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Writers' Workshop General Chat Thread

ShinyFlareon

bowtie coconut birb
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Eep. Sorry about that.

Meh, I've dealt with a ton of overly-harsh reviews in my workshop classes, but they've never really bothered me. Most of them have just been searching for things to fill up space and meet the required length for the review (which I always found to be irritating, but at the same time, you know there'd be assholes who'd only write one or two line reviews if some length requirement wasn't in place). I haven't really encountered any snarky or sarcastic reviewers, though.
 

Misheard Whisper

Nico-Nico-NOPE
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I'm personally thinking of a certain encounter I had with a notorious BNF on fanfiction.net a while back. I disagree with her on many things, but when she happened to review my story - despite being a complete and utter bitch about it - I actually learned a lot. I ditched that story (she was right to say it was terrible, incidentally) and applied what I learned to my new projects.
 

unrepentantAuthor

A cat who writes stories
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Aaaaaaaaaaand it is done!

560629_10150861520376229_1910021697_n.jpg

Very impressive, I like~ I approve of the cutie mark. And yessss, goggles! Perfect.

Harsh reviewers. We've all had one or two, yet sometimes they are surprisingly helpful. They often bury it below thick layers of sarcasm and snark, even capslock and flat-out abuse, but after reading their review, you suddenly find yourself enlightened as to the state of your fic. Do you ever find that, or is it just me?

I have a beta whose sole purpose is to spew as much in-depth, unrelenting, unforgiving critique as possible. She's an immense help, and she keeps my writing well within the margins of acceptable quality. I am honestly, deeply grateful for her help - for help is what it is - as it is largely through her efforts that I have become as good a writer as I have. Thank you, @R0-S3; you deserve much credit.

I'm personally thinking of a certain encounter I had with a notorious BNF on fanfiction.net a while back. I disagree with her on many things, but when she happened to review my story - despite being a complete and utter bitch about it - I actually learned a lot. I ditched that story (she was right to say it was terrible, incidentally) and applied what I learned to my new projects.

Ohohoho, I have a guess as to the person. It occurs to me; harsh critics aren't always right, and a person your 'BNF' reminded me of has reviewed my work with - I believe - entirely invalid critique on one occasion. She didn't show me enough respect to discuss it, either, she merely insulted me. On that note, the thing about 'harsh' criticism is that making it abusive - with caps, vulgarity, defamation, etc - is almost always an entirely unnecessary indulgence that assists no one and serves no creditable purpose. Gotta be altruistic and get some constructive crit all up in this bitch.
 

Lugion

I like to singa
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Harsh reviewers. We've all had one or two, yet sometimes they are surprisingly helpful. They often bury it below thick layers of sarcasm and snark, even capslock and flat-out abuse, but after reading their review, you suddenly find yourself enlightened as to the state of your fic. Do you ever find that, or is it just me?

Farla. Period.

She basically told me that Stainless Steel was shit, and, obviously, "Poké Ball" is one word, "Pokéball." Of course, she also went on about not capitalizing Pokémon species names.
 

Kelleo

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I've had a lot of harsh reviewers. And I hated it. When I would ask them to stop being like that, people would just pass me off as being immature and not wanting to accept criticism. I did have a bit of a problem doing that in the first place, but that was no excuse. Some of those reviews really were too harsh.

Gastly's Mama writes the kind of reviews and critique I would accept.
 

TheLlama

Reality is a dream
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Oh, there's this reviewer who was active at serebii a year or so ago, yami ryu or something. It was around the time when I was doing a lot of reviewing there as well, and she was really notorious for her harsh reviews. She leaned more towards the flaming than the actual helping though, so she got banned in the end afair.

Haven't gotten anything but positively-toned reviews myself though.
 

LightningTopaz

Brock's Pikachu
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When i review, I focus on what the fic did right first before moving to constructive criticism. Even then, I will phrase the criticism as a question if I can.
 

Tophat Dragoneye

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The first review I got for the first chapter of my first fic I thought was a bit harsh to be honest. But when read it over once more, I could see where I could improve in the future and it has to this day been a great help.
 

Gama

Let's get funky!
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The first review I ever got told me that I was a terrible writer. That was very upsetting.

@Kelleo; I'm glad you found my review helpful, I often worry that I'm too harsh.
 

Tophat Dragoneye

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Now that I think about it, reviews need to be harsh from time to time. However, it's like balancing on the edge of a knife. If you're not careful, reviews can turn from constructive to downright insulting to the writer. And no one likes being insulted.
 

Kelleo

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Now that I think about it, reviews need to be harsh from time to time. However, it's like balancing on the edge of a knife. If you're not careful, reviews can turn from constructive to downright insulting to the writer. And no one likes being insulted.

Yeah, there was this one guy awhile back who gave me a pretty harsh review for Dawn of Darkness. He pretty much said the story was shit and that it read like god damn Twilight. I knew the latter was impossible, because I have never read a Twilight book, nor seen any of the movies. I was insulted at first, but then he calmed down and restated what he'd said in a more constructive manner, though it was still a bit harsh. And I listened to him and improved the first chapter.
 

