Ok, so I thought it would be fun to do a little informal critique on each other's fiction. The idea stemmed from
blessed_beast's
The Icon Truth Meme, for icon makers.
THE GREAT WRITE MEME- Comment with your username, and those willing shall reply with thoughts on any fiction, fandom or original, that you compose. That means it does not make a difference what
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It's not just about typing errors and wandering apostrophes, it's about stepping away from your work long enough to give it an honest revision. I don't know who your regular betas are, but work with them longer, or get more than one revision; it's frustrating and time-consuming, but in the end it's worth it. When something's crafted with care it always shows.
The alternative is something jarring and uncomfortable that pulls a reader out of the flow of text; multiply that by several hundred magnification and order when it's plot and dialogue.
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With my current projects I've actually made a real note to slow down, we'll see if that sticks.
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I think where there are weaknesses in your work, at root, they come down to the nuts-and-bolts of writing. The phrasing is sometimes quite awkward. One thing I notice is tonal shifts, where weirdly formal words intrude into what's otherwise quite a casual, colloquial POV. I find that jarring. There's some off imagery in places - one that made me wince was dicks waving in the wind from Scenes - but, generally, what I notice ( ... )
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As to the nuts and bolts: Yes. OMG yes. I try and pick up one or two basic things with each story, get my beta to pound some basic principle into my head. Or to get down the cease fire terms with my beta, telling her what she should and shouldn't comment on, etc.
And then there are the days I'm sabotaged by my fingers. Damn them and the fact that they like their apostrophes.
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And until that time, I think you should stop making posts like this one. The hypocrisy is overwhelming, my dear.
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I was talking about basic communication on the internet. Which I thought I'd made fairly clear, but I suppose I was wrong.
I was refering to emails I get where the author uses "ur" instead of "your", or "i" instead of "I" or never capitializes at all, or just writes in one long block of text that involes so many ideas it's hard to seperate it all out.
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It's hot and wonderful and I get a bit tipsy on the slow, easy realization of love between the characters. You never leave out the humor and I never have a problem seeing your characters doing exactly what you're describing.
Thank you so much:)
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I don't want everyone to worship at my feet. I really, really don't. I guess you just don't hear about the concrit I agree with, because well-- I agree with it. And there's a lot.
I agree with a lot of what's been said tonight, I also disagree with a small section of it, I guess my LJ has been my venting point and it just gets more of the angry than the good.
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This is what confuses me, because I spellcheck. Constantly. I think maybe what I keep missing are the homonymns, either that or my dictionary got corrupted somewhere along the line.
Some stories get multiple pass throughs, and still look like they were unbeta'd. And beleive me that's very-- disconcerting.
As I said above, I have patience issues which I'm trying to work on, my current fics are coming along far more slowly for several reasons, one of which is my own purposeful slow down. It's not that I give up on it, it's that I-- well I honestly think (especially with the last one) that there are possibly a handful of errors left and that the fresh eyes of readers will catch them far more quickly.
As for the LJ post. I agree with the sentiment, just not the expression of thought.
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