The Rules Of Reading Excuses

[GreenMonsta]

Avalon I understand the idea behind the group. I don't want you to think I would intentionally anger the members of the group. I was only joking. Although I would like to see the evil laugh chorus, I wouldn't want to see it under those circumstances.

[Flo_the_G]

You could always send out 6000 words of dummy text - although that would technically warrant the double amount of laughter, I think.

[little wilson]

Well, if he's gonna send out dummy text, he might as well only send out 3000 words. He'd get the laughter either way. The only question is how much time he wants to spend on creating something with no point other than to hear the Evil Laughing Chorus.

[Flo_the_G]

Would a quarter of a minute on google suffice?

[AvalonDreamer]

Just copy/paste that list of Utopia's yahoo! answers questions into a text file... Dummy text if I ever saw it.

[little wilson]

Oh, that things pretty sweet. I like the one that starts with "Far far away." I just figured out what it keeps repeating. It's 316 words that fit into a story, and yet the story's pure nonsense. I mean, seriously. Read this excerpt:

"It is a paradisematic country, in which roasted parts of sentences fly into your mouth. Even the all-powerful Pointing has no control about the blind texts it is an almost unorthographic life One day however a small line of blind text by the name of Lorem Ipsum decided to leave for the far World of Grammar."

It makes sense, yet at the same time, it doesn't....It's weird.

[firstRainbowRose]

That is way awesome.

If we wanted to see the evil laughter chorus, the easier way to go then skyping them would be to simply have one set up as an mp3.  Everyone records their evil laugh and e-mails it to someone who then would compile them into one file.  (Actually, this makes me want to actually do it so I can hear it as well.  And I have a program that could totally handle such a thing.  Anyone for e-mailing me files of their e.l.s?  I can take .mp3, .wav, and (I think) .wma)

[Dangerbutton]

Rules question here...
  It says that, although it is not following good etiquette to defend our work, we can make pointed questions. What would be the right way to do that? Should we post the question publicly, or just PM the person we want to ask the question to?

[maxonennis]

Rules question here...
  It says that, although it is not following good etiquette to defend our work, we can make pointed questions. What would be the right way to do that? Should we post the question publicly, or just PM the person we want to ask the question to?

I would probably PM them. I would ask something like: "How did my uses of present tense bother you?" and the like. You probably shouldn't phrase a question leadingly, rather ask an honest question that might help you better understand why the poster said what they did. I wouldn't ask a question to try and change their minds, though. That's when you get into the unappreciated critiques problem.

However, if you do start PMing back and forth, you could ask them how they would've written something just to balance some ideas off of one another. Remember, you don't have to change everything that someone says they have a problem with. If you do want to change something, then make sure it's something that you feel comfortable changing and that you're not just changing it so that people can get what they want--it's YOUR story.

[Dangerbutton]

Thank you, that helps.
You know, I love how quickly you get responses on this forum.

[firstRainbowRose]

Actually, I beg to differ.  I think replies should be done on the public forums so that we can all see the response and learn from it.  For example:

Why should I say "How dare you" rather then "Doest thou mock me?"

reply: Because it makes your character sound less sincere.  Here's some other things to avoid.

From that everyone could learn how to make their charcters more realistic.

[Necroben]

Maybe it can be up to the one being critiqued?

[maxonennis]

Actually, I beg to differ.  I think replies should be done on the public forums so that we can all see the response and learn from it.  For example:

Why should I say "How dare you" rather then "Doest thou mock me?"

reply: Because it makes your character sound less sincere.  Here's some other things to avoid.

From that everyone could learn how to make their charcters more realistic.

I would tend to think PMing would be better so that the questionee wouldn't feel like they were being called out. I personally wouldn't have a problem with someone asking me questions on one of my critiques on the forums, but I wouldn't want someone getting defensive if I posted on a forum. Also there's the question of how many replies do you want on the question if it is open for all to see.

[firstRainbowRose]

Well, I think anything beyond one question/answer on the topic would then become trying to defend your work.

[Miyabi]

IMO

There are two situations.

:Critisism:

  Author can ask a question if they don't understand something or want more advice on a particular topic or another reader can give an alternative.

  There should be no responses to these.  Neither the author nor any of the other readers should defend their suggestion over others.  The choice is up to the author so there is no need for argumentation.

:Reader Question To Author About A Certain Section:

  The author answers the question then the read can give a suggestion on how to make this more clear.

  Other readers can provide alternatives to how to make it easy to understand.

  The only responses here should be the author asking the reader to clarify or expand on their suggestion.


This way it is easy for an author to find something that they were looking for in the thread, it allows everyone to give their two cents, and it keeps the boards from being cluttered with useless arguing.