What is it?
The One Paragraph Shred is where you post one very short excerpt of your story. I recommend less than 200 words, but I've posted up as little as a single paragraph before. Then you just let the forum go crazy on it. I've seen it in Critique Circle in their forums, and I really am impressed with the quality of feedback that you receive when you do that.
And that's it. You can actually stop reading here if you want. The rest is just me making an argument as to why people ought to try it.
I often found critiques far too overwhelming, and I think that's because often there's too much feedback. This person over here is going on about "info dumps" and then you have this other guy talking about "the hook" and a third guy lecturing you about how the story doesn't feel "grounded" ... Uggg!!!! I don't even know what any of this means!
(NOTE: I'm not talking about the guy who is complaining you didn't show your big magical tree as being magical enough in Chapter 1... I'm talking about the people who understand they're reading Chapter 1 and that there's 59 more chapters for the stupid tree to be magical. Yes, this is oddly specific for a reason...)
But notice that in the good feedback, they're all saying basically the same thing, just in different ways and maybe pointing out different areas of your manuscript where these issues arose or where that mistake impacted their experience. And this is because writing styles are show of habit. If you don't congregate the verbs properly three different times in your opening paragraph, it's safe to assume you'll probably see that mistake in a lot of other places.
Also, presentation affects everything else. If you really do have problems writing in passive voice, it probably will affect the story's overall appeal. That can make descriptions feel like they're dragging on, thus an "info dump." Or not feel grounded. All of these really show the importance of good spelling and grammar.
On top of it, there's no question to the quality of feedback. If you go onto a critique forum they often have a minimum length for feedback; usually about 200 words. And I get it. They don't want people to come on and say "That was good" just so they have the credit to post their own. But often I look a manuscript and realize there really is just one major problem that, if fixed, would make the whole thing good. But if I wrote, "Hey, don't use passive voice. The End." that writer is going to feel like they didn't receive a quality feedback, because I "didn't read the whole thing." In reality they may have received the best feedback, because it's an easy fix and it makes a huge impact!
What would be the point of people reading through the whole thing at this point?
Actually, there is a reason people should read the whole thing.
Like most forms of feedback, this method is limited in what it could tell you. Obviously, it's not going to be able to tell anything about your characters or plot. They can't point out inconsistencies or whether they feel the major story arc ever felt resolved. Or if you introduced threads of plot that didn't go anywhere. Or if you Chapter 1 does everything a Chapter 1 is supposed to do.
These are things that are just as important and will require an actual read through.
The One Paragraph Shred is where you post one very short excerpt of your story. I recommend less than 200 words, but I've posted up as little as a single paragraph before. Then you just let the forum go crazy on it. I've seen it in Critique Circle in their forums, and I really am impressed with the quality of feedback that you receive when you do that.
And that's it. You can actually stop reading here if you want. The rest is just me making an argument as to why people ought to try it.
I often found critiques far too overwhelming, and I think that's because often there's too much feedback. This person over here is going on about "info dumps" and then you have this other guy talking about "the hook" and a third guy lecturing you about how the story doesn't feel "grounded" ... Uggg!!!! I don't even know what any of this means!
(NOTE: I'm not talking about the guy who is complaining you didn't show your big magical tree as being magical enough in Chapter 1... I'm talking about the people who understand they're reading Chapter 1 and that there's 59 more chapters for the stupid tree to be magical. Yes, this is oddly specific for a reason...)
But notice that in the good feedback, they're all saying basically the same thing, just in different ways and maybe pointing out different areas of your manuscript where these issues arose or where that mistake impacted their experience. And this is because writing styles are show of habit. If you don't congregate the verbs properly three different times in your opening paragraph, it's safe to assume you'll probably see that mistake in a lot of other places.
Also, presentation affects everything else. If you really do have problems writing in passive voice, it probably will affect the story's overall appeal. That can make descriptions feel like they're dragging on, thus an "info dump." Or not feel grounded. All of these really show the importance of good spelling and grammar.
On top of it, there's no question to the quality of feedback. If you go onto a critique forum they often have a minimum length for feedback; usually about 200 words. And I get it. They don't want people to come on and say "That was good" just so they have the credit to post their own. But often I look a manuscript and realize there really is just one major problem that, if fixed, would make the whole thing good. But if I wrote, "Hey, don't use passive voice. The End." that writer is going to feel like they didn't receive a quality feedback, because I "didn't read the whole thing." In reality they may have received the best feedback, because it's an easy fix and it makes a huge impact!
What would be the point of people reading through the whole thing at this point?
Actually, there is a reason people should read the whole thing.
Like most forms of feedback, this method is limited in what it could tell you. Obviously, it's not going to be able to tell anything about your characters or plot. They can't point out inconsistencies or whether they feel the major story arc ever felt resolved. Or if you introduced threads of plot that didn't go anywhere. Or if you Chapter 1 does everything a Chapter 1 is supposed to do.
These are things that are just as important and will require an actual read through.
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