1. Introduction

I have, on many occasions, considered creating a fiction writing and feedback exchange workshop on Tildes. As these things often go, I exaggerated in my plans, detailing them endlessly without ever putting them into action. This post is an attempt to break the cycle of procrastination, and I am doing so by forcing myself to adopt a much simpler approach.

2. Goals

The main goal of the Tildes Short Story Exchange is to allow people to get feedback on their short stories. Is it any good? How can I improve it?

3. Why only short stories?

Although there are many writing genres people like to share, short stories are among the most practical. They can be read much more quickly than novels and novellas, and their evaluation is simpler than what poetry requires. A simple, defined, and easy-to-understand prompt is conducive to creation. Every month, participants will know that the Tildes Short Story Exchange is a place to get feedback on short stories. They will feel compelled to write as a result.

4. Position on LLMs

This is a workshop for humans. Producing human connection is one of its main goals. Because of that, all submissions must be human-generated, both in full and in part. That said, LLMs can be used for the same things traditional tools such as Google Docs or Microsoft Word have been used for in the past: proofreading. Additionally, it is allowed to use LLMs to assist in the translation into English of text that you wrote yourself.

5. About the submissions

For the purposes of the TSSE, a short story is a work of fiction with 7,500 words or less. This is based on the classification by both the Hugo and Nebula awards. Stories that go a little above that will, of course, be accepted within reason. All submissions must be in English.

6. How to submit your short story

You may use any website, blog, format, or platform to share your story!

If you are inclined to share a PDF, please also share your story in a format that is open, allowing it to be easily converted and better displayed on mobile devices such as phones, tablets, Kindles, etc. Some good formats for that are .docx, rtf, odt, epub, mobi, txt, md (markdown).

If you are sharing your story on something like Google Drive or Microsoft Office Online, make sure to set the appropriate permissions!

I will make an effort to read and provide feedback on as many submissions as I can, and if you share it in an open format it will at the very least have me as a reader!

You may also use detail markdown blocks to paste your story on Tildes itself (see "Expandable sections" on Tildes docs here).

7. Example submissions

All short story submissions should be top-level comments on the TSSE posts.

I drafted below an example submission that I encourage you to use. There are a few additional suggestions in there!

Title: My Super Cool Story
Genre(s): Science fiction, romance
Expected feedback: In this story I need feedback on story, language, everything. You can be as ruthless as you want. I can take it!
File: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ffWEjR7qP3Gfn693cLvOaRujetl6b_5x/

Title: The Day My Dog Died
Genre(s): Drama
Expected feedback: I'm really insecure about the ending. This is a very personal story—be gentle with me!
File: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ffWEjR7qP3Gfn693cLvOaRujetl6b_5x/

8. How to provide feedback?

All feedback should be a direct response to short story submissions.

Feedback should always follow the guidelines put forth by the writer, but anything that is not explicitly prohibited can be understood to be allowed. There will be no strict rules on how feedback must be written, but I would suggest that everyone provide something potentially helpful to the improvement of the story. That is, of course, highly subjective.

9. How are rules going to be enforced?

Given that I am a regular Tildes user with no administrative privileges, all rules in this project will serve merely as guidelines that I suggest participants follow. There will be no enforcement or consequence for not following the guidelines. That means there will be no score, and no “feedback points” will be awarded. It is suggested that everyone seeking feedback provide at least one piece of feedback prior to posting their own story. But that will be entirely based on the “honor system” and no admonitions will be made toward those who seek feedback without providing it.

10. What will be the schedule?

The TSSE will feature one post on the 1st day of each month. This is to help with mnemonics so people always remember when it will happen. That will help them get their “creative mojo” working every month.

Exceptionally for this first edition, given that it is already May 3rd, the Tildes Short Story Exchange – First Edition will go up next Monday (May 5th) and remain as the current post until June 1st, when it will be replaced.

Within that period, everyone will be free to post their short stories and their feedback at their own leisure.

The schedule may change to once every 2 months if there is not enough activity.

I've been wanting to tell the Tildes community about a favorite podcast of mine, The Film Reroll, an improv. comedy show which plays through your favorite movies as TTRPGs and totally ruins them (their words, I love the show and think the cast is amazing), and would love to hear about any podcasts y'all listen to that you might want to recommend to others!

