Storyist Workshops

[btjeppesen]

I searched the forum for workshop and found nothing, so I get to start the topic. Yay!

 

So, after having attended many workshops at the university level, I think it would be really neat to have a system for workshops built right into Storyist. My ideas on it are still developing, but here are some jottings.

 

First, a user would use a workshop subscription dialog within Storyist to either subscribe to a Storyist with a group code, or subscribe to a random group.

 

Second, user will submit to one of his subscribed workshop groups through the Workshop menu. Other Storyist users in that group will receive a notification of the uploaded story and the option to automatically download it. Storyist would download a version of the file within which the text can not be edited or copied.

 

Storyist users will provide feedback to the writer via comments within the text and Comment Sheets in a Comments folder in the left pane.

 

When Storyist user is finished providing feedback, they will submit their critique via the Workshop menu. The writer of the piece will receive a version of the file with the combined comments from all users. Perhaps they would be color-coded to indicate different users.

 

So, what do you guys think?

 

Brian

[Steve E]

Hi Brian.

 

First: This seems like an awful lot of work for somebody. At the moment I suspect Steve would be reluctant to spare any squadron in his mighty army Storyist Developers over in Sunnyvale, CA, (not to be confused with Sunnydale, CA) for this duty so this "feature" may be as far off as...I don't know; Timelines? But if Steve's willing to set it up, good for him.

 

Second: Let me know how one might make a downloaded text file uncopiable. I'll share the patent with you. Even if you send it as a jpeg you can always run it through some OCR software. (I use Readiris for such purposes.) I've yet to meet and uncopiable download.

 

Third: Click here and here.

 

Fourth: Forget "Third". It's theoretically a good idea but most (some?) of us have friends/critics to inflict our nasty prose upon and are unwilling to throw them out into the wild before they're done. (Isaac and Marguerite are, as always, exceptions).

 

Fifth: If Steve's willing to set it up, as you've described it, good for him. But note that there is already a link to the Storyist Forum in Storyist under Help. People can and have posted links to their stories (both for PDF downloads and their own sites). Perhaps you might settle for a link in Storyist to a specific Forum thread where such links could be posted and critiques encouraged?

 

Just a thought,

-Thoth.

[emoKid]

I'm not to sure of the idea. Maybe as a plug-in or something, but I'm not too fond of it being a major part of the software itself.

 

I think the forums are already a good place for it (maybe a more dedicated forum with certain privacy settings? could be added).

 

If it were a separate application that worked alongside Storyist, I think that'd be better. I believe there is a page on the site describing the Storyist file setup, so someone could set up a small application for it. I just don't see myself using that feature within Storyist itself. Storyist is where I concentrate on writing, maybe a "StoryistWS" is where I'd focus on critiques and improvement?

 

Just a ramble,

-emoKid

[marguerite]

But note that there is already a link to the Storyist Forum in Storyist under Help. People can and have posted links to their stories (both for PDF downloads and their own sites). Perhaps you might settle for a link in Storyist to a specific Forum thread where such links could be posted and critiques encouraged?

 

Just a thought,

-Thoth.

This seems like a good alternative to me. A section of the Community site might work, although there would need to be some kind of separation between posted stories and the user's account, which currently has a preset limit on the size of attachments.

 

Personally, I prefer to direct people to my own website, where I can change the content at will, rather than posting work on the forums (that gets around the space issues—not only for us but for Steve, whose company presumably pays for the forum space). But I also have my own trusted critique group and would be unlikely to post work on the forums anyway.

 

Since we're still waiting for prop sheets, I have a feeling we will all be very, very old before any workshop idea is implemented inside Storyist itself. But there are numerous online writers' associations that set up such groups. One on the East Coast is Pennwriters. It stands for Pennsylvania Writers, but you don't have to live in PA to join. (I don't think they have an online critique forum, but they do match interested writers with partners or small groups for e-mail critique exchanges, either one-on-one or round robin.) I'm sure there are many others.

 

For that matter, why not send out an SOS for like-minded Storyists and PM anyone who is interested? Then you could set up your own e-mail group, secure in the knowledge that at least these people can read your Storyist files.

Best,

M

[hase]

I'd probably like someting like iWork.com - maybe Apple will open it to others as well. Then, maybe it will rain beer someday. Or is it more like celtx?

Well, since both are available right now, I wouldn't think re-inventing the wheel all over again is a good idea - but maybe I haven't understood your idea correctly.

However, I personally wouldn't use it, I firmly believe in printing and sending it to my critics by ordinary mail.