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qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlqotc0 | hlreiml | 1,637,650,078 | 1,637,670,938 | 1 | 6 | Pick maybe two or three issues and suggest how hey could improve on those, using specific suggestions if possible. Highlight positive things about it before and after. | I would suggest fixing your own grammar and comments before criticizing your friend’s. I know it’s just a title, but let’s start in our own home. | 0 | 20,860 | 6 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlqyi24 | hlreiml | 1,637,657,913 | 1,637,670,938 | 1 | 6 | Mark the mistakes, plot holes etc. Don't tell them how to fix it unless they ask. For all that is holy, don't rewrite their prose or change their plot. Also, tell them that they're wasting your and their own time if they don't at least proofread before they give it to someone else. To expect an editor/beta reader to fix spelling and grammar when they could easily fix it themselves is rude and usually shows that the writer cares less about their own story than they expect their editor to. | I would suggest fixing your own grammar and comments before criticizing your friend’s. I know it’s just a title, but let’s start in our own home. | 0 | 13,025 | 6 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlp9s4l | hlp7h7b | 1,637,623,652 | 1,637,622,621 | 5 | 3 | Compliment sandwich it. Tell something you like, mention something they can improve on, and end it with a positive. Also, I’d recommended suggest they read it and marking down each time they had to breathe. Each breath is a pause and means they most likely need a punctuation of some kind. Also recommend they record themselves reading aloud then listen to the audio. When someone has to hear themselves read something you can catch a lot more since sometimes our brains like to auto put thing in our head (like adding missing words) but the recording would capture it being missing. I did a pageant once and I recorded myself a ton to make sure my speech went well and listening to the audio really helped me realize what sounded off. | What grade level of school? What kind of assignment? If its k-12, and its not like a final thats gonna tank their grade, dont worry about it. Let them just get a bad grade and move on. They probably wont though. If they put towards any effort at all, i think the teacher will probably give them a favorable grade. And once again, if they dont, still dont stress about a school assignment especially if it isn’t yours. But if they explicitly asked for help, the other comments are great saying to pick the top 3 things to work on, suggest, ask questions. | 1 | 1,031 | 1.666667 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlp4j39 | hlp9s4l | 1,637,621,325 | 1,637,623,652 | 2 | 5 | Ack, this is a always a sticky situation! For school, yeah, then they’re going to need to clean up the grammar and spelling (they do know that spell check exists, right?) Try to find things you like about the story. Praise the heck out of those things. Then say something like, because I know this is for school, I fixed a bunch of minor grammar mistakes. As for plot holes, it’s helpful to put your thoughts in the form of questions. | Compliment sandwich it. Tell something you like, mention something they can improve on, and end it with a positive. Also, I’d recommended suggest they read it and marking down each time they had to breathe. Each breath is a pause and means they most likely need a punctuation of some kind. Also recommend they record themselves reading aloud then listen to the audio. When someone has to hear themselves read something you can catch a lot more since sometimes our brains like to auto put thing in our head (like adding missing words) but the recording would capture it being missing. I did a pageant once and I recorded myself a ton to make sure my speech went well and listening to the audio really helped me realize what sounded off. | 0 | 2,327 | 2.5 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlp68l2 | hlp9s4l | 1,637,622,071 | 1,637,623,652 | 1 | 5 | Well, some people just aren't cut out for writing. Just like some people aren't cut out for painting apples. If they ask for advice, give every single bit of it. Constructively. Or if it's easier, ask him if they mind if you edit it for him. This is why I don't ask friends to read my stuff. LOL | Compliment sandwich it. Tell something you like, mention something they can improve on, and end it with a positive. Also, I’d recommended suggest they read it and marking down each time they had to breathe. Each breath is a pause and means they most likely need a punctuation of some kind. Also recommend they record themselves reading aloud then listen to the audio. When someone has to hear themselves read something you can catch a lot more since sometimes our brains like to auto put thing in our head (like adding missing words) but the recording would capture it being missing. I did a pageant once and I recorded myself a ton to make sure my speech went well and listening to the audio really helped me realize what sounded off. | 0 | 1,581 | 5 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlp8pab | hlp9s4l | 1,637,623,174 | 1,637,623,652 | 2 | 5 | Tell them how parts of it made you feel. Don't criticise it as an author, but a reader. I enjoyed this part, this part was confusing, the strongest aspect of x I'd like to see more of that | Compliment sandwich it. Tell something you like, mention something they can improve on, and end it with a positive. Also, I’d recommended suggest they read it and marking down each time they had to breathe. Each breath is a pause and means they most likely need a punctuation of some kind. Also recommend they record themselves reading aloud then listen to the audio. When someone has to hear themselves read something you can catch a lot more since sometimes our brains like to auto put thing in our head (like adding missing words) but the recording would capture it being missing. I did a pageant once and I recorded myself a ton to make sure my speech went well and listening to the audio really helped me realize what sounded off. | 0 | 478 | 2.5 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlp7h7b | hlpd51y | 1,637,622,621 | 1,637,625,192 | 3 | 5 | What grade level of school? What kind of assignment? If its k-12, and its not like a final thats gonna tank their grade, dont worry about it. Let them just get a bad grade and move on. They probably wont though. If they put towards any effort at all, i think the teacher will probably give them a favorable grade. And once again, if they dont, still dont stress about a school assignment especially if it isn’t yours. But if they explicitly asked for help, the other comments are great saying to pick the top 3 things to work on, suggest, ask questions. | So I wouldn’t say anything about the grammar other than, “hey, you could tighten this up when you edit it LATER*” It’s one page, you’re not supposed to answer every question you ask on one page… so I’m not quite sure what kind of critique that is. The most important thing about a story is if you can understand it. So ask yourself: Do you know who the Main character is? Do you have an idea of what the main character wants? Can you identify the genre or premise of the story? All other edits are meaningless if these aren’t even stable. Tell them you like this thing, but this thing was difficult to understand. | 0 | 2,571 | 1.666667 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlpd51y | hlp4j39 | 1,637,625,192 | 1,637,621,325 | 5 | 2 | So I wouldn’t say anything about the grammar other than, “hey, you could tighten this up when you edit it LATER*” It’s one page, you’re not supposed to answer every question you ask on one page… so I’m not quite sure what kind of critique that is. The most important thing about a story is if you can understand it. So ask yourself: Do you know who the Main character is? Do you have an idea of what the main character wants? Can you identify the genre or premise of the story? All other edits are meaningless if these aren’t even stable. Tell them you like this thing, but this thing was difficult to understand. | Ack, this is a always a sticky situation! For school, yeah, then they’re going to need to clean up the grammar and spelling (they do know that spell check exists, right?) Try to find things you like about the story. Praise the heck out of those things. Then say something like, because I know this is for school, I fixed a bunch of minor grammar mistakes. As for plot holes, it’s helpful to put your thoughts in the form of questions. | 1 | 3,867 | 2.5 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlp68l2 | hlpd51y | 1,637,622,071 | 1,637,625,192 | 1 | 5 | Well, some people just aren't cut out for writing. Just like some people aren't cut out for painting apples. If they ask for advice, give every single bit of it. Constructively. Or if it's easier, ask him if they mind if you edit it for him. This is why I don't ask friends to read my stuff. LOL | So I wouldn’t say anything about the grammar other than, “hey, you could tighten this up when you edit it LATER*” It’s one page, you’re not supposed to answer every question you ask on one page… so I’m not quite sure what kind of critique that is. The most important thing about a story is if you can understand it. So ask yourself: Do you know who the Main character is? Do you have an idea of what the main character wants? Can you identify the genre or premise of the story? All other edits are meaningless if these aren’t even stable. Tell them you like this thing, but this thing was difficult to understand. | 0 | 3,121 | 5 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlp8pab | hlpd51y | 1,637,623,174 | 1,637,625,192 | 2 | 5 | Tell them how parts of it made you feel. Don't criticise it as an author, but a reader. I enjoyed this part, this part was confusing, the strongest aspect of x I'd like to see more of that | So I wouldn’t say anything about the grammar other than, “hey, you could tighten this up when you edit it LATER*” It’s one page, you’re not supposed to answer every question you ask on one page… so I’m not quite sure what kind of critique that is. The most important thing about a story is if you can understand it. So ask yourself: Do you know who the Main character is? Do you have an idea of what the main character wants? Can you identify the genre or premise of the story? All other edits are meaningless if these aren’t even stable. Tell them you like this thing, but this thing was difficult to understand. | 0 | 2,018 | 2.5 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlpuc0d | hlp7h7b | 1,637,633,268 | 1,637,622,621 | 4 | 3 | If this assignment is for a grade, by all means ask if they want you to offer corrections on grammar - it’s a big favor you’d be doing! One thing I’m concerned about is your impulse to tell them HOW to fix things. That’s not a critique partner’s job. You can say “X plot thread doesn’t seem to go anywhere.” Don’t say “X plot thread doesn’t go anywhere and you can fix it by having the characters do Y and Z.” Tell them what doesn’t work for you (I like the suggestion of just 2-3 major things), but don’t apply your own solutions. | What grade level of school? What kind of assignment? If its k-12, and its not like a final thats gonna tank their grade, dont worry about it. Let them just get a bad grade and move on. They probably wont though. If they put towards any effort at all, i think the teacher will probably give them a favorable grade. And once again, if they dont, still dont stress about a school assignment especially if it isn’t yours. But if they explicitly asked for help, the other comments are great saying to pick the top 3 things to work on, suggest, ask questions. | 1 | 10,647 | 1.333333 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlp4j39 | hlpuc0d | 1,637,621,325 | 1,637,633,268 | 2 | 4 | Ack, this is a always a sticky situation! For school, yeah, then they’re going to need to clean up the grammar and spelling (they do know that spell check exists, right?) Try to find things you like about the story. Praise the heck out of those things. Then say something like, because I know this is for school, I fixed a bunch of minor grammar mistakes. As for plot holes, it’s helpful to put your thoughts in the form of questions. | If this assignment is for a grade, by all means ask if they want you to offer corrections on grammar - it’s a big favor you’d be doing! One thing I’m concerned about is your impulse to tell them HOW to fix things. That’s not a critique partner’s job. You can say “X plot thread doesn’t seem to go anywhere.” Don’t say “X plot thread doesn’t go anywhere and you can fix it by having the characters do Y and Z.” Tell them what doesn’t work for you (I like the suggestion of just 2-3 major things), but don’t apply your own solutions. | 0 | 11,943 | 2 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlpuc0d | hlp68l2 | 1,637,633,268 | 1,637,622,071 | 4 | 1 | If this assignment is for a grade, by all means ask if they want you to offer corrections on grammar - it’s a big favor you’d be doing! One thing I’m concerned about is your impulse to tell them HOW to fix things. That’s not a critique partner’s job. You can say “X plot thread doesn’t seem to go anywhere.” Don’t say “X plot thread doesn’t go anywhere and you can fix it by having the characters do Y and Z.” Tell them what doesn’t work for you (I like the suggestion of just 2-3 major things), but don’t apply your own solutions. | Well, some people just aren't cut out for writing. Just like some people aren't cut out for painting apples. If they ask for advice, give every single bit of it. Constructively. Or if it's easier, ask him if they mind if you edit it for him. This is why I don't ask friends to read my stuff. LOL | 1 | 11,197 | 4 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlp8pab | hlpuc0d | 1,637,623,174 | 1,637,633,268 | 2 | 4 | Tell them how parts of it made you feel. Don't criticise it as an author, but a reader. I enjoyed this part, this part was confusing, the strongest aspect of x I'd like to see more of that | If this assignment is for a grade, by all means ask if they want you to offer corrections on grammar - it’s a big favor you’d be doing! One thing I’m concerned about is your impulse to tell them HOW to fix things. That’s not a critique partner’s job. You can say “X plot thread doesn’t seem to go anywhere.” Don’t say “X plot thread doesn’t go anywhere and you can fix it by having the characters do Y and Z.” Tell them what doesn’t work for you (I like the suggestion of just 2-3 major things), but don’t apply your own solutions. | 0 | 10,094 | 2 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlpuc0d | hlpmi89 | 1,637,633,268 | 1,637,629,620 | 4 | 2 | If this assignment is for a grade, by all means ask if they want you to offer corrections on grammar - it’s a big favor you’d be doing! One thing I’m concerned about is your impulse to tell them HOW to fix things. That’s not a critique partner’s job. You can say “X plot thread doesn’t seem to go anywhere.” Don’t say “X plot thread doesn’t go anywhere and you can fix it by having the characters do Y and Z.” Tell them what doesn’t work for you (I like the suggestion of just 2-3 major things), but don’t apply your own solutions. | Wait why is everyone saying not to critique them 😭. Isn’t it better to give them solid advice?