Pilgrimaging....
Jun. 12th, 2006 05:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
j_cheneyPut in a couple of hours finishing the critique I was working on. Now my 'reader' is checking my comments to make certain that I don't come off as too harsh.
I've never gotten the knack of adding smileys and that kind of thing to make the sentence "in my opinion, this might work better if you..." sound less harsh to some people. I did have one person get...annoyed...with me because I told her 'pilgrimaging' wasn't a word, and ever since then, I've been a bit paranoid about how I say things.
Turns out, 'pilgrimaging' IS a word in some dictionaries, just not my Encarta. I did apologize, but I evidently made her angry by saying she shouldn't use it. She didn't give me credit for my critique of a 70K novel. Oh, well, live and learn.
I've never gotten the knack of adding smileys and that kind of thing to make the sentence "in my opinion, this might work better if you..." sound less harsh to some people. I did have one person get...annoyed...with me because I told her 'pilgrimaging' wasn't a word, and ever since then, I've been a bit paranoid about how I say things.
Turns out, 'pilgrimaging' IS a word in some dictionaries, just not my Encarta. I did apologize, but I evidently made her angry by saying she shouldn't use it. She didn't give me credit for my critique of a 70K novel. Oh, well, live and learn.
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no subject
Date: 2006-06-13 01:34 am (UTC)Perspective
Date: 2006-06-13 01:39 am (UTC)I'm critiquing someone who writes in a style quite different from mine, and the very things that annoy me may be a strength to her. So I just don't want to offend unduly....
I included that sentence about the written critiques not having any cues from body language or tone of voice to ameliorate them.....
no subject
Date: 2006-06-13 11:39 am (UTC)It's a tough one, word choice. I ran across a use of the word "shiny" lately where I would have used "shining." Obviously it's the author's preference. I think "shiny" sounds cute and informal, where "shining" is more elegant and timeless. I thought the context was wrong for "shiny," but I didn't write the book.
However, if I *had* been asked to critique it, I would have pointed it out, because in general the prose it appeared in was of the "timeless and elegant" variety and not the "cute and informal." Maybe the trick is to lavish praise on everything surrounding the bits you don't like to emphasize why certain passages don't work.
gee, I said a lot more than I meant to!
Word Choice
Date: 2006-06-13 01:29 pm (UTC)That is the hard part, I think. When you go into a critique, you're actually looking for the things that are wrong, not the things that are right. The things that are right don't make you stop in your reading.
When you go in looking for the bad spots, you often forget to hunt for the good ones as well.
(Just ran spell check, and it told me pilgrimaging wasn't a word.....)
Re: Word Choice
Date: 2006-06-13 02:00 pm (UTC)Re: Word Choice
Date: 2006-06-13 02:03 pm (UTC)