Feedback and Criticism

Well done Linda. You've earned first and largest helping of Head Rabbit's donkey pie.
Enjoy your prize!

That's a little misleading Goodgulf. Though possessive nouns always have the 's, possessive pronouns never do. "Its" follows the same pattern as "his", "hers", "theirs" et cetera.

As to the feedback question; I think the hardest part of providing a critique is that it takes more work. That is, it's easy to drop a short, positive remark ("Nice story, I particularly liked the descriptions") than a short, negative remark ("Eh, this story fell flat, I didn't like the descriptions"). The first an author can look at and feel fine about; the second an author will want an explanation for. To leave negative critique requires more explanation, more work, and is likely more time consuming than most 'net readers want to devote.

So, while I'd be happy to have a full on critique, I'd be distinctly dissatisfied with a critique that was unjustified or unexplained.

-LK

I go to a writing group where I EXPECT to get critiqued - if I'm very brave I might wheel out a spanking story but mostly I stick to vanilla poetry. If someone's an assured, established writer you can feel free to offer blunt criticism as long as it's valid and aimed at improving the work, the difficulty is that some people only go to get their egos massaged and then they become upset, and if they're a new, hesitant writer they may feel crushed.

Personally I wouldn't say anything negative on this site UNLESS the writer is fairly prolific and known to be a good writer, then you have a frame of reference to other work which you can praise which might earn you the right to point out any shortcomings.

Neil

About the difficulties with the English language: The problems occured because of the invention of the printing press, usually credited to Gutenberg, in the 15th century. Most languages were fairly old by then but the English language was still developing and different regions in England had different usages for the same words and also varied pronunciations and spellings. Eventually all these differences would have been straightened out and the rules would have been simplified.

However when the printing press was developed all these regional differences got frozen in place and we are stuck with this muddle. A typical example is the various ways we pronounce "ough" as in tough, though, through, thorough, cough, etc. Also if we "read" a book in the present tense it is prounounced the same as "reed" but if we have "read" it in the past it is pronounced the same as "red".

Writing in English is great because we have more words to choose from than any other language but it is also more difficult because we have so many confusing and inconsistent rules to follow. And I haven't even mentioned the differences between the American and British usage and spellings.

I am trying to find out the name of the author of a serial about a 50's spanked wife who lives with her mother in law and 3 daughters while her husband goes off to war

This is probably Lizzie Baines: A 1950s Spanked Wife by DJ Black.