Critical Reading and You: Lessons from Contest Judging · 11:35pm August 9th
Intro
In the past 4 years, I have judged 9 site-wide contests here on fimfiction—a grand total of 1,792,854 words read with the explicit purpose of judging. You can see a fun little breakdown of these numbers below, in reverse chronological order:
- Year: 2024 [this one is still in progress]
- Words: 106,000 (dubiously - some of you out there are little tricksters)
- Year: 2024
- Words: 191,762
- Year: 2024
- Words: 135,352
- Year: 2023
- Words: 396,210
- Year: 2023
- Words: 248,797
- Year: 2022
- Words: 152,800
- Year: 2022
- Words: 74,300 (also a very loose estimate, given a lot of the text was in embedded images)
- Year: 2022
- Words: 204,800
- Year: 2021
- Words: 282,803
That’s a lot of words. Especially Sci-fi II - what were you all on for that one? And where can I get some?
Reading for contests is hard. You might not think it’s hard if you’ve never done it, but it is. Reading critically is a skill, and a skill that far too few of us ever learned how to exercise properly, if at all. For one thing, a lot of folks seem to think that reading critically means reading with intent to be critical, i.e. reading maliciously or reading in a way that gives very little credit to the author. Critical reading is none of those things. It is reading while thinking, or reading with intent to break down and analyze, to take apart and put back together.
Here’s the thing: all of us could stand to get better at reading critically, whether you’re a contest judge or not. If you’re a casual reader, learning how to read critically can actually make reading more fun—it has for me! If you’re a writer, especially if you’re a contest writer, you may want to know how judges go about selecting a podium. If you’re interested in getting involved with writing reviews or judging contests—which anyone can do, by the way!—you might find this useful in starting your first review or contest. Whatever the reason, I hope this is helpful.
For the past year or so, I’ve put quite a bit of effort into perfecting my approach to reading for the purpose of evaluation. Having a predictable method really helps when you have dozens of stories to read and compare directly. During that process, I’ve found things that work and things that don’t. This blog serves as a summary of the lessons I’ve learned as I perfected this process for myself. I don’t expect all of this to work for everyone—there are plenty of judges I’ve worked with who seem to be able to evaluate holistically and assign a single number to a story that says it all. That’s just not how my brain works!
I’ve tried to organize this in a helpful way. This blog starts with how to read one story—that is, how to approach a singular story and evaluate it independently. After that, I discuss how to read large batches of stories with the purpose of choosing a “best” story from the batch. Finally, I’ll address the lessons writers can learn from all of this, and pose some questions to all of you!
I hope you all enjoy this blog. It’s been a long time in the making, and I’m very excited to release it ^^
How to Read One Story
Okay. Let’s get started.
We all read. Even if you’re the sort who claims to only write, you almost certainly read at least a little bit—here or elsewhere. If you’re a writer and you’re not reading at all… you have more to address than this blog post is capable of. Please go read a good book instead of this. Please.
Anyway. I’m going to try to move in rough chronological order, which means we need to start with the pre-work:
Form Expectations Fully, Then Set Them Aside
A mantra all of us grew up with. Easier said than done.
We all come into things with preconceived notions. It’s called being human. Shutting off the “expectations” part of your brain is nearly impossible, even if it is wildly unfair to new experiences.
The first step to critical reading is to recognize this, and let yourself have the thought. The whole thought. You can even write it down, if you’d like—when I write reviews, I always open them with a paragraph of blind assumptions so that writers can understand what readers see. I think it’s really useful! Hopefully the folks who request reviews from me feel the same way.
Why have the whole thought? Well, half-thunk thoughts are the enemy of reasonable expectations. If I promised you the greatest ice cream sundae you’d ever had, you’d probably be unreasonably excited. You might be expecting to burst into tears at your first bite. You might expect the sundae to change the course of your life, or allow you to see a new color previously undreamed of by humans. More mundanely, you might expect a sundae entirely different from the sundae I eventually brought you—maybe your ideal sundae is a banana split, but I’ve presented you with an unexpected and challenging taro-themed sundae. That would be disappointing, even if the taro sundae is objectively the better sundae.
Similarly, if I told you that you were about to read the greatest story ever published on fimfiction.net, with no further details, your thought process is going to look like this:
- Wow. The best story ever! This is going to be life-changing.
- I wonder if this is going to be anything like my current favorite story, the sprawling grimdark AU I’ve been following for the past two years.
- I would really enjoy reading another big AU story live…
- I hope this story is an AU!
- It isn’t an AU—it's a short, introspective, philosophical piece.
- Now I’m mad.
It hardly matters how good this new story is—it isn’t what you wanted, and so you’re starting your read from a state of disappointment. That’s not fair to anyone! So, what can we do about it?
First, let yourself have the whole thought. Don’t relegate your thoughts to pure fantasy—that’s the easiest way to be disappointed. No matter how good the fic is, it’s an mlp fanfiction. We’re really lucky to be in a fandom where the really good fics are worthy of publication, but still—none of us are Shakespeare. That’s okay.
Use all of the information available to you—cover art, short description, long description, tags, even comments or accompanying blog posts—to build a mental picture of what you’re getting yourself into. Once you’ve done that, write it down. Make note of your every assumption, objective or otherwise, and keep it somewhere you can find it while you’re reading. Once it’s written down, do your best to set it aside. Say to yourself “if the story isn’t this, that’s okay.” Sometimes stories can be good surprises. Sometimes stories are just not what you wanted to read that day. Sometimes they’re just not what you wanted to read ever. But, if you want to learn how to be a good objective evaluator, it’s important to start the process with a clear conscience. If you can understand why you’re disappointed, you can do a better job of compartmentalizing that disappointment and moving on from it.
A bonus for writers: if what you dream up is significantly different from what you read, congrats! You just got a free story idea.
This is what we call tempering expectations. Honestly? It’s just the polite thing to do.
Ask Yourself What the Author is Trying to Do
Asking questions is always good practice—just don’t take it quite as far as Twilight.
Sometimes the purpose of a story is clear from its description, but not always. For example, shipfics are generally upfront with their whole thing—you know who is being shipped with who based on cover image and tags, and you get a little flavor for the method of their shipping based on the description. Few mysteries lie beyond this. Anon stories and HiE are the same way, as are the vast majority of crossovers.
