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So, I had a thought lately... Scary thing, I know… I can smell the smoke billowing out... The use of the Chekov’s Gun element in fiction is a simple idea. For reference, if one shows something (ie. A gun), then you have to show it being fired before the end of the play/novel; if you don’t, well, there’s no point to having it presented. I can’t say I’ve seen a lot of its usage in modern works. Most works that I’ve seen seem to disregard this idea in favour of many other things. I’ll admit, I’m guilty of this as well. I’ll show a great many things and then completely disregard that. Show weapons, gear, et cetera, and never use them again. So, the question becomes, does anyone use it? Does anyone ensure that the weapon they’ve shown in Scene 1 of Chapter 1 is used by the end of the novel?

I’ve probably guilty of building up a lot of things only to abandon them, as the story works itself out. Also, there are times that something like that can be useful to distract too. (ie, in a murder mystery)

It’s good to have the option, especially in the case of a troll and/or spam.

Agreed… I just posted a new chapter to my latest story and thought it was pretty exciting… I didn’t get anything off AFF, which I was expecting, but the other two sites I’m on I got a weird combo of super breif ‘Yay! New update!’ and ‘The next chapter will be hard to wait for’. Well, ok. I’m super sorry. Lol. Maybe a lil encouragement would help. i wasn’t shy about mentioning my writers block in the authors note… At least I know they’re coming back. I guess I have that going for me. You lucky dog! The best reviews I got were from betas, and that’s because they focused on the technical aspect of the writing. Besides getting short, although positive, resonses from commentors like @Anesor said, I’ve gotten my fair share of criticism. People don’t like this character, or my research on a particular place was SHITTY! Lol. But it’s all part of the writing game… We talk to other writers and get tips to improve, and hopefully we see some sort of reply from our readers. But expecting it, can sorta set you up for failure. I’m not going to do that. What comes, comes and I’ll be happy either way this is my story and I’m having fun playing with my characters! Whooo!

Could you explain what you mean by ‘disingenuous paragraphs of encouragement?’ Sadly, a lot of reviews are short of meat to them, so all you get are feelings. Sometimes you get helpful details to improve problems or understand what works, but that is a minority for me. For me, any more detail than a like makes my week.

And there are days where I realize I have to revise, again….. sigh…. on the plus side, should make the story stronger. (Caution, dates/ages will change)

I don't actually think that this is off topic for the original question of whether good reviews in general can be trusted. Your general 'good' review of "more please" is so prevalent because readers tend to be afraid to say exactly what they think about a piece. So I do think that a discussion of why you wouldn't leave a review of how the story needs work fits into this conversation, given that it directly highlights why the question needed to be asked in the first place. Why should we be concerned over whether we can trust a good review? Because even the crap stories get them. And generally they're exactly the same. The last quote in my last post you can Google and come up with a lot of reviews. Because that's exactly what that person types on every single story they read. So if every story they read warrants a "good" review, then obviously they like everything, regardless of content. But what if you didn't know that? What if it was someone who changed their reviews enough - using a base stock formula? Say they left a review on your story that says "Good job! I really like this. When's the next update?" and one on a story that has clearly never seen spellcheck that says "I really liked this! I hope your next chapter comes soon." - can you trust the review you got from them? No. You can't. Because they leave that on every story. If what's being agreed upon is that it's not worth the time to leave a review - and DG, I understand your reasons, I'm not debating that point - telling the posting user that they could benefit from some grammar lessons (but more nicely, obviously), then we're also agreeing that the general "good job" "great fic" "this was nice" review cannot be trusted.

Y'see, my point with this is that were I to review such a story, I can PROMISE you that whatever I had to say would be very blunt, and certainly construed as hurtful at the least. Hence the not leaving them at all for me in such a for instance. Not even on another site where I'm not staff.

What I'm saying is not that I won't leave a negative review, but that I won't leave a review that crosses the line from constructive criticism to destructive criticism. I am willing to say negative things, but I'm not willing to say only negative things without at least a single positive or neutral point. Because, whether intended as constructive or destructive, it'll only come across as destructive then. There is a difference between "The idea behind this story was certainly interesting. However, I did not feel any real connection with the characters and the spelling and grammar mistakes jarred me out of the story at times. Perhaps you would benefit from acquiring a beta-reader? A couple of examples of what I mean are 'a' and 'b'." and "Sadly, the number of spelling and grammar mistakes made it difficult for me to get into the story. The characters seemed flat, with exception of "Character", which seems a bit of a Mary Sue to me. You contradict yourself on the time-line here, here and here, on the settings here and here, on the character background here and here. The basic plot you used has been overdone already and none of your plot-twists were creative or original."