Anonymous Writing Group II: criticism thread

" I see a lot of writing where it's obvious the author has a TV series or movie in their head and is trying to write that down, and that almost never works."
Even in the dan brown example it's actually kind of charming, though, and I think much more engaging than a writer who deploys it as a purposeless affect, or even one that puts a lid on such tendencies for fear of revealing crass and embarrassing ambitions at a franchise.

read this and was reminded of 'season six': http://theamericanreader.com/especially-heinous-272-views-of-law-order-svu/

still working through these, very slowly...

Harold Lovell is absolutely great. I actually think I agree with all of the criticisms of it, but only in retrospect - at no point was I thinking 'it needs to lose x' or 'how the author should've done it was y'.

I love how unsettling it remains. By which I mean it's making me pose the fundamental questions right up to the end. 'When did this stop being real?' 'What happened before?' 'Is he dead already?' I don't know the answers to these - if the piece were less skilfully poised either I wouldn't care, or my questions would be less riveting. This way it could be either a realist piece of science fiction or a straight-up piece of horror, and either way I'm gripped.

the SVU piece certainly commits to its thing in far more depth than i did

I actually think I agree with all of the criticisms of it, but only in retrospect - at no point was I thinking 'it needs to lose x' or 'how the author should've done it was y'.

imo this p much means that these criticisms are- well, not invalid, but not more than suggestions of difference than anything else. stands for most of the criticisms itt imo- fine thoughts and not bad angles from which to look again, but v eh tuomas-like in their 'i would have done it like this'iness ifgwim

I suppose that must be right. I was going to say that just because there's two valid choices, that doesn't necessarily mean they must be equally valid - but then we're into whether there's such a thing as *objectively* better. I'm inclined to say there is tbh, but whose objectivity counts? For this thread I suppose it's got to be the writer's.

The anonymous nature of it though makes feedback here much more useful as market research.
It's harder to tailor suggestions to help fortify what the author wanted to do if the author isn't necessarily there to confirm what it is.

The Zak Evans piece - only one substantive critique, which is that the lizards letter doesn't seem to be sufficiently remarkable to produce the unsettling effect described. I feel like you need either something really outrageous (the easy option) or else something that chimes horribly with the officer (hard to do) to take me with you along that development. The scenario is good though, a prison functionary creating unstable enemies has rich potential.

Other than that, I want to see capital letters at the start of sentences. You rely heavily on double adjectives at the start, and my eye needs help breaking the flow. I had to go back and read twice, which might be acceptable in a slower piece but I feel this one needs a wilder ride.

Dolly is kind of nasty I feel - not the intensity of any particular image so much as the sheer volume of them. I don't recognise the emotional state being described, and I don't believe I want to. I assume Dolly is the character experiencing it, but the horny schoolboy, who is he? Is a player, or a mere figment of her disturbed imagination? I hope the former, the latter is too vile.

I expect the aim is somewhere near The Naked Lunch, but it actually reminded me more of Nabokov's Ada, in that it retains a whimsy or olde worlde charm even through its horror.

And finally, Breathe is my own. I wasn't going to submit one, but as it happened I had aforesaid surgery that morning and dashed it off (via several drafts) to preserve the moment. Some interesting interplay between faith, confidence, vanity and the unseen that could maybe be developed further, though in pretty happy with what came out of it.

One lovely detail that I couldn't use - when it was over and they lifted the swabs from my eyes, the first thing I saw was the surgeon stretching back his latex gloves and pinging them across the theatre into a bin against the far wall. But that would've made it a different sort of story.

different but still good IMO. That's kind of a terrifying detail, definitely worth using I would have thought...

Any interest in a 'secret' I Love Writing board? Could be set up like 77, any ILXer can be let in but with anyone just trashing things for the sake of it would get access revoked.

Might do, might do

i thought the idea was mooted a little while ago but the mods weren't for it, was the decision

I very much like the sound of this.

would like this. i have been deep in expanding the piece that was here but i have a few other going concerns that i'd like to share. this thread was great reading too.

i would quite like this! i think if it were a secret board i might... actually post a thing.

do it!

It's difficult. The anonymity part of this was my way of giving a bit of privacy - which is good for getting the criticism started, but the disadvantage is that it's hard to get into a longer discussion about the piece (particularly why the author made the choices she did). A private board, so long as it got decent traffic, would be better for the latter - also providing it didn't inhibit honest criticism.

Another thing is whether the 'event' aspect of having a thread every six months would become just a couple of posters shouting into the ether. Not that I know whether this thread was an event, but it must've given some motivation I reckon - certainly I was delighted that people kept stepping up. If the board was just 'there', maybe that wouldn't happen?

would read an ilw board, but would miss these threads

Anonymity is pretty essential if anyone's going to get any useful feedback I think, though it is good to know who wrote what afterwards so there can be a conversation. TBH as it's fragments we're posting it's not such a problem having a public board, but a private one would be useful for longer/complete pieces.

Not that I have anywhere near enough stuff at the moment but, where ever it happened, I would do this monthly if everyone else could be bothered – would be a good incentive to write and improve! Six month gap kills momentum a little bit...

Unless the new board is a goer, I'm going to aim to get group III up in February. That way we can cash in on people's New Year resolutions.

Any ideas meantime for how to tweak the format? Having one piece per day seems like it might work better than posting them in batches.

I'm a bit busy right now but I'd hope that if the new board IS a goer, it'll be up before February. There's quite a bit more admin involved in private boards so Christmas is pretty much the worst time to do it, but early January should be okay?

If I set the submissions thread up in the new year, then it could also act as advance publicity/a register of interest for the new board. Then if it happens, we can kick it off with the criticism thread in February and let it fly from there?

Ya

I'd be really into the i love writing board. It could be a really great thing.

Me too.

I'd also be up for some kind of email-based thing where people send bits of writing around a group, although that might be a bit forward of me.

Anyone writing SF/F want to join a short story group? I'm part of a challenge group for 2014 where we commit to writing and submitting to market one short story every month. If you get enough stories in and you have one or more decent unsold short stories at the end of the year, they'll be considered for an anthology to be published in 2015.

There are 8 of us so far. Most people in the group are offering critiques as the stories come in, and help identifying suitable markets.

Ask for an invite to astoryamo✧✧✧@yahoogro✧✧✧.c✧.u✧ if you want to join in; say you're from ILX. I'm the list admin. You get a free pass for January, obviously.

it's auto-garbled that email address - the missing letters are nth ups o k

i was looking through my google drive and found a draft document titled "Anonymous II" that was apparently intended for this thread. i barely even remember writing it, but at least if there is an Anonymous III i'll have something to build off of

similarly i was looking through my googdrive and did not ever remember writing it ever but actually didn't hate it??? and would totally submit to this if it were to happen again if a certain amount of others would also submit

er *found something i wrote that i did not ever remember writing

who knows what happened there

karl malone alias, cunningly disguised with his real first name

NaNoWriMo is just around the corner, although interest in it seems to have fallen off the past couple of years here at ilx.