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2011-07-04 18:33:21

Last author: Annie
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Novel Writing Workshop

_{Under Construction}

Many of us have always dreamed of writing a novel. In fact, for many budding writers, a successful novel is the ultimate dream. However, most of us epically fail at the endeavor.

With the goal of helping you finish a novel, [RiverStar] created the Novel Writing Workshop. She is no longer active at WritersCo, but we still want the workshop to go on. Therefore, this revised version of the Novel Writing Workshop is now maintained by [Annie]. Direct your questions and comments to her.

A big part of writing is getting peer advice, so please do read what others have written, comment, and rate. This will not only benefit them, giving them ideas and feedback, but it will also benefit you as they will be more likely to respond with warm fuzzies, and, well, cold pricklies sometimes too.

Participants

_{Participants of the Old Novel Writing Workshop}

New participants welcome at all times!
All participants please join the forum <joinforum:34:NWW> (Novel Writing Workshop)

- [Veltzeh] - 39.Novel Writing Workshop
- [Annie] - 415.Books in Progress.Novel Writing Workshop
- [Ash] - 102.Novel Writing Workshop

Rules

Create a writings page called "Novel Writing Workshop" specifically for all of the activities and work completed in the workshop. This will make it easier for fellow participants to interact with you and your writings.

Also please join the forum "Novel Writing Workshop" by clicking on the following: <joinforum:34:NWW> (Novel Writing Workshop). We will have various discussions, activities, and mutual sharing in this forum.

1. Be courteous on this page, the Novel Writing Workshop homepage.
2. When commenting on and rating fellow participants' writing, be kind and courteous. A good rule of thumb is equal parts compliment and criticism. Remember that this is constructive criticism The following format is generally acceptable for comments:
I really like your _____ (i.e. narrator)/your use of _____ (i.e. white space).
You might try to ____ (i.e. cut down on adverbs)/do more of ____ (i.e. that thing you did in paragraph three that just blew me away).
3. Place a rating next to your writings link under Participants if your novel contains blatant sexuality, violence, or other sensitive content.

The Workshop

_{You can expect updates from me at least every couple months.}

NWW Prologue
NWW Step 1: Topic
NWW Step 2: Character

<img:stuff/NwwBadge.gif>

This is a badge participants can put in their houses.
Thanks to [pixie_shimmer] for making it. Hopefully soon to come will be a "winner" badge for those of you who complete the novel you worked on in this workshop. Feel free to volunteer your badge-making skills and tell [Annie] you'd like to make it.

2006-02-28 [RiverStar]: Welcome aboard SleepingDragon

2006-02-28 [SleepingDragon]: Thanks. This looks very interesting. I frequently like to work on longer projects than short stories so I'm hoping this will help me out. BTW, subpage created at my writings :D

2006-02-28 [RiverStar]: Great, add a link if you want. I quite literally can't write shorter pieces. I find I tend to get more ideas as I'm writing and things just seem to progress.

2006-02-28 [SleepingDragon]: The badge looks great! Thanks and thanks to [pixie_shimmer]! and...I felt I was like that before I came to writersco and tried some excercises. Seems I can write incredibly long (as in never ending) sagas or very short little things. Recently I'm trying my hand at novella length stuff. I've done one that's more of a looong short story and am working on another I hope will be a tad longer.

2006-02-28 [Fuzzysabeast]: I am currently working on my first novel. Hopefully this will help me along.

2006-02-28 [Veltzeh]: The lessons start on my birthday! XD

2006-02-28 [iippo]: If you don't mind, I'll follow this thing from the corner without participating. Read other people's work, comment (if that's ok with everyone) and just generally absorb any info I can.

2006-02-28 [Dead/Alive]: I like this idea. I'm currently in the midst of a novel as well, but, I'm pretty much at a stand still. Where and how would I get in on this thingy?

2006-02-28 [RiverStar]: To join just add you name, Amen.

2006-02-28 [RiverStar]: Feel free to just watch iippo. You are more than welcome.

2006-02-28 [Grey Wanderer]: In that case I'll watch too.

2006-03-02 [Nell]: Cool! This looks really great!

2006-03-02 [RiddleRose]: wooo!!! does it matter if i won't necessarily be on terribly much in the next few days?

2006-03-02 [RiverStar]: It's quite alright. You can take this at your own pace. I will try update things every week, but that doesn't mean you have to finish them all every week. Some people will move at dfferent speeds.

2006-03-02 [RiverStar]: First lesson is up!

2006-03-05 [Nell]: Should we put up links to our own 'Writing Workshop' pages?

2006-03-05 [Nell]: Another question: can we begin to write the story or the idea, or do you have some specific ideas for that?

2006-03-06 [RiverStar]: You can put your own links up if you like. I mainly put mine up in case you need an example. If you do start writing your story now you will miss some stuff.

2006-03-06 [RiverStar]: The next two lessons are up! Take your time with them. You do not have to be as up to date as they are posted.

2006-03-11 [Ultiem]: ooo interesting, now i can get help writing Remedy for Darkness

2006-03-18 [RiverStar]: Sorry nothing has been posted in the last few days, guys. Been really busy with a term paper. Character development lessons will be up this week.

