Criticism / How to Maximize Your Reviews
What’s the purpose of writing a good review?
First and most obviously, Urbis and many other sites like it require you to submit reviews in order to receive feedback on your own work, and the better reviews you write, the more likely you are to receive quality feedback in return. Many writers, myself included, consider the quality of your criticism when reviewing your work, and, though it’s a bad habit to fall into, one can be naturally inclined to put less effort into a critique of someone you know won’t give you very helpful feedback. More importantly, writing quality reviews enables you to become a better writer by becoming more aware of what makes stories “work,” so that you can get as much out of writing a review as the recipient does.
Keep your priorities straight when reviewing work. Sure, we’ve all been guilty, from time to time, of writing reviews in a hurry just so we can rack up a few points, but that shouldn’t be our ultimate goal. Nor should reviewing just so we can network with other authors, although thats’ certainly a fantastic benefit of such sites. Our ultimate goal in reviewing work should be to make that piece better, and in turn to make better writers. We’re all in this together, and we wouldn’t be in the writing business if we didn’t ultimately just love words; so review out of a desire to improve the quality of the fiction in the world, and to help all stories be the best they can be, and you’ll feel ultimately more rewarded.
How to Write a Review: A step-by-step guide
Step One: Pay attention!
As soon as you open up a piece to review, make sure you know what it is you’re looking at. Read the writer’s notes, and if they ask for something specific, try to give it to them; keep any information they give you in mind while you read the piece. If the submission is noted as the chapter of a novel, you should review it somewhat differently than if it’s meant to be a self-contained story; also, if it’s a chapter from the middle of a book, it operates differently from the beginning or ending and should be reviewed differently. Also, pay attention to the goals the author has when giving reviews; if their goals revolve around publication, you’ll likely give them different feedback than if their story is only intended as a writing exercise or personal use.
Step Two: Read the story
This sounds obvious, but you’d be surprised how often people try to skimp on it. Read the story, making notes to yourself in a separate window if necessary (especially helpful for longer pieces). It might be helpful to read over it twice if you have the time—the first time, reading just as a reader to familiarize yourself with the piece, the second time paying more attention to critical details.
Step Three: Lead off with something nice
Maybe it’s not necessary, but it’s certainly good form and will make the recipient of your review more willing to take your advice if you open by saying what you think is working in the piece. It also helps to give a summary of what you think the story is about, or what you think the piece accomplishes—often, a reviewer’s idea of what a story is doing and the author’s intent are violently opposite, and it’s very helpful for the author to know that off the bat.
Step Four: Use tact and be aware of your own biases
Even if you think a story is the worst thing you’ve ever read in your life and the writer has no talent whatsoever, be nice when you say that. By all means, tell the author what you think is wrong—but be sure to limit your criticism to the work itself, and leave personal attacks on the author’s intelligence, maturity, or anything else out of it. Instead of saying, “This is crap,” which is not only insensitive but terribly uninformative, say, “this isn’t working for me” and then explain to the best of your ability why that is. If a piece is so bad you just can’t think of anything nice to say about it, close it and find something else to review. Also, keep in mind that all readers have their own personal biases about what makes something good or bad, and it’s helpful to recognize these in yourself and make them clear to the recipient of your review. I’ve found, for example, that I am almost always turned off by certain types of bathroom humor, and that any story relying on that type of humor will receive a worse review from me than a similarly-written story with different content. Once I recognize that in myself, I can either avoid such stories altogether, or give a disclaimer to the writer that the story isn’t the sort of thing I tend to enjoy, or that I’m not familiar with.
Step Five: Chose your battles
They say you can only focus on up to three new things at a time before being overwhelmed, and this is especially true in receiving reviews. If your reviewer sees a laundry list of fifteen things wrong with the story, they’ll be likely to become so overwhelmed that they’ll either get upset and decide they’re terrible writers and give up entirely, or lash out at you for insulting their work. So, to avoid such unpleasantness, choose one or two things that really need to be strengthened in the piece and write your review around those things; subsequent drafts can be edited for other things, if the writer is willing to work with you (and, if you’re writing good reviews, it’s likely that writer WILL be willing to work with you in the future). I like to use a sort of checklist, beginning with the biggest issues and working my way down:
1.) Does the story actually have a story? The single most common problem I’ve run across in stories I’ve reviewed online and in writing workshops is a tendency for writers to get so absorbed into character and language that they forget to give their stories plots. Does the story have enough conflict? Does anything happen during the course of the story? Does it seem to accomplish anything, or have a point?
2.) Are the characters believable and interesting? Are they sufficiently flawed and likeable enough to be convincing characters? Do we believe their actions? Do they have motivation? Do we know them well enough to care about them? Is the point-of-view appropriate for the characters and the action?
3.) How’s the pacing? Does the story drag in places? Do you find yourself getting bored or wondering what the point of it is? Are things happening so quickly you can’t keep up with them and find yourself getting confused? Is there enough description (showing) to balance out exposition (telling)? Do you have enough background information to know what’s going on, or is there so much backstory being given that the story seems to have started too late in the events?
