Hey there Avatar Wikians of the fanon portal!
I thought I'd make a blog to explain the current categories I use when reviewing for the FRRS since I've recently made some changes, and figured it might be helpful for anyone looking to get a review from me.
Reviewing and having useful categories for assessing is really something you learn as you go. This may not be the final list of categories I'll use, though I do try and test them out on a variety of stories before considering changing them again. And of course, other reviewers may use an entirely different set to me, or use the categories I no longer do, so this is more my own personal preference.
Currently, there are six aspects of a story that I review:
Writing Categories:
Spelling/Grammar: Technical writing. While I record every mistake that I find, I don't use a strict score when reviewing (partly because I make mistakes myself XD). Scores will be impacted by any errors I find, but major deductions will usually only come from frequent mistakes or particularly confusing and distracting errors. Author style will be taken into account (i.e. intentional choices made for stylistic reasons that are grammatically incorrect).
General Writing: An author's style, and literary techniques used to enhance other aspects. Includes how language and word choices are used to create an appropriate atmosphere and mood. Scores can be influenced by mistakes but also good writing as well. Good examples in this category don't always involve flashy word choices, but capture the right emotions for the moment and leave a lasting impression.
Story Categories:
Plot: This is the main storyline and the overall direction of the story. Aspects include pacing of events, flow between story beats, story structure, tension, and payoff of scenes. Ultimately it's about how all these elements work towards telling a cohesive story. It now includes action scenes as I don't have a separate category for that.
Setting and Context: Rather than focus on the language itself, which is covered in General Writing, this category assesses setting in a more general, worldbuilding sense. In essence, what information is given on the setting/world, and how it is delivered. The context aspect is for realism of the worldbuilding and setting.
Characterisation: How characters are introduced, the direction of their growth, and their overall portrayal in the story. For canon characters the goal is to make them feel familiar to readers by accurately portraying them as they were in the show, unless of course, there are reasons why a character may be portrayed differently. For original characters it's about making them believable and giving them a compelling arc or role in the story.
Portrayal of Themes: The meaning or purpose behind a story. It doesn't necessarily have to be some big, grand idea critiquing society, but having some kind of end goal or message all other aspects of the story are working to convey is important. It's like the "Why write this?" of any story.
If you look through my previous reviews there are some categories that I no longer use:
Organisation: While other reviewers have used this category effectively, I found for me it was hard to pin down exactly what it meant. Broadly, it was an assessment of how everything tied together and where the story was going. I found that most aspects of this category were already covered in others.
Action: Recently I decided to stop assessing action as a separate category. It was a favourite of mine because generally it scored high for most fanons, but I found it too restrictive. For non-action stories it was hard to apply it to, and in the end, action scenes are part of the plot and often have the same issues in other scenes too. For example, when a story had pacing problems or repetitive language in the fight scenes it generally had them in other scenes as well. Although it can be helpful to separate it, I decided to include action scenes in the Plot category, and any writing-related critiques of action to General Writing.
Believability: I found aspects in this category could easily be assessed in others. If a character wasn't believable then it was an issue with characterisation. If the events in the story weren't realistic then it could be mentioned in the Plot category. The only area left with realism was worldbuilding/setting, which is why I included the Setting and Context one to cover this.
Ultimately, I like to use categories that don't double up with each other (although some is inevitable). I also prefer to keep it as objective as possible and not use categories like 'enjoyment' since this can be affected by things like personal preference. There are some stories I've reviewed that got lower scores, but I enjoyed reading them since they connected to something personal to me.
In the end, this is more a rough guide rather than a strict assessing system. After all, the beauty of fanfiction and the fanon portal is that you get a large variety of stories that don't all fit the same mould, which means this reviewing style has to be flexible at times. Overall, the goal of a review is for me to point out specific aspects of a fanon that work well and some that may need improvement (from my very non-writing-professional point of view XD), with the hope that it's helpful for anyone needing advice. And I always try to include positives as well.
Anyways, I hope that explains some of the reasoning behind how I review. If you have any further questions then don't hesitate to ask. :)