Your overall experience on this website- helpful or not?

Discussion in 'Support & Feedback' started by Artist369, Aug 7, 2014.

  1. A.M.P.

    A.M.P. People Buy My Books for the Bio Photo Contributor

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    Yeah, WF.org is great.
    I learned a lot, loads of great people, and the lounge can be interesting too.
    It's why I keep hitting the F5 on the what's new page every few minutes :p
     
  2. Jack Asher

    Jack Asher Banned Contributor

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    I have no idea what you are talking about.
     
  3. Ulramar

    Ulramar Contributor Contributor

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    The people here are warm and friendly and helpful. They're helpful to the point where they found a confusing part of my writing and worked with me to fix it, and that's highly appreciated. Very rarely is anyone rude or nasty, which is something I rarely see in other forums or groups. It's been a positive few months that I've been here, and checking the forum is one of the first things I do every day.
     
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  4. A.M.P.

    A.M.P. People Buy My Books for the Bio Photo Contributor

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    ?
    You mean about constantly hitting the refresh button on the new posts page?
     
  5. Ulramar

    Ulramar Contributor Contributor

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    That's what I was doing until I remembered there was a keystroke for it when I read your post.
     
  6. Jack Asher

    Jack Asher Banned Contributor

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    Yes, the guy with the profile picture like this
    [​IMG]
    does not relate to your statement at all. [appropriate smilie]
     
  7. KaTrian

    KaTrian A foolish little beast. Contributor

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    Word Mechanics is a useful room, for example this sticky on how to write thoughts:
    https://www.writingforums.org/threads/italics-for-thoughts.32989/

    Reading the threads in that room has also taught me about the importance of verbs and nouns, and the economy of writing. It's difficult to name just one thread as these things tend to come up over and over again in different threads. Another thing I do is read workshop crits. After a while you learn who give good crits (there are way too many to mention, but often they are Contributors or Reviewers). Some basic stuff I've picked up have been about show vs. tell, filters, adverbs, as well as punctuation, formatting etc. You could also check out our Resource section -- lots of useful stuff there!

    I've also posted some of my and @T.Trian's writing to the workshop, of course, and we were lucky to get lots of useful crits. It can sometimes be touch & go, but what I've observed, there has been plenty of good crits in the workshop lately as well.

    If you visit our Bookstore, you can find published novels written by our members. These members often offer pretty good advice 'cause they've already gone through the process, know what editors want, etc. I've found their critiques in the workshop insightful. You can use the site's Search function to find posts by specific users. This is not to say unpublished members don't offer valuable advice -- they do!

    Thanks to this forum, I've also found useful resources for writing. One is Editor's Blog, which is straightforward with its advice but not too overbearing.

    Hope this helps. :)
     
    Artist369 likes this.
  8. A.M.P.

    A.M.P. People Buy My Books for the Bio Photo Contributor

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    Hah!
    Never even noticed what your pic was.
    Nice one :D
     
  9. EdFromNY

    EdFromNY Hope to improve with age Supporter Contributor

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    Never!! :eek:

    The positives far outweigh the occasional negatives, and I've even managed to take away some important insights from the negatives. I've continued to grow in my writing through the sharing of ideas about the craft and through the process of critique, and a few friends I've made here are helping to review my current project. One has helped me understand some subtleties of language that I would have otherwise missed. I've read several books I might otherwise not have noticed because of comments I've read here.

    Not published, yet, but I hope to be, in part due to what I've learned here.
     
  10. Wreybies

    Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor

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    My advice to you in this matter is selfishness. There's nothing wrong with selfishness, so long as you execute it from a place of generosity. ;) You learn more from giving critique (there's the generosity part) than you ever will from receiving it. The knowledge gained from the avenue of giving critique isn't supplementary, it's fundamental. When someone replies to one of my critiques in a negative or defensive manner, then I know they're not applying the dynamic offered by this venue in any sort of beneficial way. Either they're over-sensitive by nature (precious hot-house flowers with HUGE and delicate comfort bubbles) or they're new to the paradigm and they haven't slipped into the flow yet. Hopefully they soon will. :)

    If I critique your work, the person I'm indubitably helping is myself. I might help you as well, and I hope I do, but that's only ever a might. For sure, I will benefit.

    So, if someone comes back to you all saguaro cactus prickly, ignore it. If they aggressively defend against your every suggestion or note, ignore it. I know that's easier said than done, but just keep in mind that such a person has put up a wall to learning anything, either from others or for themselves, but they did provide you a piece of work to chew over and contemplate and hopefully gain some insight as a writer. You win.
     
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  11. Snoopingaround

    Snoopingaround Banned

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    Like anything you encounter in life, you get more from it if you are more "into" it. If you go at this forum very nonchalance-like and without any depth of feeling or analysis then you may not get that much from it. But if your mind and heart are into this then you get to receive more, maybe a lot more. I think you can learn a lot from this forum.
     
  12. Link the Writer

    Link the Writer Flipping Out For A Good Story. Contributor

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    Very helpful. I've learned a lot from everyone here about the writing process, and not only that, but I've made a good number of friends here. Half the time I see this as my daily hang-out place, forgetting that this is a writing forum. :D I love this place, everyone's so friendly and willing to talk about almost anything and everything. It's awesome.
     
