Re: META/POLL: The Purpose of Criticism

On Feb 20, 12:31 pm, tem2 <gfishb...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Feb 17, 1:23 pm, Tom Russell <milos_par...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In your opinion:

1. Is this basically how feedback can and should work?

It seems a problem when you see nothing lacking from a story but you
also don't find anything that specifically interests you, so that all
you have to say is, "I read this story and it was funny."  Sure, it's
good to know that a story is being read and appreciated, but an empty
review isn't particularly helpful to the author or to readers.

You're right about that, and I'll try harder to deliver the goods in
the future.

2. If not, how should one provide feedback?

If the review really is meant to provide feedback, it should always
include something specific that you liked or disliked--a line of
dialogue, a punchline, a character description--or some question or
speculation raised by anticipating future plot twists.  It doesn't
have to be more than a single sentence as long as there's at least one
real observation in it.

True, and I see I've been selling you short as of late, and for that I
apologize. I have thought about mentioning all the things I found
amusing or entertaining, but that would result in basically quoting
all the lines of text between and including the first line up until
the last line. :-)

Well thought out critical feedback is helpful to any author, even if
the feedback is on somebody else's stories.  There is a lot to learn
from somebody who is well-enough read in a given genre that they can
develop informed opinions that can be backed up by specific examples.
You do that well.

Thank you.

==Tom
.

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