Young Writers Society

I don't like to be too harsh when i critique, but I am honest. The only trimes I don'treally give a in-depth crit is when loads of people before me have (It seems pretty pointless to just repeat what they are saying) or if it's a story that has been continuing for a while, of course I will point out mistakes and such but I won't give as muchn detail on their writing style and stuff.

Last harsh crit I gave the author got all protective over it, only trying to be honest!

Meevs
x

Eh, I often get lip for being honest [read: harsh] in my critiques. Authors seem to think that by pointing out their poem's faults, I'm insulting them on a deep and personal level. So they attempt to keep things on this supposed personal level, and insult me directly for it. And frankly? I don't care. As long as they eventually see the err in their mindset, and can thus grow as writers, I'm glad to be able to take the position of rant-fodder for the time being.

If a poet's serious about his work, he'll appreciate an in-depth (if harsh) critique appropriately. I know personally I tend to only point out the flaws I've found, and leave the good things unmentioned, just out necessity, since I like to critique line-by-line, and sometimes phrase-by-phrase.

Frankly, if someone gets upset because of an impersonal, in-depth critique, I can't really help but think of him or her as immature and n00bish.

I think that critiques can be completely honest and still nice. You don't have to be "harsh" to be helpful; indeed, I think think it's being "harsh" that throws people for a loop and makes them get defensive.

I also believe in opening (and hopefully closing) with something positive. There must've been something about the poem (or story or whatever) that made you think it was worth your time to critique, otherwise you wouldn't've bothered. It's really important to mention those things, if you ask me.

In the words of Mary Poppins, "a spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down."

^ I mostly agree.

However, there doesn't necessarily need to be something good about a piece to justify critting it. In fact, in my mind, the worse the piece is, the more it needs the crit.

Hehehe... just as long as you have tact.

I like getting harsh critiques. I think beating around the bush is a waste of time. Personally. However, I'm never completely sure when I'm being honest and when I'm just being mean, so I tend to err on the side of caution. Hopefully I'm getting better; I need a little time to improve at critiquing as much as I need time to improve at writing (though I know that kinda negates the initial post topic, so I'll try to speed up the process as much as possible).

EDIT: I think I like it even less when someone states in their critique that they know nothing about poetry/prose/what-have-you, yet they feel the need to write a glossed, rather unhelpful review anyway. [/rant]

I don't like harsh critiques, as in they do nothing but point out whats wrong and you get the mean vibe from the wording and such. But what I dislike even more is when people just gloss over things, like say the wording was bad, but not give a specific spot, or say as a whole that the wording was bad.

Well, there is a difference between giving a good and honest critique and just saying that every line is a cliche and the poem/story/lyrics should be trashed.