Ever get the feeling that some people who post their stories have....?

I really had my hopes up when I first found this site. And for awhile I was enthusiastic that I had others who found books/authors/and the written word exciting.

--- Since then I have become disenchanted by all the Twilight/Harry Potter roleplaying and the homework type questions that could be answered with a quick trip to wikipedia or the search bar. (I'm not that old but I remember when going to the library and doing research was standard now it is at the touch of your fingers and the school age children are still to lazy and inadequately prepared to do proper research.)

--- I am a published writer and I've noticed about five or six other regular publishing professionals who started off offering genuine advice until someone takes it upon themselves to insult us for trying to give the best suggestions based on the industry. It's sad to see the knowledgeble people drop off one by one and the answers becoming less informative and way more inaccurate.

--- I've offered to help two or three people on here and thus far they are coming alonge well by taking the advice suggested. I also wish that it could be understood that at a young age not everyone who completes a manuscript has something readable let alone saleable. There are exceptions and will continue to be but these are also people who have not only learned the basics of writing (there is no real substitute for learning the fundamentals of writing except with education, school is a wonderful playground for perfecting your art) and have a unique creative flair but have studied publishing, gotten help not from Y!A but from their parents, their instructors and other adult resources. Children who have published have a huge support system that begins with the encouragement of family and friends.

--- Asking your parents or a guidence teacher or professor for help will be your first serious step. They could get you in a writing program or contest or writing group. Y!A should answer your technical questions and not in a broad sweeping sense but in a way that shows you are serious.

--- Writing is a skill that came naturally to me, but my parents helped increase my vocabulary in the home, my brothers introduced me to other genres of writing, my sister and father showed me that knowledge of the world made my writing more believable and interesting. My teachers pushed me to keep honing my craft and eventually I got over myself thinking I could do what I wanted and that because some small group of other unskilled people complimenting me actually meant I was good. At some point I learned that creativity needs structure and structure comes from good writing and time is needed to do that and that in that time I learned how to research and apply it to create settings, themes, plots, dialogue. I never studied creative writing directly but I studied English.

Yes, noticed the same thing you have.

I love the "shhhouild i coPYright tihs" ones the best. Brother, if that is what the rest of the work looks like, someone stealing your ideas is the last thing you should be worried about.

Look at it this way: the folks that post their two minute specials here are no longer (I hope) clogging up the inboxes of real publishing venues, thus clearing the way for serious writers to get their works in print.

xColourxMexPrettyx mentions the "woke up this morning and started writing" effect. I think this comes from Stephanie Meyer's account of how she got the idea for Twilight. Supposedly, she woke up from a dream and started writing the story, after not having written a word for six years.

I believe the not writing for six years part.... Perhaps the people who post like this are hoping to recreate the conditions of Twilight in some sort of fan-fiction voodoo ritual.

A lot of the people who post their "stories" even admit to the errors in the post, or say "I no their are a lot of mispellings," [sic] etc. Many have written "I know it's crap," and then post it just the same.

Posting here is not about constructive input. It's about a desire to be stroked, to be told that the scribbling has best-seller potential. If you dare suggest that the piece needs work, that a real quick "thumbs down" for you.

It doesn't matter if the posters claim to be writers or want to be writers. What matters is that in the quest for lavish praise, there is no time to spell check or learn where the quotation marks belong in dialogue.

Since the majority of these posters have no clue about writing, they lack even the first bit of knowledge about writing etiquette, and for that matter, etiquette in general.

I don't think scribbling is cute nor do I think that everyone should be encouraged. I used to think that "everyone can write," provided that they spent time acquiring and honing the necessary skills. While I do believe that most anyone can become a serviceable writer, I do not believe that most people have the talent or the discipline, so I don't feel there's any need to cajole and stroke them anyway so they can feel good about themselves.

Sometimes I see people who give answers that are completely stupid, always stroking others egos. I tend to ignore stories posted by an answerer like that because, normally, they can't be all that good.

I normally only read the first two sentences to a paragraph of whatever story someone posts, and if I'm not interested or hooked by then, I just move on and refrain from commenting. I might skim through to check their spelling and grammar and just comment on that.

The other day someone posted a story and said "I just woke up and started writing this and then posted it here" I didn't bother to read it. So some people do only spend a few minutes on it. And it's sad because half of them think they're going to get published in a second. They need to snap out of their imaginary world and wake up to reality.

Absolutely.

I think they really haven't understood what's involved in the sort of writing that is going to get published. Yesterday someone posted here about how cross they were that their teacher hadn't edited the draft chapters they'd given him. They'd got all their query letters ready to go, all typed up with the date on and everything, all they'd need to do was make the corrections he suggested and send it off to publishers. And now it was all wasted because the date on the letters was wrong. (My answer on that one ended up hidden because apparently saying she'd need to do far more editing than that and that she'd need a completed novel to interest publishers, not a couple of chapters, was so awful. Ah well.)

To be honest, though, what serious writer who has done any research at all is going to post their work on here? If they ask for comments online anywhere at all, it's going to be on a critique site. The people who post here are the most uninformed and most naive of the lot.

It's exactly the same on fanfiction sites. People just want praise, and they expect to get it no matter what garbage they post. I get the feeling some of them are genuinely shocked that we don't think their unspellchecked block paragraph is going to have publishers eating out of their hand at their stunning talent...

THANK-YOU!!!! You've said what I've thought like a million times!!! some people seem to have bought into the fallacy that anyone can b a writer if they sit at their computer and type a page of "creative literature". Most of the times its "cliche shiterature"!

stories are products of time, effort and love.

it's not just like anyone can do it without thinking it out or practice.

ex: one time someone asked how they should end their book.

WTF! someone would spend all the time writing a novel not knowing the conclusion it was being drawn to?

how many nanoseconds would you bet it would take for a publisher to burn some of the stuff i see posted.

NOTE: SOME OF THE STUFF POSTED IS AMAZING I'M NOT AGAINST PEOPLE POSTING THEIR GENIUS ON Y!A I'M AGAINST PEOPLE WASTING THE TIME OF THOSE WHO ARE SERIOUS.

I hear ya sister! lol

Many of the questions on this site are written by people who are bored and have no intention of writing the story. It's just too bad that they waste the time of people who could be offering a fresh pair of eyes to someone who has done the work.

Yeah, but BeautyBlitz, not everyone who posts their stories are serious writers. Not all of them claim to be. A lot of them just ask our opinions.

I agree, but I don't feel like it's that big of a deal. I rarely click on those questions.

Yes because i am never sure it's good enough and i get nervous posting it because what if NO one likes it!

Most are just looking to see how people would like it before they put to much effort in it. But I agree, some are just horrible.