I recall how dumb and misinformed I was when I first posted a story on cc, without a care for the grammar, or the syntax, not to mention the glaring spelling mistakes. My sentence structures were awkward, and I had no clue about the POVs. And yet I thought I'd done a great job worthy of applause.
When the first crits started coming, I wanted to hide in a hole somewhere.
It was silly of me to have posted a story without doing some homework. That is the most common feature one would encounter in the Newbies, and sometimes at other places also.
Even after doing my homework religiously, I'm still learning a lot from some of the most versatile writers and authors here on cc, who can tell a lot more about good writing than the best schools in the country will.
Here are a few suggestions for those who wish to benefit from what cc has to offer.
- Read as much as you can about good writing before posting your work. There's plenty of information available on the internet to do your homework.
- Stick to a reasonable size of around 2000/2500 words. Most people will not look at long submissions.
- Avoid huge paragraphs in succession and irrelevant backstories. (We see a lot of these in recent submissions). There is too much of Infodump.
- Show more and tell less. (I learned it the hard way).
- Use the active voice, which is much preferred these days.
- Cut, cut, and cut again until you retain the juice of a story. The rest is excess baggage for which one pays by losing readership.
- Be economical with words. Small is always better.
- Use simple language.
- Write to entertain or engage a reader, not to burden her with your philosophy or vocabulary.
- Do not feel upset about negative reviews. They are a lot more helpful than false applause.
Having said that I've no hesitation in admitting that I'm still learning, and struggling to do better. And let me tell you, there's no place better than cc to polish your craft.