Themed Weekly Writing Workshop

[Kaptain Panty]

So the general idea is that every week, all partipants are given a theme to write a 1,000 to 2,500 word piece on, and a week later, the written piece is submitted and reviewed by the other partipants, who provide feedback on the piece. What day the pieces are to be submitted and a new theme provided on each week will be decided between early partipants (I'm personally thinking Saturday would be good - gives the weekend to submit stuff and review it).

And there's little else too it. It's just a way to practice writing, perhaps experiment in topics you wouldn't typically write in, and get some feedback on what you've written to improve your writing skills and literacy analysis abilities via reviewing other peoples work.

Themes could be themes in the traditional sense, such as horror, suspense, discovery, fantasy, etc. Or they could be writing focus's for the piece, such as character or environment or using a specific type of narration style.

As to how themes are decided each week, there's a few choices we could go for: 1. I could choose a theme every week; 2. who chooses the weeks theme is rotated between partipants; 3. everyone chooses a theme to toss in the pot and partipants can pick and choose what themes they would like to use.

All skill levels are welcome. Point of this whole thing is to learn, and the more perspectives the better.

Whatever format you write in, I suggest, when it gets going, submitting it via something like google documents where other people can view and (most importantly) write feedback for it without clogging up with thread with replies.

To anyone whose interested in joining, just throw up a post saying as such in this thread. After we've gotten a few people, we can settle the day for each piece to be submitted and up for review, and for the new theme to be given out for the piece for next week.

[Namingtoohard]

I'd be interested in joining.

I can't promise that I'd write my own piece every week. Shift work and my own fickle inspiration will probably conspire to stop me more often than not. But I'd be happy to throw my own work up on the rare instances when the stars align, and give other people feedback besides.

[V]

I think I'd be interested in joining. Im returning to writing after a long time away, so this could be good practice. I'm not sure how helpful on analyses I could be

We could create a thread for each individual theme/ prompt to keep the stories separate.

[Kaptain Panty]

I'd be interested in joining.

I can't promise that I'd write my own piece every week. Shift work and my own fickle inspiration will probably conspire to stop me more often than not. But I'd be happy to throw my own work up on the rare instances when the stars align, and give other people feedback besides.

That'd be fine. The weekly thing is just to help with getting things written relatively quickly, and encourages actually finishing whatever gets started.

I think I'd be interested in joining. Im returning to writing after a long time away, so this could be good practice. I'm not sure how helpful on analyses I could be

We could create a thread for each individual theme/ prompt to keep the stories separate.

Well, if you're not confident in analyses, here's an oppourtunity to get better at it. And odds are you'll have something to say, whether it be concerning structure or how an idea could be written out better.

My only fear with a thread for each week/prompt would be thread bloat. Maybe if everyone had a thread for their own written stuff already and linked it here, but otherwise, hmmst. I was thinking of using google documents or something similiar since it'd be a condensed way of viewing a piece and leaving a review. Though looking at groups briefly, could potentially make a group and either have each theme have a thread or everyone makes a thread for their piece and comments are analysis for it. The latter would probably be better, and forgo the need of google docs, though it depends on the number of people involved. Would be a lot of threads, but they'd be contained in their own thing, not swamping the main forum bits, and they should only come about weekly, and what you haven't read should be highlighted so you theres little worry of new being mixed up with old.

[Namingtoohard]

Google docs isn't suited very well to something like this, in my personal opinion. Being able to highlight the appropriate sections for each piece of feedback you give is great, but it becomes very cluttered and messy very quickly if you have any real back-and-forth discussion going.

If you're worried about too much thread bloat, then maybe just a single thread for submissions and one for discussions would be the way to go? We could use the occasional announcement post if you're afraid of topics getting mixed up, and the forum's quote and mention features could help keep things organized. Using groups isn't a terrible idea either, but they don't give people notifications in the same way regular threads do (at least, not to the best of my knowledge) so I could see activity suffering for it.

[V]

Would individual threads work? It would separate feedback from each person, reducing clutter and making confusing toward feedback a non issue. And afterward could be reused for the next prompt, while this thread is for discussion on the next theme.

I've had that same awkward feeling with group notifications in the past, Namingtoohard. I feel like another problem with groups is becoming less visible to others who might be interested. If it weren't for these issues it would be actually really nice.

[Scottie]

@Kaptain Panty; @Namingtoohard; @V;

This sounds like an amazing idea! I know that we tried to do some prompt games within RPApril that didn't catch as much attention then but I wonder if you would enjoy them now!