Sometimes an author will leave you a helpful hint as to why they wrote the story: it was part of a friendly challenge, a holiday celebration, a speedwriting event, or a contest. In cases like these, a story might have a lot of goals at once: fit a theme, be finished by a deadline, work with a prompt or prompts, fit inside a certain number of words, etc. These things affect the way you evaluate a story. A good example (if extreme) of this is the exquisite corpse challenge—a team of authors attempt to write a linear story while only ever having access to the chapter immediately preceding their own. In a case like this, the only metric that matters is plot coherency, and many would argue these are more fun to read when they’re a total mess.
All stories have purpose. People write stories for specific reasons, even if those reasons aren’t immediately obvious! Sometimes an author writes a story because they were inspired by another book they read, but maybe this inspiration only comes through in the author’s style (I once wrote a fanfic for a different fandom inspired by the novel Fight Club, which has an… interesting narrative voice. It did not perform well at all). Sometimes an author writes a story as a gift for a close friend, and therefore ends up making a lot of choices to please an audience of exactly one. Sometimes an author writes a story to vent, or to celebrate a milestone, or to establish a headcanon. These are all perfectly valid reasons to write fic, but none of them should be read the same way—that would be an enormous disservice to all of them.
This question of “why” is a question you should ask yourself throughout a story. You might not know why a story is being written until you’re 50-60% of the way through, at which point you’ll have an epiphany and rethink the whole thing (this happened to me once). You may never fully understand why an author wrote a story, in which case you’ll have to admit this to yourself: you don’t get it. And that’s okay, too.
In case it wasn’t obvious, this is also something you should track throughout your reading process. Make notes when you have epiphanies regarding purpose, and revisit this collection when you’re finished reading. Remember that just because an author intended to do something doesn’t mean they were successful.
Notice Things
This probably sounds rather basic, but bear with me!
We all notice things. All the time. Of course we do! But humans are such good noticers that we have a bad habit of ignoring a lot of the stuff we notice. This is why heroes like Sherlock Holmes are considered remarkable—he’s a noticer on a level far beyond any of us can aspire to.
I’m not saying you have to be as good as Sherlock Holmes to be a good critical reader. The important thing here is that you learn to listen to your gut: when something piques your interest, however small, make note of it. This can happen on a level of words (I’ve never read this word before, I had to look it up), sentences (that sentence made no sense), paragraphs (what beautiful scene-setting, I feel like I’m there!), or chapters (I’m not sure how this chapter fits into the wider story…). You might notice horsey anachronisms (do they have TV in Equestria now?), strange contrivances (there must have been an easier way to get our hero from point A to point B…), or out-of-character dialogue and behaviors (the he would not fucking say that phenomenon). Or maybe you notice some truly inspired symbolism! Some brilliant details! An enthralling headcanon!
Sometimes the little mysteries come back around. Maybe the story has a twist that explains some of the nonsense you noticed earlier—that’s a very good feeling. Sometimes plot threads are left dangling. Sometimes identifying patterns helps you understand a larger structural issue, or sometimes you just end up with a pile of unrelated little issues that made the reading experience a bit odd.
However it turns out, learning how to listen to your gut is critical. Your gut notices things, and whether that thing comes back around (like in a good mystery) or just gets abandoned (like in a lengthy, pantsed fic) is the difference between a brilliant piece of fiction and a first draft.
Noticing things has one other benefit: you learn to see the writing and the narrative as two separate things. The first reason for this is that enjoying good writing is just as important as enjoying a good story, and the only way a writer can learn to improve both is by observing both. The second reason is that a lot of beginning authors tend to have talent in one area or another—sometimes they tell bland stories so beautifully it's appalling, and sometimes they write incredible, sprawling narratives with prose less interesting than a toaster manual. Making and recording detailed observations in both departments will help you figure out who is who, and how to talk about it.
Be Patient and Give the Author Some Slack
Fanfic is weird. It isn’t written like “real” books—it tends to be a single draft (with perhaps a minor editing pass before hitting the button), and it is almost always written entirely linearly with chapters posted the instant they’re completed. This leads to a whole host of interesting problems unique to fanfiction: giant hiatuses, dangling cliffhangers, mid-draft epiphanies leading to major changes in tone and direction, steadily increasing skill level that leaves early chapters feeling crude, or even changes to currently-airing canon events. You don’t get these sorts of issues in professionally published novels… for a lot of reasons.
When reading fanfiction—especially longer fanfiction—it’s important to be patient. Be willing to wait for a fic to “get going” or “kick in”. Sometimes an author "learns on the job”, as it were, and the story doesn’t become good until you’re about 50k words in. Pay attention to the publication dates of chapters! If an author disappears for two years before updating, expect the story to be fundamentally different. If you can’t be patient, quietly walk away. It’s polite.
Speaking of being polite, authors on fimfiction make mistakes. I know, I know—heresy. But it’s true! Fimfiction authors don’t use multiple drafts to perfect their pacing, they write one. Fimfiction authors don’t have paid editors, they have their buddy on discord who gives things a quick read and leaves a handful of Google docs comments. Fimfiction authors aren’t classically trained! This is a hobby. Shit happens, and it’s rarely such a deal breaker that it needs to be brought up.
That being said, sometimes authors do have a recurring issue that breaks immersion. Maybe they consistently misuse a particular word or punctuation mark. Maybe they just have a lot of typos. There’s a threshold beyond which a simple mistake becomes unacceptable to a reader, and many authors (but maybe not all) would like to know when their issues cross a line. My word of advice: don’t assume that the author’s issue is due to stupidity or ignorance. Give the author the benefit of the doubt. Sometimes a recurring issue is indicative of a gap in understanding, but not always! Sometimes repeated typos are honest mistakes or a busted keyboard. It happens. Nothing is more embarrassing than having someone correct you on an error you know is wrong.
Giving authors grace is absolutely critical in the fanfiction spaces, and I’ll tell you why: they’re doing this for free. We’re all responsible (yes, even you!!) for keeping the fimfic ecosystem alive and well. It benefits no one to be rude or to sneer at authors you deem lesser. It benefits no one to assume an author is stupid. No one wants to publish a story riddled with errors!! On this we should all be able to agree!!
Bottom line: there’s a reason I don’t include grammar issues and typos in my evaluations of fanfiction. Even great wordsmiths make oopsies. Don’t be that guy.
Recognize Objective and Subjective
We all have preferences. I, for example, LOVE horror movies. Can’t get enough of ‘em. I love blood and gore. I love to be scared and unsettled. Not everyone does! My boyfriend, for example, despises horror. That doesn’t mean there isn’t horror that he likes, more that those horror movies he does enjoy are the exception, and not the rule. I, on the other hand, love even bad horror movies! I’m biased.
