It always seems as if every one and their mother wants something of theirs critiqued, but nobody wants to critique. Or, more accurately, the people who are willing to critique are overwhelmed and just can not get to it all.
This is actually a problem that I have noticed every where I go, whether it be off of Gaia, or the time that I used to spend in the writer's forum. However, I am currently worried about this problem showing up in my guild, and one of the reasons I requested to join this guild was to get advice from you guys, or possibly even set up inter-guild activities.
My RP guild has two purposes;
1) a meeting/network place for RPers
2) help RPers improve their abilities to RP
(Not necessarily in that order!) I feel that my guild is only meeting one of these requirements, and I think that you can guess which one. We do have some great people set up in my Questions subforum who give advice and properly critique writing. However, we have a Character Development and a Writing subforum which are both practically neglected by critics. Many of the RPers who come in at the beginners level do not have a good foundation in the technical aspects of writing. It follows, then, that they cannot master the intricacies of creative writing involved in advanced RPing without first mastering the basics! We also have a good deal of "Intermediate" RPers, and some of them still have their hangups on the purely technical aspects, but they also need help with the more abstract aspects of writing.
It pains me to see this as I'm going through the RP threads, moving over half of them to beginners and knowing that they need the help that they are not really getting. Setting good examples with our advanced and intermediate RPs is great, but it's not enough. How can I get critics interested in joining or staying/participating in the critiquing parts of my guild? Have any of you noticed this problem elsewhere, or do I just have bad luck (or am I doing something wrong?)?
One idea that we're considering is giving out an award. In theory, we give out awards periodically for various things, but there is no gaia gold or any thing attached to it. We were thinking of having a critic of the week and have a monetary value attached. What do you think of that? What amount should it be? What about the frequency?
Another idea is something that I hoped might appeal to you guys. Would you like to set up a critiquing "booth" any place in my guild, and have your guild properly advertised there? You could run it wherever and however you wanted, and if we did any awards or things like that, you guys would certainly be eligible. As I mentioned, we do have a lot of hapless beginners, but we also have more advanced players that could also benefit from your collective expertise.
Lastly, if we had a contest that required that the entries be marked up/edited as part of the screening or awarding process, could we pay you guys to do that part? I had a character contest once that was great fun, but I wasn't able to give the in depth critiques that I had wanted to because I was only one person.
Even if the most that you could give is advice, I would really appreciate it.
Regards,
School of Dedicated RPers
aka Penden
Gaian Grammar Guild
The Gaian Grammar Guild is a refuge for the literate, a place for them to post and read posts without worrying about the nonsensical ones.
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