With Love and RespecttziganewritesFebruary 21 2019, 05:47:42 UTC
Just another Brave Soul that read and appreciated your whole post. I have to say, Kathleen, as a usual lurker and very occasional writer, your well-written essay here is profound. As said in previous comments, you are THE most supportive of reviewers, a talented writer and an incredibly thoughtful person. You are appreciated beyond what you can conceive. Writing in Fandom is tough. Hell, Writing is tough, period. Critiquing well is an art form. On a writers forum I belong to, there are 20 paragraphs for the FAQ on how to critique well. I definitely am not a master at it. Kathleen, you might be, though. When I look at my early reviews on EF, I cringe and sigh. I talked to fact and rarely provided true constructive... anything. For all of you that I reviewed, I apologize. What purpose does it serve to tell an author “I don’t like baby fics” - if it says it in the Categories, why the hell are you reading it? Because it’s by an author you love? Then perhaps be circumspect and clear. We are incubating real talent on EF and the best way I can think to do that is to be supportive and intentional in our care and feeding. And that means each of us find a balance between constructive criticism and compliments. We’ve lost at least one writer because of negative reviews, likely more. How do we promote honesty without judginess? True peer review and critique? I agree, careful word choice is a good start.
I have to say, Kathleen, as a usual lurker and very occasional writer, your well-written essay here is profound.
As said in previous comments, you are THE most supportive of reviewers, a talented writer and an incredibly thoughtful person. You are appreciated beyond what you can conceive.
Writing in Fandom is tough. Hell, Writing is tough, period. Critiquing well is an art form. On a writers forum I belong to, there are 20 paragraphs for the FAQ on how to critique well. I definitely am not a master at it. Kathleen, you might be, though.
When I look at my early reviews on EF, I cringe and sigh. I talked to fact and rarely provided true constructive... anything. For all of you that I reviewed, I apologize.
What purpose does it serve to tell an author “I don’t like baby fics” - if it says it in the Categories, why the hell are you reading it? Because it’s by an author you love? Then perhaps be circumspect and clear.
We are incubating real talent on EF and the best way I can think to do that is to be supportive and intentional in our care and feeding. And that means each of us find a balance between constructive criticism and compliments.
We’ve lost at least one writer because of negative reviews, likely more.
How do we promote honesty without judginess? True peer review and critique?
I agree, careful word choice is a good start.
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