Discussion: Constructive Criticism***

[dratinihaunter13]

Due to recent replies, especially those in Dark Sage's Dark Messiah topic, the mods feel we should all have an open discussion to determine what makes a good, critical reply to a fic.

We all want our posts to have constructive criticism, but what is constructive criticism to us?

Here's my piece. A lot of us do a decent job of keeping our replies balanced and constructive, but I've also been seeing some substanceless praise and some personal attacks.

The ego-stroking replies of "Wow dude, awesome! Keep it up!" are unsatisfactory. I mean, we like to hear praise like that, but the praise can still be more specific and helpful. What was awesome, what should the author keep up? The suspense before the battle was awesome in the way the author wrote it, and the author should keep up his pace of action and his out-of-nowhere plot twists. OK, tell him that, it's much more informative.

Now for the insulting replies...we can't just tell the author why he or she sucks. That's getting personal, disrespectful, and lazy. Take the time to find how the author can improve the parts you hated. So "I can't believe you tried to get away with that strategy, you've got to be kidding" is changed to "It looked like you tried to get away with that strategy. It would have been better if you took [so and so] into account and added more information at [so and so part] in the story. What you could have added..." This is an example, you could say anything as long as it's constructive - as in it gives the author a clue of how to improve, not just the knowledge that they screwed up for you.

Also, all good criticism has positive notes and negative ones. It doesn't have to be an equal distribution. I don't believe in baby-sitting an author's fragile ego, but it's MUCH more helpful and courteous to an author to include the positive and the negative with specific ideas on how to improve. If you can't think of a way to improve the fic, say so and be respectful. Don't just let that demean your reply to a long-winded attack on the author and his writing, or a one line response of a cheerleader.

Unless the fic is literally a plot-less nightmare of confused text with every other word spelled wrong, there is ALWAYS something positive to say about it. If you aren't perceptive enough to find one of those things, don't take it out on the author. Say what you want but have the decency to be polite for christ's sake. How hard is that?

Nobody's posts are going to be monitored or anything. We're not gonna require a certain format with replies. We just have to have this conversation for the sake of our writers who seriously want to get better.

please give your opinion everybody

[Chris 2.1]

I honestly don't think there is anything wrong with the sort of overly complimentary work. "Hey, great chapter! absolutely loved the twist where Gavin Luper shot Mr Pikachu. Wow! The description was really good, and the pacing worked well. Revealling DratiniHaunter to be a HaunterDratini was unexpected." etc etc. I mean not all readers are writers themselves, so it is difficult for them to give remarks on what the writer should have done. Furthermore depending on the age, people might enjoy the fic, instead of look at it from a writers point of view, or a professionals point of view.

Example: I love the harry potter books, but couldn't fathom to try and tell her [J.K Rowling] what I thought didn't work; having not ever written something like that, or knowing what she has in store, can I really find anything that was executed badly? Perhaps the time-travelling concept in Book 3...but it was quite clever.

[dratinihaunter13]

I honestly don't think there is anything wrong with the sort of overly complimentary work. "Hey, great chapter! absolutely loved the twist where Gavin Luper shot Mr Pikachu. Wow! The description was really good, and the pacing worked well. Revealling DratiniHaunter to be a HaunterDratini was unexpected." etc etc. I mean not all readers are writers themselves, so it is difficult for them to give remarks on what the writer should have done. Furthermore depending on the age, people might enjoy the fic, instead of look at it from a writers point of view, or a professionals point of view.

Example: I love the harry potter books, but couldn't fathom to try and tell her [J.K Rowling] what I thought didn't work; having not ever written something like that, or knowing what she has in store, can I really find anything that was executed badly? Perhaps the time-travelling concept in Book 3...but it was quite clever.

that over complimentary work isn't too bad cuz at least it mentions what's working for the reader. so if the writer was working on description, and the reader mentions he loved the description, then there's some feedback. it helps a writer know their strengths. yea it'd be hard to find something that didn't work with rowling's stuff, but she'd probably be the first to tell you she can improve. and as far as this board goes, no writer is so much worse than another writer that he can't give a few respectful criticisms.

and thanks, karania, for posting that. it gives us a clue as to why our board doesn't have as many writers as it could have.

also, i'm digging lady v's breakdown. very organized and informative and we should all give it a look.

[mr_pikachu]

Yes, this is definitely something to discuss. For the record, I've seen many attacking/cheerleading replies in a lot of fics as of late, not just Dark Messiah. That's part of why a thread on the topic seems necessary to look at the concept as a group.

As many of the older members here know, I used to be downright cruel in my replies about fics. So I definitely understand the urge to point out flaws.

Yes, writers need to know what they're doing wrong. If you seriously want to get better, you have to know what aspects of your composition need improvement. But that doesn't mean that the good parts should be ignored. Even though good writers try to develop their skills and hope to learn from their mistakes, nobody likes to be attacked mercilessly. We all want to get better, but we're also human.

