I was, indeed, talking about an old-fashioned writers group where people meet face to face. And yes, meeting them face to face on a regular basis does, in my opinion, qualify as knowing them pretty well. If you're giving them a few chapters at a time, by the time they have even half the book, you've known them for a while, too. Of course there will always be people like the man from Florida, but I would imagine most of them are after something bigger than an unpublished manuscript.
I have had very little experience of online critiques, but if other forums are like this one, people are only posting bits and pieces of their work. Under those circumstances, the infrequency of plagiarism hardly seems significant, because what would anyone stand to gain by stealing a chapter here and there? But your other protection is the fact that many people are reading your work at the same time, and all of them can vouch for it being yours. That protection would equally apply to a private online workshop where larger sections or even whole manuscripts are being read. And so -- speaking only for myself -- if I was sending an entire manuscript to someone I didn't know, I would feel far safer sending it to five or six someones I didn't know.
But really, I don't think that I would ever send something to a stranger who was "desperate to read it" after a few chapters. Perhaps this is small-minded of me, but since I can't imagine being desperate to read the rest of anything after only a few chapters (very interested, yes, but not desperate -- it takes rather more than that for me to become so thoroughly attached to the characters, and I don't care how great the writer is), it's hard for me to imagine that anyone else would be so very eager after reading so little, unless there was more to it than a simple desire to find out what happens next. I don't necessarily mean that he has ulterior motives. He just may be too attached to give an unbiased opinion.
But when someone is too pressingly eager to do someone else a favor ... that's a bit of a danger signal.
On the other hand, maybe Kissmequick was using the term desperate a little loosely.
Giovanna, I'm not sure what good a notary would do, unless they stamped every single page, which would be expensive. Also, lawyers are very expensive over here, and many of us don't have one -- unless we suddenly find ourselves in a situation where we require legal advice -- and couldn't afford the retainer that would undoubtedly go with asking one to hold a manuscript.
I have had very little experience of online critiques, but if other forums are like this one, people are only posting bits and pieces of their work. Under those circumstances, the infrequency of plagiarism hardly seems significant, because what would anyone stand to gain by stealing a chapter here and there? But your other protection is the fact that many people are reading your work at the same time, and all of them can vouch for it being yours. That protection would equally apply to a private online workshop where larger sections or even whole manuscripts are being read. And so -- speaking only for myself -- if I was sending an entire manuscript to someone I didn't know, I would feel far safer sending it to five or six someones I didn't know.
But really, I don't think that I would ever send something to a stranger who was "desperate to read it" after a few chapters. Perhaps this is small-minded of me, but since I can't imagine being desperate to read the rest of anything after only a few chapters (very interested, yes, but not desperate -- it takes rather more than that for me to become so thoroughly attached to the characters, and I don't care how great the writer is), it's hard for me to imagine that anyone else would be so very eager after reading so little, unless there was more to it than a simple desire to find out what happens next. I don't necessarily mean that he has ulterior motives. He just may be too attached to give an unbiased opinion.
But when someone is too pressingly eager to do someone else a favor ... that's a bit of a danger signal.
On the other hand, maybe Kissmequick was using the term desperate a little loosely.
Giovanna, I'm not sure what good a notary would do, unless they stamped every single page, which would be expensive. Also, lawyers are very expensive over here, and many of us don't have one -- unless we suddenly find ourselves in a situation where we require legal advice -- and couldn't afford the retainer that would undoubtedly go with asking one to hold a manuscript.
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