I know I'm not the first one who has asked peers to review their writings, but there is one thing that I am finding irksome about the idea of peer revision. In my college's writer's guild, we made sure to write in rules to prevent this. And that is...
Just saying what is wrong with the writing.
Whenever I have someone read my work, I don't just want to hear what I'm doing wrong but what I should do to fix it. This is how we can grow to become better writers, by learning from each other what our weaknesses are and how we can make them stronger.
Which leads me into my writer's tip
Whenever you read someone's work and they ask, "What do you think of it?" follow the "Good News / Bad News" style.
Good news - Tell the writer something they did good about the story.
Bad News - Tell the writer something they need to fix and how to fix it.
If you keep it simple to one or two bad news items, that's great. You don't want to overload someone with bad news and only have one good news item. Make sure they also stay equal (1 good news for every bad news). This will avoid overloading as well.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
I write to allow my soul to live. I write fiction to allow my mind to live. I write literature to allow my body to live.
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