Topic: Writers Group interest?

I've been meaning for some time to set up a group for those interested in writing. It was take the format of a blog-based workshop. Once a week we'd each read a short story (something accessible online) and discuss it, and workshop a story that one of us has written. Basically it'll be posted to the blog and we'd all have a week to read it and get our thoughts together. Feedback could be provided either via a message board or a chatroom in real time (I'd prefer the latter but it's all down to what works for most people). We could figure out what works, what doesn't...why it doesn't...offer advice and friendly feedback.

Just curious if anyone would actually have interest in participating in such a thing. It's something I've been meaning to do for a while, so if there IS interest, I'll put something together and we can try to drag some others into participating, too.

I promise to read this after we're done Brawling. Sounds like fun from my brief skim of this post. Haven't ever written a good short story, but I'm not short of ideas. Will this be novice-friendly?

I've only completed one short story but its unedited. I have several in the works and 1 and 1/2 chapters of a book written. I'm definitely interested if my little experience is welcome.

Yeah, I should have specified that. I'd want to do something that's extremely novice friendly. Feedback should be completely honest, but it should be a fair kind of honesty and never condescending.

Basically, nobody will ever get better if they aren't told what they're doing wrong. But, on the other hand, nobody in their right mind would want to keep writing if all they get is rude criticism. So the idea is to keep it friendly and open-minded.

OK, finally gotten a chance to read this after a million PK Starstorms wore me down. Sounds like fun. I'll give it a try, though I'm sure the first one will be the hardest to write. It might be nice if any more experienced group members would be willing to share an example in advance.

PK Thunder is the greatest.

Not like you'll have to go first, and the way Chicken Brutus set it up you'll be able to read and discuss a group member story and an online story.

Ah, I read it twice and still read it wrong. Thought we'd all write one at the same time. Sounds good. I volunteer myself to be not first! Shotgun!

First of all, thanks for the notice about this topic Brutus. At the moment I'm not writing much at all, or not a lot at one time. I might write little bits and pieces, or chapters and you can criticize them. Also, what did you think of my Zelda idea? If you want I could try and develop the idea and get the whole plot down, so participants can join in writing the actual story and at the same time stay on path that leads to chaos when people share one story over the internet. To make it more hassle-free I might even stay out of the actual writing and just edit, if you like the idea.

I would be game for this. Though I would also need some type of example first. I've not written in a few years, and to think my dream when I graduated high school was to be a writer/director lol. But yeah, I'm in .

I'm considering majoring in creative writing or possibly criminology. Not sure how far I'd get with a degree like that. Probably in Starbucks or Books a Million...

My opinion: Take the creative writing classes on the side, but don't make it your major.

My degree was in English without specialty so that if my creative interests led somewhere, I could follow them, but if not, I was still qualified and easily marketable as a teacher for high school or early undergrad classes, or a business / technical writer (ick), etc. Well, not really "etc." That's basically it.

But if you're gungho about having the degree itself and not just the individual classes, go for it! Follow your heart, not your logic.

SupermarketZombies, have you ever heard of the authors Steven Erikson and Ian Cameron Esslemont? They write in a shared world of theirs called Malazan, the series are my favorite fantasy books I've ever read. Ian Cameron Esslemont has a Ph.D in Literature, which would be a better way to go. Not saying to go for a Ph.D, but to focus on that area - at the same time you could take Creative Writing classes as well.

I could well be up for this at some point. I'm extremely busy at the moment, could people join at any point or only at the workshops conception?

People need to know though that if you post your own story on someone's site, they own the copyrights to it. I believe that's the case, I know if you post stories and poems or whatever at the Tad Williams' Message Boards he inherits the rights. I don't think its his fault, I think its just the law. So as a forewarning, be careful what you write and submit.

Copyrights are not nearly that simple. Tad Williams can make it so that's the way it is, but it isn't some default law by any means. American Idol does the same thing.

You can copyright your own work in advance if you're that concerned about a guy named Chicken Brutus stealing your work. But I would hope anyone interested in this group is not that paranoid.

I may be interested in this. I've always been hesitant about this kind of thing, but I'm willing to try.

Nice idea Brutus. I'm awfully busy these days, but I'd love to try and participate. Also, this is probably the most down-to-earth thread in the whole forums so far. Well done.

Whoops...I've got quite a few messages to reply to here, I guess. I'll get to it when my mind is (relatively) back in order.

To address one whopping concern, though: no, I will not own the copyright to anything you submit. No, that is now how copyright laws work. Nobody--EVER--owns your copyright by default. UNLESS (and this is why you should always read fine print) they SPECIFICALLY SAY that by submitting your work you surrender the copyright.

And even that, to be honest, would almost never hold up in a court of law. If you submitted a story to some crappy internet writer's group (my ears are burning!) and later published it to great acclaim and huge fortunes, you'd very easily be able to argue that the rights were surrendered under misleading pretenses. After all, nobody's arguing that you didn't WRITE the story, and so as long as you haven't signed any contracts, your personal copyright (which, to some small extent, actually DOES exist by default) is pretty easy to defend.

So, no, don't worry. Nothing you submit will become anybody else's property. In fact, by posting your work somewhere with your signature, you're establishing the fact that you DID write it, and so if the story got stolen years down the line, you'd have a page and a posting date to point your lawyers toward as evidence that the creation was yours.

Where was I again?

Oh yeah. Stay out of my booze.

I'm definately up for this. Writing is my first love afterall and I'd love feedback on some of my materials. I wrote and directed a play once and acted as director/assistant director on several others. I also dabbled in RPG Maker for PSone but had to quit due to stress. So I'm all for some sort of online writers guild.

My inspirations are video games, Pixar movies, and the theatrical productions of Wizard of Oz.

This sounds like a lot of fun.