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Martello posted:Tbh I agree completely. cool, here's something to help you get started. http://writocracy.com/thunderdome/critcounts.php?judge=Martello People who lost a week you judged that you didn't crit: Ariva, Week#1 Chairchucker, week#3 Dromer, week#11 Black Griffon, week#14 WHR 49.5, week#15 Etherwind, week#18 Ceighk, week#43
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Sep 20, 2014 04:11
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Kind of a while ago there killer, this is for the future and poo poo. If any of those people still want crits, they can ask me and I'll do it up. e: actually I dunno, this sort of counts as a crit: Arivia Chantilly Potatoes -20 points for writing about a creepy-rear end Frenchman agonizing over women rather than potatoes. -10 points for boring me with bad verbiage. +5 points for having the brass potatoes to lip off the judges before casting our votes. Total: -25 points His frenchman was creepy and his verbiage sucked. Good starting point for improving his lovely story. Martello fucked around with this message at 04:18 on Sep 20, 2014 |
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Sep 20, 2014 04:14
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Also at least one of those dudes is perma-probated.
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Sep 20, 2014 04:18
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lol, etherwind what a low point in the history of the dome
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Sep 20, 2014 04:19
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just saying, it's easy to sit in here and say "yeah, people should get crits!" and then miss a bunch yourself. only a few stories in the dome haven't received crits, which we're currently working on rectifying. of the 2300+ stories, less than 50 haven't received crits. that's less than 2%. So i honestly don't think it's a problem that needs to be addressed. it's working fine.
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Sep 20, 2014 04:25
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crabrock posted:just saying, it's easy to sit in here and say "yeah, people should get crits!" and then miss a bunch yourself. It's not people who just don't get crits, it's losers who get a lazy "crit" consisting of a sentence that not even a little bit helpful.
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Sep 20, 2014 04:39
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the best crit i got was from systran who gave me a crit after i said i didnt get a good crit, thanks buddy, you're cool.
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Sep 20, 2014 04:41
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yeah usually if you ask for a better one then somebody will give you one. also i'm really behind on my crits for war week. I did like 5 today.
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Sep 20, 2014 04:44
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Google Docs replaced my crits for week 99 with 17 pages of blank whiteness and I know there are some I never rewrote. The ones I rewrote got full line by lines as penance for my lateness. If you really want a crit on your week 99 story that you never saw, please let me know and I am happy to give you the same treatment. I will hopefully someday get around to redoing them all but at least a few people in IRC specifically told me not to bother. I don't wanna leave anyone hangin' though.
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Sep 20, 2014 04:54
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I have 2000 words so far, and in those 2000 words I have 4 chapters. Chapters in books tend to be like 10-30 pages, right? I guess I find myself switching gears too often and deciding to make a new chapter.
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Sep 20, 2014 06:28
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Liam Emsa posted:I have 2000 words so far, and in those 2000 words I have 4 chapters. Chapters in books tend to be like 10-30 pages, right? I guess I find myself switching gears too often and deciding to make a new chapter. There are no set rules for the lengths of chapters other than the kind of mood / pauses /aesthetics you want to convey to the reader. There are books with chapters only containing one sentence.
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Sep 20, 2014 08:04
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systran posted:I am the deuteragonist, but I will die and come back as a ghost with different character attributes, technically qualifying me as the tritagonist; but some literary critics will argue that my ghost form is actually the deuteragonist as it is more critical to the plot and undergoes more interesting character development with its complex arc. Here's the thing about giving a loser-story a line-by-line crit: usually the biggest problems are the BIG ones, a failure of plot, coherence, or character. A line-by-line doesn't help, because the problems are over-arching, even if there are a bunch of punctuation and word-choice problems piled on top of them. If a story fails on a structural level, there's no point in explaining how adverbs work, because even if you fixed all of the superficial problems, the underlying story would still be awful. Line-by-line doesn't make sense until the problems are on a line-by-line level. When they are deeper than that, a summary crit may be all that is useful or possible. And sometimes all you can say is "I have no idea what the gently caress just happened." The last time I was pontificating about crits, I came up with a pretty good (IMHO) structure of a 5 sentence crit: 1) I liked X 2) I didn't like Y 3) I was confused by Z 4) I was bored by Q 5) My overall impression was "blah blah blah" Something like that, anyway. My point is, broad critiques are going to be more useful than detailed critiques 90% of the time. Also, realistically, a lot of critiques can be ignored if you disagree with them. Not if you disagree with them like "ugh, they just don't get it!" or "whatever dad, we eat what we like!" But it's good to remember that all critiques are opinions. I have learned so much from the critiques I've received in this forum--people will say something about what I wrote that makes complete sense to me after they say it, but that I hadn't even thought of. People will point out something that I didn't even realize was missing, or something that I understood so well in my head that I didn't recognize how poorly it was conveyed. There have also been a few things that I thought were basically wrong. But if I read critiques with an open mind, and put aside my usual defensiveness, I can usually sort out the critiques that are useful. Many are amazingly useful. If you approach critiques as a pathway to validation, you are screwed.
