Write your first review

You don’t have to be a great writer (yet!) to review someone else’s story. Your opinion as a reader has the same worth as anyone else’s opinion. The writers of other stories are as anxious to receive as much feedback as you, so you should give feedback as often as possible.

You don’t have to provide feedback for all the areas of the story you’re reviewing. In fact, at this site, the only requirements are the review Title, to distinguish different reviews, and the Overall Impression. Providing detailed feedback for anything other than those fields are up to you.

Your review should always contain at least one piece of encouragement, something you liked about the story. All the writers on the site, even very experienced writers, struggle with the insecurity and concern that their latest work may not be good. It’s just one of the side conflicts that afflict all creative people. Letting someone know that there was a specific detail or defined areas that you liked about someone’s story is always appreciated.

You should also seek to provide at least one comment about something that can be improved. You can always say that something could be tweaked or could use more clarity or more detail or needs to be trimmed or whatever. State any suggestions for improvement in a manner that you’d appreciate from another writer. It’s very possible you’ll be getting feedback from the person whose story you’re reviewing!

Writing feedback is also helpful to you. When you take someone else’s story and break down the parts you like and the parts you think need improvement, you’ll also clarify things in your own mind about how you should write your stories.

We are all part of a community here, always looking to encourage and support other writers with detailed feedback. You don’t have to have a stack of submitted stories to begin giving helpful feedback. Start helping other writers now!