It seems that I had more luck with "following parts of your story are bad" reviews.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9268425/21/Honey

Also, in this case response from author to my review encouraged me to continue reading story that turned out to be between OK and quite good (main plot is waiting for possible sequel, but there were some interesting ideas).

 

I read your reviews for that story, and unless there was conversation in PM, that didn't look at all brutal.

The main point in reviewing is to be encouraging while being honest. If there is nothing good in a story, taking your time to say it in a review is just being stupid, and if there is something good amidst shit it's worth pointing out.

 

Gee that's funny. I could have sworn the point in reviewing was to write a review. Y'know, a critical analysis or rating. Being "encouraging" (however you choose to define something so vague) was never a requirement.

 

Depends on the review. If you're writing it for other (potential) readers, then that is true. If they shouldn't waste their time, then you should say so.

If you review on fanfiction.net on the other hand, that review generally isn't for other readers, but specifically for the author. You're giving direct feedback. In that situation it is recommended to be encouraging. (Just google "how to give feedback")

 

Yes and no. Most people confuse "critique" with the pejorative definition of "critical" and only write about the negative elements of the story. Whenever I critique (other than here, since the zeitgeist here is different) I try to include both, since that provides a more balanced review. That is, of course, unless something annoys me to no end.

And no, I'm not talking about blowing sunshine up someone's ass. I'm talking about legitimately critiquing the positive as well as the negative.

"I thought you did this well, however, this and this detracted from it." etc.

 

Reviews should have some element of being encouraging if you are sending them to the writer (as on ff.net where the author gets them as an email).

That is not to say you write everything is perfect but try the compliment sandwich. Start with something positive nice\put what could be improved in the middle\and then end with a nice statement encouraging them to keep writing (or actually point out another thing you enjoyed).

Unless you are a beta reader or friend who was asked to do so it is not your job to highlight each and every flaw but point out one or two things that could use improvement. That is constructive reviewing rather than reductive.

People see their writing as a part of themselves and are more sensitive about it as if it were a personal critique. A lot of them, especially on ff.net, are young, emo, and like a lot of us outsiders in some way. Better to go with a light hand rather than a cruel cutting one.

Now a review on Amazon, for example, is a different thing because here you are commenting on the value (or not) of something that you paid for and the people who will benefit from your reviews are other customers. Still, its always best to write in a way that makes you seem like a civilized person with some level of manners rather than a troll.

 

When I leave a review, I give my honest opinion of the work. If there's nothing positive to say about it, I'm not gonna hold my tongue or make something up. I'm gonna tell them that their story is a shit sandwich. Then I'll suggest ways to make it better or to address its flaws. But I won't cater to egos. If you can't handle an anonymous stranger telling you that your labor of love is a shit sandwich, you probably shouldn't be publishing it for anyone to read. Nobody's ever become a better writer if the only reviews they ever get are "omg, lurved it, gtg but bbl so rite moor!"

But it's honestly pretty rare for a story to have no redeeming features at all. Hell, I'm willing to give props to people just for using proper spelling and grammar. I once read a story on TTH that was very well written and polished, but featured characters and events presented in such a way that I absolutely detested them and had no interest in reading about them. I told the author this, and was thanked for appreciating their writing, if not what was written.

And, of course, avoid excessive profanity in reviews. If you seem like you're just raving, they're gonna ignore you.

 

Okay, the moronic 'Needs Ideas' thread really touched off a nerve for me, so it's time for another rant, and one that should be emblazoned somewhere in the Dark!Harry section.

Yes, it's the 'Dark isn't evil' bullshit.

