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A moment of silence for twenty years since 9/11

After Eron was killed, Arenta made sure to be the one to look over his body. After all, Coinshots always carried coins on their person, and Arenta had some very legitimate looking papers that showed Eron owing her a fair share of money. Not that anyone else in the mob could read them. After confiscating the small sack of clips she'd found, Arenta's further search of the body didn't discover any evidence of a connection with the Ministry. This was mildly surprising, since skaa Mistings were rare, after all, while rumor held that many Obligators were at least Mistings. I suppose that's just bad luck for him, and good for me. Archer was a Skaa Overseer Coinshot! Night 3 has begun, and will end at 6:00 PM EDT on Sunday the 11th. Vote Count: Player List:

Hey! Humans! I'm a Zelda nerd! I also made not one but two LoZ RPs in the roleplay subforum! One's just a regular RP while the other is a playtesting ground for a D&D-style RPG that I've been working on for awhile. Please give them a shot if you want to beat the crap out of some pig monsters and rant for hours on end about the connected lore!

Something we definitely don't know but that is both relevant and interesting for this conversation is how much the original vessels thought of taking up the Shards as a form of apotheosis. I mean, they were comparing themselves to Adonalsium, so its possible that they wouldn't have exactly thought about taking up Shards as being the same as becoming gods, especially if they didn't realize quite the scale of transformation their minds and spirits were going to undergo. That said, we've seen enough of them refer to themselves as gods that clearly they now associate themselves with the term. But the point I'm trying to get at is this: in some religions (I'd make the case that this is true of the Abrahamic faiths for example) the idea of godhood can be associated with responsibility. That is to say, God is supposed to be the being that cares for people and helps them in addition to holding together the universe and standing against evil. I don't know if most of the original vessels had that perspective, or if they just saw taking up the Shards as taking up power rather than responsibility. However, I would say that Sazed, both as a religious scholar, and someone who wasn't aware of any power greater than the Shards, very much approached taking them up as becoming a being of infinite power and infinite responsibility, and as such I think he's fought a lot against the Intents of his own Shards not for the sake of self preservation (pun not intended) but rather so that he's able to better care for the people of Scadrial. I think he truly sees being a god as a duty rather than a privilege, and as such, I'm inclined to believe he is the best god that we've seen. Except perhaps Lightsong. Lightsong was am excellent god. He just lacked the power to back it up.

*yawn*

I'll withhold final judgment until we've seen all of the Shards but at this point Harmony seems to be in the running for the best, insofar as he's trying to guide his world without acting to the point that the world gets dependent on his constant intervention, he's actively protecting it against some sort of outside influence, he's actually worried about Odium while most of the other Shards apparently are not and he's willing to admit at least to some people when he's made mistakes. Also, he's the only Shard who has a regular communication line open to his followers that we know of, though Honor apparently used to before he was killed. Autonomy might be more communicative via different avatars but she probably covers every possible case in the book due to her modus operandi. You're assuming that worship has to 'get' you something after death. That's not nearly as universal a belief as you might think. Most ancient civilizations for example either didn't believe in an afterlife or thought that everyone was going the same place anyways, so worshipping the gods was done to either 1) not get smote or 2) to gain their favor while you're still alive. Judged by that standard, acting in accordance with the intent of your world's Shard(s) can get you access to storming awesome magic, even if the form doesn't follow any special rituals. Follow the general ideals associated with Honor? You get to be a surgebinder. Act in accordance with Preservation's intent (or Harmony's) and you can be an allomancer, assuming the genetic lottery also favors you. You don't even need to do anything on Nalthis because Endowment will gift you a Breath that keeps you magically healthier than normal (and gives you the potential to Return) as long as you're born there. Likewise the less personal influences a Shard can have on your world are things that the ancients would have appreciated, like Honor doing what he could to guide the planet through the cycle of Desolations, or everything Harmony is doing for Scadrial even if you personally never speak to him or get anything directly from him or one of his agents.

