THere is room in Short Story II, Rosetti. If it's under 2000 words I'd suggest posting it in there for review. If over 2000 words, then just post a section. There are other groups with room for extra members if you prefer.


- NaomiM

Is there a 2,000 word limit, then?

It is more of a 'what people can comfortably read and comment on in one sitting', sort of thing. If you post the whole thing then you are likely to get fewer comments simply because fewer people will have the time to read all of it, or they may just skim the last couple of thousand words.


- NaomiM

...if it's rubbish no-one's going to read past the first paragraph anyway!

If it's rubbish an Agent/Editor is not going to read past the first paragraph, so by posting the first half a reviewer can concentrate on the impact of the opening paragraphs.

Without the ending, though, stories can't be fully judged...

That is a common concern of new members, but after you've had some practice of reviewing other people's work you will soon come to see that it is fairly low down on the list of priorities. The opening, the prose style, character voice, even marketability if the writer is aiming at publication rather than just writing for their own enjoyment, can be just as important.


- NaomiM

<Added>

Or do it in classic thirds?

Depends on where the natural breaks come in the story :)

Well done you! And a warm welcome back. Great that you have a new user name too.

Naomi R

Rossetti, for what it's worth, I'm also in the minority you inhabit, of those who try to hone it first time through, rather than galloping ahead to 'get it down' and then doing loads of editing. It's partly because I hate editing, but also I am utterly useless at it and normally find I make things worse. It might be different if I was writing high, finely-crafted literary prose, but I'm not. What I'm going for (and very rarely achieving!) is immediacy and a light touch, and for me, any such quality it might occasionally have had tends to get flattened out and crushed when I try to edit the language. So I almost never go on to the next bit before I've finished a scene to my satisfaction. It does make the first draft process rather slow: a short paragraph can take two hours. It doesn't have to be the case that when you've got to the end of your story you necessarily need to go back and do two or three workovers, if that isn't the way you work. Both my two novels that have made it (and there have been four more which haven't, so beware of listening to me!)) were submitted as soon as I had limped to the end, with no going-back-over, and in both cases the only editing later (by my agent) consisted of getting me to add chapters and scenes, not working back over the writing - until some final tidying up at copy editing stage. This might sound horribly like bragging but it isn't. Just an example to say that just because a lot of people swear by the 'swift first draft followed by endless painstaking rewriting' method, it is not the only way. Different people do it differently. Whatever works for you. I also don't see why writing methods which served you well for screenplays won't work just as well for a novel - at least as far as this stuff is concerned.)


(Because I don't rush on with the draft, though, I do compensate for the ever-present fear of 'losing' bits by keeping a file headed 'bits for later - well, two, in fact: one on the computer and one cardboard one - where I jot down rough sketches of scenes or snatches of dialogue or ideas to slot in at some point, when these come to me.)

Rosy

I'm not saying my first drafts are brilliant, but I want them to be as near as possible to what I really want to say... Feverishly getting the first draft down then going back and finding it's not terribly good is dispiriting, not inspiring.

I feel the same. I write reasonably slowly. I can write loads of words in a short space of time, but I prefer to think out what I want to happen in that scene before I start writing, then start. This takes longer, but usually leads to a reasonably well-structured first draft.

Unlike Rosy it is not then finished, but it is a reasonable basis, in the case of my novel to be rewritten/polished (as needed) later on. But like you, Rossetti, I find it dispiriting to write so quickly that my first draft is not of a reasonable quality.

Deb

Rossetti, you're certainly not the only one, though I'm the get-it-all-down-first type myself.

I think the idea that the first draft will be rough and fast and have lots wrong with it is much talked of partly because very, very new writers need introducing to the idea that the first words they put on the paper will almost certainly need much re-examining, if not re-writing.

The other reason for it is that so many writers are paralysed by the blank page/screen because it seems to impose the need to be get it right, and as well all know, that's not easily done first off. Faced with this paralysis it can be really liberating - not to say essential - to say to oneself, 'It doesn't matter what this is like, I can change every word, everything is provisional, nothing is set in stone, but not till I've got something there to change.'

Emma

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And yes, most how-to-write books have some good ideas in them, but they're awfully inclined to peddle the 'do it like this and you'll be right' line, when as we all know it's not nearly as simple as that. I'd always suggest doing lots of writing before you turn to any book or course, because you need a sense of your own writer's nature before you can decide which bits are right for you, and which aren't.