#sdaflksadjfsda

[not-poignant]

If someone stopped reading your story, not because of anything wrong you've done, would you be interested to know why? Or would that just be unpleasant?

That would just be unpleasant, anon.

The reality is a lot of people just stop reading for a lot of reasons, and hearing someone's negative feedback isn't really that useful, because I'm writing the story for the people who really love it, and not for the people who got bored or stopped liking the themes etc. And then of course there are folks who just stop because life intervenes, which is normal.

Generally speaking there's a saying which is: If you wouldn't ask that person for personal advice, why are you listening to their criticism. And I tend to apply that pretty aggressively to strangers on the internet tbh!

Part of it is that I take negative critiques very personally, and can spend a really long time feeling like I should change an entire story for one person who's already stopped reading, or like I should be trying to fight to keep that one person's interest instead of like...focusing on all the readers who are actually just enjoying the writing as it is. And changing my writing for the people who aren't finding it interesting enough to keep reading (and/or who don't have time and/or who find it too upsetting etc.) is not going to help anyone!

So yeah, generally speaking telling a person why you've stopped reading a story is like...not really a thing to do (and that's true for most authors).

About the only time I don't mind it is when someone starts reading again after a period of absence where they've been stressed and I get a comment like 'Ah I haven't been around due to life/stress/illness but I'm so happy to be back and reading' lol, which I don't think is what you're referring to!