The Anonymous Writing Feedback Meme

[trivialaffair]

THE ANONYMOUS WRITING FEEDBACK MEME

Since it’s been more than half a year since the last one.

Let’s keep this simple. As a writer, do you want to know what readers really think of your writing?

THE ANONYMOUS WRITING FEEDBACK MEME

Comments

[thraesja]

thraesja. Or my website.

[thraesja]

I love your writing, your stories can be really funny at the same time they are very sweet.

[thraesja]

Thanks very much.

[thraesja]

Your fic is amazing and I am a huge fan. But since this is about feedback, not just mindless praise I'm going to focus more on the concrit part.

I occasionally get the feeling that you're holding back. I'm not sure if it's over editing or just a lack of real passion within the characters. (And I don't mean the kind that comes in sex scenes.) There's passion FOR the characters and I don't doubt that you love writing them. What I mean is that I would love to see you write something that really goes deep into what a character is thinking or feeling. Your characterization is spot on but to me seems like it doesn't probe beneath the surface quite as much as I think that you are capable of doing.

[thraesja]

Well, I'd say that one is bang on target, thank you. It's something I've definitely noticed and something I've envied in other people's work. I'm just not sure I share your optimism of my capability on the subject. I tend to deflect a lot of things with humour in my real life, so it's difficult for me to keep the characters from doing so. Also, I'm not sure I'm all that deep (or observant) when it comes right down to it. But I'll make more of an effort in future.

Thank you.

[thraesja]

Your stories are consistently great. I love your characterization and you've written some of my favorite action scenes in fandom.

One thing that sometimes strikes me of your writing is that it sometimes feels forced. I think this is mostly of your big stories, not your single chapter ones. Sometimes I feel you overthink your writing as if you were afraid you can't pull off the story you're trying to write, and I'm not sure there's any story you couldn't pull off. Just sometimes I want to see you really let loose and just go wild with your writing like you have with your latest bunch of prompted mini-stories. I'm not sure anything could stop you if you did that.

[thraesja]

My writing sometimes feels forced because sometimes it is. I tend to write the scenes I like and then I have to force the others out to finish the story. I'd hoped it wasn't so obvious. Should have known. :)

The fact that my shorter stories seem less forced to you is probably a combination of A) my not actually having to write scenes that don't interest me as much due to the format, and B) most of my long stuff was also the stuff I wrote first. Hopefully B is the biggest factor and I'm improving rather than just getting more brief.

Thank you very much for the insight; I'll keep it in mind in future. And thank you for the compliment on my action scenes. Those are hard (and ironically some of the things I thought must come off the most forced).