I have to agree with RavenSoul though I would like to word it my own
way.
I have many stories I could submit to you but all of them fall under the "I
don't want these" list.
You said not to post fantasy, sci-fi, horror, romance, porn, western, or
any other genre. Isn't that the mass majority of fiction written? I mean. I
write erotic / porn / bondage stuff mostly. I even write *Gods forbid*
vampire porn alot. I write romance and sci-fi and fantasy. It is already
difficult to get your writing submitted to the site with present standards
but I see your standards being harder to work with than the site standards.
At least I know that if my story is good enough, they will post it.
And about the chapter thing. I don't think it is possible for me to write
just one short story. Every story I write is in chapters. The only stories
I have written that are not in chapters leave you going "Well that was
incomplete. What the hell happened after that!".
I'll try to come up with something for your fiction workshop but it leaves
me forced to write for you instead of for me. I'd love to be the first
victum (hehe) but I just don't know what to submit.
I think the fiction workshop is a fantastic idea. But it harder to post to
it then it should be.
[Edited on 4/1/04 by EyeCandyRayce]
____________________ Suicide Hotline - Please Hold
Anya
Extreme Fanatic
Posts: 656 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 31/3/2004 at 09:20 PM
Whoa, whoa RavenSoul...add a bit more etiquette to your posts. Structural
criticism is okay, but you almost sound like an angry bat from Hell on that
one post...sorry, just you do. @_@
Alright, back to the original programming, lol.
Zero
Fanatic
Posts: 459 Registered: 15/2/2004 Status: Offline
posted on 31/3/2004 at 10:21 PM
I'm all about the fiction workshop, I'm writing something thanks to the
advice of a freind.... but i was wondering if the story were good but broke
a few of your rules would you still give it a shot?? i like the idea of
everyone ripping into my story like a virgin on promnight (i like that
joke). and i beleive my stories do need the criticism. (I'll try not to
take it personal)
[Edited on 1/4/2004 by Zero]
____________________ "It is a fool's prerogative to utter truths that no one else will speak." ~
The Sandman, Dream Country
Meranda_Jade
Fanatic
Posts: 511 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 1/4/2004 at 12:42 AM
Um yeah... Figments still isn't finished, but I am still working on it. I
don't think Toy Dolls is finished either, for that matter. I also think
those were started before the rules about chapters came about, and at any
rate, I wasn't intending to send a Figments chapter to Britva. I don't
think the workshop is necessary to getting something submitted, it's more
of a critique forum, if you want something of yours critiqued. I was
actually planning to send something in, to see what happened. (I'm like
that. Give a situation and I just HAVE to go and see what will happen with
it.) I still might do that.
The rules in place for the fiction workshop are just that. For the
workshop. Nothing else. The fiction workshop is optional, nobody who
doesn't want to use it has to. Britva isn't saying he's an "expert" or
better than everyone else; he's offering something like a writing class
that people can take or not AS THEY CHOOSE. I wouldn't have called my
college English teacher a literary expert either, but she did help me get
some perspective about my writing when I really needed it.
Basicaly, what he did was give an open assignment. Write about something
real. Pick a story, everybody has stories in their lives, and write it out.
It doesn't have to be about someone dying or vampires or sci-fi or fantasy.
It can be about anything that happens in the real world. He wasn't saying
that all people should just write about real stuff. Just stories submitted
to the workshop should be like that, and short stories, not long chapter
books. I think everyone really misunderstood what was happening here.
And Squire, people don't have to participate if they don't want to. It is a
completely voluntary thing. If you really want to get it going that badly,
you submit something before getting on everybody else to.
____________________
Britva
Moderator
Posts: 37 Registered: 1/8/2003 Status: Offline
posted on 1/4/2004 at 01:18 AM
Response to Ravensoul: I think you're getting a little confused. My
guidelines for the fiction workshop are not my guidelines for good writing.