Today I wrote two very important words on the Iconar Collective doc:

If you use Telegram or Whatsapp you might like to send GIFs. Problem: There's not enough Cosmere GIFs. The only GIFs you can find on Telegram in large quantities is Kelsier dabbing in Fortnite. Telegram uses a service called Tenor and Whatsapp uses a service called Giphy to pull their GIFs from. These services will send Gifs to Telegram/Whatsapp based on the keyword relevance and the popularity of the GIFs. I believe that both service do not show Gifs unless they have been viewed a decent amount of times. I'm a Telegram user (Tenor GIFs) but the solution should be analogous to Whatsapp (Giphy). 1. I found about 2 dozen gifs online which I would like to appear on Telegram. 2. I uploaded them to Tenor (Cosmere spoilers) : https://tenor.com/users/inkspren I have tagged all these GIFs with cosmere and mistborn or stormlight plus any other relevant tags. New Problem : The gifs do not show up when searching cosmere/stormlight/mistborn. This is likely because they have not reached a viewership threshold to be pulled from the API. This means that the next step of the plan : 3. Start using the GIFs from the link I provided by just copy pasting the gif's link for now (doesn't matter if you paste it on Telegram, Discord or whatsapp, as long as it's used it is good for the algorithm). Hopefully these GIFs will begin to appear normally in Tenor search results. 4. Repeat this experiment but for Giphy Gifs. If you have any Gifs, feel free to upload them to the services Tenor/Giphy and share them here, I will try to use them to promote their appearance on Telegram and Whatsapp.

Hi everyone! I'm Mya, and I've finally decided to join after a period of just thinking about it. I've read Stormlight Archive, Mistborn era one and two, Warbreaker, Elantris, and Skyward. I'm excited to talk about Sanderson's work and perhaps discuss writing in general.

I'll call them Chantara but that works to ig idk

I'm gonna call this person town

Only other book I've read is Rithmatist. I don't even remember where it came from, because my mum read it out loud to my sister and I. I took it and have reread it about a dozen times now. I am SO looking forward to getting to Stormlight. That's with the giant swords right? I just realized Mistborn is in the same universe, so I'm really excited to see more of the Cosmere.

Just finished. It was really good. I probably don't like it as much as The Emperor's Soul but it was mind blowing in more ways than one.

Everything you said was true, of course, but THIS was the most true. ;-)

Unquestionably Dalinar. When I read the first chapter of his for the first time I was like "huh, interesting character" and now he's probably my favorite character in all of fiction. At the very least in my top three.

Hi All - I have been around for a fair while but never particularly active. I just like to see all the amazing theories. Thought you might like to see my Stormlight tattoo though - I got a stylised version of the Kholin house shield. We flipped the positions of the glyphs, because the crown fits the space better at the top - and also went for a more photorealistic crown, because as a tattoo the glyph crown was hard to make work in the space and also looked a tad strange compared to the gate to have walking around in public all the time. But I know what it means and represents, and have had a couple of people ask me if it is based on the Kholin shield over the past year which is cool. I got this specifically as I lost a lot of weight a couple of years ago, and the quote that was consistently in my mind, and helped me the most was: The most important step a man can take. It's not the first one, is it? It's the next one. Always the next step, Dalinar. So it's both a reminder of the quote, and based on my love of all things fantasy, especially Brandon Sanderson. It's on my inside forearm for reference. Hope you like it!

Hello! I dived into Cosmere last year during my vacation... and I've been in it since then. Doing another re-read right now (at TWoK right now), active member on Reddits related to Cosmere and I have watched all episodes of 17th Shard on Youtube. I have also sent a few Who's That Cosmere Character puzzles, but, alas, they have not been used on the show so far. Other than that I am 41F, IT systems analyst in Estonia.

Yooooooo! I finally got to use a Technoblade video for school! English 112 is my new favorite class!

Considering that part of the reason she Returned Shashara and Warbreaker seems to have been to create Nigtblood, I'd say she even did the opposite of mitigating damages.

Got 4 new books for my TBR pile. Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik. This sounded interesting since it sounds like an evil witch/Queen origin type story. The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski I Am a Cat by Sōseki Natsume. Funnily I was looking for a different book, 101 Dalmatians, and found this one. I knew of it thanks to the game The Great Ace Attorney since Sōseki was one of the recurring characters in the game so I was curious. Funny how I went looking for a dog book and came away with a cat book.

Ooo, good stuff Lemme give someone else a chance to guess Edit: I guess no one bit, then I guess Ati!

Not Hoid. Not Nightblood. This character is harmless. This character is honest. This character is a mortal man.

Hi everyone, I'm KalTon95. I write from Italy. I read all Sanderson's Cosmere works and my favourite book is Oathbringer (I really love Dalinar's arc). Since I'm a fantasy writer, reading Sanderson is both an inspiration for job and a big big pleasure! Hope to have a good time here!

Not Nightblood. This character is harmless. This character is honest.

