So you’ve decided to get involved in the PALnet MSP Fiction Workshop on Discord. Maybe you read Part 4.2 - Work(shop) that Thang! [Group Style] and decided that the amount of fun we have is just not to be missed. Maybe you noticed that regulars to the workshop, @nexusfyre, @horrorguyian, and @bex-dk, took three of four places, totalling 250 of 300 STEEM awarded in @benjojo’s latest writing contest, and you thought, “Holy shit! There must be something to that place!” Whatever the reason, you’re ready to be drowned in red ink yourself, and you need to know how.
It’s not quite this dramatic, but gird your loins anyway
What can I submit?
Our workshop is focused exclusively on fiction. We will not be able to help you with songs, poetry, nonfiction blogging, memoirs, filing of legal documents, recipes, love letters, or clever text messages.
Your submission should be a story, chapter of a book, or a part of one. It should have characters, an arc, and some stuff should happen. In case “Fiction Workshop” is still not sinking in: It should be fiction. There are awesome other channels like MSP Workshop, Writing Advice, Poetry Workshop, and English-Spelling-Grammar, where the volunteers are better equipped to help with things that aren’t fiction. If you aren’t looking for help with fiction, check them out!
What are the Submission Rules?
Look, we are a fun crowd. We don’t like to get all bound up in rules and regs, but we are also all volunteers with jobs and families and--oh yes!--a desire to actually spend time writing our own stories. So we have some very basic rules we ask be followed. These rules are in the best interest of not only the regulars at the workshop, who spend hours a day reviewing and editing for free but also those who wish to receive feedback. For one thing, we don’t want to lose great reviewers to burnout. For another, there are certain guidelines that will help writers most benefit from the workshop critique process. So please abide by the following when requesting review:
- Use Google Docs, and be sure when you generate the “share” link, you choose “Anyone with link can COMMENT.” This used to be optional, but it is so incredibly beneficial in the streamlining of the feedback process, that we are asking that you learn to use them if you wish to submit. If you just can’t do it, even after reading this comprehensive walkthrough with pictures, please direct message me @jrhughes on Discord to make alternate arrangements.
Expect me to try and get you into a Google Doc anyway. Seriously, if you can get onto Steemit, Google Docs should not stymie you.
- Submit something small in the beginning. You can submit your thirty-page pride and joy if you want, but be prepared that if there are repeated problems with structure, grammar, punctuation, spelling, or content, reviewers are likely to stop about one to three pages in and send it back for you to rewrite the remainder applying what they’ve already pointed out. The Fiction Workshop is not a ghostwriting service. Our goal is to help writers recognize what they can do better, and then do better with that the next time. We all have room to improve, and improving our writing is the goal, not having someone else just make it better for us. Ideally, I would recommend your first submission be a piece of stand-alone flash fiction, 500-1500 words, but including a complete story arc: beginning, middle, end, character development, and conflict. This allows reviewers to see a sample that should include all aspects of a fiction piece, without wondering whether they are missing something from a companion piece, or the end that they can’t see, etc., while also ensuring they can do a thorough review in a reasonable amount of time.
No. Just… no.
Do not expect reviewers to meet a deadline. When we initially developed the Submission Form, there was some debate as to whether we should give authors a place to designate a deadline that we would try to meet. The idea was dismissed specifically because it’s counterproductive to encouraging authors to improve their own writing rather than relying on the workshop as a free editing service. So don’t submit something you plan on having back and posting in a few hours or even that day. In fact, you don’t even need to submit something you haven’t yet posted. You could always repost something with the improvements, or apply what you learn to your next new post.
Submit no more than a single piece at a time. Once you have something submitted, do not submit anything else until you’ve been contacted to close out the critique. Multiple submissions from a single author will be deleted, and only the first submission in the queue will be reviewed. This goes back to the principle of improvement again. There is no sense in reviewers doing two or three of your pieces concurrently, when hopefully you will learn enough from the first review, to improve the next piece you submit.
Hopefully you’re sensing a theme here… Starts with “G” and ends with “etting better”
Once a piece has been submitted, do not--under any circumstances--edit the piece at the link you have provided. Once you have been contacted to close out the critique on the piece, we will remove it from the active queue and you can go back to editing it. If you feel at any time that the reviews you have received are sufficient and you wish to end critique, direct message me @jrhughes on Discord to arrange that. Edits and changes made by an author mid-review render certain comments useless, confusing, and outdated. Reviewers coming after your edits may wonder what the previous reviewer meant. And most of all, it’s absolutely maddening to be in the middle of typing a comment about something and have a lurking author delete what you’re talking about. Don’t be that guy.
Do not show up in the workshop vote-begging, whining, or complaining about the service you’ve received. Seriously. There are people there from all over the world who have varying levels of hardship they are facing, and they still spend hours every day that they could give to their family, their job, or making some money on posting, instead offering to help lift other writers up to whatever the next level is for them. We are a close and supportive community and our arms are open wide, seeking to welcome anyone who wants to put in the work to improve. But if our help is thrown back in our faces, we aren’t going to keep offering it to such a person.
Yeah. Don’t be that guy either
- Finally, if you are aware you have issues with English grammar, spelling, and punctuation, make your first stop the English-Spelling-Grammar channel. Pieces that have extensive errors of this sort are going to be bounced there anyway before a critique of content can be performed. There are many volunteers there and they can be sure you submit a relatively clean piece for review. You don’t want the critique you receive from experienced content editors to be wasted on spelling and punctuation errors, believe me.
Where do I submit?
Just go to the Fiction Workshop Submissions Channel to submit your piece. There are instructions and pinned posts there that can tell you everything you need to know. While you’re in the neighborhood, be sure to pop into the the Workshop itself and meet us. Let us know a bit about you and learn a bit about us in return. We are growing every day, and we are always thrilled to meet new kindred spirits!
Please check out my recently posted fiction:
Bound
First Night
Restoration
Peace
Let us Gather by the River
Learn more about the Fiction Workshop and see what we do, with my Red Ink Experiment
Or laugh and learn with previous entries in my Tips for Fic series:
Part 1 – The Writer’s Guide to Getting some Action
Part 2 - Show me yours, I'll Show you Mine
Part 3 - Cover your - um - Content
Part 4 - Work(shop) that Thang!
Part 4.1 - Work(shop) that Thang! [with Google Docs]
Part 4.2 - Work(shop) that Thang! [Group Style]
Click HERE to learn more
Amazing information here people! The Fiction Workshop is definitely the place to be. Much of my awoken passion to write is due to the tireless efforts of all those involved at the Workshop.
If you have any interest at all in bettering your writing ability and networking with other writers, please check us out! I feel like I am just now starting to really understand my own writing ability thanks to the awesome advice of everyone at the Workshop.
Thanks for the mention @jrhughes! Cheers!
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This is an absolutely killer article on the Workshop. Thank you, @jrhughes, for getting all of this so perfectly, succinctly, and hilariously RIGHT.
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I absolutely adore and copiously envy your ability to make something that should be a boring ruling list a total joy to read. Anyone who doesn't bother to read these rules isn't just missing out on what they workshop can offer--they're missing out on the pleasure of reading these rules!
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Wow, you guys are generating a really clear system! I really need to spend more time with on the Discord and learn how to be a good critiquer - you are such a boon to the community. :)
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