Fic Talk > General Discussion

What are [fill in the blank]'s strengths and weaknesses as a writer?

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honey:
AKA the warm fuzzy thread!


Julie had a great idea since we were listing our own strengths and weaknesses, to list the strengths and weaknesses of someone else here on the board. Only when talking about myself weaknesses is fine, but if I'm going to be talking about someone else I don't want to use the word weakness necessarily, but how about just maybe just a little constructive criticism.

Though, this is very similar to the favorite authors/stories thread, it's not quite the same. One person starts and then the next person answers the question about the person who just posted. It doesn't have to be your favorite, and it's about the writing, not the stories. Though, you could most certainly use specific stories as examples in your comments.

And remember, we all have areas where we Rock, and where we could use improvement. It helps to hear both. But the term is constructive criticism, not flaming. Let's keep it respectful! 


I'll go ahead and start and since the author who's work I'm most familiar with is Sarah (Starbeamz2) I'll pick her.


Sarah, Sarah, Sarah, where do I begin? My brilliant co-writer(who should update ;)) My other half - my angsty half.

I think I mentioned this in the other thread, but Sarah is beautiful. Physically too, but I mean her writing. She has a way with her words like no one else I read on here. Eloquent is a great word. She flows on the page very well and I think that is a major asset she has in pulling you into her stories.

I think that's also one of the reasons you get attached to her characters. Sarah is great at showing character's emotions. She especially good at the angst! She makes you feel what they are going through, and feel sorry for them, or excited for them, and sometimes downright pissed off at them. I get so invested in her stories that once I start I usually just HAVE to see what's going to happen next.

Sarah has a great handle on the romance. You want to fall in love  when her characters do. You want to see them reach that perfect ending. And even though romance is a difficult genre to not get repetitive and cliche in, Sarah's great at giving it her own style and keeping you in the story. Even if she's writing something cliche (which she's pretty good at avoiding) you hardly notice it because you already love the story so much that you just don't care. Kudos to you Sarah, that's hard to do!


Something I think that Sarah could work on is taking her time through a story. She has a tendency to Start off with this amazing story idea, with all this momentum and then she kind of peters off at the end. (Or just loses interest or gets stuck and doesn't finish) Sometimes her endings feel rushed, or thrown together just to get to the end. Believe me, I know what it feels like to want to just be done already, but you've already invested so much time and effort on such a beautiful story, the end is supposed to be what we've all been waiting for. I'd suggest taking extra time to take the care and give your stories the endings they most definitely deserve.

The other thing about Sarah, is that she just doesn't give herself enough credit!!!! This drives me crazy!! She's always saying that the stuff she writes anymore is all just crap. Well, Sarah, that's a load of crap in itself, and I think that this delusional way of thinking is only hurting you. I think you get so discouraged because you're being to hard on yourself that you don't even enjoy what you're writing anymore. I think you're too worried on trying to make something good - worried about being too technical - that you forget to just sit back and tell me an awesome story that I can gush over. Sometimes, especially in fan fic, we need to not take things quite so seriously. If you're not having fun with it, it shows. You're a great writer Sarah! I love you and I love writing with you and would love to see you find that love again!

Rose:
I haven't thought about this enough yet, but I'd like to add, once someone praised an author in here, that same author cannot be picked again.

Meaning the same authors can't be mentioned over and over again. Because everyone deserves warm fuzzies.

honey:
ooh, that's a good one rose!! Let's see how many authors we can get in here.

Rose:

--- Quote from: honey on December 10, 2008, 12:01:46 AM ---ooh, that's a good one rose!! Let's see how many authors we can get in here.

--- End quote ---

I just foresaw certain people picking the same fave authors over and over LOL. I feel everyone needs love! hehe.

However, I do encourage picking more than one person to do this for :)

RokofAges75:
You're actually supposed to post about the person who posted last... so Rose, if you're going to post, you should write about Kelly, and then the next person would write about you, and so on.  That way everyone who posts gets a compliment and a critique about themselves too.

Not everyone on the board is probably ready to be critiqued like this, so that's what makes it on a volunteer basis.  I know Sarah won't mind that Kelly used her to start with, but who knows, some people might.  I wouldn't want to hurt anyone's feelings.

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