Help with a paragraph...

Please remember that you need fifty posts to share your work and ask for critiques or comments. While the occasional paragraph slips through, we also have new writers who simply ignore the fifty-post rule, and don't take time to get to know the forums.

Stick around, learn something about this place, then go on to the Share Your Work section.

WriterJen said:

Whoops~ sorry! I certainly wasn't trying to slip anything through.

50 posts seems like a lot~ I was referred to AW as a place to come for help with my writing. Not sure I'm up for joining in other random conversations, just to reach my "quota".

Not trying to sound snarky, just a little suprised by that rule!

Please disregard my request!

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Jen!

I hope you stick around. 50 posts is not that many. You already have 4 or so, which makes it 46. Browse the forums, ask questions, answer questions. Also, there is a newbie forum where you can introduce yourself, if you have not already.

Getting to fifty posts is easy. Just find a few interesting discussions and chime in. That's what I do, and I don't yet consider myself an expert. If anything, hang around the newbie section and welcome people. A few critiques in Share Your Work can earn goodwill, too.

As for your paragraph, I didn't notice anything particularly wrong with it. It felt a little flat maybe, but as a short snippet, I don't think it's problematic.

Attagirl.

This is a wonderful place to get help for writing, but you can take the best advantage of it when you become an active part of the forums. Even though it takes fifty posts to get critiques in Share Your Work, it doesn't take any to read and comment there.

One of the best things you can be doing to improve your own writing practice is to read and comment on work other people have posted. You'll be surprised how much you learn.

WriterJen said:

Whoops~ sorry! I certainly wasn't trying to slip anything through.

50 posts seems like a lot~ I was referred to AW as a place to come for help with my writing. Not sure I'm up for joining in other random conversations, just to reach my "quota".

Not trying to sound snarky, just a little suprised by that rule!

Please disregard my request!

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AW is a great place to get help with your writing. It's also a community, not a free editing service that you can just drop in and get help and pop back out again (actually, you technically can, if you race to 50 posts and then vanish). But if you do that, you'll miss out.

Those "random" conversations? Just because they're not all focused directly on you and your writing doesn't mean there's not a lot to learn from them about writing in general, which you can later apply to your own work.

WriterJen said:

Whoops~ sorry! I certainly wasn't trying to slip anything through.

50 posts seems like a lot~ I was referred to AW as a place to come for help with my writing. Not sure I'm up for joining in other random conversations, just to reach my "quota".

Not trying to sound snarky, just a little suprised by that rule!

Please disregard my request!

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I'm not trying to sound snarky either, but...


So...do you think the only possible help with your writing that you can get here is critique, and that discussions about writing aren't useful? Do you believe discussions about writing aren't helpful if they're not specifically about your work?

Or do you think critique from a group of people you don't know at all, from a place you don't know and with whose rules, standards, and customs you are unfamiliar, is more helpful than feedback from people you do know a bit, in a place you do have some understanding of?

Critique is far from the only useful thing you can find here.

We're not a group of people who sit around eagerly waiting to spend time critiquing strangers because we have nothing better to do. We're a community full of people, real people. If you want us to take time to help you by critiquing your work, doesn't it seem rather unfair to expect us to do so when you have no intention of giving anything back, or getting to know us? You just want to take from us?


I don't think I'd be published today if not for AW, and I've only ever posted one thing in SYW. One. Years ago. But I learned a lot by critting others (one of the best ways to learn), and by reading threads and discussions here.


Before we had the 50-post rule, we had a lot of people who would show up and immediately post in SYW for critique. Not only was it rude of them to treat us like their personal unpaid servants, but nine times out of ten they were very unhappy with the critiques offered. Why? Because they didn't know what to expect. They didn't know us. They had no idea what level of critique they were signing up for, or how seriously writing is taken here, or who the people were commenting on their work. It was unpleasant for everyone and it made those of us who DO contribute to the community feel used.

I'm not saying you're being rude. I'm not saying you're just trying to use us without even considering the fact that you're asking us for a big favor while making it clear you have no interest in actually giving anything back. I'm simply explaining to you why the 50-post rule exists, and that you'll likely both get a lot more critiques (people who participate tend to get more attention in SYW) and be a lot happier with the crits you get if you spend a little time with us first. That's why we have the rule, and we've found that things in SYW run much more smoothly, and are much more pleasant for everyone involved, when it's in place.


There's lots to discuss here. Lots of discussions. We have non-writing topics as well; we have sections about movies and TV and cooking and all sorts of things. We have sections about agents and publishers. We have places for general questions about writing (like this one). We have genre sections. Surely there is something there that you have an interest in discussing? Surely there's more than critique that you could find helpful?

I sincerely hope you do, and that we will see you around the forums. We have much to offer here, and I'm sure you have something to offer in return.

