Reddit and What I Found There

For a forum on creative writing...

1. What kinds of things do people in the Reddit forums seem to be arguing about, debating, disagreeing about or otherwise engaging in meaningful exhanges of ideas about? Give us a descriptive and clear sense of the kinds of stories you're seeing in the Reddit forums.

On the creative writing page of Reddit, there are numerous debates and meaningful exchanges criticizing and giving advice on various works of creative literature posted by the author. Also on the page there are various people asking for specific advice on writing short stories: character development, creating tension, etc.

2. In your opinion, what are the two most interesting debates/disagreements you found in the Reddit forums? Hyperlink us to the two different Reddit threads and explain why you found those debates interesting. Be specific and honest and be yourself. I don't want you to blah-blah-blah this. I want you to really engage.

The first interesting debate I saw was posted in response to a question of how to create tension at the beginning of a story. The advice provided was contradictory as one Redditers told the original poster to rely on loglines: a tool used in screenwriting to generalize a movie's plot in one sentence and another said to focus on the complexity of the plot when writing a complex introduction. I found the debate interesting because the original poster simply used the discussion to pontificate about his own story.

My second debate was a criticism of a story written by the original poster. The first commenter heavily criticized the story claiming that the writer was "trying too hard". The second commenter believed that the story was fine as it was. I found it interesting because the online context of the debate made it easier for the first commenter to criticize the writer openly without ever meeting the person.

3. Overall, what impression do you get of your discipline based on what you saw happening in the Reddit forums? Were the people in those forums talking in ways you expected or did not expect, about things you anticipated they'd be talking aboput or things you had no idea they'd be discussing? Explain in concise specific detail.

For writers on a creative writing forum, I assumed that they would have had better vocabularies. Also, I expected there to be much more posts on the page, which was only occupied by around twelve posts. I anticipated that the page would be mostly devoted to literary criticisms so I was not surprised by anything I saw content-wise.

ZyMOS-Bot. "Reddit". 1/1/10 via Wikimedia Commons. Universal Public Domain Dedication.