(without being rude ofc) | 1 | 3,648 | 2 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlpuc0d | hlpoqkh | 1,637,633,268 | 1,637,630,685 | 4 | 1 | If this assignment is for a grade, by all means ask if they want you to offer corrections on grammar - it’s a big favor you’d be doing! One thing I’m concerned about is your impulse to tell them HOW to fix things. That’s not a critique partner’s job. You can say “X plot thread doesn’t seem to go anywhere.” Don’t say “X plot thread doesn’t go anywhere and you can fix it by having the characters do Y and Z.” Tell them what doesn’t work for you (I like the suggestion of just 2-3 major things), but don’t apply your own solutions. | Get them to read a similar book that does everything correctly so that they naturally compare it with their own work... or be honest. "I don't want your feelings to hurt, but nobody starts with a masterpiece and you're no exception. Let's go over what needs to be fixed." | 1 | 2,583 | 4 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlpuc0d | hlpq7n2 | 1,637,633,268 | 1,637,631,376 | 4 | 1 | If this assignment is for a grade, by all means ask if they want you to offer corrections on grammar - it’s a big favor you’d be doing! One thing I’m concerned about is your impulse to tell them HOW to fix things. That’s not a critique partner’s job. You can say “X plot thread doesn’t seem to go anywhere.” Don’t say “X plot thread doesn’t go anywhere and you can fix it by having the characters do Y and Z.” Tell them what doesn’t work for you (I like the suggestion of just 2-3 major things), but don’t apply your own solutions. | Focus on one thing. Grammar and spelling are easy to identity and fix. I'd suggest fixing the plot holes first. You'll need to let a lot of things go if you really want to help. Bombarding them is not helpful. They should probably not be writing the actual scenes yet. Correcting thier style could come later. I liken this to training people in martial arts. I won't correct everything in the ring straightaway. I'll focus on thier placement, distance and movement first. If I'm correcting thier guard and blasting them with hard hits from the start, I'll only be turning them off. Teaching/mentoring should come in stages. The order in which these focus points are delivered is everything. Good luck. I hope it goes well. Writing advice amongst friends is a big friendship killer. | 1 | 1,892 | 4 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlp4j39 | hlp7h7b | 1,637,621,325 | 1,637,622,621 | 2 | 3 | Ack, this is a always a sticky situation! For school, yeah, then they’re going to need to clean up the grammar and spelling (they do know that spell check exists, right?) Try to find things you like about the story. Praise the heck out of those things. Then say something like, because I know this is for school, I fixed a bunch of minor grammar mistakes. As for plot holes, it’s helpful to put your thoughts in the form of questions. | What grade level of school? What kind of assignment? If its k-12, and its not like a final thats gonna tank their grade, dont worry about it. Let them just get a bad grade and move on. They probably wont though. If they put towards any effort at all, i think the teacher will probably give them a favorable grade. And once again, if they dont, still dont stress about a school assignment especially if it isn’t yours. But if they explicitly asked for help, the other comments are great saying to pick the top 3 things to work on, suggest, ask questions. | 0 | 1,296 | 1.5 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlp68l2 | hlp7h7b | 1,637,622,071 | 1,637,622,621 | 1 | 3 | Well, some people just aren't cut out for writing. Just like some people aren't cut out for painting apples. If they ask for advice, give every single bit of it. Constructively. Or if it's easier, ask him if they mind if you edit it for him. This is why I don't ask friends to read my stuff. LOL | What grade level of school? What kind of assignment? If its k-12, and its not like a final thats gonna tank their grade, dont worry about it. Let them just get a bad grade and move on. They probably wont though. If they put towards any effort at all, i think the teacher will probably give them a favorable grade. And once again, if they dont, still dont stress about a school assignment especially if it isn’t yours. But if they explicitly asked for help, the other comments are great saying to pick the top 3 things to work on, suggest, ask questions. | 0 | 550 | 3 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlpvfzy | hlp4j39 | 1,637,633,786 | 1,637,621,325 | 3 | 2 | Lol. Ask them what feedback they want. Give them that. If they didn't ask for grammar or spelling then don't worry about it. And I somehow doubt one page had a pothole in it. If they ask for structure advice, give them that. If they just want to know if the story is entertaining then give them a yes or no answer and why. Nothing worse than asking someone to read your work only to have them fuss on grammar and spelling and not writing in the way they like with details how they like and more narration over inference. The story is what matters. | Ack, this is a always a sticky situation! For school, yeah, then they’re going to need to clean up the grammar and spelling (they do know that spell check exists, right?) Try to find things you like about the story. Praise the heck out of those things. Then say something like, because I know this is for school, I fixed a bunch of minor grammar mistakes. As for plot holes, it’s helpful to put your thoughts in the form of questions. | 1 | 12,461 | 1.5 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlp68l2 | hlpvfzy | 1,637,622,071 | 1,637,633,786 | 1 | 3 | Well, some people just aren't cut out for writing. Just like some people aren't cut out for painting apples. If they ask for advice, give every single bit of it. Constructively. Or if it's easier, ask him if they mind if you edit it for him. This is why I don't ask friends to read my stuff. LOL | Lol. Ask them what feedback they want. Give them that. If they didn't ask for grammar or spelling then don't worry about it. And I somehow doubt one page had a pothole in it. If they ask for structure advice, give them that. If they just want to know if the story is entertaining then give them a yes or no answer and why. Nothing worse than asking someone to read your work only to have them fuss on grammar and spelling and not writing in the way they like with details how they like and more narration over inference. The story is what matters. | 0 | 11,715 | 3 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlpvfzy | hlp8pab | 1,637,633,786 | 1,637,623,174 | 3 | 2 | Lol. Ask them what feedback they want. Give them that. If they didn't ask for grammar or spelling then don't worry about it. And I somehow doubt one page had a pothole in it. If they ask for structure advice, give them that. If they just want to know if the story is entertaining then give them a yes or no answer and why. Nothing worse than asking someone to read your work only to have them fuss on grammar and spelling and not writing in the way they like with details how they like and more narration over inference. The story is what matters. | Tell them how parts of it made you feel. Don't criticise it as an author, but a reader. I enjoyed this part, this part was confusing, the strongest aspect of x I'd like to see more of that | 1 | 10,612 | 1.5 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlpvfzy | hlpmi89 | 1,637,633,786 | 1,637,629,620 | 3 | 2 | Lol. Ask them what feedback they want. Give them that. If they didn't ask for grammar or spelling then don't worry about it. And I somehow doubt one page had a pothole in it. If they ask for structure advice, give them that. If they just want to know if the story is entertaining then give them a yes or no answer and why. Nothing worse than asking someone to read your work only to have them fuss on grammar and spelling and not writing in the way they like with details how they like and more narration over inference. The story is what matters. | Wait why is everyone saying not to critique them 😭. Isn’t it better to give them solid advice?(without being rude ofc) | 1 | 4,166 | 1.5 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlpoqkh | hlpvfzy | 1,637,630,685 | 1,637,633,786 | 1 | 3 | Get them to read a similar book that does everything correctly so that they naturally compare it with their own work... or be honest. "I don't want your feelings to hurt, but nobody starts with a masterpiece and you're no exception. Let's go over what needs to be fixed." | Lol. Ask them what feedback they want. Give them that. If they didn't ask for grammar or spelling then don't worry about it. And I somehow doubt one page had a pothole in it. If they ask for structure advice, give them that. If they just want to know if the story is entertaining then give them a yes or no answer and why. Nothing worse than asking someone to read your work only to have them fuss on grammar and spelling and not writing in the way they like with details how they like and more narration over inference. The story is what matters. | 0 | 3,101 | 3 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlpvfzy | hlpq7n2 | 1,637,633,786 | 1,637,631,376 | 3 | 1 | Lol. Ask them what feedback they want. Give them that. If they didn't ask for grammar or spelling then don't worry about it. And I somehow doubt one page had a pothole in it. If they ask for structure advice, give them that. If they just want to know if the story is entertaining then give them a yes or no answer and why. Nothing worse than asking someone to read your work only to have them fuss on grammar and spelling and not writing in the way they like with details how they like and more narration over inference. The story is what matters. | Focus on one thing. Grammar and spelling are easy to identity and fix. I'd suggest fixing the plot holes first. You'll need to let a lot of things go if you really want to help. Bombarding them is not helpful. They should probably not be writing the actual scenes yet. Correcting thier style could come later. I liken this to training people in martial arts. I won't correct everything in the ring straightaway. I'll focus on thier placement, distance and movement first. If I'm correcting thier guard and blasting them with hard hits from the start, I'll only be turning them off. Teaching/mentoring should come in stages. The order in which these focus points are delivered is everything. Good luck. I hope it goes well. Writing advice amongst friends is a big friendship killer. | 1 | 2,410 | 3 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlp68l2 | hlp8pab | 1,637,622,071 | 1,637,623,174 | 1 | 2 | Well, some people just aren't cut out for writing. Just like some people aren't cut out for painting apples. If they ask for advice, give every single bit of it. Constructively. Or if it's easier, ask him if they mind if you edit it for him. This is why I don't ask friends to read my stuff. LOL | Tell them how parts of it made you feel. Don't criticise it as an author, but a reader. I enjoyed this part, this part was confusing, the strongest aspect of x I'd like to see more of that | 0 | 1,103 | 2 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlp68l2 | hlpmi89 | 1,637,622,071 | 1,637,629,620 | 1 | 2 | Well, some people just aren't cut out for writing. Just like some people aren't cut out for painting apples. If they ask for advice, give every single bit of it. Constructively. Or if it's easier, ask him if they mind if you edit it for him. This is why I don't ask friends to read my stuff. LOL | Wait why is everyone saying not to critique them 😭. Isn’t it better to give them solid advice?