Thoughts on Reviewing

Thoughts on Reviewing

         Here's some random thoughts on reviewing. It includes advice to people who are reviewers, as well as ruminations about why I review. I expect to come back to this and revise it from time to time, and I'm more than open to suggestions, emendations, and revisions.

Know who you are.

         That's good advice in general, but I think it's especially good advice before you start interacting with strangers online.    Everyone has strengths and weaknesses, and the more self-aware you are, the more effective you will be as a reviewer. 

         If you know you have a tendency to lecture for example, you might try to develop habits that counter that.  For example, I just re-wrote the previous sentence; the first version read "you should develop habits..."  Being a professor, lecturing is an occupational hazard and I fight against it constantly, often without success.

         If you are bashful, the same trick can work.  For example, I'm shy and that sometimes makes me seem stilted and formal.  I try to inject a bit of self-deprecating humor in the faint hope this will make me seem more human and less like Mr. Spock.  Or Hal2000.  Or Sylar from "Heroes."  You'll have to judge.

         Self-knowledge is essential to a writer, but I think it's important to a reviewer, too.

Know why you are reviewing.

         Everyone has different motivations.  If your greatest joy in life is making other people feel good, then you're not going to be happy writing in-depth, critical reviews.  Instead, you're going to find fulfillment in finding good things to say to people about what they've written. 

         On the other hand, if teaching and helping others is important to you, then there might be an appeal to in-depth reviewing.  Here is an opportunity to help someone make their creative work better.  Seeing another person's talent blossom in part because of your assistance and encouragement can be one of the most rewarding experiences in the world. 

         For others, discovery is what's important.  Personally, I love reading other authors and discovering how they have manipulated the elements of craft to produce an effective story.  Analyzing characters, plot, pacing, even sentences and descriptions can be like a decoding an amazing puzzle.  There's an intellectual and aesthetic element to reviewing that riles the creative spirit.

         My experience is that the most effective teachers don't lecture.  Instead they have a conversation with their students.  These teachers lead their students to discover their voice.  One of the joys of teaching is the synergy between the joy of discovery and the fulfillment of helping others.

         Another reason to review might be to serve the broader community.  People who have read and critically reviewed my work have greatly enriched not just my writing, but my life.  I can pay some of these generous souls back by reading and critiquing their works.  But I know they would prefer that I instead spread their wisdom by reviewing others.

         Being a mathematician, I tend to be analytical about some things.  Well, okay, most things.  That means that if I'm going to comment on something, I want to first take it apart and see what makes it work--or not work.  So, when I review something, I'm not only inside the author's fictive dream, another part of my mind is thinking about how things are put together, and how the unity of plot, character, setting, and prose interact to advance the story.  I'm always learning from the items I review, and I'm a better author for it.

         There's a kind of inter-dimensionality, a grand mise en scene, to fiction that draws us into an imaginary world and propels us forward.  Sensing how this unfolds, and then seeing how the nuts and bolts fit together in a seamless mesh to make it happen, that is what excites me about reviewing.  Now I admit, this perfection doesn't happen often.  But even an approximation is exhilarating.  I love discovering the endless new ways that authors mold language to construct worlds and people and stories.

         For me, helping, discovering, and learning are the reasons to review.

Know what you are reviewing.

         There's this conventional wisdom that on WDC that "anyone is qualified to review." In a sense, that's true.  We're all qualified to read and comment on what we've read.  I can read a poem and say "liked it" or "hated it."  But I probably can't say much more, since I don't know enough of the craft to be helpful to the author.  It's rather like listening to a symphony if you're like me only know how to play the piccolo:  my perspective is so limited that I can't do much more than a vague emotional response. But I can sure nail that piccolo solo.

         Since I want to do more than an emotional response (see Know why you are reviewing above), I'm only going to review something I'm competent to analyze.  Poetry?  Nope.  Screenplays?  I'd love to, but I'm ignorant, so no.  Short stories?  You betcha! 

Know who you are reviewing.

