Anyone on Scribophile?

Southpaw

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I haven't heard of Scribophile. I read their little blurb, but I'm still not too sure on how it all works. Do you mind giving me your two cents on the site?
 

James L

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I put the same work on blog, listed below. (Short story section)

Though it's not as fun as reading all the comments other people have on it. Perhaps I should start that account back up.
 

tko

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Scribophile is one of the best things that's happened to me. Lots of serious writers, many published. You can easily get 4 critiques per chapter, with solid feedback. Yes, you have to work hard on critiquing, but that only improves your own skills. It's a serious investment, not a hit and run, boot camp on the web, you need to network and reach out.

The Scribophile software that runs the site is amazing. Custom developed for this purpose, it keep track of posts, authors, groups, karma points, everything.

http://www.scribophile.com/authors/thomas-omeara/

What is your profile? I would like to read the work of some of the AWers.
http://www.scribophile.com/authors/maggie-mcguire/
 

M.S. Wiggins

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Interesting post. I was just researching their website today. In fact, the tab is open at the top of my screen. I haven't joined yet...
 

Fruitbat

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I thought the people were nice on Scribophile. But of the several writer sites I've been on, it had the lowest level of expertise and was largely newbies leading newbies. That's been a couple of years ago though so it may have advanced by now.
 
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Dennis E. Taylor

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It sounds, at first blush, a lot like Critique Corner. Same concepts anyway, although the mechanics might be different in detail. Without knowing more, though, I'm not sure I'd gain anything by belonging to both (this isn't a criticism, it's a Request For Comments).
 

Fruitbat

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It sounds, at first blush, a lot like Critique Corner. Same concepts anyway, although the mechanics might be different in detail. Without knowing more, though, I'm not sure I'd gain anything by belonging to both (this isn't a criticism, it's a Request For Comments).

I don't know of Critique Corner. Do you mean Critique Circle? I thought the critiques on CC were pretty good, the formatting for them helped get good detail. I've only used more than one site at a time when I put out more writing than one site could get to in a timely fashion. Otherwise, I usually moved on when the site I was using no longer worked well for me anymore, for whatever reason.

After a few years of getting the common mistakes ironed out, I don't feel the need for as much anymore and usually just stick with my one critiquer. However, when I did use online critiques a lot, I preferred the "no system" system here to any of the others I tried. There's no token system, no waiting, and no cost. I liked just being able to slap it up there when I was done without having to wait (with the other systems, even though I'd earned my tokens by critiquing other writers' work, I'd still have to wait and then only get a set number of crits before my turn was over, regardless of the quality of those critiques). To get the best critiques anywhere, you have to sort through and get acquainted with who's reliable and good, then try to develop partnerships with those people. So the additional restrictions of the critique "systems" just got in my way. Good luck!

I don't find the quality of the critiques themselves differs much by site. The difference has been in the quality of the discussions. Some boards (like this one) have many experienced authors who know what they're talking about and others, especially the smaller ones, are mainly rank amateurs who don't know what they're talking about.
 
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Winfred

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Scribophile is one of the best things that's happened to me. Lots of serious writers, many published. You can easily get 4 critiques per chapter, with solid feedback. Yes, you have to work hard on critiquing, but that only improves your own skills. It's a serious investment, not a hit and run, boot camp on the web, you need to network and reach out.

The Scribophile software that runs the site is amazing. Custom developed for this purpose, it keep track of posts, authors, groups, karma points, everything.

http://www.scribophile.com/authors/thomas-omeara/

Greetings TK!

Thanks for sharing with your post and thanks too Snowpea for creating this thread!

Did you copyright your story before you submitted it to Scribophile?

I was wondering as one would be especially rewriting at that phase and maybe for that reason not best to copyright at that time... yet not sure what the best advice is on that.

Also, what happens if you've written, like me, a 30,000 word novella and in turn I end up assigned to crit a 150,000 word novel?

Do Karma Points have some effect on stabilizing that?

Do novella authors crit only other novella authors etc. or what?

MERRY CHRISTMAS! (well not everyone is Christian and I'm not exactly as I'm part Native American, a blend of religions)

Kindest Regards,
Winfred
 

Winfred

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Helping about Scriptophile and mentioning Critique Circle

I don't know of Critique Corner. Do you mean Critique Circle? I thought the critiques on CC were pretty good, the formatting for them helped get good detail. I've only used more than one site at a time when I put out more writing than one site could get to in a timely fashion. Otherwise, I usually moved on when the site I was using no longer worked well for me anymore, for whatever reason.

After a few years of getting the common mistakes ironed out, I don't feel the need for as much anymore and usually just stick with my one critiquer. However, when I did use online critiques a lot, I preferred the "no system" system here to any of the others I tried. There's no token system, no waiting, and no cost. I liked just being able to slap it up there when I was done without having to wait (with the other systems, even though I'd earned my tokens by critiquing other writers' work, I'd still have to wait and then only get a set number of crits before my turn was over, regardless of the quality of those critiques). To get the best critiques anywhere, you have to sort through and get acquainted with who's reliable and good, then try to develop partnerships with those people. So the additional restrictions of the critique "systems" just got in my way. Good luck!

I don't find the quality of the critiques themselves differs much by site. The difference has been in the quality of the discussions. Some boards (like this one) have many experienced authors who know what they're talking about and others, especially the smaller ones, are mainly rank amateurs who don't know what they're talking about.

Hi Fruitbat!

I wonder if you're maybe referring to several years ago when you mention: “(with the other systems, even though I'd earned my tokens by critiquing other writers' work, I'd still have to wait and then only get a set number of crits before my turn was over, regardless of the quality of those critiques)” Maybe those sad facts are still true, yet just maybe, only maybe, where since your long passed experience Critique Circle decided to have staff start looking at crits and making sure (how they can over maybe thousands...) they are substantial. It seems maybe the “set number of crits” is still a hard fact, and the waiting, however, at Critique Circle if you get their “Premium” membership they give you 3 points which is enough to post your writing for crit right away. What does “right away” mean? Maybe “right away” still means a week or two possible time premium membership or not and a one time deal. Critique Circle site states: “Members submit their stories to the story queue, and pay credits to do so. Only a certain number of stories will be displayed each week (more information on this can be found*here), so you may have to wait a week or two for yours to come up, depending on how much queue activity there is.”

The Critique Circle members give a score to the member who critiques. Critique Circle states: “The author of the critique does not receive an evaluation score for each critique, but instead an average score, updated every five critiques. This means they do not know how you grade their critique, so you are free to be honest.” This seems a major difference over Scribophile.

At Scribophile they have “Karma Points” that add up if you click on their list of positive adjectives about your critique. “The critiquer will earn 0.01 karma points extra karma points each time you click on one of the reactions. They'll also get a note in their info feed letting them know that you've liked their critique.”

They also have another type of point system that adds to your Karma points it sounds like. “Reputation points measure your reputation around the site. It's a way to keep track of where you stand in the Scribophile community. You start out at 0, and as people like and react to your critiques and forum posts, your reputation goes up.”

It sounds like the writer who posted their work would know who and how much that member added to their score, which could lead to I think score inflation as one gives points maybe to another if they give points too, a big difference from Critique Circle's design.

That's my newbie view on that and anyone knows different I'd like to know. Hope I've helped with your wondering about Scriptophile too Snowpea! Thanks for creating this thread!

Top of the Day!
Winfred
 
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