(without being rude ofc) | 0 | 7,549 | 2 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlq3lzk | hlp68l2 | 1,637,637,658 | 1,637,622,071 | 2 | 1 | If it’s a first draft, grammar and spelling can take a hike. The early stages are all about consistency and addressing plot holes and out of character moments. | Well, some people just aren't cut out for writing. Just like some people aren't cut out for painting apples. If they ask for advice, give every single bit of it. Constructively. Or if it's easier, ask him if they mind if you edit it for him. This is why I don't ask friends to read my stuff. LOL | 1 | 15,587 | 2 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlp68l2 | hlqndsg | 1,637,622,071 | 1,637,649,058 | 1 | 2 | Well, some people just aren't cut out for writing. Just like some people aren't cut out for painting apples. If they ask for advice, give every single bit of it. Constructively. Or if it's easier, ask him if they mind if you edit it for him. This is why I don't ask friends to read my stuff. LOL | How do I find a friend like you to point out every single flaw lol. Maybe it’s just me, but I would prefer knowing about every little thing you noticed as a reader, before I send in to the next person or try to get it published. | 0 | 26,987 | 2 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlp68l2 | hlquxaz | 1,637,622,071 | 1,637,654,851 | 1 | 2 | Well, some people just aren't cut out for writing. Just like some people aren't cut out for painting apples. If they ask for advice, give every single bit of it. Constructively. Or if it's easier, ask him if they mind if you edit it for him. This is why I don't ask friends to read my stuff. LOL | I actually think you should be frank and honest (can also add some encouraging words). It will do more good for your friend and if they get hurt or backlash at you, it's not on you and they probably weren't a real friend in the first place. I personally, even more so from friends, want the truth and not lies that protect my feelings. How will I ever get better if nobody points me to the flaws I might be blind to? | 0 | 32,780 | 2 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlr9f6y | hlp68l2 | 1,637,667,375 | 1,637,622,071 | 2 | 1 | I am both an author and an engineer so I correct people's work constantly. When I get a piece of work that would be 100% red pen I will instead respond with 'global' feedback first, i.e. list the top 10 things they need to work on. After they incorporate those things then hopefully you are left with a cleaner piece of work. It helps to talk them through the feedback, and explain why things need to change and how they can do it. As someone else mentioned, compliment sandwich is your friend. Don't neglect the positives. | Well, some people just aren't cut out for writing. Just like some people aren't cut out for painting apples. If they ask for advice, give every single bit of it. Constructively. Or if it's easier, ask him if they mind if you edit it for him. This is why I don't ask friends to read my stuff. LOL | 1 | 45,304 | 2 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlp68l2 | hlrk7dp | 1,637,622,071 | 1,637,674,241 | 1 | 2 | Well, some people just aren't cut out for writing. Just like some people aren't cut out for painting apples. If they ask for advice, give every single bit of it. Constructively. Or if it's easier, ask him if they mind if you edit it for him. This is why I don't ask friends to read my stuff. LOL | If they didn’t ask for edits, don’t give edits. If you didn’t like the story, tell them what you did like and recognize their hard work. Also, this is not what obsessive-compulsive means. If language matters to you, don’t conflate “obsessive compulsions” with “wanting to edit someone’s writing”. | 0 | 52,170 | 2 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlp68l2 | hlsoc71 | 1,637,622,071 | 1,637,691,173 | 1 | 2 | Well, some people just aren't cut out for writing. Just like some people aren't cut out for painting apples. If they ask for advice, give every single bit of it. Constructively. Or if it's easier, ask him if they mind if you edit it for him. This is why I don't ask friends to read my stuff. LOL | Set yourself the task not of making a silk purse from a sow's ear, but of making no more than three suggestions that (a) they will understand, (b) they can implement immediately with only their current skills plus your suggestion, (c) will create distinct improvements that will be visible to both them and their readers. The goal is really to help the author to improve their skills, not to magically transform them into a professional writer in a single pass or to, in effect, write their story for them. | 0 | 69,102 | 2 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlq3lzk | hlpoqkh | 1,637,637,658 | 1,637,630,685 | 2 | 1 | If it’s a first draft, grammar and spelling can take a hike. The early stages are all about consistency and addressing plot holes and out of character moments. | Get them to read a similar book that does everything correctly so that they naturally compare it with their own work... or be honest. "I don't want your feelings to hurt, but nobody starts with a masterpiece and you're no exception. Let's go over what needs to be fixed." | 1 | 6,973 | 2 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlpq7n2 | hlq3lzk | 1,637,631,376 | 1,637,637,658 | 1 | 2 | Focus on one thing. Grammar and spelling are easy to identity and fix. I'd suggest fixing the plot holes first. You'll need to let a lot of things go if you really want to help. Bombarding them is not helpful. They should probably not be writing the actual scenes yet. Correcting thier style could come later. I liken this to training people in martial arts. I won't correct everything in the ring straightaway. I'll focus on thier placement, distance and movement first. If I'm correcting thier guard and blasting them with hard hits from the start, I'll only be turning them off. Teaching/mentoring should come in stages. The order in which these focus points are delivered is everything. Good luck. I hope it goes well. Writing advice amongst friends is a big friendship killer. | If it’s a first draft, grammar and spelling can take a hike. The early stages are all about consistency and addressing plot holes and out of character moments. | 0 | 6,282 | 2 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlpw4lx | hlq3lzk | 1,637,634,110 | 1,637,637,658 | 1 | 2 | Focus on bigger structural/plot things more than spelling/grammar. I know it's hard—correcting spelling and grammar is always my first instinct. But in the grand scheme of things, when it comes to writing fiction, the first drafts and revisions should be broader. You can paint the house and make it look elegant after it's built. | If it’s a first draft, grammar and spelling can take a hike. The early stages are all about consistency and addressing plot holes and out of character moments. | 0 | 3,548 | 2 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlq3lzk | hlq1oym | 1,637,637,658 | 1,637,636,736 | 2 | 1 | If it’s a first draft, grammar and spelling can take a hike. The early stages are all about consistency and addressing plot holes and out of character moments. | just make suggestions about the biggest things. you don't gotta fix everything just start with the basics like grammar for readability and the basic clarity of their sentences. | 1 | 922 | 2 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlqndsg | hlpoqkh | 1,637,649,058 | 1,637,630,685 | 2 | 1 | How do I find a friend like you to point out every single flaw lol. Maybe it’s just me, but I would prefer knowing about every little thing you noticed as a reader, before I send in to the next person or try to get it published. | Get them to read a similar book that does everything correctly so that they naturally compare it with their own work... or be honest. "I don't want your feelings to hurt, but nobody starts with a masterpiece and you're no exception. Let's go over what needs to be fixed." | 1 | 18,373 | 2 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlpq7n2 | hlqndsg | 1,637,631,376 | 1,637,649,058 | 1 | 2 | Focus on one thing. Grammar and spelling are easy to identity and fix. I'd suggest fixing the plot holes first. You'll need to let a lot of things go if you really want to help. Bombarding them is not helpful. They should probably not be writing the actual scenes yet. Correcting thier style could come later. I liken this to training people in martial arts. I won't correct everything in the ring straightaway. I'll focus on thier placement, distance and movement first. If I'm correcting thier guard and blasting them with hard hits from the start, I'll only be turning them off. Teaching/mentoring should come in stages. The order in which these focus points are delivered is everything. Good luck. I hope it goes well. Writing advice amongst friends is a big friendship killer. | How do I find a friend like you to point out every single flaw lol. Maybe it’s just me, but I would prefer knowing about every little thing you noticed as a reader, before I send in to the next person or try to get it published. | 0 | 17,682 | 2 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlqndsg | hlpw4lx | 1,637,649,058 | 1,637,634,110 | 2 | 1 | How do I find a friend like you to point out every single flaw lol. Maybe it’s just me, but I would prefer knowing about every little thing you noticed as a reader, before I send in to the next person or try to get it published. | Focus on bigger structural/plot things more than spelling/grammar. I know it's hard—correcting spelling and grammar is always my first instinct. But in the grand scheme of things, when it comes to writing fiction, the first drafts and revisions should be broader. You can paint the house and make it look elegant after it's built. | 1 | 14,948 | 2 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlq1oym | hlqndsg | 1,637,636,736 | 1,637,649,058 | 1 | 2 | just make suggestions about the biggest things. you don't gotta fix everything just start with the basics like grammar for readability and the basic clarity of their sentences. | How do I find a friend like you to point out every single flaw lol. Maybe it’s just me, but I would prefer knowing about every little thing you noticed as a reader, before I send in to the next person or try to get it published. | 0 | 12,322 | 2 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlqndsg | hlq4cow | 1,637,649,058 | 1,637,638,017 | 2 | 1 | How do I find a friend like you to point out every single flaw lol. Maybe it’s just me, but I would prefer knowing about every little thing you noticed as a reader, before I send in to the next person or try to get it published. | When I taught journalism at university we commented on the most important issues, with the understanding that the comments weren’t necessarily the only issues but they were the most significant. If they want to get the story published eventually, then just help with the big things. They can worry about grammar and sentence-level issues later. Structural problems like plot holes or the ending come first. Also see “Bird by bird” by Anne Lamott. She talks about this in a chapter. Her summary is that it never helps someone to demolish their spirit. Merely pointing them in a direction for improvement might be the best route | 1 | 11,041 | 2 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlq68gu | hlqndsg | 1,637,638,945 | 1,637,649,058 | 1 | 2 | I learned this thing in a writing critique group called the sandwich. You start the critique with a positive, then give the advice, then end with a positive. It has helped me so much! I really do think you need to also let your friend know to run spell and grammar check on everything. Every. Thing. Even professional writers do that much. Do that last part in a very casual voice, like, oh yeah... | How do I find a friend like you to point out every single flaw lol. Maybe it’s just me, but I would prefer knowing about every little thing you noticed as a reader, before I send in to the next person or try to get it published. | 0 | 10,113 | 2 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlpoqkh | hlquxaz | 1,637,630,685 | 1,637,654,851 | 1 | 2 | Get them to read a similar book that does everything correctly so that they naturally compare it with their own work... or be honest. "I don't want your feelings to hurt, but nobody starts with a masterpiece and you're no exception. Let's go over what needs to be fixed." | I actually think you should be frank and honest (can also add some encouraging words). It will do more good for your friend and if they get hurt or backlash at you, it's not on you and they probably weren't a real friend in the first place. I personally, even more so from friends, want the truth and not lies that protect my feelings. How will I ever get better if nobody points me to the flaws I might be blind to? | 0 | 24,166 | 2 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlpq7n2 | hlquxaz | 1,637,631,376 | 1,637,654,851 | 1 | 2 | Focus on one thing. Grammar and spelling are easy to identity and fix. I'd suggest fixing the plot holes first. You'll need to let a lot of things go if you really want to help. Bombarding them is not helpful. They should probably not be writing the actual scenes yet. Correcting thier style could come later. I liken this to training people in martial arts. I won't correct everything in the ring straightaway. I'll focus on thier placement, distance and movement first. If I'm correcting thier guard and blasting them with hard hits from the start, I'll only be turning them off. Teaching/mentoring should come in stages. The order in which these focus points are delivered is everything. Good luck. I hope it goes well. Writing advice amongst friends is a big friendship killer. | I actually think you should be frank and honest (can also add some encouraging words). It will do more good for your friend and if they get hurt or backlash at you, it's not on you and they probably weren't a real friend in the first place. I personally, even more so from friends, want the truth and not lies that protect my feelings. How will I ever get better if nobody points me to the flaws I might be blind to? | 0 | 23,475 | 2 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlpw4lx | hlquxaz | 1,637,634,110 | 1,637,654,851 | 1 | 2 | Focus on bigger structural/plot things more than spelling/grammar. I know it's hard—correcting spelling and grammar is always my first instinct. But in the grand scheme of things, when it comes to writing fiction, the first drafts and revisions should be broader. You can paint the house and make it look elegant after it's built. | I actually think you should be frank and honest (can also add some encouraging words). It will do more good for your friend and if they get hurt or backlash at you, it's not on you and they probably weren't a real friend in the first place. I personally, even more so from friends, want the truth and not lies that protect my feelings. How will I ever get better if nobody points me to the flaws I might be blind to? | 0 | 20,741 | 2 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlquxaz | hlq1oym | 1,637,654,851 | 1,637,636,736 | 2 | 1 | I actually think you should be frank and honest (can also add some encouraging words). It will do more good for your friend and if they get hurt or backlash at you, it's not on you and they probably weren't a real friend in the first place. I personally, even more so from friends, want the truth and not lies that protect my feelings. How will I ever get better if nobody points me to the flaws I might be blind to? | just make suggestions about the biggest things. you don't gotta fix everything just start with the basics like grammar for readability and the basic clarity of their sentences. | 1 | 18,115 | 2 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlq4cow | hlquxaz | 1,637,638,017 | 1,637,654,851 | 1 | 2 | When I taught journalism at university we commented on the most important issues, with the understanding that the comments weren’t necessarily the only issues but they were the most significant. If they want to get the story published eventually, then just help with the big things. They can worry about grammar and sentence-level issues later. Structural problems like plot holes or the ending come first. Also see “Bird by bird” by Anne Lamott. She talks about this in a chapter. Her summary is that it never helps someone to demolish their spirit. Merely pointing them in a direction for improvement might be the best route | I actually think you should be frank and honest (can also add some encouraging words). It will do more good for your friend and if they get hurt or backlash at you, it's not on you and they probably weren't a real friend in the first place. I personally, even more so from friends, want the truth and