Not at the moment, but I have a Wattpad where I'll hopefully end up posting some stuff. It's working title is Subterra and follows a boy named Aris as he looks into his brother's disappearance. Fairies and magic are involved.

*bang bang bang* It IS the mute lurcher Pull! Take it away!

I've always been tied between Stonewards and Lightweavers. I like Stonewards because the power to manipulate rocks sounds cool, and I like Lightweavers because, duh, Cryptics. Along with the whole illusion, plus Soulcasting, plus Shadesmar, which I found enticing.

What other books have you read? Cause I would recommend you to make your way to Stormlight Archive (if I have to put it in a tier list, The Stormlight Archive gets the crown by far). If you love WoA, you're going to love The Hero of Ages (I know I did)

Oh yeah, I double checked this and he seems to supply three distinct categories. Weak: kill the body a second time and the soul's toast, presumably also needing regular infusions of Investiture. Returned seem to go here. Middle: needs regular infusions of Investiture, but will persist if body's killed. Heralds possibly go here. Strong: will persist if re-killed and can't effectively be starved of Investiture. Zahel seems to peg the Fused as going here. Hmm, that's not the impression I got, but it seems reasonable. Hmm, this might just have been an idea that wormed its way in from somewhere but that's never actually been confirmed as true. I'm quite certain I saw this claim being made somewhere at some point, but it might have been someone's unsourced headcanon or something. Happy to help. I was convinced that Dalinar did something Adhesion-y when he was wrestling, and thankfully I wasn't far off. Yep, fair fair. Thanks I mostly meant to imply that you might be knowledgable about these forms of quartz. Oh, I'm totally on board with this. (I even spent some time convinved there was a WoB that Rosharan heliodors were actually citrine, alas no such WoB seemed to exist when I actually brought up this "fact" to someone.) Hmm, I'm not sure it's possible to be quite as hardline here as about diamonds. The Rosharan definition of diamond is simple to work with, if it's not clear, it's not a diamond. You can easily tell that someting's not clear on sight. I'm not sure how able people would be to easily see that that one's an amethyst, because it's within these shades of purple, while this one's just a worthless not-an-amethyst. There's also the fact that, if Roshar amethyst is the same as Earth amethyst (i.e. the best quartz), sunlight fades the crystal. So I think that a fairly wide range of hues have to be permissable, podsibly barring the really deep ones that are edging towards black and probably excluding anything borderline clear. I'll grant the possibility, though I'm not sure how easy it'd be to judge at a glance. Things like crystal shape might of course bias you one way or another as well. How dare you be so reasonable about it?! Yeah, I agree that that's probably the best course of action, I don't think we can come much closer on textual evidence alone. And is that not the beauty of this kind of exchange? Oh! I see you now. Yes, that makes sense. Adding to that that she seems to have developed new abilities concurrently with other wielders of Adhesion, it seems very likely that she goes in the Windrunner spot. This also handily alleviates needing to find a separate reason for her new abilities. I've seen the suggestion that she used a Dawnshard, but find that unlikely due to their supposed scarcity. If she simply got access to more applications of her existing power, just as Melishi did, there's no need for a separate mechanism to explain it. I think we've found something here! To echo your same sentiment, I think I get you now. Yeah, I could see that being the case, Gravitation doesn't seem to have much of a visual flaire. The idea that one of the Unmade is fighting humanity mostly because they got her nature wrong is quite amusing. Just to add a bit on Yelig-nar, Rayse's treatment of Amaram implies that the whole Yelig-nar-ification is survivable and even possible to live with long-term. At this point Amaram has asked Rayse if he'll get to kill Dalinar one day, and Rayse has said that he'll grant that if he doesn't have Dalinar kill Amaram first. Assuming Rayse is being coherent and not just spouting villain dialogue, it sounds like he wants Amaram as a pawn, not that he wants Amaram dead. Amaram has also delivered Nightblood's sheath and Rayse has told one of the Fused to provide Amaram the housing for Yelig-nar. Then he tells Amaram to swallow it and that doing so will give him the power he was promised, but cautions him to try to control the one that follows and that queen Aesudan failed to do so. Now, I don't think Rayse is terribly smart, but I don't think he's throw-away-a-full-Shardbearer-for-no-reason stupid. Rayse isn't even anticipating a proper battle, Rayse is putting on a show, delivering a crushing victory to the singers to embolden them, subverting his main enemy to lead them. Why would he throw away a tool that not only cuts, but cuts extremely well, on a theatrical victory? I get the feeling that controling Yelig-nar is definitely possible. Not necessarily that Amaram could do it, possibly if he'd been given a less stressful environment to adjust in, but definitely that it can be done. Oh, I definitely agree that they have favourites. I suppose we'll have to ask Brandon about how possible it is to put a spren in a gem they don't like. I definitely think you could put any spren in any polestone, but that it'd be more or less difficult depending on the spren and gem. Fair I think you got those backwards, IIRC, nightform is said to see the future. Otherwise, yes, that makes sense. I seem to be a bit stuck in the idea that Renarin's future sight is a product of Illumination (or his Resonance), being consistent with my own theorising be darned. This observation has also had the happy coincidence of providing the first semi-solid case I've seen for Renarin's powers being entirely Voidish in nature. As someone who's disliked the idea of 50/50 Renarin since the Oathbringer days this makes me very happy. It makes more sense to me that Enlightening a spren would change how all powers manifest, rather than just some, just like tinting a lens a certain colour makes the entire image take on that colour. It also makes me think that I've put too much emphasis on the Realm-transgressing moment of death for how Moelach's power works. The base spark of Fortune should always be present, it might just be that it can be artificially made to have a greater effect at the already trancendent moment of death and/or that Moelach can more easily touch a being in that moment. As in Cultivation derived? Hear! Hear! That is true, additionally there's also gravityspren, which we don't know if it's synonymous with either gravitationspren or luckspren. I hadn't caught that they like Skybreakers. Yeah, it feels like those should grant "skyform," like a shanay-im without the baggage, but then, what spren makes what form seems rather arbitrary at times. That is true and it lets me bring up a point about the singers: they are biologically made to bond spren, that might give them something of an advantage. Or it might be entirely meaningless. Oh, you wonderful people! This is absolutely delightful! I didn't see what was hiding in my own theory. As someone who's been personally pro-Sja-anat since Oathbringer you've managed to find even more reason for me to want to see the rest of the orders of "Knights Enlightened." This is such a delicious catch, this means I can start speculating with something solid to go on. Solid in that it's at least two assumptions deep, but the first assumption is based on something we know. I'll take it! Aww, thanks for the kind words! Your thread is in fact what got me on the Unmade/Radiant matching bandwagon, so if you hadn't started that neither of us would be here. So thank you for that, this entire thread and all the amazing interactions in it is partially to your credit. Apparently so! ¤_¤

