Time for a frank discussion of fanfic · 2:30pm Jun 22nd, 2013
I'd like to point everyone to Bradel's latest blog about how to promote fanfiction in the fandom at large.
I would also like to point eyes to my comment there, which I think I'll just repost here:
I wish you had posted this about a week ago, because I was in the middle of a lot of deep thinking about the state of fanfiction in this fandom. Specifically, I've been wondering just how of the issues involved with the perception of fanfic are our fault, as in the fault of the writers, readers and reviewers who compose the community.
And see, this is where that timeframe issue comes in, because I've sort of forgotten my entire argument. :| It's along the lines of, what do we do to make ourselves look worse? It may say something about me and/or the people I hang out with around here, but it seems like good writers do an awful lot of snarking bad ones. We get caught up in drama on fimfiction and EQD, we badmouth the reviewers who we don't feel are quite up to snuff or the authors who seem to be totally full of themselves, we nitpick popular stories that don't live up to our standards and make fun of their fans, and then we whine when no one loves us.
Yes, we have legitimate complaints, namely that the show staff cannot be exposed to fanfiction for legal reasons, and thus the necessity of the no fanfic button. (A rant for another time: why that excuse is complete and utter bullshit.) But, and again, I've forgotten all of my arguments at the moment, if you take a good look around this place, you might start to think that the brony fanfiction community is toxic. Just look at how many talented authors and reviewers we've lost to burnout. No wonder no one wants to come around here: we are not nice people. I think it's telling that fanfiction was the first thing to really have major standards imposed on EQD, because we do have standards, and quite a lot of us have let that come to mean that we are better than those who don't.
I just... This is a problem of our own creation, I'm almost certain of it. At the very least, we do nothing to help our own image when someone starts talking about fanfic and it's the fanfic writers who jump in with dozens of reasons why fanfic is terrible. And if it is our fault, then we're the ones who have to do something about it.
Thoughts, discussions, etc. welcomed. This is a new idea and I'm not very good at persuasive writing.
Here or there, I want to talk about this idea. Like I said, I've just recently come up with it and I have no idea if it holds any merit. Any thoughts are welcome.
Fanfic writers are the first ones to jump in because we're the ones who see most of the bad fic, given that we have an interest in horsewords in the first place. I can't tell you the number of horrors that have popped up in the feature box alone. Enough that I run a script to remove it from the site, in order to not be exposed to it, at any rate.
Fanfic has a bad rep because, if you look around here, it is fairly well deserved.
There is good fanfic out there, but you really have to dig to find it. Given that this is a fandom that holds up Cupcakes, Past Sins, and Fallout:Equestria as the peaks of what is possible to achieve with fanfiction, it seems to me that the only way to change that would be to start the fandom over from scratch with people who actually care about quality fiction.
There's a lot that could be said about this and I'm sure I'll think of other things to say later, but right now I'll just have to make do with a concise version.
Fanfic is generally not a place where aspiring writers go. This is a place where the general population comes to fulfill whatever fantasies they have about the ponies, be they innocent or depraved. This is a place where people come to get a pony fix quickly and easily and get to have serialized entertainment at a much higher volume and pace than the actual show. This is, ultimately, also a place where a lot of people come to just show off.
Look at how many stories are pure wish-fulfillment or made of nothing but one brony's vision of fanon. Look at how many stories are just erotic trash. There's not a lot to balance that stuff out when you have many people actively shooting for the lowest common denominator, and then even larger numbers of people who appreciate trash for trashiness' sake actively promoting it and holding it up just so they can get that visceral reaction from other people not unlike the ways of internet trolls.
The sad thing is even though there is bad music and bad art for whatever reason people turn to fanfic as the place where they can actually upvote, favorite, and enjoy low quality shlock. It's a sad state of affairs, and one that can really only be solved by doing to FIM Fic what EQD did to itself: only let a select number of (relatively) high quality fics through and toss the rest into the slush pile for those who enjoy that kind of thing.
As for author ego, well, that's always going to be around. Like I said, many people come here basically strut around and pat each other on the back, so reviewers who actually take the time to point out flaws are unwelcome. I think many fanfic authors know their writing is flawed, they just don't care because one bad review is outweighed instantly by fifty bazillion upvotes and gold stars from people who enjoy foalcon or the next bad OC wish fulfilling fantasy.