No genre, trope, writing style, character, ship, or concept is universally awful and uninteresting. Yes, even that one. Yes, even that one. It can be done well. It can be compelling. It can work. But there are still some things you’re not going to like, through no fault of the author—that’s okay. To be a good critical reader, we just have to get good at recognizing what parts of our evaluation are objective and which parts are subjective.
When you’ve written up your thoughts on a piece, spend a moment interrogating those thoughts. Is this personal preference, or universal opinion? Am I stating opinions as if they’re fact? Some stories are going to draw more subjective evaluations than others: horror for one! Just because a thing isn’t scary to you doesn’t mean it isn’t scary at all. Same with comedy! And, although these stories aren’t often given extensive ratings and reviews on fimfic, it's the same with porn. Remind yourself that you aren’t always the target audience. Humble yourself.
I’m not going to lie: this is hard. It is quite possibly the hardest item on this list to master. Even if you’ve developed the self-awareness to say “I personally don’t like xyz, but I recognize others do”, you will still have a natural inclination to be harsher on xyz as a result. My best piece of advice? Phone a friend. Hopefully someone biased in the opposite direction. This is why writing communities are so important!!
Share Your Thoughts—But Not All of Them
Okay. You’ve done it! You read a story, took extensive notes on your experience, filtered those thoughts through the wide variety of practical lenses outlined above, and have finally arrived at Your Opinion. You know exactly what you think about this story, and you are ready to tell the world. Good for you! Many people are very excited to hear what you have to say—particularly the author!
…But here’s where things get even more thorny. Look: there’s a time and a place for everything. It’s no secret that authors want to hear what people think of their stories—that is quite literally why they post them, and why websites like fimfiction exist in the first place. That being said, there’s a cool way to share your thoughts and a decidedly uncool way to share your thoughts. The way your thoughts are received depends highly on details of your particular situation. Review the following scenarios below for guidance:
I read the story…
- on my own time, for fun. Be kind. If you’re about to comment directly on someone’s fic, there’s really no reason to come in hot. You’re both doing a hobby with no intent to compete or critique, so don’t give into temptation. At most, pointing out a small error is okay, but make sure that isn’t the ONLY thing in your comment. I like to use the five minute rule: if it can’t be fixed in five minutes, zip it!
- because I selected it to review for a group or blog. If you’re doing an in-depth review in a separate location, things are more open. Your opinions won’t be plastered all over the author’s story, which is nice. However, keep in mind that because of the separate location, you are essentially acting as an advertisement for the fic. People are seeing it who wouldn’t otherwise be seeing it. Keep that position of power in mind as you write your review. I recommend trying to stay balanced between positives and negatives—don’t let the negatives take over unless there’s a VERY good reason (the content is plagiarized, grossly low-effort, written in bad faith, etc.)
- because the author requested a review. Honesty is the best policy. When an author requests a review of their own piece, you are well within your rights to say exactly what you think. You should probably strive to be professional about it, but still! You generally have freedom in this area. However, people request reviews for basically two reasons: either they genuinely want real feedback and intend to act on it, or they want a free advertisement for their story in a high-visibility space. You can typically determine who is who by looking at an author’s account date and current bibliography. Which leads me to…
The story is written by…
- A new or young author. Go easy. This is a person who is inexperienced, and might be easily turned off of writing completely by a negative review. Emphasize what you like about the piece, downplay any issues—if you mention them at all. You CAN write a review for a piece by a new author that is truthful without being discouraging. Ask friends to proofread your work. If possible, try to pick the ONE thing you believe could make the biggest positive difference in the piece, and make this your focus. Make it actionable. Make it realistic—not just "git gud".
- An experienced author. This is someone who has a good amount of published fics and has been on the site a while. In other words, someone who knows the culture and won’t be thrown off by a negative or critical review. Polite honesty will be well-received.
- A big-time author with a lot of visibility. We all know there’s some “fimfic royalty” around here who have had far more than their fair share of overtly critical reviews written about their work. In a case like this, you may choose to not publicly share your review at all, as the odds of you saying something new are pretty slim. If you’re set on sharing your review, you should still be polite. You should ALWAYS be polite. But a big-time author with an enormous volume of reviews will be less upset by a singular negative response—they have a lot of responses to collate, while others only have a few.
The story…
- Appears to be somehow personal. Tred VERY carefully. There’s some deeply personal stuff on this site: memorial fics, “vent” fics, fics about fandom drama and.. uh… current events. Don’t try to apply the usual logic to these types of fics. Remember to ask yourself what the author is trying to do—if the answer is “memorialize their dead friend,” just put it down.
- Is a “magnum opus”. There are quite a few authors on here who have THE fic… and a bunch of other fics. If you find yourself reviewing an author’s magnum opus, remind yourself that they probably place a lot of their self worth on the performance of this particular story. I know it can sometimes be easy pickings, especially if the fic is quite old or has a reputation that precedes it, but remember that this is part of forming expectations and setting them aside.
- Is written in bad faith. There’s some fics on here that should never have been written, for a variety of reasons. I’m sure one or more just came to mind for you: stories that serve no purpose beyond stoking controversy. I’ve read some fics on here that were wholly plagiarized!! That’s not deserving of a fair and balanced review—that’s plagiarism. Ask yourself if you still want to review this fic at all, or if it’s better to not feed the troll. If the troll asked you to review their fic… well, don’t hold back.
- Is a contest entry, or was otherwise written within strict limits. The contest culture on fimfic is extremely strong, which means there’s a lot of fics that were written expressly for contests. These fics, by definition, have a word count limit and one (or possibly more!) prompts they have to work with. Familiarize yourself with these limitations, and judge within them. If you give suggestions, give suggestions that work within these limits.
Overall, please remember that fimfiction is for fun. I think the site’s culture is unique in that people here make an active effort to critique one another and improve by leaps and bounds, but that doesn’t make unsolicited criticism easy to take. If you’re writing something that you’re worried is crossing a line, ask a friend to review it and take steps to ensure you're not putting a writer on the defensive. The best review is a review that feels collaborative—by this, I mean that a good review is in dialogue with the piece and with the author, and doesn’t claim to be separate from them. A good review should spark a CIVIL conversation (emphasis on civil) between author and reviewer, and lead to growth.
How do you write a collaborative, constructive review that invites conversation, not argument? Great question!
