To critique, or not to critique

[plonq]

Somebody posted a story to one of the mailing lists that I follow, and I'm thinking about critiquing it for him.  I say that I am thinking about it because I'm not sure how he will react.  It has been my experience that some writers in this genre are pretty touchy about getting back anything but praise.  ("If u HATED my story SO MUCH then why did u READ it?????")

The reason I am thinking of giving this one a critique is because of his comments at the end: "In the end i hope this to be a rather long story, maybee even get published by some small company, titled: A Journey Throught the Mind of a Furry... or something like that."

In its current form his story is not likely to even get read, let alone published.  It's apparently his first attempt, so I don't want to wade in and savage the poor kid's story, but he's managed to ignore some pretty fundamental elements of writing.  Here is a summary of what I am thinking of sending to the list:

1) Read this site.
2) Add some strategic paragraph breaks.
3) Repost.

Helpful Plonq wants to give some constructive feedback, but Grumpy Plonq doesn't feel like wading through a solid block of text to do so.

Comments

[dronon.livejournal.com]

Maybe approach them first? Like "You said you wanted critique, and you should know that critique can seem pretty harsh, even though it's meant well. You sound like a new writer and etc. etc." Ask if they're prepared to take a hit to the ego and know what professional writing is like?

[plonq.livejournal.com]

I will don the kid gloves before I reply to him - though I suppose I should do that soon before the issue becomes stale. I am going to skip most of the critique and just suggest that he read Strunk's Elements of Style before he submits it to any publications or it might not even get considered. If you make an editor work to read your story he will just move on to the next one unless they are seriously starving for stories.

By the way, are you coming out to the meet on Saturday? I'm eager (and somewhat envious) to hear about your recent con-going experiences.