not lies that protect my feelings. How will I ever get better if nobody points me to the flaws I might be blind to? | 0 | 16,834 | 2 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlquxaz | hlq68gu | 1,637,654,851 | 1,637,638,945 | 2 | 1 | I actually think you should be frank and honest (can also add some encouraging words). It will do more good for your friend and if they get hurt or backlash at you, it's not on you and they probably weren't a real friend in the first place. I personally, even more so from friends, want the truth and not lies that protect my feelings. How will I ever get better if nobody points me to the flaws I might be blind to? | I learned this thing in a writing critique group called the sandwich. You start the critique with a positive, then give the advice, then end with a positive. It has helped me so much! I really do think you need to also let your friend know to run spell and grammar check on everything. Every. Thing. Even professional writers do that much. Do that last part in a very casual voice, like, oh yeah... | 1 | 15,906 | 2 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlqotc0 | hlquxaz | 1,637,650,078 | 1,637,654,851 | 1 | 2 | Pick maybe two or three issues and suggest how hey could improve on those, using specific suggestions if possible. Highlight positive things about it before and after. | I actually think you should be frank and honest (can also add some encouraging words). It will do more good for your friend and if they get hurt or backlash at you, it's not on you and they probably weren't a real friend in the first place. I personally, even more so from friends, want the truth and not lies that protect my feelings. How will I ever get better if nobody points me to the flaws I might be blind to? | 0 | 4,773 | 2 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlr9f6y | hlpoqkh | 1,637,667,375 | 1,637,630,685 | 2 | 1 | I am both an author and an engineer so I correct people's work constantly. When I get a piece of work that would be 100% red pen I will instead respond with 'global' feedback first, i.e. list the top 10 things they need to work on. After they incorporate those things then hopefully you are left with a cleaner piece of work. It helps to talk them through the feedback, and explain why things need to change and how they can do it. As someone else mentioned, compliment sandwich is your friend. Don't neglect the positives. | Get them to read a similar book that does everything correctly so that they naturally compare it with their own work... or be honest. "I don't want your feelings to hurt, but nobody starts with a masterpiece and you're no exception. Let's go over what needs to be fixed." | 1 | 36,690 | 2 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlr9f6y | hlpq7n2 | 1,637,667,375 | 1,637,631,376 | 2 | 1 | I am both an author and an engineer so I correct people's work constantly. When I get a piece of work that would be 100% red pen I will instead respond with 'global' feedback first, i.e. list the top 10 things they need to work on. After they incorporate those things then hopefully you are left with a cleaner piece of work. It helps to talk them through the feedback, and explain why things need to change and how they can do it. As someone else mentioned, compliment sandwich is your friend. Don't neglect the positives. | Focus on one thing. Grammar and spelling are easy to identity and fix. I'd suggest fixing the plot holes first. You'll need to let a lot of things go if you really want to help. Bombarding them is not helpful. They should probably not be writing the actual scenes yet. Correcting thier style could come later. I liken this to training people in martial arts. I won't correct everything in the ring straightaway. I'll focus on thier placement, distance and movement first. If I'm correcting thier guard and blasting them with hard hits from the start, I'll only be turning them off. Teaching/mentoring should come in stages. The order in which these focus points are delivered is everything. Good luck. I hope it goes well. Writing advice amongst friends is a big friendship killer. | 1 | 35,999 | 2 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlpw4lx | hlr9f6y | 1,637,634,110 | 1,637,667,375 | 1 | 2 | Focus on bigger structural/plot things more than spelling/grammar. I know it's hard—correcting spelling and grammar is always my first instinct. But in the grand scheme of things, when it comes to writing fiction, the first drafts and revisions should be broader. You can paint the house and make it look elegant after it's built. | I am both an author and an engineer so I correct people's work constantly. When I get a piece of work that would be 100% red pen I will instead respond with 'global' feedback first, i.e. list the top 10 things they need to work on. After they incorporate those things then hopefully you are left with a cleaner piece of work. It helps to talk them through the feedback, and explain why things need to change and how they can do it. As someone else mentioned, compliment sandwich is your friend. Don't neglect the positives. | 0 | 33,265 | 2 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlq1oym | hlr9f6y | 1,637,636,736 | 1,637,667,375 | 1 | 2 | just make suggestions about the biggest things. you don't gotta fix everything just start with the basics like grammar for readability and the basic clarity of their sentences. | I am both an author and an engineer so I correct people's work constantly. When I get a piece of work that would be 100% red pen I will instead respond with 'global' feedback first, i.e. list the top 10 things they need to work on. After they incorporate those things then hopefully you are left with a cleaner piece of work. It helps to talk them through the feedback, and explain why things need to change and how they can do it. As someone else mentioned, compliment sandwich is your friend. Don't neglect the positives. | 0 | 30,639 | 2 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlr9f6y | hlq4cow | 1,637,667,375 | 1,637,638,017 | 2 | 1 | I am both an author and an engineer so I correct people's work constantly. When I get a piece of work that would be 100% red pen I will instead respond with 'global' feedback first, i.e. list the top 10 things they need to work on. After they incorporate those things then hopefully you are left with a cleaner piece of work. It helps to talk them through the feedback, and explain why things need to change and how they can do it. As someone else mentioned, compliment sandwich is your friend. Don't neglect the positives. | When I taught journalism at university we commented on the most important issues, with the understanding that the comments weren’t necessarily the only issues but they were the most significant. If they want to get the story published eventually, then just help with the big things. They can worry about grammar and sentence-level issues later. Structural problems like plot holes or the ending come first. Also see “Bird by bird” by Anne Lamott. She talks about this in a chapter. Her summary is that it never helps someone to demolish their spirit. Merely pointing them in a direction for improvement might be the best route | 1 | 29,358 | 2 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlr9f6y | hlq68gu | 1,637,667,375 | 1,637,638,945 | 2 | 1 | I am both an author and an engineer so I correct people's work constantly. When I get a piece of work that would be 100% red pen I will instead respond with 'global' feedback first, i.e. list the top 10 things they need to work on. After they incorporate those things then hopefully you are left with a cleaner piece of work. It helps to talk them through the feedback, and explain why things need to change and how they can do it. As someone else mentioned, compliment sandwich is your friend. Don't neglect the positives. | I learned this thing in a writing critique group called the sandwich. You start the critique with a positive, then give the advice, then end with a positive. It has helped me so much! I really do think you need to also let your friend know to run spell and grammar check on everything. Every. Thing. Even professional writers do that much. Do that last part in a very casual voice, like, oh yeah... | 1 | 28,430 | 2 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlqotc0 | hlr9f6y | 1,637,650,078 | 1,637,667,375 | 1 | 2 | Pick maybe two or three issues and suggest how hey could improve on those, using specific suggestions if possible. Highlight positive things about it before and after. | I am both an author and an engineer so I correct people's work constantly. When I get a piece of work that would be 100% red pen I will instead respond with 'global' feedback first, i.e. list the top 10 things they need to work on. After they incorporate those things then hopefully you are left with a cleaner piece of work. It helps to talk them through the feedback, and explain why things need to change and how they can do it. As someone else mentioned, compliment sandwich is your friend. Don't neglect the positives. | 0 | 17,297 | 2 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlqyi24 | hlr9f6y | 1,637,657,913 | 1,637,667,375 | 1 | 2 | Mark the mistakes, plot holes etc. Don't tell them how to fix it unless they ask. For all that is holy, don't rewrite their prose or change their plot. Also, tell them that they're wasting your and their own time if they don't at least proofread before they give it to someone else. To expect an editor/beta reader to fix spelling and grammar when they could easily fix it themselves is rude and usually shows that the writer cares less about their own story than they expect their editor to. | I am both an author and an engineer so I correct people's work constantly. When I get a piece of work that would be 100% red pen I will instead respond with 'global' feedback first, i.e. list the top 10 things they need to work on. After they incorporate those things then hopefully you are left with a cleaner piece of work. It helps to talk them through the feedback, and explain why things need to change and how they can do it. As someone else mentioned, compliment sandwich is your friend. Don't neglect the positives. | 0 | 9,462 | 2 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlpoqkh | hlrk7dp | 1,637,630,685 | 1,637,674,241 | 1 | 2 | Get them to read a similar book that does everything correctly so that they naturally compare it with their own work... or be honest. "I don't want your feelings to hurt, but nobody starts with a masterpiece and you're no exception. Let's go over what needs to be fixed." | If they didn’t ask for edits, don’t give edits. If you didn’t like the story, tell them what you did like and recognize their hard work. Also, this is not what obsessive-compulsive means. If language matters to you, don’t conflate “obsessive compulsions” with “wanting to edit someone’s writing”. | 0 | 43,556 | 2 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlpq7n2 | hlrk7dp | 1,637,631,376 | 1,637,674,241 | 1 | 2 | Focus on one thing. Grammar and spelling are easy to identity and fix. I'd suggest fixing the plot holes first. You'll need to let a lot of things go if you really want to help. Bombarding them is not helpful. They should probably not be writing the actual scenes yet. Correcting thier style could come later. I liken this to training people in martial arts. I won't correct everything in the ring straightaway. I'll focus on thier placement, distance and movement first. If I'm correcting thier guard and blasting them with hard hits from the start, I'll only be turning them off. Teaching/mentoring should come in stages. The order in which these focus points are delivered is everything. Good luck. I hope it goes well. Writing advice amongst friends is a big friendship killer. | If they didn’t ask for edits, don’t give edits. If you didn’t like the story, tell them what you did like and recognize their hard work. Also, this is not what obsessive-compulsive means. If language matters to you, don’t conflate “obsessive compulsions” with “wanting to edit someone’s writing”. | 0 | 42,865 | 2 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlpw4lx | hlrk7dp | 1,637,634,110 | 1,637,674,241 | 1 | 2 | Focus on bigger structural/plot things more than spelling/grammar. I know it's hard—correcting spelling and grammar is always my first instinct. But in the grand scheme of things, when it comes to writing fiction, the first drafts and revisions should be broader. You can paint the house and make it look elegant after it's built. | If they didn’t ask for edits, don’t give edits. If you didn’t like the story, tell them what you did like and recognize their hard work. Also, this is not what obsessive-compulsive means. If language matters to you, don’t conflate “obsessive compulsions” with “wanting to edit someone’s writing”. | 0 | 40,131 | 2 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlq1oym | hlrk7dp | 1,637,636,736 | 1,637,674,241 | 1 | 2 | just make suggestions about the biggest things. you don't gotta fix everything just start with the basics like grammar for readability and the basic clarity of their sentences. | If they didn’t ask for edits, don’t give edits. If you didn’t like the story, tell them what you did like and recognize their hard work. Also, this is not what obsessive-compulsive means. If language matters to you, don’t conflate “obsessive compulsions” with “wanting to edit someone’s writing”. | 0 | 37,505 | 2 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlrk7dp | hlq4cow | 1,637,674,241 | 1,637,638,017 | 2 | 1 | If they didn’t ask for edits, don’t give edits. If you didn’t like the story, tell them what you did like and recognize their hard work. Also, this is not what obsessive-compulsive means. If language matters to you, don’t conflate “obsessive compulsions” with “wanting to edit someone’s writing”. | When I taught journalism at university we commented on the most important issues, with the understanding that the comments weren’t necessarily the only issues but they were the most significant. If they want to get the story published eventually, then just help with the big things. They can worry about grammar and sentence-level issues later. Structural problems like plot holes or the ending come first. Also see “Bird by bird” by Anne Lamott. She talks about this in a chapter. Her summary is that it never helps someone to demolish their spirit. Merely pointing them in a direction for improvement might be the best route | 1 | 36,224 | 2 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlrk7dp | hlq68gu | 1,637,674,241 | 1,637,638,945 | 2 | 1 | If they didn’t ask for edits, don’t give edits. If you didn’t