2006-03-18 [Grey Wanderer]: OOh, goody or goody! :)

2006-03-19 [RiddleRose]: oh, excellent! that's what i really badly need. XD

2006-04-08 [Veltzeh]: Time for the next lesson? :)

2006-04-19 [RiverStar]: SOOOOOOO SORRY EVERYONE! Exams have been keeping me really busy! *cries*

2006-04-20 [RiddleRose]: awww... i know the feeling... XD

2006-04-30 [Marten]: I'd like to finish a novel for once... *sigh* :P

2006-04-30 [~*Lonely Wanderer*~]: im trying to so i need all the help i can get :D

2006-06-26 [Nell]: Hellooo? 0.0 RiverStar is away I guess.

2006-07-10 [Veltzeh]: Prod prod?

2006-09-04 [Nell]: Sorry for the false alarm guys, I just had to rename a page.

Riverstar is still missing: gone for 111 days so far. We miss you Star. Come back to us.

2006-09-21 [RiverStar]: Guys I am so sorry I left. Had to disappear to work out stuff in my offline life. I am back now, but it might take me awhile to get back into the swing of things. I missed you all.

2006-09-22 [Veltzeh]: Yay! It's okay, the main thing is that you are back :D

2006-09-25 [Nell]: *HUGS YOU* YAY! WritersCo can now get swinging, RiverStar has arrived!!!

2007-06-27 [Athilea]: How would I be able to join with this? I'm currently working on rewritting ALL of my short stories to make them sound better, as well as furthering the ideas for my novels.

2007-06-27 [Veltzeh]: Well, you just need to sign up your name and to go through the parts. This thing's stalled though, it's been over a year since the last part was added... Does anyone know how to contact RiverStar?

2007-06-29 [Athilea]: Ahh, I see. Thank you.

2010-12-10 [Annie]: [RiverStar] seems to be permanently gone (1996 days inactive), does anyone want to take this over? I think it's a great concept...I'd be sad to see it gone forever.

2010-12-10 [Veltzeh]: I'd still like to take part, but I have no clue how to run it, so I can't take over.

2011-01-27 [Ash]: I think Annie should run it, but if you don't want to I'll volunteer.

2011-01-28 [Annie]: I might do that...let me contemplate this. :)

2011-01-29 [Ash]: I think you'd be good at it. :)

2011-02-06 [Annie]: I think I will take this over! It will take me a little while to either stick with [RiverStar]'s original novel-writing method and figure it out or take my own route and revamp a bit. I'll keep everyone posted. :)

2011-02-06 [Veltzeh]: Yay!

2011-02-06 [Annie]: ^_^ Anyone particularly attached to your work with the previous method?

2011-02-07 [Veltzeh]: What do you mean? :o

2011-02-08 [Annie]: As in...if I choose a new method and the work you've done so far doesn't apply anymore, will you be very disappointed? I'm unfamiliar with [RiverStar]'s method and I'm not sure yet if I'll want to educate myself in hers or find a different one.

2011-02-09 [Veltzeh]: Well, the previous work doesn't just disappear, so no, I don't mind a new method. :)

2011-02-10 [Ash]: New is good every now and again. I think you should look over her stuff though, I find like you need to be in this word count to constricting because YA novels can be 100 or 500 pages with all different word sizes. I think you should base it more upon feeling the writing and if something is bland or not.

2011-02-13 [Annie]: I've started looking over [RiverStar]'s material and I have to say I almost definitely won't use it. The first thing she says is that you need to write "for the reader," but I know that the first rule of writing is to write for yourself. In a workshop aiming at merely finishing a novel, the worst advice I can imagine is telling budding writers to think of the reader and try to please the reader. So I must refute it this moment! Write for yourselves! Don't think about selling the novel.

2011-02-13 [Veltzeh]: I don't think it's wrong or bad to think about the reader either, though. I've been writing just for myself for ages and my writings are... not good because I don't know how to write for anyone but myself.

2011-02-16 [Ash]: When I started writing Fan-Fiction, people started messaging me telling me what they liked and what they were interested in, it really helped me there.

2011-02-16 [Veltzeh]: Hmm, I don't remember getting comments like that... but seeing what I have in my Elfwood library, maybe I should go over the comments with a finer comb and a more mature mind. :D

2011-02-17 [Ash]: I had to do that at some point, with a maturer mind. Some guy started harassing me in comments so I simply blocked him. It's was a lot easier then hosting a flame war.

2011-02-17 [Annie]: I think there's definitely value in constructive criticism and peer review, which is slightly different than writing for the reader. My point was only that, in the case of someone who has trouble finishing a novel or fears/mental blocks with it, it may not be the best advice to tell them they need to think of the reader first. Sometimes in that case it's best to just encourage them to write, give them various helpful tools, and forget about how it looks on the outside until later.

2011-02-17 [Veltzeh]: All right, that makes sense. :)

2011-02-18 [Annie]: ^_^ Whee for getting along

2011-03-04 [Annie]: Just so everyone knows, I updated but it's kind of buried in all the writing -- we have a forum for discussions and activities: <joinforum:34:NWW> (Novel Writing Workshop)

2011-03-04 [Ash]: Oo... I will join.. :)

2011-07-04 [Annie]: Step 2 finally up :)

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