So, a week or two ago, Nesh suggested someone do a review challenge, based on this old thread. So here I am, doing so.

How Does This Work?

1. Pick a spin-off (or other PPC narrative work, I guess) you've never read before, by an active PPC author.
2. Read at least one installment in it.
3. Write a review.
4. If the author has someplace to leave reviews directly on the story, leave the review there where they can see it and post a link to it in a reply to this thread. You will earn one bonus point for that. You may also need to do that if I can’t read the site, which may happen. If not, just post the whole review here with a link to the story.
5. Earn points!
6. Rinse and repeat until 11:59 pm Board time, September 10. Slightly less than two weeks.

What Do You Mean, Points?

Each review you make for this challenge will earn points based on how helpful it is. To earn points, a review MUST include:

• At least one thing you thought was done well, and why.
• At least one thing you thought could be done better, and why.

A review WILL NOT earn points if:

• Any bashing of the badfic author or anyone else takes place.
• I don't see it. As stated above, please post your review or a link to it in a reply to this thread.

For point-earning comments, "why" should include specifics like how the thing in question made you feel, the style choice(s) the author used (or could have used), how it impacts the section or story as a whole, and any other evidence for why it works or doesn't work. The success or failure of a story element should be measured by how strongly it affected you, the reader, and whether the effect seems to match the author's intent. Authors who care about their writing want to know these things; your review should tell them.

I will also award 1 bonus point for a Badfic Games review, if it’s linked here. Also a bonus point for reviewing one of my fics. Yes, I’m biased.

Each positive or negative will be worth 1-3 points, depending on how specific and clear it is and, for negatives in particular, whether it tells the author something they can use. For example:

• "This didn't work for me because I'm not really a fan of first person." - This meets the what-and-why requirement, but since it's a personal opinion and doesn't have anything else to say for itself, it would only be worth one point. Personal opinions are valid, but not very helpful to the author without substantiation.

• "First person doesn't work so well for me; I think it would be better if you used third person instead, since it gives you more freedom with what you can show." - This would probably get two points. It's a little clearer about what the problem is (lack of narrative freedom) and gives a general direction for improvement (show more), but lacks specificity.

• "This scene didn't work for me because the first-person narrative made me feel boxed into one character's head. I think there could have been more comedy in experiencing the other agent's reaction when their lust-object was thrown out of character, given how crazy he was acting, but instead the POV agent just shrugged it off and moved on, and I was stuck with her. It let the air out of the situation, and it took me out of the moment." - This would be worth probably three points, since in addition to the what-and-why, it specifically gives a reason for disliking the style (feeling trapped) and offers a suggestion for improvement (include more of the other character's side) while pointing out a specific case where the technique failed (lust-object OOC).

The same principles can be applied to positive comments, too. A three-point positive comment might look like this: "The first-person narrative really worked for me. I felt in touch with the POV character's emotions the whole time, especially when her LO was thrown out of character and her heart started pounding like that. I could almost feel the fingernails digging into her palms as if they were my own. You just don't get the same visceral details in third-person. Good choice!"

There is no point limit per review. The person who accumulates the most points over the course of the month wins! Not that there’s a prize...but Nesh has volunteered to give anyone who participates a digital bonus.

Anticipated Questions:

I suspect these are coming, so I'll try to get them answered up front:

Q. Do I need Permission? A. Heck no. Nobody ever needs permission to read things or write reviews around here.

Q. What if I've read everything already? A. I highly doubt that’s accurate. There's bound to be something you've missed. If you've really devoured the PPC whole, though, congratulations. Re-read something!

Q. What if I really can't think of anything good/bad/at all to say? A. Think harder. This is important—it's the other half of the point of this challenge. If you need ideas for things to comment on, try these (items blatantly snurched from something Miah posted a while back):

• The plot
• The characters
• The action
• The dialogue
• The background
• The overall story
• The theme
• The technical details (spelling, grammar, PPC or other canon details), etc.

Q. Isn't this whole "points" thing kind of arbitrary if you're the only judge? A. Yeah, it totally is. I've tried to make my criteria very clear, and I will stick to them, but tell you what: if you find you strongly disagree with me a lot, you can run the challenge next time. I know I did.

Q. What if I just decide to make a gazillion reviews with a squillion one-point comments? A. Please don't. The idea is to reward good, thoughtful, constructive reviews, not winning for winning's sake. If I think you're deliberately trying to break the game in this or any other way, I will throw you out of the running.

Q. Can I make multiple reviews for one spin-off, if there are multiple installments? A. I debated over this one, but yes, that's fine. Beware, however, I may not give you points for saying the same things you said about previous installments unless it's very clear why they need to be repeated. It might be easier to review something new each time.

If you have any more questions, don't hesitate to ask! I hope this will be fun, and I know I have more fun when I understand what the heck is going on.

~Linstar, the New Giver of Points and Keeper of the Scores, mostly copying from Nesh.