Meliha, as another newbie I also can fully relate to the feelings you are having when you read a writing yet stop just short of attempting to write even the shortest of reviews. It applies to about all creative projects in my opinion. Somebody creates something they are proud of, they display it in front of others, of which many may be real knowledgeable experts, and we fear hurting their feelings because some of us figure they only want a pat on the back, and that is not what the rules say we are supposed to do in a review. My game plan is to at least get a bit of a feel for the writer and try to give them the level of review they ask for and I am capable of. If it is a writer's very first time posting for review AND the author tells us that he/she is fragile and for us to take it easy, well I guess we can do that and safely not hurt their feelings. BUT, how much will such a newbie author learn from this? I see both sides. I do not like hurting people's feelings either, but sometimes we have to toughen up a little or we can never learn how to get better at our chosen craft. With Creativity the same type of logic seems to apply to a wide spectrum of art, such as writing a book (imho). Not everything is the same, of course, but the general idea of reviewing seems to work well for people in other creative arts as well. I fully expect to get ripped by a review upon my first review-post. That is because I happen to be a guy of many hats, but a writer is the newest hat I have.... in other words I am about as "green" (new) as a writer can be. I am 45. When I was in Tenth grade High School I once got an -A Plus- on a Creative Writing story I wrote in class. It was my first clue I could write anything well enough. We had 35 students in the class. I had a ripped faded jean jacket and a long hair image at the time and to my SHOCK the teacher picked MY paper to read to the class (what a shocker! I wanted to die, I mean I had worked soooo hard on my outlaw "Sweat-Hogg" image just to lose it all to that teacher trying to make me look good!), only for me to latter FLUNK the class because I was too stubborn to care about things called Verbs and Nouns. hahaha. So people like me need a lot of help in proper use of word structure/grammar and spelling. However, like most here, I have my reasons for believing I have a shot at this. Once I post my work I will have to brace myself to offset my general emotional personality. I would think by the time most writers post their writings here for review that they must be to a point in which they feel they are well on the right track and are seeking help beyond all of their self done proof reading. I can recall writing a paper over and over about a dozen times until I was SURE I had it perfect. I showed my girlfriend of the time and she found about ten mistakes on the first page!! Argh! As long as one words there review right, nobody should get offended by getting help at improving their writing skills. Anybody priced Creative Writing 101 for 13th Grade recently? It's more bang for your buck here! We don't have to burn a person at a stake just to say the plot seems weak. Just like anything else, even being trained for the first day on a new job, We may make mistakes and get told more than once about the right way to do the job, but we should not take it personally, likely the boss is simply trying to train us on a timely bases and it's easy to take such comments personally. Wow whenever I post my writings here everyone is going to think I just made up that story about tenth grade English class. lol Terry
There are an awful lot of threads in the reviewing room that have to be locked as these people have not critiqued anyone elses work. Now firstly I think this rule is a great idea. Not only does doing this help ones own writing, as well as the writer's, but it also builds a strong team on the forums and a great atmosphere. When I first joined I received a lovely welcome pm. And when I introduced myself cogito welcomed me but also explained the rules in regard to this. It has struck me that not everybody introduces themselves, or bothers to read the stickies before posting their work. As locking these threads takes up space on the forum page, as well as creating extra work for the moderators, I wonder if it would be a good idea to include these rules in the welcome pm? Squire
This is just my opinion, but I suspect that you could flash the review room guidelines in neon across a new member's screen and have them bellowing out of the speakers and there will still be this same issue. When I first signed up I didn't even make a welcome thread, but I did lurk for a while and reply in the less structured areas until I got a feel for what was going on. Soon after, I started doing reviews (badly most of the time) and probably had 20-30 of them under my belt before I submitted a story for review. You know what I discovered? I learned much more from doing reviews and trying to make sure I was doing a good job of it than I did from receiving them.
