I question honesty in reviewing and commenting on each others works. Are we really helping each other?

       Good Reviews Versus Bad Reviews

                                Part One

   As I go through different authors homepages and read the writing and the reviews I wonder about the people giving the reviews. Every writer has their own style, their own way to express what they want to say. This is understood. I personally have a few different styles that I like to work with in a few different genres.
   I always believed that the reviewing and commenting system was meant to help authors . As in, letting each other know when we see accidental misspelling and sentences that don't make sense, poems that really have no business being poems, etc..
   What I find are reviews that say, "Great, Excellent, Good Write, Love it", when I have just read the same poem and am trying to find a constructive way to say what I thought about it. If it had problems I am going to say so. But then I have seen the other reviews or comments on the same poem and am left speechless to say the least. I see mistakes that I learned about when I went to school for Journalism and Short Story Writing. 
   One thing that I know is that grammar is very important. Some spelling errors are pure accidents that aren't noticed a lot of times. Like hitting the key next to the one you were aiming for. It happens. Also, slang is in general frowned upon. Bad sentences can happen when you just aren't thinking clearly or you just can't come up with anything else. 
   I don't like questioning my own work. If I see reviews on pieces that I just don't like and don't see how anyone could, at least not entirely, then it makes me wonder if I am getting the truth on my own. I don't want pretty words if I don't deserve them. I want to hear the truth.

                         Part Two

   So, if we are going to review and comment should we be more honest? Should we be more caring about what we read? Which to me means caring about the writer, helping the writer with what we see.
   The only reason I see that it isn't all honest reviews is because I am not an idiot and that if something needs constructive criticism, then I know that others would see the same thing.
   It is NOT to be taken that I am just all out calling people liars, that is not my purpose here, with this article. I believe that people are just to concerned with upsetting the writer. They want the writer to also view their works and comment. That is the purpose of an online writing website, is it not? There are published authors, including myself here that don't rely on others comments on their work. The purpose is to share it and help those that aren't published, amateurs.
   Amateurs need published professionals, authors with experience to help them. Which means critiquing their work the best that we can whether it be good or bad. That would be more useful to them than telling them something is great when in all honesty it isn't.
   They have to know how to inlist feelings from the reader. True sadness, concern, understanding, anger. They need to believe that you are in love or can feel the lust raging through you. Be able to invision the mountains with the spring running through, the bluest of skies or the call of death. Feel the flesh burning.
   We can give what they need without hurting feelings. But is it really so important, are we walking on eggshells here? We ARE all adults here. We should be able to handle the truth. We all know that if we recieve a negative comment that it isn't done with malice.

   Maybe we should all think about this and see what we find in doing so. I didn't make a comment on a piece that I read recently because when I got to the comment area all I saw was great reviews and I couldn't do the same. Didn't know how any of the comments made could have been true . It really wasn't a good write. Good topic or not, it didn't fit, make sense, rhyme, flow, nothing. But I didn't say anything because I was in shock first of all, and because what would the writer think, seeing my one bad review to all the , "ohh great, really good, enjoyed, I understands, loved its"? That I was attacking him, because of the topic (which was a controversial one to say the least) when that wasn't it at all. Though I will honestly say that I didn't and don't agree with the topic. But that was beside the point! 
   The point is helping and honesty.

 

   

~Let me make it perfectly clear that this is not meant as an insult to anyone at all. This is just one persons opinion, one persons write, and as a published working author I may have some insight that may help another IF they WANT it. It is not my intent that we go around telling people how to write. We may just give a little advise on something if we so CHOOSE. The person can take it or not. Their CHOICE.~

~~No where in this have I expressed that people can not write and that their own words mean nothing. Everyone writes what they feel, just as I am...Every expression IS special on it's own. This is not meant for those who are not interested in bettering their work for publication process.~~

NOTE:  I left errors on the page and I am happy to say that someone told me about them. It's not hurtful, it's a helpful thing. See what I mean?!