A Little Rant. If you're easily offended, leave.

[MalevolentChocolate]

Quintessence Of Dust

Adversative

THIS. Thank you.

I remember being thirteen and writing a story entirely in caps because I was so lazy I didn't want to hit the shift key every time I was at the beginning of a sentence. I wrote bad fanfiction and Harry Potter ripoffs (the equivalent of today's Twilight ripoffs.) I didn't have bad grammar/spelling or use chatspeak, but that's because chatspeak hadn't been really invented yet, and I have a photographic memory when it comes to printed text -- I don't have to learn spelling & grammar the way most people do. And luckily for me, the internet didn't have a lot of writing forums yet when I was 13, so I couldn't put any of these stories up and get heartbroken by trolls. (I *thought* they were good. I even thought they'd get published.)

And I remember being a self-important 16-17-18 year old who liked to puff up my own self-image by showing off all I knew about the publishing industry, giving overly thorough critiques to little kids who weren't ready for a grown-up critique yet, and throwing around the words "Mary Sue" and "cliche" and "unoriginal" like they actually made me a good writer.

Being able to point out how bad other people's writing is does not, in fact, make you a good writer. There's a lot more to good writing than simply not writing badly.

And then I started doing workshops & meeting "Serious Writers" (writers who've won awards, who make a living off of their work, even a couple of bestsellers) -- who were invariably gracious and encouraging, even when I gave them really bad stories to critique. They don't pull their punches, but they help you up afterwards, they dust you off, and they give you a reason to keep going.

Y'all are not obligated to be kind to strangers on the internet, of course. Many of you hang out in the WF precisely to put down other people for shits & giggles & ego-inflation. Whatever, that's human.

But as someone who has benefited from the immense kindness of people far above her on the writerly feeding chain, I'm paying it forward.

Amen
The people who can't write are not the only problem.
The stiff uptight people who can see the mistakes and can criticize the right places, but don't seem capable of delivering their thoughts in a way that the other writers can accept.
I honestly think that if anyone can save this forum it will be the people in the middle, who maybe don't have the skill at writing that others have, but don't feel so superior to the new people , and can look at their writing from a different perspective.
Anyone get what I'm saying?

without critisism, one cannot excel...

instead of complaining about someone pointing out your mistakes, fix them

[Quintessence Of Dust]

MalevolentChocolate

without critisism, one cannot excel...

instead of complaining about someone pointing out your mistakes, fix them

I understand this.
I though I love to write I draw more than I write and spend most of my time on the art forums. When I come here I find that people who have to potential to give good criticism prefer to, for lack of a better word, flame people who have less then presentable work posted.
And then the writers get defensive and flame back, and so on and so forth.
I see the same thing the art forums, but I also see other instances when the criticism is presented differently, and is accepted.
Then everyone walks away with something good.
Sure there are some people who can't take it no matter how you present it. But there are many more who would benefit from criticism .
Criticism in and of itself is a difficult form of writing, because you're basically insulting someone( I know that some of you may disagree on this point) but trying to do it in a way so that they can see their mistakes and change.
Thus the reason we don't seem much good criticism is because it takes effort to write and as people have said before this is a website with a demographic consisting of mostly attention deprived teenagers. Most people don't want to spend much effort on such people.
There is a time for harsh criticism, but there is also a time for subtlety.
You need to know which is which.
Do you see what I'm saying?
smile

[Akkere]

What I don't get is why people say "I'll take critique too" and when you do criticize them there like "OMG UR SO MEAN ILL NEVER WRITE AGAIN". Um, maybe you shouldn't if you can't take criticism. There was someone on this forum that had a quote on her signature that said
"They ask you for your critique, but they really want your praise." That is very true. Is it me or do people keep getting mistaken with this forum as a chatterbox? When I say that, I mean they just do whatever the hell they want that they "think" is related to writing, but they never read the goddamn stickies. And look at the result, some announcement showed up a few days ago saying we have to not be mean but be nice to those that violated the stickies. Honestly, being soft on the new writers will never make them any better.

[reindrops medley]

The WF is currently being invaded by N00bz and trolls of all sorts. It's up to us regulars to defend our countryForum!

There are still decent writers here...they are scarce in numbers but, yes they exist.