like the story, tell them what you did like and recognize their hard work. Also, this is not what obsessive-compulsive means. If language matters to you, don’t conflate “obsessive compulsions” with “wanting to edit someone’s writing”. | I learned this thing in a writing critique group called the sandwich. You start the critique with a positive, then give the advice, then end with a positive. It has helped me so much! I really do think you need to also let your friend know to run spell and grammar check on everything. Every. Thing. Even professional writers do that much. Do that last part in a very casual voice, like, oh yeah... | 1 | 35,296 | 2 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlrk7dp | hlqotc0 | 1,637,674,241 | 1,637,650,078 | 2 | 1 | If they didn’t ask for edits, don’t give edits. If you didn’t like the story, tell them what you did like and recognize their hard work. Also, this is not what obsessive-compulsive means. If language matters to you, don’t conflate “obsessive compulsions” with “wanting to edit someone’s writing”. | Pick maybe two or three issues and suggest how hey could improve on those, using specific suggestions if possible. Highlight positive things about it before and after. | 1 | 24,163 | 2 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlrk7dp | hlqyi24 | 1,637,674,241 | 1,637,657,913 | 2 | 1 | If they didn’t ask for edits, don’t give edits. If you didn’t like the story, tell them what you did like and recognize their hard work. Also, this is not what obsessive-compulsive means. If language matters to you, don’t conflate “obsessive compulsions” with “wanting to edit someone’s writing”. | Mark the mistakes, plot holes etc. Don't tell them how to fix it unless they ask. For all that is holy, don't rewrite their prose or change their plot. Also, tell them that they're wasting your and their own time if they don't at least proofread before they give it to someone else. To expect an editor/beta reader to fix spelling and grammar when they could easily fix it themselves is rude and usually shows that the writer cares less about their own story than they expect their editor to. | 1 | 16,328 | 2 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlpoqkh | hlsoc71 | 1,637,630,685 | 1,637,691,173 | 1 | 2 | Get them to read a similar book that does everything correctly so that they naturally compare it with their own work... or be honest. "I don't want your feelings to hurt, but nobody starts with a masterpiece and you're no exception. Let's go over what needs to be fixed." | Set yourself the task not of making a silk purse from a sow's ear, but of making no more than three suggestions that (a) they will understand, (b) they can implement immediately with only their current skills plus your suggestion, (c) will create distinct improvements that will be visible to both them and their readers. The goal is really to help the author to improve their skills, not to magically transform them into a professional writer in a single pass or to, in effect, write their story for them. | 0 | 60,488 | 2 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlpq7n2 | hlsoc71 | 1,637,631,376 | 1,637,691,173 | 1 | 2 | Focus on one thing. Grammar and spelling are easy to identity and fix. I'd suggest fixing the plot holes first. You'll need to let a lot of things go if you really want to help. Bombarding them is not helpful. They should probably not be writing the actual scenes yet. Correcting thier style could come later. I liken this to training people in martial arts. I won't correct everything in the ring straightaway. I'll focus on thier placement, distance and movement first. If I'm correcting thier guard and blasting them with hard hits from the start, I'll only be turning them off. Teaching/mentoring should come in stages. The order in which these focus points are delivered is everything. Good luck. I hope it goes well. Writing advice amongst friends is a big friendship killer. | Set yourself the task not of making a silk purse from a sow's ear, but of making no more than three suggestions that (a) they will understand, (b) they can implement immediately with only their current skills plus your suggestion, (c) will create distinct improvements that will be visible to both them and their readers. The goal is really to help the author to improve their skills, not to magically transform them into a professional writer in a single pass or to, in effect, write their story for them. | 0 | 59,797 | 2 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlpw4lx | hlsoc71 | 1,637,634,110 | 1,637,691,173 | 1 | 2 | Focus on bigger structural/plot things more than spelling/grammar. I know it's hard—correcting spelling and grammar is always my first instinct. But in the grand scheme of things, when it comes to writing fiction, the first drafts and revisions should be broader. You can paint the house and make it look elegant after it's built. | Set yourself the task not of making a silk purse from a sow's ear, but of making no more than three suggestions that (a) they will understand, (b) they can implement immediately with only their current skills plus your suggestion, (c) will create distinct improvements that will be visible to both them and their readers. The goal is really to help the author to improve their skills, not to magically transform them into a professional writer in a single pass or to, in effect, write their story for them. | 0 | 57,063 | 2 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlsoc71 | hlq1oym | 1,637,691,173 | 1,637,636,736 | 2 | 1 | Set yourself the task not of making a silk purse from a sow's ear, but of making no more than three suggestions that (a) they will understand, (b) they can implement immediately with only their current skills plus your suggestion, (c) will create distinct improvements that will be visible to both them and their readers. The goal is really to help the author to improve their skills, not to magically transform them into a professional writer in a single pass or to, in effect, write their story for them. | just make suggestions about the biggest things. you don't gotta fix everything just start with the basics like grammar for readability and the basic clarity of their sentences. | 1 | 54,437 | 2 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlq4cow | hlsoc71 | 1,637,638,017 | 1,637,691,173 | 1 | 2 | When I taught journalism at university we commented on the most important issues, with the understanding that the comments weren’t necessarily the only issues but they were the most significant. If they want to get the story published eventually, then just help with the big things. They can worry about grammar and sentence-level issues later. Structural problems like plot holes or the ending come first. Also see “Bird by bird” by Anne Lamott. She talks about this in a chapter. Her summary is that it never helps someone to demolish their spirit. Merely pointing them in a direction for improvement might be the best route | Set yourself the task not of making a silk purse from a sow's ear, but of making no more than three suggestions that (a) they will understand, (b) they can implement immediately with only their current skills plus your suggestion, (c) will create distinct improvements that will be visible to both them and their readers. The goal is really to help the author to improve their skills, not to magically transform them into a professional writer in a single pass or to, in effect, write their story for them. | 0 | 53,156 | 2 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlq68gu | hlsoc71 | 1,637,638,945 | 1,637,691,173 | 1 | 2 | I learned this thing in a writing critique group called the sandwich. You start the critique with a positive, then give the advice, then end with a positive. It has helped me so much! I really do think you need to also let your friend know to run spell and grammar check on everything. Every. Thing. Even professional writers do that much. Do that last part in a very casual voice, like, oh yeah... | Set yourself the task not of making a silk purse from a sow's ear, but of making no more than three suggestions that (a) they will understand, (b) they can implement immediately with only their current skills plus your suggestion, (c) will create distinct improvements that will be visible to both them and their readers. The goal is really to help the author to improve their skills, not to magically transform them into a professional writer in a single pass or to, in effect, write their story for them. | 0 | 52,228 | 2 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlqotc0 | hlsoc71 | 1,637,650,078 | 1,637,691,173 | 1 | 2 | Pick maybe two or three issues and suggest how hey could improve on those, using specific suggestions if possible. Highlight positive things about it before and after. | Set yourself the task not of making a silk purse from a sow's ear, but of making no more than three suggestions that (a) they will understand, (b) they can implement immediately with only their current skills plus your suggestion, (c) will create distinct improvements that will be visible to both them and their readers. The goal is really to help the author to improve their skills, not to magically transform them into a professional writer in a single pass or to, in effect, write their story for them. | 0 | 41,095 | 2 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlqyi24 | hlsoc71 | 1,637,657,913 | 1,637,691,173 | 1 | 2 | Mark the mistakes, plot holes etc. Don't tell them how to fix it unless they ask. For all that is holy, don't rewrite their prose or change their plot. Also, tell them that they're wasting your and their own time if they don't at least proofread before they give it to someone else. To expect an editor/beta reader to fix spelling and grammar when they could easily fix it themselves is rude and usually shows that the writer cares less about their own story than they expect their editor to. | Set yourself the task not of making a silk purse from a sow's ear, but of making no more than three suggestions that (a) they will understand, (b) they can implement immediately with only their current skills plus your suggestion, (c) will create distinct improvements that will be visible to both them and their readers. The goal is really to help the author to improve their skills, not to magically transform them into a professional writer in a single pass or to, in effect, write their story for them. | 0 | 33,260 | 2 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hlsoc71 | hlrxdqk | 1,637,691,173 | 1,637,680,484 | 2 | 1 | Set yourself the task not of making a silk purse from a sow's ear, but of making no more than three suggestions that (a) they will understand, (b) they can implement immediately with only their current skills plus your suggestion, (c) will create distinct improvements that will be visible to both them and their readers. The goal is really to help the author to improve their skills, not to magically transform them into a professional writer in a single pass or to, in effect, write their story for them. | Just to say the I think the OP is joking around and it’s not a serious post because he/she has purposely made bad grammatical errors and spelling mistakes. | 1 | 10,689 | 2 | ||
qzxnyn | writing_train | 0.84 | So my friend sent me a story they're writing... and there are so. many. things. i'm a very obsessive-compulsive person. how to correct the mountains of corrections needed while staying positive and not accidentally hurting their self-confidence? help needed read above \^ so yeah.... one page. ONE PAGE filled with so much open-ended things... i have so many suggestions and ideas that i kind of want to share but like, "oh, this might be cool" and not "WAIT DO THIS OMG YES", which is me by nature. they also have many, many, mAnY spelling, grammar and plot holes. i feel bad i commented on their thing with suggestions and criticism and hit the word limit. twice. i have not yet posted the comments. i'm trying to edit them to be a little more tactful... this friend has an easily damaged self-confidence. if needed, i can post the criticism here. bottom line: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in all seriousness, tho, i want advice on how to help them edit their thing and make it nicer (for school, right, this story is for school) without taking away from the main storyline, damaging said friend's self-confidence or seeming way too pushy about things? | hls3a8t | hlsoc71 | 1,637,682,928 | 1,637,691,173 | 1 | 2 | This is new, usually the situation is other way round | Set yourself the task not of making a silk purse from a sow's ear, but of making no more than three suggestions that (a) they will understand, (b) they can implement immediately with only their current skills plus your suggestion, (c) will create distinct improvements that will be visible to both them and their readers. The goal is really to help the author to improve their skills, not to magically transform them into a professional writer in a single pass or to, in effect, write their story for them. | 0 | 8,245 | 2 | ||
vhyohe | writing_train | 0.87 | How do I become more confident reading my writing out loud? When I ask my family to read my writing they sometimes insist I read it to them but I'm too embarrassed/insecure to do that. I'm proud of what I wrote but I feel maybe It won't sound good coming out of my voice because my reading voice is very monotone. Any advice? | ida9a2w | ida2mp7 | 1,655,889,205 | 1,655,883,470 | 8 | 6 | First. I'm not saying you shouldn't work on your reading out loud skills. You should. Standing in front of people and being able to read is a decent skill to have. But perhaps your approaching this the wrong way. _Why_ is your family asking you to do this? If I had three kids, just got home from work, and I'm trying to make dinner while my lazy ass spouse is sitting and watching TV and I've got my seven year old asking for help in math class, my teenage daughter asking if she can get on the pill, and my 14 year old son comes and asks me to read the story he wrote, well, I might just try to find an easy way out too. "Yeah, Scott, I'd love to read your story, but why don't you just read it to me so you can pract... Dammit Jerry, can you please turn that damn tv down...JENNY, I swear if your having sex with that Colin boy... No honey, 7 plus 4 isn't negative thirty two... Oh, what Scott, something about a story." Maybe try a different approach. Ask mom when she isn't busy, and tell her that you dont need feedback now. She can read it when she has a chance. But you'd prefer it if she read it. But you understand if she is too busy for you too. | If it doesn't sound right in your voice it won't sound right to anyone else. Work through the embarrassment. | 1 | 5,735 | 1.333333 | ||
