Help! Please!

[wolf182]

Ok, so what's the story with the Volunteer Editors? I"m writing a story and want to know how it sounds to somebody else before I continue.

In the past 3 weeks, I have emailed 6 differant people listed on the Editors Page who looked like they would be a good match for what I was looking for. Very politely, I have asked if they had time to look over my story, gave a brief description, and what I needed help with. Only 2 ever bothered to respond and they both said that yes, they had time and send it on over.

After sending them my story in the format requested, I have not heard anything back from either of them. Additional emails to these people have not gotten a responce either.

What gives? From the many pages of editors listed, how do you know which ones are legit? Yes, I know people get busy in real life, but if you say 'send it over', then you should do what you say you're going to do and not bail!

Sorry, folks, I just needed to vent. Any help/advice would be appreciated.

Thanks

 

[BlackShanglan]

Sorry to hear about the frustration! I had similar experiences. I think that the reality is that people who are too busy to edit also tend to be too busy to think about taking their names off of the list That, or possibly they really want to edit ... want to enough to keep their names up, but that damned reality thing keeps interfering

I have three suggested alternatives:

1) Post to the story feedback forum. If your story is short, you can just paste it into the message. If it's longer, go ahead and post on Lit as a draft, then revise once you have feedback.

2) Review things! All of my favorite reviewers (you know who you are, you lovely darlings) are people I met trading reviews on the SDC or Feedback threads. Now we often exchange drafts directly. You get the advantage of feedback from someone you know and trust and whose perspective is familiar to you. It's a wonderful thing.

3) Post to the SDC (Story Discussion Circle). You can do that either with a posted story or a draft, but you'll need to follow the list's rules. Those rules include getting in line to submit (see the sticky post at the top of the SDC for more info) and reviewing at least two other people's work before yours is reviewed. It is quite, quite, quite worth the effort; when I last posted a story, I received an enormous amount of thoughtful, extremely helpful feedback.

Hope that helps -

Shanglan

 

[wolf182]

thanks

Shanglan,

Thanks for the advise! I've also talk with a couple other people thru PM (thanks to you too!) and have gotten the feedback I wanted.

The SDC sounds interesting, although it sounds like it could take some time before my own story gets reviewed. By the time I review a couple of stories, and then wait to post mine...

But I'll keep this in mind. Maybe for my next story.

Wolf