Quote: Mark @ October 13 2011, 3:21 PM BST
Hello. I'm Mark. I run this website. I've just come across this thread. Just to let you know you are very close to being banned actually, as you are clearly out to cause a stir.
Hello Mark. Here comes a lengthy post before I'm sent packing.
I guess this is equivelant of God actually reaching down from the clouds himself and telling me off.
1.) At no point did I say The Sitcom Trials is a rip off, I said it's an excercise in self-promotion for a man who books his own shows as a comic and knows the 'prestige' of hiring actors to act out competition entries and getting a night of material under the guise of a 'trial' will enhance his own repuation and give him a better search engine result. The winning script goes nowhere, and the fact a competition organiser enter two scripts of his own under false, and female pen names is very very odd.
These are facts.
2.) As for any rip off, I said that Declan charging people £75 a day to tell them the nuts and bolts of story arc, format and other things that can be found in any book, any website or any forum and claiming to have 'secret' knowledge that nobody else has, is a standard 'hard sell' claim.
3.) I am of the opinion that writing workshops are a bad idea and counterproductive for anyone serious about writing.
4.) This goes for classes in writing as well. I'll allow that classes that study literary technique can have merit, albeit more than likely the students and the professor are not purely appreciating literary craft for its own sake but are seeking eureka fixes to the plot snares in their own magnum opera festering at home.
5.) But writing classes and books on writing and writing workshops both in person and online are a very lucrative and expanding way of earning a middle class living on the back of poor sods who showuld know better.
6.) The goal of writing workshops and classes and all those "how to write" books is already before us - in the books that inspire us to want to be writers in the first place. We don't need to waste our time with all that other stuff. Read the good books that make you want to be a writer. Read them again. Keep reading them. Read more that you haven't read before. Study how it's done. Type a story over to see how it feels coming out of your fingers, how the paragraphs break, how the dialogue is inserted.
7.) Read what you want to write - and write. Regularly. It's simple. Read and write. Eventually you will place your stories and books. Or find out it's not for you. But sitting around in workshops and reading books and magazine articles about writing and taking how-to-write classes are forms of procrastination. We don't any magic workshops. We can already see. We already have hearts that respond to story.
8.) The man who runs this, has at no point sold a sitcom or had one broadcast on televsion. Him claiming to know how to take a writers draft and improve it, is ludicrous.
9.) The last workshop produced a testimonial from a guy who wrote his script at the workshop, then went on to win the competition at a time when they WERE business partners, and thus, a testimonial was produced espousing the merits of the workshop because he, get this - Won a competition off the back of it.
So there you go, these are my final thoughts. You won't ban me because I've already left.
I understand advertsing revenue and other website sponsorships outweigh the importance of idealistic posters potentially rocking a fellow business man's retirement plan.
Me being banned for actually trolling a site or doing something wrong would bother me, because I'm an adult, not some teenage keyboard warrior, but - being banned solely on the back of my opinion about these people doesn't affect me in the slightest.
So with my full permission ban or retire this account and I thank you for even running such a great guide that is clearly a labour of love, that shows. The site is the best in this country, but to post in a "writers section" and not be allowed to point out the laughable industry that is "workshops" is wrong.
Lastly, SootyJ, sorry if my opinions embarassed you. You may have noticed (or not) that I stopped any exchange with you the second you began refering to another member as a "bully" because their opinion clashed with yours. That is a hirrible accusation, and having 1million posts to your name and spending 24hours a day here doesn't give you any seniority over another member.
And thanks to Gerry Mac for realising I was stating opinions and not making disruptive statements.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcCE6MRKytk
Good work all. Shall we steer things back to the topic now? Does anyone have confirmation as to whether this is a scam or not? I have to say it looks like bunkum to me. Bunkum!
