Instead of saying: "The main character's dialogue was good, but the side characters all sound the same." or "The main character's dialogue was good, but the side characters all sound the same. But you did a really great job on the main character's voice!"

Instead of saying: "This is confusing."

Instead of saying: "You lack creativity."

• Unless the author has specifically asked for it, don't get hung up over word choice or line edits.
• Sticking to the bigger picture is the best choice.

Characters

Instead of saying: "No one is going to understand why your main character ran away."

When critiquing a peer's work:

Every critique is an opinion, but it's also important to make your critiques objective, when it comes to letting your personal enjoyment of a genre, or liking of the writer themselves, factor into your criticism. Furthermore, it's also nice to enjoy the critique process as well. It's difficult to...