Odium is also the God of Passion and Hatred. So couldn't it also simply be Odium exacting said hatred on Lezian for screwing up his plan to break/turn Kaladin in the moment when he was so close to succeeding?

Oh that's awesome, The One!

Yeah, he generally deals with it much better than a lot of authors. Doesn't use it nearly as often, and when it does happen there's often good reason. But I've seen it overused poorly so many times I just have a greatly annoyed gut reaction even when it's on its own perfectly reasonable Not even ace or aro myself, though I imagine it's something a lot of people who are will relate to, but most of my close friends are female and I'm male, and so the way people act about that stuff to our faces has made things real awkward to hang out in public sometimes. Neither me nor my friends really appreciate being told by people who barely know us that I'm just trying to get in their pants, y'know? (Though there's the occasional upside like that time a restaurant gave a friend and I a free slice of cake because they assumed guy + girl at table = a date, lol. But one or two slices of cake doesn't really outweigh the downsides.) So I'm always happy when a guy and a girl can just be good close friends in a story. Bonus points if they can be strong platonic friends the entire time without romantic tension ever even entering the picture, instead of it having to be the resolution to a love triangle lmao. (Which is another trope where Brandon's mostly been more reasonable with the way he uses it, at least.) Oh nice, you have more info on it posted anywhere? Doubt this comment in particular is gonna push that one over the edge But yeah, I imagine at the very least it's something he's thought about and weighed, and I do hope he ends up deciding not to go the relationship route with them. (Though amusingly, if it does go that route it's probably one of the relationships where I'd have the fewest complaints about it lol. But in a way that makes me want it to remain platonic more, because just because it could be a romantic relationship and even a good one at that doesn't mean it has to or even that it would be better off that way. Not every friendship is just because "it wouldn't work out if it was romantic so we had to settle for platonic", sometimes either route would likely go perfectly fine and they just don't mind it being the way it is because close friends are important too.) Hmm I think this maybe, just maybe, is a topic that's kind of a sore spot for me lmao

There is a quote from the Stormfather talking about how at the end, Honor cared more about oaths than the meaning behind it. I see this kind of like the Kaladin vs Szeth argument. Szeth really doesn't know what they are doing right now, from the life that we see him in a book we just see him just more have their choices made for them, being truthless or even following Dalinar(which I guess that was a choice), they really haven't had to make that much decisions. Like, he really never actually had a character change in a sense, because he is still following some code and not making his own decisions. I feel like he won't actually change until he swears the 5th ideal. But good news, his book is next I think? But my point, is just following some code, isn't honorable in of itself but the action of using it to do action is. While he has done some honorable things, I don't think it has matched what Kaladin has done so far.