I hate to say this, but yes, I can relate to this. I do my best to be positive and supportive on Fimfiction. Apparently people even notice that about me. But if you get me alone in a dark room, I'm as prone to snarkiness as anyone else. I think it's a product of the inequity of the whole fanfiction business.
I know in precisely which story my best writing is to be found. It's the one buried at the bottom of my stories sidebar, because it has the worst voting record of any of the stories I've worked on or am working on. And from what I can tell, this happens a lot with writers on this site who have a deep interest in the craft of writing as a whole. We want to challenge ourselves, so we try to do harder work. For me, that means writing a multi-part OC story with a lot of foreshadowing and theme work—a stack of things that don't seem to sell well. I've seen other writers go for things like morally gray stories (and there's a group, Serious Stories, which does good work collecting things like that). I've seen other writers shoot for sexually explicit stories with some real, solid characterization and plot behind them. Unsurprisingly, that seems to go over a bit better... but then again, it's not precisely what clop fans often seem to be looking for. I was over on darf's user page a couple weeks ago, and he seemed positively upset that his Joyce-ish stream of consciousness story "Αλεκτρονα" had gotten almost no attention despite the fact that he has over 2000 followers.
As a writer, it can be tough to see your best work languish while your other writing succeeds—or worse yet, while another author succeeds with less ambitious, less well written stories. I'll admit that I've run across a couple authors on the site whose popularity I find somewhat mystifying. But I try to keep that sort of thing to myself, or to only share it very privately. There are an awful lot of hard-working, serious people in this community, and it's bad form for me to judge them too hard on raw talent and skill, when its clear that they really are trying their best. Anyone making a sincere effort should be treated with a measure of respect simply for being willing to make that sincere effort.
For my part, I certainly don't consider the fanfiction community toxic. I've seen bits of it that might be, but in general I've found it to be very welcoming and supportive. I think, though, that if there are negative comments to be made about fanfiction in general, it might be helpful to try to immediately balance them with positive counter-examples. Ferinstance:
"Fimfiction is a real mess. The feature box is always a clop-fest and most of the writing is crap. But there's some really great stuff on there, too, like [Story X] by [Author Y]. It may be hard to sort through, but it can be worthwhile to do so."
...huh. I don't know. Does that help? It still sounds awfully anti-fanfiction. But I like the idea of counter-examples, because it can help give people an idea of where to start into fanfiction, if need be. But it's just a quick thought, not really a fully formed one.
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Funny you should mention darf, because Not Now Big Brother remains a source of a lot conflict for me, and this topic about how we can do our best to improve the state of fanfiction only adds more wrinkles to the equation. I can say that I would much rather NNBB occupy Cupcakes's notoriety status. That's a really low bar, as both stories are vile and sickening to read, but there is a legitimate defense that can be made in favor of NNBB that keeps me from just dismissing it as shit like the other Cupcakes clones out there.
But regardless, I'd love to try and do my part to make the community better as a whole. Does the fact that my current projects are FoE-related mean I can't join this hypothetical taskforce?
1160720 To my mind, anyway, making the community better (at least in the context Present seems to be talking about) is largely a matter of trying to be more discerning consumers and avoiding knee-jerk reactions.
I haven't read "Not Now, Big Brother", but I had a similar reaction to a story that EQD posted a few months back. I won't name the story, but I looked at it, skimmed it (because I couldn't really read it—the thing involved some personal triggers), found it just unspeakably vile and out-of-touch with the established characters of the show, and downvoted it. I never left a comment, though.
This is sort of circumscribing an issue I think a lot of people have. Is there some fanfiction (foalcon, for example) which is just unacceptable? And I don't think that's a terribly easy question, but I'm a moralist in my free time, so I do have opinions.
Early on here, I realized I was going to have to distinguish between "stories done well" and "stories worth doing". It came up in a very innocuous context, actually. My first story on this site was a multi-chapter piece about Rainbow Dash learning to write. And, unsurprisingly, I'm not the only person to have run with this story idea. I ran across a fic early on that purported to be a story written by Dash, which is exactly what I'd done (except with a frame story). I opened it and started reading, and it was immediately obvious that (1) the writer was very good and (2) the story was unreadably bad. The writer was doing a great job imitating amateurish writing problems (and it was clear from the way the problems were appearing that they were intentional choices), but the effect of writing like this was to just create a terrible story. There's a reason we don't like reading stories written by first-time authors, and using your skill to imitate that sort of writing is not a good use of skill.
