Help, or possibly advice, from the peanut gallery?

[grundyscribbling]

Will preface this by saying that if sulien is thinking this is awfully coincidental, she's absolutely right - replying to one of her comments got me thinking.

I know as an author I love "meaty" comments. The ones where someone doesn't just say 'well done' or 'I liked it' but reacts or gives details about what they liked. These are the sort of comments I want to be able to leave as a reader. They are also the comments I feel I am worst at writing. (Seriously. Me trying to write one of those comments typically involves much flailing and handwaving, not all of it figurative.) I can say 'I enjoyed/liked/loved it!' but would rather say more.

Is there something I can do to get better at more substantive comments? I know Dawn Felagund has linked comment starters before. I'm not looking for a starter so much as a 'how do I get my brain to more reliably crystallize what about a particular story I liked/why I liked it?' And I need to convince my brain to do this in a timely fashion - while I've had some success with adding 'comment on [story]' to my to-do app*, in general if I don't comment right away, I don't comment.

*Yes, I have a to-do app. It's the one app that is on ALL my devices. It is key in getting me from the 'I thought about it' stage to the 'I did it' stage, not to mention extremely helpful in making sure I get repetitive but non-daily chores done on the regular and not just when I happen to think of them and am not distracted.

Comments

[heartofoshun]

When I really like a story and don't feel creative enough to leave a substantial comment, I often try to pick two or three (or even one!) quote from the story that moved me or that I thought was particularly cogent or that made me think, "I wish I had written that!" Often if I mention one or more of those it kick-starts my brain. If it doesn't, then I can tell myself that I love it when people appreciate a sentence or a phrase I use. (Afterall, we struggle to express ourselves so it feels great to know that someone noticed.)

If that doesn't work I might tell the writer how it made me feel--"made me laugh," "made me smile," "broke my heart." That's just me, of course. I don't have any self-consciousness about saying what I feel.

Worst comes to worst, I appreciate "Well done!" or "I really liked this story." So, something is better than nothing! Sometimes I just feel so low and yet I enjoyed the story, so, if it is on AO3, I give it a Kudo. (I hope Dawn doesn't come after me with a stick!)

[grundyscribbling]

I don't think I've used your 'quote from the story' technique very often. I'll try that and see if it helps - thanks!

I always at least leave Kudos on AO3, but I need to get better at actually commenting - I'm terrible at it.