Concept: Constructive Criticism Card

[azurelunatic]

As a compromise between the Cult of Nice and the Cult of Wanting To Read Damn Good Writing, how about a web service that offers Constructive Criticism Cards?

As a reader, you would visit the Constructive Criticism Card website, and tick off tickyboxes on a form. Upon submitting, you would have an HTML snippet -- a lovely image with alt text, linking to a page with customized links to assorted articles on writing (and doing it well).

The image and alt text bit of the card would read something like, "One of your readers thought your writing shows potential. They took the time to recommend these ways that you could improve this piece in future revisions, or take into consideration for future pieces. Please keep writing in good health." The picture would probably have flowers and ribbons on it.

This would help people who would like to give constructive criticism, but don't have the time (or, especially, the tact) to write out the things that this person could be doing better.

This would help writers learn.

This would help writers by guaranteeing that they have well-wishes along with the things that they could be doing better, and would hopefully come off as a gracious and loving gesture.

It would also help maintain boundaries for people who really don't want any sort of criticism, just love. The actual advice itself won't be staring them in the face when they read their reviews; the flowers and ribbons will. They can nerve themselves up to go read the things that they might be able to use some work on.

Comments

[azurelunatic]

I think that "mean" in writing is really a luxury you only get with friends or people who are otherwise OK with you shredding their piece to its components and then some. A proper mean dissection of a piece takes too much time to waste it on someone who won't appreciate it.

Is this lazy? Absolutely.

Is this going to be hated? Absolutely. People will think it is too mean; people will think it is too nice; people will hate the flowers; people will think it means the death of incisive, insightful reviews as we know them today.

Comment posted via LJ Mobile

[lady-angelina.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I agree that the flowers and ribbons might be a bit much. How about if the recipient could customize it so that they would still get them if they really wanted them?

That said, I like the idea overall. Even if it's a lazy way to go about it, hell, I would think that a lot of people would be happy to get any feedback at all instead of silence just because the reviewer was too shy or too busy to provide something more detailed. >.> I know I would use it.

Re: Comment posted via LJ Mobile

[azurelunatic]

That ties in nicely with what E suggested down there below, come to think of it.

[wibbble]

I like the idea of flowers and ribbons and a picture of a kitten, with the image text (and alt text) more along the lines of 'Someone tried to read this shit, but decided to spork their eyeballs out instead. For the love of god, please stop.'

I wonder if you'd get people who wouldn't look past the flowers and kittens?

[pauamma]

As a middle ground, "don't quit your day job"?

off the wall

[hotarunokokoro.livejournal.com]

this sounds like a great idea! how about all the good writers wearing black robes, and all the bad writers (like me) wear pink robes? o.k... maybe white robes, but we have to have really bad haircuts.
^_^
i would have a complete collection of the constructive criticism cards and mos likely any rare, collectible ones as well...
its been a very long day.

Re: off the wall

[azurelunatic]

Yes, but supposing the good writers like pink?

Re: off the wall

[hotarunokokoro.livejournal.com]

then we could wear black or burnt umber!
^_^

Re: off the wall

[azurelunatic]

Plus, it's good writing at what. I know people who are excellent newspaper writers who really struggle at poetry, and so forth.

[elance.livejournal.com]

I could see something like this being incorporated into a large, multi-fandom archive. That way authors could choose to receive cards or not or maybe even pick which stories they are okay with receiving crit on and which not.

[azurelunatic]

Ooo, that would be interesting!

[kdorian.livejournal.com]

I like the concept - something that leaves it up to the writer if they want to read the crit or not, while making it easier to leave one for the lazy (or, like me, burned-out) reviewer who wants to leave some helpful hints.

[azurelunatic]

Yep!

I was zooming back through old entries, and ran across that one with advice on doing Mary Sue sanely, and someone was saying that they'd be leaving some more crit on things now that they had something to link to that would be a good starting point, because they were often enough too tired to leave proper feedback.

[kdorian.livejournal.com]

*Nods* Makes sense to me. Sometimes just figuring out where to start takes more energy than I have.

Right now I'm trying to figure out a tactful way of asking a fanfic author if they are ESL...