Hopefully this doesn't become a controversial post or lose me friends on the site, but in the brief time I've been here I've noticed a real lack of effort in a number of the workshops, which should be the busiest and most thought out sections of a writing forum! I remember reading the full page of guidelines thinking they would lead to detailed critiques on people's work and a supportive community, but more often than not I see single sentence responses or posts lacking any real thought. There are exceptions of course, and I don't want to imply everyone is giving lackluster feedback, but on the whole there seems to be a real lack of effort and enthusiasm. This goes against the whole nature of a writing community and seems like such a waste on a forum which obviously contains a number of talented writers. For those who want to get their post counts into four digits as soon as possible, is that really the nature of this community? I don't mean to rant, but I came here to discuss writing. I've tried to give detailed critiques on any piece I've read and would hope to receive the same in return.
On two other sites I am joined, there are post counts, the more you got means the more respect you got. The same could go to how long you've been there. But I can tell ya, I'm just as good as anyone else, and so are you. Everyone is created equal. Or so I thought. This site is about writing, not about becoming famous.
Speaking only for myself I don't critique as much as I probably should, and I often don't have the time/energy, but when I do I always try to go into great detail.
....how do i say i agree without making this a one sentence response? i agree anarchist apple, although i also admit i have been a culprit of this at times, not giving too much thought to what i say/not saying enough, i think a nice added feature to this forum could be no less than 100 words or something when reviewing a piece?
better one sentence than none at all - which is what happens on a great many sites. At least you know someone has read your work!
I haven't reviewed anything for ages, but when I do I do put as much thought into it as I can. To be honest, aside from the whole 'being helpful' thing I find that critiquing other people's work is helpful with improving my own writing - many times I've spotted weaknesses in other people's writing that I then recognise in my own. I've only ever put 1 excerpt up for review and I was lucky enough to get great, detailed feedback, but the reviews I've done have certainly been very useful too.
I admit I have not done any critiques on any of the forums I belong to, for two main reasons - 1) many of the stories are in genres in which I have little to no experience or interest. There's nothing tougher than trying to critique a story under either of those circumstances; 2) when I do crits, I take a lot of time and tend to leave very detailed comments. Not having a lot of time the last few months, I haven't felt it fair to even start a crit if I couldn't follow through until the writer was satisfied. I'm barely keeping up with the beta work I'm doing for a couple long-time crit partners. Now that I have my excuses out of the way, I agree there is nothing more disheartening than to get a one-liner, or even a short paragraph. I would suggest looking for 2-3 people (here or on other forums) who would be willing to exchange ms for crit purposes. At least that way there's a better chance of getting in-depth comments. Not easy to find the right partners, but very much worth while once you have.
I agree and I wish there was more effort to steer people to write constructive reviews...although there is the Reviewing forum and I'm sure there's helpful stuff there. It's nice to have people pop in and tell me they like something I wrote, but it's not useful. It makes me feel like I'm not making good use of my time by spending it here. If anyone is serious about taking up shadowwalker's suggestions of looking for crit partners, I'm down.
And how good it must feel to know that your work could inspire such a great response, right? And don't you want to know that these people care about making you better? So yeah, I totally agree with you, Apple. I'm in the same boat as Lemex, though. I don't review as much as I used to, not nearly so much as I did when I first joined the site, but I do occasionally and I always put the same amount of effort into it.
I'm not looking for feedback on forums anymore - I have some dedicated bèta readers, mostly fellow writers, with whom I exchange drafts and comment. Much more rewarding to me. I used to crit at forums, but most writers want praise, not criticism, and I don't like defensive stances when I point out that someone uses the word 'very' too much. Just isn't worth my time.