In fact, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a bigger sci-fi/fantasy
junkie than me. So, to set the record straight, I love genre fiction in
all it's forms, I love serial fiction and novels, and I love death, chaos
horror, and maybe even a little vampire porn.
Second, this workshop is not replacing the article submission process.
Anyone is still free to submit fiction, journalism, porn, whatever, to the
almighty masters of this site. The workshop is an alternative, not a
replacememnt.
I set up the fiction workshop guidelines for a reason, and I think you've
proven my point rather well. Too many beginning writers use genre
conventions and violence as a crutch (i.e they rely on them to create drama
because they can't come up with anything more interesting/original). If
the only stories you can think of that don't involve killing and aren't
genre fiction are "those little stories from baby books" then I think
you're leaning on a pretty big crutch. There's a whole world of human
experience out there waiting to be related. Instead of whining about how
the things you've already written don't conform to my guidelines, why not
see this as a challenge to do something different and extend your
capabilities. Maybe develop some new skills?
As to who made me a "fucking expert on what's good or not".... uh, nobody.
And I never claimed to be one. The reason I set up this fiction workshop
is that I was asked to. Well, actually I was asked to write an article
with writing tips for beginning writers, but I thought this would be a
better idea, and so did the site administrators. I was aksed to do this
because a lot of people read the stories I posted here and liked them.
That's it. If you don't like the way I run the workshop, that's absolutely
ok; just don't send me anything and don't post in the workshop forum. It's
not like this is some kind of mandatory assignment that you have to get all
pissed off about. It's just a little extra thing that I decided to put my
time and energy into because I thought it would be fun and meaningful to
some of the members here.
Response to Rayce: I almost hate to say it, but I think your post is the
best evidence yet that the workshop guidelines are doing exactly what they
were meant to do: push you out of your comfort zone. It seems to me like
you are being challenged to write in a way that you haven't tried before,
and I'd consider that a positive, not a negative. Also, I think if you
can write some really powerful, effective non-genre fiction, it will make
your genre fiction (and your vampire porn) that much better. I'm really
looking forward to seeing what you submit.
Respone to Squire: I think you answered most of your own questions, but
I'd like to throw in one little comment. I've never read any stream of
consciousness writing that I thought was worth a damn. It all seems like
mental masturbation to me. If you know of some good stuff that I've
missed, I'd really like to read it.
Response to Zero: I'm always looking for a good read, so feel free to send
me anything you like. I'd probably be up for chatting about it a little
too. But I'm not going to post anything to the workshop that doesn't
conform to the guidelines.
This also might be a good place to say that I'm not going to rush this
thing. If it's a month before anyone submits anything, so be it. I'll
post stuff when I get it. I don't have any ego invested in this, and I
don't feel like I have to post, say, one story a week or anything. So,
take your time and send me stories whenever you get them wrapped up.
callei
Extreme Fanatic
Posts: 759 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 1/4/2004 at 06:32 AM
as one of those "admin" people, i would just like to say i am really proud
that NONE of the members here have spammed Britva with virgin porn and
diary entries. I LOVE the fact that they are aware of the guidelines and
are following them. Thanks guys.
____________________ Real goths wear silver and crosses to keep the werewolves and vampires
away.
EyeCandyRayce
Fanatic
Posts: 247 Registered: 19/1/2004 Status: Offline
posted on 1/4/2004 at 08:28 AM
quote:
Response to Rayce: I almost hate to say it, but I think your post is the
best evidence yet that the workshop guidelines are doing exactly what they
were meant to do: push you out of your comfort zone. It seems to me like
you are being challenged to write in a way that you haven't tried before,
and I'd consider that a positive, not a negative. Also, I think if you
can write some really powerful, effective non-genre fiction, it will make
your genre fiction (and your vampire porn) that much better. I'm really
looking forward to seeing what you submit.
Ahhh.. I see grasshopper. I was mistaken on the intention of the workshop.
This would probably do me some good as I always suck about writing stories
based on my own experiences or stories based in real life. Thanks for
explaining.