I’m gonna say something controversial: compliment sandwiches don’t work!!! They just don’t! I’m a smart person, I don’t wanna feel like a golden retriever who needs his pill wrapped in a slice of cheese. Instead, the following comment/review structure gives you the space to say ALL of your thoughts, but also (a) gives the author a chance to contextualize those thoughts, and (b) makes the comment a positive enough experience that the author doesn’t spend hours stewing on it. Ready? Here we go:
Summarize
Start by telling the author what you think you read. This is where an overwhelming amount of miscommunications happen: a reader thought they were reading one thing, when really the author was trying to write a different thing. Be upfront about what you think you read, and try to do it in a way that doesn’t make you sound like ChatGPT writing a high school book report. Here’s a sample:
Wow! This piece is an awesome alternate take on Cupcakes Pinkie Pie. I like that you chose to focus on the aftermath, rather than the crimes—I feel like this piece is really about Pinkie’s psyche. *
It’s that simple! This also gives the author a chance to push back without sounding like a dick, for example: “Actually, this fiction isn’t an alternate take on Cupcakes! This is set in the same universe as my fiction where Pinkie Pie is a vampire.” See? Now everyone is happy. A misunderstanding was politely corrected, and the rest of the comment can be contextualized by the author as part of an interpretation where this fiction is in the Cupcakes universe.
*This comment thread is based on my dear friend’s lovely fic, in case anyone was curious
Praise
This is (hopefully) easy: gush about the good stuff. Try to present a mix of good stuff if you can—talk about dialogue, prose, story, characterization, comedy, scares, etc. At the very least, make sure you talk about more than one thing. I like to make sure my praise sections cover at least some craft elements and some story elements.
This is also a good place to mention any biases you may have in favor of the piece—just make sure it’s clear that those biases are not the only reason you liked it. Saying, for example, that you really like the main character isn’t wrong, but making that your only positive is a bit disappointing. This is fanfiction. They didn’t make that character.
It’s also really important to provide substantive praise. Everyone loves an incoherent keymash comment, but a comment that is ONLY incoherent keymashing followed by extremely coherent criticisms looks uh. Bad.
Here’s a sample comment incorporating the above:
I have such good memories of reading Cupcakes when I was younger, so this was right up my ally!! There’s something about evil Pinkie… yum. I’m obsessed with her. I’d let her kill me tbh. Lol.
Anyway, your take on her is SO GOOD!! I feel like a lot of fics write evil Pinkie as a different character, but this really feels like Pinkie. Her dialogue is on point. I also really love your (minimal) descriptions of the gore—I think your restraint really perfects this piece’s atmosphere, and helps ground it really well in Twilight’s perspective.
There’s a bit about story, a bit about prose, some biased rambling, and some unbiased praise. This is a really fun comment to receive!
State Biases
Keep this as short as possible, but state biases you may have against the piece here if you wish. This isn’t always necessary, but could be depending on your criticisms. Don’t even dedicate a full sentence to this:
I’ll be honest, I don’t usually like first-person fics…
Ask Questions
This is your criticism section. Depending on the situation, you might feel comfortable being upfront about your issues and stating them outright. In other situations, you may want to go easy and avoid directly stating what you disliked. Whatever the case may be, be sure to also ask questions and wonder about things.
What do I mean by this? Well, let’s put it this way: have you ever seen a movie so horrible you could only ask… why? That’s the energy we’re trying to capture here. Rather than coming in swinging with “this movie SUCKS!!”, we’re going to try to instead ask “why did they make this thing?” And “why did these people agree to be in this thing?” This, again, invites an author to defend their position without feeling defensive—you, as a non-expert, are asking the expert to explain their choices. You may then wonder about how these questions could be answered. For example [continued from above]…
I’ll be honest, I don’t usually like first-person fics, so I had some trouble with this being told from Twilight's perspective. I’m curious why you chose this perspective? And maybe how the piece would be different if it was written in a more omniscient third-person?*
This, of course, being a nice way of saying “this would be better if you’d written it in third-person.” By writing your qualm in the form of a question and a wonder, you’re giving the author space to respond: perhaps they intended for this to be just as much an exploration of Twilight’s psyche as Pinkie’s and you’ve helped them realize that that was unsuccessful (without being rude or combative about it). Maybe they just like first person, and they don’t plan to stop writing in third person. Maybe they will never respond to your comment because they don’t see the value in reflecting on your work, in which case you’ve saved yourself from an internet fight!
My last bit of advice: try not to let your criticisms drag on longer than your praise. If the crit section is visibly larger than the praise section, either rethink the amount of crit you’re sharing or go back and add some more gushing to the gush section. If your crit section is the biggest, this can look like you just made up some nice things to say so you didn’t feel guilty about your giant block of issues. And that’s a shitty feeling.
*my dear friend’s lovely fic is written in third-person. This is an invented issue, because my dear friend’s lovely fic is perfect in every way.
Overall
You should always end your comment with a quick summary of your thoughts and feelings. You should always do this because this is your chance to emphasize what YOU think is the most important takeaway, otherwise the author will decide what they think is most important, and that could be very bad!
If I want the headline of my comment to be that I loved the story, I should emphasize that. Maybe I don’t even bring up the issue I had—that’s how little it mattered in the end. Maybe there’s a particular part of the fic that was so good I want to make sure the author knows. Maybe I actually have a real sticking point that needs to be addressed, and I want this to be the last thing on an author’s mind.
In my little example, my quibbles about POV had hardly any effect on my enjoyment of the story, so I won’t even bring them up a second time:
Overall, this was amazing. Your psychological horror is so good—I really hope you write more like this!
There. Now the author knows exactly what I liked and why, exactly what I didn't like and why, and is left with the most important bit: that this was a great story, I'm glad I read it, and I'd like to read more.
Compounding Error
I just threw a lot of shit at you. If you’ve never worked on any of these things before, this is going to be a LOT to remember. As I said, critical reading is a skill! It will take time to get good at all of these things, so give yourself that time and grace to learn. Just remember that not mastering these skills leads to compounding error—they interact, and can cause more trouble when they appear in teams of two or more. See the chart below for a handy reference :)
This can help you identify problematic commenters on your own fics! It’s also—and this is true—funny.
How to Read with Intent to Compare
Yippee, we’re halfway through!! You’ve already learned so much. I’m so proud of you 
Now that you understand what it takes to read and evaluate a single piece of writing, we need to talk about how to read stories with intent to compare them. So much of the above is—to throw a research term attacha—qualitative. We can break a story down into parts and write about those parts, but it’s hard to compare written reviews to one another and say which story is “best” based on description alone. One of the things judging panels have to do is find a way to quantitatively describe stories—that is, take all those thoughts and feelings and turn them into cold, hard numbers.
Just like before, we’ll do this in rough chronological order, which means starting with the pre-work:
Decide What is Important
This should honestly happen before the contest is even announced, if possible. Take a minute and figure out what the point of the contest is, then figure out what things should and shouldn’t matter as you judge that contest. I’ll give you some practical examples:
A Thousand Words
- Does the story “fit” in a thousand words, or is it really rushed?