Yes, you've taken Philosophy 101 and discovered moral relativism. Well done, welcome to six years ago. And yes, it's a great way to get away with Harry doing terrible things to terrible people because it's a convenient handwaving excuse (and a bad one at that). Too often the 'dark =/= evil' nonsense is dragged up because writers want to pen their scowling, brooding, and oh so fabulous antiheroes, complete with an excess of black, capes, ripping off Batman, and a massive itch in the privates to fellate Draco's cock. And at this point, it's adolescent, completely immature, and really rather tiresome. What infuriates me the most about it is the laziness of it all. Yes, you might have nostalgia for the Dark Age of Comics and can't wait to crank up the Korn and Linkin Park and late 90s NIN and bask in your oh-so-compelling white boy pain, but at this point, shapeless nihilism and a hard-on for characters Rowling clearly framed as disgusting, racist shitheads does not make your story 'dark' or 'mature' - it makes it lazy. Furthermore, it reflects authors who don't want to take risks with their characters - they want their main character to do terrible things, and yet have a convenient moral excuse to get out of any consequences he might face - and really, that's kind of pathetic.

You want a story that gets dark or is 'mature'? Write Harry as having to do dark or terrible things - and then have him wracked with guilt or pain because of the traumatic things like murder or mind control or black magic do the human psyche. Write his feeble justifications and show how painfully shallow and hollow they are - especially when he knows he's just lying to himself. Show just how disappointed Dumbledore or Ron or Hermione or Sirius or Lupin or Moody might be, people Harry respects and who would like their approval - and yet Harry's doing what he feels he must to save the world.

Or have Harry experience some form of psychotic break. Watch as his life crumbles to pieces around him, his friends and family either trying futilely to help or recoiling with disgust. If you want to write an evil version of Harry, go for broke and write one - just, you know, frame it so we as the readers can realize just how fucking despicable the character is and yet still kind of want to root for him. Think Walter White or Frank Underwood (House of Cards). Show a Harry who's willing to do terrible things and be genuinely evil because he might have nothing left to lose or he needs to go there in order to rationalize the horrific things he does. Remember, the majority of villains are convinced what they are doing is right.

So here's my point. Fuck 'dark =/= evil'. Let's make 'dark == evil', and then let's see how many authors have the stones to go for it.

 

To be honest "Dark" seems to be mostly legal construct in canon, so someone being "dark" doesn't necessarily mean they are doing anything morally wrong. And I hate the word evil, when thrown around carelessly. Evil to me means someone who does morally wrong things, knows he is doing morally wrong things and still continues doing morally wrong things without any problems with it. Most of the times I see someone called "evil" they are just twats who don't think what they are doing, i.e. they fail the "knowingly doing" test (I don't think that Draco Malfoy for example has the brainpower to truly be evil, while Lucius definitely is).

None of this of course doesn't excuse Harry to use steel capped military boots, black leather pants and have his hair spiked with green tips. That shit is just being stupid, not "dark" in any definition of the word.

So yeah, the world is not black and white and everyone has their own definition of which shade of gray counts as dark. Canon Harry for example clearly has a lot whiter Dark than Remus after the flight from Privet Drive in DH, but using crucio and imperio on death eaters and goblins later on is fine for him.

 

Dark magic in the HP-verse is always presented with some pretty clear and common indicators that separate it from regular magic. It's not a legal definition, it's a term of classification.

Dark magic stems from the desire to wound, hurt, kill, or control.
Dark magic causes effects that cannot be easily reversed, or wounds that do not easily heal.
Dark magic is often powerful, but quite easy to use. So many people on both sides of the war can cast the Unforgivables that you'd think they taught them in class at Hogwarts.

Generally speaking, when people in HP start talking about Dark Magic, they're not making a value judgement. They're talking about a distinct class of spells.

----

My new peeve also stems from the Needs Ideas thread. Why, oh why, do people insist on claiming that Lucius is a distant, stern and abusive father figure who forcibly molds poor Draco into being his miniature clone?

I mean, one of Draco's most apparent and consistent characteristics in the early books is that he is spoiled rotten. He is used to being indulged and catered to. His parents exert quite a bit of influence on his behalf. His father buys brooms for the entire Slythering quidditch team for him.

Lucius is a raging bigot, a cultist, a Dark wizard, a slave driver, a torturer, and a murderer, but he's never presented as being a bad father in spite of that. On the contrary, he ditches pretty much all of the above in favor of not being a bad father. He spends the entire Battle of Hogwarts looking desperately for his son. It's his one redeeming characteristic.