vhyohe | writing_train | 0.87 | How do I become more confident reading my writing out loud? When I ask my family to read my writing they sometimes insist I read it to them but I'm too embarrassed/insecure to do that. I'm proud of what I wrote but I feel maybe It won't sound good coming out of my voice because my reading voice is very monotone. Any advice? | ida9a2w | ida1367 | 1,655,889,205 | 1,655,882,170 | 8 | 4 | First. I'm not saying you shouldn't work on your reading out loud skills. You should. Standing in front of people and being able to read is a decent skill to have. But perhaps your approaching this the wrong way. _Why_ is your family asking you to do this? If I had three kids, just got home from work, and I'm trying to make dinner while my lazy ass spouse is sitting and watching TV and I've got my seven year old asking for help in math class, my teenage daughter asking if she can get on the pill, and my 14 year old son comes and asks me to read the story he wrote, well, I might just try to find an easy way out too. "Yeah, Scott, I'd love to read your story, but why don't you just read it to me so you can pract... Dammit Jerry, can you please turn that damn tv down...JENNY, I swear if your having sex with that Colin boy... No honey, 7 plus 4 isn't negative thirty two... Oh, what Scott, something about a story." Maybe try a different approach. Ask mom when she isn't busy, and tell her that you dont need feedback now. She can read it when she has a chance. But you'd prefer it if she read it. But you understand if she is too busy for you too. | You could practise reading aloud to yourself first. | 1 | 7,035 | 2 | ||
vhyohe | writing_train | 0.87 | How do I become more confident reading my writing out loud? When I ask my family to read my writing they sometimes insist I read it to them but I'm too embarrassed/insecure to do that. I'm proud of what I wrote but I feel maybe It won't sound good coming out of my voice because my reading voice is very monotone. Any advice? | ida1fop | ida9a2w | 1,655,882,455 | 1,655,889,205 | 2 | 8 | By doing it repeatedly and possibly to people close to you, that you’re comfortable with. | First. I'm not saying you shouldn't work on your reading out loud skills. You should. Standing in front of people and being able to read is a decent skill to have. But perhaps your approaching this the wrong way. _Why_ is your family asking you to do this? If I had three kids, just got home from work, and I'm trying to make dinner while my lazy ass spouse is sitting and watching TV and I've got my seven year old asking for help in math class, my teenage daughter asking if she can get on the pill, and my 14 year old son comes and asks me to read the story he wrote, well, I might just try to find an easy way out too. "Yeah, Scott, I'd love to read your story, but why don't you just read it to me so you can pract... Dammit Jerry, can you please turn that damn tv down...JENNY, I swear if your having sex with that Colin boy... No honey, 7 plus 4 isn't negative thirty two... Oh, what Scott, something about a story." Maybe try a different approach. Ask mom when she isn't busy, and tell her that you dont need feedback now. She can read it when she has a chance. But you'd prefer it if she read it. But you understand if she is too busy for you too. | 0 | 6,750 | 4 | ||
vhyohe | writing_train | 0.87 | How do I become more confident reading my writing out loud? When I ask my family to read my writing they sometimes insist I read it to them but I'm too embarrassed/insecure to do that. I'm proud of what I wrote but I feel maybe It won't sound good coming out of my voice because my reading voice is very monotone. Any advice? | ida6nm0 | ida9a2w | 1,655,886,906 | 1,655,889,205 | 1 | 8 | chant it | First. I'm not saying you shouldn't work on your reading out loud skills. You should. Standing in front of people and being able to read is a decent skill to have. But perhaps your approaching this the wrong way. _Why_ is your family asking you to do this? If I had three kids, just got home from work, and I'm trying to make dinner while my lazy ass spouse is sitting and watching TV and I've got my seven year old asking for help in math class, my teenage daughter asking if she can get on the pill, and my 14 year old son comes and asks me to read the story he wrote, well, I might just try to find an easy way out too. "Yeah, Scott, I'd love to read your story, but why don't you just read it to me so you can pract... Dammit Jerry, can you please turn that damn tv down...JENNY, I swear if your having sex with that Colin boy... No honey, 7 plus 4 isn't negative thirty two... Oh, what Scott, something about a story." Maybe try a different approach. Ask mom when she isn't busy, and tell her that you dont need feedback now. She can read it when she has a chance. But you'd prefer it if she read it. But you understand if she is too busy for you too. | 0 | 2,299 | 8 | ||
vhyohe | writing_train | 0.87 | How do I become more confident reading my writing out loud? When I ask my family to read my writing they sometimes insist I read it to them but I'm too embarrassed/insecure to do that. I'm proud of what I wrote but I feel maybe It won't sound good coming out of my voice because my reading voice is very monotone. Any advice? | ida1367 | ida2mp7 | 1,655,882,170 | 1,655,883,470 | 4 | 6 | You could practise reading aloud to yourself first. | If it doesn't sound right in your voice it won't sound right to anyone else. Work through the embarrassment. | 0 | 1,300 | 1.5 | ||
vhyohe | writing_train | 0.87 | How do I become more confident reading my writing out loud? When I ask my family to read my writing they sometimes insist I read it to them but I'm too embarrassed/insecure to do that. I'm proud of what I wrote but I feel maybe It won't sound good coming out of my voice because my reading voice is very monotone. Any advice? | ida2mp7 | ida1fop | 1,655,883,470 | 1,655,882,455 | 6 | 2 | If it doesn't sound right in your voice it won't sound right to anyone else. Work through the embarrassment. | By doing it repeatedly and possibly to people close to you, that you’re comfortable with. | 1 | 1,015 | 3 | ||
vhyohe | writing_train | 0.87 | How do I become more confident reading my writing out loud? When I ask my family to read my writing they sometimes insist I read it to them but I'm too embarrassed/insecure to do that. I'm proud of what I wrote but I feel maybe It won't sound good coming out of my voice because my reading voice is very monotone. Any advice? | idaa9s4 | ida6nm0 | 1,655,890,061 | 1,655,886,906 | 2 | 1 | Why are young people in this sub so afraid of trying something or just plain old repetition? There's your advice. Do it a lot. There isn't a "trick" for everything. Some things you just need to do, fail, and do again until you don't fail. | chant it | 1 | 3,155 | 2 | ||
vhyohe | writing_train | 0.87 | How do I become more confident reading my writing out loud? When I ask my family to read my writing they sometimes insist I read it to them but I'm too embarrassed/insecure to do that. I'm proud of what I wrote but I feel maybe It won't sound good coming out of my voice because my reading voice is very monotone. Any advice? | idabdlu | ida6nm0 | 1,655,891,009 | 1,655,886,906 | 2 | 1 | You become more confident at anything by trying, failing, learning from the failure, and trying again. If you wanna take a bit of the edge of this: be theatrical, be overly dramatic. Raise your arms, twirl, be overly dramatic with the delivery, use different voices for characters. This is your family: they're supposed the least judgemental people you'll deal with because they're the most invested in you. So just go all out. | chant it | 1 | 4,103 | 2 | ||
vhyohe | writing_train | 0.87 | How do I become more confident reading my writing out loud? When I ask my family to read my writing they sometimes insist I read it to them but I'm too embarrassed/insecure to do that. I'm proud of what I wrote but I feel maybe It won't sound good coming out of my voice because my reading voice is very monotone. Any advice? | idancck | ida6nm0 | 1,655,899,770 | 1,655,886,906 | 2 | 1 | By reading your writing out loud. | chant it | 1 | 12,864 | 2 | ||
vhyohe | writing_train | 0.87 | How do I become more confident reading my writing out loud? When I ask my family to read my writing they sometimes insist I read it to them but I'm too embarrassed/insecure to do that. I'm proud of what I wrote but I feel maybe It won't sound good coming out of my voice because my reading voice is very monotone. Any advice? | ida6nm0 | idapfz0 | 1,655,886,906 | 1,655,901,010 | 1 | 2 | chant it | Practice singing from the heart, and speaking from the heart. Ultimately the importance in what you’re reading needs to overpower the insecurity you have surrounding your voice. That said - it’s easier said than done! I struggle with the same, currently. Keep at it!! | 0 | 14,104 | 2 | ||
vhyohe | writing_train | 0.87 | How do I become more confident reading my writing out loud? When I ask my family to read my writing they sometimes insist I read it to them but I'm too embarrassed/insecure to do that. I'm proud of what I wrote but I feel maybe It won't sound good coming out of my voice because my reading voice is very monotone. Any advice? | idb7q99 | ida6nm0 | 1,655,909,740 | 1,655,886,906 | 2 | 1 | I read it out loud to myself at first. Almost like rehearsing. It definitely helps to “iron out the wrinkles” when I say it. | chant it | 1 | 22,834 | 2 | ||
vhyohe | writing_train | 0.87 | How do I become more confident reading my writing out loud? When I ask my family to read my writing they sometimes insist I read it to them but I'm too embarrassed/insecure to do that. I'm proud of what I wrote but I feel maybe It won't sound good coming out of my voice because my reading voice is very monotone. Any advice? | idb7q99 | idb5809 | 1,655,909,740 | 1,655,908,667 | 2 | 1 | I read it out loud to myself at first. Almost like rehearsing. It definitely helps to “iron out the wrinkles” when I say it. | Record yourself reading it and listen to the recording | 1 | 1,073 | 2 | ||
vg85wy | writing_train | 0.93 | How do I finish my book knowing it's not great? I want to finish my book. I really do, even though my hopes of it being publishable are pretty much nil at this point. I won't improve if I don't finish things. So I need advice. I am writing an urban fantasy/paranormal romance story. Not claiming it is anything particularly intellectual or world-shocking, it's just some genre fiction. I have so far let a handful of people read it. None of my two serious beta readers made it past the first chapters. My husband is the one exception, and he doesn't count on ground of being A) My husband and B) someone who has read, among other stuff, around a 1000 chapters of a shitty google-translated Chinese light novel, just out of curiosity. His standards for literature are *low*. None of the beta readers said it was *bad*. They didn't say they hated the writing style, or the characters, or the plot, or that the genre just wasn't for them. They didn't criticise grammar and spelling. They didn't point out flaws VS positives. They just... ghosted on the story. "It's not you, it's me" style. Claiming it was good but they just didn't have a lot of time, or they forgot, or they'd get back to it -but then never did... blah blah blah, read between the lines, dear Reddit, *the story is not good*. It's not even bad in a clearly defined way that could be addressed in feedback -it just fails to do the one thing that fiction is supposed to do, which is engage a reader so they want to read more. This has killed my motivation completely. How do I get my motivation back? I don't want to publish this anymore, I just want to finish it so that document will stop taunting me and my too-easily-pleased husband will stop making puppy eyes at me to know how it ends. I feel like such a failure. | id04zhe | id05gpn | 1,655,683,868 | 1,655,684,129 | 9 | 134 | 1. How to tell if you’re a writer: motivation is secondary to compulsion. If you don’t feel the NEED to write, then it may not be for you. 2. Finish your book knowing that you can come back to it later and shape it up. Develop another story and forget this one for a while. If you still feel an attachment to the story, go to GoodReads or various other places to find some good beta readers. They’re out there. You can do this. | Just finish it. Push through so you can write The End, and then the *real* work can begin. First word of advice, don’t share incomplete work. Don’t share a first draft. The first draft should be for *you*, to get your ideas out of your head and onto the page. If you don’t show it to anybody, no one but you has to know how bad it is. Once you have a complete draft, you will be able to look at your story at a whole and see the story you *wrote* (not the story in your head) and figure out what’s working and what’s not based on what’s there on the page. Then you can start fixing things. I’ve been working on the same book for 5 years and my husband hasn’t read a single word because I haven’t completed the second draft yet. The most anyone has read is the first (revised) page on a critique thread on reddit. It’s just not ready for other people yet. And I’m not new to this. I’ve been writing professionally for 12 years, and this is my seventh completed novel. If I let anyone read it before *I* think it’s good, I’m sure to lose motivation too, so I just keep it to myself until it’s ready. | 0 | 261 | 14.888889 | ||