- Does the story transcend its packaging?
May Pairings
- Is the pairing rare?
- Is the pairing fun/interesting?
Wonderbolts
- Is the story about the Wonderbolts / a Wonderbolt?
- Does the story depend on the Wonderbolts for its plot, or are they just sorta there?
Sci-Fi
- Is the story a science fiction?
- Are the science fiction elements related to the story, or just scene setting / flavor?
M/M Shipping
- Is the story M/M shipping?
- Is the romance interesting?
- Is the romance the only interesting thing?
The Twilight Files
- Is the story told through found media?
- Is the found media believable, or does the author struggle to make it “work”?
What things aren’t important? Well, when I judge speedwrites (which you can participate in here), I don’t consider typos whatsoever. The point is speed. There’s gonna be typos. Is it impressive when someone manages to write a story with zero typos in a speedwrite? Yes. Does that make them better than the authors they’re competing against? Absolutely not.
There are some more general factors that pretty much always matter, so here’s a quick rundown of those as well:
- Situation - what are the facts of the plot? Is it interesting, creative, new? How good is the execution?
- Story - what is the theme underlying the plot? Is there a theme? Does it work with the plot? Is it felt, or simply told?
- Quick side note about situation and story - if that divide is news to you, check out this book chapter (quick read, 100% free)!
- Writing Quality - is the story pleasant to read, or is the prose simply functional? Is the author’s meaning clear? If there are small errors, are they likely to be honest mistakes such as typos?
- Characterization - do these characters act how I expect them to act? Do they behave consistently? Does the story bend to their will to ensure they are always in the right, or do they make less-than-optimal choices (this is a good thing)? Are any characters used as props to move the story along?
- Completion/Pacing - is the story finished? Is it well-paced, or does it slow down / rush at random instances?
- Subjective - did I like it? Did I have a good time reading it?
You may have some things that are personally important to you, yet aren’t on this list. Something that I have considered putting on this list but ultimately haven’t is tastefulness—as in, are you handling delicate subjects well? I haven’t put this on the list simply because I encounter it very rarely, but your experience may be different. You may also realize partway through an event that there’s something big you’ve been overlooking—be willing to incorporate new metrics into your reviews as you go!
Develop a Rubric
Mwahahaha. Time to put on my teacher hat.
If you aren’t involved in education or educational research, you probably don’t know that making rubrics is a highly contentious artform, and the subject of much debate. This is because turning any qualitative information (such as a story) into quantitative scores (such as a bunch of numbers) is considered reductive. And it is, in a lot of ways. It doesn’t matter how good that rubric is—it must be accompanied by your explanation of why you graded something that way to be considered meaningful.
But I’m a pragmatist! And I say we need numbers sometimes. And also this is my blog so whatever I say goes.
Creating rubrics is very personal, and I highly encourage you to try making your own rubric. I will, however, share my preferred method. I’ve been making small adjustments to my rubric for the past 4-ish years, and I’ve found it to be very reliable. Here’s my advice:
- Settle on your list of things that matter. This can be as many or as few as you like—just keep in mind that more items can sometimes lead to less predictability. I know that’s counter-intuitive, but just trust me on this one.
- Prepare five “points” for each item.
- Fully define points 1, 3, and 5. Write a description for the worst possible, the best possible, and the average.
- Leave points 2 and 4 undefined. The flexibility is important—overdefining can lead to trouble.
- Average your score across items to get a score on a scale of 1 to 5. If you’d like, you can do some math to change that scale to 0-10, or even 0-100. Whatever makes sense for you. If you need help with the math… honestly, I’ll do it for you.
And, ta-da! You have a rubric. Let me give you an example of how I develop a rubric scale for one item on my above list: characterization.
First, what does bad characterization look like? There’s the obvious: characters acting nothing like their canon selves. But there’s other ways characterization can go wrong; characters can be robotic, can act as “props” who do nothing besides make stuff happen, or can be just plain boring. There’s also the issue of OCS, where poor characterization might mean never becoming attached to the character at all, or not “getting” them in any meaningful way. There's the dreaded Mary Sue issue. Some canon characters are consistently over-exaggerated to the point of being jokes (looking at you, Pinkie Pie). Sometimes the characterization issues get bad enough that the story might as well not even be fanfiction!
What does good characterization look like, then? To me, this is more than just capturing the characters as they are in the show—I read fanfiction because I want to see new dimensions of these characters, not to just rehash what I’ve already seen. A well-characterized fic takes the ponies we know to new but believable places, and helps them grow and change in new directions.
Looking at these two ends of the spectrum, the centerpoint is pretty obvious: stories that are perfectly canon, but aren’t trying to do anything new or exciting. The sort of story that makes you go “yep! That was Rainbow Dash, alright”. Laid out in a rubric, that looks like this:
That slot allllll the way to the right is for your score!
Once you’ve done this for all of your items, you can put them together into a rubric and start using it.
But wait!! How can I trust a rubric I’ve never used before? Great question—let’s give it a test run!
If you’re judging a contest, start by randomly selecting 10% of the contest entries for testing. Read these stories and take the extensive notes outlined in the previous section. Rank them against each other. If you only have 1 story, that’s okay—assign it a numerical score out of five overall. Just use your gut. Good? Good.
Once that’s done, score the story or stories on your rubric, and see how well they matched your gut check. Hopefully you were close. If not, you can make edits to your rubric descriptions until you’re close or exact. Over time, your gut check and your rubric score will converge. Again, this is a skill. Practice makes perfect.
Read One Story X Times Until Finished
So… remember the 5000 words we spent learning how to read one story? Good news! That’s about to come in handy.
Here’s the process:
- Vibe check: look at the packaging and write down your opening thoughts, then set them aside.
- Remind yourself of the purpose: the author wrote this for a contest. That’s the point. Keep that in mind as you read.
- Notice things: read carefully and take lots of notes. You WILL reference these notes when you inevitably argue with your co-judges about placement. If a story has multiple chapters, make note of the chapter you were reading, too.
- Record final thoughts: how do you think the author did? What is your immediate impression?
- Score: turn that qualitative data into quantitative data. Record the rubric score.
It takes time. Don’t take shortcuts. Try not to be influenced by your fellow judges.
If at all possible, put the scores away for a while and don’t look at them. Let time be your guide—some stories are memorable, and some are not. This, to me, is the difference between a competent story and a great one. I can still recall nearly the entire plot of the first-place winner from the first contest I judged! That’s a story that’s earned a place on the podium, for sure.
