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Reviews, comments, and things of that nature.

The most important part of the Archive is the community. We want each person who comes here to feel that it's a safe and encouraging place to explore creativity through writing. So let's take a moment to talk about leaving comments and reviews.

While most authors appreciate constructive criticism, I feel it's necessary for me to explain what exactly that is. Constructive criticism exists in the realm of actual, concrete, factual help to make a story better. For instance, telling someone that they switched verb tenses would be constructive. Telling someone you didn't like something stylistic, or related to tone of voice, point of view, or even about characters, is NOT constructive. Those sorts of things are opinions. Moreover, it's often flat out rude and often breaks down the goal we have of creating community.

Please keep in mind that we're all reading and writing FREE fanfiction. While I like to think that each of us is putting our creative best foot forward, none of us are attempting to create high brow works of literary genius. If you're enjoying a story, PLEASE tell the author exactly that. We LOVE hearing that. But if you're not enjoying a story, unless it's something that can (and needs to) be fixed--spelling errors, formatting issues, etc.--please keep that to yourself and keep it moving. Choose another story!

If you're interested in going deeper into the analysis of a story and its characters, consider letting us know that you're available for beta reading. And if you're thinking of leaving a review and you're not sure if it's constructive or not, please reach out to any of the admins. 

Let's all live by Thumper's wise words: "If you can't say somethin' nice, don't say nothin' at all."

xoxo 

 

 



--elle-miranda on Aug 02, 2015 04:14 pm 1 Comments
Comments
Thank you for this! As a new member of the community, I greatly appreciate the way in which you put this.  I have to agree, comments are always greatly appreciated. Constructive criticism helps but having someone rip a writer apart is down right mean.  I believe Thumper had it right.  Thanks for bringing this matter to light!
- Truekat on Aug 02, 2015 06:05 pm