Commenting!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was directed to this site from a blog community I have been part of for a number of years now. The one thing I have learnt over the years there is in order to recieve feedback, one has to spend time leaving comments on other's posts. This is the nature of the beast. I noticed here pretty quickly that very few people leave comments, despite indications pieces are being read. I was hoping this would be a site where readers would leave constructive critcism as, like you, I believe it is the only way my writing will improve. I will continue to regularly read and comment, even if I am one of the few who do. Who knows, this might mean more get involved. Thanks again for your interaction and for touting my work. You really are a gem :)

Incidentally, I am a 'him' and my name is Mark. Very pleased to 'meet' you.

And thankyou both for your excellent comments - so come on so many others - do likewise if you can!

Tony, thanks very much. Hopefully this will inspire others to comment. Jen, you're certainly not annoying me. I am a big fan of enthusiasm, having been accused numerous times of being so myself. I am a natural enthusiast.

I agree that it's important to leave comment. I always do.

Funny think commenting. Always a toss-up between being honest and being diplomatic. Sometimes not commenting is best.

I know that I am repeating myself but I still believe that if there was automatic notification, from the administrator, of comments there would be a greater number of responses. At the moment if I want to see if there is any feedback on my work I have to go back to my latest pieces.

I do understand this - but addfing email things to websites is always difficult as it allows spammers and evil beasties in. You have to build all kinds of firewalls around it - and that takes time and time is money. So, you know what you have to do to get an automatic alert system - send a donation!

When I say “pleased to meat you”… it means I plan to eat you. Beware I plan on commenting soon… though I may be repeating myself nearly every time. Give me a hook in the first paragraph. Give me a reason to go on to the next.

that's fighting talk ... ooo ... i thought i'd go and look at your work lucas and i read about half of maxwell vs. machine until it got a bit silly in the middle and lost me ... and, what is an anima? cheers fish

"The Anima and Animus, are in Carl Jung's school of analytical psychology, the unconscious or true inner self of an individual, as opposed to the persona..." And yes, I meant "enema". And to return the favour I skimmed a piece of your work... I looked for the most interesting title. I found "I've Dreamed About Buying A Gun", and I found it dull. Mind you, I didn’t find any spelling mistakes.

No, I'm very good at spelling.

Commenting: I always try to avoid a one-liner when I can. For this reason I comment less than others. Ideally, the comment follows a an up-down-up curve, if I do have something negative to say: So, for example, I liked this poem/story/piece because.... I did not like this line/image/metaphor etc. because... I liked this line/image/etc. Something positive in general about what (I think) the writer is trying to achieve. The key word above is 'ideally': it's a question of time. It would be easy to do this full-time but then when would you write yourself? TC and the other editors do a fine job, in any case. But yes, it's nice to receive comments and so I do my best. 'Pay it forward' and all that.

I try to comment when I can. Summer is here so we are busy busy busy. Heh. One thing I wish people would do...yes I know its not grammatically correct, but makes things easier to read...is make smaller paragraphs. If I open something and it has huge paragraphs I don't usually bother....it exhausts me just to look at it. I am not a poetry fan, (sorry Jen and Maso), so am not comfortable commenting on it.

Ewan, I've heard the idea of comments with and up-down-up curve described elsewhere quite nicely as a "shit sandwich" - it works in most situations especially if the bread is wholemeal if you take my point.

I'm never sure about commenting as this isn't a close knit group so you don't know if everyone here is open to criticism. It's less a workshop site than a showcase site, no? Personally, I LOVE getting comments and would be up for receiving crit and giving it back, for sure. So far I have pretty much just got praise and I KNOW that isn't because my work is only praiseworthy. I think people sugar coat things here because it is such a big open site. It feels harsh going up to a stranger and ripping into their work when they haven't asked for it. Therefore I only comment when I have more positive than negative to say. I'm off to investigate Jennifer...

