Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Secret Agent: The Critiquing

Another brief list-of-stuff for new readers:

  • The 50 Secret Agent entries will post this morning in 1-minute intervals until they're all live.
  • Critiquing takes place in the comment boxes.
  • Please USE A SCREEN NAME when leaving your critique. "Anonymous" is not a good choice (choose the NAME/URL option in the comment box).
  • Please refrain from snarkiness. Honesty is not the same as harshness.
  • All entrants are requested to critique a minimum of 5 other entries.
  • Critiques may continue throughout the next 5 days.
  • The Secret Agent will show up at any time and leave comments under the moniker "Secret Agent."
That's it!  Enjoy the ride.  Questions below.

4 comments:

  1. Sorry for posting as anonymous, after being asked not to. My password to AOL and I aren't getting along. I just want to ask a question, though, I'll straighten it out before critiquing. Will entrants be reposting/rewriting after receiving feedback? Like in the comments or anything?

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  2. Anon -- (You don't need a password; I have the site set up so that anyone can leave comments, and hence choose the Name/URL option)

    No, they will not be reposting, though I do hope that they all will rewrite/revise, as that's the whole point. :) I discourage participants from commenting to the critters, as it usually comes off as justification. (If we have to explain things to our readers, then those things obviously aren't working in our piece.)

    Also, most commenters don't return to re-read comments. People come, crit, and leave. So it's almost always a waste of time for the authors to come back "asking for more."

    All participants will be able to enter a future contest after 6 months. And in-house crits are always open to everybody. :)

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  3. I'm just a reader of the site, not a participant in the challenge. I really enjoy seeing other writer's ideas and different spins on concepts.

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  4. Thank you. I'm sure you probably hear it all the time, Authoress, but hopefully it never gets old. I don't want to respond to my excerpt thread for obvious reasons, but it's so wonderful to get such great feedback / fresh perspectives from strangers :)

    Thank you also to everyone writing critiques!

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