• A Facepunch Guide to Posting Creative Writing
    2 replies, posted
Browsing creationism corner, the attentive eye will tend to notice something peculiar: threads for stories, writing, literature, throwing ink at solidified wood pulp in the hopes that some sort of legible words will magically appear, and other related means of artistic representation through the pen and keyboard have all but withered and died. They do this fast, in fact. I've noticed some tropes that happen to occur in a large quantity of these threads, and I'd like to point them out so that you may possibly further better yourself and obtain more people with a genuine interest in your writing. I'm not going to teach you how to write, i'm going to teach you how to make and maintain a proper thread for your work. [B]1. GROW SOME DAMN CONFIDENCE.[/B] I can't tell you how many threads i've gone into that begin with something to the tune of "yeah, i know it's shit" or "it's not that great but". Don't do that, it's fucking annoying. If you can't put enough faith in your writing to say you truly like it, it's not worth posting. If you can't enjoy it, with the belated sense of quality one gets with his own work, no one will. Of course, don't go prancing around saying it's the best thing ever. That's not for you to decide. [B]2. PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR AUDIENCE HERE.[/B] Now, i'm not automatically going to go out on a limb and say your school paper is shit, or what have you. There's too many variables in any form of writing to just denounce it as crap right away. Your 20 minute poem written for a forced assignment at school might, against all odds, be worth a damn. But before you post anything, anything at all, ask yourself: is Facepunch, as a forum, going to read this? I can guarantee the reason for the vast majority of all ignored threads is that PEOPLE DON'T WANT TO READ WHAT YOU POSTED. You don't go to the hugo awards and pass out erotic vampire literature, you have to take the same kind of caution here. What is the majority of Facepunch in to? Find out yourself. Identifying a good target audience is an important step in authoring. [B]3. DON'T POST WIPS.[/B] This isn't a rule of the forum or anything, but i'll just say this from visual experience: works in progress have a high tendency to stay that way if you release part to the public. Finish it, edit it, proofread it, the post it. [B]4. DON'T WRITE A LOT FOR FACEPUNCH IF YOU'RE NOT EXPECTING MUCH.[/B] Seriously, don't go writing a 40 thousand word essay exclusively for here if you can't guarantee someone's going to give a shit. That said, if you must, find an appropriate website where your readerbase will be larger, such as [url]www.fictionpress.com[/url], a different forum, or even deviant art. [B]5. DON'T BE EMBARRASSED ABOUT YOUR WRITING.[/B] It's a form of art like any other. Sure, posting a story can be more awkward than posting a painting, but that shouldn't hold you back. Man up and let the world know about what you've done, and take the criticism with the utmost fortitude. And speaking of which: [B]6. LISTEN TO YOUR CRITICS.[/B] They're mean bastards, but they're honest. Do what they say and you might just improve. I don't think this needs much emphasizing, Facepunch seems to be pretty good at taking it. Been rated dumb? Don't worry about it. It's probably just some jackass who was in your thread for all of 10 seconds, decided he hated your story, and was too much of a lazy shit to give some proper criticism. This man is another factor in the rapid failing of your average writing thread. Which brings us to our last pointer, [B]7. DON'T LOSE AMBITION[/B] If you want to write, keep the fuck on writing until people say you're good. And then keep doing it twice as hard. If you don't, then go find something you do want to do and develop it to a point where it's worthy of notification itself.
About the critism, it's best not to always listen to every single person. You ask them to make something as good as yours and 9/10 they can't deliver. So they're mainly giant dicks to get attention ot to sound like they know what they're doing.
[QUOTE=mr apple;29031759]About the critism, it's best not to always listen to every single person. You ask them to make something as good as yours and 9/10 they can't deliver. So they're mainly giant dicks to get attention ot to sound like they know what they're doing.[/QUOTE] You don't ask facepunch, you ask people you know.
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