I haven't been around for a while but comment has always been scarce on the ground. Older members used to complain that it had become all sugar coated. I think that maybe it's 'cause people do take it the wrong way sometimes and it kicks off into all sorts and people can't be arsed with all that, you know taking the time to give something constructive and have it thrown back in their face like they've just insulted their mother. Shame really. But hey, comment on others work, see how they take it etc etc Regards Craig

Oh and sorry, often people aren't confident with their own work to feel in a position to comment, as if to say "who the fuck are you, you wanna look at your own work mate" Regards Craig

Thats' what a lot of it boils down to Craig, are we confident enough of our own work?

"However, I do think you have to be slightly careful about ripping apart people's 'babies' - writing is a personal thing and I am wary about this." Well, writing obviously is a personal thing but I think the question is whether someone wants to take it beyond JUST being a personal thing to being something that they can do to a level that other people would read their writing out of choice. That has a major effect on the sort of criticism that's useful or appropriate. The difficult thing is that many people like idea of moving from being someone who 'just writes for me' to being someone who writes stuff for readers who they don't know but lack the thick skin and/or the writing ability necessary to make that journey. This is something that ABCtales has been unable to resolve successfully over the last 8 years. Baking a cake, knitting a jumper or taking a dog for a walk are all activities where - almost to the same extent as writing - you judge someone's efforts extremely charitably and sensitively if they're carrying them out as a personal gesture between friends and family. On a personal basis, I probably wouldn't criticise someone doing these things at all unless they reached the point of putting cabbage in the cake, knitting three sleeves and walking the dog down the middle of the motorway. It would be very different if they were aspiring to offer these services professionally to strangers.

buhkarinwasmyfavouritebolshevik (is that your real name?) is spot on about needing a thick skin. One thing I've learned, by having a self-published novel out in the world, is that you can never please everybody.

Of course that's true Jennifer. But I think there's a part of every writer that wants to be popular and sell lots of books and go on talk shows. Certainly the major publishers see things that way. They tend to shy away from anything too challenging...to their regret sometimes. Also I'm not sure if the status quo hasn't been challenged ad nauseam. It's hard to come up with a new challenge. Personally I'd settle for being an elusive enigmatic cult figure.

"And why should you even care about pleasing everybody? - surely the point of all art is to create discussion, to inspire debate, to challenge the status quo?" It's not a question of pleasing everyone. Martin Amis doesn't please everyone and neither does JK Rowling but they both produce writing that a reasonable number would choose to read. My point is that there's a big spectrum of aspiring writers. At one end there's people who want to be professional writers and are confident enough to consider criticism (whether or not they agree with it or choose to act on it) on the basis of the extent to which it helps them to get closer to being professional writers, at the other end there's people who post their writing online solely as a means of self-expression and who are not in a position (for whatever reason) to accept any criticism other than affirmation. I don't think either position - or the wide range of positions in between - is morally better than the other but the needs are very different. The problem is that as Abctales attempts to cater for the whole spectrum and - in terms of commenting - there's nothing more frustrating that spending time writing some serious constructive comments about a piece of writing only to get a response along the lines of 'writing is a personal thing and ultimately it's my work' or worse still 'what qualifies you to say that, how many novels have you had published?'

I don't leave many comments, its a sin and I know it. I know I should probably leave more comments but I'm often at a loss as to what to write. If I find a submission boring or badly written, I tend not to finish reading it and click away. I probably should leave feedback saying why I didn't like it but I never feel comfortable criticising other people's work, especially since I know my own is far from perfect. When I do leave comments, its usually just to say that I enjoyed reading it (without saying why) or to ask specific questions on the content of a story for example, more info on the character a clarification on something which wasn't clear. I guess that could be considered a type of feedback.

And a very important type too. I think that you should put what you feel - and the writer can either accept it or reject it. It's up to them!

Of course that's right tony, after all that's why the writing's put on the site, but as Buck said is it worth taking the time to comment if you're only going to get abuse. Maybe it's worth testing the water to see how far someone will accept the crit. Craig

This is one way to critique poetry: http://www.everypoet.org/pffa/showthread.php?t=61366 I'm assuming there's some good cops on PFFA as well as the people responsible for these crits.