Reviewing Creative Writing

I must admit that although I feel like I have a lot of experience responding to most forms of student writing, creative writing projects typically leave me...speechless. I have a hard time knowing what to say because other than reflecting on my personal opinions about books and essays and such, I've got next to no experience critiquing lyric or narrative non-fiction projects, especially when it comes to making value judgments. All I've got to go off of is that gut reaction, that quick like-it-or-not sense you get sometimes with writing. This is a problem, because as a (not-too-distant future) teacher, I need to be able to respond skillfully and honestly to all forms of my students' writing, especially if I assign a creative project.

Which is why a paragraph or two from a recent article I was reading stood out to me. It's written by a book reviewer for an LDS publication, so the author discusses what she looks for in LDS fiction. I don't consider her an authority on the subject, but still, much of what she has to say seems to ring pretty true for creative writing in general. (And just by way of my own commentary, I think that when she says "books," one could substitute "personal narratives" or "short stories" or other forms without missing her points.)

• "I’ve heard it said there are only about sixteen basic story plots. Off hand I can’t name them, but I do appreciate a fresh approach to tried and true themes and it’s a delight when an author chooses a topic that hasn’t been done to death. Often I receive several books with the same basic storyline. They may all be good, but I’m going to review the one that has a different or new way of viewing the theme."
• "I look for good writing. I prefer books that have been thoroughly scanned by a good copyeditor, but there’s more involved than proper grammar and freedom from typos. A good writer doesn’t keep me guessing from whose point of view a scene is being viewed and he/she doesn’t arbitrarily switch points of view in the middle of a scene. Too many points of view create cluttered writing. Childish sentence structure will lose me, as will pompous over-blown sentences and paragraphs." [I wish she were a little more specific on these points, but I think I sense what she's getting at.]
• "Character development is important to a story and I look for characters I can feel are real and I want to like the protagonist. I want to see characters that grow or are somehow changed by the events in the book. I like plots that have a beginning, a middle, and an end with twists and turns that hold my attention. The setting isn’t as important to me as character and plot, but it still plays an important role."
• "Every reviewer has a few personal idiosyncrasies and strong likes and dislikes. We’re human and we each set the criteria by which we judge a novel to be strong or weak by varying standards. Some of my particular dislikes are stories based on misunderstandings that could be resolved in five minutes of honest dialog between the characters. I don’t like unrealistic behavior from supposedly mature adults, helpless females that have to be rescued by a man or a miracle, or going beyond an acceptable level of literary license when dealing with historical ... characters."

Taken with a grain of salt, of course, much of these seem to be pretty good starting points. Where do we go from here? How do you respond critically to creative writing?