I sent the first act of my story (I'm on my first rewrite) to someone to critique and they've said something no one else has. They called it boring. I've sent the story as it is to a few people and they've made no comment on it being boring but suggested I add more detail to the setting to help set the mood a bit (I'm bad with setting detail) and I worked on it a bit, not excessively but enough to set the mood. I will say this person is notorious for being a tough critic and has never been happy with something they read. If the first act is boring, I'm not sure how to fix it. The story is speculative fiction about shapeshifters. The main character starts out as a normal teenage girl at school, then she goes to the zoo with her family before the catalyst the next morning. I don't know how a story that starts out in the real world and with a realistic character would be more interesting than I made it. I gave her two points of minor conflict (boys spreading rumors about her, then her foster father scolding her) in the 3000 words I have so far and any more conflict would be near impossible.
Why are you taking this one person's opinion above other people's? If this person is known as not being happy with anything he reads, why send it to him?