Welcome to Gaia! ::

Okay, so I may not WRITE fanfiction and post it on fanfiction.net, but I do read and review.

I tend to use a clipboard or pull up the review box early and make note of errors or make suggestions on how to improve an area in writing, recently when I do this I have been getting replys with requests to stop.

So is that a bad thing to do? should I just follow the masses, say "nice fic but you should check your grammar dude" and go on?
It takes me forever to review a story that I really want to help the author out with and it is slightly annoying that the more I take my time with the reviews, the more responses to stop reviewing the way I do I end up getting.

I would love some other thoughts on this. anyone?

I haven't been called a flamer, thank goodness, not that those claims would make any sense if someone did complain. The whole point of reviewing is to offer help and opinons on the piece of work you are reviewing. I just don't know what to think about the people who have been complaining about how I review.
thanks for the support though. It's nice once and awhile.

I'd say be careful on how you list the grammar errors and such. For instance if you say "Awesome chapter but This, That, This, This, This, That, That, There, This, and of course That are all WRONG." Then I don't think people are going to jump up and down and say "Ohh, thank you for listing all of my faults in such a harsh way. I have seen the light." xD At the very lest try and say what you thought of the chapter overall, and say maybe "Oh, by the way I noticed that you had a few typos." (or mistakes or mishaps but sticking to something that suggests an accident is better usually) then you might get a few more thanks.

But there are people who seriously don't care. x3 But usually it's pretty easy to tell those type from how they write, what their A/N at the beginning/end (or even in the bloody middle) of the fic says. If they specifically ask for people to leave no pointers then you might want to pay attention to that too.

On a personal note: I absolutely love it when people point out my mistakes. It really helps! I find that no matter how many times I re-read it I'll always miss SOMETHING. When someone reviews and says "Hey you got this wrong!" I have a huge "THANK YOU!!!!" moment. Unless they just weren't reading carefully and said something stupid. (It's only happened once, but someone thought that I meant 'space rocket' when i wrote 'space-rock' (and I did mean a rock from space) but in the context and setting of the fic it was understandable so I said 'x3 Nope, that's supposed to be space rock')

Then again if someone reviews and ONLY tells me of the flaws although I'm grateful for the pointers, I'd also like to know what they thought of the chapter/story as a whole. :3 So... Don't JUST give lists of pointers. biggrin

That's just my take on it thought :3

I think a review is good when you point out both the good and the things that need work. There's a group of people I keep in contact with on ff.net that usually give me very good reviews, but they also help too. Like maybe, "This concept or idea is good but you need to fix the tense in that part." And if the person is too immature to realize you're trying to help, not flame, then it's a lost cause...

Oh, getting helpful critiques all the time would be wonderful. I'm glad that right now my biggest fanfiction project has a good critiquing reviewer.

The key is though, familiarity. Really, it is. I mean, if you want to keep all reviews from getting accused as flamers, start off easy. It's how I work. Say what I thought was specifically good, then mention the few vague things I noticed off. If it's a story updated again, then it's easier to get more in depth on your critiques. But if you start off easy, then the person receiving the advice should be understanding of what you're trying to do.

Aeori's right, a harsher list of faults is not really a friendly way to go. Especially in text, it's much harder to interpret words and their meanings. A list of critiques can easily sound condescending.

I appreciate editing suggestions on reviews and PMs. I'm trying to grow as a writer and I find them helpful. Well, as long as they are put in a polite manner. I recently got a PM on Ocarina of Time: Retold that gave me an editing suggestion and I printed it out to put in my writing portfolio for future reference.

Okay, guys, I'm gonna take a slightly opposite stand. I probably would take at least some offence to a review that's mostly a list of things I did wrong. I would be polite in my reply and thank the reviewer for their time and effort though. I would use the suggestions to fix what's already been written and to keep an eye out to not make the same mistakes in the future, but in the back of my head I'd be constantly thinking, "Was my writing SO bad that this reader couldn't simply enjoy the story?" or "Did this girl sit down with a notebook just to record every mistake I made?"

I'm not saying that I don't appreciate the occasional, you might want fix THIS typo and THAT verb tense because I very much do. I write because I enjoy it and I want my readers to enjoy it too. I don't think any of them should feel obligated to study my work to try and find the hidden mistakes. If they happen to notice one or six, no problem. Please let me know. I just don't want to sit through a list of everything that sucks about what I've written.

This review I had absolutely no problem with:

@Gemmetra: It's good to know that your sister cares enough to proof-read for you, but it does suck that she laughs about your mistakes. I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that she's the older sister, right? They tend to think they have that right.