         Well, I admit this isn't always possible.  Here on WDC, we can deduce how long someone has been a member.  But, unless the member gives a clue in their bio-block or elsewhere in their port, we can't tell who they are.  If in doubt, I try to think of my author as a young person, kind of unsure of themselves, and perhaps a bit fragile.  All authors deserve encouragement, of course, but for these authors I try to find as much to praise as I can.  I also still try to help the author produce a better story.    I admit, though, it's unlikely that many of the authors I choose to read will fall in this category (see Review what you like below).

         More experienced authors get a more comprehensive review, with less attention to feelings and sensitivities. Still, I think everyone needs encouragement, and I know I especially appreciate praise from other published authors.  Hence I try to do the same.

         By definition, if someone posts their work here on WDC, then they have put it there for others to read.  If it's on one of the review request pages, then the author is asking for a review and they'll get the best in-depth effort I've got.  If I run across the item elsewhere, say the "review-a-newbie" page, they'll still get the best I've got, but I'll probably be a little less in-depth.  I won't be dishonest, though, as I believe that disrespects authors and the creative process.

Review what you like.

         This one may be just a personal prejudice. Well, everything here is a personal preference...Anyway, if I open a piece and find my mind wanders after the third paragraph, I stop.  How can I give this author's work the attention it deserves if I can't bring myself to slog through it? If I'm going to write a review, the author at least deserves my full consideration.

         If I absolutely hate an item and can't find anything good to say about it, I also don't review.  I suppose that requires an explanation.

         I'm a math professor in real life.  When I read a student's paper, or a colleague's research article, I have a professional responsibility to carry out.  It's my job to make sure my students are competent mathematically, and it's my professional duty to my profession to make sure that only correct mathematics is published.  I don't get to choose the things I evaluate, and I sometimes have to give failing reports on the mathematics that crosses my desk, whether from students or colleagues.

         Now consider what I do here on WDC.  To repeat, I'm a mathematician in real life.  What I do here is a hobby.  That doesn't mean I shouldn't be courteous and professional in what I do, but it does mean that I expect this to be relaxing and entertaining for me.  Reading things I hate, or things that are so bad I can't think of anything good to say about them, is neither relaxing nor entertaining, at least for me.    I'm not an editor, so I have the luxury of only reading what excites or interests me.  Life is too short to spend it wasting your time reading what you dislike.  Why spend time sending reviews to authors telling them you didn't like their work, and in doing so, annoy them?  I'm not the writing police, after all.  I'm just a guy who strings words together and hopes that other people find enjoyment in them. So, I only review what I like and disregard the rest.

To rate or not to rate.

         I don't give ratings if I can avoid it.  They are just too much like grades.  In the first place, I'd like to think of my review as starting a conversation with the author, a dialogue between two peers.  Dialogue implies neither partner is lesser or greater.  But ratings, like grades, imply just that: that I'm there to "assess" how "well" this author has done.  That's not what my reviews are about, so I resist ratings.

         Ratings are also a distraction, since it is inevitable that people focus on their "grade" instead of the content of the review.  If reviewing is a learning opportunity for both the reviewer and the author, then the grade interferes with that mutual learning.  I have the stress of assigning the grade, and the author has the stress of getting it.

         I do give grades in my classrooms.  It's a requirement, and serves a useful purpose in that a University transcript certifies varying levels of competence.  While I try to encourage my students to engage in dialog with me and each other, there is no question that evaluating and grading their performance is part of my job.  But here on WDC, I'm not a professor.  I'm just a guy.  It seems presumptuous to grade, and contrary to my other goals in doing reviews.

         WDC gives authors the right to set their items "review only, no ratings." I now do that for all of my items. But the default is "rate and review," and it seems to me that most people just take the default.  I suppose a few deliberately want ratings.  In any case, most items are set so that ratings are required.  So, I give a rating.  For the last year or so, everything that I've rated I've given a four.  Rumor is that the average rating on WDC is four, so that seems like a neutral rating to me.

         I also explain to authors that I give everyone a "four" because I don't want to grade them.  I think the explanation is needed, so that authors don't take any meaning, for good or ill, from the rating.  I've not had any complaints about this system since I implemented it.  Prior to using doing this, I'd occasionally get complaints that my rating was "too low."  Now everyone gets the same thing, and knows it. 

