How to write a good comment no matter how lame the chapter

We all know that authors like commenters. I, personally, love commenters ridiculously. But it's hard to write good comments all the time. So I figured, as an author and a reader, I can tell you how to make a good comment out of a sucky chapter.

The best thing you can ever do for an author is spazz in the comments. It honestly doesn't matter what you say. It doesn't have to be constructive criticism (though that is, by far the most valuable type of comment, it doesn't have to uber gushy. At the same time, a simple:

Loved it. Update soon!

Is not fun. (Though, to be honest, I've done that at times).

So here are the rules to making a good comment:

1) Write a lot. It doesn't matter about what. Authors just like to know that reading what they wrote made you think. Whether it was about the color combination on the main chick's dress or how the description of the football game reminded you of the time you went to go see Manchester United play (or 49'ers, if you swing that way).

2) Separate into paragraphs. Just looking at one long block of text is enough to make people dizzy.

Simple, right?

But, worldclass! you moan. How are we supposed to find a lot of stuff to talk about?

Easy. It's honestly really easy. Here's things you can include:
1) parts of the chapter you liked
2) parts of the chapter you thought didn't fit or were weird or unexpected or badly written
2) random evidence-less guesses on what will happen next
3) random spazzing for those epic scenes

-->Personally, I love these. When I kick out something that I hope is epic and someone comments about how they nearly threw their computer out the window or that they jumped around the room screaming, I love it.
4) character development
-->come on. with a lot of the stories we write up here, it's either about the sheer epicness of some band emo, or the emotional development of some character(s) (or, to be fair, both). Comment on that. How has the character changed from the beginning. Where do you think they'll go next? How do you think this chapter will affect them, if at all?

But what happens when it's a filler chapter?

Well, one option is not to comment. But "filler" chapters are often the ones that set up for the next bit of drama. Or they're the chapter where all the cute stuff happens. So there's a lot of spazzing to be done there. Another option is to just guess on what'll happen next. Or to tell them randomly about something that happened in your day. Or talk about a previous chapter. One good idea, though, is to spazz about character development. No matter what the chapter, you can always spazz about character development.

Anyone want to add advice or just agree/disagree? Comment below!
March 16th, 2011 at 07:47am