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Is it odd how some stories have surprisingly good reviews?
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Andrew A
 10 Jul 2012, 19:15 #152888 Reply To Post
Quote: Straylight, Tuesday, 10 Jul 2012 13:44

Dear ______________

Your submission has received a citation from the Literary Basics Police.

You are hereby served notice to:

[ _ ] Run a spell check
[ _ ] Cease and desist from using multiple viewpoints
[ _ ] Take a course on how to punctuate text and dialogue
[ _ ] Educate yourself in apostrophe use
[ _ ] Learn some bloody grammar
[ _ ] Stop abusing adverbs
[ _ ] Refrain from anti-social adjective overuse
[ _ ] Reduce your sentence length to manageable proportions
[ _ ] Make your characters behave credibly, or they will be taken into care
[ _ ] Surrender yourself at the station for possession of clichés
[ _ ] Format your piece in order to show a modicum of respect for reviewers
[ _ ] Differentiate your piece from many similar ones
[ _ ] Beat yourself violently in the head for muddling “there” and “their”
[ _ ] Show a little subtlety in your exposition
[ _ ] Learn some basics before you e-publish this pile of ****
[ _ ] Attempt to glue your plot together
[ _ ] In fact, just go back to bloody school

In any case, you are required to put some time and effort into writing if you wish to be taken seriously.

Yours,

Online Task Force


How about: -
Starting a sentence with a conjunction
Passive voice
Wordiness
Colloquialism
Compound words
Comparative use
Pronoun use
Hyphen use
Ellipses
Semicolon use
Negation
Comma use
Subject verb agreement
Reflex pronoun
All errors in your short piece The Hill is Alive. There are also two examples of using the wrong word i.e. ‘Jane lead’ instead of Jane led; ‘I’m tried’ instead of I’m tired and several invented words, which have dictionary alternatives. Maybe English is not as straight forward as people sometimes think.


Straylight
 10 Jul 2012, 20:37 #152891 Reply To Post
Ooops, I'll get on to those two, thanks. Don't suppose you could give me a heads up on some of the other ones, could you? I'll post you a Free Will in return if you'd like.

Although I will admit to being a bit of a rebel about ellipses, hyphens, starting words with conjunctions and suchlike. Some of the above can stray into more subjective territory than the more basic errors...

James
Skye is unimpressed by the sock monster
Majordave
 10 Jul 2012, 20:56 #152892 Reply To Post
English is all French to me. But I'm learning.

--------------------------------------------
Know not what you know and know nothing in return. (Confuseus)
jancarr
 10 Jul 2012, 20:59 #152893 Reply To Post
Quote: Majordave, Saturday, 7 Jul 2012 21:51
Hi Jan,
Absolutely, I flagged it and gave them advice that IMHO might help. I also referred to a book that may help with the structure of their story as a whole.

Hi again Tony
I don't think I expressed myself very clearly there, sorry. Wasn't suggesting you didn't care about a person's work. I know that wouldn't be the case at all.
What i meant was did you care about the characters and what was happening to them in the story? The close I feel to a character because the author is telling the story from inside that character's head i.e. consistently from their point of view for that scene, chapter or indeed novel, the more I care about them and what they're going for.

This site is a revelation.
Majordave
 10 Jul 2012, 21:32 #152894 Reply To Post
Quote: jancarr, Tuesday, 10 Jul 2012 20:59
Quote: Majordave, Saturday, 7 Jul 2012 21:51
Hi Jan,
Absolutely, I flagged it and gave them advice that IMHO might help. I also referred to a book that may help with the structure of their story as a whole.

Hi again Tony
I don't think I expressed myself very clearly there, sorry. Wasn't suggesting you didn't care about a person's work. I know that wouldn't be the case at all.
What i meant was did you care about the characters and what was happening to them in the story? The close I feel to a character because the author is telling the story from inside that character's head i.e. consistently from their point of view for that scene, chapter or indeed novel, the more I care about them and what they're going for.



