Collaborative Creative Writing Community

Like I mentioned in an earlier blog response, I think it would be nice to have some truely educated critics on board.

While each of our indivdual talents are at differing levels, contructive critisim should be considered.....constructive...not mean.

I am sorry to say that even I have dabbled in remarking off cuff to various writers...but it is because I get so frustrated at the lack of forethought that goes into the works posted. (Yes, I am human).

I would like to think that we are all writing here for the experience and critism is a part of that experience.

I have posted chapters here soley for the purpose of getting reader feedback. I take the positive comments and move forward with books. I take the negative and re-work my thoughts or abandon them altogether.

Critism is a neccessary evil.

You're absolutely right--criticism is a necessary evil!

Oh, yes....and a question....who is in charge of picking the days' featured stories? Many of the ones highlighted on the homepage have never inspired me to read further and are usually rated poorly as time moves on. Just wondering.

I'm really not sure--I just sent an email to the developers asking. I'll let you know the answer as soon as I find out.

Thanks!

Gracia, Bella!

Hi there!
Each day, the featured stories are picked automatically (updated daily). The algorithm picks the least viewed chapter from the top 1/3 ranked chapters; soon, though, the algorithm will be picking from the top 10% instead of top 1/3. The goal is to give exposure to great chapters that might have been overlooked.

I hope this helps!
Thanks!

Hmmmmm...I would think that someone would be looking out for something spectacular...a spark...something to interest a new visitor to the sight to venture in a little more.

I know--unfortunately, though, at this time, we don't have the manpower to sift through the chapters to find some really compelling ones.

I'm a man. I have power.
(At least the power my wife lets me have...)

:-)

I'd be interested/available to help in some way that helps draw interest to really well crafted stories. If I can ever be of service, please feel free to ask.

haha--nice.

Thanks for the offer! I'll pass it on :)

I have only been with the site for about a week or so. I really enjoy it and am glad I found it. Personaly I have really enjoyed what others had to say about my stuff so far. Good or bad, it just makes me happy to hear stuff from other people, who want to write. I have to admitt I too have atleast wanted to leave negetive comments on other users accounts, but so far I have been able to restrain my self. Sometimes its hard to leave critism with possitivity, so I dont say anything at all. I was also wondering about the featured stories. I saw mine on one day, and couldnt understand why, because I had only been on the site for a part of a day. I just wanted to know how they got there. ... As long as I am rambling. I just have to mention as I have before, how annoying it is, when someone desides to publish 6,7,8 or even more chapters in a row. It makes me want to say rotten things to them. I understand they are just trying to get noticed, by my god! What do they think the rest of us are trying to do? Pretty much the same thing, get a read, maybe a vote or two and a comment. Someone needs to tell them that they are really not that important... and waiting a day or two to post, two or three more, might not kill them. okay, I am finished, back to mashing potatos together, and fryin' up pork chops. -Ashlie

Welcome welcome!

Thanks so much for taking the time to comment--I'm finding out about the feature stories as I type, so I'll have an answer soon.

Save a lady a pork chop, maybe? :)

ofcoarse, theres plenty to go around. lol

score! :)

I know I probably should not be using this blog for this, but I have a concern.

Somehow someone sent me a comment using my own moniker, "theblackhand." How is that possible since that part of this site suppose to be protected.

In the comment section of my story "Gunther chapter 5 Evil Rising" this was sent as a comment to me by someone.

"damn son, blackhand, you have the ability to become a real force in the writing world. you know who this is"

How the h*ll is that possible. This needs to be found out resolved quickly. How can someone use my own name? I am pretty sure it was a mistake somehow but it happened and I want answers quickly please cause it looks like i sent it to myself when I did not. Is there some glick in the systen=m that you guys are not aware of?

Please respond immediately!!

Sorry for the freaking typos....

Ok, I figured it out. A friend of mine was using when my username was logged on and commented.

Sorry for the inconvenience I just freaked for a second.....

phew! I'm glad it all got figured out. I was freaking out, too, when I read your first comment. :)

I think unless someone is being absolutely ruthless, critisism can be very helpful. Like Persephonie said, it is a neccessary evil. I mean, "constructive critisism" is always the way to go, with something positive along with the negative, but whose ego hasn't been bruised once in a while? It's good for us, reminds us that we are but human beings who type black characters onto a screen.

Absolutely. The way I see it, you have to grow some thick skin to be a writer. :)

Happy writing!

