I do the same. I avoid reviewing something that has over a page of comments already. I figure that that stuff is probably already pretty well-discussed.
You can say whatever you want about my attention span, but 1500 words is tl;dr territory for me. If you want a lot of people to read your story, it's best you put up to 500 words. My limit is at a thousand. I usually won't read more than that because it scares me. I'd rather play with my Xbox 360, thank you. Then again, I don't have one. I'll play with my Wii instead.
A Wii? That's even worse. C: I'm glad you gave me permission to say what I wanted, otherwise I'd feel bad about going, "WHAT?!" No, seriously, what? How do you read novels, then?
Novels are a different story. AT LEAST for me: If I don't like it I don't buy/read it. I assume the commenter is the same. Or any other possibility. ALAS
>:C Say what you want, I'm a Nintendard all the way, even if the Wii isn't all that great! I read novels if they aren't the size of my thigh. I can deal with that. Reading stories on the internet just seems like more work. This is why I can't read anything on a screen, I need the actual pages and everything. However, if I'm interested in whatever is posted, I'll be willing to read as much as possible in order to get to the end. in most cases, though, I prefer not to read more than a thousand words.
It doesn't seem necessary on a site that blows publication rights to post much more than 1500 words, if that. A solid scene is enough for others to review and for the writer to learn from. Too often, people just seem to want praise and validation for their stories, then complain when nobody wants to read 4k+ words and review when honestly the format is a bit lacking. And the truth is, lengths of works are often a problem, but only if the works aren't very polished. If someone is making the same type of pov break every 500 words, for 5k words, it gets tedious. And reading a story that only makes one such 'mistake' in 5k words will often read/review a lot faster than a much shorter piece making the mistake many times. What slows down the process is having to stop to respond, and even more so if you're having to stop to respond to the same thing over and over, as it then gets tedious and I've found hard to even stay engaged in the process. And the truth is there are other sites similar to this that do the review process better. These sits usually don't have issues with not getting reviews/critiques in general, nor even based on length unless it's fairly long, as there are a lot more people who seem willing to participate. The biggest difference being password protected sites, which then retains publication rights, so far more people--including those who are willing to read/review longer works--are comfortable participating. And I would argue the quality is better. Writers who are already publishing, or near it, aren't going to screw publication rights by posting stories to open forums. So, what's their motivation to review? Whereas, in a system that's password protected, writers don't have to worry about that, so may still review others so they're allowed to get feedback on their work without screwing up publication rights. The issue is far more complex than the length of works being posted, and I would argue length is actually the last thing at fault for lower readership in the review room.
Couldn't I just ask a mod to take my story down. If you are getting reviewed, your story is not ready for publication. Simple.
My humblest of apologies Mr. Elephant allow me to rephrase: If your not satisfied with your writing and you need/want someone to help you improve it the story is not ready to be published and should probably be re-written.
No worries. But that's pretty much a given, I thought. And it also bodes the question, what makes something 'publishable'?
Yes that is what we must all ask ourselves. Publishers care about money, and only money, so the real way to know if your book will get published is to have people read it. So reviews are our ways of finding out what to do with a piece in order for it(or other future pieces) to be published. Just whichever way the wind blows.