Share Your Thoughts—But Not All of Them
It’s baaaaaack
Without a doubt, the best part of contest judging is working with other people. This is great because, unlike many other situations, you have a built-in group of folks who also read the fics, and you can spew all of your subjective nonsense at them, and it’s actually sort of fun. After that, you can work together to put on a professional face and write something more constructive than a discord argument.
This is something that many of you likely already know, but it bears stating: those little blurbs that go in the results posts are entirely positive because we write them that way, not because every story that placed was completely perfect. Part of contest etiquette is overwhelming positivity, both because that is what the winners have earned and because it is intended to disguise some of the arguments that may or may not have happened behind the scenes. That’s right: sometimes judges disagree, and it’s important that this isn’t obvious in the results.
This is, by far, the best lesson I’ve learned from judging contests: this hurts no one. Being overwhelmingly positive actually improves the site culture. When you tell someone, in very specific terms, what you liked about their story, they are (a) encouraged, and (b) still learning from your comment!
I’m sure there are many of you who disagree and, honestly, what do I know? Maybe fimfiction needs all kinds to keep afloat, or to keep moving forward the way it remarkably has been all these years. I’ll say what all the greats have always said: your mileage may vary.
Final Thoughts
You may have noticed this takes a lot of time. Correct! You’re getting very good at noticing :)
How to Write When You’re Being Judged
“But Mush,” I hear you say. “Mushy, Shroomster, Mushyshroom!”
“Calm down,” I reply. “What is it?”
“I’m not a contest judge—I write for contests! How does this apply to me?”
It’s both a great question and a question with no answer. If I could tell you, with complete certainty, how to write a story with intent to win a contest, this site would never need to have a contest again. We would all be gods and every outcome would be predetermined before the announcement even hit your feed. We can’t have that, can we?
The truth is, I don’t know. You can know that contest judges are doing all of the last 7.5k words of thinking when you write a story for them, but that doesn’t mean you can suddenly write a prize-winning story every time. Maybe knowing the ways that judges think about your story helps you, and maybe it doesn’t. Maybe there were parts of your writing you’ve neglected until you saw them spelled out here—now’s your chance to work on those! Maybe seeing the irrational thought process behind hate comments be revealed has helped you deal with them a little less emotionally—that’s awesome! Maybe this was just an interesting read, in which case I can’t really be mad :) I’m glad you didn’t click away halfway through. That means a lot.
Honestly, if you have one takeaway from all of this, it’s to remember that contest judges spend a lot of uncompensated time reading and thinking about and debating your works. It can hurt not to win, yes. But it isn’t exactly fun to put in this level of effort, fork over a wad of cash, and then get a bunch of comments complaining about not placing. That sucks.
If you have another takeaway, please let it be to try this for yourself!! In the process of reading critically, you will learn a lot about yourself and your own approach to the craft of writing. You’ll start to see what issues are deal-breakers, and what issues aren’t. You’ll take lessons from good and bad writing alike with you, and you will learn and grow from this experience—or your money back.
Outro
Thanks for sticking with me! If you made it this far, let me extend a personal thank you—you did not have to do that. I know that I talk a lot. This could have been an email. Etc. Etc.
If you’re still here, I’d love to hear your thoughts on a few things. See? I’m practicing what I preach. I’m inviting polite, civil conversation with a series of questions:
- Have you ever judged a contest? If so, what was something you learned?
- Did you ever have formal education in critical reading? If so, how did it go?
- Do you practice critical reading when you read for fun? To what degree?
- What’s a detail you wish readers noticed, but didn’t?
- What’s a bias people have against your work that you wish they could see past?
Of course, if you have any other thoughts on this blog, I’d love to hear them!
Mush out
Wow, this is comprehensive. Admittedly I skimmed through most of it, as I'm probably not qualified to judge anybody else's work (I've recently figured out I'm far better at game design than narrative writing), but it's certainly good advice. I did do a bit of critiquing for a creative writing elective in college, but my professor never gave this level of depth to the subject, I think. It was mostly the writing side, and the main points of advice for reviews was to be constructive and specific in feedback.
Most of the time readers will pick up on the little things, with the exceptions being references to other media. Years ago when the pandemic hysteria was happening, I wrote this as a satire piece. But nobody noticed that the professor character I threw in was clearly supposed to be a pony version of Byleth from Fire Emblem: Three Houses until I pointed it out in the comments. And while applezombi convinced me of the wisdom in removing the references to other AU fics from upcoming chapters of Rising Flames to enhance reader understanding, I still have a few video game and anime ones sprinkled in for flavor that I'm pretty sure neither they, Spell Check, or any of the readers have noticed yet.
Mush, I am once again astounded by how perfect a human being you continue to be. As a fellow judge on some of those contests, it has always been a joy to work with you, and I hope once you're a big-shot professor in Smart Person Town you remember us little folks and come judge some more silly horsewords.
I didn't take any notes on your cool blog because I'm bad at following directions and also because this statement is about me. But I'll try to answer your pop quiz anyway.
Yes! You already know this, you were there for most of them. Honestly, it's hard to say if I've learned anything specific. I've gotten better at the unconditional positivity side, because you know I tend to be pretty critical if left to my own devices. I've found some stories I never would have read otherwise that were incredible, and I've also found a bunch of stories that... well, weren't so hot. I've learned that most human artistic expression falls into a bell curve from good to bad. I kinda suspected that from the start, but now I have the data to back it up, and we all love data.
I'm not sure this answered your question. Moving on.
I mean, I took English classes in high school and college, surely that counts at least a little bit? I don't know how much of that actually stuck. I know I'm not as good as putting into words about how I feel about a piece as you are - like most of my endeavors, I just sorta get stuff or I don't, with no ability to describe why. Writing is something I get - I can usually tell you whether a piece is good or bad (separate from whether I personally enjoyed it) and why. Is that because of a formal education? Doubtful, I hated most of my English classes. I think it's just because I've read a lot and I've written a lot. Sooner or later, some of it sank in.
Are you sure you weren't around for our Quillscast episode on critical reading? Because this exact question came up. Yes, I read everything critically. I can't help it. I notice typos whether I want to or not, it makes me a very annoying editor. I like thinking about theme and I am always trying to determine why an author wrote something. I'd love to be able to turn my brain off and just enjoy writing, but I can do it for movies and not for books. That's just how it is.
