Mentors and mentoring

Well I've given my thoughts and that is I don't know if it would work, or is necessary. People often seek out people who they feel an affinity to, for whatever reason, and ask for their advice. Can we not as adults be trusted to do this if we wish to do so?

Tbh and this happens rarely, I agree with blimp... if you want to write, do so and if you need/want some help then ask either someone you choose and trust, or post on the forum.

edit, this is my personal opinion and not the opinion of admin on here... just to clarify.

Heaven forbid! An overworked offering would be the last thing
anyone would want to see - or read.
... quite the best bit of mentoring advice so far, I'd say!

My personal opine, FWIW, is that 'mentoring' is not really what is being discussed in the main, as to me the term mentoring suggests one person being taught by another which in turn raises a whole host of questions as to what exactly is being taught and who exactly is qualified to do the teaching. I can, however, see that a "feedback" function might be of value where the opinion of others can be sought prior to submitting a story for loading. Anyway, I've suggested how the Storyboard facility could be used in this context so if someone wants feedback on what they're writing I suggest they use that and see how it goes.

Talking of feedback has led me to think of food so now I'm off for some tasty croissants provided mere moments ago by the Head Bunny herself and I shall be washing them down with a liberal supply of Twining's finest Earl Grey.

I inadvertently brought the soccer-referee concept of mentoring to the forum. Experienced soccer referees offer advice to other referees, but never in a teaching mode. Always in the form of "did you consider ..." or "you might have tried ..." Instruction is in the hands of instructors, who, with one or two exceptions, rarely mentor. And at tournaments, mentoring is a many-to-many experience. My apologies for confusing the issue.

Using the story board as a means of requesting feedback is worth a try, I think.

All we need do is to simply add a paragraph as a preamble to make it clear that we do not seek a collaborative writing venture, and perhaps some specific pointers as to what sort of advice is sought.

This will preclude first time authors from participating: unless our kindly library staff give them the option when they spot that, perhaps, helpful advice may be needed ...

But, nonetheless, worthy of a try.

Not sure what you mean by this, Guyde. The Storyboard software enables anyone to start a new story and they can then invite selected individuals to contribute, or leave the status open so anyone can state their opinion.

I was under the impression that you had to be an author in order to put something on to the storyboard. Is that not so?

When we put items on the Storyboard, there seems to be no alert to let the writing community know that there is a new item that might be of interest to them. I might be wrong, but I cannot see it.

There is an "Invite" function, where we can invite individuals to mosey over and cast an eye on what we have writ - which seems an excellent way of getting a circle of friends to give you advice.

I think we might ponder on ways of how newcomers can build a circle of friends, without being a blasted nuisance in pushing our fellow members to join a personal group.

Guyde's understanding of mentoring is mine too - in fact there are recognised bodies for mentoring and I'm a trained mentor myself. It means listening to someone who's decided he or she needs help with work or something like work (not with deep psychological or spiritual issues), helping that person to identify the issues and where help is available and at most suggesting possible solutions for them to consider. In the spanking writing context, it would mean checking over a partly-written story or idea for a story, asking questions and making suggestions.

I'm not sure that mentoring is what is needed here. Writing comes from the guts and there have been some wonderful books written by people who were semi-literate. There could, with stories being vetted, be a tendency to the mundane. What might help, I know it would me, if there were a panel of people like Pink,Flopsy.Canadianspankee,Old Tom,The English Master, to whom one could address direct questions on grammar etc. Pink guided me onto the paths of clarity from the wilderness of ignorance where I'd been wandering. Result, I think I'm now a better writer. Thank you Pink.

Anyone can start an item on the storyboard, not just those who the site sees as 'authors'. As it stands, the drop-down list which is provided for selection of collaborators (for items which are not classified as 'open') only allows for the selection of authors. It's not practical to provide a drop-down list which offers a choice of any site member as there's close on 8,000 of them but I will look into the possibility of replacing the drop-down list with an auto-suggest list as is currently provided on the main menu for selecting authors.