You know, it's funny. People on here have been overwhelmingly flattering. I sincerely wish I could appreciate it. The issue is that - to put it frankly - this thing is a trifle, a couple days' worth of work to use up some excess creativity. I would go as far as to call it "trite." I have writing that I worked excessively fucking hard to bring to light. Everything shown here, in fact, and then some: Yet a lot of that has been straight up hated on by people paid to hate on writing. Even the stuff that is liked is generally answered with "yes, I thought it was nice." The best compliment I ever got was from another writer who said "yeah, it was good. Annoyingly good. I wish I'd written it." I optioned one of them - that's where someone pays you money for the right to keep you from selling it to someone else for a limited period of time - to a director who paid me to rewrite it. He'd said the script was 'perhaps the best thing he'd ever read.' Then I spent four months slavishly rewriting it to suit his needs and he decided it was horrible and never wanted to touch it again. He's cordial, but distant now. Same story went to the lady that greenlit GALAXY QUEST. "Nice script, but not for us." I wonder if the difference is that "civilians" aren't looking for reasons to hate something. After all, if you spend two hours reading a story, it's a success if you don't feel that two hours wasted. If you spend two hours reading a script, the best possible thing is for you to hate it because then you don't have to do anything else. If you like it, you have to show it to other people, who will judge you based on your taste. At the basis of this, the very larval soul of it, is the thought "I think this is worth spending $100m of other people's money and three years of other peoples' time turning into a 2-hour document that will be written about in the Hollywood Reporter a half-dozen times." Even my screenwriting friends who have read "Restaurant" generally respond with "you should edit it more." It sucks. Everyone is so friendly and respectful and encouraging about how great my writing is, and my only instinct is to think "that's because you don't know good writing." Victim of my avocation, I guess.
I don't know about everyone else, but I'm saving whatever "criticism" I have for the end. Not about to judge a story before it's finished, at least in this case. EDIT: and further, I know you're not particularly looking for constructive criticism here like you would be in a producer's office. So there's not a whole lot of point to it.
I like to think I can identify good writing. I've read a hell of a lot of good books. I've also read a lot of tripe, and this, sir, is no tripe. That said, maybe it is very much about audience. Writing for, say, a studio exec- I suspect the standard isn't "higher," per se. After all (and you can correct me if I'm wrong), aren't those guys concerned more with profitability than straight up good ideas? There's often a wide margin between what's good and what sells, right? I mean, not always, but there's a reason why so many really good novels were cannibalised in the transition to the silver screen. Now if you're concerned about making a living, yeah, a few good reviews on Hubski aren't gonna buy you any meals. But conversely, if you're looking for sturdy, dependable praise, maybe an exec focused on the bottom line isn't the best eyeballs for it. Then again, most likely Hubski still isn't the place to look either, which is why you're feeling so unfulfilled by the praise you get here. I mean, from my experience, the readership here is on the whole a lot more mature and concise than other online arenas. But we're still just laypeople for all that. Also, people are just more decent here, and that might factor into responses. On top of that, at least in my case, I respond positively to stuff like this because, as I said, it's not tripe. And there's so much really bad self-submitted writing all over the internet. After so long reading that kind of stuff, a story like this comes as a breath of fresh air. Hope that doesn't come off as damning with faint praise. As somebody who reads voraciously, I do think this is actually good stuff. EDIT
On the other hand, who cares? I'm of the mind that in a world of almost constant consumption, cultural output is one of the most important things to strive toward. Quality, in a certain sense, is secondary to the very fact of creation.
I do like it, but that's not to say I wouldn't advise you to revise aspects of it. You will recall my email to you with some friendly suggestions. But the overwhelming majority of people that will read something, have nothing to do with green lighting a Hollywood project. So, I suppose whether or not something is good can be measured on a number of levels. Is it good writing for the casual reader? Is it good enough writing to be made into a film? Is it good enough writing for the literary snobs? When paying my compliment, it was meant as an answer to the question: is it good enough to entertain thenewgreen? And the answer is a resounding "yes". So, you've got that going for you. But your point is not lost on me, it really is a shame that you're not able to enjoy these compliments. I think you should do your best to shake yourself of that. That said, being hard on yourself and always pushing yourself to be better at your craft is a good thing. And if those Hollywood assholes are in a way "pushing you", then perhaps you're better for it.
I get that - I get all of that. I tried to implicitly call out the "casual reader/studio exec" divide in as many words. Also, as has been discussed, I am not an anonymous author. There's undoubtedly a double standard. I can only be hopeful that the novel is received more in the "fans of writing" way and less in the "studio executives who don't want to commit $100m" way. I'm 5 chapters from done (after 78 written) and 180,000 words in.