Author Topic: Email List + Submission Dates  (Read 186514 times)

jjb

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Re: Email List + Submission Dates
« Reply #105 on: November 18, 2008, 11:49:04 PM »
I know that this idea might not go over too well but after looking at the email list, the task of reading and critiquing potentially 10 people's submissions all at once is a little daunting. I know we wouldn't have to do them all in one day, but with them sent to me on the same day I know I would probably end up not reading all of the submissions and I'm almost positive I wouldn't critique all of them.

Which is why I think we should give each person their own day. One person submits on the 1st, one on the 3rd, one on the 5th, etc. Since there are 14 people, having one submission to read and critique every other day would probably work out pretty well. And if more people join, we could easily assign two people to a certain day. We wouldn't have to stop critiquing one story after the next one is submitted, but hopefully we'll be getting to the end of that critique and can focus more on the next one.

It would be more complicated to set up the submission schedule, but once it's set up I think the process would flow better.

Chaos

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Re: Email List + Submission Dates
« Reply #106 on: November 18, 2008, 11:54:30 PM »
That is true, but on the other hand, we don't know how many total people are going to register for the mailing list. There could come a point where all the different dates are chaos.
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Necroben

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Re: Email List
« Reply #107 on: November 19, 2008, 12:22:32 AM »
It alright if I sign you up for the first, Ben?

Yes,that's fine, I'll be ready.
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AvalonDreamer

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Re: Email List + Submission Dates
« Reply #108 on: November 19, 2008, 06:28:12 AM »
Here's a thought: any people attempting to join after the 15th of next month have to submit a piece and be approved?

It seems like the group is growing kinda fast, and uncontrolled growth leads to mediocrity. It's why the romans died.
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little wilson

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Re: Email List + Submission Dates
« Reply #109 on: November 19, 2008, 06:40:12 AM »
That's not a bad idea, Avalon, but...it seems kind of harsh. I mean, this is a group to get help on writing, and if you submit work to get it approved to BE in the group, what happens to those who don't get in? How would the people on the "Approval Committee" break that to them? "Oh, well, your work is so hopeless, we can't do anything to help you improve it."....Ouch. That's not exactly an enviable position....

I agree that we're getting a lot of people....So maybe we SHOULD do it by genre. Nothing major, just two seperate groups--fantasy and everything else. Go by the overall theme, I guess. What would you classify your book as? And if a user wants to review books in both groups, have at it.

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firstRainbowRose

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Re: Email List + Submission Dates
« Reply #110 on: November 19, 2008, 06:55:00 AM »
Why not just simply say anyone who joins after the first rounds has to be in their own group?  I mean, we can have anyone who joins by the first be one group.  If you're intrested after that, you start a topic that is "group two e-mails" and they set their stuff up with one of us moding (is someone an offical mod for this area?) to help out as needed.
"The custom of royalty in referring to oneself is to naturally employ the royal 'we'.  We are very happy, we are very sad, we are bored and suffer from ennui.  For a royal prince there's no such word as 'me', It's always 'we'.  So rightfully I should be two or three, don't you agree?"

AvalonDreamer

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Re: Email List + Submission Dates
« Reply #111 on: November 19, 2008, 07:11:17 AM »
Well, I didn't mean that we'd reject poorly written stuff, I meant that if you wanted in, you needed to show that you have some sort of cohesive idea for a project, and have enough initiative to write it up a little bit. My girlfriend's writing group requires that you have a sponsor AND submit a piece to get into the group.

Basically, it wouldn't be a filtration process for bad writers, merely a way of weeding out the kind of people we wouldn't want in the group (here I invoke the name UtopiaGreen...) - essentially trolls and people too lazy to do what we ask to get in.

Our Mod is the uncanny Fellfrosch (who is himself, a writer...), at the moment. We are looking into having someone else here to be a more active monitor of the board.
« Last Edit: November 19, 2008, 07:12:57 AM by AvalonCreamCorn »
My friends held an intervention, to stop my ridiculous plans to take over the world (Jake ended up in the hospital). I convinced them to let me take over other worlds though.

*Evil grin*

RIP: James Oliver Rigney, Jr.

Chaos

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Re: Email List + Submission Dates
« Reply #112 on: November 19, 2008, 07:24:46 AM »
I have a potential strategy. It is as elegant as it is simple.

Wait and see. I don't know about you, but December 15th feels like an eternity away (though, that may just be because I have so much freakin' work to do before that date will roll around). Therefore, it may be just a little premature to start uber-structuring this stuff before we even get the first submissions.

Oh, you wanted like an actual strategy? Well, that's good, because I have one of those, too! If Reading Excuses' growth increases at a constant upward rate, well, then obviously that would get extremely hectic very quickly. I think too many submission dates would needlessly complicate the process. Instead, how about we eventually subdivide the main Reading Excuses group into smaller sub-groups. A group of five, six, or seven is not difficult to deal with, and I think the main issue here is that we could have too many people/submissions to deal with in a single time frame. Well, sub-groups would solve that problem. It's less to keep track of, at least.

The problem with sub-groups would then be, how do we determine sub-groups? For this, it may just be necessary to wait and see how the December submissions go and roll from there.

Of course, there are a few problems with sub-groups. Firstly, if everyone is divided into their cushy sub-group, then that does not immediately "invite" new writers into Reading Excuses. I don't know about you, but I think the more, the merrier, here. The key is just to utilize the manpower (and fresh writers and ideas) in a coherent way. We don't want anyone to feel alienated.

