In our experience, you ll be able to provide more useful feedback if you re responding to what you like. After you ve selected a piece to read, the most important thing is for you to enter the author s world and to judge the book according to the standards it sets for itself. Give yourself over to it, and judge it according to its own ambitions. In other words, make sure your reactions aren t too subjective. The author s experiences may have been different from yours.
Any work of art has room for an array of interpretations.
Your own experiences are valuable in your own writing, and they may help you understand the story that another writer is trying to tell, but you have to step out of yourself a little to be a good critical reader. And completely unrealistic might not be a useful criticism of a paranormal romance or a dark fantasy novel. The best editors are readers who trust their instincts, so we suggest that you approach each excerpt openly, as a reader. And what works for one book might not work for another. Rules are only unbreakable until someone breaks them brilliantly.