Writing Wrongs

June 03, 2005

This happens every once in a while in an online writing class. You (or someone) posts a lesson and no one says a thing. Now if there isn�t any activity, that�s one thing. But! If your classmates are conversing and providing feedback around you, well . . .

You start searching for that elephant you left in the living room, cuz darn it, it must be there somewhere.

I facilitate a mystery class--not teach, instead I provide assistance, answer questions, post links to mystery and writing related articles. And try to subtly kick rear ends when something like this happens during the course. (And I�m not sure it�s truly possible to �subtly� kick someone�s rear end.)

If nothing else, it�s rude to take feedback but not provide any. Second, we writers can be an insecure lot and what isn�t said is sometimes worse than what is (although I must stress the sometimes in that sentence).

Well, darn if it didn�t happen to me this week, too. So now I�m trying to figure out what sort of elephant is in my living room, cuz it�s there. I know it. Thing is, this is an �easy� course, all about finding your (writing) voice, and this lesson is all of 200 words long. A real no-brainer. There�s no right or wrong, no scene structure to analyze or character motivation to dissect. It�s all �free to be you and me� type of stuff that honestly doesn�t require much more than �nice job� in the feedback department.

And yet! I have no feedback. I�ve provided feedback to one participant and I�m on the fence about the other. She posted after me, so do I wait to see if she decides to give feedback (like she did for the other person), or go ahead and respond to her lesson and maybe �guilt� her into reading mine.

The only thing I can come up with is the little snippet I posted involves people taking off their clothes. (Gasp!) The actual story is about a high school football star who comes back to his hometown after a twelve year absence and meets up with his almost-but-not-quite high school sweetheart.

And yeah, clothes get removed. (Uh, they�re just doing laundry. I swear it!) But it�s written in first person, from his perspective. In the snippet, I�m not 100% sure it�s clear the narrator is male.

To which I say: it�s 2005. Deal with it.

Now watch. As soon as I post this mini-rant, I�ll get my feedback.

~ Off to search for that elephant.

Charity Tahmaseb wrote at 11:14 a.m.

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