Call me Ish--er, Jenn.
Twenty, though I keep forgetting it. Currently in uni, studying chem, hoping to pick up a minor in creative writing. I post on here after my friends get tired of telling me that it's good--after I get tired of being told, time and time again, that it's good. I don't come looking for reassurance; I want your criticism. Praise is nice, but does nothing to help the overall quality of my writing improve.
If you read the recent stuff and like it, I would recommend that you avoid the stuff from '03/'04, and vice versa. My writing style has changed so much over the last five years, it's almost unrecognizable.
Yes, I write mainly short stories. I've written two novels (I was fourteen at the time!), but they're horrible enough that I'm not planning on posting them here.
If I review something that you've written, especially if it's something other than the first chapter, it means I liked it well enough to keep reading. If I critique you, it's to help you improve--not to make you feel as if you should stop writing. Please don't reply to my reviews with, "Well I didn't ask for constructive criticism, so I'm going to ignore everything you said!"--obviously, if you cared enough to reply, you're not ignoring everything I said. :)
I don't mind if you decide that you're not going to listen to whatever I say about your story. Great, fine, I try to preface all reviews with, "This is strictly opinion, but"--and I try to be kind in what I say. If you're genuinely offended by something mentioned in the review (if I mention that you have more typos than a one-armed monkey on crack(1), for instance, and you are a one-armed monkey on crack), shoot me off a PM, and I'll get back to you ASAP about what I meant. I try to be kind in all that I review, even if there were bits I flat-out hated (or that played on my pet peeves; I'm not a saint, there are a few things that do make me twitch), and remember what it was like when I started posting here over four years ago. I make an effort to review with the sorts of things I wish someone had told my fifteen-year-old self--and no, those things aren't unkind.
I can be (and usually am) horribly sarcastic. Most of my humor is therefore either sarcastic, or, as in the case of "Dragon, Maiden, Knight, Et Cetera" satirical. If you don't quite "get it," that's OK--but please, if you're going to review it telling me that you didn't understand it, therefore it's Just Not Funny, I will be forced to reply back explaining each and every joke in the story to you.
Read and review if you like--as stated above, I am looking for more than, "This is great, please review my story!" or, "This is terrible, you no-talent hack!"--though I'm still waiting to be called a hack.
I run one C2, "So I Read This Really Great Short Story . . ." It's dedicated to those wonderful short stories that don't seem to get as much attention as their novel-length counterparts. You know the ones. If you have a suggestion, or you think you've got the stuff to be featured, PM me, and I'll either read it and add it myself, or critique it with suggestions.
(1)Not that I would ever call anyone a one-armed monkey on crack.
FictionPress.com - let the words flow
