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About This Author
Battywynš¶Prep!  , also known as Michelle Tuesday, is a musician, educator and writer hailing from Columbus, Ohio.
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La Bene Vita #1099212 added October 13, 2025 at 6:29am
Restrictions: None
On my growth as a writer on WDC
I've been a member of WDC for 18 years, and if there's a test out there to qualify for a creative writing degree from a major university, I bet I could pass it without a single day in a classroom, all thanks to the education I've gained from peer writers here.
I gleaned much of that knowledge from creating and running the "Invalid Item"  - especially in the early years through friends who helped me plan and tweak the assignment calendar, volunteer writing coaches and forum posters who knew more than I did, and countless hours of research to make the activity actually useful to both aspiring and veteran novelists.
But even before that, I started to really learn and understand the technical details of what makes literature consumable, marketable, and even successful - things like active voice, vivid imagery, clear and distinguishable character voices, and a plot that not only contains the required elements (protagonist, conflict, climax, resolution), but also maximizes tension through complications. And I learned though receiving and giving reviews.
If you don't already know, I'm an analytical person. I tear things apart until I understand them completely. I ask annoying follow up questions to my follow up questions.
The public reviews I give tend to reflect that, but what you may not see is how it manifests in the way I digest the things you say when reviewing my work.
I get a lot of superficial, cheerleading-style reviews with high ratings.
Sure, I've loved the ego boost (like my narcissism needs encouragement, lol), especially when I was a WDC noob. But over the years, I've occasionally gotten a serious review that really burns my biscuits... but also intrigues my intellect. Not always immediately, but when I read them months or years later, I realize, hmm. Maybe they had a point. It most often happens when I'm reviewing someone else's work and I see the same mistake.
I'm considering creating a folder in my port containing pieces that received negative constructive reviews, adding the offending surprisingly helpful and educational review, and discussing my thoughts on why the reviewer was correct. I changed the access settings to many of these pieces to private at the time, vowing to circle back and try to make them better in the future, but they've just been sitting there for a decade or more, gathering dust. Yet even invisible to readers, they've been useful, because they were all practice. I learned something from each and every one of them, and more specifically, from the reviewers brave enough to teach me and award me- gasp - less than four stars.
(in case you just cringed and thought, you mean, "fewer than four stars", I argue that since we count stars in halves, "less" is more appropriate, but feel free to make your counterargument in the comments!)
More on this topic to come, assuming I actually get around to starting the project. |
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