I tend to be fairly libertarian where free speech is concerned, so I'm uncomfortable with the idea that Fimfiction should refuse to publish rape fics, or foalcon fics, or anything really. I'm more than a little disturbed by the following fics like that can get, but I don't begrudge their authors' right to write them. And some very good writers occasionally write some pretty vile stories.
So I think there's a need to acknowledge that the writer and the writing are different things, and should be approached differently. In terms of commenting on such a story or discussing it with others, I think it's important to keep the two distinct. I may think that a story is fundamentally not worth telling, and I'm happy to say so, but I try to be civil to the writer if not the writing. (I'll admit that this feels uncomfortably like "hate the sin and love the sinner.") As far as darf is concerned, I'm not sure I've actually read anything of his, and he's gone a long way to dissuade me from ever doing so. I don't think "Not Now, Big Brother" sounds like a story worth telling. And I feel the same way about "Αλεκτρονα"—I can't stand James Joyce's writing. Thanquol's "Easy As Lying" is similar, to me. As far as I'm concerned, it's awful. It's something I think is clearly not worth doing as a writer. But in both cases, my beef is not with the author's writing, but with their choices of what to write, and I think that's important. And it's telling, in a way, that both have been featured on EQD.
So that's my personal response on the NNBB question, and as to the other, I don't think writing NNBB disqualifies darf from the ability to be useful in making the fanfiction community better by treating this discipline with respect. I don't see why you writing FoE stories would disqualify you, either.
Now... do you think that excuse is bullshit because it's not true, or do you think it's bullshit because it shouldn't be true?
Because it is, unequivocally, true. Creators of things have been sued in the past for "stealing" fan works before. It's why they can't admit to reading our shit.
surprised to see my name came up in these comments, but i guess i'll weigh in.
i think what RedSquirrel said
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was probably mostly correct, and i'm surprised it hasn't occurred to me before. fanfiction isn't the place where writerly writers should really go; anyone with a real dedication to their craft and a desire to tell complex stories would find a more appropriate audience in a general fiction environment. that is to say, they may not find an audience at all, which is part of the reason why so many writers probably turn to fanfiction in the first place. at the end of the day, however, i think we're fostering a splinter community within a splinter community when we get ideas like 'writerly merit' and 'literary parallelism' in our heads. people just wanna read about ponos, at the end of the day.
conversely, in my experience, even the community of 'writer's writers' doesn't seem to fit the bill for what you'd expect to find therein. there are, as mentioned, a ton of serious, challenging, high-concept stories available - but speaking from a personal perspective, people bristle if you move too far outside the norms of conventional storytelling. being experimental is good, but being too experimental is bad, and darnit, why are you taking pony fiction so seriously and these characters don't match the show at all and this would never happen in the MLP universe and blaaaaaaaaaaah.
at the end of the day, anyone who has enough tack as a creative individual will see that to tell stories with a certain level of complexity, concessions have to be taken with the universe and characters we're using. the trick is how much you need to do that, and how far it moves you away from the holy canon of the show - but any attempt to do so is moving it away, because MLP is a kid's show that doesn't encourage complex thought or serious storytelling. it's a mystery why we all like it in the first place.
i'm not sure how to cap off all of the above meandering, but it seems in short that the best thing to say would be that fanfiction is terrible and i can't understand why any of us decided to write it in the first place.
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See? This is exactly why I try to talk in a civil way. I write two comments talking about "Αλεκτρονα" and darf magically appears. This immediately prompts a reaction of, "Oh shit, was I just badmouthing darf?" And thankfully, because I try to be civil, now I don't feel like a total jackass, which could well have happened.
Hi darf!
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Honestly, I have a hard time being more discerning. I tend to latch onto parts of a story that I like, the little moments, and it doesn't occur to me to examine a story for plot holes, feel, how it holds up overall, until I see someone else doing it for me, like Present Perfect has done for FoE.