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Sep 20, 2014 11:19
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I didn't say line-by-line though...I actually don't find line-by-lines very helpful. People should at least get a crit that explains why specifically a story wasn't successful. I agree with the thing you said.
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Sep 20, 2014 17:02
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crit fight crit fight crit fight
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Sep 20, 2014 17:03
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Maybe you could compromise: Start with your general impressions and then move on to specifics? ...and now we're offering critiques on how to critique.
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Sep 20, 2014 17:07
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Has anyone ever posted anything where the response was, "Wow. This was amazing. I can't wait to read more" ?
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Sep 20, 2014 19:02
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Liam Emsa posted:Has anyone ever posted anything where the response was, "Wow. This was amazing. I can't wait to read more" ? Yes, lots of times.
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Sep 20, 2014 19:36
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systran posted:I didn't say line-by-line though...I actually don't find line-by-lines very helpful. People should at least get a crit that explains why specifically a story wasn't successful. I agree with the thing you said. I just quoted you because what you said was funny. Crit-post was more general. We've talked about crit strategy like a billion times!
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Sep 20, 2014 19:40
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This is the worst profession revisions due Monday  Targeted low-level crits are sometimes helpful because you can fix them mechanically. You don't have to spend time figuring out how to translate a broad suggestion into action.
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Sep 20, 2014 19:56
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Liam Emsa posted:Has anyone ever posted anything where the response was, "Wow. This was amazing. I can't wait to read more" ? I've done this a bunch of times. E: echoing some other people; there's no problem with asking for crits or (better) jumping in when people offer them. sebmojo fucked around with this message at 22:56 on Sep 20, 2014 |
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Sep 20, 2014 22:11
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October's coming up. Anyone know of sites with writing tips for horror stories? Or just the tips.
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Sep 25, 2014 04:39
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Just write a little. See if you like it.
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Sep 25, 2014 04:51
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Liam Emsa posted:I have 2000 words so far, and in those 2000 words I have 4 chapters. Chapters in books tend to be like 10-30 pages, right? I guess I find myself switching gears too often and deciding to make a new chapter. I find a chapter is used as a good break, or a good transition. I think you have a pretty good instinct as to when a chapter is ending. You haven't just inserted those chapters arbitrarily right? The most vague answer is that a chapter is as long or as short as it needs to be.
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Sep 25, 2014 11:54
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Djeser posted:October's coming up. Anyone know of sites with writing tips for horror stories? Or just the tips. Don't do this. I mean this as someone who has read tips and advice and all the rest of it instead of writing. I could show you two sites of tips and they'll be different, or contradict one another. It's because while there are some universal rules for writing (And I use the term loosely) so much of it depends on the writer and their method. You've probably read a lot of horror stories in your time right? Great. Now just go an write one. Remember, you're only getting a first draft down on the page. No one likes a first draft. It's messy, or it's too long or it's too short. But that's alright because you've got it down. If you feel like it's not working at all after that, then sure, look up some tips or solicit advice and it might move something in you to make some changes.
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Sep 25, 2014 11:58
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Djeser posted:October's coming up. Anyone know of sites with writing tips for horror stories? Or just the tips. Read more horror.
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Sep 25, 2014 12:01
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PoshAlligator posted:Read more horror. I recommend Jeremy Robert Johnson. Found the guy just a week ago and he's incredible, I haven't seen a horror writer with this kind of imagination in ages.
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Sep 25, 2014 13:46
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I draw all my horror inspiration from Slenderman and online stories about pokemon games not working as intended.
