UK based Short Story

[Smiling Curmudgeon]

Leslee, yup.

Author, you appear to believe honest critique is not a good thing. Do you think a new writer improves if she/he gets raving comments when the writing really, really needs lots of work? How will a new writer learn without honest/brutal comments? There are lots of boards where one can get happy, happy. Tell me how those boards help a writer more than what happens here.

Cur

[martin shaw]

Some people will post stuff for comfort: show off (in a good way) get a general perspective, to test, to experiment, and some people write faster than others.

Some people can take eons to write a single but brilliant paragraph.

One could only deduce a person is lazy by their continual posting of drivel, week in-week out. For that I am guilty... cuff me with pink fluffy handcuffs, and put a baby elephant mask in-between my legs. I shall ride myself to sleep, dreaming of flying round a big-top, shooting my peanuts at your petulance.

Oh, I’ll give you both barrels alright!

[Author Pendragin]

@Cur,

No, I don't think it's a bad thing, I'm just sticking up for the little guy. Not every facet of every critique is always warranted. Some remarks hit below the belt and leave newbies comforting their dedicates while wreathing in pain. I'm saying that critics, while experienced, should be somewhat gentle when getting their points across; frustration isn't always the best way.

[leslee]

"I'm saying that critics, while experienced, should be somewhat gentle when getting their points across"

YOU can be as gentle as you please. The rest of us will comment as we comment, and as long as it is not personally attacking the person posting, it is within WN rules. You don't get to dictate how anyone else behaves here.

I don't see anyone being hard on Ian, anyway.

[Jena Grace]

"A lot of times though we can't get past bad grammar or punctuation enough to comment on the story itself."

Well? That's true. Clean up the grammar, clean up the punctuation, and then post it. More people will read and comment on it.

Everyone is entitled to their share of typos (I make many, many myself) but most of us here can tell the difference between typos, and errors committed by an author who was either A. in a big fat hurry when he wrote it, or B. didn't know any better. If the author doesn't realize his errors are errors, he'll certainly find out soon enough. If he's just slapping stuff up on the spur of the moment without bothering to even run a simple spell check, what is the point of THAT? Why are we teaching you how to SPELL? And if someone wants to run something by without a thorough critique--kind of a "does this grab your attention?" thing--that's absolutely fine, too, but for God's sake, clean it up first.

[martin shaw]

point taken

[Amy Lou]

I want the honesty to stay like it is, that's why I like it here. No one sugar coats their words to spare my feelings.

[Author Pendragin]

@Leslee,

It's more of a suggestion.

@Jena

I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm saying that it's not always beneficial to add onto the dogpile. New authors have different states. I had a hard time seeing the best advice until I learned that critiques were based on my writing and not on me. That's something new writers must learn in order to progress. I've also found that a little bit of understanding goes a long way as well; sometimes it even helps get the point across.

[Jena Grace]

Author, at this point I don't think we're even talking about the same thing.

[leslee]

Jena, you got that right. I'm not sure why this issue even came up on this thread. Nobody is abusing Ian!