I agree, they don't, but neither do reviews that discourage a writer from writing at all. If you have criticism, say it, but a writer is more likely to listen to you if you do it in an encouraging way. That's all I'm trying to say.
With that, I completely agree. Have a look at the reviews I do. I am brutal on grammar and sentence structure. I shred the nuts and bolts, but I always remember to end with the positive, what I liked, what caught my eye as good. Of course a review that simply trashes a piece of work with malicious abandon, like a dog with a neckbone, is neither constructive, nor welcomed here at this forum. The mods are quite good at removing malicous reviews. But a trully constructive review can leave one feeling a bit bruised as well. Read the original post to this thread, which I wrote.
Well, then maybe I misunderstood you. But not every writer can stomach a review like the one you received, particularly younger writers. I tend to stay on the cautious side, start with a compliment about the writer's style or something that was particularly strong about the work, before I start giving criticism. It's absolutely possible (and in most cases, true) that a review without a single compliment can be constructive, but a new writer who's attached to his or her work might not view it that way. If you're not careful, you might just have wasted an hour giving the most detailed review to someone who won't even see the value in it.
Again, I agree with you… to an extent. I belong to MANY, many writing forums, and writingforums.org has got to be the most well monitored forum to which I belong. In other forums, work which needs real help is often ridiculed and usually ignored. I can’t imagine anything more discouraging and off-putting than simply being discounted and marginalized as the inner-circle-clique chats and praises amongst themselves. I know that my style of reviewing, borrowed from Kaij herself, can be a little shocking to the person, so I always PM the writer first and ask if I my review is going to be appreciated.
People do need to remember that the middle ground exists: you don't need to blow pink smoke on the one hand or swing spiked chains on the other. You can politely point out errors as well as the good. It takes a little time--I'm as guilty as some and more guilty than most of forgetting to look at the positive--but it does pay of with an author who is more willing to listen to what you have to say.
I know this is gonna sound wierd but when i review someone's work, (Which is totaly on a how the story was because i'm horrible with grammer) I like to start by stating what was good and end by reviewing what i liked about it just so the review "sounds" like a nice one, but stilll has all the points i wanted to make tucked inside some cussions so the first and last thing he/she reads is pleasant but hopfuly took the rest into consideration. P.S. I always make it a point to thank my reviewers, no matter if they give me a "Great story" post or a long and indepth attack against my poor grammer, if i just read though it i read what i meant to put not whats actually there so i need someone to point to "Their" and say it's supposed to be "there"
I never really thought of it that way before. I mean, I know constructive critisizm is good, but I've always been afraid of someone ripping apart something I wrote - probably because I'm sensitive as hell :redface: But now that you put it that way, Wreybies, it doesn't seem so scary. Maybe now I'll be able to post one of my screenplays without being scared
I think reviewers need to consider the positive as well as the negative. For example, the spelling, punctuation and grammar might be terrible, but the story might be good - so if the reviewer begins by stating that the story itself was good but then points out the spelling, punc. and grammar mistakes, the author is more likely to take the corrections and suggestions into account. If, on the other hand, the reviewer simply tells the author that the spelling, punc. and grammar was horrible and doesn't even highlight the positive aspects of the work, the author is likely to be hurt and unlikely to take the corrections and suggestions (if there are any) into account. Which, if you think about it, doesn't really help the author at all.
I love getting negative critiques, because I really want to improve. I don't like to be ripped apart but I see the value. Many writers, I think, know to some extent what is wrong with their work but they don't know the exact thing that would make it better. I agree that a good reviewer will point out some good along with the bad. And I know my grammar and punctuation is horrible. I'm working on it.
I'm quite a sensitive person, but I love getting people reviewing my work, because they actually take the goddamn time! It means a lot to me. As long as they weigh up the positives and negatives, I'm good, though I don't like getting eaten alive. I'm a very nervous person when it comes to showing other people my writing.
If i ask for a review, i expect nothing less than it to be ripped apart, thats the point of the entire thing. If I don't know were my mistakes are how am I meant to improve? And to Trollhammaren, nice taste in music!
I'm also really nervous about getting reveiws, but I'm probably even more nervous about giving them. If I write a critique, i'l probably find the majority of it will be me apologising for noticing the mistakes, as though it's somehow my fault they're there. What I did when I posted my first story on here (and was scared to death that people would hate it) was I asked people to mention parts of the story they liked. I think the majority of people who reveiw on here do tell you the bits they like as well. One tip i've found from reviews i've been given- if you've said lots of bad stuff, but there's a line that you really like- quote it. Personally, and i expect this applies to loads of people- there is nothing more confidence boosting than reading the line/paragraph someone has quoted, and then instead of saying something negative they go 'that's really good' or something like that.