As Martin said, mixing the good parts with the bad is a nice way to give constructive criticism. For one thing, it creates a good comparison for the parts you're critiquing; if you say that one thing is better than another, that gives more information than arguing that everything is poor. And for another, it avoids the tone of angry flaming. Nobody likes listening to someone who consistently does nothing but attack.

Frankly, I do think there's a place for the fully negative review. But that's the sort of thing that, in my view, should be done very sparingly. If you plan to ignore any possible good points in a chapter, you ought to have a really good reason for it. I do this occasionally as a sort of "wake up call" when a writer vastly underperforms his or her usual work. When it's used that way, it jolts the writer into taking a second look and paying closer attention. But when it's done all the time, the flood of complaints degrade into incomprehensible white noise.

I suppose it's all about finding a balance. (Maybe in that respect, reviewing is as much of an art as writing itself.) It doesn't have to be perfect; heck, I'm sure we all tilt one way or another in everything we do. That's just human nature. But I think it's good for everyone if reviews point out both strengths and weaknesses. Writers can obviously use comments about their work to improve, and reviewers can develop their critical eyes in finding such points, thus allowing them to make sharper edits of their own work in the future.

I don't think I need to comment on cheerleading, as Martin covered everything I would have said. But in short, reviewing is all about finding the good and bad parts of literary works, both for the writer's sake and for your own. That's my opinion, anyway.

[Lady Vulpix]

I also prefer constructive criticism. I think it's best to state both the good and the bad points of the story (or whatever form of art it is) when making comments, but it's also important to state them in a way that can help the author.

An important point is that the focus of the criticism should the posts, and not the writer.

Examples of good criticism for positive aspects:
-I liked the way you handled the interaction between the characters. I felt that I knew what they were thinking and feeling.
-I liked the description of [...].
-I think the concept of [...] was quite original.

Examples of good criticism for neutral aspects:
-I would like to see more of [...].
-Will we get to see what happened with [...]?

Examples of good criticism for negative aspects:
-I think the descriptions were a bit too lengthy. Not that many details are needed to get a picture of the setting.
-The transitions from one event to the other were not very clear. It seemed like there was a gap between one scene and the next, which made them hard to understand.
-(This one was said to me.) When you said "a level 3 spell" it made me think of an RPG. What did you really mean?
-And, of course, all specific spelling/grammar corrections.
-I think some of the characters need more development, especially [...]

Examples of bad criticism for positive aspects (it won't hurt the author, but it won't help much either):
-Everything you write is great! You're the best!
-Great chapter. Keep it up!

Examples of bad criticism for negative aspects (a.k.a. destructive criticism, a.k.a. never do it):
-The whole story is unbelievable. Real people would never act like that.
-You suck as a writer.
-You're too naive. Grow up already.
-Learn to spell before you try to write a fic.

Never do the latter. Really. Not only you're not helping the person improve his/her writing, but you may hurt his/her self esteem and even discourage him/her from writing anymore. We all have things to learn, and things that can be improved. Good criticism can help with those things. Destructive criticism will do nothing but hurt.

[Dragonfree]

In my opinion the important part is not whether what you mention in your review is positive or negative, but that you explain properly why you think it is so so that the author can properly grasp what they did well, what they need to work on and how they can improve it. That's what makes a good review to me, really. Making sweeping claims about the entire fic or some very general stuff that don't really tell the author anything useful should be avoided.

It's up to the individual reviewer how harshly they feel like wording their review, but I personally don't see the need to have a bad attitude about it. =/ It's so much easier and more effective to tell them what you think without sarcasm, snide remarks, etc.

[Gavin Luper]

Well, I agree with most of what everyone has had to say, really. I think an ideal review would highlight good and bad points in a constructive way.

But I don't think the good/bad ratio should be 50/50 all the time (not that anyone has said it should, this is just a thought), as it makes reviews too rigid and fabricated - if everyone should have to say, for example, four bad points and four good points about a chapter, it probably wouldn't be a true reflection of the reader's feelings. I mean, if a reader finds a chapter absolutely outstanding and really likes it, does that mean they 'ought' to make a whole bunch of criticisms about it? For example, if I read a chapter of someone's work and thoroughly enjoyed it, I'd be honest in my reply and say I liked it very much, these are all the things I liked, etc etc, and I would probably mention something that didn't work quite as well, or whatever ... but I wouldn't give equal weighting to both positive and negative criticisms unless I actually felt that way about the chapter.

... That probably isn't very clear; if you got my drift, though, that's good.

