Update and an anecdote
Well, I completed the final first draft I’m going to do in January. Mr. Wolf, it be called. Though I don’t really think that will be the final title. I think It’s the strongest contender of the January batch to stand up to the rigours of my redrafting and rewriting process. Mainly because I plotted it out before I wrote it, and then stuck to the plot. There are flaws that occurred to me even as I wrote the thing, and a new character will be added later on, but hey, I like it. And I hope that when I pull it out again in a week or three, I can still bare to be involved with it. I’m less confident about the other two first drafts. They staggered around drunkenly in my head, dribbled onto the page, and fizzled out. But hey, sometimes it is possible to work some of that into a decent later draft. We shall see.
The fourth story I was going to write didn’t have legs, which I found out just now after 800 words and two rough outlines. I should try a different brand of tea.
I do a slightly naughty thing. As well as being a member of an online writing group under my own name, I have joined the same group under an assumed name. The name I use is the female lead in a novel I wrote once for NaNoWriMo. I do this because I have a backlog of eight stories that need first reader feedback before I feel I can send them out. This way, I will get through my backlog quicker.
I critique a story under my own name. The next day, I critique a different story under my pretend name. Here is what I have notice. As Graham, once a critique has been received, I get, if anything, a small note of thanks from the author.
As Mrs. X, though not all the time, I often get a list of retorts or replies to a critique. Not in every case, but it has happened several times, and only when I’ve critiqued using my female pseudonym. For instance, when I mentioned that a crew of seven space pirates might be whittled down to two or three to make the story stronger, I got a long reply from the (male) author explaining how each of the crew were vital to the mission.
I critiqued a different story by the same author using my real name, and made similar suggestions (the author seems to like large casts of characters). I got a small note of thanks, but no retort.
I shouldn’t really be using a pseudonym on the site, but it has given me an interesting lesson on the relationships between genders that I had never thought about. That I had never even thought of thinking about before now. Interesting.
The fourth story I was going to write didn’t have legs, which I found out just now after 800 words and two rough outlines. I should try a different brand of tea.
I do a slightly naughty thing. As well as being a member of an online writing group under my own name, I have joined the same group under an assumed name. The name I use is the female lead in a novel I wrote once for NaNoWriMo. I do this because I have a backlog of eight stories that need first reader feedback before I feel I can send them out. This way, I will get through my backlog quicker.
I critique a story under my own name. The next day, I critique a different story under my pretend name. Here is what I have notice. As Graham, once a critique has been received, I get, if anything, a small note of thanks from the author.
As Mrs. X, though not all the time, I often get a list of retorts or replies to a critique. Not in every case, but it has happened several times, and only when I’ve critiqued using my female pseudonym. For instance, when I mentioned that a crew of seven space pirates might be whittled down to two or three to make the story stronger, I got a long reply from the (male) author explaining how each of the crew were vital to the mission.
I critiqued a different story by the same author using my real name, and made similar suggestions (the author seems to like large casts of characters). I got a small note of thanks, but no retort.
I shouldn’t really be using a pseudonym on the site, but it has given me an interesting lesson on the relationships between genders that I had never thought about. That I had never even thought of thinking about before now. Interesting.