When Reviewing, Brevity is the Soul of Wit
17 Oct
On the Young Writers Society, there is much focus on the length of the review rather than inherent quality. I’m not talking about new members who write long reviews in the hope of getting more points. Rather, I’m talking about old members who go on and on in their review.
What is the goal of reviewing? It is not to prop yourself up on a higher pedestal than the writer, much as some seem to believe. It is also not about tearing apart people. When you tear someone apart, you are not helping them whatsoever.
The goal of reviewing is to help. At the Young Writers Society, I don’t know of any active member who has a published book to their name. So in that regard, everyone on YWS is an amateur. As amateurs, our aim should be to help.
In pursuit of that goal, long reviews are not helpful. If your review is longer than the short story, something is wrong. With poetry, it’s different. Yet I routinely see reviews that are five times longer than the poem, which is ridiculous.
Keep your reviews concise. They don’t need to be necessarily short, but make sure you’re not droning on. Your review should concentrate on whether you liked the piece, and if you didn’t, why not. Critiquing the grammar isn’t really helpful (especially since I routinely see reviewers get grammar corrections wrong).
Lastly, keep in mind that the end goal is to encourage people to keep writing. No matter how good your review is, it’s not going to help the writer much. Rather, what helps the writer is simply “practice, practice, practice.” So if your review discourages the writer, then you have failed.
Great points made in here, Nate. Definitely an article to be popularized around the site.
Definitely something to keep in mind. My only comment here is that I do find critiques that point out some grammar helpful. If someone hadn’t once shown me a mistake I was making repeatedly, I would never have known the purpose of the semi-colon, and I’d keep making the same mistake. As long as the reviewer doesn’t fix every single little typo in the piece, I think it’s okay (and helpful) to point out some recurring grammar issues.
But, thanks, great tips!
*throws her two cents in*
This is something I hope Adna gets to see too. I mean, because of the reviewing classes. By letting the members who are taking these classes know what’s necessary and what’s completely cuttable junk, then it would definitely help improve the reviews.
This does go to everyone though. I know I have a way of rambling sometimes but I try hard to make sure that my reviews are total junk.
Definitely a useful article!
I agree with Evi; I appreciate anybody who points out recurring grammatical errors. That stuff doesn’t just fix itself.
“THERE ARE A FEW SPELLING A GRAMMER ERRORS IN THERE THAT I DIDN’T MENTION, BUT ALL IN ALL, YOU HAVE A GOOD STORY. KEEP ITHEM COMING!”
From: http://www.youngwriterssociety.com/post154905.html?highlight=#154905
All-in-all, very true. I don’t know about spelling and grammar, though: I mean, I see so many instances of people horribly abusing both of them; if we don’t tell them, who will?
I’m a bit of a self-confessed grammar freak, and I learnt quite a lot of stuff from helpful grammar reviews on here, so I like to include that. If someone does the same thing multiple times, I highlight it the first time and mention that they’ve done it more times and should look at it. Is that helpful?
And also, I absolutely agree with the cheery thing… sometimes, you just want someone to say “that’s nice!” I feel like I need that sometimes! (not on here, though xD)
Good article, Nate! I’m guilty of nit picking at every little grammatical error. It’s like a disease…
Well, instead of pointing out every single grammatical error, you can always just link them to Strunk and White. There’s a free version online. Or you can recommend grammar books. If they research it, they’ll get better. If they don’t… well, writers have to research. If they’re not willing to put up the research, they probably are just writing for fun and don’t care. In either case, they still want to know whether they are telling the story or showing off the poem better. So it’s best to concentrate on the major things.