Jay Cantrell: Blog

I don't know what happened with the formatting. I will repost it when I get home.

update: fixed, I think

Happy early Thanksgiving to my U.S. readers.

Happy Wednesday to the rest of the universe.

I offer a bonus chapter if Runaway Train for your entertainment.

Normal schedule resumes Friday.

Jay C.

Tomorrow I will post the final two chapters of Part IV of Runaway Train.

Part V will open Monday so my monthly bonus chapter won't arrive for a couple of more weeks.

The story will end on Dec. 30 -- or New Year's Eve Eve.

I hope that answers some of the email I have recently received.

Take care,
Jay C.

My blog posts of a couple weeks back created an unintended fury and have put me into familiar territory.

I am way behind on my email.

At present, I have made it through close to 100 messages and I still have 450 emails to read. Many come from other writers (new and old) that experienced the same sort of criticism that I posted and walked away from SOL.

Some, like my friend, Brendan Buckley, and the great dotB, have no plans to return regardless of the encouragement from the vast majority of SOL readers. Others have pulled stories to clean them up and then decided to put them elsewhere.

Some were from people that enjoy what SOL offers (and who recognize the scope of the site). They frequently mention the sorts of feedback they provide and have asked if I thought they were being too harsh to the writer.

A few were from newcomers to the site that have posted one or two stories, gotten flamed, and are wondering if it is worthwhile to continue to share their imagination and creativity with the masses.

I am trying to take my time in reading the messages. Some of the information is very personal to the writer and I want to make sure I don't dissuade anyone who wants to show his or her work to the world. I don't want to discourage feedback (positive or politely negative).

SOL is great in that it offers instant connection between writer and reader. It offers the average Joe off the street the chance to be a part of the writing process as an editor, a proofreader or a reviewer. It gives everybody the chance to critique what they've just read in a meaningful way.

Sadly, it also gives the assholes of the world another anonymous platform to spew their negativity and hatred through an Internet connection. It gives people the chance to say things that would land one of us on his ass if they had the courage to say it face-to-face.

Later in my current story, the main character offers his take on our disconnected society. In this instance, his views are mine so I won't spoil the surprise and I'll get back to the (meandering) point of this post.

There simply isn't any way for me to answer more than a handful of emails each day (and a lot of days, the total falls to zero).

Since this blog gets read by a hell of a lot more people than I thought it did, I thought I would post a few general replies here to the groups I identified above.

If you are a writer and have left SOL, please know that you are missed and we hope you decide to return. Every single piece of fiction on this site has value. Every single person that gathered his or her courage to take the leap to posting a story has value.

If you are a reader who offers feedback periodically or consistency, I hope you'll continue and I hope you'll take to heart the last sentence in the paragraph above. Personal verbal attacks on writers are never warranted - not on political leanings, not of types of relationships, not on religious histories you find in the stories. These are works of fiction. They may or may not reflect the writer's personal beliefs (but you don't get to judge those beliefs just because you opened up a story).

If you are just starting out on SOL, I urge you to continue honing your skills as a writer. There are two good ways to learn: by doing and by seeing. Keep writing and you'll improve; take the constructive criticism in the way most readers intend it (a way to better your future works).

Oh, and feel free to post the ridiculous messages you might get on this blog. It appears that people really get a kick out of the shrill screeches of the harpies.

Jay C.

This is why I use editors.

My previous post was not meant to suggest that I plan to depart the site in the near future, nor was it meant to suggest that criticism isn't an integral part of learning to write fiction.

It was meant solely to temper the expectation of the readership - a point it seems I failed to make.

Too many readers log onto a FREE site thinking they're going to be able to read a story worthy of the New York Times Best-Seller List.

That is a silly notion.

Let's be honest: There are some good stories on SOL; there are some bad stories on SOL.

Most stories fall somewhere in the "decidedly average" range. If you've come to the site expecting something better than average, you're deluding yourself and you're going to be disappointed nine times out of 10.

It is ridiculous for a reader to express dismay at the lack of "professional" quality stories here. The mistakes and flaws are why the stories are being given away in the first place!

I tried to use an example of a talented writer that quit SOL rather than have every sentence dissected and every punctuation mark questioned all the while receiving the princely sum of - zilch.

The man who posted under the name Brendan Buckley is a nationally syndicated columnist. He has, the last I spoke to him, three highly-paid, highly-trained editors that go through his writing to fix the mistakes before it gets published. He is compensated handsomely for his writing skill.

On political matters, he is a "professional" writer.

He also is an "amateur" writer when it comes to fiction. But he no longer posts it here or anywhere else for the public to read because he got one too many emails detailing the litany of flaws in his story.

He forwarded some of them to me and most were accurate. There were problems with his stories. There are problems with every story here.

He knew there were errors when he decided to post them. A few of the emails were unjustly harsh - not because of what was said or even how it was said.

There were unfair because of what the readers were complaining about. They failed to understand that they could find his fiction on SOL _because_ of the errors in them.

Criticism, even harsh criticism, is what helps a writer improve. It might come from an editor or a proofer or it might come from a reader.

Sometimes the writer doesn't agree with the assessment; sometimes he or she will find a way to do something better the next time.

Most of the time, at least in my case, he knew it was a problem and decided he could live with it - because he was giving away the story for FREE.

It is exceedingly unfair to hold the writers on this site to the same standard as someone who does this for a living.

The writers here are unpaid; the editors and proofreaders are volunteers. The stories are FREE (and the errors are thrown in for no cost to the reader).

SOL is not the place to find polished works.

There will be missed words, misused words, poorly developed plots and uninteresting characters.

It is an ongoing writer's workshop where those brave enough to post their stories learn and improve as they go along through feedback (positive and politely negative).

Let us always remember what this site really is: a repository for amateur fiction.

It is that and it is nothing more.

Best wishes,
Jay C.