Creative Writer Welcome Mat

[cw_owner]

This week's new members:
magnoliadreamer, melissabrewer, marrymejuana, black_nata, perfectvictimv2, nicole_1123, whalewords, justaeuphemism, kismekate, miyukiryuu, krispyxf, mezzafrezza, farmerxofxmoors, xtiny_dreamerx, coconutvi

Welcome to Creative Writer!
This is your official welcome mat, an introduction to the fun which is our community and an entreaty for you to join in.

How does it work?
Creative Writer is an online version of a writers' group. While writing itself is usually a solitary occupation, what all writers need is contact with other people who can give feedback, answer questions and, as with all professions, provide guidance and a learning environment. While all artists create their work, they can't create in a vacuum.
A writers group provides that environment. Here you are able to post excerpts from your work and receive feedback, here you can learn from other writers, here you can contribute to others, here is a safe place to grow your talent.
So welcome to Creative Writer! Jump in, have some fun, any questions, feel free to ask at any time.

A little history
Creative Writer was born in March 2001, the brain child of Joe Morris, who was looking to make a place for new and seasoned writers to hone and show off their craft. Some time after that, he passed on the community to BethAnna, who revamped the site and injected her own sparkle into what soon became a group of over a thousand members.
Unfortunately in February of 2006, Joe passed away suddenly and BethAnna's life was thrown into turmoil. With the assistance of Anarch, Creative Writer was kept alive and well until BethAnna returned.
In June of 2007, BethAnna decided to pass on the baton to the current maintainers - Windcharmer & Anarch. windcharmer is the maintainer of the Library of the Four Winds, a network of LJ writing communities of which Creative Writer is now a part.
Any queries are welcomed by the both of us.

Community calendar
There are a number of regular events designed to inspire our members and we hope you find them useful.
Monday - Round the table - Members are encouraged to talk about their current projects and progress, ask questions, brag about their word counts and achievements. Tell us what you've been up to, before we pounce on you and ask what happened to that novel, or how that piece of poetry is going. We like to hear how you are all doing.
Tuesday - Blockbuster - Stuck in your writing? Don't know what to write at all? Need a direction? The Blockbuster is designed to give you that start. Sometimes all we need to do is sit down and write and the words will start to flow. Take the challenge and let your muse loose.
Wednesday - Weird word - English is a wonderful language, it is full of some of the strangest words. Expand your vocabulary to include the weird. Use the word as a challenge to write or simply as a curiousity.
Thursday - Topic - Once a week an aspect of writing will be chosen for discussion. No matter how much you know or don't, every writer knows something about what they write. Share that knowledge. Writing is not a black and white discipline. Every point of view counts. Share what you know.
Friday - Question - The question can be anything...about writing, characterisation, a challenge, anything that sparks either amusement or writing.
Saturday - Welcome mat - A welcome to all our new members that week.
Sunday - Maintenance and Library of the Four Winds Challenge - windcharmer performs maintenance on all the communities of the Library of the Four Winds every Sunday morning. There will be no scheduled post unless an admin post is required for some reason. Any of you looking for a challenge on Sundays should visit libraryofwinds for the regular word challenge.

Ten great suggestions to ensure your work is read
1. Remember that you are competing with other communities for attention.
2. Make sure you are following friends page etiquette. Be considerate and use LJ Cuts for poetry over 25 lines and after the first paragraph in any story work. Prose is considered poetry.
3. Title your pieces. Use the subject line to make sure it is big and bold and stands out. Make it interesting and something that catches attention from those 'skimmers' out there.
4. For Poetry, write a good introductory paragraph if the poem is long enough to go behind a cut. For a short story or novel, make sure that first sentence, and the first paragraph grabs attention. Make sure the rest of the piece keeps attention.
5. No replies after two weeks? Don't be afraid to take original post down and repost. Please place *second submission* and date of original down at the bottom of the piece. This can be removed once the piece has passed moderation. If there still is no reply, please rewrite before posting again. Please wait two weeks before reposting a piece.
6. Connect to the reader on as many levels as possible. Make your post interesting, use language that is easy to manage for the reader, write honestly. Make friends here on Creative Writer, let the readers get to know you. Consider mixing genre's to allow your work to appeal to more readers.
7. Ask yourself when you read the piece again if the piece would be something someone would make time for. Readers run short on time constantly - give them something that is really worth the effort of them taking the time to read your work.
8. Post a short story in whole. If you must post in part, be willing to post the following parts with no longer than a day or two gap between postings and have a good cliff hanger at the end of each one. Do not wait longer than two days to post the continuing pieces. Link or tag all pieces together for user friendly help to make sure the reader can go back and refresh where they left off.
9. Do not cut your short story for length, only cut for fluff. Let your story get to a full bodied 5000 word or more mark. But make every word count.
10. Give readers a chance to find you again! Tag your work with your user name. We try to do this for you as well, but if you do it, there's no chance a reader is going to miss your work if they are looking for you specifically.