--> I know this is considered wrong...but nowadays I seem to be judging people by their usernames. If I see a 'lol doez u lyke mah story' posted and the OP'z name is 'HotXEMOXBunnyXGurl' I probably won't even bother...unless I have some sort of witty remark up my sleeve of course. <---Does anyone else hold such prejudices? =0
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Thats right...I just dripped on your carpet~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[Firlodge_the_second]

I don't tend to look at the username. If someone types in chatspeak, I ignore them unless I want to yell at them.

[Snailbabe]

I've been spending time in Gaia Forums » Artist's Corner » Writers » Original Stories/Prose. It seems to be a bit better in there.

[Atari Maxi Splayd]

Well, unless I miss my guess, there are four pages full of people who are not only good writers, but are indignant writers who are nostalgic for when the Writer's forum was full of interesting, intelligent posts.


So my question is this: Why do you not make some interesting, intelligent threads?


I have been skimming the Writer's forum for a bit, and there are about two threads made per hour (if that) and most of those, I have noticed, are not necessarily intellectually void.

There is nothing wrong with the Writer's forum except, perhaps, that all of the good writers whine and moan about something that could be easily changed.

[Atari Maxi Splayd]

Akkere

What I don't get is why people say "I'll take critique too" and when you do criticize them there like "OMG UR SO MEAN ILL NEVER WRITE AGAIN". Um, maybe you shouldn't if you can't take criticism. There was someone on this forum that had a quote on her signature that said
"They ask you for your critique, but they really want your praise." That is very true. Is it me or do people keep getting mistaken with this forum as a chatterbox? When I say that, I mean they just do whatever the hell they want that they "think" is related to writing, but they never read the goddamn stickies. And look at the result, some announcement showed up a few days ago saying we have to not be mean but be nice to those that violated the stickies. Honestly, being soft on the new writers will never make them any better.

I disagree. A person will develop in his own time, with the right nudges in the correct direction.

Lambasting them might make 'em get better a bit faster-- or it might discourage them and not help at all.

The attitude that people here have is incredibly selfish,
"What? BE NICE?! What is this, a social website where people gather to converse jovially about particular topics?"

As a matter of fact. . . .

[Firlodge_the_second]

Because that would be giving a fish. While helpful in the short term, ultimately futile in the long-term. I'd rather see the err.. silly threads be told they're in the wrong place and gently corrected (i.e. taught how to fish) than to just make a new thread. It seems that they outnumber us therefore let's win them over to our side.

Atar, I'll be nice to the mistaken poems/stories people (on the whole but I'm not perfect and neither is anyone) because that is just an honest mistake. The 'hi, i want gold' people though? No. The way I see it, they were selfish first by not reading the stickies (or the title even) and deserve what they get, barring extreme measures like death threats and such.

[Belladonna Crest]

My logic on the matter:

Gaia now caters to the younger and tweenie-tards. Therefore, that's whose going to be posting here most. That being the catered-to audience, as much as it pisses me off on a personal level of what it's turned Gaia into these days, I at least make an effort to be nice and give justified criticism.

... Admittedly, most threads I won't post in because my brain just tells me 'If you put me through critiquing this, I am GOING to have a stroke and you can eat banana yoghurt for the rest of your life while you s**t yourself and watch reruns of Top Model. So help me... I'll do it.'

[Xilna Kithrin]

I post critiques in story idea threads, mainly since if they want ideas on orginal prose, they should post there.

I try not to be harsh too often. I usually just go "Why does that work like this? How is that possible?" etc.

If they can answer the questions, that means they've at least THOUGHT about the problems, and are trying to address them. If they haven't thought about them, I'm helping point out flaws in the idea, without saying "Well, this, this and this doesn't make any sense."

Of course, there are a couple topics where I will flat out tell someone it's stupid and cliche, and they really should just scrap that.

One is Magical Princess with the Help of Her BFFs! save the world!!one! Another is elemental magic. Sorry, if magic was real, I really doubt it would work that way, since things are too interconnected to be labeled that.

Lightning, for example, I've seen in both Fire AND Air. But the thing is, natural lightning can't exist without water, either, since it's water in the air heating up and mixing with colder air that causes the charge to MAKE lightning. In fact, all weather couldn't exist without Heat, since that's what makes Air currents in the first place.

[Ravitacus]

I don't think it's so much a decline in the good writers here, as an influx of newbs who drown out the good stuff.