Poor Editors

[Torg]

Doesn't it just burn you when you read a story that has a decent intro and a few threads, but that has otherwise been ruined by an editor that exercised no editorial control?

Case in point, Atomic Kitten. This is a reasonably interesting start, but a majority of threads are either too short, unrelated to the theme of the story, or just plain stupid.

It makes me want to go delete all the bad threads, especially HULKDA's.

(Sorry, just expressing some frustration. Pay it no mind.)

 

[Gunde]

What, how could you possibly have something against a thread with a short, powerful text in it such as: "DANNY WHIPS OUT HIS COCK IN FRONT OF HER", followed by the question: "SUCK OR SCREAM"?
Yes, there is a small chance that I'm being sarcastic...

 

[Torg]

What, how could you possibly have something against a thread with a short, powerful text in it such as: "DANNY WHIPS OUT HIS COCK IN FRONT OF HER", followed by the question: "SUCK OR SCREAM"?
Yes, there is a small chance that I'm being sarcastic...

Just the ALL CAPS would be enough. Also, the repetitive threads that all seem the same.

 

[TJChurch]

My personal faves (yes, sarcasm) are the ones that ask "Yes" or "No" questions, & then have both options to continue. When you choose, & click, "Next", all it says is either, (You/It, etc) does/doesn't".

 

[Gunde]

Yes, and of course every once or so one of those threads is followed by a 500-words+ thread which is actually quite good.
Can the horribly bad thread that preceded it be removed without the good ones disappearing as well?
I've got a horrible suspicion that it can't....

 

[artican]

My personal faves (yes, sarcasm) are the ones that ask "Yes" or "No" questions, & then have both options to continue. When you choose, & click, "Next", all it says is either, (You/It, etc) does/doesn't".

I'm still looking for a story with a yes or no question which is followed up by a "are you sure?" thread.

 

[Torg]

I'm still looking for a story with a yes or no question which is followed up by a "are you sure?" thread.

Seen it. Actually, it was a Yes/No followed by the same Yes/No question, essentially the same as "are you sure?".

 

[TwiztedClown]

Yeah i see that kind of stuff sometimes, like in a lot of the stories i adopted...what i do with those is just add a little bit to them so it makes them more interesting

 

[UncolaMan]

Guilty Party

Yeah, I hear ya about poor editing myself. A while back, I was stressed and overworked and I was just approving any tripe that showed up in my stories just so I wouldn't have to think about it.

*dodges thrown objects*

Anyway, I've been going over threads in my stories and cleaning them up (fixing spelling and punctuation). The content is still the same, and some of are still pretty low quality threads, but at least they're easier to read now.

 

[jakelyon]

I have always found the hardest part is trying not to discourage someone who is new to the site, but at the same time you cannot possibly approve the badly written thread they have submitted. I have tried rewriting them if they are close to being good, but most of the time I have to just reject it and write as encouraging a rejection as possible. The problem is no one has ever resubmitted a thread after I have rejected it. I think they just go submit their threads to stories where the editors don't pay any attention and approve anything.

It is a hard problem to solve as we want to encourage new people to write for the site, but if they refuse to work on getting better than I don't know how to fix that. I know that when I was new to the site I had a number of threads rejected for wrong POV, or bad grammar. I fixed them and sent them in again. I just don't get what is so hard about editing a thread.

 

[Torg]

I have always found the hardest part is trying not to discourage someone who is new to the site, but at the same time you cannot possibly approve the badly written thread they have submitted. I have tried rewriting them if they are close to being good, but most of the time I have to just reject it and write as encouraging a rejection as possible.

I try to walk the line between tweaking a good thread, rejecting with specific suggestions for resubmittal for something with potential but too much work for me to do, and categorically rejecting something really bad.

The problem is no one has ever resubmitted a thread after I have rejected it.

I have had many rejects that I told to resubmit do so. At least half, I'd say. More in the area of stories that I Denied and then they resubmitted, but still. Maybe editors of new stories are more committed to the story than later writers.

 

[Gunde]

The one-line thread thing has only happened to me once, and I do believe that it was by misstake (exactly the same content as the title, from a writer who has added a couple of decent threads since then).
And talking about poor editors, I can only say: "7th Heaven Fun", its story map alone is sheer horror!

 

[Zingiber]

I have always found the hardest part is trying not to discourage someone who is new to the site, but at the same time you cannot possibly approve the badly written thread they have submitted. I have tried rewriting them if they are close to being good, but most of the time I have to just reject it and write as encouraging a rejection as possible. The problem is no one has ever resubmitted a thread after I have rejected it.
...

I just don't get what is so hard about editing a thread.

I have had the same experience as Jake. More than once a rejected-with-encouragement thread was dropped.

So I've been willing to edit more heavily and say, "please re-edit if this takes it too far from your idea."

-Z

 

[amalgam]

A teeny thread was just added to Penetrator: Rise of the Machines, a Chyoo I adopted last year. As it turns out, this writer is a sub-editor. I'm tempted to demote him to "writer (no priveleges)" simply because I didn't give him that status. He isn't alone, though; there are several "trusted" writers on the story that were there before I took over.

What do ya'll do about priveleged writers on the stories you adopt?