Stormfather is on my list of Most Likely To Die. Since the power to kill spren now exists, I expect to see it used to spectacular effect.

Hi! As I read: p1: This is a nit-pick, but I think describing someone's handwriting as having 'a surgeon's precision' gives the wrong impression, as doctors are infamous for having messy handwriting (that's the stereotype, anyway) p1: I don't think it's necessary for W to restate how she feels about N (likes him, maybe wants more in the future, needs to take it slow for now). I feel like I've read her say this a bunch of times already and I'm only reading a chapter a week p2: My immediate reaction on hearing that B wants to meet N is 'oh no, I hope she's not going to mess with him or do anything mean to him'. But it seems like N is more worried that W will get the wrong idea. I don't think this is a concern that W has - I think she's also worried that B might say or do something horrible to N - but she doesn't actually voice any of that, so I'm not sure. I do like that we get confirmation that N was dating B because he felt sorry for her, though. And that W spots the pattern in his behaviour. p4-5: The kids refer to the boys who beat up N in the abstract, but given that these people all presumably know each other, it would feel more natural if at least some of the boys were mentioned by name. It feels weird that B and A in particular wouldn't be specific. p7: We've established that N is hurt but not too seriously, which is good. But isn't W going to ask where he is now, and when she can see him? p8: Sounds like A has learned her lesson about popularity games. Hooray for that! p9: W is being very patient and understanding with B, which seems odd for W. She's usually much quicker to pop off at people than to withhold judgement, especially when someone is acting as sketchy and paranoid as B. p13: I have questions about why N is at E's house. Wouldn't the school phone his parents and ask them to pick him up? Maybe I'm the weird one, but my school would definitely not have just let an injured student go to a friend's house during school hours without getting parents involved. That would have involved all sorts of potential legal exposure if something happened to the kids. Good chapter. N getting beat up was a bolt from the blue, but I'm interested to see how it shakes out. 1. It feels like the first one and a half pages are preamble you don't need. The chapter really gets going when N tells W that B wants to meet up. After that, things get good and I'm on board. 2. I like B's characterisation a lot through this whole chapter. I think she's a really interesting and unique take on the 'popular girl' trope, and it's fascinating how much contempt she has for the thing she spends her life doing. She seems to think that she's going to work her way up the social pyramid by playing dirty, and once she's amassed enough power, she'll use it to ... save the world from the patriarchy or something? I don't know what evil villains B is fighting against, and I don't know if they really exist (in the setting) or if she's just delusional, but it's really fun to read about. I think B definitely has potential to be in the spotlight more, but there's an important balance to be struck there. A big part of her character's appeal is that we don't really know what she's up to, and we don't know what she means by the overly dramatic hints she drops. If we see more of her, but she still spends the whole time being mysterious and doing the same routine, that could get old quickly. If you want to lean into B's character more, I suggest you show some of her social machinations up close. Right now, B's 'onscreen' appearances have all been her being uncharacteristically honest and straightforward with W, and the rest of B's persona is stuff we're informed about by W's narration. That's okay for a minor character, but if you do more with her, I think showing what B is like most of the time would be a good idea. On another note: I can tell you're leaning more into W's neurodiversity in this chapter. She reads to me much more strongly as having Asperger's than she did before.

No, no they're not

Wait, I just remembered I had one last Major complaint, this one more aggregeous than all the others. You can't pet dogs, and that is just unacceptable.

Stunning! I absolutely adore the art style.

