YWS Anti-Novel Crusade: Ideas

fire_of_dawn wrote:Has anybody heard of Advanced Critiques? I find that, when I'm allowed to download files, this forum is very useful. It may not be a solution, but surely it's a start?

Because that forum is for finished novels only, it's not as popular. Some people write novels as they post them and they want feedback as they write. For that reason, advanced critiques isn't as appealing for posting novels part by part (also, the length of time it takes to do an advanced critiques can be very long, which makes critics less likely to look there)

Also... I think adding a forum specifically for incomplete scenes should be added.
One of the other forum sites I visited had one titled "snippets and snapshots."

You can post just parts of scenes in the usual fiction forums, fire. Just mention that it's an incomplete work.

Fire ->> I'm always wary of adding more forums. As Rosey pointed out, though, I think the current forum set-up can deal with stuff like that for now. If, however, YWS rapidly grows then I'll revisit it.

However, please use the suggestions thread in the future for such things. You're making this go off-topic, and I don't want that to happen.

I said it before in the other thread about this, but I'll say it again: Instead of touting this crusade as just "anti-novel", I think we should try and make it as much "pro-short story" as possible. Nate mentioned teaching new writers about the short story, as well as contests and stuff. More of this would be good. It's not like young writers are starting novels and not finishing them just to infuriate us. It's usually because they don't know how to write anything else and they don't have enough material/attention span for a full novel yet.

Education is your friend, peepsteds. The best way to get people to write more short stories is to talk about how awesome short stories are, rather than just bashing the unfinished novel.

Nate wrote:So please, random threads in random places about short stories would be awesome! It could be a listing of your favorites (remember, YWS has a short story database), or some tips on how to write one.