Should I post some of my work online?

I've been wondering about this. I'm really just starting off as a writer-I'm in the middle of writing my first book-so I'm a little lost on how to get good critiques from people who know what they're doing.

The problem is,I'm afraid I'll put it up there and someone will stab me in the back and steal the idea.

Advice?

edited 16th Feb '11 7:28:26 PM by TheProffesor

Do you know any individuals in real life open to being your beta reader/tutor?

If not, there are probably some local writers clubs at which you can meet other aspiring writers.

edited 16th Feb '11 6:50:13 PM by colbertimposter

I'll look around,but I can't count on it. Most people who have read an excerpt of my work like it,so I must be doing something right.

I just wish I knew what it was.

No one is going to steal your idea for the simple fact that everyone thinks that their own idea is the greatest thing to ever grace the earth. They wouldn't be able to write an idea that wasn't their own. Feel free to post it online without fear of it being copied.

If you plan on publishing it wouldn't be such a good idea to post it online where the public can see it, if its not behind a pass word protected page of some kind then it could work against your publishing it.

Seriously, there is a plethora of ideas just in the worldbuilding threads here. Why would someone single yours out to steal?

For the same reason anything else is stolen:It's valuable. Even if we don't know it. My idea could be absolutely awful,but it could also be incredibly great. I don't want to risk it.

I know! I'll write fanfiction,see if people like my formula. If they like the formula,then I at least know something I'm doing right.

Ideas aren't valuable. Everyone's come up with every idea ever, and tons of interesting ideas pop up all the time. It doesn't matter how great the idea is, how clever or complex or unique or super-fancy-never-been-done-special.

A bad writer is going to do a bad job, and a good writer is going to do a good one. Execution is more important than any special 'ideas'. 1/100 stories I see (being very generous here) posted online are what I consider 'no-criticisms publish-worthy well-written'. Everything else, even if a genuinely enjoyable read or reasonable well-written, is absolutely nothing special. Nothing worth stealing from.

People who steal are most likely bad at what they're doing anyway, so they can't do anything with it. People with any decent skill don't need to steal. Ideas are the easy part. Anyone can come up with some cool ideas. It's developing skill and quality that's the toughy.

If you're really that worried about it though, fanfic or unrelated short stories/writing is a good idea. Anything to develop your personal skill and get feedback on your general writing ability. I've noticed, it usually doesn't matter what it is the person's writing, or what particular excerpt of their stuff you read; their general strengths and flaws are recurring patterns that I can eventually see appear in all of their writing.

<3 ali

edited 16th Feb '11 9:01:41 PM by almyki

Having published it online isn't an absolute bar to publication, so long as you can take it down if you get a contract. If you've only published sections, that's even less of a problem.

And yes, nobody steals ideas.

There have been occasional cases on literotica, ff.net and the like of someone stealing a whole work and putting it up as themselves, but it's generally been really obvious that they did it and they get banned quickly.