Tag: feedback

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Writing and Publishing

Let’s Apply Olympic Scoring to Our Writing

In sports, such as the Olympics, results are often ascertained objectively by quantitative measurements, such as time, distance, or score.

Other competitions are determined in a more subjective manner based on the qualitative opinions of judges. To help screen out possible bias or bad judgment, multiple judges are used, with the highest and lowest scores (that is, opinions) being disregarded. The result is a more balanced and centrist evaluation.

I think that we need to apply this to our writing as well.

Some people—often family members, close friends, or those with a vested interest — will say that whatever we write is golden. They will only speak of the positives and when positives are lacking, they will spin innocuous platitudes. In short, their high score cannot be trusted and should be disregarded.

Conversely, there are those who tear your work to shreds—perhaps a word-wielding reviewer, an insecure colleague, or a self-righteous critic. Their painful bards are not helpful and often, destructive. Their low score should likewise be dismissed as extreme and untrustworthy.

With the high and low scores wisely jettisoned, the remaining scores—that is, opinions—represent a more balanced and centrist evaluation. They can be safely considered as a viable and realistic evaluation of your work.

Olympic scoring works well in both sports and in writing.

Learn more about writing and publishing in Peter’s book: Successful Author FAQs: Discover the Art of Writing, the Business of Publishing, and the Joy of Wielding Words. Get your copy today.

Peter Lyle DeHaan is an author, blogger, and publisher with over 30 years of writing and publishing experience. Check out his book Successful Author FAQs for insider tips and insights.

Categories
Writing and Publishing

How to Make a Dash

Once at a writers’ conference, I met with one of the speakers. I asked if he would provide feedback on an article I wrote. He readily agreed and carefully read my composition.

After a few minutes, he informed me I had incorrectly formatted my dash. That was his only criticism. Then he listed what he liked about my work. It seems we are not only judged by the words we use, but also by how we format our sentences.

I never took keyboarding in school—I took typing. (It was a fortuitous decision, given that a couple of years later the first PCs were introduced, followed by the first Word Processors.)

In typing class I was taught that to represent a dash, I should type “space,” “hyphen,” and “space.” Others advocated “space-hyphen-hyphen-space.” When you type either combination in Microsoft Word, it automatically turns it into a dash [an “en-dash”]. This is what I had done.

Alternately, you can just type “hyphen, hyphen” without the spaces, which Word will also convert to a dash, albeit a much longer one [an em-dash]. This is what I have been seeing lately in publications—and I find it most disconcerting since it looks to me like a hyphenated word and not a dash; it makes the sentence hard to read. This is why I don’t use em-dashes in my publications.

This post, by the way, uses en-dashes—which is how I like it.

Learn more about writing and publishing in Peter’s book: Successful Author FAQs: Discover the Art of Writing, the Business of Publishing, and the Joy of Wielding Words. Get your copy today.

Peter Lyle DeHaan is an author, blogger, and publisher with over 30 years of writing and publishing experience. Check out his book Successful Author FAQs for insider tips and insights.

Categories
Writing and Publishing

Is an Online Critique Group Right For You?

A few weeks ago in my “Critique Groups” post, I stated my desire to be in a writing critique group. I specified I wanted one that met in-person, as opposed to cyberspace. I am now rethinking that.

I recently listened to a podcast entitled “The Care and Feeding of Writing Groups.” It was in the archives of the “The Writing Show,” were host Paula B chatted with Sean Dent about critique groups. Sean gave compelling reasons to pursue online groups instead of in-person meetings. He discussed in glowing praise his positive experiences with Internet-based critique groups.

Among the benefits:

  • Flexibility and Convenience: There are no fixed meeting times and you can participate whenever you wish and to the degree your schedule allows.
  • Greater Selection: It is far easier to find writers that are at a comparable skill and career level, as well as those compatible with your personality.
  • Ad Hoc Connections: As you participate in these groups, writing friendships form—almost as a group within a group—of fellow travelers whose work you respect and whose feedback you trust and value.

Learn more about writing and publishing in Peter’s book: Successful Author FAQs: Discover the Art of Writing, the Business of Publishing, and the Joy of Wielding Words. Get your copy today.

Peter Lyle DeHaan is an author, blogger, and publisher with over 30 years of writing and publishing experience. Check out his book Successful Author FAQs for insider tips and insights.