What I'm really trying to say is, as long as you express your true opinions in a review, delivering them with honesty, a critical manner and respect to the author's dignity, and as long as you don't use destructive criticism, I think that would be making a decent, constructive review. I don't know if anyone can say "this is what you ought to be saying in your reviews": how a review takes shape really depends on two factors, the prose and the reader.

[Karania]

Yeah, I agree with you that feedback is a key part of a writer's day and does greatly improve their writing by hearing what others have to say about their work.

However, its VERY hard to know what others think if they don't review. I rarely post any of my stories here because people didn't review when I did. I post pretty much 100% of my stories on fanfiction.net since I get a lot more feedback there.

Writing stories gives me a great deal of joy and I would like to know from people who read my work what they liked about it and why, and not just give a cut and dry description with no details because those are very hard to figure out and are usually impossible to come to the conclusion of what the reviewer actually meant to say when they weren't clear in their review because they were so vague. Detail to me is key!

[mistysakura]

Loving this topic. I agree with what most people have said, and Gabi's examples have been particularly helpful. I think that people's review styles can be different, just like writing styles are different; some can be more positive, some more negative, and some try to guess what's happening next. I myself tend to use a sanwich format: good stuff, bad stuff, good stuff, in varying proportions depening on how good I thought the chapter was. I agree with many here when they say that the most important thing is to illustrate what made certain aspects of the chapter good or bad, becasue it really helps the writer to understand what is provoking positive or negative reactions. On that note, it's also good, if possible, to make suggestions for improvement, rather than just saying "The transitions from one event to the other were not very clear. It seemed like there was a gap between one scene and the next, which made them hard to understand", to borrow one of Gabi's examples. Perhaps people could suggest different ways of bridging that gap etc.

About the problem of extreme criticism, to quote myself from elsewhere (narcissism lol), "I think that part of the problem is that some think that good reviewers = criticism. Which is true, in a sense. Yes-men don't do good reviews. But there's more to being a good reviewer than just criticising all that is wrong. As I see it, one of the biggest jobs of a reviewer is to encourage the writer to listen to what they are saying, and letting them know that they are trying to help; otherwise the writer just gets offended and nothing good, writing-wise or people-wise, comes out of it. Maybe some are forgetting that the writers reviewers are criticising are people, although we don't see their faces over the computer screen." I guess the 100% negative review also has its merits, but there's always something nice to say about every fic, even if you have to go searching for it (aren't I mean). About 100% positive reviews, I think that they can still be good reviews as long as they explain what made the chapter so good.

[Lady Vulpix]

And I agree with everything Ada said.

I try to include something positive in all my reviews because usually there is something positive, and I want to encourage the writer to keep writing. If, by any chance, I think the fic is beyond salvation (which would be very rare unless it's done on purpose), I won't make comments because I don't think there's anything I can help with.

[Weasel Overlord]

*waves* Hey dudes! Now I know I don't frequent this place as much as I should do, but there ya go. In my Creative Writing seminars, some person from the course has put up this helpful thingummy on how to critique work. It just gives you like, a few things to look at, and I figured that it might be helpful to stick it in here to...spread the love around, sorta thing ^_^ So here it is. I found it sorta helpful when I was doing my last set of crits...

"It's not easy to give criticism, let alone receive it.

We'll take it as read that all comments applied to people's writing is done in a constructive manner, with support in mind: the main aim is to encourage others to continue writing, but to look at their work from the point of view of a reader (which is what we all aim for with our own work as well).

With this in mind, here are some things to think about when you read and when you give feedback on others' work.

When looking at prose:
- Is the piece interesting?
- can you identify with it?
- how are the characters presented?
- is the voice correct (do you think it would be better as first or third person)?
- is it original (either in terms of subject or writing)?
- if it's supposed to be realistic, do you think it is?
- if it's supposed to be fantastical, do you think it is?
- is it part of a recognisable genre (thriller, western, comedy etc)?
- is it moralising or lecturing in tone?
- is it too descriptive?
- is it too factual?
- how is it paced?

Poetry:
- what sort of imagery is being used?
- how genuine is the poetic voice (is it real, or does it use self consciously poetic language)?
- are the images easy to understand, and do they make sense?
- does the poem appear cryptic or obscure, through use of language and metaphor, or has the poet tried to make things clear?
- if the poem rhymes, are the rhymes there to add to the poem or does it appear as though the writer is using words simply because they rhyme?
- is there a rhythm to the poem?
- can you identify any themes in the poem?

These are just some points to remember. Not all will apply to all pieces of writing that you look at, but it is worth bearing at least some of them in mind when you look at other people's work. And when you look at your own work."

[Karania]

Yeah, it is hard to accept criticism when you like the way you wrote it, BUT you can't accept criticism if no one reviews. I posted some stories and no one's reviewed em. This is my last attempt on this site to post my stories to get feedback. I have better things to do than post em here and not get a response. I'm probably going to stick to ff.net, I'm better known there than here....