I hadn't thought of it that way, but I definitely see what you're getting at. I agree that she's deeply flawed and that some male characters have done similar things and are still beloved by fans. According to the tvtropes page for Byronic Heroes, such a character tends to have 'a distaste for social institutions and norms and is disrespectful of rank and privilege, though he often has said rank and privilege himself.' I think one of the reasons people dislike Shallan is her classism, and in the first three books she defnitely holds onto her nobility, works very hard to get married to another noble and is dismissive of darkeyes and in some cases just walks all over them and insults them. From memory in ROW she has exactly one scene where she isn't with either high ranking lighteyes or other Radiants (who pretty much skipped the queue in the caste system), so we can't really say whether she's gotten over her prejudice. I definitely don't like Shallan, but I understand why she'd do the things I dislike about her. I've been thinking about why I dislike her so much, and I think that a lack of consequences for her actions might be one of them. Steal a priceless magical item from Jasnah, at worst the third most powerful woman in Alethkar, while pretending to be her ward? Stays as her ward, and when she confesses the theft to Jasnah's family the response is 'well that was dumb lol'. Force Kaladin, a darkeyed soldier to give up his boots, making him walk barefoot on the rocky ground that tore her feet up? Gets told off once, and then it becomes a joke at her wedding which Kaladin totally forgives her for. Victim blame slave soldiers for their own slavery and trauma, three of whom are currently protecting her and flying her across countries? BF will swoop in and tell the mean former slave not to tell her off about it. Major ROW spoilers: To be fair, there are several characters who have gotten off way more lightly than they arguably should have. Dalinar and Adolin come to mind. I do agree that Shallan's Byronic traits as a woman might be a factor in why she is disliked, but they're definitely not the only ones.

The QF is over, and Araris's LG is almost up... so I suppose it's about time for an MR to start. I've still got a schedule to figure out, but I should be able to make it work, and from what the current schedule is only @StrikerEZ is ahead of me (and is taking a break iirc). So, I should be able to run my Conversion Unmade game. I do need to get some finalizations + get it to the rules committee, but I'll have more time for that tomorrow. Hopefully I can launch signups by approximately the LG start.

I'll do it. Character to come later

Can i be Raoden btw? I'm gonna make so many dor puns lol

Lift. I had skipped her words of radiance and novella, first reading her I Oathbringer, where I was taken aback about who this random character was. I didn't dislike her, but didn't care for her either. Then I read the WoR chapter and novella and found her frustrating, but with the new context, I liked her more in Oathbringer and found her to be a breath of fresh air in a fairly stoic set of characters, which is why I came to the conclusion that she's the type of characters that needs other characters, with presence, to bounce and contrast of off and doesn't work in a vacuum.

No Nameable reason would be a better way to phrase that, and I do believe I have one. The Way of Kings, WoK really give Shallan two big disadvantages We are introduced to Kaladin first and the narrative is mainly focused on him. Which causes Shallan's chapters to feel like distractions rather than anything meaningful It takes Shallan 100 pages to even reveal a plan, and then takes another 564 pages before she even does it, which feels realy stale. There's a nice video looking at the negative community reactions I think you would like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJ6Ymy2ZbDQ

If we put this on the table, Full Feruchemist all the way

Turns out a lot of Cosmere fans like to theorize about how things in the cosmere work.

But it does not consume the user. The point of using an external fuel is to consume it. Whether you consume Stormlight that does not come from yourself or somebody else's soul for power or use a human sacrifice as a key to channel the Dor does really not make a difference. End-positive is not meant in an ethical sense. Hemalurgy is end-negative because it decays. The only obvious analogy would be Shades. They spontaneously decay..

