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For context, I am a forty-something male from the Great Lakes region of the United States. I work full-time as something other than a writer.
About 25 years ago in high school, I was an almost-straight-A student. The "almost" was always due to English class. I hated, nay despised, the writing assignments I was given, believing the forced topics to be inane and worthless. Whenever I had to write an essay or research paper in another class, I could do just fine, thank you. I didn't need to compare and contrast the points of view of the boy in the story we had read with that of his father, as an example. Who cares?
My reason for mentioning this is that any previous answers I've heard to questions like this were along the lines of "your teachers at school" and "your supervisor/ co-workers." But I am long out of school and failed to recognize the resources at the time, and my workplace involves no creative writing whatsoever.
So now, I find myself with a couple of neat stories inside my head begging to be let out. I have also been diverting increasing amounts of my "hobby time" to sitting at this computer and typing out bits and pieces of these stories. When I review my own work, I know when I've written something bad, and can redo it. But I'm less confident in when I've written something really good, like maybe-I-could-publish-it-good.
I've got some characters, scenes, and dialogues I think are ok. But I also have some weak transitions, plot holes, and other minor issues I just can't seem to be able to tweak.
Where can I go, or who can I speak with, to read bits of my work, give me some friendly advice and constructive criticism?
(3)More posts by @Kaufman555
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Have a look in your local area for writers groups. Most communities have them and local libraries will usually be able to give you information. Having a network of people that can give you honest, constructive feedback is a resource that every writer should have.
Make sure you read lots, too. Reading in the genre that you want to write in will help, but so will reading those around it - for instance, if you're writing crime, thrillers can also overlap, or fantasy and scifi.
If you're really not happy with something, put it to the side for a while and work on something else. When you go back to it, be somewhere else (for instance in a coffee shop instead of at home), and maybe even have a print out instead of seeing it on screen. This will allow you to make annotations and see things in a completely different way.
Look for books and blogs on writing. One of my favourites is David Morley's 'The Cambridge Guide to Creative Writing'. I used this for my MA course (in Creative Writing), and it has advice on all aspects of Creative Writing as well as writing prompts.
We're living in the Internet era. Take advantage of the Internet.
So, go check websites. Writers SE is one of the most helpful sites I've encounter (I won't go into details with it since you're already here). The other one is Scribophile, which does exactly what you're requesting. And more.
Here's a screenshot from my own account (these are feedback from other users):
Here's an idea:
Make Your Story Available
Get a google drive account. It's 100% free.
write your story and save it on your google drive.
share the document via URL -- it's easy to do -- then you can give the URL to people you want to read your story.
Gather Feedback
Next, you use Google Drive to create a Feedback Form.
You just say, New Form and add questions*.
Share the form so your readers can provide feedback anonymously.
*These questions will be things like:
Overall, did you enjoy reading the story? rate 1 to 5 (5 being best)
What was your favorite part of the story? [text]
What was your least favorite part? [text]
Did you like the main character? (yes/no)
Was the plotting overall interesting? (yes/no)
etc.
Here's the sample so you can see it. Yes, it's a strange public URL, but it's real and it works. It saves all hte user's responses in a spreadsheet on your Google Drive.
docs.google.com/forms/d/1kXu0p7ed9fTkgzxH9RzBieonfwD3XgIdIKcuAD9iti4/viewform?usp=send_form
The Benefits Are Many
This helps you get more feedback and allows users to respond anonymously so they don't have to feel like they are hurting your feelings. You can make the questions far more specific too.
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