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Somebody needs to say it and I don't care about what you think of me enough to be the one to stand up and say it.
They suck.
Plain and simple.
Harsh but true. Deal with it.
Most of this first page are stories. Bad ones.
A couple are alright, but most are sub-A Level English lit essays on predictability.
"He sat in a big armchair in room. The room was big, he turned on a television. The television was big"
Christ....
"What do you know Goatboy? Who are you to tell us what to post and where? Blah blah blah blah"
I'm me, it's true, shut up.
"Intelligent discussion"
Nothing about the bombs in Turkey, nothing about Dubya's visit to London, nothing about the anniversary of JFK's assasination.
"Well I'm not interested in that stuff"
Well you should be. It's the world, it's what is going on around you, it's what will affect and shape the outcomes of your lives.
Or if you *are* going to write a short story, write one that is
(a) Interesting
(b) Has a point to it
(c) Doesn't involve murder/blood/vampires/war
You want to learn to write?
Great, take a ticket and join the back of line. It stretches waaaaaaay round the corner there, bring a packed lunch cos you'll be there a while.
You want to write seriously, you want it to be what, published?
Go for it.
But please, once you've written something, read it back to see if it can be improved. Give it to somebody that doesn't know you wrote it.
And stop crying when somebody says "That's terrible/sorry not interested/read it before/whatever".
Do me a favour you budding Danielle Steeles:
I'll set you a topic to write about in another thread, write your best attempt in there.
Your very best, re-write it again and then again.
Then submit it.
Write about what you know, something that matters to you. Inject it with yourself and not 5 sentences trying to describe the bloody temperature.
I'll pop back in a couple hours and give you the topic.
Trust me, I'm (in 2 years time) an English Teacher, and y'all are my students.
Just please stop bashing out gore stories with your forehead rods and getting huffy when somebody says "That reeks of ass".
> What gets me is this:
> Why shouldn't I say that I find them boring?
> Why should I not say when I find some of these stories absolutely
> terrible?
All I was trying to say in my post was that from an English teacher to be we expect something more constructive. Is that wrong? If the best you can say to your students is "That's bad, start again" then you'll suck.
Not saying I don't agreee with your views, a lot of the time I do. I just expect more thought put into criticism from you personally.
That always helps.
> All I was trying to say in my post was that from an English teacher
> to be we expect something more constructive. Is that wrong? If the
> best you can say to your students is "That's bad, start
> again" then you'll suck.
>
---
True.
However, I'm not being paid to read substandard stories about murder/guts/ponies/matchboxes with gory murder ponies in and I cannot be bothered to spend an age saying
"Now then, you should be using less metaphor and trying to pare down the language. Efficiency of language is the key, don't try to employ purple prose otherwise you run the risk of coming off like somebody with their tongue poking out the corner of their mouth as they thumb through a thesarus"
It's easier, saves time for important stuff and means I bash the keys less to simply say that some suck.
Once it is my career to assist, then I will do so until my kids understand.
Nice work if you can get it.
> I do feel that some of the blood/guts/murder jibs are aimed my way,
> but I'll keep writng and trying to improve. This forum has been and
> is helpful.
The difference is that you do blood, guts and murder with some style and imagination - most other people seem to pick the genre by default, ie this story isn't going anywhere, I'd better have the hero go postal.