How to critique for quality

At the least you should not be asking for critique on /c/WritingCritiques until you have read the rules. If there's something you don't understand, comment. Don't just post...<br><br>This is about the best way to give a critique.<br><br>The first thing is, you need to have something to say. The next is you need to say it right. There are a few things to decide before you even start.<br><br>1) Give yourself permission to critique. If you think you're just going to suck up to the author, or your work isn't good enough... stop. You can't be in the proper mindset if you think about yourself this way.<br><br>2) Look at the work from the outside. What's good, what's bad? What does the story do well to its reader? What does it do poorly? If you immediately find something you like or dislike, that's fine, but you need to look at it from the perspective of someone that will be buying this in the local book store, not as a beta reader that's giving feedback.<br><br>3) Be consistent. If you see lots of things you dislike about the work, don't just criticize one of them. If you see lots of things you like, don't just stop at one. If you can't read through the whole work, that's fine. A partial read for critique is better than no critique.<br><br>4) Be specific. If you think every sentence is boring, then you can't give feedback that will help. You can say that every sentence sounds dull, but if you can't help then you need to. Even just once, but if you can't pinpoint the problem you might be wrong and you won't help them.<br><br>5) Look at the author's goals. Is their goal to write a bestseller or just to have fun? What if there's a certain way they want their work to be perceived? I'm not saying you can't critique them if you don't like their goals, I'm saying you need to determine how well they accomplished the goal before you say they failed.<br><br>When you're giving feedback, look at the mechanics of the story, i.e. mechanics. First are characters. Are the characters likable? How deep is their development? Do they actually have any development? What about their dialogue? Do they sound natural or forced? How do they interact with each other? Do the characters sound different or the same? How do they change, if they do? How do they change the other characters? How do they change the story? How do they change the world? Do they change at all?<br><br>Next are plots. Are they well thought out? Do they make sense? How well are they connected? Is there a progression? Do they make sense? How does the main plot get resolved? Do the subplots get their own resolutions as well?<br><br>Third are world building. How detailed is the world? How consistent is it? Is it believable? How important is it to the story or characters? Is it even needed?<br><br>Then there are themes. How important are they? Are there too many? Are they well explored? Are they well explained?<br><br>Finally, how well does the story explore the human condition? Does it explore politics? Does it explore people's natures, both good and bad? Does it explore daily life? Does it explore anything?<br><br>If the work does not have any of these, or they are not well developed, you need to say. This is most likely where you'll be critiquing because this is where most works fail.<br><br>When you're giving feedback, you need to critique both what's in there and what's missing. If a work has some amazing characters, a hard to follow plot, and world building you can't miss, point out all of them. If a work has only characters, point that out as well.