Unpolished, in-process writing draws more response than polished work

Evidence

I have gotten more comfortable with the form, mostly because my quick and unedited posts on LiveJournal tend to elicit many more responses than my longer, more well-thought-out ones. Although this dynamic sometimes baffles LiveJournal users, anyone who attends writers’ groups knows that a short story with structural problems always gets more commentary than a polished manuscript. Similarly, teachers quickly realize that a tentative, open-ended question elicits more response from students than does a rigorous lecture. Snapshot writing presents itself as in-process and open to commentary from others. — Theresa M. Senft, Camgirls, 174

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in mass-collaboration/audience dynamics and performance — the idea that perceived incompleteness invites contribution parallels open-source and co-creation theory. — connects to: Criticism should recover a work’s original clumsiness rather than its refined difficulty — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 488; A finished work differs essentially from its raw preparatory material — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1371; Writers can treat unfinished drafts as pending work rather than failures. — Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self- A Life in…, 65

Broader Connections

• Criticism should recover a work’s original clumsiness rather than its refined difficulty #corroborates (0.78) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 488
• A finished work differs essentially from its raw preparatory material #complicates (0.75) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1371
• Writers can treat unfinished drafts as pending work rather than failures. #expands (0.72) — Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self- A Life in…, 65