Hello to everyone.. When I browsed this site I was instantly truck by the beauty of the idea of it. Thank you for having me. I became a member just yesterday, and was very excited to post 1 blog. I did not fully understand some of the rules before I did. I am fortunate enough, however, to come here and read the "Suggestions and Feedback" section of this forum. I shall make amends. I'm having the same issue that AK has mentioned above about not being experienced enough to critique someone's work. How then should we proceed? -jene
How do you proceed with Critiquing? I honestly think that the best policy is to get stuck in. Everyone has something to offer with these things, from old hands to newbies. I've done a couple of reviews so far (4 or 5 I think) and though I don't have much experience in them, I went from my gut instinct, kept it polite even if I didn't like the work and I think that some of my stuff was useful to people. I even got a PM from someone saying my insights were very helpful. So having no experience isn't a drawback, and anyway experience only comes through practice so if you want it, get in there and critique! If you mean how do we proceed with the issue of people not following the rules, well I think that what we're doing now is all wew can do. Sometimes people just don't read or follow rules, and I'm not just talking about here.
for those of you who are short on experience/knowledge, the best way to help is to not try to critique like a pro, but just give your opinions as a reader...
Hi everyone, I am a newbie too, and will very shortly investigate methods of critique, am a novice writer , so will be much more comfortable reading than post what I hope turn out to be the rough stage of diamonds. soaked up all comments, pleased to meet you all. April.
Speaking as a 10th grade English teacher, I can totally believe your story about 10th grade. I sometimes try and encourage the strengths of my students, but you're not the only one who is very creative and capable but stubborn as an adolescent. ;-) It's all part of the growing process, though, and look how you turned out! It's a pity your 10th grade English teacher couldn't be reading your post now!
As a part of this thread, I think that I've been a little reticent to post my stuff on the forum mostly because I like to think in the back of my mind that maybe it could be publishable one day. And should I choose to publish it, I don't want to have blown my chances because I've posted it here on the forum. But I do have to say that I'm wishing people were a little more interactive in terms of giving feedback, especially when it comes to contests. There's really no reason why on this forum, which includes tons of members, only 10 people should be voting on the latest short story or poetry posts. It doesn't really mean much to win a contest when the voting pool was so small. Honestly, even if I lose, at least I would be challenged to win next time if I felt it was worth my time. So, since we're on this conversation, it would be great if everyone felt the need to get involved in reading, not just writing. I realize that Trailer Trash is also saying that it's pointless to bother critiquing if people are going to be posting disorganized, barely self-edited stuff. If this is a deterrent for critiquing than we should be trying out best to post good stuff here, regardless of whether we consider it publishable or not. I am saying this not to diss the forum, btw. I have found it very motivating to my writing and I have read some amazing critiques and feedback on here. It's well-organized and there are plenty of people who really seem to care about their writing and are committed to mentoring people as well.
I would love you to critique my snippet of writing. I obviously haven't posted enough constructuve critiques to post and because Enlgish is not my mother tongue, I don't even feel comfortable to do so despite having studied English for almost 17 years (including my elementary school years). And I would love to know sb else's opinion on my writing. I mean, how can I give a constructive critique when I think I CAN'T WRITE and in order to write, I have to critique, but I think I can't write to critique well enough. Vicious circle. It seems there's no platform to start from. Nobody will take my critique into consideration, 'cos I'm a rookie with English as a second language.
as a writing mentor and tutor, i work with many writers whose first language is not english, so if you want a private opinion, you can send the first couple of pages of your work to me by email... i'll give you a detailed assessment of the quality of your writing that includes suggestions for ways to improve it and explanations of why something is wrong... love and hugs, maia maia3maia@hotmail.com
You get a feel for how this site works, if you spend time on it, looking at everything the authors have submitted, and also at what other members have said in critiques. I have been struck, since joining nearly two weeks ago, at how helpful MOST of the members try to be, with their critiques. There are lots of different kinds of published books out there, and people read them for lots of different reasons. There is no one single sure-fire way to write a book or story or poem or script, and I believe the members on this site recognise this fact and are willing to delve into what an individual is trying to create. This is the liveliest writer's forum I've encountered so far - by a long shot! I like being here, thus far.
