Young Writers Society

Hai, I don't suppose many of you know me since I have dropped out of YWS like a your ever since I came here. I will admit to my utter shame, I was never really serious about reviewing. I mean I review, I point out things and cross my fingers that I can help them.

But lately, I've started to wonder. What makes a good reviewer? What does it take? What are the things to look for? How can you write a good review without being too harsh or just not giving any useful information at all?

So I wanted to make a thread here for reviewers to share their opinions and experience with the wider community,

So...spill......^^

I've actually been wondering the same thing too. So while I can't give you an up-front answer, I can share with you a few things that I like to see in a review someone gives me...

-Their opinion on the content of my piece.
It's all lovely and wonderful that the reviewer wants to point out every single grammar/spelling mistake that I made. And I thank them very much for saving me the time of hunting through for those errors. But what about my piece? Was I cliché? Did you enjoy it? Tell me about my piece, not my grammar.
(I'm not saying you shouldn't say anything about grammar/spelling. I'm just saying that I find reviews that focus on grammar/spelling to be bland and unsatisfying. So talk grammar/spelling, just don't make it the primary focus.)

-Balanced reviews.
A lot of times I will see a reviewer go over all the positive things in a piece, then all the bad things. I believe the idea behind this is that the positive things will overshadow the bad things because they came first. While that would be nice, it's wrong. It's a commonly known fact that the bad will usually stand out more then the good when someone is judging themself/something they did.
I much rather reading reviews where the reviewer has switched back and forth between bad and good. So I never feel like the bad is overwhelming the good.

-A positive ending.
I am a rather self conscious person. So naturally I find taking a harsh review more difficult then other people would. One thing that I find will make this easier is a positive ending. You could go on and on about all the things I did wrong, and then end with something good and I would still feel okay about my work (of course that's only if the positive comment sounded genuine, and not forced).
That doesn't only apply to harsh reviews. Any review that ends on a happy note will leave me feeling much better about my writing then a review that ends on a bad/okay one. Even if the rest of the review was just gushing about how wonderful my piece was, if it ends with something bad then I feel down.

-Detail
Sometimes it's nice to have someone just give me the gist of what they thought of my piece. But so many people do this, I'd really like some detail. Most of the time I'd rather a reviewer wrought 500 characters on the first stanza of a six stanza poem as their review then if they had written 1500 characters on the entire poem.
Of course, this can't always apply. But most of the time I'd rather detail. So ideally having a reviewer focus on a particular section and then kinda skim through the rest of my work is what I would like.

-Show they understand.
A reviewer should never critique something they don't understand. If all you know about a villanelle is that it's a specific form of poetry, then feel free to still review the poem. But talk about the content of the poem, not the form. But if something comes up which is a part of that area the reviewer doesn't understand, they can still bring it up. Just either 1) make sure you make it clear that you aren't sure if this is a problem or not, or 2) phrase it as a question. Continuing with the example of a vilanelle. If you don't like all the repeats, then it is perfectly acceptable for you to ask if that is a necessary part of a villanelle and then recommend that the writer doesn't repeat the lines so many times. Because that shows you aren't pretending to know something you don't, and will make me more likely to listen to your advice.


What do you think? Do you agree or disagree with what I've said here?

Well, just going out and reviewing is a good place to start. So long as you aren't attacking the writer and are trying to help them improve, your reviews will be helpful. They won't always be received well, but they will still be helpful, if not for the writer, then for you since reviewing has the added bonus of making you as a writer more aware of all the various things that go into writing something well, especially if you make a habit of explaining why you though a certain thing did/not work. It's the whys that are really helpful, even/especially when they're explaining why something was really enjoyable or worked so well.

I think that if you always keep in mind that you're there to help the writer you're reviewing, you'll be a great reviewer because the whole purpose of reviewing is to help each other.

Just be honest. If you find something that is perfect it is usually because there is not much there and you are not searching hard enough. I can tell you around 90% of the works have cliche phrases alone and it is terrible because it stops the reader from feeling empathy toward the character. You can assume that anything that stops the writers message is bad to their writing so if you find something to be weak like; clarity (grammar, spelling), credibility, logic, literary devices, emotion or other things then call them out on it.

Not only do you call them out on it but you have to reason with them, you have to be convincing. For example, If you do not provide the reason why their writing would benefit from imagery then they will not see the value in it and you are wasting everyone's time. When ever you say something you must support it with reason, logic, facts, or better yet case studies or facts that scientist believe causes more empathy or more acceptable messages. These are the things that make your review actually make a difference.

When you are finished with your review, read it over. If you don't agree with something in it then pitch it, start fresh. If you don't agree with it is not logical and will hurt the writer and not help you. Try again, and once you get it right you will actually learn something so valuable and critically pleasing that you will love to write the review. (If you love writing in the first place.)

