McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
critics and critisism - a love/hate relationship.
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: Noey on September 12, 2009, 12:55:17 AM ---It's easy to take criticism personally, but I'd actually like to know how to contact and pay a professional to review some of my writing.
--- End quote ---
If there's a way of doing that, I've not found it; just been fortunate in the side-effects of much of my socialising being congoing fandom and hanging out with authors (at the kind of conventions and with the kind of authors who started as fans themselves and still think of themselves as fans; different conventions vary widely in attitude to this.) being that i have friends who are authors with experience and willing to read for me.
The thing to bear in mind, though, is that someone with a lot motrre experience than you may well see things wrong with what you are doing and have notions of how to fix it that you can't really apply and see how to make work because they come from levels of understanding you don't yet have. The most useful critiquers to learn from are better than you but not too much.
Sully:
--- Quote from: Noey on September 12, 2009, 12:55:17 AM ---It's easy to take criticism personally, but I'd actually like to know how to contact and pay a professional to review some of my writing. I've found that the more it hurts to hear, the more true I know the criticism to be.
--- End quote ---
That's a really interesting thing I hadn't realize I take for granted. I've started reading this forum since I got back in school and have writing assignments to do.
I think you've just nailed why I'm a bit uneasy 'here' and why it feels off. As a music student, if I'm struggling? The first thing I do is call my teacher. Not having that ability scares the crap out of me. Thus, this place feels awkward to me since your peers doing the review are an unknown quality, and there is no teacher to fall back on.
Starbeam:
--- Quote from: Sully on November 04, 2009, 01:47:52 AM ---That's a really interesting thing I hadn't realize I take for granted. I've started reading this forum since I got back in school and have writing assignments to do.
I think you've just nailed why I'm a bit uneasy 'here' and why it feels off. As a music student, if I'm struggling? The first thing I do is call my teacher. Not having that ability scares the crap out of me. Thus, this place feels awkward to me since your peers doing the review are an unknown quality, and there is no teacher to fall back on.
--- End quote ---
My experience is that it's a lot easier to go to a teacher for help with music than with writing. Course, for me, that experience is also limited to playing in orchestra during junior high and high school. But with writing, I never felt comfortable going to a professor/teacher because I write speculative fiction and most were adamant that it wasn't a "real" form of writing. Or something like that. I had one professor ask me if I could change a swords and sorcery type fantasy to be set in a more modern, normal setting.
Kristine:
--- Quote from: Starbeam on November 04, 2009, 02:05:25 PM --- I had one professor ask me if I could change a swords and sorcery type fantasy to be set in a more modern, normal setting.
--- End quote ---
Urban Fantasy! ....but really, did you ask him why he would want you to do that? explaining it might have shown his bias or revealed he wanted you to experiment with different genres
Starbeam:
--- Quote from: Kristine on November 04, 2009, 02:28:03 PM ---Urban Fantasy! ....but really, did you ask him why he would want you to do that? explaining it might have shown his bias or revealed he wanted you to experiment with different genres
--- End quote ---
I doubt it would've worked as UF. Sort of like if you tried to take LotR, not change the storyline, but make it UF. I didn't ask, I just looked at the prof and told her "No." Don't know if it was a bias or what, cause the other 2 people with sci-fi/fantasy stories weren't asked to do the same. Course, their stories could be seen as being something other than sci-fi/fantasy. Not very fond memories of that class. I wrote around 75 pages(new stuff and rewriting from 1st to 3rd), but only got graded on the first 20ish, because that's what everyone else wrote, and a lot of her notes were nitpicky things that were really unhelpful.
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