Ooh, that's a tricky one. In what context? In general, as a category of thing people should pay attention to more? In my own works, specifically? I'll answer both, because I'm an overachiever. In general, the thing I notice most when seeing other people's comments on stuff (especially speedwrites) is not being able to differentiate between someone writing an interesting premise vs an interesting story. You touched on this in your blog, but I often find in speedwrites a lot of entries set up a really cool story without actually having time to tell that story. So I often see praise for the ephemeral ghost of the story that is being promised, even when that story has not actually been told.
In terms of my own stuff, people miss details in my stories all the time, because I believe in minimalism and aggressive cutting of things that don't serve the story. I'd rather have some people miss details because I wasn't super obvious with them, because that allows other people to feel clever for figuring things out without being explicitly told. I like that feeling when I'm a reader, so I aim to provide it in my writing. And unfortunately it's not possible to calibrate things so everyone gets there. But I'm not too fussed about it - that's what the comments are for. Besides, people misunderstanding the story in the comments gets me engagement.
Hmm. Hard to say. I generally don't spend much time listening to people who are biased against my work, because their opinions rarely hold much value. The friends and fellow writers I surround myself with don't always like what I put out, but when they have criticism it's usually fair. I think the biggest bias I've seen is related to the above - people sometimes miss or misinterpret something important, and then criticize the story as a whole because of it. Sometimes that's my fault - sometimes it means I need to make an important detail clearer. Sometimes it's a price I have to pay to keep the story interesting for everybody else. It varies case by case.
Honestly, I think I'm probably lucky to not have a big enough contingent of haters to have an answer to this question.
Alright, there's my quiz back, teach. I hope I did well enough. =P
But also, thank you for writing this blog. It was really interesting to read, and maybe if I absorb enough of it I will be able to produce Review the way you do someday. I'm sure you're gonna do great in academia. =)
Jesus, this was THOROUGH! I'm not going to lie, I've judged like, three contests? Ever? And I came outta that going "ough I'm not doing this again". It's a LOT of work that often goes unappreciated, and while I do have confidence in being very thorough in my judging, I am genuinely impressed at how good you are, here. Like just based on the amount of work and thought put behind it, and the very very extremely correct commentary on Fimfic culture.
One of the most undervalued aspects of good criticism, I feel, is that it needs to be based on a minimum level of empathy, of camaraderie. When directed at a writer, criticism shouldn't be about pointing mistakes, it should be about furthering and facilitating improvement, and that means making it enjoyable, and making it productive. If everybody was as clear on it as you are, especially when it comes to stuff like the importance of context surrounding the critique, being a writer would be so much easier.
Back when I judged my own comedy contest I wrote a blog similar to this, that was significantly worse, and that I will not link cause it was a while ago and it probably sucks. In it, though, I did touch on something you explained here in better detail -- the way in which expectations often cloud criticism of a story.
Great readers make good writers, but good writers don't always make great readers. Sometimes you see people criticising a story, not for what it is, but for what it isn't, because they saw the story, pictured in their mind what it oughta be, and deducted points for every single thing that differed. It's re-writing the story in your head as you read it, which I call "wreading" because I'm an asshole, and man. It makes for the worst criticism ever. It's not even criticism, honestly! It's just recursive fanfiction! In a bad way!
Anyway! I agree with your dismissal of compliment sandwiches. I honestly don't comment super often unless a story grabs my attention strongly enough I feel I need to tell the writer, so I have no difficulty giving praise. I do however like to focus on a single thing that I liked, and explore why I liked it -- maybe it was the way it was written, maybe it was the imagery it evoked, or the message it furthered -- and then use that as a springboard to talk about the story as a whole. Sometimes, when we like something too much, we just say "this entire thing is great as a whole." And while it is a true comment, it rings hollow. Specificity, I think, is one of the most important qualities of good criticism -- don't use general sweeping statements, focus on the details.
So yeah! This was a great blog. Incredible work, Mushroom. The blog was super worth the effort that clearly went into it. You're an absolute treasure.
excellent blog :D I thoroughly approve!
A very informative blog! If a lengthy one – even as much as the subject pertains to me, I did skim some paragraphs once I could tell they were stuff I already well knew. Still, don't let that take away from how much you understand the balance to be maintained in this game, and above all the compassion – there's very little in here I don't know and try to employ, but I don't know that I'd ever be able to articulate it like this.
Aragon is right, bud, you're a gem, and even more then before, after reading this, I can't fault you at all for scaling back to writing what's plain-and-simple fun for you. Clearly, you haven't lost your honed skills one bit.
I've only ever been asked to judge one contest in my time on Fimfic, and while I think it went well, perhaps it's telling that I haven't been asked since. Or maybe I'm inferring meaning where it's not there. Certainly, that I was gung-ho in the early days of Ghost Mike's Ponyfic Review Monday Musings, reviewing fics faster than they were coming out, meant I had little trouble also making reviews out of the thirty-two fics I read for Ancestral Tribute. And this matters, of course, because as you well note, while there's a lot of overlap between the disciplines, the final comments one leaves on the fics that place are rather a different science. One I think I handled very well, but again, you never know for sure.
If I were to judge for a contest again, I wouldn't review every entry. One thing I learned is that, naturally, you'll get enough lower-tier fics in there, and not only is it draining to write up on all of them, but it really tests the boundaries of the points you mention, of balancing the strengths and the weaknesses equally. And can especially come across as mean-spirited.
Anyway, especially with my scaling Monday Musings back to being irregular, if I were asked to judge another contest, I would only review the fics that placed, and maybe select others. But that'd be it.
I can't really comment on things people miss in my work or biases they may have against it, because they're too little-read to pick up on any real trends. I suppose not thinking they're the simple fluff pieces they appear as from the outside? Shrug. I have sometimes thought my writing style, favouring cinematic techniques and not defaulting to dialogue, given I self-taught in screenwriting, might be a barrier for some, being rather a polar opposite approach to many people here. But again, my sample size isn't big enough to really tell if that's been a problem for people. Who's to say.
That is an excellent description of how to make and use a rubric. I was lucky to receive similar, but less detailed, advice when I first started grading midterms and finals (rubrics operate the same way in calculus as in writing). This is coherent, compact, and complete. Very nice!
Oh, the site banners! I remember the hullabaloo when they went away. I had strategically selected a banner without any ponies in it (I want to say it was an image of Fluttershy's cottage) on the off-chance that someone spied me viewing the site on my phone, so it wouldn't be obvious what I was up to.
Great recap of how judges ought to approach their tasks. If I ever end up judging another contest (either here or elsewhere), I'll come back to this and give it another read to get in the correct headspace. Thanks for the write-up.