WriterJen said:

I'm stuck- any ideas how to spruce up this paragraph? Good adjective suggestions? It's too telling...not enough showing...

Daniel heard the scream and ran for the stairs of his apartment building. His neighbor, artist and actress Leah, had fallen while carrying up her groceries. He rushed to her side, but a blinding pain in his head stopped him. Or at least he thought it had.

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I'd like to help you with this paragraph, but need a bit of background information.

What was the scream about?
Why did Leah fall? Was there an explosion?
Why does Daniel experience a blinding pain in his head?

Before we even start, what Stacia said. X1000. What you get out of this place is what you put in, and if you aren't interested in discussion, critique of your own, etc. to help you develop, well, you just won't develop. So I hope we see more of you in the future, for your sake as well as anyone else's here. Because you don't learn in a vacuum, or with the trajectory of a laser.....input comes from all around, and some of the biggest breakthroughs come by tortured, circular routes.

WriterJen said:

I'm stuck- any ideas how to spruce up this paragraph? Good adjective suggestions? It's too telling...not enough showing...

Daniel heard the scream and ran for the stairs of his apartment building. first line is fine as it is....it may not be exciting, but it is a line, which is all it needs to be--dropping a few "five dollar words" in won't make it sexier, they'd be the equivalent of putting really expensive heels on a homeless woman; all you end up doing is staring at the heels, wondering what they're doing there. Don't try to dress "workman's prose" in sequins and furs just for the sake of dressing.

His neighbor, artist and actress Leah, had fallen while carrying up her groceries. this line stuck out, because the "artist and actress Leah" bit is a very clumsy attempt to insert information where it doesn't need to be. Yesterday, I was almost rear-ended. by "A big-assed Aztec or something, with a fat hispanic guy driving." And I got THAT much detail only because it was one of those horrible slow-motion accident things where you watch it coming for what feels like a mini-eternity. But I wasn't nearly rear-ended by "Tienda-operator and faithful husband Miguel." And when I go home, it will be to my wife, not to "auburn-haired mother of two and insurance company employee Erica." People just don't think like that in real life, and in narration it becomes a very transparent attempt to stuff info into the sentence. Now all that said, next question: How does he know she fell, or what she was doing? If you are narrating in omni it matters less, although it still reads a bit "convenient".....and for third-person, you'd have had to at least set up that she was walking up with groceries, etc. in a line or two someplace before, because otherwise this looks like stuff the author forgot theuir MC can't really know.

He rushed to her side, but a blinding pain in his head stopped him well, then, he didn't really rush to her side, did he? . Or at least he thought it had.

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first one is free. But if you don't participate in other threads because you consider it arbitrary and beneath you, you can, and should, expect similar treatment in return. If you want to learn, you gotta be willing to do so. Welcome to AW, and again, hope to see you around.

Quick

mlongano said:

I'd like to help you with this paragraph, but need a bit of background information.

What was the scream about?
Why did Leah fall? Was there an explosion?
Why does Daniel experience a blinding pain in his head?

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Welcome, Mlongano. Did you not read Stacia's post?

Susan Littlefield said:

Welcome, Mlongano. Did you not read Stacia's post?

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Thanks for the welcome!

I guess I opened up the quote screen and got distracted for five or ten minutes prior to posting. In the interim, Stacia must have posted.

mlongano said:

Thanks for the welcome!

I guess I opened up the quote screen and got distracted for five or ten minutes prior to posting. In the interim, Stacia must have posted.

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again.

WriterJen said:

50 posts seems like a lot

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I've been frequenting this place for seven years, and have almost 25,000 posts. I don't think I posted anything for review until I had more than 10,000.

Participate in discussions. You'll learn plenty. There's a good reason for this 50-post rule.

caw

I'd really like to help you - but I need more information. How did she fall?

WriterJen said:

Whoops~ sorry! I certainly wasn't trying to slip anything through.

50 posts seems like a lot~ I was referred to AW as a place to come for help with my writing. Not sure I'm up for joining in other random conversations, just to reach my "quota".

Not trying to sound snarky, just a little suprised by that rule!

Please disregard my request!

Click to expand...

1. I'm not sure if you are ever returning, but a couple side notes: My average is 6+ posts per day, with rarely doing anything on weekends. So 50 posts, that's maybe a week....and not of time wasted.

2. again, this IS a place for help. Stacia mentioned she feels she owes her books, in part, to time spent here. I can say I learned more my first couple months here than in two years prior, studying elsewhere. But it takes time, and more of it than "here is my paragraph, how would you fix it?" followed by running back to your desk with someone else's ideas.


Participate. Even if you don't give a shit about helping others, and I'm not exactly the patron saint of volunteerism myself, it benefits you. Immensely.