Hi Jan,
I thought the premise was great, but the characters were weakened by some basic errors in the building of them. As such, it made it difficult for me to engage with them. I'm just one opinion, though. I told the author what I thought and if they can use any of what I said, then they will have gained something from the crit. I hope that's the case. I'm not very skilled when it comes to grammar, punctuation etc. Some of the things Andrew pointed out earlier in his post, really did go right over my head. I wouldn't know a subject verb agreement from a bank statement. So, I crit on what I think works and if the author agrees, they can use the review. Simples.


--------------------------------------------
Know not what you know and know nothing in return. (Confuseus)
Andrew A
 10 Jul 2012, 21:39 #152895 Reply To Post
Quote: Straylight, Tuesday, 10 Jul 2012 20:37
Ooops, I'll get on to those two, thanks. Don't suppose you could give me a heads up on some of the other ones, could you? I'll post you a Free Will in return if you'd like.

Although I will admit to being a bit of a rebel about ellipses, hyphens, starting words with conjunctions and suchlike. Some of the above can stray into more subjective territory than the more basic errors...

James


No problem James. As you say, some are subjective and as you know, you can bend some rules. I always like to get the English language spot on before I start tinkering with it. The best way to spot the little nuances is to run Spell Check with Grammar and Style turned on. The hardest to sort out is Passive Voice. It is acceptable if used sparingly and intentionally, but as a stylistic problem it should be addressed. ‘I was saved from thinking of a reply by Ferris giving a sudden scream.’ – Ferris gave a sudden scream and saved me from thinking of a reply (it can drive you mad!).

Wordiness is subjective but Spell Check will highlight it. Ellipses should always consist of three dots or four if at the end of a sentence. Hyphens are great fun. You have ‘collar-bone’ but collar and bone are nouns, as is collarbone; oddly-hued is two words (this can also drive you mad) ‘It was more bitter than I can describe’ is an example of Comparative Use – it should be – bitterer.

I’ll drop you a freewill, but to be honest, your piece is better than most.
Straylight
 11 Jul 2012, 00:31 #152897 Reply To Post
Thanks muchly. I haven't corrected the tense slip and the couple of misdirections (if that's the word) from the useful earlier review, but they're on my to-do list
Skye is unimpressed by the sock monster
Straylight
 11 Jul 2012, 14:14 #152903 Reply To Post
Andrew, you want/need/prepared to tolerate full nitpick mode!?
Skye is unimpressed by the sock monster
Andrew A
 11 Jul 2012, 15:00 #152904 Reply To Post
Quote: Straylight, Wednesday, 11 Jul 2012 14:14
Andrew, you want/need/prepared to tolerate full nitpick mode!?

Not bothered James, The Door has been around a long time and had all sorts of reviews. Mainly interested in what people think of the storyline and would they read further.

trevorsh
 13 Jul 2012, 20:31 #152955 Reply To Post
This is a rare visit for me, so probably got this in the wrong place, but what the hell. Posting your marks does seem like a good idea, and it's one I shall be doing from now on. We all get some great reviews - and some bad ones - so it would be nice to know if the marks match the comments. I have to admit, I rarely mark lower than three and have only once - as far as I can recall - given straight fives. But I do try to justify my marks with appropriate comments, and this is where I feel some reviews are simply wrong. If people mark low at least have the decency (balls would probably be a more appropriate term) to explain.









Quote: notleyab, Friday, 6 Jul 2012 09:46
Quote: willow55, Friday, 6 Jul 2012 02:12


I used to like Notley’s idea of transparency in scoring but I think it has its down side. When someone has given a gushing review of something mediocre, ending with the words ‘I have scored you all fives’ (or similar), it’s not hard to imagine that the compliment will be returned at some point, particularly if emails are exchanged and friendships formed.

I don't see that as a 'fault' of putting in the scores; more an encouragement to do so.
If someone has given them all 5s, they are probably more likely to reciprocate, whether it's been highlighted for other people on the site to see or not.
Putting in the scores is being transparent - you can actually see what marks people have given each other.
Plus, they 'should' show a clear appraisal of how each category was rated, from Excellent 5 thru to Poor 1.
Just how many pieces on YWO rate 8 fives - that is, Excellent in every single category?
As young'un points out, how many wd rate that way for even a recognized writer?
Putting it simply, the more who do put their scores in reviews, the more relevant they will become.
And open the question as to what those who don't put in their scores have to hide...


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