Webbie wrote on Oct 28th, 2011, 1:13pm:monsoonster wrote on Oct 27th, 2011, 5:20pm:Adrienne_Ray wrote on Oct 27th, 2011, 4:49pm:We used to comment a lot about each others' work. I don't know why we've gotten away from it.
It doesn't appear
anyone comes here much anymore. Not like the past. Check out the waybackmachine.
I think it has something to do with the times. Twitter, Facebook, Blogs and the like. Real websites don't have the charisma they once did.
Writing isn't taught in schools anymore. People are more visual, they watch more movies and read less. Look at the bookstores that have closed down in the last few years.
Young people don't dream of writing a best selling novel, rather they think of making a movie.
The times they are a changing.
(I know I may be repeating myself, here)
I agree with everything you say/write, except this: If the writers on this and other sites take time to write a story, whatever its length, why not take the time to comment on other stories after
reading other stories? Such things are expected from so-called "normal" people who live life like lemmings and cannot think past the latest cliched phrase ("AT THE END OF THE DAY" has got to be
THEEEE worst; written and said on-air, let alone in real, touchable life) or "cutesy" mumbo-jumbo ('tween, is one. Yuck. Bromance, is another. Double yuck. Along with
ANY celebrity couple twinning of names: Bennifer, etc).
But writers? Writers are supposed to be woven from a different cloth. So if a writer sinks to the same depths of idiocy as 'Bookies and Twits, then any writing with any depth to them is in dire straits. I looked at your polls on this site and was pulled in by the Favorite stories to read and write. To read, was about 50-50 for novels and 10,000 words or less. To write was the interesting one: 6 for 1000 words. For 10,000 words or less was 12. Only 5 for novels, 1 for novella. I find those results terrifying. I know for a fact "normal" people would say 140
CHARACTERS is the only length they are willing to write and read; comprehension and critical thinking are going right out the window.
I despair, I despair, oh, how I despair.