Writers' Workshop General Chat Thread

[AceTrainer14]

Hey all! There are only a day or two left if you want to apply to be a moderator for the Writer's Workshop, so if you are interested in getting involved more in the community, make sure you get your application in pronto!

Also, the Winter Awards Nomination Period is nearly over! We have nominations in every category now, which is fantastic, but we only have one nomination in Best Crossover/Non Pokemon, Best Dark, Best Antagonist or Best Newcomer. Surely a story by a new author has been posted in the last few months set in the world of Mario where everyone has been killed by Voldemort that could be nominated... or something like that! But anyway, make sure you get your nominations in before Sunday when they close, though due to time differences and such it is best to get them in sooner rather than later!

 

[Lugion]

As much as I'd love to help out around here as a mod... I'm not sure right now if I can commit to it or not. I'm just starting school again after all.

 

[Caite-chan]

I went ahead and gave it a shot for the Mod spot.

 

[Sweet Veil]

I wish I could, but I'm just not a big reader...

This is a big problem with the Workshop, not talking to you specifically but just saying in-general.


So many people expect to get reviews and critique for their fics., but they don't actually read other peoples' stories themselves. Yeah, we're busy with rl, homework, etc, anyone worth their salt is, but I don't have a problem reading stories, it only takes around 20 minutes at most to finish a chapter of a story on here because most aren't even that long to begin with. I've managed to nearly finish every chapter of System Error's fic. by reading them in class during my free time on my 3DS and a lot of stories on another site. Like I said, if anyone expects to get reviews or ask someone to review their fic. at least offering a review exchange would be a good way to go about things. "I'm not a reader" isn't an excuse imo.

I find complaints about the length of story to be completely irrelevant, if a story is quality, like SE's imo and it's a bit on the longer side I don't mind reading it as long as I'm enjoying it. If we were all just a little less lazy and a bit more active this fanfiction section of Bulbagarden would be doing a lot better, we'd also attract more people here. Another problem I that should be highlighted is the quality of reviews and critiquing we give, post about small things that happen in the chapter and leaving it at that doesn't seem like quality reviewing. Actually going in-depth and looking piece by piece at things seems more helpful for the writers, I also think we should all be a bit more stern in our reviews, for example sometimes I felt like people were holding back their true feelings when they reviewed my past fic. and that didn't help my writing skills at all. It's when you're honest and somewhat stern that I feel the writer truly improves and looks at things from a better angle, sure it hurts but YOLO that's the modus operandi that helps most.


There are so many good fics like Survival Project by @diamondpearl876; that get little or no critique because people judge the story by its length.(It's not even that long) Or are just lazy, be the change you want to see is what I always say.

 

[Caite-chan]

Some people may not know how to write a review (me being one of them) though I did try on one fic that I found. It seemed to work because the person loved the review. I blame @Gama because reading his review of my story seemed to help when I was writing the review for the fic I was doing.

 

[Legacy]

Reviews don't have to be anything special. Just random thoughts about what you've read is just fine!

 

[AceTrainer14]

@Gotpika: Interesting points you make. I personally try to read as many as I can, but that can be difficult amongst my own writing as I have fallen seriously behind with my current batch of fics that were meant to be done last week. I think some people do find an issue with length, and length can seem very different online, especially with the set up of Bulbagarden. I've spent a lot of time changing backgrounds in order to find one that makes stuff easier to read. Some of my stories are really really long, so I can understand why that may put people off, but I think that we should try not to let length get in the way.

To both you and @Caite-chan, I don't reviews however necessarily have to be really in depth. @System Error recently read one of my stories (I sadly have only very slightly returned the favour, I apologize ) and gave me little thoughts for each chapter as a group and then posted one massive insightful review that I found extremely useful. From that, I think that getting a generally insightful review once every so often would be more helpful than analyzing each chapter.

I think the idea of reviews is a good topic to discuss, and I think we may have our next Writer's Academy theme...

 

[Caite-chan]

I do try and read others work because it really is only fair but unlike an actual in your hands kind of book I find it hard after awhile to read long stories on the computer. Mostly it's because of my eyes. And I'd hate to stop in the middle of something and continue later because I'll forget what I've read and then have to go back and read it again.

 

[Flaze]

I have a lot of problems with reviews honestly. I mean it's not that I don't mind reviewing but I just don't know how to review other stuff deeply like others say. I'm the type of person that misses the little details a lot of the time and I myself don't know a lot of the technicalities that come with writing so it isn't that easy for me to write an in depth review.

 

[Caitlin]

but we only have one nomination in Best Crossover/Non Pokemon

*cough cough*

 

[Flaze]

Have a cold?

 

[LightningTopaz]

::sends OJ and chicken soup just in case::

 

[Legacy]

I could go for a nice hot bowl of miso soup.

 

[Kihote]

I finally have most of my life organized enough to get more free time for actually reading some of the fics around here @_@

Know any fics which are popular and loved by everyone so that I can avoid those and go for the ones just starting up which get little attention? I tend to like those more for some reason XP

 

[Gama]

I finally have most of my life organized enough to get more free time for actually reading some of the fics around here @_@

Know any fics which are popular and loved by everyone so that I can avoid those and go for the ones just starting up which get little attention? I tend to like those more for some reason XP

Just look for fics that have no or few replies. There are plenty of them on the front page.

 

[Ahnyo]

Hopefully I'll be able to get myself to start reading some fics by the time the Spring Awards come up... if I'm going to read anything at all, I should probably get that dumb English assignment done first. Maybe that's why I've lost interest in reading... English class was pretty stressful for me last year, what with all those boring books we had to annotate in a certain amount of time. That was around the time when I stopped reading novels in my free time, too. @_@

 

[Kihote]

Hopefully I'll be able to get myself to start reading some fics by the time the Spring Awards come up... if I'm going to read anything at all, I should probably get that dumb English assignment done first. Maybe that's why I've lost interest in reading... English class was pretty stressful for me last year, what with all those boring books we had to annotate in a certain amount of time. That was around the time when I stopped reading novels in my free time, too. @_@

I hate how English classes are supposed to make you learn to love reading, but many times the sheer amount of work or dullness of the material makes people want to never read again, which I think is something schools should try to prevent >.>

 

[Caite-chan]

I finally have most of my life organized enough to get more free time for actually reading some of the fics around here @_@

Know any fics which are popular and loved by everyone so that I can avoid those and go for the ones just starting up which get little attention? I tend to like those more for some reason XP

I have a non-Pokemon story going if you're looking for something of that nature. It's based on wrestling out of character but you don't need to know any wrestling to understand the story. There's actually very little wrestling for the time being.

 

[LightningTopaz]

I've started Brock's Minami adventure "The Song of Jewels", if you like an anime story with slight fantasy elements

 

[Ahnyo]

Advertising our fics, are we? I thought he asked for some popular stories so he could avoid reading those... |D Well, Plasma's Folly is my particularly unloved dark sci-fi/drama take on Pokémon White Version. The topic has a lot of posts on it, but almost all of them were just me posting new chapters.