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It's not possible to avoid this altogether, but try to quote as little as possible to make your point. A page number or quoting the first and last bits of a particularly long sentence can both be helpful in helping the author find the line you're talking about. In general, be descriptive rather than prescriptive. Tell the author how you reacted to their work, rather than what you think they should do to fix it. Your vision of where you think the story's going may not match the author's vision. Include positive as well as negative reactions. It's just as important for the author to know what works as it is for them to know what doesn't. Be mindful of the stage the work is at. If it's a first draft, all sorts of things will probably change. A critique of line-level prose or pointing out grammatical errors may not be terribly valuable if the author is still working on character, plot, pacing. Most of the time, you'll probably want to focus on big-picture things. Be mindful of what the author is looking for. They may be very interested in a line-level critique, or have specific questions they're hoping you can answer. Be willing to adapt the style and tone of your critique to meet the needs of the author you're critiquing. At the receiving end of every critique you give is a person with feelings, and it can be very difficult to put your work out there, especially when you're new to a group and/or new to writing in general. RE has had writers at all levels of skill and experience, from completely new writers to published authors. Everyone should be able to expect a fair and honest critique of their work here, but that doesn't necessitate listing every flaw or opportunity for improvement. Some writers may find that very valuable; others may find it frustrating or discouraging, at which point it becomes not very valuable at all. Similarly, keep an eye on the tone of your critiques. Some people don't mind very blunt critiques; others find them discouraging. If you know you're critiquing a new author or someone who doesn't find much value in very blunt or very detailed critiques, write your critique accordingly. If they're new to the group or you're just not sure, err on the side of caution. Receiving critiques is a skill, just as providing them is, as is writing itself. These things take time and practice. Part of our job on this forum is to provide a welcoming space for new writers to do just that. It's been on my wish-list for a long time to expand the guideline for providing and receiving critiques into something more complete, and I'd welcome any suggestions for items to include in the in-house guidelines, or external resources that can be linked to. In the meantime, there's this podcast you could listen to on the subject of writing groups, by some folks you might have heard of. Receiving Critiques Receiving critiques is a skill, though we don't always think of it this way. Here are some guidelines for how to do it effectively. First and foremost, listen. Resist the urge to defend or explain your work. Maybe someone has found a flaw on page 27, or maybe that thing on page 27 is actually addressed perfectly on page 86. Either way, they're giving you valuable information about how they're experiencing your story right now. That being said, don't be afraid to ask a critiquer to expand or clarify, or to ask others in the group if they found the same thing. Knowing whether others in the group had similar or different experiences can be very instructive. You're not obligated to incorporate every piece of feedback you use. Don't feel badly when you discard someone's comments; you haven't wasted their time if you decide to go in a different direction. Now you have a better idea of how that scene, that line, etc. is going to affect some people in your audience. On a similar note: you're going to be getting feedback from a lot of different people. Inevitably, some of it will conflict. This can feel extremely frustrating. But again, knowing that different people react differently to the same scene can be useful. Maybe there is a solution that can make everyone in the audience happy, or maybe you just need to decide that the story needs to go somewhere that doesn't work for some people. It happens. Either way, once you know how different people react to the same scene, you're ahead of the game. If there are specific aspects of your story you'd like feedback on, ask! How Often Do I Need to Critique? This group functions by trading critiques. The more you're able to participate and critique others' work, the better the group works for everyone (and the more likely you are to get a good response rate from your peers when you submit). That said, we realise that everyone is busy, and that a good critique takes time. At minimum, you are required to provide 1 critique for every 1 item you submit to the group. If you want to jump into critiquing someone's ongoing project--for example, you want to critique Chapter 3, but haven't read Chapters 1 and 2--you can use the summary that each submitter provides in the body of their email to help get up to speed--just be aware that this will affect the perceptions of their story. Alternatively, you can ask the author in question to simply send you the earlier part of the work. Nobody is obligated to do this, but people are generally happy to. Sharing Work From RE: Don't. All work submitted to RE remains the property of the original author and is protected by the copyright law of the author's country of origin. You may not, under any circumstances excepting the explicit permission of the author(s), re-post or otherwise share material that is submitted to this group. Anyone who shares another author's work without permission will be removed from the group's mailing list and reported to the site administrators.