As for NNBB, the reason I can see why people defend it is because the subject matter is handled just about as well as can be expected, almost like a story is taking a hammer to any sort of dirty rape fantasies the reader might have had and shaming them for it by giving them a taste of what it would feel to actually be raped. If this story had nothing to do with ponies, and ESPECIALLY if darf and Appleloosan Psychiatrist didn't use the characters they did, I would love and applaud this story. But they did, and that just leaves me angry and frustrated.
In the comments to another of Appleloosan Psychiatrist's stories, Right Now Big Brother (which doesn't even have the merits NNBB had and paints the author as someone who wants to have their cake and eat it too
), I got into a debate with a commenter about the merits and morality of writing a fic like NNBB. I'm not sure if I want to link you to the comments thread, since I'd be linking to a shitty story by proxy, or if I want to quote huge walls of text from the argument, but the thing that really gave me pause was this:
I had to stop the argument dead in its tracks because I couldn't believe that. Pony fics being more popular than actual, published short stories? I still don't entirely believe that, and I'd like to know if Ravenscroft is pulling my leg on that one. But if it is true, this whole debate about how to improve the medium becomes a little more relevant.
I worried about the FoE thing because of Whiteout's derisive remark about it up above. I'm not entirely sure how bad the backlash against it is, though I can mostly understand why it's coming about. But the fact of the matter is, that's what's inspired me, and I am trying to improve on and surpass the initial fic as much as I can. I'm working out themes and doing my best to practice the writing craft, even if only a handful of people will ever read it, and I'm trying to think of things that make sense and that haven't been done in the spinoff community before.
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For what it's worth, I AM trying to become a serious writer, but like I said, ponyfic ideas dug into my brain and aren't letting go. I know sooner or later I'll have to work on stories that aren't fanfiction, and I'll work on them in due time. Right now my ambitions are exceeding what I feel are my abilities and that frustrates me. I just have to work through it with what I have.
Also, I disagree with you about fans being overly hostile to new reinterpretations of canon, serious themes, and so on. I understand why you in particular might take this viewpoint, and I admit I don't know what percentage of the show's adult fans will cotton to fanfiction in particular, but there's plenty of room to read into things regarding the events of the show. Just to give a common example, Celestia and Luna's backstory. What aren't we being told about it, and did the circumstances differ from the conventional tale that's been told in the show? That's just off the top of my head, naming an obvious extrapolation of the main story that's been pretty much done to death. Also, just because people hated the idea of taking beloved characters and putting them in one specific new situation doesn't mean that they'll immediately do the same for every other situation you could put ponies in. I've heard pretty good things about Harpflank and Sweets, for one. Many people, like me, yearn to see these characters we've grown to love being placed in scenarios the show won't or can't touch, and so we turn to fics.
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I'm not immune to it either. :B And coming up with ways to change criticism into something positive is haaard.
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It's bullshit because show staff don't abide by it, and it doesn't do what it purports to do. Some of them (not many, mind you) read fanfic. You won't get them saying so in public, because of aforementioned legal issues, but they're there. So already, it's not a rule worth having.
But more importantly, show staff give all sorts of praise to images and music, which are every bit as capable of telling stories as writing. Look no further than comics, which are (at least in general) precisely meant to do that. Any piece of fanmade material has the potential to be subconsciously lifted by anyone consuming it. Daniel Ingram could copy a chord progression from a song just as easily as [I don't know any colorists' names] could use someone's OC's color scheme. I can't remember where I heard about subconscious plagiarism, but it's a thing and it can cause trouble.
So if show staff are already reading fanfic, and they're putting themselves at risk of potential lawsuit by consuming other fan media, why do we allow ourselves to be sidelined and maligned by this patently unfair and thoroughly invalid rule? Because no one is proud of the fanfiction community, that's why.
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Taking the fandom with a grain of salt is something I have always advocated. You can still take writing seriously without taking fanfic seriously, though. The issue only comes in when you want your craft to be as popular and well-loved as everyone else's and... Oh, I guess that requires a failure to do point #1. There you go, then.
1160845 I can believe those Alexa traffic statistics. But remember, this isn't saying MLP fanfiction short stories are more widely read than all other short stories, or anything close to that.
