#other interesting tidbits were things like being told to rewrite a specific text in the ''style'' of another text

[racke7]

I took a year's worth of writing-classes, way back in the day. And this was one of the most important things I learned.

It's not your job to "make the story better", it's your job to "help the author make the story that they want to write".

If a scene felt confusing to you, maybe just try to give a step-by-step summary of what happened in that scene (what they were talking about, what they were doing, the implications that you could read into it, etc). Sometimes you're spot-on (and your confusion is important), sometimes you just failed at reading, sometimes the author might go "wait, fuck, did I not explain this part?".

BUT.

But, very importantly, this is for writer's workshops. This is advice for how to be a beta-reader, or an editor. This is the "constructive criticism" that an author specifically asks for prior to publishing.

Don't drop this kind of stuff on someone who's already published their fic (unless they're specifically asking their readers for it). Because that just puts you into the: "unasked for criticism"-hole, and you don't want to go there.

“But let me give you the dark side of writing groups. One really dark side of writing groups is, particularly newer writers, don’t know how to workshop.

“And one of the things they’ll try to do is they’ll try to make your story into the story they would write, instead of a better version of the story you want to write.

“And that is the single worst thing that can happen in feedback, is someone who is not appreciating the story you want to make, and they want to turn it into something else.

“New workshoppers are really bad at doing this. In other words, they’re really good at doing a bad thing, and they’re doing it from the goodness of their heart. They want you to be a better writer. They want to help you. The only way they know is to tell you how they would do it, which can be completely wrong for your story.”

—Brandon Sanderson, Lecture #1 Introduction, Writing Science Fiction And Fantasy