Sometimes, though, the work is just damned good and there isn't much to critique....
One likes to hope....
The seasoned writer often tells me how precise my work is. Always makes me feel kind of damned with faint praise, that.
Wesley: Perhaps the whole point of this experiment is hair. Gunn: I vote he's not in charge.
'The Cautionary Tale of Numero Cinco'
The Great Write Way
A place for Buffistas to discuss, beta and otherwise deal and dish on their non-fan fiction projects.
Susan W. - Oct 27, 2003 7:54:29 pm PST #2426 of 10001
Good Trouble and Righteous Fights
deborah grabien - Oct 27, 2003 7:55:58 pm PST #2427 of 10001
It really doesn't matter. It's just an opinion. Don't worry about it. Not worth the hassle.
Nothing wrong with precise; it's a damned useful thing to be, unless you're writing something heavily spontaneous and freewheeling.
Susan W. - Oct 27, 2003 7:58:50 pm PST #2428 of 10001
Good Trouble and Righteous Fights
Well, yeah, but precise is a tool, a style. I'd like to think I'm wielding it in such a way that my readers are amused, touched, moved, what have you.
Astarte - Oct 27, 2003 8:14:30 pm PST #2429 of 10001
Not having has never been the thing I've regretted most in my life. Not trying is.
Speaking of growing, I've finally started outlining for real my "opus" using StoryView. I've been biting at the edges, drabbling little scenes with very little real idea what's going to happen. I'm stronger with character than plot, really. I'm hoping SV will help me put together a skeleton to hang the flesh of the story on.
So, I feel like this is really the official beginning of Kemar. Makes me a bit nervous and excited, and a little butterly-tummy going on. But it's begun in earnest.
Here goes nothin'.
deborah grabien - Oct 27, 2003 8:15:38 pm PST #2430 of 10001
It really doesn't matter. It's just an opinion. Don't worry about it. Not worth the hassle.
Why do the two have cancel each other out? Malory wrote precise stuff, and I go back to "Le Morte d'Arthur" over and over and over.
deborah grabien - Oct 27, 2003 8:16:35 pm PST #2431 of 10001
It really doesn't matter. It's just an opinion. Don't worry about it. Not worth the hassle.
Whoo! Go, Astarte!
Drabbles are such very good friends, aren't they? So damned clarifying. They're like a facial for the head.
Susan W. - Oct 27, 2003 8:22:05 pm PST #2432 of 10001
Good Trouble and Righteous Fights
Why do the two have cancel each other out? Malory wrote precise stuff, and I go back to "Le Morte d'Arthur" over and over and over.
Oh, they don't, not at all. I'm just not sure that this particular reader is seeing anything but precision, you know? However, he and I could hardly have more different writing styles and reading preferences, so as long as he sees some merit in my stuff, that's probably enough.
deborah grabien - Oct 27, 2003 9:38:28 pm PST #2433 of 10001
It really doesn't matter. It's just an opinion. Don't worry about it. Not worth the hassle.
Oh, crap.
I'm editing the work of one of our two newest writing group members.
It's awful. He dots every i, crosses every t, leaves absolutely nothing to the reader's own choosing, and doesn't introduce the main character until over six pages of redundant description.
Shoot me now.
Nilly - Oct 28, 2003 2:27:33 am PST #2434 of 10001
Swouncing
a little butterly-tummy going on
Good luck, Astarte!
They're like a facial for the head.
Oh, I like that metaphor.
victor infante - Oct 28, 2003 5:47:46 am PST #2435 of 10001
To understand what happened at the diner, we shall use Mr. Papaya! This is upsetting because he's the friendliest of fruits.
Shoot me now.
No, no, no! Shoot him now. If we shoot the good writers, all we'll have left is Reader's Digest. I don't want to live in that world.
I've never had any luck with writers groups. I've been in a couple of them, periodically, and they always burn me out something fierce. I've even been in at least one with some utterly amazing poets, and got very little out of it. (OK--good edits on one long poem.)
I think, for me, it doesn't force me to write, it just contributes to the background noise in my head that I have to tune out in order to write. Does that make sense? I mean, I can and do ask advice of friends and cohorts on pieces, but sitting around with a bunch of other writers? I'd rather be drinking.