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  13. friendly_meese

    friendly_meese New Member

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    Well...you already know that name-brand authors, the ones whose annually-published novels are always bestsellers, don't frequent writer fora. In fact, they don't even read their own emails. They have publicity staff screen those emails for them. And the contact I've had with published midlist authors is that they fire back terse, one-sentence emails in response to anything you say to them, no matter how many succinct words you use to say it. They generally don't participate in writing fora, either. While there could well be successful midlist authors who are members here, it's likely that the vast majority of the members here are unpublished hopefulls--except for the staff, who are in the business of meeting the needs of the vast horde of unpublished hopefuls rather than in the business of writing like the rest of us. But quite a few unpublished writers SHOULD be published because they're every bit as good as those name-brand best-seller writers. Some unpublished writers are even better than the name-brands. So, yes, you can get help becoming a better writer by participating in a forum such as this one. You won't, however, get a leg up in the business or make it more likely to become successful.

    For me, this forum is mostly a social experience. I come here in order to talk writing with other people who share my interest in it. Such people are notably absent from everywhere else in my life, as I just lost contact with the only other person away from this forum whom I knew who was also a writer, and nobody else I know could ever have cared less about my writing. My birth family, in particular, has never read a single word of anything I've written because they simply discount my writing as yet another worthless waste of time. When no one on earth values you for what means the most to you, you end up coming to places such as this one, in order to talk shop with strangers purely for the sake of feeling like you have some minimal amount of self-worth.
     
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  14. chicagoliz

    chicagoliz Contributor Contributor

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    Man, o Manischiewicz, Meese, I do hope that last line was a bit of hyperbole. But I agree with the general crux, that sometimes it's hard if you don't have writer friends in real life, so it's nice to come to a site such as this one. I found a real life writer's group in my local area, though, so I love having both outlets.

    You're also right that most successful published authors don't spend a lot of time on sites like this one. I do hang out on another site that does have a bunch of published authors, and it is more focused on the business end of writing, but even on that site (which you have to pay to be a member and have access to the forums), some of the authors who are most successful don't hang out as much as others.
     
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  15. Cogito

    Cogito Former Mod, Retired Supporter Contributor

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    What a whine! ;)
     
  16. Chaos Inc.

    Chaos Inc. Active Member

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    I wish there was more attention paid to the workshop. A poster will post something, a few posts ensue, then nothing for weeks. There's only a couple active at a time and I don't want to necroresurect a three month old thread. It seems like a great place to dissect a story and have some good discussion about it.
     
  17. thirdwind

    thirdwind Member Contest Administrator Reviewer Contributor

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    Feel free to critique very old pieces. Critiquing benefits you, the critiquer, as well. In fact, one of my goals was to critique poems that had no responses (I haven't even come close to completing this goal, but I will!), which means critiquing stuff posted years ago.
     
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  18. PensiveQuill

    PensiveQuill Senior Member

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    I don't have privileges for that part of the site to post my work. But I've found reading others work then critiquing it (whether I post that critique or not) has helped me with my own writing. Once I find a quibble in someone else's work, I usually find the same mistake in my own. And there I was thinking my writing was glorious...:oops:. The cold light of day soon proves otherwise. I'd like to post my stuff there, even if others trash it. But as I said, I don't have access.

    I like this site. But I think I'll steer clear of most of it except the workshop area just because I could better spend my time going over my stuff...again. :D I lose hours some days just browsing. :pop:
     
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  19. Artist369

    Artist369 Active Member

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    You ought to PM someone. You should have privileges to post by now. You only need to be a member for 2 weeks and have 25 posts. I have the same problem though. Half the time I am told I don't have privileges to post in the workshop. It takes like 4 or 5 refreshes before the "new topic" option shows up. It's some kind of glitch.
     
  20. KaTrian

    KaTrian A foolish little beast. Contributor

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    Yup, you should be able to post. If you still can't do it and would like to post something for critique, please PM one of us mods, we can help. :)
     
  21. PensiveQuill

    PensiveQuill Senior Member

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    O
    Okay. Dumb question how do I PM? I don't seem to have that option anywhere either in my profile or by clicking on another members profile. Honest, I've been on internet forums before but damn if I can find it here.
    All I have this the conversations option, which I've tried but received no response. I'm on a Mac so I don't have any right click capability.
     
  22. T.Trian

    T.Trian Overly Pompous Bastard Supporter Contributor

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    Click on a member's name and select "Start a Conversation."
     
  23. Cave Troll

    Cave Troll It's Coffee O'clock everywhere. Contributor

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    I have learned quite a bit, and had a few laughs. Though I think I chose the wrong genre to write for my first time. Also a fair amount really are picky on POV, and tense. Other than that it has been pretty positive overall, even when we have creative differences. :p
     
  24. Megalith

    Megalith Contributor Contributor

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    It's been very educating and helpful. I'm not sure what other avenues are more effective but this place works well as a place to improve yourself and your writing.

    EDIT TO ADD: And it's been hella fun too :)
     
  25. Oscar Leigh

    Oscar Leigh Contributor Contributor

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    What do I think of this forum?
    .
    I'm so sorry.
    Anyway, this is a great combination of fun, practice, feedback and learning.
     

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