Cheers,

JunoMagic

Hi! I was directed to your essays/forum by Madam Voughn *bows here*, partially by invitation and partially by the wonderful reviews she has been doing for my Spirited Away fanfiction. She's a fantastic reviewer, and if she learned how to do it from you, I fully intend on recommending your essays to everyone. :D

Oh, and about the second part of your essay... Thank you. You've made me aware of some embarassing slips in my own reviews, darn it. Thank you for saving me from further embarassment in the future. (Jeez, I'm such a ditz!)

The essays were fun to read, too. Much better than what I have to read for class. :D

Hi there!

I'm glad you found my essay helpful and thank you very much for leaving a comment.

And I don't think you need to worry about any slips in reviews - there are not many people around who even try to write "real" reviews as that takes time and effort. Even just trying will make authors love you to bits. :-)

Cheers, Juno

True; I still feel bad, though. Oh well. I know better now, right? :D

You're welcome! It was worth a longer comment than I left, actually, but I couldn't find the words. The essay made me wish that I could have your voice in my essays for school. It's clear and well-developed and engaging and mature. Do you mind if I print up a copy for my English teacher at school?

Sure, go ahead and print it out. And let me know what your teacher said!

Thank you for posting this- it's useful not only to the aspiring reviewer/author but to the 3rd person observer as well. I would demonstrate my flashy new reviewing skills in responding to all your well-thought-out essays, but my laptop only has 12 minutes left before it will demand to be recharged and turn itself off in strike. So I'm afraid this review will retain the flavor of my old, worn out reviewing strategy. That is to say, it will start in a ramble, include various aspects as they come to me, and finish on a "well, er I guess I ran out of things to say, so thanks for writing, and, er, living... so goodbye now" note.

Though given my limited battery, perhaps not.

I do wonder though, are you a teacher and/or English major? This was all so very useful, and carried such an authoritative tone I felt as if I ought to fetch out my old lecture notebook and start scribbling down notes. =P I confess to being a horrible reviewer, as I usually only review when something bothers me. I am also incapable of leaving concise reviews. (no doubt due to my predisposition to ramble) Now that I can finally come to the point of this one, I'd like to play devil's advocate for a bit. Now I know how much time and susutained effort it takes for a writer to write anything, much less the novel-length ones I like to read. For the dead-serious reviewer, I can see how your good advice would be worth its cyber weight in gold. However I, lazy fanfiction parasite that I am, usually read for entertainment value only. My question is, what would you suggest in terms of a short review for those of us who love and think well of those who regularly give well-balanced, thought-out reviews, but who approach fanfiction as more of a writer's fair than a writer's olympics? I'd love to leave helpful little comments for every fic I read, but oftentimes I don't particularly care for going through the cordial author-coddling method of sandwiching if the thing that stuck me most is something I didn't like. On the other hand, it seems tiresome to deliberately go back and search for something wrong with a chapter, when I most feel inclined to express my joy and awe at the author's prowess. I suppose my point all boils down to a question of approach. What would you suggest for the girl who is neither on a team against the author, nor on a team with the author against the story, but is selfishly screaming her own opinion from the sidelines?

Hello there -- thanks for taking the time to read and for your comment!

You're definitely right that the essay was written for circles of fandom, and more specifically, certain circles of LotR fandom, who've turned "reviewing" into an art form. In most cases here at FFNet it won't be applicable 1:1.

I think "How to Review" really depends on many aspects: where are you reviewing (FFNet, moderated archive, LiveJournal, via e-mail or private message), why are you reviewing (to approve or decline a story for acceptance into an archive, for an award, in a stories exchange, just because you feel like it, because the author asked you ...), what do you want to achieve with your review (thank the author, educate the author, educate the reader, help the author because they asked you to ...). Over here at FFNet I rarely see "real" reviews of any kind, and -- in my experience at least --, no matter how often authors insist that they love "concrit", most of the time they are not waiting with bated breath for an anonymous reviewer to come along and dissect their fanfic story like a professional critic.

So: your selfishly screamed opinion ...

That really depends on what you want to do.

