My biggest dilemma, quandary, whatever is that when I receive a really good critique from say Dee, which opened my eyes to how to improve my style, I am at a loss as to how to repay the favour. At this stage I don’t think I have much to offer her

Brian, I don’t think any of us comment because we feel obliged, or because we expect a direct return. We do it because we want to. I appreciate the help I’ve had from more experienced writers, it feels good to help someone and, as Terry pointed out, commenting on other’s work is a way to improve our own.

You haven’t been around long but you’ve jumped straight in. You’re giving feedback to the site in general and, as your confidence as a writer grows, you’ll no doubt do more.

And don’t forget, we – most of us – write to entertain or inform readers, not other writers. You can give feedback as a reader. Just say what you think. You don’t need to offer long explanations or solutions.

I believe that most of us want to be published because we want our work to be read. And I believe all writers, however exalted they become, love to get reader feedback. If I particularly enjoy a published novel I try to find a contact address for the author and I email them, tell them how much I enjoyed their work. I’ve had some lovely responses.

Dee

I stumbled upon this thread during a rare visit to the forums and am not sure if it's appropriate to comment as I'm a new site expert, but I thought some of the points made along the way were very interesting.

I go on regular trawls for new posts as I'm not tied to any particular group, but as Terry points out, people are here for different reasons and are often wanting feedback on their own terms. Many are writing for pleasure, not publication, and the critique of the group is of more use to them than that of professional writers like me who are assessing posts in terms of commercial viability and dispense advice on that basis.

Davy is right to say we can't keep abreast of everything that's posted. We come in here in our own time at no cost to WriteWords, which means we don't necessarily visit every day. It's always worth dropping a WWmail to alert those SEs from whom you might want feedback:-)

My personal view is that this site works very well although it would certainly benefit from more dedicated experts to provide variety as much as input. I've found in my time here that there are writers who respond to what's said and get better all the time (often by ignoring the body of the crits but picking up common principles) and those who ignore any comments they don't like and continue as before. As an SE it goes without saying that I won't go back and look at work by the latter, but will seek out work by the former because it pays dividends.

I think this is an important strand, Shay, and it's been interesting reading it. Shyama

<Added>

PS I stumbled across a brilliant poem laying to rest a site member's alter-ego, and wrote a very short crit of it. I thought it was you, and did ask, but there was no response:-o

Hi Shyama,

Thanks for the comments. I'm sorry I missed them originally.

It's nice to hear a SE say that this is an important forum.


[Edited by david bruce at 10:06:00 on 20 April 2005
Reason: unnecessary comments removed]