Getting useful criticism on the Internet

Spun off from the "how do you know if you're a good writer" thread. On this site, I can ask for help with small sections of stories, but I don't know of any site where I could post full stories and reasonably expect to get good criticism for them. (I'm not sure Fictionpress counts—this was the entirety of the comments on one poem that needed serious revision. "i luuuuuuv narwhales =)" "ha nice, my kind of ridiculous. read my story Escapee?" "HAHA OH I LOVEEEE YOUR MIND! :D" "I frickin' love you. Ohmigawd.")

Be really popular, so people will flock to your work. Then you're more likely to get someone to crit ya.

—is still trying to make that happen.—

edited 1st Nov '11 1:29:08 PM by MrAHR

Give another person the kind of criticism you want, to establish a feedback loop.

Nearly every official critique site requires people to critique someone else's work before putting theirs up for perusal. It establishes a good working relationship, so to speak.

Find writing blogs that offer critiques, and then submit your work to a lot of them.

But what if the person really sucks at giving critique?

I'd say cross-post your work everywhere (everywhere that's relevant). That's what I'm trying to do now.

And many people are very much "I don't give good critique SO I'LL JUST POST MY STUFF HERE."

Then you get a glut.

Then people get intimidated.

And nobody EVER critiques again.

It also works with threads here, the longer they go on, the more likely Archive Panic is going to set in.

edited 1st Nov '11 2:45:10 PM by MrAHR

Trying to get a site started here, if anyone feels like posting stuff. At least I and the site admin will both attempt well-thought-out critiques of anything new that goes up. It's got a point system, which will only really become useful later on (read: once the number of active members is greater than two), whereby you earn points by reviewing stories that offer them, and if you have points to give you can give them out as rewards for reviews.