First off, I should tell you that ratings tell you very little about how good a story is so I would take them lightly.
I only read a little bit of two of the links you posted. You're formatting isn't that good and you really need to work on your sentence structure. Both of these things made your story very tedious to read which may be the source of the bad ratings.
No matter how interesting the concept may be, if the reader has trouble reading your story, it's all for nothing. Fact is, you have run-on sentences, fragments, poor paragraph spacing, and poor use of punctuation along with some spelling errors. I suggest brushing up on your spelling, grammar, and sentence structure and edit the stories.
Here are a few tips:
- Paragraph breaks occur after a change of topic or a change in speaker when it comes to dialogue. Also, when posting online, make sure to put extra spaces between paragraphs (like how I'm doing in this post.) It makes things easier to read.
Here is a short example of what proper paragraph breaks should look like taking from one of your own stories:
Quote:
“Wish the fighting had ended in D.C.” A fighter spoke as he and five others look at a captured SAT monitor looking at the chaos erupting all over the American east coast, “Sadly, that wish ain’t comin’ true, the lost of their foot hold in Washington was only a bloody nose compared to what they have planned; already The Russians have both feet in our land, they might as well cause as much hell as they can before they are completely pushed out.”
Another fighter spoke as the lense zoomed in on the state of New Jersey, fire, smoke, and muzzle flashes dot the screen, “If they can be pushed out that is-”
“Now what’s this?”
Monitor changes screen to a T.V. news station anchor man reporting, spewing words of peace and restoring control after the “corrupt” armed forces of the US military have been dismantled.
“Russians broadcasting propaganda, looks like they are trying to occupy at least this state.” a fighter mused sounding annoyed, “Not my New Jersey, oh hell no!” the mini-window on the screen closes, going back to the sat coverage of their city, “they‘ll rot in hell before they plant their ********’ flag over my home town!”
“That’s what I want to hear, gear up boys, we move in five.” the fighter leader ordered as each man charged weapons, “Lets give these invaders a kick in the balls shall we Continentals?”
“Hooah.” the rest reply.
Now some of the above may be inaccurate as I had a hard time figuring out who was speaking when but see how the paragraph breaks after a topic change or when there's a new speaker involved? That's how you should try formatting your work.
- Brush up on your spelling and grammar. There are plenty of online resources that will help you with this. Also watch out for homonyms which are words that spell or sound the same but actually mean completely different things.
Example: Where, were, wear, and we're all look and sound similar but are completely different.
Where is used in referring to a location of sorts. "Where are you?"
Were is like was but is used with multiple people or objects. "We were going to fight!" or "The zombies were chasing them." Note that were is also the one people use in the word werewolves.
Wear is what a person or object wears as in what clothes or accessories they have or will have on. "What are you going to wear to the prom?" "She was wearing a pretty dress." "She wore the pretty dress to the prom."
We're is a shortened version of we are. "We are leaving now." = "We're leaving now."
Spell check doesn't catch these when you use the wrong one so be careful to look things up when you're not sure.
- You really need to clean up your sentence structure. Reading something out loud to yourself can help you find which sentences need fixing but here are a few examples from your work on what you want to look for.
Quote:
The rider quietly sung to himself a song he listened to long ago, now with the internet and I-pod long dead.
I believe this is a run-on and fragment all in one, which is odd. Even if you chopped of "now with the internet and I-pod long dead" it is still a very awkward sentence. I would suggest getting rid of the end entirely and rewording it to something like, "The rider sung quietly to himself. It was a song from the old days, back when technology wasn't just a bunch of scrap metal." Eh, I might have gotten carried away there... But this flows a lot better than what you had before.
Quote:
He slouched in the saddle as his Thoroughbred trotted alongside the long dead interstate.
You could even try lengthening the first sentence to include some of the next part and just get rid of this sentence completely. Like, "The rider sung quietly to himself as his horse trotted alongside the long dead interstate." Note that I said horse instead of thoroughbred because that's actually a very general term. It could be anything; dog, horse, cat... I'm assuming it's a horse so that's what I put. But I'm not familiar with the Walking Dead series so if the term is a name for something else in the story universe that I don't know about, go ahead and put that instead.
Quote:
The sight of abandoned cars as far the eye can see, some still occupied with the rotting bodies of people who failed to leave their vehicles behind. The smell of rot, forest and hot road was in the air.
The first sentence is a fragment. This could be easily fixed with a describing word or something in the first part of the sentence. ex: "The sight of abandoned cars
stretched as far as the eye can see, some still occupied with the rotting bodies of people who failed to leave their vehicles behind."
The last sentence in there is fine but be sure to look for other awkward sentences in your writing and fix them. Remember, sometimes less is more. Try combining sentences and cut unnecessary words or phrases out. But if a sentence runs on too long, cut it short. Be careful not to overuse adverbs and adjectives, either.
Hope this helped some. Good luck with your writing.
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