Critiques and feedback are hard to come by in the Workshop. Sometimes you wait for ages and three come along at the same time. But often, you get excited about getting an alert that someone posted in a story thread of yours, and you go to it only to find that you're got a two line comment from someone doing it to get their 2-for-1. Oe the feedback comes from someone who promptly disappears. Not a lot you can do about the latter, although the two week wait to post your own story certainly helps. But the first is an issue IMO. It feels petty to report someone for itm so I have a suggestion. How about a credit system for the workshop? Allow the authors to upvote a critique as a valid one, and each upvote gets you one credit. Two credits allows you to post a Workshop thread. This would allow the Workshop to self-police. I realise this would need a custom add-in, so I'm not holding my breath but I do hope you consider it.
That sounds difficult to set up, and prone to outside arguments on quality. What I like to do is personally message them and thank those new members putting out dedicated critiques and spending the time on work, even if it's not my own. I want them to feel welcome. Then we add new quality members, without getting all nasty with the rules. I do report those who play the system, because they usually never turn out quality reviews anyways. But the largest problem here is lack of critiquing members. The more encouragement through simple recognition, and especially not just from mods, will grow the forum in a healthy way.
Have I done decent critiques? How can I get better? I’ve bought some books about character and plot development so hopefully that will help me get better.
Good question. This excellent article was written by one of our long-retired moderators. It's well worth reading. https://www.writingforums.org/threads/constructive-critiques.20627/ @Naomasa298 Mod hat on here: As for tweaking the software, to set up a new system....good idea, but.... That's not something the moderators or the admin can do, unfortunately. The Workshop software is set up to automatically reject any new member's upload who hasn't done 2 critiques. However, the quality of the critiques isn't taken into account by the software. Two contributions on two different threads, and the new member is 'in.' Yes, occasionally new members do rather 'inadequate' critiques to fulfill their requirement, and it fools the software. However, it doesn't fool us. The problem is, the forum is huge, and we mods don't get to all parts of it all the time. If we do discover somebody who is giving one- or two-line critiques in order to get the permission to post their own work, we do intervene. But we can easily miss this. If you see an instance of this, please don't hesitate to report the unhelpful post (using the 'report' feature underneath each post.) However, also keep in mind that some long-serving members do lots and lots of critiques without actually posting much of their own work. So sometimes they can be allowed a short couple of sentences, provided the sentences are constructive and helpful. There isn't a one-size-fits-all option here, but our mods do insist on constructive feedback and a truly helpful attitude on the part of the critique-givers. Of course the recipients of the critiques also need to understand that not everybody is going to praise their work to the skies either. Sometimes what the critique-giver says isn't what the writer wants to hear, but is helpfully meant and courteously offered. It may even be 'wrong.' Then it's a case of bite the bullet and move on.
Not sure what you mean by 'contributor.' But everybody who posts a thread for feedback MUST have already done two critiques to earn each thread. Several comments in an ongoing discussion on a single thread does NOT count as more than one critique.
Oh, I know - it would take a custom add-in to do it, and I honestly didn't really expevt that the owner would go to that kind of expense, but you can always hope. It's not negative feedback that is an issue for me. Sometimes, negative feedback can be the most helpful, as long as it's not being mean for the sake of being mean. It's the general shortage of feedback and short, unhelpful critiques that annoy me. I think it's unfair on those people who take the time to do read and post more in-depth feedback. I know that many long serving members do post critiques without posting their ow work, and I take my hat off to them. But sometimes, you just know someone is doing it only in order to post their own work.
Yeop. So please bring it to our attention, and we'll attempt to sort the issue. It is also (fortunately) true that the best critique-givers usually get good responses to their own work, however. People remember helpfulness, and are often on the lookout to return the favour. It's not 100% true, but true oftener than not. Self-centred people who can't be arsed don't tend to make friends here.
That's true - I remember when people give helpful and unhelpful feedback, and try ti return the favour in kind.
I mean the ones with the blue banner ‘contributor’. There are some that seem to post for critique an awful lot but don’t appear to give many? I thought maybe they didn’t have that requirement. Thanks for the clarification.
I wish there was an easy way to track your given critiques. Sometimes I'm unsure if I've given enough to publish a new work. Those times I usually do an extra. I hope my critiques are good enough. Always try to give what I'd like to receive.
Oh, no, not at all, but I think your work is in the novels section. I must admit, I struggle with excerpts from novels. As a short story writer (although O#, working slowly on a novel), I feel more comfortable with the format, and I'm better at critiquing it. I do like to read a complete story from start to finish.
Well, ideally you shouldn't just be doing enough to post your works. If you post critiques regularly, you don't need to worry about having enough to meet the requirements.
Fair enough. As a very new writer I would appreciate any and all feedback on all/any aspects though. Technical, pace, character, spag etc. And as someone who likes to read a complete story you might be able to offer advice on plot development.....ie.....where do you, as a reader, want the story to go? What direction? I don’t have a fully developed plot line yet so it would be interesting to hear where the reader thinks it should go.
the point with this is not to think of it as 'oh god ive got to do another two crits before i can ask...' just give critiques freely and handsomely because a) that's what happens in a community and b) giving critique actually improves your own writing... then when you do want to post for critique you will be assured of being well in credit. Also we've got better things to do than count crits and police the rule to the letter so no one is going to jump on you if you've made a good faith effort to comply with the rule and you're one short or anything like that... we only get involved with the heinous cases or either asking way more than they give, or giving pure garbage. In terms of quality just do the best you can - this is another area where we aren't about to police the quality with a magnifying lens.. when we as moderators talk about poor quality crit we're pretty much talking about: i) short comments like 'nice one' or 'this is poor' ii) irrelevant comments which aren't crit at all iii) crit which is way harsh - there is a big difference between saying " I don't feel this works because xyz" and "This is crap, the only way to improve it is to start again" - the former is constructive and helpful, the latter is not, iv) recycling the comment above purely to boost post count
Onh the upvoting issue - that's a bit like the giving reputation system which the site had once... it causes way more aggravation than it solves so i can't imagine the owner bringing it back
The worst stories to give critiques on are the ones where I read it and think "Dear god, this is SO good I can't say anything. I wish I was this good."
Upvoting is the wrong term, it's more of the author saying "Yep, this is a useful critique". I can see issues with it, where people won't credit a harsh critique. But I reckon most people will act in good faith.
Those are difficult, but give detailed praise instead! Tell them all you liked about their grammar and how the story kept you focused and engaged.