I don't really have much to say about comments because I definitely don't get that many. I guess it comes with the territory that if you are a popular writer on this site that you will get noticed alot more but sometimes its frustrating to see a story that I really like, but to have no one read it or comment on it. I wish I could get some critism but I don't want to run around screaming "read my story!" I guess I'm just whining since those who are popular are the best writers on this site. They deserve the attention. I just wish that there were people who cycled through all the stories so everyone could get the critism they want (even though that goal would be impossible to fulfill). I want to know what to work on so I can get better but I don't know...I guess I should just write better? Is that the answer I'm searching for to get noticed?

Hey there. I will leave you comments! I love reading other peoples stuff, and just looking over there ideas, and they way they put things together. I have not seen you up on the stories page though. Maybe I have not been here long enough. However, later today after my busy running around, I plan to come back and read some of your stuff.

I will look you up....I am not on here all day, every day, so I do miss alot.

Make sure you fill out tags for your chapter--a lot of times, that will help your chapter to be viewed more frequently.

Criticism is necessary. To let someone know that something in their work can be improved upon should be taken as a motivator.
Anyone who gets angry at improvement ideas from someone will never grow completely as a great writer.
Narcissism and egos tend to get in the way.........

Into a great writer I mean....

Absolutely!

My experience has been quite interesting. I've had some great feedback, and then again i've had some terrible feedback. I guess it all evens out in the end, but what gets to me the most is when I go to their work I find the same spelling errors and weird writing quips as I have. I write fiction and sometimes I write stories that could never happen and I get people saying"You need to study up on what your talking about before you write" well I wasn't trying to be real, I was attempting to write something unreal maybe even unfathomable simply because I like to write.

Some of us on this site will never be a story writer that writes correctly, some of us just wanna write without worrying about how long our paragraph was, and whether we used the correct commas, periods, exclamations etc.....

Its just fun, relaxing, and it causes such freedom of the mind and heart to just put it out there, and though we appreciate criticism it's not going to change how we write or what we write.
All the so called" Perfessional Authors" who get a charge out of downing others should simply realize you weren't always"Perfessional" and some of us will never be...........

("There I said it and I feel better")
Thanks for listening

I'm going to play Devil's Advocate here--
"though we appreciate criticism it's not going to change how we write or what we write."....

But isn't that the point? To take in whatever criticism can help improve your writing and brush off whatever criticism you feel doesn't apply?

To start, from what I've seen, quite a few stories never get commented on. The ones that do get comments sometimes receive useful feedback. Sometimes it's just bashing or saccharine praise, neither of which helps an author to improve their work (although, granted, some don't care to improve, but to each his own). Once in a while, the commenting frenzy degrades into a spat about rigged voting or rude posters.

I do think criticism is important if one wishes to write better. Not everyone wants to do this, though--I've seen countless StoryMash "stories" whose content seemed like a thinly veiled version of something that would have been better told to a personal therapist. Having said that, I agree with Persephonie in that I have been tempted to write nasty comments about this kind of writing.

In the end, criticism is neither an evil nor completely necessary. Each author is ultimately his or her own best critic. I do prefer reading commented-on stories over ones with no comments, though, and am more likely to vote on them.

"I've seen countless StoryMash "stories" whose content seemed like a thinly veiled version of something that would have been better told to a personal therapist."

I have to admit--this sentence gave me the giggles. Hilarious.

"I do prefer reading commented-on stories over ones with no comments, though, and am more likely to vote on them."

This is an interesting point.

Thanks for taking the time to comment! :)

Constructive criticism is always a plus. I've been guilty of reading something I thought was really good and saying so without offering anything but praise, but I frown upon simply being negative. There have been a few truly awful stories I have seen here, but I could see the potential in most of them if they received the right kind of critical help. I will never just leave a absolutely negative critique, but instead will try to point a person in the right direction and offer help on bettering their story.

I think that's great! When I give criticism to other writers, I try my best to do the same.

Kat....I have an idea for you. Maybe you guys can construct a different rating system and we can give points based on storyline, grammer, punctuation, rants, raves and any other appropriate catagories (stars for each catagory). That way, an author can immediately view what he or she needs to work on, if anything, vs readers having to type it all out for them. Personnally, I feel this would be more constructive. Just a thought.

I think that's an AWESOME idea!!!

how do I delete this account, that or how do I delete some of my published stories?

Hi there~
I'm not sure how one deletes their account, but I'm in the process of finding out.

If you would like one or more of your chapters deleted, simply send an email to support@storymash.com.

Thanks!

Accounts can be disabled on request (with an email to support@storymash.com); however, if the account has published chapters which have already been mashed by any other authors, the chapters must remain active. There is no automated system to remove accounts, so it takes between one and three days for an account to be disabled.

I hope this helps!

Maybe I'm thick in the head...

