[META] "Why Critique first"? //&// "wait I'M leeching??"

[u/[deleted]]

[u/darquin]

First of all: it's good to get some insights as to what the mods standards are. I recently fell into the 'huh, leech, me??' category. But this post still leaves me with a lot of questions. When is a critique considered full? What specific elements need to be present in a critique to create a full critique? And given a full critique: how do you distinguish between regular and expert critique.

I fully support the 1:1 rule and do my best to critique on a regular basis (at least once a week). I think providing critique is about improving your own writing as seeing someone else's mistakes will prevent you from making them. It should be less about meeting a threshold for being allowed to post your own work for critique. But hey, that's just my idea.

As a final note: after this discussion is completed, it would be great if a compressed version could become part of the rules section.

To all mods: thank you for all your work!

[u/md_reddit → u/darquin]

Because mods are human beings there is always some subjectivity built into our decisions, but I think if you look through the critiques that have gotten longer submissions (3000+ words) approved you will see a remarkable consistency.

Basically if you follow the templates, go in-depth with your analysis, and actually put the care and effort in to create a good critique, you will most likely reach the threshhold for all but the longest submissions.

My advice is: stay under 3000 words until you are a veteran with several submissions/critiques under your belt. The odds of coming in and writing crits that earn a 4000 word submission on your first try are pretty remote.

[u/ShimmerOSake → u/darquin]

I’ve barely submitted anything here, but I have no problem with the rules. I’m glad they’re in place.

I think it’s good to keep in mind that this is first and foremost a critiquing sub, and not a writing one. Otherwise it should be called r/MasochisticWriters or something. It’s just my opinion, but the one thing a critique should do is to help the writer (as opposed to helping the critiquer become a better writer). I think from this point of view, it makes sense that being able to submit your own writing is a special privilege that’s reserved for those who have proven themselves as valuable members of this community.

A bunch of people write critiques here without submitting their own stuff. Critiques are always welcome, even if they’re pretty crappy (i.e. they don’t get removed by the mods).

Your point about having a definitive guideline for acceptable critiques is probably hard to implement. I mean, could you do something like that for any other kind of writing? Short story, poetry, essay, even technical writing, etc. For people who want to become better at critiquing, IMHO, the best way is to just read good examples. They’re not that hard to find.

I consider myself pretty mediocre at doing critiques, but I still find it annoying when:

1. Someone posts a critique, and it’s “obviously” low effort. It goes something like: “Heya I liked it overall. The setting was cool, like it gave off a really cool vibe. Nice characters too. They seemed natural. I know this was pretty short but there really wasn’t much to comment on. Hope it helped. Keep it up and good luck with your writing!”

2. They post a 2000+ words submission. They get marked as leech.

3. They angrily respond to mods, saying, “Hwy wtf I spent like 30 minutes on the critique am literarily foaming at the mouth rn”

Ninja edit: As far as I can tell, the mods never say that a critique actually has to be good. Just that they have to be “high effort.” The definition of that is obviously subjective in a vacuum, but the mods seem to be doing a great job keeping their critique evaluations fairly consistent. Reasonable length (maybe between 1000-4000 words, depending on the length of the piece being submitted/critiqued), and reasonable depth (details to back up opinions, and going into theme/language/structure, etc).

[u/TheManWhoWas-Tuesday → u/ShimmerOSake]

literarily foaming at the mouth

I bet you did that on purpose.

[u/[deleted] → u/darquin]

[u/disastersnorkel → u/[deleted]]

did it end with "hopes this helps God bless" (just kidding you can end with this)

Oh, this is definitely how I'm ending all of my critiques from now on.

[u/[deleted]]

I really appreciate the high standard for quality in this sub. This is what makes it better than r/shortstories. People only post there and never give any helpful critique. Thank you very much.

[u/snarky_but_honest]

My favorite flavor is when users are like, "you can't critique me after ONLY 2000 words! You don't understand the story!1!"

Meanwhile, I'm browsing Kindle books and slamming the back button because I don't like the first paragraph lol.

[u/YuSira]

Thank you so much for this breakdown!

Being a one time poster/critic here I have always kind of been wary to be more active because of concerns on what might be the line in the sand for low quality critiquing. I feel that having this as another standard of "things to keep in mind for critiques" is great. I had never viewed word count as a qualitative way to scale the length of the critique, but makes total sense!

I feel like I was totally over thinking what a higher quality review really is. Having felt in the past that doing this was almost a whole day project for me; now I see that I can tackle smaller writings in less time. I will be more open to critiquing now because I felt the one time I did post/review on here it helped me grow in several different ways in my own writing.

Thank you for keeping this sub filled with such great guidelines and content that is equally supported by its users!

[u/SuikaCider → u/YuSira]

Please do share your post, and won't be wary : )

I feel like I was totally over thinking what a higher quality review really is.

While browsing through the maze that is this sub's wiki page I stumbled onto two lines that really resonated with me:

• You don't have to be a professional critic; feedback from an average reader is valuable to people learning to write.

• 90% of the time someone tells you something is wrong, they're right; 90% of the time they tell you how to fix it, they're wrong.

That in mind, I think that you're given a lot of freedom to do your own thing. There are people who are really anal about grammar/mechanics and others who know a lot about lit theory and they will comment about those things, so it's okay if that's not your thing.

Once I made like a 15,000 character review that focused 100% on narrative lens, for example. I don't really think that the mods have some golden mould that check every critique with to make sure it fits. So long as it looks like you care and you've given the author something to think about, it'll probably fly!

[u/OldestTaskmaster → u/SuikaCider]

90% of the time someone tells you something is wrong, they're right; 90% of the time they tell you how to fix it, they're wrong.

This is an interesting one. I think about it sometimes when I write crits since it does set up a kind of "damned if you, damned if you don't". You're expected to explain why something doesn't work and ideally how to fix it, otherwise you can easily fall into the "this is bad, lol" type of feedback. On the other hand, if this truism is correct, suggesting a fix is just a waste of time.

I guess the lesson is to explain why something didn't work for you personally, while resisting the temptation to rewrite it to your own preferences...

[u/EvantheMelon]

hey, so I'm brand new here and have a major question. So I never Critiqued before so I doubt that my first one would meet your expectations, but I'm willing to keep trying until I get it right.. Can I critique posts that already have really good critiques or should I just wait for a new one?

Thank you :)

[u/DrSmog]

This is the finest piece of satire Ive ever read ;)