#5: Reviewing vs. Critiquing

As a responsible author, you should feel the need to help other writers. Then again, all you might feel is a desire to improve your own skills. You can do both with one activity: reading! You can't remain a good writer unless you are aware of what other writers are doing with your genre, with your language, and with the universe for fanfiction. I haven't found an advice book yet that doesn't stress the importance of reading. As Stephen King says: "If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that." (On Writing 147)

So how can you help other writers by just reading? Read with a purpose of learning what works and what doesn't, and inform the writer of what you've learned through a review or a critique. Sounds harder than it is. The learning is a subconscious process; you know when a story works for you, when you don't want to stop reading to eat. You're just adding a extra step to that, pinning down vague feelings about a story into concrete opinions.

As far as the dictionary is concerned, a review and a critique are the same thing: a statement evaluating the merits and demerits of a work.

"I get those all the time! I love your story! doesn't tell me anything!"

Calm down. You have to understand that very few people understand what they're supposed to do when confronted with writing a review or critique. Unless they are writers too, they honestly believe that just saying they liked or hated the story is enough. This tutorial is my humble attempt to counteract such ignorance. (I'm not calling names, if you've never been told how to do something you are ignorant of how to do it.)

My working definition for a review: give one specific detail you liked or disliked about the story. Usually, one detail is enough to make you view the entire story with distaste. I remember one story in which Charley was attacked by a vampire and the bros found her in her bloody bed. They took care of her all day, and all went back to the scoreboard that night. Say what? That goes against everything we know about the bros. The author needed Charley alone for the next vampire visit, and it was obvious. I couldn't take the story seriously after that point. Finding one point in a story you like is harder, but no reason you have to limit yourself to just one detail. List what made you laugh, what parts you felt were good twists in the plot, character actions that were perfectly in character. In short, offer proof that you read the story.

Now a critique is more detailed and takes more time to do. My working definition is a critique points out a problem and offers a solution to fix it. Unlike a beta reader, you can stop with just one problem. If I had critiqued the Charley and the vampire story instead of just reviewing, the solution I would have offered was to rewrite that scene (and probably the rest of the story) with at least one mouse staying behind to watch Charley. The vampire bad guy would have to fight the mouse, but a vampire has supernatural tricks to win a fight.

Neither a review or a critique takes much effort for a reader. FanFiction.Net offers a pop-up window so you can add a review/critique after you've read a chapter of the story. Reading on a forum board like Red Planet, all you have to do is add a post to the thread. Send an email to the website owner or leave a comment in a guestbook if you read the story on a website.