everything wrong with wattpad

reviews vs critiques vs edits

this is a very annoying big topic.

believe it or not, there's a huge difference between the three 😱. shocker, ik, lemme enlighten you:

a review: a formal assessment of something with the intention of instituting change if necessary.

a critique: a detailed analysis and assessment of something, especially a literary, philosophical, or political theory.

editing: prepare (written material) for publication by correcting, condensing, or otherwise modifying it.

woah, right? turns out most of these shops on wattpad barely reach the level of a review even 🥵

i actively seek reviews on my book to improve and also review books for fellow writers. it annoys the fck out of me to see these three terms interchanged. very confusing for someone who knows the difference. i usually look for honest reviews only, and i'd love a critique, but there are no professional, serious ones on this site, so i don't bother.

but guess what? some reviewers ask for a soft copy of your work to review. why? because they want to edit your so-called grammatical mistakes by slashing red here and there on your document.

now, this happened to me here on this site not too long ago. i was looking for a review, found a shop, and submitted a form. i saw the owner interchange the words review and edit, so i said i only want a review. she said okay. around a month later, she texted me to ask if she can copy my story and edit line by line. i misunderstood, thought she meant she'd copy my description only and hesitantly accepted. you can’t copy the copyrighted text on wp anyway.

again, i only asked for a review. she could’ve simply told me my book was great/bad and stated why and how to fix things suggestively.

a while after, she sent me my edited manuscript that i never asked for. and what are the mistakes? alongside actual run-on sentences and spelling errors i'm thankful she pointed out (only 20% of what she edited), she replaced 'this' with 'that'. 'is' instead of 'was'. 'in order to' instead of 'to' alone. American instead of British english. and mind you, i write in past tense and british english, so all these corrections were wrong 🤦‍♀️

i asked how she copied my copyrighted manuscript, but she didn't gimme a clear answer and said she didn't know how as well like wuut you copied mine? basically, our works on this site are unsafe. i learnt later there are mirror sites that steal our works and leave them copy-able, so that could've been the way.

another fcked up situation: someone who took pride in calling herself a reviewer told me i shouldn’t use a comma before a coordinator, and that i had that error everywhere in my story 😳 like omfg do you even know what's a compound sentence ms reviewer??? how do you have the audacity to correct things you dunno? fxking research.

moral of the story:

these three terms aren't the same. on wattpad, it's preferable you stay on a review level.

don't get yourself in something you don't understand how to do. learn and practice if you have the passion. if you do short reviews for fun, be clear about that, and don't claim you do oh-so-straightforward-and-helpful reviews we should follow 🙄

don't give unsolicited services; it could be offending 🥴

peace out lovely editors 😍✌