(no subject)

[bubosquared]

This was going to go into an email, but I figured this would be better suited here.

I guess that's one of my main gripes with fandom: the way everything gets assimilated to the same level of feh. The reason I improved more in my three-four years of being actually active in the slash world than in the seven or so years of writing before that is that I finally had a chance to listen to people talk about writing, to read their gripes about writing. I don't take them all to heart, but reading about what people find irritating about stories always makes me thing if a) I do these things and b) their complaint is legit. (The whole "one finger, two fingers, three fingers, cock" thing, for example. I didn't even realise I was doing that until I saw it pointed out.)

But so many lists have carefully cultivated the idea that any criticism, however correct, of a story is tantamount to flaming the author and, basically, being mean. I seriously cannot stand this bullshit. Look, I know that my "entry level", so to speak, was higher than most non-native English speakers. Fuck, I'm gonna be immodest and say it was probably higher than a lot of native English speakers I see churning out stories everywhere. I knew the proper construction of a sentence, as well as the difference between their and they're and its and it's, and I knew how to locate the spell check in Word. Apparently, these skills are obsolete in the slash world these days.

The two most useful (personal, as in not counting general rants and raves) comments on my writing I've ever had were critiques. the first was from DT in BMfM fandom, who finally made me stop forgetting that the comparative (bigger/colder) goes with "than", not "then". (I'd always had problems with this, and the fact that both words translate to "dan" didn't really help.) The second was from someone on ff.net who pointed out that I'd allowed myself to get stuck in this rut of shmoopy, sappy, fluffy funny stories. Was I hurt? Yes. Was he/she right? Absolutely, and so, upon deciding that this was, in fact, something I wanted to correct, I mentally slapped myself and finally started writing one of my angst bunnies.

Fandom would be a much better place if more people would, mentally or otherwise, slap themselves. I'm tired of all the egos getting in the way of the stories Get the fuck over yourselves.

Comments

[darksong.livejournal.com]

There's a difference between criticism and suggestings for editing and revising, and just being flat-out mean. I know as a semi-professional writer that a good editor will make you look brilliant whereas bad editors are just jerks. I was involved in a writing group a few years ago, and we all managed to be nice and still provide criticism for each other.

I'm not involved with fandoms much, but I have seen what goes on. I think people start feeling too self-important and they loose perspective on what and how they're writing. I can see that for the most part, people are just writing fanfiction for their own entertainment so it doesn't matter much, but if you're going to put something out there, you run the risk of someone saying it's bad. And that's fine. I do draw the line when people aren't criticizing my writing and start in on criticizing me, but otherwise, I'm open to people suggesting improvements on my writing. I have room to grow, and I think people need to realize that they do, too.

Re:

[bubosquared.livejournal.com]

The problem with Fandom At Large, in my experience, is that people have started to equate "feedback" with "praise". Basically, anyone saying anything not entirely positive at all is labeled as mean, a flamer.

I've seen this happen to rsadelle, who publically critiqued a story, and gor a snippy reply that the author didn't ask for a beta (proofreader), thank you.

(No, if she'd had a good beta in the first place, and/or had listened to the beta she had, maybe there wouldn't be such glaring mistakes in the goddamn story.)

I've known several people who actually are into fanfic for the sheer fun of it, and have no desire to be Great Writers. I like these people, because when a mistake is pointed out to them, say "Oops," andcheerfully fix it, or just shrug and say "I'm just in this for the fun, but thanks for taking the time to point that out."

It's the people who are in this for the public praise that get to me, because they're the ones who feel as if the readers owe them "feedback" (ie praise) and that anyone saying anything negative about their "babies" is mean and heartless. (Give me a break. I've been writing since I was ten, and putting my writing on the internet for the general public to see since I was seventeen. I've never seen my stories as "babies".)

[gal-montag.livejournal.com]

Fuck, I'm gonna be immodest and say it was probably higher than a lot of native English speakers I see churning out stories everywhere.

Honey, that's not immodesty, that's the truth. The painful honest truth, and I'm embarrassed to say it, as a native speaker myself. I learned more about the grammar of my language in a German class than I *ever* did in an English class until I got into college.

Really says a lot for the educational system in this country.

[nyn.livejournal.com]

Sing it, sister!

I totally agree with you. A lot of those stories make me fear for the future of my country. I really don't think grammar and basic punctuation are that. hard. Come on, people. Dialogue goes inside the quotes. Geez.

Thanks for speaking what a lot us are thinking :)

Re:

[bubosquared.livejournal.com]

It's not even the ineptness that's bothering me, it's the fact that so damn many of them seem to think spelling and grammar just plain don't matter, because it's all about the content and not about the format, and anyone who complains about spelling and/or grammar errors, no matter if they're so numerous that the story becomes just pain unreadable, is anal and nitpicky.

(That's almost verbatim from a discussion I was pointed to the other day, btw. I'm not exaggerating.)

Word.

[coneyislandbaby]

Just. Yes.

Did I ever tell you how grateful I was for some of the things you told me? Because I really am. I hope I've taken them to heart. I've certainly tried to.

But yeah...if I do something irritating, I want to know. I still feel bad that people never did tell me some of it till it was nearly ingrained.