Why are boards specifically designed for posting and reviewing short stories so terribly shit...

Why are boards specifically designed for posting and reviewing short stories so terribly shit? I just posted a short piece on a popular German website and got the most retarded criticism. It's not like I think my story was good at all - it's just that the responses were centered on misreading every single line, being unable to fill in very tiny blank and generally had the attitude of people who are dumfounded even at very Middle-Brow stuff. One guy really wrote "It's like you write in a different language." It was a really regular story with a few surreal metaphors shoved in. Is this the general public? Or does it get even worse?

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Idk man, most people are stupid. Very stupid.

It makes it really hard. I posted a story to a discord chat that I'm a part of, and nobody understood it. It was very straightforward and clear, but they all treated it like it was pop fantasy. Boy it makes my blood boil. This one bitch was saying the most passive aggressive things. Woah my blood pressure goes up just thinking about it. wtf

But ya. It's hard to tell cause we could both be retarded man. I don't mean to lump you in against your will but the thing about writers and poets and all creative people is that they never really understand their own stuff, can never really tell if its good or not. At least that's how it seems to me. It's utterly bizarre, but the muses are real. It's almost as if understanding is inimical to good writing. Idk

Yeah, it's not like I get angry at people being lost about the meaning of something, it was a story that I worked on very quick and intuitively. What really gets on my nerves is that sort of proud mediocre ignorance - like, if you don't understand something, fine, alright, I can work on that. But getting lost about whether it rained in the story because I didn't write "It rained" but wrote about rain puddles and falling water into a pond to ease readers in? That's just fucking retarded. I wrote the word "knuckle nicks" once which is a reference to bulimic people (wasn't really important to the plot at all) and someone misconstrued it to be about nicks and bridges and a deathly accident and it made me utterly confused about people.

Can you guys keep talking?

Is this ASMR for you or are you laughing at us hacks? I'm OP, i got some okay feedback after that, everyone pretty much hates it because they don't like how I had a innocent little boy in the story, then ignored him and wrote about the messed up shit you keep from children. People said that my style is refined at what it does but no chance at getting popular. That wasn't my intention so it's better than nothing

No, I like how and what you two are talking about. I was being sincere.

Would you mind posting your story? If it's in german that is fine as well but just don't expect any at all or great feedback from me personally.

Thanks man, I do think that this place can be good for honest discussion sometimes if everyone would put in effort. It is in German and I don't feel like translating right now so you'll have to see what gives. Again, I'm not angry at being some sort of misunderstood genius, I just would wish people would try to be more open-minded. I like to think that it's important to ask the right questions, not provide answers all the time. My style in this one is really weird too.


pastebin.com/BR60hUB3

Like and agree with how you think and wish more people would do similar when approaching this board even if memeing is fun and easier to do.

>checkin story out now

What's a good site to upload a piece of writing so people can comment and etc, but has stats?

I want to upload some writing for critique, but want to see

>how many times someone DLd my shit
>anonymous comments

Literally those two things are impossible. Disqus is shit and doesn't work with any dumb tumblr/wordpress site I make and every other free place forces people to log in to comment (e.g., facebook)

Ive actually posted shitpost copypastas from Veeky Forums on the reddit writing criticism subreddits and I get the most weird responses, but they basically marvel at anything with the occasional word with more than 3 syllables and cream themselves over extremely basic metaphors

Maybe its that Dunning Krueger effect, just people who have no idea but think highly of themselves are the ones more likely to end up on those boards

asking someone to critique your short story is like wearing nothing but an overcoat and asking school children to critique your penis.

if you pay me, i will offer advice. if i can't offer anything constructive i'll return your money. but i won't suck your cock for free.

OP here one more time.

Okay now I'm fucking pissed. I woke up to someone telling me "i don't know why this story exists." Then he went on about how you wear socks under shoes but I wrote "boots". Why do these people even frequent some shitty forum if they only want the same regurgitated realist schoolbook stories? Goddamn it, I just wanted critique i can respect.

I'll critique your work OP

i know u will bb

My place or yours?

My place my parents are on their publisher's meeting so u can slide thru

Fictionpress has all of that but its shit.

I liked it. There are a few things I would have done differently for example "ganz zugefroren" instead of "komplett zugefroren" since "komplett" sounds more like two young people talking to each other instead of a much older sister who is essentially a second mother trying to not only talk with but also teaching the young child. I would also not have used the sentence about childrens eyes being impossible to read, I think it became clear enough what you wanted to say due to the previous sentence. It comes down to personal taste though. Overall i really liked it. Keep up the good work.

It was fine, I like your writing, its modest but playful
Anything youd like to highlight about the story?
(am german)

Oh thank you very much! I agree that some of my stylistic choices need a bit work. That really brightened up my mood. It's just hard when you work at something and people just straight up tear it apart. So I'm glad you enjoyed this one.

I read a lot of Raymond Carver recently and tried to write something that has a lot of missing links to fill in. I wanted to write a simple story about the loss of innocence but got more caught up with the weird impressions that frightened me at a kid (the crushed Eichhörnchen, the weird scars from self-harm that nobody explains to a child when you see people like that on the street). I was very impressed with more surreal storytelling so I tried to write something that feels a bit twisted but still doesn't try to be edgy.

No problem, feel free to post another one if you want. What I forgot to mention was that I also really liked how short it was. Made it feel like you only have this one small glimpse into the lifes of the sister and the brother, all that had to be said was said and not a word more.

Hm. I didn't feel like it was very surreal at all, just a very acute, observing position on the boy and his surroundings. It felt like the narrator followed the boys' eyes, to the puddles, back to the ducks and so on, which was an interesting perspective to me.
Either way, not bad. I'm german too and I've written before, if you'd like to stay in contact then post some kind of address or nick where I can add you (steam/skype/etc.)

Yeah that's why I got so frustrated with the mentioned forum, I even toned down the surreal elements a lot.


Are you on Discord? username's borges-bb, the tag is #5851. I'm pretty active in writing right now, I tried to write a short novel for the last 2 months which completely felt apart, all things considered.

Elle is seriously a fucking angel. Bump from the homepage OP.

Added you, haven't used Discord before though

tfw when I secretly pictured her as the sister in my story

reddit really doesn't know anything about the "higher" art forms. I know that sounds pretentious, but everything under that label is totally alien to them. Go on /r/art sometime. You'll want to KYS