One potential solution to the alienation issue is to rotate writing groups. That way, more ideas and feedback can get flowing. Unfortunately, this also has drawbacks, because for people submitting lots of chapters of a single work, it's not easy to just say "Oh, now the new subgroup gets to read this heap of pages!"

Since any of these potential methods have drawbacks, I think it would be better to just sit back through the December submissions and see how it goes. For all we know, the new people entering Reading Excuses could level off and we get a more manageable group to work with. Or, people might just look through their emails and pick the submissions they want to critique and by some miracle, it turns out that people are critiquing works at a pretty consistent amount, enough so that it would no longer be practical to divide in sub-groups.

We just don't right now. Let's wait a little bit.
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AvalonDreamer

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Re: Email List + Submission Dates
« Reply #113 on: November 19, 2008, 08:03:39 AM »
So... You recommend we sit back and wait... do you know who else sits back and waits....


COMMIES!

Actually, I'm rather fond of the rotation ability, because it solves a few issues all at once... If you only need to write responses to a small group to keep up your ratio, and the group is defined for you, it's only a nightmare on the back-end, and I'm not adverse to helping our mod (*cough* Raethe *cough*) figure out the groups and such for each rotation, and I'm sure Chaos isn't either, eh?... Comrade?!
My friends held an intervention, to stop my ridiculous plans to take over the world (Jake ended up in the hospital). I convinced them to let me take over other worlds though.

*Evil grin*

RIP: James Oliver Rigney, Jr.

Chaos

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Re: Email List + Submission Dates
« Reply #114 on: November 19, 2008, 08:06:53 AM »
Well, let's keep our pants on (in fact, let's just do that anyways) and hold tight. We will see how December goes, and if sub-groups are necessary, then we can press through that route.
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firstRainbowRose

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Re: Email List + Submission Dates
« Reply #115 on: November 19, 2008, 08:11:08 AM »
I agree that we should just wait it out.  I mean, by that time half of the people may decide they're not up to critiquing, and since we've agreed on a 1:1 ratio (if you send out, you critique) thing, then they'll get dropped.  I mean, the people who have signed up compaired to the people active in trying to decide and help out is quite a bit smaller.  I think the group will be similar.
"The custom of royalty in referring to oneself is to naturally employ the royal 'we'.  We are very happy, we are very sad, we are bored and suffer from ennui.  For a royal prince there's no such word as 'me', It's always 'we'.  So rightfully I should be two or three, don't you agree?"

AvalonDreamer

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Re: Email List + Submission Dates
« Reply #116 on: November 19, 2008, 08:20:37 AM »
I do agree on waiting, despite my earlier insanity. Prudence and consideration shall set our course, for the hand of man is unfortunately imperfect, while the beauty of nature's chaos is undeniable.
My friends held an intervention, to stop my ridiculous plans to take over the world (Jake ended up in the hospital). I convinced them to let me take over other worlds though.

*Evil grin*

RIP: James Oliver Rigney, Jr.

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Re: Email List + Submission Dates
« Reply #117 on: November 19, 2008, 08:28:26 AM »
I don't think we should put a limit on the time frame we have for getting critiques to people. Obviously the sooner the better but frankly, for our later submissions (the December ones don't concern me, because I'll be out of school) I will have a LOT of trouble giving people the critiques they deserve if we have to do it within two weeks or whatever. A deadline like that will also make the number of people we critique every time look a LOT more daunting.

Flo - I'll sign you up as just a critiquer for the moment, rather than for a submission deadline. Rose, did you say you wanted to submit on the 15th, or just wanted to help critique for now? Sorry, I forget.

I think Chaos had it right - our best bet is to wait and see how things work out before we start banging our heads over the problems that we might potentially run into someday. I think there will be pros and cons to any strategy we use, such as alternating groups or whatever, but heck. We're just getting started here. Let's just burn that bridge when we get there.

Chaos

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Re: Email List + Submission Dates
« Reply #118 on: November 19, 2008, 08:32:38 AM »
I don't think we should put a limit on the time frame we have for getting critiques to people. Obviously the sooner the better but frankly, for our later submissions (the December ones don't concern me, because I'll be out of school) I will have a LOT of trouble giving people the critiques they deserve if we have to do it within two weeks or whatever. A deadline like that will also make the number of people we critique every time look a LOT more daunting.

I'm opposed to a critique deadline. And really, a deadline isn't absolutely vital, since the submissions are still going to be in the email box once it's all said and done, no matter how much time passes. They aren't going to vanish, so there's always more time.

However, it would be nice if people critiqued a work before the next submission from the same author. For example, once I submit a chapter, it would be good if it was critiqued before I sent in the next one.
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firstRainbowRose

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Re: Email List + Submission Dates
« Reply #119 on: November 19, 2008, 08:34:43 AM »
I said I'll wait for a little bit.  I simply know that my book compleately sucks at this point, and the 15th won't be enough time to finish it, let alone edit it so other eyes can see it.  (and I don't want to do any editing until it's all done, in case at the very end I get a stroke of genious and have to go back and drop the foreshadowing in as I write it so I know where it should be.)

Also, I say that we should say rather then a time frame to cirtique have it be a "well, here's the chapter, update it when you can" because if we are all reading 15 pieces at 7+ pages each, then it will take a while.
"The custom of royalty in referring to oneself is to naturally employ the royal 'we'.  We are very happy, we are very sad, we are bored and suffer from ennui.  For a royal prince there's no such word as 'me', It's always 'we'.  So rightfully I should be two or three, don't you agree?"