Pride

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I don't recall receiving a harsh review yet. I usually get good reviews and reviews that give criticism, but in a nice way. That's the best way to receive criticism imo, but I still learn as much as someone who receives harsh criticism.

It still feels good knowing your getting either positive reviews being praised or good reviews giving you things to fix :D
 

R0-S3

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I am a hideously harsh reviewer, but if I mention something then it's because it's a genuine issue with the story, not just because I feel like being randomly horrible. I get frustrated trying to explain this to people, though, and I'm not about to sand my rough edges off for random internet people (I don't even sand my rough edges off for my best friend, but apparently he likes my bitchcritic style?? idek whatever, it's no weirder than him wanting to be my friend in the first place) so I usually only review stories when authors have specifically requested me to do so. I take the view that if they're asking for it, they should be able to handle it.

I've stolen my brothers' laptop to type this, and it's reminded me how much I hate typing on laptops. I'm sorry, I just can't handle living in this world any more: tell my wife and kids I love th--
 

an illegible mess.

i'll make tiny changes to earth.
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i can be harsh when i want to be (most of the time i am lol). though it's kind of odd because i'm not the best writer myself /sob.
 

Pride

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Nothing like spending an evening blasting rap music. Ahhhhhhhh :33333

Anyways, I don't really tend to be harsh. I know it seems selfish, but I have trouble reading other peoples' fics, besides a couple. I rarely give reviews, but I try to be helpful without being too much of an asshole when I do.
 

Marcat

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I generally dislike overly harsh reviewers, even if they are helpful. Think of it this way. The writer has displayed effort, he/she sat there and wrote something down, even though they were under no pressure to do so, with no benefit to be gained other than a profound sense of accomplishment and happiness. Nevertheless, all the reviewer has to do is sit down and read, when they're done, if they feel like it, they comment about they like and what they didn't.

Personally, when I look it that way, I see no reason to be harsh with the writer, or insult them in any way. That being said, there is such a thing as being honest, firm and never sugar-coating it. In the end, the reviewer aims to help the writer improve.

First off, the best thing to be is objective. So you may not like the genre or plot, that's ok, but don't say it's 'shit' or 'bad', that's opinion not fact. Secondly, be honest, if you see something off, you say so, don't kiss ass or disregard anything, doing that means defeating the whole purpose of reviewing, assisting the process of improvement.

But the keyword here is RESPECTFUL. Respect the writer, respect their effort, respect the work itself.
 
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Gama

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I am a hideously harsh reviewer, but if I mention something then it's because it's a genuine issue with the story, not just because I feel like being randomly horrible. I get frustrated trying to explain this to people, though, and I'm not about to sand my rough edges off for random internet people (I don't even sand my rough edges off for my best friend, but apparently he likes my bitchcritic style?? idek whatever, it's no weirder than him wanting to be my friend in the first place) so I usually only review stories when authors have specifically requested me to do so. I take the view that if they're asking for it, they should be able to handle it.

I've stolen my brothers' laptop to type this, and it's reminded me how much I hate typing on laptops. I'm sorry, I just can't handle living in this world any more: tell my wife and kids I love th--

See, I think it's all well and good wanting to point out the genuine issues with a story, but if you do it in a harsh way, people are going to be too upset/pissed off to actually take the criticism in. When people piss you off, you take an automatic disliking to them, and try to defend yourself. When people criticise my work in a way that I find rude or offensive, I find myself automatically leaping to my own defence (I can't always see this at the time, but can more easily when I look back at the events), whereas when people give me the same level of criticisms, but frame it in a nice way, I can actually easily take in what they're saying and use it to improve myself.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, pointing out the flaws and explaining how they can be improved is, in my opinion, only part of a good review. You also have to frame it in a way that the author is going to be able to use it easily. A lot of people like to say "I say the genuine problems with the fic, they need to be able to deal with it", but if you genuinely want to help a writer, that's not what you should be doing. The fact is that giving the really harsh, rude review that does genuinely point out all the flaws with a fic is just plain easier (and more fun) to write - it doesn't make you cool and it doesn't make you clever, anyone can be rude. The challenge in writing a review is getting your point across in a polite manner that is digestible for a reader. That is what makes a good reviewer. I'm not saying that I do it, as I've said I'm often concerned that I cross into rudeness (I'm glad Kelleo was happy with her review from me, but that doesn't mean that I've been as effective in all my reviews), but I certainly think this is what you should be aiming for when reviewing.
 

LightningTopaz

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What I like to do is phrase my criticism in the form of a question (eg. "I noticed X in this paragraph, is there a reason why you did this?") This way, the authors have a chance to tell you why they did what they did--what looks like a flaw to a reviewer could be artistic reason for the author
 

AetherX

make plove not warble
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I've never had a terribly harsh review. A few of my first reviews were critical, but rightly so. So I can't really say how I'd respond. As for my own reviews of other's works... to be honest, I feel like I'm not harsh enough. I'm too easily entertained and satisfied. I do my best to point out problems, but I'm too nice to be very critical.

@R0-S3; I just realized: R0-S3... ROSE. And here I was thinking that you were named after some obscure droid from Star Wars. *Facepalm* My slowness at times surprises me.
 
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