Most reading that gets done is still conventional reading: books or ebooks. And there are a lot of avenues for traditional publication with short stories. Moreover—and I think this is the most telling bit—consider the reception of OC stories here. People want additional assurances of quality with original fiction. If you're playing in a sandbox with an established world and known characters, it's a lot easier to get readers because substandard writing is going to get an automatic readability boost by taking advantage of those things.
I can't imagine having much interest in an original fiction short story website. As a writer, I wouldn't expect many readers and I'd probably feel better off going the traditional publication route where my work would get a kind of tacit stamp of approval by clearing some third-party threshold of quality. As a reader, I'd be just as distrustful of the general quality on a site like that as I would here, and the writers are going to have a higher bar to clear for the reason mentioned above.
But it's certainly true that we're a major area for online reading and writing. That may only account for a fraction of the reading and writing getting done, but the online stuff is probably predominantly fanfiction, however you look at it. And we're one of the larger and more active fandoms around, and we have a well-organized site for our stories (as opposed to digging through ff.net, which is excruciating). So from that perspective, I think that commenter has a legitimate point. If you ever want your stuff read, this is one of the better places to put it. Because stories like that aren't going to clear a third-party publisher, and they're going to get crap-all readership if you don't tuck them into some fandom or other.
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I'm not sure what else to say to this, other than that I just started following you and I'd love to talk to you more about other things in the future. Also, I knew that was too dumb to be true.
1160903 cf. the post I just dropped on my original blog, I have to run, but thanks for the follow and if you want to talk further, feel free to PM me.
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It's bullshit because it's not true. At all. Show staff were surfing EqD long before no fanfiction button. Seth added it because there are a lot of people who bitch and moan and whine directly at him about fanfic.
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I feel obligated to point out that FimFiction is just as young as FFN. Go look at the last post knighty put up about needing mods over 18. The number of people who aren't is astounding.
The reason FoE:SS gets backlash, esp from Whiteout, is that the original piece of work isn't very good at all. Neither as a work itself or as an MLP story.
Now on to original content.
One thing that separates art and videos from writing is that it is TRIVIAL t see if you're a decent artist. Someone who draws his or her first pony can look at it and will probably be able to conclude, in mere seconds, that it's not very good. But words on a page? Amazing words look just like crap words. The fonts are the same. It requires actually reading and then *thinking* to distinguish bad words from good ones. If more people actually were interested in reading good stories, things like Twilight wouldn't sell.
Too many people treat reading as a lesser form of entertainment where the point is not to read something that will stay with you or provoke thought, but rather to present a situation that would please the person reading. Much like porn, really. They don't care or want a deeper tale or meaning; they just want some feel good time. On fimfic, they want site gags with ponies. Shakespeare understood it and managed to write stuff that was full of bawdy BS for the common folk and still had a real story to tell. Too bad for every Shakespeare we have 2000 people who are trying to write My Little Dashie 2: Dashie Harder.
I forgot to mention this.
If someone really wanted to try to promote fanfic as a legit artform, they'd need not just a blog to post good fics. They'd probably need several critics to review and rate each piece and then need to talk about *why* a fic is worth reading. People need to be convinced that reading it is worth their time. The easiest way is to have a friend or someone they trust tell them. Named critics with consistent tastes and rubrics would really help.
So here's my take from a conversation I had with a good friend last night, and the fact that he linked me here a short while ago as a follow-up.
We have a serious rift that divides both pre-readers and authors. The rift separates us by priorities; those on one side prioritize quality (as a universal standard agnostic of fan desires) over all else, and those on the other side prioritize fan desires (agnostic of rules and quality) over all else.
To elaborate on the second group, since I feel I didn't do the description justice; I think it encompasses a wide variety of people, and a better definition for us might be 'those who do not prioritize pure quality first and foremost.'
Take me for example; I believe quite firmly in good storytelling. But I also have no time or desire to re-read what I write five times, and wait on eight professional pre-readers to go through each chapter twice, so my work can be EQD-perfect. I prioritize the speed of telling my story over having perfect spelling and punctuation.
I even tread on the fringes of OP characters and races, because I like the way I envision things more than I like showing a world in 110% perfect balance. So sue me.
A better way to phrase all this, then; "There are two kinds of people in this fandom; those who put mechanical quality above *all* else, and those who don't."
This creates a serious problem, because people on both sides of this divide have good points, and weaknesses alike.