Critique Suggestions
Please consider the following:
Praise
Authors: Please be aware that while you have a piece that is absolutely of value and may well be good enough to be published, critiques that tell you it is a wonderful piece when it is not finished will not help you get to that polished perfect state. The best compliment you can receive is willingness for someone to help guide you to finish with fresh eyes. It means you have a piece that is worth the further effort. If you feel that your work is FINISHED and you are not asking for a critique and do not have plans for publishing, please note your work as FINISHED. A critique will not be given, instead it will be read for 'review'.
Critique Friend: Please keep praise at a minimum until the author states that this is a FINISHED WORK. Sometimes praise can really get in the way of making necessary changes to polish a piece in process. If you do want to praise, be absolutely SPECIFIC about what your praise is for.
Feedback
Authors: Please for your own benefit, either at the beginning of your work or at the end (I would suggest at the end so that you do not influence the actual first reading)state as clearly as possible what kind of feedback you are looking for. What is your goal for the piece you are working on? This will give the people who read your work a clear picture of how to help you.
Critique Friend: When offering feedback, think about what kind of help YOU would want to receive for the piece of work you are reading. Think of yourself as the author. Be as clear in your response as possible citing paragraph number and sentence. Copy and paste the sentence or paragraph if necessary.
Elements to consider

• Characterisation: Do the characters seem real? Do they have depth of emotion, personality quirks, conflicts? Or are they recognizable stereotypes? Are their motives understandable and logical to the story? Is the good guy really a good guy? Is he lovable or at least likeable? Do you hate the bad guy? Are they believable?


• Dialogue: Does the dialogue seem realistic? Can the reader imagine real people carrying the same type of conversation the characters are holding? Is the dialogue stiff? Does it move the story or does it slow the story? Is the conversation necessary to the story?


• Setting: The reader does not know anything the writer does not tell them. If the setting is sparse in detail, does it fit the theme and tone of the story? If not, is the reader able to see fully where they are at as if they were the characters themselves. The reader must be able to experience what the character is experiencing. Is this accomplished?


• Point of View: Is the point of view first or third person? Is it consistent throughout the story? Is the story or the sentences strong enough to carry the person chosen? Would another person view work better for the story? Are each of the characters easily worked in the story with the narrative view chosen?


• Tense: Is the story written in past or present tense? Does the tense slow the story? Would another tense be more effective? Is the tense consistent throughout the story?
  
• Development: Is the story logical? Does it have a beginning, middle, and end? Are specific changes easily followed? What specific areas of the story are confusing if any? Are there sudden complete changes that leave the reader behind? Is the plot specific, or is it aimless? Is the premise cliché'? Or is it original?


• Pacing: Does the story move the reader? Is it easy for the reader to keep reading, or is the reader tempted to put the story down and not finish? Does the action progress quickly or is it very slow? Is the reader drawn into the story? How long does it take for the story to set up?


• A few other questions: What is the first impression of the story? What is the first thought? What was gut reaction after the story was read the first time? Did this reaction change after the second reading? Would you read the piece again?


• Mechanics: Suggestions to improve specific sentence structure is always helpful. Give an example, please.

Recommendations for good critique alliances

• Be honest - Be gentle, but tell the truth.


• Be thick skinned - Do not take the critique personally - ever. It is imperative (if you want to seriously write) you grow that thick skin as your work will always be critiqued, even after it is published.


• Consider comments carefully - Sometimes changes need to be made, sometimes they don't. Sometimes it is worth setting the critique to the side for a little while and then coming back to it so that you can see for yourself what actually needs to be changed and how.


• Be kind - Honesty doesn't mean butchering. Be kind. An author's work is as much a part of themselves as your work is a part of you. Lead, guide, help. Be kind.


• Encouraging - Encourage each other to your best work. The best cure for writer's block is another writer who has been there.


• Be friendly - Read the friend's page here on the community and get to know each other. This is a passionate art that can be brutal. It takes good friends to get through it and keep your passion surviving!


• Be prompt - Don't pass up a work that you just read and enjoyed without giving some insight that will help the author finish and polish their work. After you read the piece, (suggestion) come to this post and pick one or two elements that you can give some insight on concerning their work. Then give an honest kind critique limited to that one or two elements. It will mean the world to them if they get their work published!


• Look at the big picture. No nit-picking. Look at the piece as a whole. If they forgot a comma, leave that for the editor - unless they specifically ask for a grammatical review.

Also, please remember
Give and you will be given.
Write and you will receive.
But if you expect...
Expect disappointment.
If you demand...
You demand ignorance.
For a gift can only be given by a giver
And received by the same.

How to make and LJ-cut
Cut and paste the following on to your post. Place this cut after your introduction, and before the actual piece. Remove the asterisk, Either place the title of your piece or the words 'CONTINUE READING' between the quotation marks.
<*lj-cut text="TITLE OF TEXT HERE">
<*lj-cut text="CONTINUE READING">
EXAMPLE:
SUBJECT LINE: POETRY/ GENRE / TITLE / MEMBER NAME
ENTRY BOX: (Favorite line in poem:)
I often wonder how it came to be that both of us
spent so much of our lives away on other things, places, and moments.
LJ CUT is placed here
TITLE OF POEM OR PIECE
POEM

-o-o-o-
Have fun and here's to great writing!
Windcharmer & Anarch
(your local Creative Writer facilitators)