If you want to leave more than just a "comment" with your opinion, I think you definitely ought to try to be constructive in your review, no matter if it's just a micro-mini-size zero review.

I mean, if I am not able to say what I liked so much about a story that I want to leave some constructive criticism, I feel that I am wasting my time. Why should I spend precious free time critiquing something that I mostly disliked? Also, I'm a reader and a fellow fan-writer here at FFNet. Not a judge or an editor or a teacher . Not even an admin/moderator or a beta-reader who has been asked for her critical opinion ... (In offline life I'm a freelance writer, editor and translator btw, with a professional background in law and political sciences.)

Therefore ... if I have the time for it and feel inclined to leave a short constructive comment, I usually start out asking myself: What did I like so much about this story that I want to point out this one aspect that annoyed me? I start off on a positive note. For one thing, sugar ALWAYS makes medicine easier to swallow. If you want your opinion to be heard, be polite. If you didn't like a picture in your local art gallery, I rather doubt that you'll just walk up to the artist and tell her that her painting sucks because the perspective is all wonky. Also, the writer spent her creative energy, time and effort on providing free reading material for me, so even if there are aspects I dislike about a story, the author still deserves some courtesy.

Then I add what did not work for me and -- very important! -- why and I try to suggest a way that would have rendered that aspect more effective in my opinion.

That's just uh... around six sentences or so, takes five minutes or less, and will provide the author with very interesting and important information. :-)

However, if you just want to make your personal opinion known, that's perfectly fine. Our brave new world of the web 2.0 thrives on selfish screams from the sidelines, after all. I'd just caution you to keep in mind that your comment is only that -- a comment, your personal opinion, not necessarily correct, not necessarily interesting for the author, not necessarily helpful for the author.

Anyway.

Comments can be still immensely valuable for an author (apart from entertaining and satisfying because you can see that your story actually works for your readers).

Especially comments that include the word "because" are useful. Sadly "because" is a word whose very existence many commenters seem to have forgotten these days. "I really enjoyed x, because ... But y didn't work for me because ..." -- "I've been following your story because the way you write x keeps making me smile. However, ..." In other words, try to give a reason, an explanation for your opinion.

Very useful comments are also simply honest reader reactions.

What made you smile, frown, shake your head, which line resonated with you? What irritated you, annoyed you? What confused you? Do you think that your reactions as a reader are what the author wanted them to be? Why did you keep reading?

I hope that helps!

Thanks for your reply!

You're right, writing the perfect review is definitely an art form. In this case, I suppose I dont review so much as comment on a fanfic. Though I can only recall one instance in which I just laid out flat criticism. Even there it was more a cry of dismay, to the tune of "you're such a good author, why are you doing this?!?!". I've noticed all my comments lean towards gratuitous flattery, playful prediction, deep sympathy for a character, rhetorical questions, or for certain works in progress, panicked pleas when an otherwise good fic errs dangerously close to clichés. It's always just a direct reaction, and clearly a personal opinion. So I suppose I'd never make it as a professional reviewer. Even though I have gotten a few end-of-fic author tributes for excellent reviewership in my time. *Bows and blushes demurely* However, if I ever do decide to quit my day job, at least now I know where to find your solid critiquing guidelines. =)

If fact, as I'm currently in the process of tackling your own Apprentice and Necromancer monster, this gives me the perfect opportunity in which to stretch my reviewing mind. And my midnight oil. We'll see which one runs out first why dont we?

As I said, nothing wrong with a nice mixture of spontaneous comments. They are a lot of fun and as such very rewarding for authors. And sometimes they are extremely helpful, especially when you're working on a long WIP. :)

Apart from that, even though I've put together that essay for the workshop I co-mod, I am not one of those fanfic-writers (or -reviewers, or -commenters) who take fanfic so very very very very seriously. Actually, I tend to remind ppl that fanfic is JUST fanfic -- a wonderful hobby, a hobby you can get very invested in at times, but, when all is said and done, just a hobby. At least when I write fanfic, I write to have fun, not to achieve perfection.

I hope you like "Apprentice", and naturally: please comment or review any time you feel like it.

Cheers,

Juno

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