But. What is WRONG with offering a critical point of view in a writing forum?!? Not critical in the negative context...critical in the way of offering a critique. Lord, have mercy, people PAY to have their writing evaluated so they can get better, and my (limited) experience here has been that if you try to offer some thoughts or ideas you get called out really quickly.
Maybe there should be a way for people who want to actually discuss the craft to be open for all comments, and people who only want to be told that their writing is "good" and never be challenged to change or grow can just have some stock comments that automatically get posted...

I have to admit that I chuckled after reading your comment :)

I absolutely agree with you. In my opinion, in the art of writing, there is always room for improvement, and constructive criticism helps writers to grow and improve.

Happy writing, and thanks for taking the time to comment!

Just to throw in a thought, I suspect that a really good way to get your writing commented on is to get out there and read and honestly (but diplomatically) comment on other people's work. Obviously, the comments get read, and if people see your name attached to comments that make sense to them, they are more likely to go look for your chapters. And, hopefully, comment on them. To be fed, you must feed others.

Good point, Silver! And I think it's a very valid one as well.

I agree with the recent comment by "silver". I was reading a chapter the other day and then went to make a comment. A fellow named "ericswyatt" had given some very detailed, constructive criticism. I was impressed. The author of the chapter and several others weren't. I commented, not to the chapter, but to ericswyatt, that I would love to receive critiques like his, anytime. The next day he read and critiqued one of my chapters and it was among the very best I've ever received. I wish I could reciprocate, but I'm a lousy critic..... ..lol. I can tell you if a story is good or not (for me) but, I can't get into the detail that some of the writer's here are capable of. So, yep..read and comment and you'll get read and commented upon...lol.

A good critique takes a while to craft, and it would be impossible to have every story get that kind of attention...I understand that. I think the idea of having a breakdown of major fiction/story elements for rating is a great middle-ground for those stories that don't get the higher level attention. While not as in depth as a true critique, would provide better feedback.

writerwannabe, I was more than happy to help. Anytime you want.

Which brings me to my next point (somewhat off topic) is it possible that in the future we'll have some ability to communicate better as a group? A couple suggestions: 1) private messages between members; 2) notification of when comments are posted or replied to; 3) customization of our profiles to provide info on who we are, what we do, where else our writing might be available. Just some thoughts...

ericswyatt~
Great ideas. There has been discussion about a forum, but I do like the other ideas that you bring up. I'll pass these on to the SM team :)

Great comment, and I think it's important to note that while many writers appreciate good criticism and want to grow....others do not.

This is just one of the things that have to be swallowed with a grain of salt when dealing with the arts.

Thank you for bringing this to my attention--I'll pass the info on to the SM team.

Well, then, I guess I'll be the one to open the can of worms...

I see that everyone is using this site as a sort of guideline for their "self-improvement" course. The problem is that 50 people have 50 different opinions about what this site is for.

"StoryMash, creative writing community for authors, amateur writers, readers and anyone interested in collaborative fiction and collaborative creative writing."

I think the owners haven't done us any favors using the word "collaborative". My understanding is that it means we collaborate at the plot level. I.e. "together we build a story".

Some people use "collaborative" to mean a collaborative effort to learn and/or improve their writing skills. So, that ends up being at the meta-plot level.

I'll gloss over the rule-set generated by each opinion and only mention that they are often mutually exclusive rules.

Having said that, it explains why some people "vote low" and "critique poorly". They are obviously using a differing set of criteria than the author intended. What good does that do? They might as well have said "you suck", because they judged someone's "statue" using the rules for a "painting".

I'm not here to "polish" my writing skills. I'm here to have fun writing mashes, not stories. To me, stories are one author pieces. I can do that on other sites. Mashes are collaborative fiction. StoryMash is unique.

If there are college-level creative writing instructors, I'll _maybe_ listen to them. Otherwise I would be listening to all sorts of Opinions about how my writing Should Be from people who only Think they know what they are talking about.

I don't have a need for critiques. I do like to see comments.

So, ideally, we would have a list of check boxes on our profile to identify what types of comments we are soliciting.

Another idea would be to have the 5 star rating system split out into multiple categories, so that each writer/author could glean much more information about how the chapter performed, based on the categories. The categories might even be configurable on the writer's profile.

For instance. Characterization, Plot idea, Mash-ability, Readability and Story Flow could be the available categories (and there would really be much more). So I check Characterization Plot idea and Mash-ability on my profile. When I publish, people can only rate my chosen three categories. Reviewers could then rate on as few or as many of the categories as they want.

I guess I need to stop now... ;o)

Thanks for the comment.

While I completely respect and understand your take on receiving comments versus receiving constructive criticism, many of the SM users do seem to value the constructive criticism that is given to them by different members. I think people are using this site for many different reasons, and I must say that as long as that reason has to do with having fun and writing, it's right!

I like your suggestions and will definitely pass them on to the team.

Thanks again!