4.) Is the story technically sound? That is, are the things happening either possible or believable? If it’s a speculative fiction genre, have you been given enough information about the world to believe and understand the events? If the characters are using drugs, are they using them correctly? If there’s a fight scene, is it realistic? A lot of people neglect this area, but I personally think it’s exceedingly important; perhaps I’m just too cynical to suspend my disbelief as readily as other people can, but a story that defies physics without giving me a good alternate explanation will immediately throw me out of the world and distract me.
5.) How’s the language? Are word choices appropriate? Is phrasing awkward? Does the author change tenses erratically? Are there any grammatical mistakes that need to be dealt with? I personally don’t even bother correcting mechanics until the story is otherwise as good as it can be, as I don’t think correcting someone’s spelling constitutes a helpful review. If the author has repeated difficulty with something, however--comma splices or run-on sentences, for example--you might want to alert their attention to it.
Step Six: Be thorough and specific
Make specific references to the story as much as possible so that the author can see what you’re talking about more easily. When you say something doesn’t work, explain why you think that, and give examples of how you’d fix it. Where possible, try to give more than one option for how to solve a problem you’re running into.
Step Seven: Be honest, but leave them with some hope
Now that your would-be reviewee has had a, hopefully, enlightening and hardcore reading experience, wrap up your review on as positive of a note as you can without sacrificing honesty. If the story suffered from massive structural problems, but had a good premise, tell them that their idea is worth pursuing; if their plot was completely cliche but their language was colorful and well-executed, tell them they clearly have a talent with words and would benefit from perhaps trying a different story. If the story is really, truly, absolutely terrible and for some reason you found it necessary to review it--even if just to get it off your queue, which I myself have been guilty of from time to time--consider giving them some general writing advice, such as pointing them in the direction of authors they can read who do things particularly well. If you enjoyed the story, tell them so; if you’d be willing to review subsequent drafts, let them know; if you’d be interested in reading other pieces of theirs, tell them that. Leave on a positive note, and the reviewee will be much more likely to take your advice—and to perhaps forge a working relationship with you to the benefit of you both.
A Few Tips for Receiving Reviews With Grace
Nothing gets on my nerves more than seeing an author lash out at his or her reviewers with personal insults and petulant remarks; it makes the author appear infantile and makes me unwilling to ever review them again. So, in the interest of not chasing away all of your would-be reviewers, learn to take a review graciously:
1.) Try to see where the reviewer is coming from. Sometimes they’re right, and sometimes you have to swallow your pride and admit that you were wrong. At the same time, sometimes reviewers are just off-base; feel free to disregard their advice entirely if you think it’s wrong, but give it the appropriate amount of thought first.
2.) If a review hit you particularly hard and upset you, take a moment to step away and cool off before commenting on it. Never type angry.
3.) Don’t personally attack the intelligence or any other personal traits of your reviewers. If the review was pointless and unhelpful, by all means rate it as a poor review on the rating system, but don’t make a show of yelling at them publicly.
4.) If you find it absolutely necessary to bring something up with your reviewer--if, for example, they consistently review your work in a way which you don’t appreciate and you just can’t deal with it any longer--deal with it privately; message them and discuss the matter like civilized human beings, and save your other reviewers from seeing you throwing a fit.
In closing…
Hopefully this advice has proven somewhat useful. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, by all means feel free to leave a review here or privately message me. Best of luck in all your endeavors—now get out there and review some stories.
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A good idea and something that’s obviously well thought out. As long as you’re using this to educate others, I’d recommend cutting back on your longer sentences. Just a little tightening up in places where you inject a tangent or get wordy. Since writing is a form of communication, we want to communicate our message as effectively as possible in the shorest amount of time. Minor things really. For example:
_So, to avoid such unpleasantness, choose one or two things . . . _ You can get rid of the So at the beginning of this sentence. There are a few places you could get rid of extraneous words and strengthen your structure to make it less passive.
_ . . . if the writer is willing to work with you (and, if you’re writing . . ._ I’d just pull the sentence out of the parenthasis and let it stand on it’s own. You have a few such tangents which interrupt the flow of your post.
Not clear who is being reviewed and critiqued—the author of the post or the person critiquing the post in the first paragraph. You’re talking about turning around and reviewing the work of someone who reviewed yours, I assume, but there is some confusion where revewer becomes reviewee. Could be better explained.
I’d add something about copying large volumes of text in a review, making it more expensive to open, only to find of you’ve paid to see your own writing. Other than that, kudos for offering a much-needed service.
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I found this work to be an excellent essay on how to write a quality review. I think that this essay could teach people valuable skills on how to critique others peoples works and get good and postive feedback and also what they could do better in future endevers. I wish you the best of luck on all future projects.
To be honest, I just want to review to get this off my list of things to review. However, that’s just to say the following:
1) That was very well written. Most coherent work of such length I have read on Urbis.
2) That was very informative. Personally, I enjoyed the analysis of reviewing a story, since my sensibilities lie mostly in poetry.
3) I’m really glad this was written and posted. I wish it’s something, if not already, that’s posted in the FAQ section of Urbis. This should be formal. Perhaps you can strike up a royalty agreement with Urbis like a VISA card. Every click gets you so and so credits. haha. =)
Anyway, thanks!
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