SynthSky

Oh my gosh you are handsome and I love that shirt.

This is my (brief) poem for that one part of that one exercise from the first session that called for a less-than-16-line poem. I'm not ready to add a piece of prose just yet, but I'll contribute something. It's got a waltzy feel to it. This is Exercise #3, which required two different imaginings of the same idea. The idea is "Girl in Field of Sunflowers". The girl twists and ducks and Twirls through a field, Cloaked in suncatching sunflowers Sunbathing in spinning and singing and Joy and youth, Weaving wind around Green stalks and yellow faces and Pitching dancing breezes over Treetops, Arching wind around The bottoms of clouds To push and swing back down and Catch her sunflower dress near the Most delicate part of Her ankles.

There once was a man from Muskogee His limericks always rhymed with three I don't know why

But there's a difference between an artistic choice to make a bubbly, upbeat romance, and a serious dramatic story that turns into a blind expression of the writer's ideal relationship. The latter is associated with shallow characters, rushed true love, questionable sexual practices, etc., and is very different than an intentionally positive/humanistic, well-planned story. I'm saying that it happens because of inexperience, and that it tends to be something masturbatory that blurs any original storytelling intentions. I'm also pointing out that it's not a very big deal, like b1ue said. On the other side of things, Cia is totally right. We all have our individual tastes.

Bottom.

That was delightful.

Happy birthday USA!

So, naturally, the writers who haven't been through GA's system of critiquing and editing are the ones who are most likely to create the lackluster, hyper-romantic stuff mentioned in your original post. I paired this with the lack of emotional maturity and experience common in younger writers, and age/high school was definitely mentioned somewhere in the thread; it's easy to see how I arrived at teenagers. We're also a generation of heavy internet-users, so I assume that we make up for a large part of most forums' situated populations, and an even larger part of their inexperienced user base. And, my post was only offering another cause. We're clearly a part of your problem, after all. I agree that GA positively influences gay authors; that's what it exists for. On a larger scale, though, people tend to fall into traps with their writing until they've found the same sort of feedback, and before that, pieces with the mentioned flaws are produced. Like you said, you can have a local effect, but new users will always be signing up, and there will always be an influx of questionable writing. That part of the equation isn't changeable, and your original post is evidence that it never really disappears. Also, "ignore" wasn't the right word. I meant that it's easier to help those within your reach, and accept (without the annoyance hinted at by your original alliteration) that some sickeningly saccharine stuff is going to be pushed into the world of online writing. It's natural and unavoidable. Again, like you said, it can and will be helped by GA's more talented members or by whatever educational system a writer happens to be a part of. There's no real reason to fret over it. And, for the almost mandatory apologetic paragraph, I didn't mean to come off as offensive, patronizing, or demoralizing. Thank you for your welcome, and I'm sorry that I've caused conflict EDIT: Also, check the third post. That's the first time teenagers are mentioned.

Teenagers will try to express some sort of ideal relationship in their stories. In my experience, rant-posts don't effectively prevent that. There isn't much you can do to change developing writers. It's nice to state that you see a trend, and to find people that agree with you, but the only option you really have is to sit back and ignore it.

Hi there. I'm Tyler, but you can call my SynthSky, or Synth, if you'd like to. I enjoy writing, and art in general. I plan to go into film, and I'm currently working on my second short screenplay. It's called "Waiting", at the moment. When I'm finished with this, I'd like to work on a short gay romance. That's how I stumbled upon this website. I'm also gay. You'll learn more about me in my posts here, I suppose. I look forward to seeing you all around.