The worst criticism I've gotten on this site was when I wrote a fairly mediocre piece and called it "Burroughs Revisited". All the William S. Burroughs fans crawled out of the cracks in the walls and threw mud at me for some time. Some works of mine simply don't get much response. Either people think it's too lousy to bother with a response, or they like it, but not enough to say so. Example: see my latest work, "Beverly", at http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?t=359337. Adult content warning.
id say that 95 percent of the works in this forum are very mediocre. but, people still lie and say how good it is. no improvements ever get made. in this polite culture its really difficult to be blunt and honest without the fear of nasty rebuttals.
Have a read of "Beverly" then (see the link above) and post a response on that thread. Warning: adult content, including S&M. The graphic violent sex is bound to upset some, even on a free speech forum.
"Beverly" does sound live "bever", but "bever" is not a word. If you're trying to type "beaver" and can't spell, you should know that "Beverly" has a flat "e" and "beaver" has a long "e". They don't sound remotely the same.
lo0l, not at all what i was getting at. in no way was i tiring to criticize you. i haven't even read it yet. i just wanted to take a read because you peaked my interest. Beverly reminded me of beaver. don't ask me why. but it did. still link me please
My entry #3 above contains the link to "Beverly", or try Hip Arts and Culture/Love and Sex/Erotica/Beverly if you are 18 or over. By the way, RambleON, my signature photo, like yours, takes up a lot of space on the page. For that reason I only show mine once or twice per thread if I have several posts there.
Ha ha ha, dirtydog-- I remember your story. It wasn't 'Burroughs Revisited', it was 'Naked Lunch Revisited'-- there's a big difference. Sort of like if you called your story 'Slaughterhouse Six', or 'Ulysses 2', and then wrote something that had no resemblance or connection whatsoever to the originals... Most people weren't even all that opposed to the actual content, it was more just the fact that you were tying it to Naked Lunch. The notion of a sequel to Naked Lunch is ridiculous on so many levels... and you seemed so sure you had it! It was actually kind of cute.
Also, and I don't mean any offense, but it strikes me a lot of the 'writers' here are more like young kids who are either just starting to write or are letting off steam. Some of what they write has potential if they continue to work at it, but it's very rare that any of them would have polished their style, or are actually in a position where they can write something with real depth. Very few young writers actually succeed in writing a good book unless they've have a very interesting childhood... but even then it's a big maybe. There have been a few stories here that I found intriguing... I think one of them was written by flannelwearin' gal (or something like that) involving an evil ceremony, and I offered her some suggestions and then nothing came of it. But even if the writers here were capable of writing something with real depth, then it's almost a certainty that they wouldn't be able to offer anything in terms of constructive criticism. I can recall having posted a story on here a while ago which, while admittedly not the greatest story ever written, was dismissed as 'wordplay' when it was actually just a straightforward narrative. This isn't to say that it didn't have its faults, just that the person involved had a hard time identifying them, so just decided to apply a common criticism in the hopes that it would stick-- classic sign of someone out of their depth. It's also hard for a lot of these kids to get over their whole black-and-white concept of the world and pick something apart without doling out unnecessary compliments. It may not be nice to say bad things about people, but when a story has problems and needs to be fixed, you need to know what's wrong before you can fix it. Unfortunately, good criticism involves a great deal of tact, as well as the ability to articulate your impressions convincingly and persuasively. I'm certainly not going to take someone's advice if they write something like 'try making it more scarier', or 'wow! this is the best story I ever read! You are a genius! For realz!'. About a year ago-- egads! it's been that long!-- there was a person on here by the name of White Scorpion who acted the part of a real writer. He was always willing to give everyone a fair shot... even though his criticism was a bit dull, he had great leadership skills and a real passion for writing-- but someone banned his buddy, so he left. Immediately after this happened, everything started to go back to being safe, boring, uninsightful compliments... which I suppose is more in accordance to the rules of the site, but in terms of helping people to be better writers, it's shit. I've spent time critiquing some pieces on here and I got the impression that these people appreciated what I had to say, but it didn't translate into any kind of lively creative arena or anything at all. If we were to do that, we'd need to set out some rules... and make sure they were followed. And I'm not talking about making everyone say nice things and give each other hugs either.
I was the one who got ronald MacDonald banned. The guy was flaming me, telling me I was a piece of dogshit and worse, every day. Plus, he couldn't write. I got the impression he was a British skinhead. White Scorpion was good relative to the others who post here, and it was too bad he left. Your comment about the lack of quality on Writer's Forum is unfortunately correct. Good writers are lilkely unaware of the site and go elsewhere.
I hate that. I'd rather someone rip into me and tell me all their opinions and the mistakes I've made rather than be polite and be like "that was good". I need constructive criticism, so I can improve.
I think that you are right in what you say. Good or average writing can only come from criticism. All of our lives are interesting enough to be expressed in a good story. We perceive our lives as boring, because what we normally expirience is naturally normall to us and therefore not interesting. However our life is not normal to anyone, but ourselvs. A father of one of my best friends was an old bachelor who enjoyed dating and incesantly fighting with young girlfriends infront of his son and I. To my friend that seemed normal, to me it was not. Another friend of mine's mother had a huge flat that had so much junk in it that you could hardly move when you were in there. That was strange. She entertained a well paid job, was very organised, but still lived in a disorganised flat. To that friend of mine having a home like that was normal, but to me it was not. All such biographical information can make a good story. However what bothers me is that stories today are not discriptive enough; hence the plot apears two dimentional. As we most people have five senses, I feel we should write accordingly. We cannot not just describe what happened in the story, but what we see, hear, smell, and taste. We should discuss geographical locations, a persons financial status, social situation and background etc. If we do so, then we have written a real story.