vg85wy | writing_train | 0.93 | How do I finish my book knowing it's not great? I want to finish my book. I really do, even though my hopes of it being publishable are pretty much nil at this point. I won't improve if I don't finish things. So I need advice. I am writing an urban fantasy/paranormal romance story. Not claiming it is anything particularly intellectual or world-shocking, it's just some genre fiction. I have so far let a handful of people read it. None of my two serious beta readers made it past the first chapters. My husband is the one exception, and he doesn't count on ground of being A) My husband and B) someone who has read, among other stuff, around a 1000 chapters of a shitty google-translated Chinese light novel, just out of curiosity. His standards for literature are *low*. None of the beta readers said it was *bad*. They didn't say they hated the writing style, or the characters, or the plot, or that the genre just wasn't for them. They didn't criticise grammar and spelling. They didn't point out flaws VS positives. They just... ghosted on the story. "It's not you, it's me" style. Claiming it was good but they just didn't have a lot of time, or they forgot, or they'd get back to it -but then never did... blah blah blah, read between the lines, dear Reddit, *the story is not good*. It's not even bad in a clearly defined way that could be addressed in feedback -it just fails to do the one thing that fiction is supposed to do, which is engage a reader so they want to read more. This has killed my motivation completely. How do I get my motivation back? I don't want to publish this anymore, I just want to finish it so that document will stop taunting me and my too-easily-pleased husband will stop making puppy eyes at me to know how it ends. I feel like such a failure. | id0awm4 | id071wp | 1,655,687,099 | 1,655,684,985 | 54 | 10 | Fail faster. It's better to finish a project and move on to the next one than to spend years on a single project. | It's great because it's yours, so finish it. When you have the whole story written out it will be easier to identify the issues and fix them. | 1 | 2,114 | 5.4 | ||
vg85wy | writing_train | 0.93 | How do I finish my book knowing it's not great? I want to finish my book. I really do, even though my hopes of it being publishable are pretty much nil at this point. I won't improve if I don't finish things. So I need advice. I am writing an urban fantasy/paranormal romance story. Not claiming it is anything particularly intellectual or world-shocking, it's just some genre fiction. I have so far let a handful of people read it. None of my two serious beta readers made it past the first chapters. My husband is the one exception, and he doesn't count on ground of being A) My husband and B) someone who has read, among other stuff, around a 1000 chapters of a shitty google-translated Chinese light novel, just out of curiosity. His standards for literature are *low*. None of the beta readers said it was *bad*. They didn't say they hated the writing style, or the characters, or the plot, or that the genre just wasn't for them. They didn't criticise grammar and spelling. They didn't point out flaws VS positives. They just... ghosted on the story. "It's not you, it's me" style. Claiming it was good but they just didn't have a lot of time, or they forgot, or they'd get back to it -but then never did... blah blah blah, read between the lines, dear Reddit, *the story is not good*. It's not even bad in a clearly defined way that could be addressed in feedback -it just fails to do the one thing that fiction is supposed to do, which is engage a reader so they want to read more. This has killed my motivation completely. How do I get my motivation back? I don't want to publish this anymore, I just want to finish it so that document will stop taunting me and my too-easily-pleased husband will stop making puppy eyes at me to know how it ends. I feel like such a failure. | id0awm4 | id04zhe | 1,655,687,099 | 1,655,683,868 | 54 | 9 | Fail faster. It's better to finish a project and move on to the next one than to spend years on a single project. | 1. How to tell if you’re a writer: motivation is secondary to compulsion. If you don’t feel the NEED to write, then it may not be for you. 2. Finish your book knowing that you can come back to it later and shape it up. Develop another story and forget this one for a while. If you still feel an attachment to the story, go to GoodReads or various other places to find some good beta readers. They’re out there. You can do this. | 1 | 3,231 | 6 | ||
vg85wy | writing_train | 0.93 | How do I finish my book knowing it's not great? I want to finish my book. I really do, even though my hopes of it being publishable are pretty much nil at this point. I won't improve if I don't finish things. So I need advice. I am writing an urban fantasy/paranormal romance story. Not claiming it is anything particularly intellectual or world-shocking, it's just some genre fiction. I have so far let a handful of people read it. None of my two serious beta readers made it past the first chapters. My husband is the one exception, and he doesn't count on ground of being A) My husband and B) someone who has read, among other stuff, around a 1000 chapters of a shitty google-translated Chinese light novel, just out of curiosity. His standards for literature are *low*. None of the beta readers said it was *bad*. They didn't say they hated the writing style, or the characters, or the plot, or that the genre just wasn't for them. They didn't criticise grammar and spelling. They didn't point out flaws VS positives. They just... ghosted on the story. "It's not you, it's me" style. Claiming it was good but they just didn't have a lot of time, or they forgot, or they'd get back to it -but then never did... blah blah blah, read between the lines, dear Reddit, *the story is not good*. It's not even bad in a clearly defined way that could be addressed in feedback -it just fails to do the one thing that fiction is supposed to do, which is engage a reader so they want to read more. This has killed my motivation completely. How do I get my motivation back? I don't want to publish this anymore, I just want to finish it so that document will stop taunting me and my too-easily-pleased husband will stop making puppy eyes at me to know how it ends. I feel like such a failure. | id05mtv | id0awm4 | 1,655,684,222 | 1,655,687,099 | 5 | 54 | Finish it to at least a full draft if you feel you need to for your own sense of completeness, but the other option is to *put it in a drawer* and take some time away from it. Maybe you'll see it differently with fresh eyes after some time. Maybe you'll find something in it that inspires a better version. Maybe you'll just have gotten it out of your system and can move on to a new writing project. Some ideas can be like that. They need to be written out, even if the result is lacklustre. There's absolutely no shame in recognising that a piece of writing doesn't work. It'd be blind ego to think everything we commit to paper is somehow perfect and golden. In fact, having the awareness that something isn't working is a great instinct to hone. | Fail faster. It's better to finish a project and move on to the next one than to spend years on a single project. | 0 | 2,877 | 10.8 | ||
vg85wy | writing_train | 0.93 | How do I finish my book knowing it's not great? I want to finish my book. I really do, even though my hopes of it being publishable are pretty much nil at this point. I won't improve if I don't finish things. So I need advice. I am writing an urban fantasy/paranormal romance story. Not claiming it is anything particularly intellectual or world-shocking, it's just some genre fiction. I have so far let a handful of people read it. None of my two serious beta readers made it past the first chapters. My husband is the one exception, and he doesn't count on ground of being A) My husband and B) someone who has read, among other stuff, around a 1000 chapters of a shitty google-translated Chinese light novel, just out of curiosity. His standards for literature are *low*. None of the beta readers said it was *bad*. They didn't say they hated the writing style, or the characters, or the plot, or that the genre just wasn't for them. They didn't criticise grammar and spelling. They didn't point out flaws VS positives. They just... ghosted on the story. "It's not you, it's me" style. Claiming it was good but they just didn't have a lot of time, or they forgot, or they'd get back to it -but then never did... blah blah blah, read between the lines, dear Reddit, *the story is not good*. It's not even bad in a clearly defined way that could be addressed in feedback -it just fails to do the one thing that fiction is supposed to do, which is engage a reader so they want to read more. This has killed my motivation completely. How do I get my motivation back? I don't want to publish this anymore, I just want to finish it so that document will stop taunting me and my too-easily-pleased husband will stop making puppy eyes at me to know how it ends. I feel like such a failure. | id0ibrv | id0i917 | 1,655,691,202 | 1,655,691,158 | 46 | 12 | Two beta readers? You could give The Great Gatsby to two random readers and there is a decent chance both would fail to finish it. Readers ghosting a story more often means you are failing to set up your premise/hook properly (or if you are doing it well those readers aren't excited by it, which may or may not mean it will appeal to others). Polishing prose will only get you so far and won't be able to fix any issues with higher level narrative structure. If I was you I would run the premise past a larger number of people (good practice writing a blurb) to gauge if an audience for that kind of story exists. | Is this a first draft? Those aren't supposed to be great. Even if it's a second or third draft, just finish it. You can always fix any problems in post, as it were. | 1 | 44 | 3.833333 | ||
vg85wy | writing_train | 0.93 | How do I finish my book knowing it's not great? I want to finish my book. I really do, even though my hopes of it being publishable are pretty much nil at this point. I won't improve if I don't finish things. So I need advice. I am writing an urban fantasy/paranormal romance story. Not claiming it is anything particularly intellectual or world-shocking, it's just some genre fiction. I have so far let a handful of people read it. None of my two serious beta readers made it past the first chapters. My husband is the one exception, and he doesn't count on ground of being A) My husband and B) someone who has read, among other stuff, around a 1000 chapters of a shitty google-translated Chinese light novel, just out of curiosity. His standards for literature are *low*. None of the beta readers said it was *bad*. They didn't say they hated the writing style, or the characters, or the plot, or that the genre just wasn't for them. They didn't criticise grammar and spelling. They didn't point out flaws VS positives. They just... ghosted on the story. "It's not you, it's me" style. Claiming it was good but they just didn't have a lot of time, or they forgot, or they'd get back to it -but then never did... blah blah blah, read between the lines, dear Reddit, *the story is not good*. It's not even bad in a clearly defined way that could be addressed in feedback -it just fails to do the one thing that fiction is supposed to do, which is engage a reader so they want to read more. This has killed my motivation completely. How do I get my motivation back? I don't want to publish this anymore, I just want to finish it so that document will stop taunting me and my too-easily-pleased husband will stop making puppy eyes at me to know how it ends. I feel like such a failure. | id071wp | id0ibrv | 1,655,684,985 | 1,655,691,202 | 10 | 46 | It's great because it's yours, so finish it. When you have the whole story written out it will be easier to identify the issues and fix them. | Two beta readers? You could give The Great Gatsby to two random readers and there is a decent chance both would fail to finish it. Readers ghosting a story more often means you are failing to set up your premise/hook properly (or if you are doing it well those readers aren't excited by it, which may or may not mean it will appeal to others). Polishing prose will only get you so far and won't be able to fix any issues with higher level narrative structure. If I was you I would run the premise past a larger number of people (good practice writing a blurb) to gauge if an audience for that kind of story exists. | 0 | 6,217 | 4.6 | ||
vg85wy | writing_train | 0.93 | How do I finish my book knowing it's not great? I want to finish my book. I really do, even though my hopes of it being publishable are pretty much nil at this point. I won't improve if I don't finish things. So I need advice. I am writing an urban fantasy/paranormal romance story. Not claiming it is anything particularly intellectual or world-shocking, it's just some genre fiction. I have so far let a handful of people read it. None of my two serious beta readers made it past the first chapters. My husband is the one exception, and he doesn't count on ground of being A) My husband and B) someone who has read, among other stuff, around a 1000 chapters of a shitty google-translated Chinese light novel, just out of curiosity. His standards for literature are *low*. None of the beta readers said it was *bad*. They didn't say they hated the writing style, or the characters, or the plot, or that the genre just wasn't for them. They didn't criticise grammar and spelling. They didn't point out flaws VS positives. They just... ghosted on the story. "It's not you, it's me" style. Claiming it was good but they just didn't have a lot of time, or they forgot, or they'd get back to it -but then never did... blah blah blah, read between the lines, dear Reddit, *the story is not good*. It's not even bad in a clearly defined way that could be addressed in feedback -it just fails to do the one thing that fiction is supposed to do, which is engage a reader so they want to read more. This has killed my motivation completely. How do I get my motivation back? I don't want to publish this anymore, I just want to finish it so that document will stop taunting me and my too-easily-pleased husband will stop making puppy eyes at me to know how it ends. I feel like such a failure. | id0ibrv | id04zhe | 1,655,691,202 | 1,655,683,868 | 46 | 9 | Two beta readers? You could give The Great Gatsby to two random readers and there is a decent chance both would fail to finish it. Readers ghosting a story more often means you are failing to set up your premise/hook properly (or if you are doing it well those readers aren't excited by it, which may or may not mean it will appeal to others). Polishing prose will only get you so far and won't be able to fix any issues with higher level narrative structure. If I was you I would run the premise past a larger number of people (good practice writing a blurb) to gauge if an audience for that kind of story exists. | 1. How to tell if you’re a writer: motivation is secondary to compulsion. If you don’t feel the NEED to write, then it may not be for you. 2. Finish your book knowing that you can come back to it later and shape it up. Develop another story and forget this one for a while. If you still feel an attachment to the story, go to GoodReads or various other places to find some good beta readers. They’re out there. You can do this. | 1 | 7,334 | 5.111111 | ||
