I just received notification of my first 1-star review on Amazon. I can’t say I didn’t see this moment coming, but I didn’t expect it to see it so badly punctuated.

Any criticism is hard to take, but badly punctuated criticism is the worst. I can’t decipher it well enough to write a proper acceptance speech.  Maybe you can understand it better?

“Hard for Me to Classify…Sorry!  One for rainy days…glad I did not have to pay for this one. At least, it was short! But, not enough for me!”

Those last two commas are driving me crazy. Where are the grammar police? Where is that 8th Grade English teacher when you need them? Is my critic somehow saying that DARTS was not enough for him? That he wanted it to be longer? Did they mean it would be easier to classify, by genre, on a rainy day, when life is less hectic? Or should I take this as a compliment? Houston receives about 50 inches of rain in an average year (NOAA.GOV). That’s a lot of opportunities for appreciating my novella!

Finally, there appear to be missing words.  Critics aren’t supposed to use ellipses to omit crucial words. That’s the sort of lazy trick we expect from college students. What good is half a criticism? For one thing, it encourages bad guesswork:

“Hard for Me to Classify all of these exclamation points, ellipses, and commas!  Sorry!  One for rainy days, isn’t it Gerard? With commas and exclamation points on sale, we can go hog wild!!!  I’m certainly glad I did not have to pay for this one. At least, it was short! But, not enough for me!”

What I would have liked from said detractor: a clear indication of what will make my stories better in the future.

Lacking that, I can only hope to untangle the riddle with time. Perhaps one of my alert readers—long live Dave Barry—can help clarify.