Young Writers Society

Do you remember what it was like to get your first feedback on YWS? I'm wondering if the experience is different for the bright young whipper snappers today compared to those who are... somewhat less fresh off the press.

I remember one of my first reviews, someone pointed out that although the descriptions were all well and good, the story didn't make sense and there was actually no reason for my reader to care about my character. What? Not care? You're reading my story, of course you should care about my character! I thought... and then quite openly proclaimed that thought. It was a somewhat less than graceful exchange. Although makes me chuckle in hindsight, I'm glad I never had to meet someone like myself back then XD

So how about you? How was your first time?

The title of this topic could easily have been taken in any number of (wrong) directions, but whatever lol

I've always remembered who gave me my first review, Biluata. It was on my first flash fiction, like 127 words. Titled "Another Smoke." Very helpful review. The meat of it was that I gotta make stuff extra-descriptive. You know, the pitifully dead show-don't-tell horse that's been beaten so many times already by writers all over the world.

However, they said the super shortness of it had a good effect on the story, so that's cool. Maybe I should start writing flash fiction again?

I felt okay about it. Not too intense feels, but not apathetic either. Even on retrospect I still don't feel very strongly about it. But it's okay.

Well, as an old member, I definitely remember how reviewing was a lot different back in the day. In the early days, most of the reviews I received were short and praise-happy (as were most of the reviews I wrote). I remember people pointing out my grammar errors, which I actually purposefully made because that's what I'd seen on other writing sites so that's what I thought you did on the Internet. I was simultaneously embarrassed and relieved that I wasn't the last person to care about grammar on the interwebs.

I do think line-by-line poetry reviews were a lot more common back then. Something like

original line of poetry reviewer's comments
second original line more comments

Dang that was a lot of BBCode for nit-picky comments.

Still, I did get a few more critical reviews. On one of my early lyrics, someone wrote (after several positive reviews) "This is pish. Am I the only one afraid to say that?". Kinda stung, but the rest of the review was pretty constructive.

One major difference between the pre-2011 YWS and the current site is that the literary forums were in a forum structure. This made some things like replying to reviews a little trickier. This also meant that sometimes, old threads would get bumped by some enthusiastic new member and then your years-old work would get slammed with new comments. I remember one in particular, where a terrible poem I'd written in 2005 got bumped in 2009 and then trashed by a notoriously harsh reviewer. I was kinda like "Dude I know this is bad, it's cool" haha. Nowadays with the literary works structured the way they are and the Green Room, it's a lot harder for old works to resurface and take priority over new works. Also, you can unpublish old stuff to keep such beasts from resurfacing.

And after writing this long rambly thing, I realize you were asking more like "how did you react to your first reviews?". Well, like I said, I don't think I individually thanked people as much due to the forum structure, but I took comments pretty well I think, even harsher ones. I'd already received some harsh reviews on my previous writing sites, so I'd learned a little bit about how to take criticism.

Anyway, hope y'all enjoy this mini-history lesson, haha.

Oh gosh. xD I more remember my first review because of how bad the work I'd written was, not because of the review. It was a poem about how I didn't like staying up until midnight on New Year's Eve and preferred going to bed at my normal time so I wasn't super tired the next day.

I'm not actually sure if this review was the first review I got (I think it might not have been - my first one might have been a more generic + positive review), but it gave good style advice and then pointed out what I will always remember: that my poem was really pretentious to the point of sounding like I was claiming to be better than people who stayed up late. (And that it's often better to take your reader with you through the poem and present your own experiences, rather than presenting an absolute that easily alienates them - really solid advice all around.)

I think I was a little bit hurt at first, but realized fairly soon that the person was exactly right and was super embarrassed. xD I unpublished that poem fairly quickly. And I don't remember who reviewed me, but it was definitely one of our really good poetry reviewers who's been around for ages.

Oh God my first review...
I got it on my baby, a book set I've been writing for ages. Most of the reviews were praise happy until I started getting reviews from people like rydia.. I think I cried (jk jk but it did help reform my works)

And the first review I ever did was terrible. I think I was trying to help but made a jumbled mess of words that would've been better suited as me being drunk, and the person even tagged me saying,"what help". This post really makes you reflect on things, like how and when things changed.. but oh God I don't think anyone was great their first time XD