Now in order to gather details about things to talk about in a review you must gather incite in your own writing and learn of what reviewers say about you. This is because you should be looking for something I like to call objective, unbiased judgement. It is not about memorizing the literary devices and what other people say makes good poetry it is about understanding why people say certain ways to write is better then others so you can decide if it works in the piece you are reviewing. The hardest part in a review is being critical and analyzing because it is something you cannot teach someone, it is something that takes understand of what you trying to analyse and practice at analyzing in itself. It helps to read good reviews before you review, and try your hardest to be honest and critical at the same time.

If you would like some more tips then go to my thread --
How to poetry review

I think someone that's honest without being mean is a good reviewer. Someone that's thorough and takes their time with a review rather than rushing through it, and gives the writer examples of what they mean and how to improve/fix "weaker" parts.

People that are "bad" reviewers, in my opinion, are those that rush through their reviews and give hardly any praise or criticism, and basically just nitpick or quote the whole story/poem back to the person. Those reviewers make it quite obvious they're just after quantity, not quality, and are in it for either points or stars rather than the satisfaction of helping someone.

But, I digress.

A good reviewer doesn't sugarcoat, but they also don't insult. They're honest, unbiased, and kind yet brutal if need be. That's what I think makes a good reviewer.

Definitely tell the writer what's not working and why, so they can improve. But also tell them if there's something you think was done really well, so they know to keep doing it.

Make reviews about the piece, not about the writer. And if the writer is overly sensitive to criticism and attacks you or leaves you a less-than-kindly message in return, don't respond. You don't want to get involved in a flaming war. If you feel like they're attacking you, you can report them. If they're not attacking you but you feel like they were kind of a jerk about the things you criticized, ignore them.

Try to avoid grammar-centric reviews, unless you can find literally nothing else in a piece to critique. Grammar-centric reviews are unhelpful in the early stages of writing because a lot of what's there might change due to revision, so why waste the energy nitpicking grammar and spelling? But if you feel like a piece is so good that there's nothing else you can suggest for improvement, nitpick away. Just make sure you also tell the author why their work is so good.

I try to give the kind of review I would want to receive. That's a pretty good guideline to follow.

I like fluff reviews. They make me very, very happy. And sugar coated reviews. Omnomnom.

Honestly I would say what makes a good reviewer is if they are honest with you and don't try to hard to gloss over the mistakes, but are nice in the process, and tell you what is also good about the piece. My first work that I posted got torn to pieces and I would just like to say thank you to that reviewer, because they told me what was wrong, was brutally honest about it, and I started watching myself in that area from then on. That's what I think makes a good reviewer. Be honest, and be fair. But don't be so much to the point of hurting someone's feeling's and being rude.

A good reviewer is someone who is well enough versed in the topic to give constructive feedback in a way that pushes the project forward. They are able to point out large and small mistakes in the project and then suggest a way to fix said mistakes.

A good reviewer is not an editor. You should not be mentioning grammar unless it pertains to the actual content or it is simply too atrocious to even begin reading. Mentioning that the writer might want to work on sentence structure, and then giving some examples is not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about taking a red marker to the project.

A single good review to me is worth about 48 half-baked reviews that don't really do much more than explain that they really liked this part for no reason and that they hate this character for no reason.

I know it's practically been a month, but ...

A good review? I've wanted to answer that question for a long time. The reviews I've seen of late are either brief or bordering on spam. Members will just point out grammar errors and then run on their merry way to receive more points.

The thing is, you can tell if someone's actually poured effort into the review. It might be lengthy, but it almost might contain spelling errors and redundancy: "Hey, @! Here as requested. Great job on the descrptions. They were absolutely beautiful. I mean, I loved loved loved them. I can't say "loved" enough times. Just..wow. I can see them becoming famous quotes, they were that amazing. You should consider writing poetry. I reread sections purely for te beauty of them. Stole my breath way those did. As I said you should really consider writing poetry." I'll admit, I've been guilty of that on several occasions, but it can be quite annoying.

I've also seen some new members advertise their work in their reviews: "Your writing is very good. Speaking of good writing, you should go check out mine." Not that I think anyone else will do it. Just thought it was kind of hilarious.

I used to repeat things a lot in my reviews. In the end, my reviews became patchworks of recycled phrases, compliments, and grammar lessons. And ... yeah. I took a break. Then I started reviewing from the heart again, and it felt so great to actually help people on their plot and writing.

Recommendations:

Read the piece thoroughly and jot down your first impression. Then reread the piece and flesh that out. This way you know you're being honest.

Lace compliments throughout the nitpicks: "There should be a comma after "butter," but otherwise, perfect. [insert gushing here]"

Write about the author's style until your fingers ache. Then write about the plot. Save grammar for until you barely have any review juice left. And if the author doesn't understand dialogue or something, try inserting a link instead of giving them a long, boring lecture, or do both, but ease up on the lecture.