The staff and I are very much happy to be included in this if you so please. We could create weekly prompts of different types (we had quotes, songs and random words in our games for April!) or perhaps each week has a different theme and allow the threads to remain safely within the RPA rules! Perhaps us creating the prompts can allow all of you to participate without spoiling the fun!

A suggestion I have for your problems regarding thread bloat: I can create a sub forum within the Creative Corner for Weekly Prompts! This can allow you to have multiple threads, such as a submission, review and chatter threads! I would also suggest that all submissions could be tilted with a "Review please" or "No review" so that other members may join even if they don't wish to have a review of their work.

We are quite happy to let you run this yourselves as you wish as we love player engagement on this site! <3 However, this sounds really quite interesting!

[Enigma]

Looking forward to this.

Something that might help is to suggest people don't give us their first draft. They write it, they let it rest overnight, then they review it and make changes.

I'm always amazed at how many spelling and grammar errors I find the following day.

[Kaptain Panty]

Google docs isn't suited very well to something like this, in my personal opinion. Being able to highlight the appropriate sections for each piece of feedback you give is great, but it becomes very cluttered and messy very quickly if you have any real back-and-forth discussion going.

If you're worried about too much thread bloat, then maybe just a single thread for submissions and one for discussions would be the way to go? We could use the occasional announcement post if you're afraid of topics getting mixed up, and the forum's quote and mention features could help keep things organized. Using groups isn't a terrible idea either, but they don't give people notifications in the same way regular threads do (at least, not to the best of my knowledge) so I could see activity suffering for it.

Something to keep in mind if I ever consider using google docs for any similiar things in the future. I was kinda just using it as an example since I don't really know what else allows for that kind of "let other people access and edit a word document equivilent" sort of thing.

I feel a lot of quote and mentions in a single thread could get very messy, but at the same time, if groups aren't particularly viable due to their lack of notifactions meaning activity will plummet...

The staff and I are very much happy to be included in this if you so please. We could create weekly prompts of different types (we had quotes, songs and random words in our games for April!) or perhaps each week has a different theme and allow the threads to remain safely within the RPA rules! Perhaps us creating the prompts can allow all of you to participate without spoiling the fun!

A suggestion I have for your problems regarding thread bloat: I can create a sub forum within the Creative Corner for Weekly Prompts! This can allow you to have multiple threads, such as a submission, review and chatter threads! I would also suggest that all submissions could be tilted with a "Review please" or "No review" so that other members may join even if they don't wish to have a review of their work.

We are quite happy to let you run this yourselves as you wish as we love player engagement on this site! <3 However, this sounds really quite interesting!

Well then, that solves most if not all the mechanical issues, having a sub-forum for it.

As for weekly prompts, staff could handle it or could go with the idea of interested people submitting a prompt for a week. I think I'd rather the latter, for diversity of submissions and all, but I can't complain if there's rule administration efforts that need consideration.

I'm unsure on the "review" or "no review" thing. Mainly since the whole point of this is to write something relatively quickly and recieve some peer reviewed feedback, and that if someone wants to write things that don't recieve any reviews, that could just post whatever they've written in their own personal writing thread. By itself it doesn't really matter, but I don't want this whole thing to turn into "the short/flash fiction posting place."

Looking forward to this.

Something that might help is to suggest people don't give us their first draft. They write it, they let it rest overnight, then they review it and make changes.

I'm always amazed at how many spelling and grammar errors I find the following day.

I'm assuming I won't have to mention that you probably shouldn't submit the firstest of drafts. There's at least a week to write up it and look over it. There is a time limit but you don't get to go home early if you rush through it.

[Scottie]

As for weekly prompts, staff could handle it or could go with the idea of interested people submitting a prompt for a week. I think I'd rather the latter, for diversity of submissions and all, but I can't complain if there's rule administration efforts that need consideration.

I think this is a brilliant idea!! Any submissions could be sent to staff members and we could give them out weekly! With the staff giving out the prompts it would allow us to fill any gaps when we don't have new submissions and allow this to keep churning every week!!

I'm unsure on the "review" or "no review" thing. Mainly since the whole point of this is to write something relatively quickly and recieve some peer reviewed feedback, and that if someone wants to write things that don't recieve any reviews, that could just post whatever they've written in their own personal writing thread. By itself it doesn't really matter, but I don't want this whole thing to turn into "the short/flash fiction posting place."

It was merely a suggestion to allow for people who don't want feedback to participate! Criticism should be constructive but not everyone will see it that way! This is something that can be discussed further in the new sub-forum I have created!!

Themed Weekly Writing Workshop Sub forum!

I have also created a basic chatter thread! Hopefully a schedule around prompts, submissions and reviews can be formulated there!