Another example; with the exception of exceedingly talented writers like Chatoyance, and Midnight Shadow, who create their own 'sub universes,' most TCB (Conversion Bureau) stories are not especially high quality. They're decent entertainment, but they probably wouldn't pass EQD muster.
Yet, because TCB writers tend to be good at telling thought provoking, and entertaining stories, there are a LOT of them.
This has led (with an added dash of politics. don't you dare deny it...) to EQD creating a blanket rule to exclude us TCB authors.
Think about that for a second.
The concept of 'quality first' went so far, in this instance, that it led to unfairly blocking an *entire* genre. Those of us who write full-sized *novels'* worth of sub-universe stories, that *might* have a chance to pass muster, get thrown out in the cold because the pre-readers need a way to shorten their queue and avoid internet politics.
Because that half of us that doesn't put quality first? We don't like being beholden to 'quality first' rules.
In the same way quality-firsters see a large portion of fan-fiction as drivel, those of us who put other things first see the quality-firsters as an oppressive regime who are denying us access to the potential for discovery. And discovery is, for an author, as valuable as bricks of solid gold.
It doesn't help that both sides have extremists who aren't doing anybody any good. If I had a nickle for every horror story I've heard of authors getting three-struck out of EQD for minute mechanical errors that keep getting discovered with each new strike, I'd be a billionaire.
Likewise if I had a nickle for every person who unfairly whines and complains that they deserve EQD entry, when they clearly *don't* by even the most liberal assessment, I'd also be swimming in coinage.
Both types of extremists hurt the feelings, egos, and discovery chances of all involved (whether extremists or not) and this leads to factionalizing.
Quality-firsters start to see writers like me, even those of us who strive to do well despite not putting quality in *the* paramount slot, as a marching drooling horde of plot zombies who are rehashing the same old wish fulfillment stews over and over in a morasse of unreadable hash.
Those of us who are writing more for the sake of writing a *story*, than adhering to the --Censored adjectives-- Chicago Manual (may it forever burn in hell) start to see the quality firsters the same way the internet sees Grammar Nazis. A totalitarian regime who use their fancy credentials and power to exert painful evil control over the precious resource of discovery.
In short?
Both sides start to see it as a war. That causes us moderates to then do and say things which align us more with the extremists, which only serves to add fuel to the fire.
I found *myself* getting quite irate, and almost saying rude and unconscionable things to a friend just the other night about the EQD pre-readers, as a result mainly of the sins and honest mistakes of a small segment therein, combined with the overwhelming (and partly unjustified) negative image they've garnered thanks to this rift in the fandom.
At the end of the day, EQD's fanfiction segment exists because of a desire by some to weed out 'good' stories from 'bad.' The 'cream of the crop' as someone described it to me. The problem is; not all of us have the same definitions of what delineates the cream of the crop.
I see it as rude, and mean spirited to strike out stories based on mechanical errors. Its the internet for Pete's sake. 99.9% of us, readers and writers alike, are not here to go to a university level course in writing. We're here to tell stories as a means to self expression, and to *share* those stories with others.
Yes. Some of you readers and writers want a higher standard of quality. I partially sympathize; so do I. But I don't believe in compromising the spirit of sharing stories in order to somehow force people to adhere to standards that are never going to be accepted widely online.
In short; the majority of us may talk a good game about standards, but we internally carry a double standard. That goes for both sides of the rift. From talking to Noble Cause I know for a fact that stories can get onto EQD because a pre-reader personally took a liking to them, and similar stories that deserve an equal chance at entry get denied because pre-readers *dislike* them, and hound them harder on the quality issues.
On the flip-side, we writers on both sides of the divide tend to criticise popular work, and tout our own, agnostic of the actual quality involved. This makes it impossible to know, sometimes, when a writer is justly complaining about rejection, or justly criticisng a work, or just whining because they have an ego that is far larger than their actual skill.
All this adds more fuel to the flames.
Maybe the lesson in all this, is that we need to take a step back and separate our priorities from our relationships and attitudes.
Those of us who place other things above quality could still stand to learn to be better about quality.
Those who place quality first, could stand to learn that their view can not, and should not, be applied to everyone out there, or perhaps to fanfic at all, except within the bounds of their own work.
You wanna sacrifice time and effort and anything else to put quality above all else in your story?
