@thea
Active 1 week, 2 days agoForum Replies Created
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I’m glad to hear that you have treats lined up. The trip to Pompeii sounds especially fabulous! It should be a little quieter and cooler in the autumn so may be pleasanter to wait until then.
The iron tablets should make a big difference, and they tend to take effect within a few days. I do hope all goes well with your referral. Do please keep us all posted 🙂
This is such good news, Ath! The relief must be a huge weight off your shoulders and hopefully that has boosted your energy levels. The iron tablets should make a big difference too.
I do hope you are able to resolve the outstanding issues swiftly and then make some plans to do something special after all you’ve been through 🙂
Oh my goodness, Ath, what a time you’ve had! I am so glad to hear that you were well looked after in the hospital and are now home. Thank goodness for Mrs Ath’s quick thinking!
I hope you are taking things easy and making good progress. It’s great to see you back at the Den. Sending very best wishes for a speedy recovery 🙂
Libby and Jane have come up with some excellent questions and I can’t add much except for:
Does the writer have any specific questions? This might be something that’s crucial to whether the story works or not, e.g. Did you work out whodunit? If so, when?
Did you notice any discrepancies / inconsistencies in the story?
Were you conscious of writing tics?
Beta reading is a good exercise for the writing muscles and I don’t think one has to write in a specific genre in order to critique, though it helps if one enjoys reading that genre and has a knowledge of its conventions.
Sorry, late as usual! Having read through the comments, I think there are lots of excellent points made and, yes, it feels like the site needs sprucing up. For example, there is always a big buzz in the autumn when the annual challenge is announced – but how to maintain that buzz? For a prospective new member, the general lack of activity must be off-putting, and the list on the right shows that no one has joined in a year – could this be changed to just show ‘activity’ on the site? Also, is it worth closing inactive groups? Again, these look off-putting to a prospective member.
Libby made a good point re work-sharing being password protected. Kate’s suggestion re the fortnightly writing topic sounds good too. And Jane’s call for idle chat – yes! There used to be a lot of that on the Cloud. It doesn’t have to be writing related, I recall we had a discussion here a while back about garlic!
Anyway, apologies, I don’t post here as often as I should. Will try harder!Congratulations, Jules your book looks fab – I’m looking forward to starting the series! Also, really enjoyed reading about your research, especially re the horses. It made me wonder whether you’d written a short story for the winter challenge that featured a talking horse, but maybe my imagination is running away with me…
I think you’ve explained that really well, Squidge. That ‘trying too hard’ can detract from what the writer actually wants to say, and often kills ‘voice’ too. Speaking from experience, many of the sentences I’ve laboured most over are the ones that end up being cut when I go back and edit!
@daedalus Thank you for posting these. And all credit to you for your resilience.
Congratulations, Raine! I remember your excellent story from Now and Then. And good luck re the nomination.
That sounds an interesting workshop, Elle.
I think that treating ‘place’ as a character in its own right can add an extra dimension to a piece of writing, so that’s a handy checklist to follow. Thanks for sharing.
Hi Philippa, ‘Lost and Found?’ with or without the question mark, popped into my mind, I think because of the railway scene in your story. Perhaps if you simply included a question mark in your current title it would convey that the abduction is still haunting the family. Also, I really like Jonathan’s idea of using the number seven in the title.
I haven’t either, Sandra! Though in my writing I try to adhere to the RUE rule and thus probably don’t explain enough.
Interesting article, Sandra. I agree that many people have a tendency to downplay their work, to lower the expectation of the reader / viewer, as a sort of safety mechanism. And, as Squidge said, there are those who take this to the extreme and are really fishing for compliments.
You make a good point, Sandra re the story challenges being a good way forward; they’ve certainly helped me.
Perhaps writers and artists should embrace that old adage: never apologise, never explain.