impete82

is it better to share your ideas (on this forum, friends and family) or keep your ideas to yourself?

the way i see it, if you share you'll get feedback (which is great) and advice how to fix your story and adjust characters ... but people may also discourge you from your idea and you'll run away from it if you get too much negative feedback

if you keep it to yourself you're staying true to what you want to see, not what others want to see.

???

ClancyBoy

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DavidGil

It depends on what stage you're at I'd say.

If you don't show anything and take no writing classes etc. you won't in my view have much chance to improve your writing and until you allow others to see, I'd say you don't know how good your writing is.

At the end of the day, what you write may or may not be readable to others while it is to yourself. Also, say you describe something and you think you know what it means yet when someone else reads it, they inform you it's completely wrong or the opposite. The last one happens to me.

I guess what I'm saying is it helps to show your work until you're confident enough you're at a good level of writing. But with all things, the feedback you get may or not be good.

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impete82

i meant when you're actually writing a book or poem, do you share your progress? ..... i definitely want to do some writing course where it's kind of pointless if you don't share

DavidGil

Well on a personal note, I really don't know anyone else who cares for writing or reading apart from people on here so I just to tend to annoy my family at times. So yes, I do share. I also share a lot of what I write on here whether I get responses or not.

Also, it is helpful to share what you have when you're writing a book, no matter if you get good or negative feedback. (but snippets only obviously) The key is to learn how to deal with criticism, you'll only get it when you send pieces off anyways.

Think of it as a good learning process for rejection slips down the road, this forum.

My two cents anyways and everything I've shown on here of my own has been from works in progress. Albeit ones that do tend to get left though I'm sticking with one currently and I have one piece waiting I fully intend to return to.

Edit: Though I don't tend to go around making threads or anything saying I'm 'this far along', though I may mention it in a piece of writing I'm showing if it's relevant.

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lin

Depends. Are you talking about some stupid writing idea or toll house cookies?

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Talia_Brie

I used to share ideas around, you know, talk about them. Now I don't. I mean, I'll talk about them to my wife, but that's about it.

The problem I found was if I didn't get exactly the right response about a story I'd get a little discouraged. I mean, if the person I was talking to wasn't totally enthused about my idea I'd start questioning whether it was as good as I thought it was.

That's not a good thing.

I say keep it to yourself until you're reasonably satisfied that's it's done. Then you can let it out of the box.

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surrealist

I agree with Talia. I wouldn't share while the story is being *written*. Once it's done, sure. But while I'm working it out, criticism from other people will affect it, and probably not in a good way. Side-seat drivers are excellent story-killers. Keep it like a secret until you've got a beginning, a middle, and an end.

It's even better if you let people know after it's been published :^)

Eiji Tunsinagi

I generally share before I've begun the idea or after I've finished it. Sharing during can manipulate the outcome of the piece and what you've written isn't really you, it's the comments you've gotten along the way.

True, editing based on people's comments should occur, but after the 1st draft, not during it.

That's like trying to do surgery as the bullet is about to hit someone.

I mean, what's that for??

Feel me? (lol I'm sorry)

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sdavis2k

I find that I bounce ideas off other people while working them out. They show me some flaws I have to accept and/or work around. I had a local mob guy getting his compound raided by the police, one of my friends compared it to too much to The Godfather. I had one of the arresting officers ask the mob guy "Who do you think you are Don Corleone?" as a nod to show I recognized that as a similarity.

strangedaze

sometimes it helps to talk it out. im never worried about anyone stealing ideas. its in the execution, baby, not the idea.

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Mike C

It's best to do what you feel comfortable with. I don't tend to put my stories up for critique any more because the buzz of having them read has worn off and I don't generally find the feedback very useful.

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Taxiday

I have learned a lot about writing by posting here and other forums and I consider myself fluent in English - and a couple of other languages as well. I have an extensive vocabulary and always thought my writing was good. However, one can be too close to the work and not see what other do.
I tended to write too passively. Made contorted sentences. And did not use simple past tense.
A perfect example is the word "that" - overusing it. Never thought about it until just today when I saw a post about it on another forum. Now, I've got a whole lot of search and replace to see how bad my novel is!!!