Re: Experimental collaboration

FCS wrote:

I think a direct question warrants a direct answer. Do you mean me?


Ye gods no! You and I were the only contributors to the story.


And whether you do or not could you please define what you mean by
"troll"?


A being whose role in life is to interrupt and disrupt discourse within a newsgroup. Also known as 'one-handed typists'. (That is not intended as a 'dictionary' definition but should suffice for our purpose.)


I shan't waste your time expecting you to read the post I'm about to
compose. The way Mark showed up the moment he was alluded to


Try not to allude to him then (-:


I just find it odd that, putting aside compulsory education a moment,
there is not one member of a book group, evening class, tertiary,
further or higher education course in English, Drama, Theatre, Film,
Creative Writing who has sent anything in here.


How can you know that? Have you not attended such courses? Have you seen everyone's academic record? As I happen to know that you are incorrect in your assumption, it might be more interesting to discuss why you think it would matter, either way.


There's not even one tutor or teacher has sought consent to send in
some of their students' work anonymously in order to assess the
quality of criticism here, to see if there are fresh perspectives they
may have missed. Even people training to be teachers or even classroom
assistants.


It is highly unlikely that one would expect to find quality criticism in a public newsgroup. This is not to say it is impossible, but there is no good reason why it would be probable.
I think it would be inappropriate for a teacher to send work in here. This is usually done on servers to which only the student and tutor groups have access. It is not unusual for posting assignment work on the internet to be considered an offence for which students can be sent down. I am not sure what would happen to tutors who did so, but it would be unpleasant.


I tend to believe I have a pretty firm handle on how good I am, in
terms of what I can do well, what my strengths and weaknesses are.
But I'm also very aware that it's not fresh, new, original writing
that sells. It's Jilly Cooper, Dan Brown, Len Deighton &c. That is
actually what people want, just like Eastenders, Coronation Street,
Emmerdale is what people want.


Indeed. To emulate the efforts of the likes of Mr. Brown, one needs the writing ability of a 14 year old child, or at least the ability to pretend only to have that.
As to how good you are, there are problems with such an idea. How can I say that Mr. Brown is not good when he just made millions? How can I say that Beckett is better than Shaw (or vice versa)? Is the man who saws cows in half really the best artist in the UK?
In terms of fiction, there are two types of (published) writer. Those who sell and those who do not - an objective measure. Which ones are 'good' is subjective and often irrelevant.


I'm disappointed that you feel the way you say about how this has gone.


I did not say how I felt about the way the experiment went insofar as the contributions were concerned.


But then I don't take kindly to being slated by people who haven't
made much effort to demonstrate much ability--which, whether I'm right
or wrong, I tend to assume is where Mark's coming at it all from.


You seem to attach a great deal of importance to the mutterings of this person. Why is that? Like you and I, he/she/it is just another persona on a newsgroup. He could be the tea lady at my local primary school, your next door neighbour, or Dan Brown wondering what people are saying about him.


For all his accusations I don't make myself clear and that 10 or 15
paragraphs constitutes a "massive missive", not all readers wish to
have things made clear. And not everybody wants it all in a pithy
nutshell.


It is not the role of a writer to try to write as little (or as much) as possible. If every novel were written to be brief and soulless, or lengthy and padded, there would be very few novels.


My feeling is that active groups attract activity and if this group
wishes to fulfil its charter then the way to do this is to keep it
active--with all kinds of writing. I consider the only reason I'm
bothering saying this is because I do care about the arts of writing.
Mayhaps you disagree and that is your prerogative.


I see newsgroups as virtual meeting places for persons with commonly held interests. Sadly, they are also meeting places for those who wish to annoy and irritate those having such interests.
While some people are happy to contribute pieces of writing, others only wish to disrupt this process.


For the moment, I will match your contribution with
another one, and appreciate you tried to keep it open.
I thought the idea of a dog on a raft on the ocean at night had a
certain futility that
was worthy comedic exploration, but as you swung it back to what you
had in mind had applied myself to trying to generate characters such
as "The Spelling Bee" whose job it is to go back to the hive and
reproduce exact directions to attractive blooms, but who unfortunately
suffers from both a stutter and mild dyslexia...

I'm happy to leave it open to more on an as-and-when basis. Or not.



Feel free to keep it going.


--
Blue Sow
.

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