On Writing Constructive Criticism

[r_amythest]

I'm not a master of leaving concrit, but by the principle of "There are tons of people who do it worse than me, therefore I might be able to do some good," I decided to procrastinate on important real life matters to write this list, most of which are gripes

Comments

[r_amythest]

I think there's a difference between saying "hell if I know how to make it better" and just letting it go at "I think this is a problem". Justifying why you felt a certain way is definitely useful, because it can help both of you pinpoint why something is a problem and where it went wrong.

I think it's good to suggest technical/small fixes, like "I think an extra scene here would fix your pacing," or "I think the word you want here is 'house', not 'home'" but I personally feel like saying "This piece would be better off if you started with the occupation of Daein and left out the gratuitous inclusion of Ike" because, well, on that level there are probably many things the author could do to address the problem, and the author being the author, he will probably have a better idea of how to do so.

I read somewhere on a writing blog that you should show your polished manuscript to a variety of friends and solicit their feedback. You should listen to what they say is a problem, and not pay any attention to how they think you should fix it. It made me chuckle, but seriously -- the writer's closest to the work and probably has spent far more time thinking about it and how things fit together. I'd rather not meddle with the writer's instincts on a major issue.

Unless you're serving as a beta, but yeah, different capacity.