JBI
Banned
I've posted, and now I am really afraid. Not just because no one will like my work, but because I will end up making my work likable.
Ray, you are almost making me brave... almost...
Ray, you are almost making me brave... almost...
It's a cold, dark, scary place with vultures and spiders and small flesh-eating insects.
You forgot preyer and brer
-if you wanna go for the literarty stuff good on ya mateys-the food line is right around the corner down there bout a half a mile.
Ray, you are almost making me brave... almost...
I've tried it, and my work improved about 1000%.
Honestly. My work needed to be improved. I posted it, and some real pro's came and said, basically, "Here's what's wrong, and here's how to fix it."
As long as you don't post a first draft, and have done more than run it through spellcheck, DON'T BE!
I hang out in SYW, and I'm not that evil a person. I haven't whacked a ruler a millimeter from a daydreaming kid's knuckles in years.
Sure, SYW can--and has--ripped my stuff to shreds. But 99% of the time, the critters did it nicely, and gave me gobs of reasons why. Thanks in no small part to their help, I finally wrote a kick-butt query and first 3 chapters, which led to requests for full, which led to the reason for those cool purple words at the bottom of my sig.
If you want to improve, then you have to let fellow writers read your work. Better them than half a dozen form rejections from an agent!
[/soapbox]
I think there are many ways a writer can improve, and putting your work out there for critique is one. Just think about it -- eventually, someone will have to read your work, whether it is an agent, an editor, a reviewer, or a reader. So somewhere someone will criticize your work some time. If you show it here, you may get the good suggestions on how to improve a piece, and get the motivation to polish it so that it doesn't stink in the hands of a prospective agent or editor.
That's how I look at critiques. It's not easy to detach yourself from your work, but if I want to get published, I have to. I want to look at the work and see how I can improve and polish it to shine. Sometimes just a little nudge is enough to push me. Sometimes it's also good to just throw something out there and see if it works -- if someone says, "Not really, full of holes and inconsistency, etc." then I know I need to keep working on it.
Give SYW a try.
If your WIP is relatively polished - not rough draft, not littered with easily fixed typos or possessing great gaping holes that you're already aware of (not perfect, but not "I just wrote five thousand words in half an hour!") - then I say go ahead and post. SYW isn't restricted to finished works. If you want some feedback now, especially if you're stuck, it can be a great tool.Thanks for that. I suppose what's really stopping me is cowardice. But is it worthwhile to post on SYW before you've finished the work? I'm about halfway through my WIP, although it's threatening to be longer than I'd thought it would be. Judging from the speed at which I write, it will be finished sometime after Chrismas at the earliest.