When I received my first crit my jaw dropped and the person that did it was being kind. It still stung. My imagination was ready but my writing skills definitely were/are not.
After the shock wore off I engaged the person and she helped me by offering advice, books, techniques, podcasts, friendly PM’s. After a month I went back and read what I had sent her and did nothing but sigh and roll my eyes on what I had written, it was BAD and she was right. I always run my stuff by her first and slowly but surely, the red ink has gone down.
As Devil Leadbetter said, I also only crit pieces I enjoy or see potential in (not doing crits on stories I believe are bad). I try to help because I see the exact same mistakes I made when I began. I hope it comes across positive and I try to emphasize the good stuff but some people only see what they want to see.
Most new posters in the SYW forum don’t bother reading the “Some Advice for Newbies” and "HOUSE RULES" (I did) and they post stuff up written on a napkin at dinner time, no spell check or formatting at all. They talk back to those doing crits “I don’t agree” or “What do you know?” I can’t do anything about people like that and really have no clue as to what they expected (universal praise I guess).
I see many of the names here who have done crits in the SYW forum and every time I read a great crit I add them to my contacts. I send PM’s all the time, send reputation and its amazing how many people thank you or send it right back. The people on this forum are fantastic and the bad ones usually get banned right quick....no wait, quickly...dang adverb...QUICK!
After the shock wore off I engaged the person and she helped me by offering advice, books, techniques, podcasts, friendly PM’s. After a month I went back and read what I had sent her and did nothing but sigh and roll my eyes on what I had written, it was BAD and she was right. I always run my stuff by her first and slowly but surely, the red ink has gone down.
As Devil Leadbetter said, I also only crit pieces I enjoy or see potential in (not doing crits on stories I believe are bad). I try to help because I see the exact same mistakes I made when I began. I hope it comes across positive and I try to emphasize the good stuff but some people only see what they want to see.
Most new posters in the SYW forum don’t bother reading the “Some Advice for Newbies” and "HOUSE RULES" (I did) and they post stuff up written on a napkin at dinner time, no spell check or formatting at all. They talk back to those doing crits “I don’t agree” or “What do you know?” I can’t do anything about people like that and really have no clue as to what they expected (universal praise I guess).
I see many of the names here who have done crits in the SYW forum and every time I read a great crit I add them to my contacts. I send PM’s all the time, send reputation and its amazing how many people thank you or send it right back. The people on this forum are fantastic and the bad ones usually get banned right quick....no wait, quickly...dang adverb...QUICK!
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