If you've been writing for any length of time, you probably recognize that getting feedback on your poems in an imperative part of becoming a better writer, but getting that feedback isn't always easy. Once you leave the undergraduate nest and all of your fellow writers have also flown the coop into all parts of the country, it can be tricky to snag some constructive criticism when you want an opinion on a poem. Luckily, there's a new online resource for that: WritingFloor.com.
WritingFloor is a place where writers can share their writers in hopes of receiving feedback; similarly, you can generate some constructive criticism karma and leave a note or two on someone else's poem. Ultimately, WritingFloor is a community for writers, much like your friendly neighborhood Floodmark blog.
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| source WritingFloor: a community for creative writers |
What I like about WritingFloor is that it's not complicated at all. Simply plug your poem into the WYSIWYG editor, and you're done! Of course, to get the most out of writing floor, you have the option to select up to five different questions to help narrow down the feedback you want to receive. Do you just want general feedback? Great! You can ask readers to leave their general impressions. Want to know how your line breaks look to someone else's eyes? Just ask! The questions are broad enough that you should be able to get intuitive feedback, even though you can only select five.
You can also select different categories to help your poem get found by other readers. You can categorize your poem into different themes, schools of thought, genres, or moods to attract people looking to read a specific kind of poem. On the flip side, you can use the categories on WritingFloor to expose yourself to different kinds of poems you might not normally pick up. Been reading lots of romance, for example? You can shake things up a bit by reading some poems about capitalism. By critiquing work in a different vein than what you're used to, you give yourself more breadth as a writer.
Now, my personal experience with WritingFloor is still a story waiting to unfold. I recently submitted the poem that came from my line by line writing experiment, and I got a comment within 24 hours, which was great to see. I'm hoping that my questions (I selected What are your general thoughts about this poem?, How does the line arrangement affect the meaning of the poem?, and How would you describe the poem's speaker? for my questions) will generate some interesting feedback that will help me transform my Franken-poem into something not quite so restricted. (Pssst want to follow along with the feedback I'm given? Check me out on WritingFloor.)
All in all, I encourage each and every one of you dear readers to take a peek at WritingFloor and make some new poetry friends. It's still relatively new (it was founded in 2014, just like us!), and I can't wait to see how it grows as an online community. Why not be part of the movement?
I did not receive any compensation to write this post. All opinions are 100% my own. Thanks for reading!
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