Can you guys take a look at this? Pweaaase?
I Want a Heart
Review Cricket Review
7 posts in this topic.
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Okay Therese, since nobody is reviewing your review
shame on themI'll do so!
I'll first do Found
First off, you do a wonderful job pointing out the writer's weak spots and their strong spots. This is always a necessity when writing a review, because not only do you want to help them, but you should always commend them as well.
Auugghhh, I'm so sorry to cut out so much!
You repeated this a couple times, which I don't think is necessary. You don't have to say it twice But I don't think that really matters. because I really have found nothing wrong with this review bleh
I would be careful, however, with taking so much out every time in your quotes. You could quote a sentence and just saying "In this paragraph where this sentence is, some work on length needs to be done, etc. That way you won't need to apologize and you wont be taking out so much! yayyy
Okay one other thing:You included sight and occasionally touch, but make sure you include sound, touch, and smell.
You mention "touch" twice. I understand you said "occasionally touch" but the idea was still noted more than once. Just avoid that repetition if you can.
So I don't know how this can be thoroughly reviewed as you are like, the Review Queen. XD
Moving on... -
Ohh, OK! Will fix that in later reviews! Thanks thewriter!
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Anytime, review queen
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Okay, seeing as Thewriter did Found I will do I Want A Heart. So, here goes nothing...
I really liked how you opened your review up. You were talking about reviewing, but you hadn't actually gotten into the review. A lot of people will probably say this is a waste of time. But it's such a small section, that that doesn't matter. And to anyone who has been busy or stressed, having that opening would be really nice. Mostly because it gives their brain a chance to get off of what has been keeping them busy or making them stressed, and get into "reading a review" mode.
I like how you started off trying to give the author a compliment. But I don't think you should have compared their work to another work. I understand that it might be a fan-fic (in which case case comparing it to the original work is good). But it didn't actually say it was a fan-fic anywhere, so it may not have been. And one the chance that it's not, then comparing the work to another work can easily be rather demoralizing. Every time that someone compares one of my works directly to another work (excluding comments like "your work is as good as ___" which isn't really comparing it to another work, more-so giving the author a way of telling how good their work is) all I can think is "My work really can't stand on it's own? You like it not because of what it is, but because of it's like?" I feel like the only reason the person liked my work is because it reminded them of something else they liked, and if they'd never read that other thing then they may not have liked my work at all. I know that's never what the reviewer intended, but it still makes me feel that way.
So just be extremely careful when it comes to comparing someone's work to someone else's.
You did a lovely job at making sure your compliments sounded sincere. A lot of reviewers try so hard to make sure that they have enough compliments to not discourage the writer that they force so many compliments in that all the compliments sound fake, even if they are real. Great job on sounding as genuine as you actually are, a lot of people have a hard time with that.
Your nitpicks, some are good, and some not so much. Most of the time things that get posted on YWS are not the final draft. Misspellings or leaving a word out and such are easily caught when editing, so the author is perfectly capable of doing that themself whenever they are ready to revise a piece. Sure sometimes certain things can be hard to find (like affect vrs. effect), and those should be pointed out. But most of that kind of nitpick will just clutter up your review and get in the way of the things that will really help the author. The things that they can't find themself.
But some of your other nitpicks were really good. Like when you commented on how many times they said "feel" in that one paragraph. That is the type of thing an author may not notice in their own work, and definitely needs to be pointed out.
Most of the time an author is looking more for critiques on the piece, not so much on the technical things (spelling, grammar, and such) that the piece is made up of. The technical things are easy for an author to fish out as soon as they know what to look for. But they might not always realize when they deviate from their story temporarily to say that their heartless character feels "heavy hearted".
So just be careful with your nitpicks.
Overall I thought the tone of your review was really good. Even when giving constructive comments you sounded extremely pleasant, I would never label them as "criticism". There is, however, the whole thing about formatting. Yes having all the compliments in one place and all the constructive comments in another will make it seem to have better formatting, but does formatting matter? Often times by the time the author has finished reading the section of constructive comments they've forgotten how they felt when they read the section on compliments, and are not just thinking about how they felt during the section of constructive comments. And the summary isn't really enough to remind them of how they felt during the compliments (and most writers won't go back and just reread the beginning, if they reread then they reread the whole thing). If you evenly disperse the constructive and the compliments, then they cannot get too sucked into one or the other. When they get tossed back and forth their mind goes "Oh, I did well on that" and then "Eh, I'll have to fix that" so they don't have a chance to get caught up in "I'm such a great writer, look at all these compliments stacked up in a nice little pile for me" or "This piece sucks, how can one person find so many things wrong with it?". Neither train of thought is good for the writer, so it is best to create an environment in which neither is very likely.
Then at the end you did something similar to what you did at the beginning. Some people may say more time wasting, but I say it's a lovely way of easing them out of the "I have to learn from this review" mode and into a state where what you said can actually sink in.
I really liked this review. I would be quite satisfied with a review similar to it. As always, it has things that could have been done better, but that is bound to happen. Overall, lovely tone. It was a really good review. I hope to one day get some reviews from you.
I think that's pretty much all I have to say. It was lovely reviewing your review. Until next time! -
Thank you so much for this review on my review! I can tell that you really want to help me, and I'll take all your advice and use it in my future reviews. Thank you!
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