Review the way you'd like to be reviewed.

         Okay, so the Golden Rule is pretty obvious.  Or so you'd think.  I don't know about you, but I like it when people are polite and respectful; I'm always surprised at how many people seem to think it's acceptable to behave otherwise.

         I once read a review that started with a long diatribe on the author's bio-block, where the author of the reviewed item included the innocent observation that writing was his "hobby."  The reviewer inferred from this that the author was dishonest and expected to get only favorable reviews because, after all, he wasn't taking writing seriously: it was just a hobby.  This attack disturbed me for any number of reasons.  First, the author asked for a review of his story, not of his bio-block, and certainly not of his life.  Second, the reviewer's inference that the author wanted "only favorable" reviews had no basis, except in the reviewer's imagination.  This author asked for a review, after all, and the reviewer had to dig to find the "hobby" comment.  Moreover, just because this is a hobby doesn't mean the author isn't earnestly interested in improvement and honesty. Since the author asked for a review, the evidence in fact is that he is interested and serious. Third, this diatribe by implication maligned the integrity of the author and so devolved into a personal attack. 

         Now I ask you, is this an effective way to communicate with someone?  I guess if your goal is to annoy and alienate, then I'd have to say, "yes," but otherwise, probably not so much.  It's true that the rest of this review was full of perceptive and thoughtful comments. It's true that the reviewer spent a lot of time and effort, and produced a review with remarkable depth. But that opening diatribe probably rendered the advice useless, and surely was needlessly hurtful.

         I do like reviews that help me write better, but I expect the review to be on point and respectful.  Being helpful means both telling me what I could do better, as a polite correction, and telling me what I've done well, as positive reinforcement.  I also like the opportunity to have a conversation about writing with other authors.  Understanding divergent perspectives is a way to grow, both personally and as an author. 

         I should also add that I almost never re-write an author's prose.  On occasion I might suggest changing a word, and on even rarer occasions I might actually re-write a sentence.  However, it's stronger if you can find an example in the work that makes your point for you.  As an example, adverbs are one of the things I almost always comment on.  If an author writes "said softly" instead of "whispered" or "murmured" I'll certainly comment.  But if there's another place in the story I'm reviewing where the author used a strong verb instead of a weak-verb-adverb combination, I'll point that out as an example.  Re-writing an author's prose is pretty presumptuous and it's hard to see why most wouldn't take offense.  I've had some reviewers re-write entire paragraphs.  I'm looking for a review, not a co-author.

         Similarly, I'm always annoyed if someone sends me a review with a laundry list of suggestions and offers to re-review after I've revised to their specifications.  I expect that from an editor, but not from a reviewer on here: we're supposed to be colleagues, not editors who dictate stylistic choices.  I most often get this kind of comment from someone whose style is different from mine and wants me to reconstruct my prose to fit their style, instead of helping me to make my style better.  The difference between style and craft is subtle, I admit, but one that a reviewer must always keep in mind. 

         I don't mind "happy face" reviews that pop in and drop compliments like gumdrops in my inbox, but they don't help me write better.  I admit I'm annoyed by the occasional know-it-all, drive-by shooting that spews angry bullets like an Uzi through the metaphorical windows of my portfolio.  I'll read them and take what I can, but the hostility blocks any opening to dialog.  It's in dialog that we experience the most growth.

         There's this haiku by John Updike. I wish I could find it, but then copyright would keep me from reproducing it.  But it goes something like this: we polish the face of the other, hoping to produce a mirror. Instead we produce a skull. 

         Ya gotta watch out for that skull thing.

         For me, a review isn't about trying to polish another author's work to make it look like mine. It's an invitation to a dialog.  Dialog recognizes that there's two parties to the conversation, two souls trying to produce art, two spirits reaching out to touch one another.  It's in that touch that we grasp the eternal.


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         I hope that others find these comments useful. I invite anyone who reads this to write back with suggestions.  That's how dialog starts.

Max Griffin
July, 2009