Is reviewing useful if the reviewer is not well versed in the genre?

This IS an excellent thread. I think every writer's work has a potential 'target audience.' I think feedback from a member of that target audience is extremely helpful, because they KNOW what it is you're trying to achieve. (And while we're there, why does the short story section in this forum include categories, but the novel section doesn't?)

Getting feedback from folks who don't like or don't understand your genre CAN be helpful, if they concentrate on things like sentence structure, but oftentimes they grumble because they want your story to be something it's not. You write medieval-flavoured Fantasy, but the crime writer thinks your characters should be more modern and shouldn't wear such silly costumes. Ermmm...okay...next...

 

Well, we had an incident today in our tutor forum on a 2500. There's a guy uses language to camouflage insecurity, alludes to Joycian method or postpostmetaphysicalism etc...writes real technical crit, but when it comes to product he just can't do it - rambles on about the process of selecting fruit in a supermarket, a paragraph for a banana.

So the old boy in the group slashes the piece, tells him 'no no tell the story' and crit taken would have given the student 10%...but no, he turns on the other, calls it bullying. I mean what could the old fella do? Tell it as it is? Praiseburger? Leave the loonies to it - and there's plenty about the place. I suppose it's about pitching appropriately...

Oh of course the defence was 'you don't appreciate my type of writing.'

 

Post post meta physical ism...?! Praiseburger? Can you be cloned, Matwoolf? Who needs Dolly The Sheep? I want a Matwoolf of my very own... heart heart heart...

 

Writing is writing. The genre-specific critique points are the least useful.

Good critique helps you improve ALL your writing, not merely that one specific piece.

 

Most of the time, yes. Writing is writing regardless of genre, and someone who reads sci-fi can still detect crappy horror writing. That being said, if the critique given is along the lines of, "ughhh, I didn't like it because zombies are stupid and I like aliens . . ." then no, it isn't.

 

I would like to think so. After all, a plot's a plot, and a world is a world. If you are not experienced in the genre simply review elements that you are experienced with. For example, romance in space is still romance.

 

Genre is mostly a marketing tool and a way of sorting novels in bookstore. You shouldn't be so quick to label your work as it can be very limiting; for example a horror story you just wrote, might have a strong love story. There on a subsequent edit, you might find yourself giving more importance to that particular subplot. If you label your novel in your own mind, you are limiting the potency of your story.