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The Life and Mind of DamnBlackHeart
This is to help me stay actively writing. So expect to see rants, tips on writing, thoughts on subjects, me complaining of boredom, reviews, anime, movies, video games, conventions, tv shows and whatever life throws at me.
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Reviews vs. Add to Favorites |
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When it comes to fanfiction, reviews are important because they allow the writers to get feedback and in the publish world, it's very important to get that. It tells them what readers are interested in, what they like or dislike, what to fix or what their thoughts and predictions are. It basically allows the writers to grow and improve their writing, all the while keeping in mind what their readers like/dislike. A review is pretty much a inspection, a examination, a judgment base on whoever is reading.
When it comes to my stories I like feedback a lot. It's not only encouraging to get but it allows me to better my skills. When people review, they sometimes give me advice on where I could improve or what they enjoy. If there's something in particular that they like I'll be more incline to add more scenes of whatever is it. Or if there's something they dislike I might go back and rewrite that part so that it'll be slightly better or maybe I'll keep in mind to avoid that, or ask someone for help the next time I reach something like that.
Reviews are great! As for adding stories to your favorites, or being on someone's alert list, it's just as great because that means they liked your story enough to follow and keep reading. However, an alert or favorite added doesn't mean as much, it doesn't tell me why or what you like about my work.
It is a type of feedback but not a helpful one. What if such an option of adding stories to favorites (or alerts) didn't exist? What if the writers weren't able to see who favorite them or know how many did so? All that would be left would be the reviews for the writer to rely on in order to know if people liked it or not.
So if a writer has 40 watchers/readers keeping up with their story with only 2 reviews and that favorite option didn't exist, what do you think will be on the authors's mind? They'll be thinking that no one likes their story because it's not good enough to be left reviews/comments about it. Or that no one cares enough to mention if they like it, why/why not and what they like/didn't like about it. Sure some writers, write for themselves first but if they are serious and care about writing they do look for reviews in order to know what they can do to improve.
Honesty, if you took the time to read it and save it, would it kill you to leave a review? Such as, what caught your attention about it? Or why do you like it? It doesn't take an hour, let alone 10 minutes or 5 minutes. It actually takes less then that to write up a review. It's the least someone can so, especially for those writers that take the time out of their day to write these sometimes incredibly well-written long stories. I found many of those kind of stories on sites that have either absolutely no reviews at all or very few. Leaving a simple comment or a short sentence is nice.
Sure there are some that have issues for example, they are afraid/unsure if the writer welcomes constructive criticism. And the last thing they want is to give them it, only to be attacked or get hassle for their review, especially if it's not a flame. Some don't like leaving reviews, simply because they hate leaving generic reviews like "I like this!", "It's great! Can't wait for the next chapter!" or they have nothing to say.
I feel like those are just excuses. It's not that difficult to think up something to say that's not generic. There will always be something in ANY story that someone wants to comment on, whether it's a part they like or a part that they didn't like. Maybe there was a dialogue that a character said that made them laugh or stands out to them? Maybe they found one mistake in the story or they found more? Don't be afraid to politely point it out to the writer. Maybe something in the story reminds them of something that happen in their life and if so, they could share it with the writer in the review? Heck, be honesty and tell them that you like their story that you're going to favorite them and you wish to say more to them but can't think of anything else to say because their story is that good. Just saying that, is saying something and it's not generic either.
Either way, I'm not saying to leave a review and not favorite a story when you want to favorite it. Just do both, that's what I always do. Every single story on my favorites list has been reviewed by me (as well as countless others I've read) because I respect the authors and like their stories enough to tell them how I feel about it.
 DamnBlackHeart · Wed Mar 30, 2011 @ 12:09am · 0 Comments |
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