Please come and talk to me. Just for some general writing chat and support...

[BiglyBadgers]

I am about a third of the way through editing my stupidly long book (this'll teach me for writing epic fantasy) and need some chat!

I really loved the chat and support on the nano thread, but now novel writing month is long gone and I am alone! There must be other people out there bumbling along needing a friend to chat to...surely....I can provide coffee, cake and excellent free WiFi

Hey Honey! That was you? Thanks so much for the critique. It's not crap at all. I've only skimmed it so far but there are loads of useful points and I am now dieing to get home so I can do some editing.

I'm glad you liked it

Who is doing the critiquing on scribophile?

It's a real mix. There do seem to be some published authors in there and people who say they are editors or agents, but I think it is mainly amateurs. I don't think it can replace professional evaluation, but can help pick up some issues before you spend the money on a professional.

You have to build up points by reviewing other people's work before you can put your own up. Get the impression that if you are active and make friends you can start to build up networks and have good people review for you.

The work I have read so far has been mixed quality wise, but I did critique one particularly good piece yesterday.

I will join in and have a look later got my first 10k words done and off for initial feedback. Don't think I'd have managed that pace without you lot so thank you!

Whoop! Go Queen!

For those interested I have already had 4 critiques on scribophile and they have all been really helpful and encouraging. They have made some good points and helped correct some of my grammer issues. I'm pretty impressed with it and don't think I would get anything as thorough or helpful from my friends (who would all be too nice and don't have the experience). I've gained a couple of followers as well, which is exciting.

I think I'm going to step away from it for tonight and go through them all properly in a day or two when I have calmed down a bit from all the excitement.

That's really encouraging Bigly. Do you have to pay to subscribe to scribophile...there seemed to be two options a free to use service and one where you pay a subscription when I had a quick glance at the website?

I signed up for free. Don't have my editing head on today though will come back to it when I'm a bit more alert. Like it so far

I'm using the free version for now. I might treat myself to the paid one at some point in the future if I keep on using it, mainly because I think it's important to support good software and services like this. The paid one also has some extra useful, but not essential features.

I'm on 6 critiques now and pretty pleased with them. Though I did just have one American correct all my English spellings to American ones (changes recognise to recognize) and tell me they find it hard to empathise with the character because of her 'apparent sexual orientation'. I think she should probably avoid the rest of my work. Rather a large proportion of my characters are gay or bi. It might blow her mind.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry at that one.

Do make sure you check everything before implementing any changes. I noticed two reviewers had gotten some things wrong.

Yes Queen, there are definitely bits I will quietly ignore. A lot of the things I found useful are the stuff I was sort of wondering about anyway or not sure about. Also some areas, such as confusion about who is talking is brought up by most of the reviewers, so clearly an issue. I'm reassured to know that if anything I have too much world building info in the chapter as I had worried I didn't have enough!

I figure you are never going to please all the people and you have to choose what to take or leave. I'm going to put some time aside to sit down and go through it properly to decide what changes to make. If nothing else it's just nice to know people enjoyed it and wanted to read more

If anyone joins and wants to share usernames on here I would be happy to follow you and swap crits. We can form an unofficial mumsnet posse ;)

Don't think I'm likely to post on there, it would drive me insane having people incorrectly correcting me

You can request reviewers don't bother with the grammar/spelling stuff and just give feedback on the plot. I specifically asked for grammer checks because I am rubbish at it (you would never know I have an English degree and Humanities MA!) and it's easier to check someone's suggestions than rely on my own. For me I think the helpful stuff outweighs the rubbish stuff on balance as I don't have any other reviewers I trust to give honest feedback. I would want a professional to go through it before I published properly anyway.

That might be helpful. All those strange eyes on it weirds me out a bit though

My first drafts always come out atrocious on the grammar front. I should know better, I was a copywriter for five years. People paid me to correct them

It is a bit weird Queen, when you put it like that.

How is everyone else doing?

What's happened to Witch? Hope the panto went OK and there were no terrible wardrobe malfunctions.

I'm here. Tearing my hair out as we have the first dress rehearsal on Sunday. I have a half finished princess walkdown dress that looked great when I designed it but am not convinced it's going to be up to walkdown (when they bow).
And a parent who's decided their child needs to have the most expensive onesie as a costume and wants the budget to cover it-it's twice the price of the walkdown dress, and if I'd used that money for that I'd have bought a ready made one.
And the director, who isn't answering any messages and I really need his confirmation on a couple of things that if I don't order by tonight won't be here in time....
And ds is home ill (ear ache) dd2 has back ache and I should be in the work shortly.
Bad temper are us right here and now.