 

He's kind of like one of those parents who sticks a 'God Hates Fags' sign in their five-year-old's hands and brings them out to protest with them...

He might love his son, but but he teaches him to hate.

 

It is extremely narrow definition, I would have trouble to find anybody (real or fictional) that would fit.

And definition of evil that classifies Hitler, Stalin, Sauron, Voldemort or Lucius Malfoy as not evil is useless.

 

Perhaps I should rephrase. Lucius is a bad father in that he clearly instills a malicious and bigoted philosophy in his son, teaching him hatred and condoning atrocities against those he dislikes. But he is not abusive in the manner that fanfic loves to portray him.

According to virtually any fic featuring a sympathetic Draco, Lucius Malfoy is just shy of completely indifferent to his son in most circumstances. He does not interact with the boy at all unless for the purposes of instruction or correction. He views his son as only a tool to further his goals and cement his legacy. He is physically, emotionally, and verbally abusive in all circumstances, and has nothing but contempt for Draco as a person. He puts his service to the Dark Lord so far above his family that he would have absolutely no conflict of interest if ordered to slay his own son.

I can't even count the number of fics I've read that use that exact characterization of Lucius and Draco's relationship, and absolutely none of it is supported by canon.

 

Why? We have no shortage of terms to describe them, even if we can't simply label them all "evil". There's sick fuck, ruthless bastard, mentally unstable, psychopath, sociopath...

In my mind "evil" is just a narrow subcategory that includes all kinds of people, not just the biggest mass murderers. "Evil" is not the superlative of "bad". A person who likes to kick puppies might be "evil" even if that's the only bad thing he ever does.

 

Well, as much as he looked for Draco during the battle of Hogwarts in DH, he also spent a good deal of time shitting all over him for getting lower grades than Hermione in CoS.

So this part:

might at least be canon, with the exception of physical abuse. I think he also snubs Draco and makes him feel like shit for losing in Quidditch at some point with those nicely bought Nimbus 2001s. He's not so cuddly as you may think. The only time he's nice to Draco may be in front of "mudbloods" and "blood-traitors."

 

I do not think he's cuddly. I just don't think he's an abusive father, because you don't become like Dudley if your parents treat you like Harry. He reprimands Draco for failures, yes, but with more or less the same degree of severity with which Molly Weasley reprimands her children for their antics. And you don't get a spoiled kid if the parents aren't indulging him more than they should.

Lucius Malfoy is a bad man and a bad father, I do not dispute that. But his one humanizing characteristic in canon is that he loves his family and puts them first when it's all on the line. That doesn't get him a free pass, but it makes his most popular fanon characterization lazy and ill-informed. I don't like Lucius, but I hate seeing the same portrayal of him over and over and over when it relies so much on fanon.

 

"Whipping away a tear."

Folks, don't try this at home. I don't care if you're using a bullwhip, riding crop, wet towel, or the aerial antenna off a 1977 AMC Pacer, you could lose an eye.

This is compounded when someone performs this action "angrily," as it more easily conjures up the violent imagery of someone inflicting damage upon their own eyeballs. Every time I see this mistake, I picture the way some cartoon characters exaggeratedly swipe an index finger across their eye to collect a tear, then cast it away with a flick of the hand.

You can't even call it a typo, because it requires two separate, isolated, mistakes to achieve... or one mistake and the laziness to let your misguided spellcheck function do the proofreading for you.

Of course, that mistake works the other way, too...
For your enjoyment, a short story I call "Sexual Harassment in The Workplace or Castration by Spelling Error."

Ouch. :facepalm

 

The hell you say! Nothing bad comes from an AMC Pacer. It's the mother lode of the automotive world.

 

When critiquing the body of someone's work, I tend to soften my thorough ( and, admittedly, sometimes harsh) criticism with a bit of comedy.

In short, I aggressively ream their body, then fill the hole with my humor.

Wait... does that sound right?

 

In the bottom right hand corner of each post, next to the edit/quote buttons there will be a there will be a thumbs up button. I want to say it becomes available at something low like ten posts, but I honestly can't remember. That's where it'll be when you do get it though.