Oh, well, I'm glad it wasn't unbearable and pretentious! It's hard not to sound that way when you're doling out advice to people who haven't necessarily asked for it. I'm glad to know that it sounded okay, though, because I was worried. :)
Choosing a POV can be damn difficult when you want to show things from two people's perspectives. I totally sympathise. In my current story I'm writing back and forth between perspectives, but it's a long fic, so it's easier to make smooth transitions. Shorter fics are near impossible. :(
Sentences! I actually read advice that says that's good for dialogue. That you should always read your dialogue aloud to make sure it sounds natural. When it's not dialogue though, yeah, there's a difference between colloquial speech and the written word, and it can be hard to get used to that. Still, it's much better to make it sound like natural speech than not natural in the slightest. *g*
Betas are AWESOME. I had the same problem as you, actually--I had an invaluable beta, and she moved on, and for the longest time I couldn't find anyone nearly skilled enough to look over my stuff. I ended up with the worst case of writer's block, for years, because not having someone to engage in conversation with about what you're writing just--well, for me, anyway--makes it so much harder to write.
I understand what you mean about sharing, though. It's an entirely valid viewpoint, and I have no argument against it. I don't agree, but I can respect it. :) Totally with you on the 'Why?' with the Ohmiya fics, too.
And I was very happy to get such a long comment! I like talking about this stuff and exchanging ideas and thoughts. That's mostly why I wrote this post.
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Choosing a POV can be damn difficult when you want to show things from two people's perspectives. I totally sympathise. In my current story I'm writing back and forth between perspectives, but it's a long fic, so it's easier to make smooth transitions. Shorter fics are near impossible. :(
Sentences! I actually read advice that says that's good for dialogue. That you should always read your dialogue aloud to make sure it sounds natural. When it's not dialogue though, yeah, there's a difference between colloquial speech and the written word, and it can be hard to get used to that. Still, it's much better to make it sound like natural speech than not natural in the slightest. *g*
Betas are AWESOME. I had the same problem as you, actually--I had an invaluable beta, and she moved on, and for the longest time I couldn't find anyone nearly skilled enough to look over my stuff. I ended up with the worst case of writer's block, for years, because not having someone to engage in conversation with about what you're writing just--well, for me, anyway--makes it so much harder to write.
I understand what you mean about sharing, though. It's an entirely valid viewpoint, and I have no argument against it. I don't agree, but I can respect it. :) Totally with you on the 'Why?' with the Ohmiya fics, too.
And I was very happy to get such a long comment! I like talking about this stuff and exchanging ideas and thoughts. That's mostly why I wrote this post.