Knowledge Base

Inline critiques offer the ability to add comments inside the story text in an easy and intuitive fashion.

Simply click on the text you would like to add your critique to. A yellow message box will appear where you can write your inline critique and use the icons below if you want.

Inline critique box:



The Classic critique offers you complete flexibility in structuring your critique as there is no framework as with the other critique types. It’s particularly useful for critiques that look at the bigger picture and comment on plot, characterization, overall use of language etc.

When you choose Classic critique, you will see a text box above a copy of the story you are critiquing. You can decide on the structure and the content of your critique. Use the text box to tell the writer what you thought of the story. Don’t forget to be specific about why you liked or didn’t like particular things in the story and try to offer ideas for how the writer might make the story better. If you want to quote bits from the story, use the Story function to copy and paste sections of the text into your critique. The quotes will stand out in a different color text and make it easy for the writer to tell the difference between the original story and your comments.

Once you have said everything you want to say about the story, you can preview your critique to make sure everything looks OK. If you want to make any changes, just click on Edit to go back to your critique. When you’re happy with everything, send it to the writer.

The Classic critique is perfect if you like to prepare your critiques off-line. You can simply copy your critique from your word processor and paste it into the text box for submission.

For the author: When your critiquer has used the Story formatting option in marking the excerpts from your story he or she has referred to, that text is pale. If the critiquer has given you a Classic (as opposed to Inline) critique, you can change both color and size of that text, and you can also choose to eliminate the story text altogether, leaving only the critiquer's words. This may be handy when your critiquer has referenced a lot of the original story in his or her Classic critique.

For the critiquer: Choose what text you want to quote in your critique and use copy/paste to move it from the story to your critique. When that's done, highlight the text and click Story snipped. You should now see tags around the text and when you preview your crit you can see that the quoted text is now pale grey.

You find Story snipped (purple circle around it) on the right side, next to bold.

Critiquing is not a question about talent, but practice! If you feel you don't know how to crit, read the instructions HERE.

You just do your best and with time you will be able to give crits that are both invaluable and useful for the author who uses them to improve his text.

Remember to be constructive, the crits are meant to help the author, not tear him down!

It can be very helpful to read other people's crits (see here)