REVIEWER RECOMMENDATION: Azure Drache review of abrony-mouse's Delivering Sweetness & Beyond · 8:30am May 22nd
So, I was an eager Mouse a couple of weeks ago. I had just completed a chapter of a fic, and was galloping around for reviewers and looking at them with puppy dogs' eyes until they reviewed me 
It wasn't smart of me to be impatient and ask for a review of an uncompleted fic, but hey ho.
What do I want out of a review? (Other than slavish praise for my wonderful creation...) I want it to help me improve. So, what am I struggling with as a 'writer'?
- Not having lots and lots of people notice my fics and give me that sweet, statistical serotonin
- Writing technique - pacing & structure
I also want the reviewer to engage and be polite and clear in what they say.
So I'll focus on those two, starting with the latter.
The basic experience
Friendliness & Efficiency
Azure Drache was very friendly on the approach. Gentleponies still exist! I think they appreciated that I messaged and explained why I felt they would be a good fit to review the fic. The review itself was delivered in a measured, factual way. Boundaries were also clearly expressed — my fic draws on G3 and that wasn't an area for them. Also, it was uncomplete. Knowing both of those things helped me appreciate the review when it was written up.
The review was completed very shortly after the request! A couple of days, if that.
Clarity
Everything Azure Drache wrote was to the point. I had nothing that I felt the need to follow up with them about afterwards. A very clean review!
Engagement
My fic was an uncompleted stub and still over 4K words long. For a modest review, Azure appreciated the key practical conflict and quickly commented on the structure, a key issue for me.
The G4 characters were given a separate little paragraph and Azure seized on the exact contrast I'd been going for in the first line.
In terms of the characters, the g4 ponies are fine. Derpy being derpy and Crafty is used as the contrast, being a bit more rough and masculine.
Did it help me improve
"Notice meh fics!"
This was actually one of the first things the review commented on!
...I wasn’t bored when I read the story, despite my highly dislike for the SOL tag, that's definitely a good sign. However, there wasn’t a ‘spark’ either which would cause the story to stick out of the mass.
So there was food for thought there. I am a stubborn pony who struggles to adjust their writing for an audience. I do try to think of hooks and such, but I clearly need to do more. Obviously I would have liked a lil more info on how to generate a spark, but this is fine for a short review.
Pacing & Structure
Like a foal, I didn't mention this when I contacted Azure. Actually, I hadn't even really realised that is what I wanted commentary on! So, there's a lesson for me there: 'always ask yourself what you want out of the review, Mousey.'
Anyway, there was a comment on exactly the issue of pacing!
It is written in a lovely way, pacing and sentence length seems alright, though it tends to get a bit overcomplicated in its descriptions and extends the use of phrases a bit much for my non native speaker taste.
I had actually forgotten the positive here, because when I first read the review, I must have skipped over it to read the criticism, which is easy to do. I am very pleased that the pacing was not an issue. Maybe I can relax on that, and focus on other things, such as restraining my chuntering, Johnsonite tendency to verbosely bluster? (UK fans will know what I'm talking about :P )
Overall: Recommend
I can happily recommend every aspect of the experience of being reviewed by Azure Drache! They were enthusiastic, friendly, clear and engaged well with my fic, in a way that addressed the issues with writing that I wanted. You can't ask for more for a short review 
You know, about half my entire blog updates are your posts at this point...
I've skimmed this one partly because it's getting to the point of overload (for me, not saying it is for others) but mostly because I'm not sure how spoilery this is about the fic itself and since I intend on reading it at some point...
5782295
hopefully I shouldn't be too often over 2/day. This one is not too spoilery in terms of the fic content, but if reading with a view to review, you might not want to see what they said - then you could come back later and see what you agreed on 😊
heh, sorry
5782297
Oh, it wasn't a complaint really, more an observation. Twice a day is a lot by this site's standards -- twice a week is more common. So I expect I'll read a little selectively. And indeed, when it comes to reviews I usually do write my own up, then add little notes about what others have said if I think it's useful/relevant.
It is our only weakness, kindness and puppy dog eyes
So who else reviewed your story? Like Loganberry here I am kind of curious
This is a very cool review-review
Though kind of suspicious to get praise directly after you asked me to do the full review for you now...
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5782341
I don't know what you mean 
heh, the idea did genuinely just come to me. I've reviewed a commission experience, so I thought, why not the review!
but also my attention went back on to the review after I completed it :P
no other ponies have reviewed Sweetness, yet. Am interested to see what you both make of the completed fic!