I will *never* complain about that. I hope you succeed, and put the rest of us to shame with your story.
You want to put quality first in the barrier-bar for entry to a site like EQD?
Well...
Now we're gonna have a problem.
Noble Cause often complains (and justly so) to me, that EQD pre-readers take a lot more flak than they truly deserve. But sleeping on our discussion from last night, I realized something; there is no solution that allows pre-readers to keep their currently very-tight standards, and also allows them to keep their jobs.
Face it; whether deserved or not, EQD's fiction system is garnering an exceedingly bad reputation. This is a combination of faults on the side of us writers, and faults on the part of the pre-readers, particularly with regards to unfair rules, unfair changes in rules, allowance of bias, etc.
The simple fact of the matter, is that the vast majority of both writers and readers want to write and read entertaining stories *more* than we want to write and read super-high-quality stories.
The pre-readers, and any authors who strongly criticise non-quality-firsters, are fighting a loosing Sysiphian battle against the very nature of the world wide web itself; the internet has always been, and will always be, more about sharing than about quality and accuracy. Spend five minutes on any content sharing site if you don't believe me. Better yet, try to correct someone on one of said sites, about an issue of quality standards. Go ahead; I'll wait while you get stitches and treatment for your 3rd degree burns.
If you want to teach us non-firsters to have better quality? You have to do two things.
First; stop holding discovery hostage. We will not accept it; we will just cut you out of the loop and you'll be out both your job (or in the case of fellow writers, your following), and your goal.
Second; treat us like people with aspirations and a desire to tell stories, not a zombie horde to be beaten back.
On the flip-side I have harsh words for us non-firsters too;
Would it kill us to suck it up and learn to break our bad comma habits once in a while? Or to accept that *some* quality standards, and perhaps more importantly age/content appropriate restrictive rules, are very necessary for a site like EQD?
In the end, would it kill any of us to loosen up and meet in the middle?
Isn't that what FiM is supposed to be all about?
I think that there are 2 separate issues here: Community & Content.
I don't really need to explain either of those, do I?
Flame blogs against EqD, endless hate against harmless fics, and character corruption incest foalcon rapefics in the feature box speak for themselves.
Yes. We do it to ourselves. Because this is the internet. And there are no standards on the internet.
And it doesn't matter. Because perception of fanfiction as a whole is much more important than the issues in content or community.
There are people who avoid fanfic because they do not think there is anything worth reading, there are people who avoid it because they don't care about anything that is not the show. There are people who avoid it because they heard abut things like slashfic on shows like Supernatural. There are people who avoid it because they have heard things about "furry" fandoms on shows like CSI. There are people who avoid it because they heard about "Rule 34" somewhere. There are people who avoid it because fic writers are reasonably assumed to be the most hardcore and invested of all fans and such fans have terrible image in the mainstream media.
Really, assuming the shit we do within the fic fandom is the biggest factor in affecting the image and accessibility of fic is an extreme conceit.
You know what will get people to be more interested in fic within the fandom? Amazon. They are now licensing certain IPs for people to write fanfiction of that can be actually legally sold. THAT will help people take another look at fanfic.
You know what else? 50 Sades of Grey. The public knowledge that that popular work is basically a fanfic with the names changes and sold on shelves in stores will get people to give fanfiction within their fandoms a chance.
We are just a tiny pebble in a big pond. We make ripples that travel far, but there are boulders falling all around us. We do not have the priority in our own image that we think we do.
But hopefully, when some boulder out there sends a tsunami of attention our way, the first impression will not be... well... you know.
As a separate point, though it is not especially relevant to the OP, but has been brought up in several comments (none of which I will respond to directly because I am making a point here not trying to have another 2 page discussion).
Reading priorities. There are 3 main ones.
1: For entertainment. (Fun ideas and imagery.)
2: For stories. (Quality writing, challenging concepts and themes.)
3: For ponies. (Well we're all here for the ponies, right? Right?)
But what makes a fun story, a great story, and a good MLP fanfiction are not 100% synchronous. Never have been, never will be. A great fic can be boring or not very MLP-like. A Fun fic can be poorly written and not be especially MLP-like. An MLP-like fic can be uninteresting and badly written. Balance and moderation are necessary to achieve these values in a fic.
