This week: How to Give Constructive Reviews Edited by: Annette  
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"A bad review is like baking a cake with all the best ingredients and having someone sit on it." ~ Danielle Steel
"Worse than bad reviews is to be ignored." ~ Neil Diamond |
How to Give Constructive Reviews
Reviews, both public and private, have the potential to create quite the drama between writer and reader. That's why anyone who wants to keep drama low and interactions productive toward all of us becoming better writers, should start out by reading this document: "Guidelines To Great Reviewing" . It's concise, easy to read, and covers all the bases while giving reviewers enough leeway to create their own version of what they think is the best type of review that they want to give.
On using Artificial Intelligence to send a review: don't do it. First of, you don't have permission to feed someone else's writing into an AI system. Using AI to send reviews is like plagiarism or stealing and quite insulting because you, the person posing as a 'reviewer' have not actually read the text.
On using technology to help with reviewing: It's okay to use a simple search if you feel that there are too many repetitive words and you want to point some of those out. It's also okay to research a word on the internet to find out if the spelling in a text is correct or wrong.
Reviews can and should be adapted to the written piece at hand.
Reviewing a 100 drabble? A short reaction combined with some commentary on the overall writing quality is probably enough.
Reviewing poetry? At the barest minimum, appreciate the passion of the poet to learn a form, follow a form, and fill it with meaning. Let the words sink in before you comment. Give the imagery some time to develop and aim to understand it. Most poets know that there are reviewers who don't know poetic forms and they will appreciate a review that comments on the content of the story within the poem. Careful though, there are a few select poets who abhor any type of review from someone who can't go toe to toe with them in poetry, so if you meet one of them, just don't go back there.
Reviewing short stories? It's a good idea to check the item if there is a note somewhere. Many short stories are written for contests that have prompts or requirements. If you see, as a reviewer, that a writer has missed a rule or missed addressing a needed prompt, point it out. Your reminder might be the one thing that gets the writer to place or even win in the contest.
Reviewing novels? This is best done if the writer is active on the site. The story will develop slower. A back and forth between the writer and the reviewer is ideal. A novelist should at bare minimum acknowledge that someone has undertaken the lengthy process of reading and reviewing a whole book.
What if you think a piece deserves less than three stars? Should you just dump a one or two star review on an unsuspecting writer and call it 'honesty?' No, please don't do that. If a piece should have less than three stars by the "The Star Rating System" , then you should give detailed feedback what brought on the low rating. Always, always offer to come back and increase the star rating after the writer has made the needed changes. Stars are a lot like grades in school. It's perfectly fine to rate a text with low stars if it has a lot of spelling and grammar errors. It's also okay to give low stars if the plot just won't add up at all because the story is all over the place and doesn't give you any kind of red thread to follow along. It's never okay to give low stars because you don't like a story or genre.
Any story, poem, and chapter is a writer's heartfelt creation. They spent hours, days, maybe weeks or years to write that piece. That's why you should always consider their effort when reviewing. You can be honest with critique, but you can also be polite and constructive and write your review in a way that your commentary is such that a writer can build on it rather than feel defeated. Let's keep interpersonal drama out of reviews and focus on the drama within the stories.
Can you take advice without getting defensive?
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Replies to my last Drama newsletter "Product Placement"
S🤦♂️  wrote: Product placement is an interesting concept. Sometimes I think we do it without knowing - Band Aid, Aspirin (Panadol in Australia), Kleenex, etc. - and sometimes I know I do it because it is a universal - saying someone is drinking a Coke is instantly recognisable to a large majority of the Western reading population.
Now, having said that, a local writer was paid some money for genuine product placement. I asked her why her characters drank a certain brand of beer, one not really popular in our state. She told me she was paid an amount of money to do so.
Would I do it? I'm going to admit, yeah, I would. We writers who try to earn money from it get paid small enough without turning down a lump sum to turn Local Beer into Interstate Beer, especially if it doesn't affect the story itself.
Fun story - Apple refuse to let their products be used by bad guys in movies. So if you see a bunch of people using Apple, and one of their number is using a Nokia (for example), then it's a clear indication he is a bad guy in disguise, and any twist later on is spoiled by that product placement!
oldgreywolf on wheels  wrote: It's called endorsement, for which they're compensated. I suspect the amount is based on the celebrity's horsepower among viewers. |
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Drama: November 19, 2025 Issue [#13454]
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