The Reviewers Guide to Being Nails

Sooner or later we all have the need to say our piece. Some believe that should be loudly and abusively. I believe that it should be constructive, not destructive, and that good manners are never out of fashion. Let us use the following example:

REVIEW THE FOLLOWING

"Me monkeys's hav levft me,
Me monkees hav gone,
Me monkies are rabbits in ivory towers made mad wiv the poison of jewleery
I cry"

Give this poem to an ordinary critic and you will see him quiver before it.

You see, he knows. He knows that the person who has written it (and took pains to advertise for 'REAL FEEDBAGS') does not really, really want real feed back.

They are a mentalist.

However, so are a lot of us here at WDC and that's good. Diversity is key. I personally like to point out that once someone has read a piece of my work they rarely take a comma for granted again.

So let us take the above poem and dissect it carefully - whilst being as helpful and constructive as we can:

REVIEW:

I have just read your poem and would love to rate and run, but you requested a review and I would be more than happy to oblige.

This tells the mentalist that I'm British and will use all the words I can to avoid actually saying anything at all

I love the importance you place on the constant re-spelling of the 'monkey' character. I feel the narrator's loss of his monkeys were mixed emotively with the genuine despair at finding them out to be rabbits.

This tells the mentalist that I did actually read the poem and that it is burnt in to the back of my eyeballs and seared in to my nightmares. On a serious note, this kind of thing is great for highlighting spelling errors - only if you want to suggest it. I think it impugns the integrity of the spellee and that there should be freedom of spell. Please refer to;

ID: 1284452   (Rated: E) The Badd Spelor  Why I believe in the power of terrible spelling by Acme

On the whole it's an effective piece...

? What else can be said ?

...that needs a little work on presentation before submitting to publishers.

Soothe the savage beast as you poke him. Always give him a glimpse of the money bags and he'll less likely return to your port and hand out the anonymous 1 star ratings

NAILS?
Of course, you could just simply tell them the truth and weather the storm. After all, it takes a special kind of grit to take on the Monkey Poets of the world.

Are you nails? I know I am. I may have a veneer of extreme politeness but I would consider it shockingly rude to hand out a poor rating without at least a poor explanation (and a return address for guerrilla reprisals)

(Nails = Brit. speak for 'Hard as Nails')

Good luck with the reviewing and take care, Acme

(483 wds)