Hey, look your mind reading again.
I don’t think this is the ‘gotcha’ you think it is. I’m calling a spade a spade – in my subjective opinion, of course.
Pray tell. If no one took a person's critique personally. Why would someone like you feel the need to make ad-hom attacks exactly?
And ironically, this almost proves my point. (In that someone is flat out stating something, that has no example offered, or elaboration on why it's so bad.) But, I digress.
So, before you had to bring it up the second time. When I wanted to be nice and shrug the obvious cheap shot off. I was weighing on questioning precisely what you think critique is meant to do. When you posted right under my review, "Long review is bad. Because it's not friendly."
If you are going to quote me, you should not strawman my argument. I believe what I actually wrote beneath your review was: "I won't be doing an in-depth sentence by sentence breakdown because I don't think those are
helpful outside of creative writing workshops and don't fit the vibe of casual, friendly critique on an internet forum".
It was not the length of your critique that was bad, it's that line-by-line, word-by-word critiques are
unhelpful – and I stand by this. The writing contest is short form (sub-5000 words) so really anything that could be said about a piece can be done in broad strokes rather than on a minute scale. I'm sure you found this yourself when you ended up repeating yourself in many places by going line-by-line.
I am also confused by what you mean by the following: "If no one took a person's critique personally, why would someone like you feel the need to make ad-hom attacks exactly?" It's not like you've critiqued my work such that I
could take it personally. I am an observer to bad writing advice and sought to call it out.
I'm sure it would be a laugh and a half, though.
Well, here's the thing.
Critique isn't friendly. It's not fun to hear. No matter how lighthearted and filled with sorry's one makes it. Because people can utterly freak out regardless. Or act like you, and attack someone's method regarding their own preconceived flaws on what was said. When here's the dirtiest truth of them all, it's only meant to help and offer suggestions for improvement. Nothing more, nothing less.
No, providing every detail of not only what you liked, why you liked it, what you didn't like, why you didn't like it, what was actually wrong, and friendly suggestions to improve, is not, nor will it ever be "bad critique". And because I *do* know what I meant. And many people who appreciate it, knew it wasn't "to feed an ego".
Critique also doesn't have to be presented in the most ruthless, more brutal than honest way. There are well-attested ways to providing nice, measured, and helpful critique: you know, the sandwich method. Attempting to balance negative things
and positive things in a way that is impossible with a line-by-line critique, because quite frankly, whenever a section of text is
rewritten, that isn't neutrally-charged advice; it's saying 'this would be better'.
Besides, this is a bit of a tangent, isn't it? My complaint was specifically with rewriting sections of text and masquerading it as advice. Criticism isn't to feed an ego. Rewriting someone's work without first being asked is.
Though since you take umbrage with the phrasing of 'feed their own ego', I'll put it this way – in nicer, softer, kid gloves critique:
It reframes the criticism from the writer who's work should be in the spotlight to the reviewer's own personal writing style. People who do this
seem to care more about showcasing their own edits than promoting ones which can further the writer's style (in my subjective opinion, looking from the outside in, as someone who has critiqued and been critiqued many times throughout university and on the internet).
Nothing is stopping an author from explaining that themselves then. And better yet, taking one's rewritten words, going "Hmm. Okay, how do I take that advice, and then make it my own?"
That's not the point, and I don't think you understand that. Rewriting is not
advice. It is pretending to be advice. When you rewrite, you strip the author's own authentic voice from the sentences and lose sight of what made the piece theirs in the first place. You replace their sentence structure with your own. Their word choice with your own. Their cadence and tone and intentions and replace it with your own.
How is that not focused on the reviewer than the writer?
Because, I don't believe anything is perfect. If I fuck up in writing or critique, the more specific you are, the better it is to me.
Again, you can be specific
without rewriting. I have given several examples of how to do this in previous posts that you don't seem to have noticed. You can point out errors, you can give example sentences, you can move around clauses to show what is grammatically correct or not.
'Here's how I would rewrite this' and then rewriting it is not advice.
And the total reverse of you claiming "suggestions to fix sentences are always bad". Isn't useful to me at all. Because it provides me no wiggle room to grow as a critic. Something that everyone should work to improve upon.
I didn't say the first part. Again, to quote myself: "
Point out the problem, suggest a fix – or better yet, multiple fixes – but don't write the actual fix out in your own words, dude, jesus christ." The bolded parts are things I did suggest as reasonable alternatives, please check your reading comprehension before putting words in my mouth.
Secondly, I am giving you advice on how to be a better critic: don't rewrite people's work. That's it. That's my subjective advice.
And let's cut to the "bring me down" chase, and say I've had many PM from people I've critiqued/advised in the exact same way, and thank me for how clear I was. So, don't tell me that it can never work. Because I know it can, and does help people. Especially, those who can actually assume one's good faith.
I don't know who you are quoting "bring me down" from or if it's meant to be air-quotes what it's referring to, but, anyway...
Proof? Because here's a thread of people disagreeing with your methods
here.
And, cherry on top. If the author is allowed to have a voice that is unquestioned in their method, breaking any rule that suits them.
Well, why can't the critic or the reader be allowed to have their own methods of review, that may even be different from how someone else tells them "the right way to offer help"?
Criticism =/= creating. Also, you're right that there's no rules to criticism. There are, however, guidelines on how to do it in such a way that helps the person being critiqued. Anyone is allowed to call out said critique as flawed if they perceive it that way, just as people can call out writing as flawed, but the actual act of structuring a critique may be a little more objective than creative writing.
Hopefully this clears up some misconceptions you may have had about my arguments and views on constructive criticism and why literally rewriting parts of a work would not constitute as that.
2x Laugh