But when it's over and I've stopped sobbing and shaking in the corner I'll try and join to read your chapter.

Oh and the good news is my washing machine's broken (at any rate it fuses the house when going) so at least that means other people will have to do all the washing. Usually we get about 2 volunteers to do it, who are also the people that do everything else too, and I do the rest. So this could be very interesting.

That sounds hectic, witch! Hope it all goes smoothly for you in the end

Deep breaths and happy thoughts Witch. I hope it all going well on the big night

I hate about 75% of them at present. I do usually go through that stage about this time. I might like some of them a little in a couple of weeks.
I glitter all over, and so does the house. Unfortunately the dress I was sewing doesn't seem to be glittering as much as it should be. I give up!

I have no doubt it will be beautiful Witch! It's like when you are two thirds through a story and you suddenly hate it and vow you will never write again, but then you do a bit more and suddenly it's not so bad after all.

I just cut down a load of backstory from chapter one after going through the feedback I got from readers and now feel so much lighter. I had been worrying that I didn't have enough world building, so had over done it I think. I needed some people to tell me it was too much to give me the confidence to strip it back. Of course, I did have a couple of contrarians says there wasn't enough world building, but I'm ignoring them because they are clearly fools.

For anyone interested scribophile has an 'ask me anything' with a guy about marketing self published work. I'm not sure whether he is coming back to answer more questions, but he did do an interesting post about paid advertising in response to someone's questions.

www.scribophile.com/forums/publishing/125328?page=1

Bigly...Just another thought...if you submit your work on scribophile - can your work be pinched? I know this sounds really vain to think that someone might pinch my work but I think it is a fairly original book that addresses a specific issue (just my own thought clearly) and some of it is written from my own experiences so I would be devastated if someone quickly copied it and attempted to publish.

There are quite a few threads on their forum with people being concerned about this.

To be honest I think it is incredibly unlikely. Firstly they have to find it and think it is something they would like to sell. Second it is a draft so obviously needs work from them to tidy up and get ready for publishing, which is a lot of work for someone who doesn't have the knowledge. Thirdly you have put it online and it is recorded and date stamped. If someone straight up plagerised your work you would have good records to sue the hell out of them and I imagine scribophile would be very keen to support you on this as it would be terrible for their business.

The word on the site is that they have been going for years. Quite a few users are published and nobody has ever heard of this happening even once. Of course people might read your work and be influenced by it, but that's life and not necessarily a bad thing. I would love it if people read my work online and suddenly started writing female dominated epic fantasy and sending it off to agents. It would demonstrate a market and probably make it easier for me to sell my work.

Sharing is always a risk, I suppose, however you do it and whoever you do it with. However, their are a lot of benefits and in my view they outweighs the risks. You have to put your stuff out sooner or later after all. Doing it online is more and more standard practice these days and I don't think there is a huge issue with plagerism of whole books.

Now photography is a whole different matter. I have a very talented friend who is constantly having is photos used without permission. On occasion by very rich and reputable companies! However, putting them online is part of the deal these days and he just has to manage it when it happens.

Checking in as this thread dropped off my list Not much progress this week but have had some positive feedback on the story so far. The person I gave it to wants to become a copy editor so it's getting quite a thorough look over and I should receive a full report soon

I haven't critiqued your story yet Bigly, I haven't had the brain power temporary hormone induced stupidity How's it going? Have you had more feedback?

Hi Queen!

Glad you're getting positive feedback. Wow, I need a friend who wants to be a copy editor. Do you think she would like to be my friend to?

Looking at how many crits other stories get I think I've done pretty well. I've had nine so far and I have made a lot of improvements thanks to them. I'm much happier with the chapter now than I was. I found exactly half the crits wanted more backstory and half wanted less, but the split seems to be between fantasy readers who are used to not really knowing what's going on and non-fantasy readers who freak out a bit at being dropped into a strange world. It's pretty interesting in that respect. The data nerd in me is loving looking at the correlations.

I've just been making changes where they feel right or confirm my own feelings about the work and ignoring ones that don't resonate with me. I think for the next chapter I'm going to try just putting it to people following me or in fantasy related groups and see if that makes the feedback more consistent.

It has made me look at my writing in a new way and I am adjusting a few of my plots and characters as well as tidying up bits in the chapters I haven't put up yet. I think chapter 2 will go up tonight or tomorrow.