Improve your writing. That was what I thought I was going to do. Join FanStory, a place for writers to improve their writing technique. I can’t argue the fact that I did improve my vocabulary in the four short months that I spent on FanStory. I learned some punctuation and verb usage as well, but nothing that E.B. White or an English book couldn’t teach me.
What is the draw? Post a piece of writing and immediately get writing critique from other members. This is all good, because isn’t that what all writers want? We want honest feedback about our writing. Is it good or is it bad? Can we get an honest opinion with suggestions on how to make it better? I was hooked, and for $6.95 per month I could post two pieces of writing a day and get at least two people (FanStory tells you three reviews, but that is not accurate) to read and comment about my work.
Within three weeks of being a member on the site, I had an exploding profile and I was rising within the ranks. The excellent rating was awesome, and the five, and often six stars fit real well with my exploding status, and my ego. I was on top, and my writing was outstanding. I was blind. Little did I know that everyone on the site who would put the time and effort into reading to make the FanStory monopoly money to promote their work would have the same exploding status that I had.
It was hard at first, because I wanted to give the writers good, honest feedback about the piece that I was reading. I found that I was spending six to eight hours, and sometimes even more than that, a day to read poems and stories to give my detailed review.
A review is based on the star rating system. Six stars would be for a piece that is simply an outstanding piece of work. Ironically, a member is awarded six six-star reviews to hand out each week. Only two can be awarded to a member per month. If someone writes outstanding work all the time they are only able to collect a six star rating from each member twice per month. Five stars would indicate that the piece is excellent and no changes need to be made. Four stars is a good piece but certain adjustments need to be made, be it spelling, punctuation, etc. Three stars is a piece that is off to a good start, but needs quite a bit of work. Two stars is a piece that needs a lot of work and one star is a major revision (why bother even making the effort?).
What I found after sometimes spending forty-five minutes to an hour on one piece that I gave a thorough review on, (spelling, punctuation, thoughts on how the piece could be improved) was that most people didn’t really want my suggestions and balked at the thought of receiving anything less than five stars. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I fell into that star rating too. Please don’t tell me my piece of work is anything less than excellent. But then when I did get a review with less than five stars, I really took the time to see what it was that the person reviewing it was trying to tell me. Unfortunately there are not enough of these detail oriented members on FanStory to out-weigh the bad. Too many people review and give a standard five star rating with some happy comment about how this piece was interesting and had a good feel to it. (Blah, blah, blah, basic B.S.)
There are contests that are member created as well as site created. In my opinion the member created contests are just a way for members to give accolades to their friends. I entered several and the pieces that won were not the best piece in my humble opinion. I also entered the site created contests and supposedly there is a FanStory committee that chooses these winners, however, no one knows who these committee members are. Needless to say, I never won a contest entered.
I met some people, just like one meets on any social network forum. The thing that I was trying not to do was to treat it like every other social network where everyone wants to be your friend. I don’t care what anyone tells you and what anyone says about internet forums and social networks. We do not make friends over the internet. We are people and it is our inherent nature to care about ourselves and what we ourselves want. It is hard not to fall under the cunningness of people, which I did. I believed what people told me, and I trusted people I had never even met.
I met some people, just like one meets on any social network forum. The thing that I was trying not to do was to treat it like every other social network where everyone wants to be your friend. I don’t care what anyone tells you and what anyone says about internet forums and social networks. We do not make friends over the internet. We are people and it is our inherent nature to care about ourselves and what we ourselves want. It is hard not to fall under the cunningness of people, which I did. I believed what people told me, and I trusted people I had never even met.
After four months of playing the game of rising in the ranks and letting my housework, bills, correspondence, relationship with God and my husband slide, with God’s urging, I finally realized it was a bad addiction. A very bad addiction. The whole thing came to light when I read a poem of an idea/concept that I had shared with one of my FS “friends” who took the idea and wrote it in their own words. To me, that was God saying, “Can you hear Me now?” I responded most certainly, “Yes, Sir, I can, and I am done with this, and thank You, very much for having patience with me.” It was time to put an end to the silliness of playing on a social media and get on with some real writing.
Remember who you are, change what you are and become what God wants you to become today.
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