Union Of The Unique Forum Reviews

I was wondering what you thought about reviews, and how a review is constructive. I have always thought that constructive ment that it supported some way of making the piece better, rather than the "Man, this was great!" type of thing. Any thoughts?

I forget who said it (Wilson Mizner?), but one definition of tact is telling someone to go to Hell in such a way as they look forward to the trip...while that isn't what you should go for in a review, I think if you have suggestions, you can do it in a way that isn't a personal attack. If you are really taken with a piece of work, I think you should try to outline what aspects of the piece makes it work for you, otherwise it's just stroking someone's ego, which is OK, but not useful to help someone grow as a writer. Conversely, if you think something is garbage....well, just pass it by without comment. I don't believe this site should be used as a sorting bin for "this writer is good" and "this writer is wretched"; one of the beauties of a site such as this is that caters to people who care about writing, and we don't have to worry about promotion and production costs associated with old-school publishing, so there's no need to throw anyone to the curb. This place gives people a venue--and an incentive--to write. There's no need to discourage anyone for the mere thrill of dumping on someone's work.