I’m not an avid reviewer but I’ve done a few reviews over the last week. I was wondering what other reviewers or those who have done any reviewing experiences are.
What are the pros and cons of reviewing stories?
Have you ever had a bad experience with an author? (Please don’t name the author.)
Do you believe honesty is better than sugarcoating when reviewing stories?
Feel free to add any other comments about reviewing stories.
This is not a thread to ask for a review or promote your story!
Honesty is always better.
I did story reviews for a while and I actually recently quit. The reasons may be put into the answers 
The pros of reviewing would be that it exposes you to different storylines and ideas. I may not have originally chosen to click on a story but when I have to as a reviewer, it forces me to read the story and I may come to enjoy it. But that could also be a con 
I feel like being a reviewer also means I have to read stories that I don’t wanna read
Luckily no, everyone’s been very nice to me.
Always be nice, but honest. If you sugarcoat everything as a reviewer and/or only say good things about it, then unless the story is 100% perfect, the author has no way of knowing what to improve on. As a reviewer, you’re not just promoting their story by saying how great it is, but actually giving constructive criticism on how the author can make their story better.
Hope this helps. 
I’m open to any genre of a story as long as it’s written well. But when reviewing, you don’t know how good it is. And when it’s badly written or not what you like, you can’t just exit out and forget about it, you have to keep going for the sake of the review.
pros: getting to help people improve their story. tell authors your opinion of it
cons: some people can get angry at you if you dont tell them there story is amazing, though it depend on people, I tried terrible stories with really nice authors who listen to the advice, then I tried good stories, with authors who got angry I advice them on changeing something to improve, like how dare I imply the story is not perfect
Yes some cant handle crutique, I tried one girl who got so angry over I told her story had some layer problems,
yes, not gonna lie, I was rude to this girl. but she legit said her story was amazing, and people told her so, that it was an amazing story, it had so many mistakes, didnt look like she looked it over at all, layers, faceing wrong way doing loop animation, the first chapter been only CC
I understand people dont wanna be rude, but telling people their bad story is good wont help them.
Does anyone feel like people take advantage of the reviewers just to get more reads for their story?
I had one instance where I reviewed the first 3 episodes and all she said was “thank you”. Everyone else was nice enough to take the time to respond.
I guess some do, personally I like to get and give review before publishing, because it’s a bit late to edit the story after.
I’ve done quite a bit of reviewing over time, and ended up stopping because, whilst it is nice to be able to give suggestions and advice on way a for people to improve their stories, many people who ask for reviews, don’t care to listen.
I still remember the first one I did, and I explained things which I found needed improvement, the story’s progression was too fast and clumsy and made little sense, and after reading the story and spending ages on feedback, I was told that they wanted it that way, and they liked it, then given the brush off. It was a total waste of my time.
Since doing more reviews, I’ve come across other writers with that attitude. It seems many use free reviews especially, to just gain reads and exposure with little respect for the time it takes to not only read, but advise people on improvements for their work. Depending on the depth of feedback you provide ( I tend to cram as much in as I can, to be thorough) then this can be a seriously lengthy process, so this attitude can be frustrating.
I definitely believe honesty is crucial, it’s what’s being asked for, whether they like it or not in the end. BUT, it should be delivered in a respectful, polite and encouraging manner. Not brusque, callous and critical.
What are the pros and cons of reviewing stories?
Pros:
Cons:
Have you ever had a bad experience with an author? (Please don’t name the author.)
I have not had any bad experiences with an author.
Do you believe honesty is better than sugarcoating when reviewing stories?
Honesty would be better when reviewing stories as long as you are not mean.
I don’t do reviews anymore but when I did I definitely noticed there was some under appreciation for reviewers and some people only want reads, not a review. Reviewers are the subject of hate sometimes. This one girl started being extremely rude to me after I reviewed her story. In fact even my friends noticed she was hostile. And on my givers club this other girl got really mad we didn’t re-review her story.
On our IG group account our reviewer reviewed this person’s story and they basically pm’d us asking us to remove the review because they said they wanted to hear only positive things even though we clearly state our aim is to give honest feedback. They removed the tag from the post, unfollowed us and persisted in asking us to remove their review because they felt their story would look bad. Actually, I have noticed a bunch of authors who ask for reviews break the rules of IG episode groups.
One of the other problems is when they update and chapter is too long:
Aside from the cons, pros are you get to help people which is a great feeling and discover new stories. It’s hardwork sometimes but you did good.
Honesty or sugarcoating- depends. If you’re looking for honest feedback don’t be upset if you do get it. It’s meant to help you improve as an a author. Sugarcoating is good for those who get hurt by criticism. Both should motivate and inspire you 
I used to be a reviewer:
Pros: it helps the author
Cons: potentially hurting their feelings because some stories are just not good stories.
All I do is give them tips on how to fix it. And I’d never tell them their story is bad, just how they can improve it.
And another con is me having personal opinions on it that some ppl might not like. Cuz personally when I read a story the first thing I look at (bec it’s a pet peeve) is when a white character has black features, or is culture appropriating, although I can’t say anything cuz it’s unprofessional.
I’ve been reviewing Episode stories for about 3 years.
What are the pros and cons of reviewing stories?
Have you ever had a bad experience with an author? (Please don’t name the author.)
Do you believe honesty is better than sugarcoating when reviewing stories?