Two types of Writing Forums/Two types of Writers
Sept 22, 2023 6:04:33 GMT -5
Post by Radrook Admin on Sept 22, 2023 6:04:33 GMT -5
Two types of Writing Forums/Two types of Writers
By Radrook
AKA: Two-Star Bandit
As writers, we might naively assume that all writing forums are established in order to help writers make progress. Right? Well, unfortunately, that is not the case. You see, as unexpectedly peculiar as it might at first seem, writing forums can vary drastically in their modus operandi. You see, they can be either helpful or detrimental to their members in the two following ways:
1. They can provide honest, helpful feedback that improves writing.
2. They can provide misleading feedback that will stroke egos but encourage bad writing.
Let's consider these two types of writing forums in detail.
First, there are the helpful writing forums, such as The Young Writers Forum, where advice is both sought and provided. Best of all, the feedback is encouraged by the forum's owner and administrators who have established a rating reward-system. Forum members very are eager to have their stories reviewed and to apply whatever suggestions for improvement are given. In fact, they very and often effusively thank one another for helpful advice whether it be positive or negative.
Second, in stark contrast, there are the unhelpful writing forums frequented by those who want their stories published, but who aren't interested in anyone's opinions, and who perceive any critical view of their writing as being extremely offensive.
Such individuals will either totally ignore constructive advice, or yet worse, might choose to immediately report it to the forum's owner who prohibits such criticism, and who will then proceed to publicly reprimand the person who offered the advice, and privately threaten to ban him if he persists.
Second, in stark contrast, there are the unhelpful writing forums frequented by those who want their stories published, but who aren't interested in anyone's opinions, and who perceive any critical view of their writing as being extremely offensive.
Such individuals will either totally ignore constructive advice, or yet worse, might choose to immediately report it to the forum's owner who prohibits such criticism, and who will then proceed to publicly reprimand the person who offered the advice, and privately threaten to ban him if he persists.
Now, it should be needless to say, that anyone wanting to make any significant progress as a writer will choose the second kind of forum, since the alternative is to waste precious irreplaceable time in a veritable fool's paradise where everyone staggers around intoxicated on hypocritical opinions and ratings designed to arbitrarily stroke egos via responding with the coveted 5- Star AWSOME ratings to certifiable, ungrammatical, drivel.
Which is of course OK. To each his own. And as Spanish saying goes: "Todo loco con su tema" literally, every insane person has a right to their own delusions. However, if we carelessly assume common sense and sanity before determining if indeed the forum that we are choosing to publish our precious stories on is worth being a member of, then the consequences can be very frustrating as we are then forced to behold defective writing being praised to the highest heaven, while much better writing is being given a much lower rating, or is being maliciously and totally unceremoniously ignored.
Even worse, if indeed we are banned for having provided honest feedback, then our stories are appropriated and remain right there regardless of how we might feel about it, because in our eagerness to be a member, and having assumed that all writing forums were essentially the same in their basic goals, we foolishly paid insufficient attention to the minute details of the agreement before you joined.