____________________ Suicide Hotline - Please Hold
Would I be stepping on any toes if I offered to workshop the other
stuff?
Feral
____________________ The earth turns on a tilted axis - just doing the best it can.
Hohenheim of Light~Full Metal Alchemist
Shade
Fanatic
Posts: 289 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 1/4/2004 at 03:07 PM
The year is roughly 1995, the setting is a shitty little studio apartment
in the french quarter. It's a a few minutes after Callei has finished
reading something I've written...
Callei: Well, it's got some errors, but I-
Shade: No-no-no-no-no, don't look at the technical side of it, just tell me
what the you think of the story!
*Shade gets huffy and the story is lost in a bin along with a dozen other
"You just don't understand" pieces.*
Why did I bother to revisit this piece of history? Basically it's the
argument that I usede to use, "Don't look at the technique, just tell me
what you think about the story." While I will be the first to admit that
the story is the art in the act, the technique is what allows someone to
look at the story. If your writing sucks (And technically, at that time,
mine still did) then the story is untranslatable. The idea of working
within guidelines such as those that have been set down by Britva is a
sound one. Write something specifically for the workshop, or not, but make
it within the guidelines so that you can work with a workshop and not a
publisher. Britva is handing you guys the chance to have your writing
skills improved, he's not offering to improve the method by which you kill
Doctor Caligula, nor is he creating a forum in which to discuss the merits
of leather versus lace in BDSM fiction, he's working on pure unadulterated
'can you put one word in front of the other and make it both readable and
standardized.
The most important thing my favorite college creative writing professor
ever told me was that before I could break the rules, I had to know what
they were. If I didn't learn the rules and learn them well, I was just
being sloppy.
____________________ It is only through the lack of sex that humanity derives the need for an
all encompassing blind love. And in that moment of extreme horniness with
no relief in sight, in that moment can be found the birth of religion.
-Me
RavensSoul
Member
Posts: 63 Registered: 27/3/2003 Status: Offline
posted on 1/4/2004 at 08:18 PM
Sorry. I wasn't trying to sound like an asshole, the whole thing got me
worked up and aggrivated. *puts the leash back on* I'll behave now, I
promise.
____________________ In my eyes, to be human is not to be able to live and die, but it is to
feel pain, love, happiness, and all other things that keep our hearts from
freezing over into the bloody ice that distinguishes man from the beasts of
night.
RavensSoul
Member
Posts: 63 Registered: 27/3/2003 Status: Offline
posted on 1/4/2004 at 08:30 PM
Also, I'd like to apologize to Britva for being, well, an asshole. I had
misunderstood the whole idea of the workshop, and in my unknowing stupor, I
lashed out. Now that I understand what the workshop is about, it does seem
like a good idea.
If Britva sees fit to accept my apology and wouldn't mind it, I'll make an
effort to submit some of my writing to the workshop and see what happens
with it. I write a lot of articles for the paper that could be seen as
interesting. Those are things that deal with real life, real people. Not
death, no genres, no unecessary drama.
____________________ In my eyes, to be human is not to be able to live and die, but it is to
feel pain, love, happiness, and all other things that keep our hearts
from
freezing over into the bloody ice that distinguishes man from the beasts
of
night.
____________________ The earth turns on a tilted axis - just doing the best it can.
Hohenheim of Light~Full Metal Alchemist
Anonymous
Posts: 116 Registered: 14/4/2002 Status: Offline
posted on 2/4/2004 at 12:28 AM
Feral: I'm just doing my thing here. If you want to set up some kind of
alternative workshop and get a dedicated forum, you're more than welcome to
take it up with the admins. I have no feeling aobut it one way or the
other.
RavenSoul: Apology accepted. I've had a lot of people be assholes to me
online, but few have ever apologized for it. Thank you. I look forward to
seeing what you submit.
Britva
Moderator
Posts: 37 Registered: 1/8/2003 Status: Offline
posted on 2/4/2004 at 11:27 AM
Looks like I got moused...
If you couldn't tell, the post above was written by me.