Gosh, that was a good read! I often don't have huge patience for very long blog posts, but this one was an exception, which surely says something about how well it was constructed. It didn't feel super-long, I mean. Maybe one extra thing that came to mind was that (persistent) typos etc show up much more when you're reading a story than when you're listening to it, even if the (audio) reader isn't adding their own spin very much.
I allowed myself a wry smile on occasion, given my niche is as someone who allots less space to an entire review than most of you other reviewers/judges do to a single aspect! FWIW when I started reviewing I took Present Perfect as my role model, someone who also mostly does single-paragraph reviews. I'm definitely not as good at the longer ones I call "Spotlights", and I'll be keeping your comments here in mind without a doubt.
Could I articulate how I review? Not as well, no, even after over a decade. I think I generally judge my tone reasonably well -- I was very happy that Ghost Mike called my style "affable" the other day, since that's how I'd like it to come over. Possibly being off-site makes my blog feel more like a cosy nook than the busy highway that is Fimfiction. It does to me as the review writer, at any rate. I always bear in mind an excellent piece of advice a far more experienced reader (maybe Pascoite?) passed on long ago: if the net result of a review -- regardless of what it says -- is that an author stops wanting to write, then you have failed.
I won't ramble on too much, so let's try those five questions you set:
Not a "proper" contest, no. I vaguely remember doing it at some point for a small contest on the now-gone UK of Equestria forums. Of course there's Flashfic 150, but that's deliberately designed not to be anywhere near as formally set up as a conventional contest. Something I've learned from it? Don't be surprised by writers subverting the rules. After all, what is a writer but someone who loves to play with words?
Nope. I have absolutely no qualifications higher than GCSE English Literature. Grade B, since you ask. Oh, and an extremely well-read copy of the 1973 version of Sir Ernest Gowers' Plain Words.
I suppose it happens automatically to some extent. I don't think you can entirely avoid it once you've read several thousand stories. I don't sit there and take notes when I read a book, but sometimes I do enjoy taking a slightly closer look. All the more so if it's a book I really like -- Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy comes to mind.
In other people's stories or in mine? Assuming the former, the power of a single, devastating line in just the right place. A ponyfic example is Cold in Gardez's All the Mortal Remains. That has a line from Fluttershy so perfectly judged in both content and position that it almost physically knocked the wind out of me. Yet, reading the comments, hardly anyone else remarks upon it.
I don't really have any complaints in that regard. Just occasionally someone has said a story I'd written would be better as a novel-length fic when there clearly wasn't enough meat for that to work, but on the whole I've rarely had anything I'd consider bias against me. Of course, were I a more accomplished writer in the first place I'd probably be more sensitive as well!
I can't add a whole lot that hasn't already been said - but thank you for this, it's a wonderful and through guide.
Honestly, I want to thank you for writing this - not from the perspective of someone leaving comments, but someone receiving them. I've gotten a lot of pretty negative comments on my stories during 2024 for some reason and they've been really demotivating (I've written almost nothing this year). I think reading this blog is kind of helping me reframe those comments and my reaction to them, and to understand that even if they're intended as sincere criticism, that doesn't make them constructive criticism. And that makes all that negativity weigh on me a lot less.
To answer your questions:
I have in fact judged two contests on FiMFiction: the second and third Sunset Shipping contests. Among other things, I think they taught me how to find the good in stories, and how to be kind about the bad (particularly when various contestants asked for more in-depth feedback).
Some classes in high school and college, I suppose. It's been long enough since then that I don't know how helpful they really were.
I don't deliberately practice it, at least not usually, but I think I still do it subconsciously to a certain extent.
One character in one of my stories speaks almost exclusively in iambs and no one has ever pointed this out.
Not so much for my writing on FiMFic, but I have a story on AO3 that's OC-focused in a fandom where most people are much more interested in the canon characters, and the shipping thereof. I think a lot of people aren't super interested in the story because of that, and I guess I wish they'd give it a shot regardless.
Once again, thanks for the post! I really appreciated it.
This is comprehensive, thorough, patient, excellent in tone and considerate of the broader community implications. Outstanding pedagogy. I'm bookmarking it.
That said, I owe you (specifically and directly) an apology, because I definitely messed this up in several ways when I commented on your story last. I've been on both sides of that; I've been around for a while; I should have known better. If there's a takeaway from that, it's that this isn't just a "reading 101" guide, this is something that we need to be continuously mindful of.
I appreciate you taking this concrete step to improve the community and I hope it will help me do better.
Before I answer your questions, I’d like to say that this essay is worthwhile reading for any fandom, even if not horse-focused. Despite all the discussions on Fimfiction-specific site culture, this ought to be the definitive guide for when the folks at /r/AO3 or /r/FanFiction start having one of their endless discussions on commenting etiquette.
Not a Fimfiction contest, but plenty of Quills contests. However, productive comments on a hot off the press speedwrite have different qualifications than for a published story. Namely, what’s published here is here. Suggestions beyond quick SPAG fixes or “Gdocs import ate half that sentence” aren’t worthwhile, unless it’s asking for a sequel. If the intended audience for a comment left here is the author, the focus is better spent on using the current story as the pool of examples to help the author’s next story.
I feel more useful to authors on speedwrites due to feeling freed to suggest how to improve the specific story instead of the more amorphous goal of using the story to help them develop as a writer.
Critical reading for fiction? Not really.
However, I have worked a job grading essays in my college years. I’d have to read critically there, but I never was given theory training: only training by example.
Somewhat. I find my criticality switch flips on after the story grabs my attention as writing inspiration.
Some of my excessive affection for alliteration and wordplay.
Some people get tripped up by my love of $10 SAT words and long sentences; others, by how I write my ponies significantly horsier than the show.
5798514
There's a lot of stuff in the comments I should respond to, but I really wanted to make sure I replied to you specifically: this is really cool of you to say. This post was born from many years of reading and commenting - some good, some less than good. I've definitely left some crappy comments in my time that I'm really not proud of. This post was, in part, an expression of what I've learned from being a poor reader/commenter. We all need to pull together and make a continual, conscious effort to keep this community chugging :)
I hope you know the slate is 100% clear between you and I. I saw that you just recently joined the quills n sofas server, and I'm super excited to have a chance to write with you sometime soon!! Much love, my friend
5800911
Thank you for being gracious about it. Look forward to seeing you around Quills and Sofas!
I never did get a chance to follow through on my plan to read another one of your stories — I went through a long and rough stretch where I was barely touching Fimfic — but way back then I did get started on Radiowaves, and was definitely enjoying what I did read. I want to queue it back up, not out of any remaining obligation but because I legitimately was having fun. Which is why we're all here.