First Glance Reviews: My Criteria · 6:56pm May 2nd, 2016
So I became a reviewer for the First Glance Reviews Group, and I think I should first spell out how I will be conducting the review and the criteria for it. Most of this probably self-explanatory, but I thought I should post it just for reference.
I will provide a sectioned format like the following:
Title: The title of the fic (and a link to it) will go here.
Author: Self-explanatory, also with link.
Relevant Tags: The tags the author has put in the story, including "Gore" and "Sex". Yes, they're in the link, but I'm just being thorough. And overly formal. And wordy.
Primary Characters: The characters the author has decided are relevant to the fic. Same as above.
Why I Chose This Fic To Review: An explanation as to why this fic caught my eye.
Personal Biases: One of the things a lot of reviewers don't mention exclusively is their personal bias. This could be to the genre or sub-type of the fic itself, or just their mood at the time of reviewing, or any number of other things. There is a user by the name of NineCaliber that does something similar to the group who specifically mentions their personal biases when doing reviews.
Description: Here I will outline my thoughts about the text description and the story picture, if any. The description is important as it functions both as a means to give a potential reader an overview of your story as well as a sort of advertisement. They're difficult to do as you have to walk a tightrope between these two functions as well as make sure you're not misrepresenting your fic or spoiling anything. Few things will cheese off a reader than having a bait-and-switch between what they thought they were reading and what the author ended up actually writing. They also need to be short and concise; a paragraph at most. The picture is less important in my opinion, but particularly good art can entice someone to read.
SPAG: Spelling, Punctuation, and Grammar. This section will also cover other things like typography, person/tense and other stylistic choices. These mechanical elements are important; if one can't convey information in a pleasing way, then the fic is doomed no matter how good its ideas, character, or plot may be.
Review: Finally, we get into the review proper.
Recommendation: The final recommendation for the fic.
Good luck! I've certainly been enjoying the reviewing experience. Maybe when I'm done with my queue, I'll see if you guys still need help.
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Hey, thanks for the encouragement!
Kind of redundant to say, but I've also been enjoying reading your reviews. Very thoughtful and informative.
I'm sure you'll be very welcome should you decide to come join the First Glance Review team. Don't stress it, though; you still have over 100 fics in your personal queue.
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I just finished two reviews today. They'll be going up tonight! And thanks. Glad you're enjoying them.
Fascinating. I'm more of a "wing it" person myself, but I can definitely see the benefits to laying out the skeleton for a review and sticking to it.
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Yeah, I know I'm a bit rambly and wordy, so having a formalized review skeleton will help keep me on point. I hope.
I've read some of your Rage Review stuff, actually. Very funny.