Leo Walsh's picture
Leo Walsh from Cleveland, Ohio area is reading "The Underground Railroad" and "Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?" January 10, 2017 - 1:47pm

I am reading a submission without dialog. And yet, the review asks me to rate the dialog. It would be nice to have an "N/A" selection, and adjust the review to average only those categories not set to N/A. 

bethwenn's picture
bethwenn from Milwaukee is reading The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann January 10, 2017 - 1:56pm

N/A would be helpful. When there's no dialogue, I usually just dedicate that category to rating the narrative voice and then explain that in my comment.

helpfulsnowman's picture
Community Manager
helpfulsnowman from Colorado is reading But What If We're Wrong? by Chuck Klosterman January 10, 2017 - 9:29pm

Hmm. Good point. I'll bring it up. In the meantime, bethwenn's suggestion is a great one. I've also rated the dialog as the average of the other categories (in other words, if the average score before rating dialog is 3, then I give it a 3) and explain I did so in order to leave the total average of the story the same but still put in a rating. 

Bellbird's picture
Bellbird from Virginia, USA is reading On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous January 13, 2017 - 8:03am

I wondered about this, too. I've been puzzling over how to rate submissions in 1st person POV, or non-fiction essays that often contain litttle or no dialogue. I like bethwenn's suggestion to rate the narrative voice overall in those cases.