How Do I Submit? Please ensure that your submission adheres to these guidelines. They may seem stringent, but they're designed to make things as easy as possible for everyone in the group. Formatting Submissions: Please don't simply post your work on the forums, as absolutely anyone can view content posted here. Instead, send your submissions as an email attachment in .docx, .rtf, or .pdf format. Manuscripts should be double-spaced and in a legible font and font size. Courier and Times New Roman, at 10- and 12-point font respectively, are manuscript standard. Sans serif fonts are best for accessibility. Length Guidelines: Individual submissions should be no longer than about 5000 words. This doesn't have to be exact, but please stick as close to the limit as possible. For submissions that are significantly over the word limit, split your submission. With 5 submissions, even a little adds up quickly. There is no minimum length. Content Tags: We're not interested in censoring content, but we do expect all of our writers to be considerate of others when submitting potentially difficult content. It's your responsibility to be aware of the kind of content you're submitting, and, when applicable, tag it using the following labels: L (language), V (violence), G (gore), S (sexual or suggestive content), SA (sexual assault), and D (drug or substance abuse). You know your content better than we do. If there's something in your submission that isn't adequately covered under these labels, or you'd like to emphasize the nature of the submission's content more than the label allows, please include a warning in the body of your email. The goal is not to provide a plot summary, but to give other readers enough information to decide whether they're willing and able to effectively critique the content you're submitting. Finally, be aware that such submissions will sometimes evoke some strong responses. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, even if the feedback you're receiving is negative, but it's something you should be prepared for. Receive critiques of this kind of content the same way you would for anything else: be polite, don't get defensive, and listen. If people do react strongly to something you wrote, that's valuable information. Naming Conventions: We have specific naming conventions for submission emails, attachments, and forum threads. This allows people to filter their emails in a way that they find convenient, makes it easier to keep track of who is submitting what, and saves everyone from downloading and renaming half a dozen files named "Chapter One" every week. Please format the email subject line like this: "Reading Excuses - [date] - [username] - [title] (Content tags)", where "username" is your 17th Shard username. Just glance at any of the existing submission threads for an example. Follow the same format for forum topic and file name, but you can omit the "Reading Excuses" prefix, which is just there for email filtering purposes. Please make sure you have your username on the file attachment! It is extremely hard to tell who's submission is whose when you have multiple submissions. The username really makes a difference. How to Submit: 1. Once you're sure that your submission complies with the guidelines above, send your submission to: all[at]readingexcuses[dot]com 2. If you are submitting something other than the beginning of a story (the later half of short story or novelette, or Chapter 2 or later of a novel) please include a 1-2 sentence summary of the previous material in the body of the email. This will make it easier for people who haven't read the previous material to critique your most recent submissions. 3. Post a topic on here on the Reading Excuses forum so that people can comment on your work. When to Submit: Our submission date is every Monday. Please note that you will not have the opportunity to submit every week. We allow five people to submit per week. That's the maximum amount we can handle while ensuring that everybody gets feedback. To request to submit, post to the Email List and Submission Dates thread prior to your target submission date and let me know you're interested. I post a list of confirmed submitters every week by Sunday. When the group is busy, those who have had the opportunity to submit frequently may be asked to delay to make way for other submitters. I will also give priority to people writing to a submission deadline, within reason. FAQs: What happens if I ask to submit but don't get a slot? This happens rarely, but it does happen. If I have to ask you NOT to submit for a week, I'll let you know at the same time as I post the list of confirmed submitters. I'll then place you on the list tentatively for the following week (although please do post a request again the next week so I have a reminder/confirmation) but if the next week is also quite busy I may still ask you not to submit. I do attempt to ensure that everyone gets a slot within two weeks of their original request, even during busier times, and so far I haven't had a problem making this happen. If you feel badly because you've "bumped" someone out of a slot for this week, don't! This is how the group is supposed to function, to make sure everyone gets a chance to have their work read, and everyone in this group is wonderfully gracious about deferring their submissions when required. Can I request a slot more than one week in advance? Yes, but it's best if you repost your request during the appropriate week, to confirm that you are still interested in submitting and to make sure your request doesn't accidentally get overlooked. Please refrain from requesting a submission date more than 2 weeks in advance as such a request is almost guaranteed to get lost in the shuffle. Do I have to submit right away? You definitely do not have to submit immediately upon joining, and in fact, we recommend that new members read and critique for at least week or two before submitting, to get a feel for how things work around here and the kind of feedback you're likely to get. There's no rush to get that first submission in. On the flip side, if you're a new member with a piece that you're eager to submit, you're certainly welcome to request a spot in the queue. If you choose this route, we definitely recommend that you read some of the older threads here to get an idea of how the group works and make sure that this is really for you. Once you've done that, if you're still comfortable submitting, make sure you follow the request and submission process outlined here. The roster isn't full, can I take up more than one 5000-word "slot"? Generally speaking, no. We occasionally make exceptions to this rule when someone has an imminent professional deadline upcoming (i.e. professional contests, submissions deadlines for an agent or publisher). If you're hoping to get a whole manuscript read more quickly than the weekly submission limits allow, you can always check out the Alpha Readers Thread to see if anyone has the ability to do a full read-through. Just remember that it's a voluntary 'extra'! I didn't get any of this week's submissions/I didn't get all of this week's submissions. We have had recent issues where some members aren't receiving all of the submissions in any given week. If this is you, there are a couple quick things you can try: Check your Spam folder. Email verification is enabled, so nobody's subs should be landing in Spam, but it does happen occasionally. If you're using a Gmail account, check your Promotions tab. For some reason, some people have been finding that Gmail files some (but not all) RE emails there. Do a quick search of your email client to see if you can find the email of the submission you're looking for. As noted in the above bullet, we've been finding lately that email clients have been filing group emails in odd places. If none of those work, let me know and I'll see if there's anything I can do on my end to help.