or private messages) and pointed out my errors or brought spelling & typos to my attention so I could fix it. Once I realized that those with a brain and some compassion were bringing my flaws to my attention not to shame me, but to help me improve, I was grateful. Now, when I see errors in a reader's story, I send them a private message instead of posting a public comment as those could warp someone's views.
It's never easy to read criticism, but if you look at as a tool to help you improve... it can make you a better writer in the long run.