In my expierence, the best way to review is by beginning with some positive commentary on what was good about the story; tell the writer their strengths. Then you want to proceed to make suggestions, don't tell them that they have to fix this or that, suggest that they do. It's really hard to get mad at someone saying it politely. If they get defensive or angry, that's their problem and they just won't get any better at writing.
oh- and dont threaten to hurt them if they don't change the bits you suggested. Tried that once... didn;t go down well.....
A good friend of mine once said that what a writer wants and what a writer needs are two very different things. What a writer wants is naturally to have his writing appreciated. What a writer needs is to have someone take his work, rip it to shreds, burn the shreds, and piss on the ashes. Now, I'm not saying that positive criticism doesn't have it's place, but you don't learn nearly as much from people pointing out your strengths as you do from people pointing out your weaknesses.
I believe that you learn a lot more from people pointing out your strengths and weaknesses than just your weaknesses; you know what you need to improve on, and what you don't. Or you know the level you need to raise the rest of your work to.
The way I see it, though, you should be working on all aspects of your writing at any given time. You just need to know what to work on the hardest, I.E. your weaknesses. Most people become complacent when they hear about their strengths, which leads to sloppiness.
Fair enough, but surely you dont want someone changing something about their piece that is good? If you critique it loads, without pointing out the good bits, then they might think the whole thing needs re writing, and those good bits might be lost. They need to be able to spot when something they have done doesn't need changing. For example, my nost recent story post is meant to be funny, and if no one had said that it was funny, I would have re written it to remove the humour/ change the jokes, which would mean i would lose out on some apparently good jokes.
But isn't that assumed? When I say: "These are your problems: blahblah hablahblah." that doesn't mean the entire thing needs re-writing. Why would you assume something is a problem if I never said it was? Most of the time a piece is at least 50% good. So if that's true, isn't it a waste of not only my, but also the writer's time for me to list all of the strengths of the piece? The good bits fall under the distinction of "everything else."
'So if that's true, isn't it a waste of not only my, but also the writer's time for me to list all of the strengths of the piece?' So your saying that the writers on here don't want to know where they've done well? Everyone needs compliments. Who would read a critique and skip a comment because it was a compliment? It's not a waste of anyone's time- it's a boost of their confidence. Writers post their work on here for reviews, not necessarily bad ones. No ones going to be dissapointed if they post an story on here and people say everything's great. They're not going to go 'what a waste of time' they're gonna be happy. And besides, you say people will assume that stuff you dont mention is good, but that's not true of a lot of people. A critique shows what is wrong with your peice. if someone points out grammar issues, it doesn;t necessarily mean they like the style of the storym simply that they have noticed grammar issues.
The point of telling a writer their strengths is so that they manage to keep a good self-esteem. If you only point out the bad, then they only see the bad. You say that they would assume that what wasn't pointed out as bad is automatically good; that just isn't so. If everything you pointed out was bad, and you didn't point out what was good, it sounds as though all you saw was the bad and that means that nothing good reached the reader. By pointing out their strengths, you allow them to maintain a positive outlook and give them more motivation to fix their mistakes and move on with writing.
Um... I am. That's the entire reason why I came here; I wasn't getting enough bad reviews. So we agree.' There's a fine line between self-loathing and narcissism that every writer needs to walk, and it isn't the job of the reviewer to keep that balance. It IS the job of the reviewer to help the writer improve. This is best accomplished by pointing out the flaws in a piece of writing rather than the strengths. It is depressing to think that a writer would have such little self-confidence that constructive criticism would cause them to lose their self-esteem.
I agree. Which review do you find more helpful and more insightful? The first paragraph was an info dump. Do you really need to pile all that information onto the reader so early in the story, or could you give it to the reader in smaller chunks throughout? The information wasn't quite interesting enough to keep my attention. One thing that struck me straight away was the character Trey. He seemed very cardboard, and his character seemed underdeveloped. You need to expand on him. Or... Firstly, I liked the idea - it's definitely promising. I also loved Marina's character - she seems well-developed and I connected with her immediately. There were no significant grammar, punctuation or spelling errors either. However, the first paragraph was an info dump. Do you really need to pile all that information onto the reader so early in the story, or could you give it to the reader in smaller chunks throughout? The information was certainly interesting, but not quite enough so to keep my attention. One thing that struck me straight away was the character Trey. He seemed very cardboard, and his character seemed underdeveloped. But I liked the fact that he has a crush on Marina - that was very sweet, and one of the outstanding points of the story for me personally.