vg85wy | writing_train | 0.93 | How do I finish my book knowing it's not great? I want to finish my book. I really do, even though my hopes of it being publishable are pretty much nil at this point. I won't improve if I don't finish things. So I need advice. I am writing an urban fantasy/paranormal romance story. Not claiming it is anything particularly intellectual or world-shocking, it's just some genre fiction. I have so far let a handful of people read it. None of my two serious beta readers made it past the first chapters. My husband is the one exception, and he doesn't count on ground of being A) My husband and B) someone who has read, among other stuff, around a 1000 chapters of a shitty google-translated Chinese light novel, just out of curiosity. His standards for literature are *low*. None of the beta readers said it was *bad*. They didn't say they hated the writing style, or the characters, or the plot, or that the genre just wasn't for them. They didn't criticise grammar and spelling. They didn't point out flaws VS positives. They just... ghosted on the story. "It's not you, it's me" style. Claiming it was good but they just didn't have a lot of time, or they forgot, or they'd get back to it -but then never did... blah blah blah, read between the lines, dear Reddit, *the story is not good*. It's not even bad in a clearly defined way that could be addressed in feedback -it just fails to do the one thing that fiction is supposed to do, which is engage a reader so they want to read more. This has killed my motivation completely. How do I get my motivation back? I don't want to publish this anymore, I just want to finish it so that document will stop taunting me and my too-easily-pleased husband will stop making puppy eyes at me to know how it ends. I feel like such a failure. | id0ibrv | id05mtv | 1,655,691,202 | 1,655,684,222 | 46 | 5 | Two beta readers? You could give The Great Gatsby to two random readers and there is a decent chance both would fail to finish it. Readers ghosting a story more often means you are failing to set up your premise/hook properly (or if you are doing it well those readers aren't excited by it, which may or may not mean it will appeal to others). Polishing prose will only get you so far and won't be able to fix any issues with higher level narrative structure. If I was you I would run the premise past a larger number of people (good practice writing a blurb) to gauge if an audience for that kind of story exists. | Finish it to at least a full draft if you feel you need to for your own sense of completeness, but the other option is to *put it in a drawer* and take some time away from it. Maybe you'll see it differently with fresh eyes after some time. Maybe you'll find something in it that inspires a better version. Maybe you'll just have gotten it out of your system and can move on to a new writing project. Some ideas can be like that. They need to be written out, even if the result is lacklustre. There's absolutely no shame in recognising that a piece of writing doesn't work. It'd be blind ego to think everything we commit to paper is somehow perfect and golden. In fact, having the awareness that something isn't working is a great instinct to hone. | 1 | 6,980 | 9.2 | ||
vg85wy | writing_train | 0.93 | How do I finish my book knowing it's not great? I want to finish my book. I really do, even though my hopes of it being publishable are pretty much nil at this point. I won't improve if I don't finish things. So I need advice. I am writing an urban fantasy/paranormal romance story. Not claiming it is anything particularly intellectual or world-shocking, it's just some genre fiction. I have so far let a handful of people read it. None of my two serious beta readers made it past the first chapters. My husband is the one exception, and he doesn't count on ground of being A) My husband and B) someone who has read, among other stuff, around a 1000 chapters of a shitty google-translated Chinese light novel, just out of curiosity. His standards for literature are *low*. None of the beta readers said it was *bad*. They didn't say they hated the writing style, or the characters, or the plot, or that the genre just wasn't for them. They didn't criticise grammar and spelling. They didn't point out flaws VS positives. They just... ghosted on the story. "It's not you, it's me" style. Claiming it was good but they just didn't have a lot of time, or they forgot, or they'd get back to it -but then never did... blah blah blah, read between the lines, dear Reddit, *the story is not good*. It's not even bad in a clearly defined way that could be addressed in feedback -it just fails to do the one thing that fiction is supposed to do, which is engage a reader so they want to read more. This has killed my motivation completely. How do I get my motivation back? I don't want to publish this anymore, I just want to finish it so that document will stop taunting me and my too-easily-pleased husband will stop making puppy eyes at me to know how it ends. I feel like such a failure. | id0d8lf | id0ibrv | 1,655,688,380 | 1,655,691,202 | 2 | 46 | You’re not a failure. My advice? Finish the novel, power through if you have to and then go back to revise/edit. Or leave it alone for a bit. Regardless, this is your book, your story, your passion. Don’t let the beta readers discourage you, be grateful even if they read one chapter. Your husband may be a bit too easily pleased, but that’s not a bad thing, you know you’d have a problem if he wasn’t pleased by it. Find solace in his support. And you said your story isn’t engaging. Perhaps it’s not that the story isn’t engaging, maybe it was just the way that it started. Or maybe your story just isn’t engaging. Then what? It’s time to go back to the drawing board. (I believe in you!) And maybe it wasn’t engaging to your beta readers, but it might be to thousands of others who have never heard of your story. And if it’s engaging to you, if you are happy creating the story, then that’s all that matters. I can see how you feel like a failure, but trust me, you’re not. You would be if you gave up because of a few beta readers. I’d rather have someone ghosting my story than tell me how horrible it is. At the end of the day, a writers craft is not going to please everyone. A story most likely won’t be great in the first draft. And you are not giving yourself enough credit or support. It’s okay to lose motivation, it’s comes and goes. But as long as you’re dedicated, you’ll succeed. You are a winner. You are deserving of countless readers. You got this. We all hit bumps at one point or another, but don’t let it stop you. Continue writing that story, great things take time. | Two beta readers? You could give The Great Gatsby to two random readers and there is a decent chance both would fail to finish it. Readers ghosting a story more often means you are failing to set up your premise/hook properly (or if you are doing it well those readers aren't excited by it, which may or may not mean it will appeal to others). Polishing prose will only get you so far and won't be able to fix any issues with higher level narrative structure. If I was you I would run the premise past a larger number of people (good practice writing a blurb) to gauge if an audience for that kind of story exists. | 0 | 2,822 | 23 | ||
vg85wy | writing_train | 0.93 | How do I finish my book knowing it's not great? I want to finish my book. I really do, even though my hopes of it being publishable are pretty much nil at this point. I won't improve if I don't finish things. So I need advice. I am writing an urban fantasy/paranormal romance story. Not claiming it is anything particularly intellectual or world-shocking, it's just some genre fiction. I have so far let a handful of people read it. None of my two serious beta readers made it past the first chapters. My husband is the one exception, and he doesn't count on ground of being A) My husband and B) someone who has read, among other stuff, around a 1000 chapters of a shitty google-translated Chinese light novel, just out of curiosity. His standards for literature are *low*. None of the beta readers said it was *bad*. They didn't say they hated the writing style, or the characters, or the plot, or that the genre just wasn't for them. They didn't criticise grammar and spelling. They didn't point out flaws VS positives. They just... ghosted on the story. "It's not you, it's me" style. Claiming it was good but they just didn't have a lot of time, or they forgot, or they'd get back to it -but then never did... blah blah blah, read between the lines, dear Reddit, *the story is not good*. It's not even bad in a clearly defined way that could be addressed in feedback -it just fails to do the one thing that fiction is supposed to do, which is engage a reader so they want to read more. This has killed my motivation completely. How do I get my motivation back? I don't want to publish this anymore, I just want to finish it so that document will stop taunting me and my too-easily-pleased husband will stop making puppy eyes at me to know how it ends. I feel like such a failure. | id071wp | id0i917 | 1,655,684,985 | 1,655,691,158 | 10 | 12 | It's great because it's yours, so finish it. When you have the whole story written out it will be easier to identify the issues and fix them. | Is this a first draft? Those aren't supposed to be great. Even if it's a second or third draft, just finish it. You can always fix any problems in post, as it were. | 0 | 6,173 | 1.2 | ||
vg85wy | writing_train | 0.93 | How do I finish my book knowing it's not great? I want to finish my book. I really do, even though my hopes of it being publishable are pretty much nil at this point. I won't improve if I don't finish things. So I need advice. I am writing an urban fantasy/paranormal romance story. Not claiming it is anything particularly intellectual or world-shocking, it's just some genre fiction. I have so far let a handful of people read it. None of my two serious beta readers made it past the first chapters. My husband is the one exception, and he doesn't count on ground of being A) My husband and B) someone who has read, among other stuff, around a 1000 chapters of a shitty google-translated Chinese light novel, just out of curiosity. His standards for literature are *low*. None of the beta readers said it was *bad*. They didn't say they hated the writing style, or the characters, or the plot, or that the genre just wasn't for them. They didn't criticise grammar and spelling. They didn't point out flaws VS positives. They just... ghosted on the story. "It's not you, it's me" style. Claiming it was good but they just didn't have a lot of time, or they forgot, or they'd get back to it -but then never did... blah blah blah, read between the lines, dear Reddit, *the story is not good*. It's not even bad in a clearly defined way that could be addressed in feedback -it just fails to do the one thing that fiction is supposed to do, which is engage a reader so they want to read more. This has killed my motivation completely. How do I get my motivation back? I don't want to publish this anymore, I just want to finish it so that document will stop taunting me and my too-easily-pleased husband will stop making puppy eyes at me to know how it ends. I feel like such a failure. | id0i917 | id04zhe | 1,655,691,158 | 1,655,683,868 | 12 | 9 | Is this a first draft? Those aren't supposed to be great. Even if it's a second or third draft, just finish it. You can always fix any problems in post, as it were. | 1. How to tell if you’re a writer: motivation is secondary to compulsion. If you don’t feel the NEED to write, then it may not be for you. 2. Finish your book knowing that you can come back to it later and shape it up. Develop another story and forget this one for a while. If you still feel an attachment to the story, go to GoodReads or various other places to find some good beta readers. They’re out there. You can do this. | 1 | 7,290 | 1.333333 | ||
vg85wy | writing_train | 0.93 | How do I finish my book knowing it's not great? I want to finish my book. I really do, even though my hopes of it being publishable are pretty much nil at this point. I won't improve if I don't finish things. So I need advice. I am writing an urban fantasy/paranormal romance story. Not claiming it is anything particularly intellectual or world-shocking, it's just some genre fiction. I have so far let a handful of people read it. None of my two serious beta readers made it past the first chapters. My husband is the one exception, and he doesn't count on ground of being A) My husband and B) someone who has read, among other stuff, around a 1000 chapters of a shitty google-translated Chinese light novel, just out of curiosity. His standards for literature are *low*. None of the beta readers said it was *bad*. They didn't say they hated the writing style, or the characters, or the plot, or that the genre just wasn't for them. They didn't criticise grammar and spelling. They didn't point out flaws VS positives. They just... ghosted on the story. "It's not you, it's me" style. Claiming it was good but they just didn't have a lot of time, or they forgot, or they'd get back to it -but then never did... blah blah blah, read between the lines, dear Reddit, *the story is not good*. It's not even bad in a clearly defined way that could be addressed in feedback -it just fails to do the one thing that fiction is supposed to do, which is engage a reader so they want to read more. This has killed my motivation completely. How do I get my motivation back? I don't want to publish this anymore, I just want to finish it so that document will stop taunting me and my too-easily-pleased husband will stop making puppy eyes at me to know how it ends. I feel like such a failure. | id0i917 | id05mtv | 1,655,691,158 | 1,655,684,222 | 12 | 5 | Is this a first draft? Those aren't supposed to be great. Even if it's a second or third draft, just finish it. You can always fix any problems in post, as it were. | Finish it to at least a full draft if you feel you need to for your own sense of completeness, but the other option is to *put it in a drawer* and take some time away from it. Maybe you'll see it differently with fresh eyes after some time. Maybe you'll find something in it that inspires a better version. Maybe you'll just have gotten it out of your system and can move on to a new writing project. Some ideas can be like that. They need to be written out, even if the result is lacklustre. There's absolutely no shame in recognising that a piece of writing doesn't work. It'd be blind ego to think everything we commit to paper is somehow perfect and golden. In fact, having the awareness that something isn't working is a great instinct to hone. | 1 | 6,936 | 2.4 |
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