Reviews and Ratings

Since I've been with Writing.com for some time, it might be nice to know that I haven't always been active here.

When I first came to Writing.com, I was such a newb it wasn't even funny. Granted I've been writing since I was 19, but I surely didn't write every single day. Nor did I publish everything I wrote. Along the way I lost some work, but that is life. When I started posting my writings here, I was ecstatic that most of my ratings were 4.5 stars. Surely, I thought, I'm an excellent writer and should be published! Ha ha! Fool.

When people reviewed my work, they included suggestions and changes. There were quite a few comments (I felt) that were downright rude. Well, actually some of them were. I always tried to reply as kindly as I could, but I'm sure I came off pretty rude myself. I just didn't understand what they were telling me. I was actually vain enough to think my writing was awesome.

Several dozen rejections later and a published book with Publish America sure have humbled me and sent me seeking help with my writing rather than being snide about suggestions. Other published authors have told me I am good, but boy do I need editing! I make mistakes I don't even realize, such as ending with prepositions or changing tense in the same sentence.

"How could you miss mistakes like that," you ask? You'd be surprised!! When you are writing, you see it in your mind and on paper the way you planned it. You very rarely will catch your own typos or mistakes. Which is why editing can be such a drag!! You already know what it is supposed to read like and mistakes will just hide back in the shadows, they won't leap out at you.

So when I read and review something on here (and I try to do at least two a day!) I have a strategy to help me.

1) I will be brutally honest!

2) I will also try to compliment as well as criticize.

3) I won't give a perfect rating unless it is clean, no typos, no grammatical errors (that I can spot) and flows perfectly. (Good luck!) *Note~ Granted, there are always times when a written piece is so good, I do consider 5 stars even with errors. I used to give 5 stars to everything I liked/loved, but realized it might not be helping the author, as it didn't help me.~*

4) As I read, if I spot errors, I will copy and paste them into the box below so I can continue reading without having to re-read the entire story. Then I will offer suggestions.

My overall rating and reviewing is my opinion!! I don't want people to think that my advice is golden! You'd be surprised at how many people think that most people on this site are always right! Everyone has their own opinion, everyone will have their own suggestions. If you revise and include their suggestions but it just doesn't feel right, find a way to fix it that satisfies you!

I've had a few years to learn quite a bit about writing and publishing. I still do not know everything. I now do reviews and editing for several of my friends. I submit stories here once more for honest help. I belong to a community of authors and help them market, help them on their road to being published, try to help out the new authors. The more I learn, the more it helps in my reviewing and rating here. But I also realized just how important honesty is. I don't wish to hurt anyone's feelings with my reviews, so if I don't toss in a kind word here and there, forgive me. I will try my best to make sure I say something nice about your work because I know how it feels to be so discouraged with negativity that you want to quit writing altogether. Please don't give it up! The more you write, the more you learn and the more you learn the better your writing will be!!