Arranging Words Onto A Piece of Fake Paper · 8:06pm May 16th, 2012
A friend (whose user page he specifically requested me not to link to, in case two or three people might see that he hasn't done anything particularly fancy with it) and I have had this thing bouncing around in the terrifyingly barren limbo of our collective minds for a few months, but recently, we finally put... finger to keyboard... and started writing a crappy little fanfic of our own. A couple of weeks later (or perhaps more accurately, a few hours and a couple of weeks of procrastination later), we've got about 1700 words under our belts.
You can expect to see the first chapter before the fall of human civilisation.
Man, writing is hard.
Speaking of which, we might need an editor to look over some of our stuff after we get some more crap down. Nothing like grammar or whatnot -- I'm pretty confident in my ability to iron all that out myself -- I'm more concerned with stuff like characterisation, humour, dynamic/evocative writing, scene composition, establishing text (one of my cardinal sins)... stuff like that. When we decide we want someone to have a look at it, I'll try a bit harder with asking around.
To anyone who read this, thanks for paying attention, and see you around!
I'd suggest taking that down to the Training Grounds on Ponychan when you need your story reviewed. Proofreaders check mistakes you've made, but you seem confident enough to do that. Professional reviewers (At least by the fandom's standards) Will be able to give you a full review there. I'll also be there too! I go under Professor Hugbox over there, so I hope to see you drop on by.
118831
I've heard bad things about Ponychan reviewers (arseholery, mainly), but I'll keep it in mind. Thanks for the tip!
... You traitor, you said you wouldn't link me. Now I feel obligated to apply some spit and polish to my own page.
118942
Those bad things you hear are probably from authors that can't take a bit of criticism without being hugboxed. No one there is an asshole, they're just blunt and they won't tell you what's good about your story, only what you need to change. It can seem uninviting, but everyone there wants to help you, and as a reviewer myself I know that the only way to do that is to get to the point with the author. I was a bit afraid at first, but if you're open to criticism you'll be fine.
118942
Looking over their reviews, they seem to do a good job of being very direct in pointing out to the authors areas that need improvement. I don't think they're necessarily trying to be arseholes. They're just extremely blunt about getting to the point.
Also, if you can survive a Ponychan review and actually do the things they recommend, your story and your skill as a writer will definitely be better off because of it, eh! (And believe me, I totally empathize with the feeling of vulnerability of putting your work out there to be beaten senseless.)