Tildes is a very serious site, where we discuss very serious matters like blackouts, misconceptions and epic games v apple. Tags culled from the highest voted topics from the last seven days, if anyone was hawk-eyed.

But one of my favourite tags happens to be offbeat! Taking its original inspiration from Sir Nils Olav III, this thread is looking for any far-fetched offbeat stories lurking in the newspapers. It may not deserve its own post, but it deserves a wider audience!

For me it's:

Pants below the natural waist. What can I say, I grew up during the Britney Spears' Time.

Long socks with shorts. Also, invisible socks, apparently I just hate crew or 1/4 crew socks.

ADDENDUM.
This popped up in my feed I see that no one has defended capri pants, yet...I like how at some point in society, a "cupped" clothed ass was considered so provocative.

That is such an infinite subject that a lot of people are passionate about. It could easily be a scheduled post. So this time I am the one doing it. Any misconception is welcome as long as it is something you genuinely care about!

Have you watched any TV shows recently you want to discuss? Any shows you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

It's been a long time since I've done any "serious" programming, but I have long held a desire to recreate an app that's been out of development for a decade, and I reckon I'd do fine if given the right direction.

Googling for this gives me either "no code" platforms, which is zero of the fun and basically what I do at work, or documentation that has skipped the first ten steps because it assumes you know the prerequisites already. Help?

So. I have what I'm sure is not a unique problem, but sure is an interesting one.

The people who built my house built the foundation wrong. Instead of digging a hole, then digging a deeper trench for a foundation, which insures the foundation is on compacted soil, they made a mold around the edge of the hole. Then put some sand on top.

As you can imagine, 60 years of settling has resulted in my foundation kind of sitting on tiny plateaus of compressed sand, and those plateaus are slowly eroding away. Especially in this one spot where there was water seeping in because they also did the grade wrong.

So anyhow, my understanding is that the best solution is to add a bunch of fill dirt into the 5ft "luxury crawlspace," compressor, and repeat until the dirt is at least level with the foundation footer. To the tune of approximately 60 cubic yards.

As you can imagine, this is an awful lot of dirt. And the only entrance to my crawlspace is a 10sqft hole at the back of the house, far from where dirt could be delivered.

How the hell am I supposed to do this? I feel like the most cost-effective way would be to have the exterior wall and floor of one bedroom ripped off so that the dirt can be pushed/poured directly in, and then an army of assistants spreads out the mess.

I'm sure I could ask a contractor (and will given scope of work), but I'm trying to get a rough feel for the work required so I know if I'm being completely ripped off.

Bottom line: I live in Western Pennsylvania in the US. I may shortly need to replace my aging Honda Ridgeline. I need a mid-sized truck/van/SUV that can be a good "road trip" car for a family of three that chronically overpacks.

What car do you like? What car buying or car selling wisdom do you have in the post-pandemic car market?

A while back I read an article about the development of a new Digg platform.

I signed up for an email list about new developments. I got invited to pay $5 USD to join a forum to see updates on their efforts and give suggestions.

I've been advocating for not implementing downvoting.

My reasoning is that having just upvotes like Tildes serves the original purpose of voting on content. It moves the better content towards the top and the poorer content towards the bottom. Downvoting at least on Reddit just becomes a middle finger for most cases.

I was surprised how many other people at this special forum were AGAINST that idea. They really want to be able to give people a middle finger.

Sadly, I saw a preview of the U.I. today and at least for new threads it had a "bury" link.

Oh well. I tried!

So I was raised in a religious household with prayer and such but due to things like a dysfunctional family where some members used religion in a very unhealthy way, combined with distrust I have developed over the years of any sort of authority (and some of the teachings that i disagreed with), I just couldn't fully reconcile being part of the religion I was raised in and left.

However, despite the complicated relationship I have with God (I am left unsure as to whether He exists and if He is truly loving), it has proven a useful outlet for my gratitude for life.

I see unhoused people around me, people struggling with drug addiction, I am friends with a nurse who works in a psych ward and they sometimes text me the saddest stories. combine that with the fact that I was laid off for 6 month during the tech layoff season (I was over the moon when I finally landed a job), I have a lot of gratitude for the fact that I have a job in something I am passionate about, can afford my lifestyle and and a roof over my head. basically the necessities.

And I find I have a need to direct this gratitude somewhere and the idea of God proves useful in these cases.

For people who don't believe in God, do you feel a need to express gratitude at anything and if so, how do you do it?