 

[horny-oz]

A teeny thread was just added to Penetrator: Rise of the Machines, a Chyoo I adopted last year. As it turns out, this writer is a sub-editor. I'm tempted to demote him to "writer (no priveleges)" simply because I didn't give him that status. He isn't alone, though; there are several "trusted" writers on the story that were there before I took over.

What do ya'll do about priveleged writers on the stories you adopt?

Frankly, evaluate them, and if they dont seem up to snuff ( going by their previous entries ) demote them, YOUR the editor now, and if you can see that leaving someone with power over your story is going to be detrimental to the story, its for the best.....


SO HATH SPOKEN HORNY-OZ

 

[JagFarlane]

Hmmmm as an editor its the hardest thing to do. Personally I would rather just fix a bit of bad punctuation and such, but the bad grammer is harder to deal with. Sometimes you just get people that actually grew up in an area where that grammer is socially accepted. [case in point, I work on an aircraft carrier, if you were to sit in the galley at mealtime, the grammer you'll hear will make some cringe in fear]. But the ones that cause me the biggest headache as far as feeling bad about rejecting a thread, is when it's well written, but not in the proper format [ie third person instead of first], when the writer does nothing to make it even flow well with the story, and instead write an apology that they can't write in the correct person. What the hell is with that? Anyone else ever have that issue?

 

[Jtzmm]

I don't know if it would help any, but maybe someone could add a thread to the FAQ containing some basic writing tips?

 

[UncolaMan]

Threads

I kind of wish there was a way to delete/cancel one of my own threads if the Editor doesn't. My internet connection was pretty bad a couple weeks ago and I accidentally double-submitted some threads. I think they were all approved and I can't think of any decent alternate threads to Edit any of the alternates into.

 

[Torg]

I kind of wish there was a way to delete/cancel one of my own threads if the Editor doesn't. My internet connection was pretty bad a couple weeks ago and I accidentally double-submitted some threads. I think they were all approved and I can't think of any decent alternate threads to Edit any of the alternates into.

So, go to the duplicate page you want deleted, hit the Report Thread link at the bottom, and explain to a moderator what you want done and that you are the author. Editors can do this too, if they accidently approved something.

 

[jakelyon]

Good Idea

I don't know if it would help any, but maybe someone could add a thread to the FAQ containing some basic writing tips?

That is a good idea and I will do it if everyone helps me build an outline of what it should include. What writing tips would help?

 

[Zingiber]

That is a good idea and I will do it if everyone helps me build an outline of what it should include. What writing tips would help?

Hmmm. Off the cuff...

Continuity. Don't change characters' names, appearance, or personality thoughtlessly or without showing the transition in the thread. Repeat or extend details established in earlier threads to help keep a feel for what's going on.

Story Guidelines. Follow the author's story guidelines, and keep it in bounds for Chyoo.

Flow. If the last several threads have established a flow of events, keep those in mind when writing the thread.

Sense detail. Sight, sound, scent, touch, and taste. What would make you feel you were there?

Interaction. What are the characters paying attention to? How do they react to each other?

Desire (or more generally, Direction). What (who?) do the main characters want? Where are they going?

Mechanics. Running a spell check is a good idea. Even if you spell OK, it can catch things like cut-and-paste errors from re-arranging part of your content. Stick with the tense and person of the story (2nd person present, "You open the door...", 3rd person past, "He opened the door...") and don't shift it without good reason in terms of the story (changing from reading a letter to describing present action, perhaps).

 

[JagFarlane]

Depth: To teach yourself to let your story flow and just to write as you wish it to go. Not to worry about a post being too long. but yet to learn not to leave little one liners and so forth

 

[TwiztedClown]

Dont know if this really fits or not, but i cant stand how a story has like 7 threads after it and like 3 of them are somewhat the same just different writers. And i dont like really really long threads cuz i have a low attention span, which sucks when trying to write a thread, as well as read them.

 

[UncolaMan]

Long threads

Yeah, less is more; I agree. But it's so HARD trying to keep a thread short if you're trying to set a scene! I'm working on making my threads shorter but it takes practice.

The Crossover threads I did were far longer than I wanted them to be, but it couldn't be helped.

One thing I don't like very much is the same writer doing 15 threads in a row in a story. Kind of reduces the whole "collaborative storywriting" aspect of the site.

 

[Torg]

Yeah, less is more; I agree. But it's so HARD trying to keep a thread short if you're trying to set a scene! I'm working on making my threads shorter but it takes practice.

I personally want threads long enough to convey real description, action, dialogue and plot, but short enough to read in a reasonable amount of time. I find that 300-800 words is about right.

I'll often write a very long thread (offline, of course), and then split it up into smaller threads, breaking at logical points of decision. Errands was that way, as well as my contribution to A Full Week Ahead and the jock party in Geeks and Freaks.

One thing I don't like very much is the same writer doing 15 threads in a row in a story. Kind of reduces the whole "collaborative storywriting" aspect of the site.

Well, all of my stories would have stopped after a few threads if I didn't keep writing on them. It's not the editor's fault if noone else is writing on his stories (well, it may be his/her fault, if it's a story noone likes).

In fact, the only story of mine that really did this collaboration thing right is Summer Road Trip, where essentially, SlaveDragon and I alternated threads.