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Sep 25, 2014 18:10
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Djeser posted:October's coming up. Anyone know of sites with writing tips for horror stories? Or just the tips. I don't know about tips, but I've found my favourite horror stories to read all stem from a sense of helplessness. People being trapped, people's own bad decisions dooming them, the creeping sense of inevitability, the feeling of being stalked by something that vastly overpowers you, etc. I'm currently finishing my first horror-ish novel and I just focused on writing something with all the qualities of horror stories that I like to read. So I guess the only real tip I have is to read a bunch, figure out why it scares you, and try that. Edit: After seeing Rhino's post I do actually have something else to add. I found reddit's /r/nosleep to be a great resource for writing horror because it's got so many short horror stories that aren't particularly well written or scary. Reading over about a dozen of those highlighted several common mistakes that I promised not to make in my own story and I think my writing is better for it. Anomalous Blowout fucked around with this message at 22:18 on Sep 25, 2014 |
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Sep 25, 2014 21:20
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Do you guys save chapters as individual documents or as one big file?
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Sep 26, 2014 02:04
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Cometa Rossa posted:Do you guys save chapters as individual documents or as one big file? One big file every time. If you want the functionality of both check out Scrivener.
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Sep 26, 2014 02:11
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Cometa Rossa posted:Do you guys save chapters as individual documents or as one big file? I go with individual chapters myself, but find out what works for you!
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Sep 26, 2014 02:33
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Djeser posted:October's coming up. Anyone know of sites with writing tips for horror stories? Or just the tips. I know this is going to out me as a cultural wasteland (as if the avatar wasn't enough), but for me, I'd take a note from Warhammer 40K's overaching theme that whatever horrible thing is happening to you, is perhaps the best that could happen under the circumstances. Basically, the horror is not that the monster in your closet is going to eat you, it's that being eaten by your closet monster is the preferable outcome to everything else.
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Sep 26, 2014 04:19
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Cometa Rossa posted:Do you guys save chapters as individual documents or as one big file? I've done both, and I prefer one big file. I like being able to jump from one chapter to the next if I have to. Besides, a single file is a lot easier to send to agents (just got my first full manuscript request and rejection this last week!  ) or publish on Kindle.Also seconding Scrivener. I don't use it all the time, but when I do, I like it.
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Sep 26, 2014 04:27
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Yeah Scrivener is great. It's also as in-depth as you want it to be. I don't use the cue-card function but I can see how it benefits people and I like breaking by manuscript up into chapters and then from there into individual scenes. It's pretty flexible with how you convert it afterwards as well. For a short story I can happily just use Word or write with longhand, but when I work on something bigger, and messier, then Scrivener has some great uses. As for horror. I don't think you can go wrong with the Stephen King approach. There's an art to drawing good characters and having them stumble into something bad. Even in his short stories, he creates people first. I think as much as the horror it's that which sticks out for me.
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Sep 26, 2014 11:07
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Scrivener's card function is helpful to me by making it easy to move the order of scenes around and see if they work better in a different way. I'm writing a story not set on earth, and I want one of my characters to be from the not-earth equivalent of Australia, and use a lot of not-Australian slang. The story will never visit not-Australia or meet anyone else from there. I am not sure what the better (least-awkward) approach would be: To use actual Earth-Australian slang, OR to make up completely new slang unique to not-Australia.
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Sep 28, 2014 03:57
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:Scrivener's card function is helpful to me by making it easy to move the order of scenes around and see if they work better in a different way. Is it a comedy? If so, go full Ocker. If it's serious make up new stuff.
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Sep 28, 2014 04:08
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:Scrivener's card function is helpful to me by making it easy to move the order of scenes around and see if they work better in a different way. Personally, I would think it would be better to have unique slang and idioms. Just be consistent in their use and don't slip up and mix them in with one's from Earth. And you probably know this, but let the context inform the reader as to what they mean. Unless, like Australia, the not-Australia slang is impenetrable by anyone NOT not-Australian (that hurt to write).
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Sep 28, 2014 04:10
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:I'm writing a story not set on earth, and I want one of my characters to be from the not-earth equivalent of Australia, and use a lot of not-Australian slang. The story will never visit not-Australia or meet anyone else from there.
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Sep 28, 2014 11:22
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:Scrivener's card function is helpful to me by making it easy to move the order of scenes around and see if they work better in a different way. I've found the card function handy for something I'm working on at the moment (It's a mystery story). There are scenes which work better coming earlier on so it's good to be able to move them around and see how it plays. In terms of slang, it's fine, so long as it's clear what they mean without you having to explain it. You don't want another character saying "What?" and then having it explained to them. You can have a character say they're going to use the bathroom or say they're using the kermode, point is the reader still gets the intent.
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Sep 28, 2014 12:26
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:Scrivener's card function is helpful to me by making it easy to move the order of scenes around and see if they work better in a different way.
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Sep 28, 2014 12:31
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