The Red Ink Experiment

As most of you know - because I never shut up about it - I am a participant in the MSP Fiction Workshop. I started writing fiction when I was five, and with the exception of a few lapses, it’s been a lifelong love. I’ve been in online writing critique groups before and they sucked. Most of them were based on some kind of token system where you earned tokens by reviewing and getting good feedback from the author you reviewed, then spent those tokens to submit your own work for review. No one wanted to hurt feelings because then they wouldn’t get a good review or any tokens. It was bullshit. Basically just a bunch of wannabes posting writing at a level fan-fic sites would deride, and patting each other on the back for a job well done.

Like this, only with grown up babies

There’s a place for that kind of writing. I’m glad Steemit allows anyone to post anything. If your goal is to have a group of followers here that dig your stuff, that’s awesome! I’d like that myself. But what I really want is to be good enough for a publisher to cut me a check. I want to write well enough that I can pay my bills and have a professional reviewer say moderately kind things about my work. None of that is going to happen if I’m content with where I am, which is why I’m about to submit a story that earned me $100 in my earliest days here, for peer review at the Fiction Workshop.

I know for a fact that payout here on Steemit is not necessarily a reflection of how well-polished my work is. It is not necessarily a reflection of how well-structured my work is. It is certainly not a reflection of how marketable my work would be to a mainstream publishing house. If you’ve been paying attention to the Steemhouse Fiction Trail posts, you know that the number one goal of the Fiction Workshop is to change that. If your work gets curated by @SFT you can rest assured it is because the curation panel recognizes that work as polished, well-structured, and marketable, and @SFT aims eventually to reward such work accordingly.

Like this, but with less leopard pri- well, actually, rock that leopard print girl!

That story paid me well, but I am certain it would never pass muster with @SFT. I’ve always planned to use it as the core of a dystopian novel, so I’m going to toss it into the fray at the workshop and see what emerges from the flood of red ink. I already have some ideas about what is absolutely terrible about it, but I’m going to keep my yap shut and see what the others think. When I've been soaked in recommendations, I will hang my ass right out here for you all to see the hard work the workshop members do. You'll see how something "good enough" even for a nice payout, can be better.

You'll also see that it is possible to survive critique. When I’ve reworked the story with the input of the stellar editing and feedback team, I’ll post the result and let the differences speak for themselves.

I never posted the entire story, mainly because I knew there was so much about it that wasn’t working and I didn’t want to throw good effort after bad. The first three parts are here, here, and here. They’re long past payout, but feel free to check them out and prepare to compare!

I’ll be at the workshop, drowning in red ink. If you’re interested in becoming a more polished, structured, marketable fiction writer, join me there!

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Thank you so much for reading! Don't forget to Upvote, Comment, and Resteem!

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Please check out my recently posted fiction:

Restoration
Peace
Let us Gather by the River

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Or laugh and learn with 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]

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