(Please note that by "MLP-like" I do not mean exactly like the show. I just mean not so far removed that one could change the names and/or species and there would be nothing connecting it to MLP any more. Or that depict the universe so alternatively different that one cannot reconcile it with the show on any level other than names and species.)
1160928
is writing more to convince people why they should be reading something helpful when the obstacle is getting them to read it in the first place? it just feels like more of a barrier to entry.
1160932
you sure to love to take any opportunity to soapbox about your personal biases, don't you?
the only reason there's a perception of a glut of the type of content you're decrying in this fandom is a) because the community is so entrenched in its own self-awareness at this point, and b) because it's so large. any other internet fandom centered in internet culture is subject to the same fucked up shit ours is subject to. the difference is that people aren't pointing to sonic the hedgehog fanfiction and saying it should be considered high art. they're aware that it's an insular community with shitty internet standards. the problem furthermore seems to be that because of how weird this fandom is in the first place, it's fostered a conflation of two completely opposing mentalities: some people who like the show for whatever and want to jerk off to it, and some people who want to write serious, value-challenging stories about talking horses (and some who do both).
i'll bet that if there was a Harry Potter cartoon where Harry and all his friends were underage, there would be porn on the internet within
weeksdays. people in this fandom aren't fostering anything more deplorable than what exists elsewhere, and i don't think it's at all related to the original point broached above. it's also just as easy, within a community, to brush off the porn as 'porn', and to do the same for shitty porn, or porn you feel is morally reprehensible - but this isn't about that. it's about the behaviour of writers engaging with each other, not about some who write porn others don't agree with.Edit: i concede my personal bias factored into my response above and that i did not assess the remainder of the stated opinion outside of the original context i perceived it in. i apologize for being unnecessarily confrontational.
a better note to make might be that the problem with fanfic within the community is a problem with fanfic perception at large; before i started in this fandom, i assumed i knew exactly what fangirls on the internet were writing about Harry Potter, and that it wasn't worth my time... here we have the problem of sheltering away something's true value behind its perception. whether that's weird porn or whatever is ancillary, i guess, but the larger question might be, will public opinion on fanfiction be swayed to the medium as a whole? i think that's more important than what anyone has to say about our specific community's output.
it's also not entirely answering the original question, which is about fanfiction within the community, rather than outside it. i think that's a topic more ripe for discussion than what other people think about us, rather than what we think about ourselves - that at least is one we're capable of answering.
1160928
1160932
1160965
These are exceedingly insightful, and I agree whole-heartedly.
I'd also like to point out that this is starting to feel like my old Chem classes, what with trying to do analyses on the composition of stories.
We're stumbling into that age old question of what makes a story a good story in aggregate.
Just like how IQ isn't a measure of how smart, creative, and intelligent someone is on the *whole,* I think the problem is that EQD's current system (along with all quality-first systems) is that it/they is/are trying to determine aggregate goodness based on a small and ultimately only partly-worthwhile component.
1160660
>Fanfic is generally not a place where aspiring writers go.
I'm gonna stop ya there for a minute. You don't really mean "aspiring writers." What you mean is people who aspire to be published writers, possibly ones who make a living wage at it.
Most people who write fanfiction—the good, honest, and hardworking writers, at least—do so because they don't want it to turn into a job. They feel that, if they were to get paid for writing, that it would take all the fun out of it.
1160971
I was using a micro argument within the fandom to illustrate the nature of the fandom and the perspective on the fandom as it relates to the OP.
I only used that example since it had specifically been mentioned in the comments already.
Nothing you said I disagree with on a factual level. Just because our philosophies differ does not mean we can't agree.
1160997
see my edit where i conceded that focus was more what you were addressing
and again, i apologize for being initially hostile
i'm not sure the original question was in regards to fanfiction's perception as a whole, but do you think there's any goal to reached in regards to its public perception? i don't know that you could draw fanart of Master Chief and have anyone other than Halo fans like it - should we be aiming for something different with fanfic, or just trying to elevate it internally so that it reaches the same community standard as art and music do? if so, how do we go about doing that?
1160913
Yeah, I admit that it's got serious problems that are deal-breakers in the eyes of certain readers. I probably would have liked it less if I played the Fallout games before reading it.
I also forgot how many teenagers get into fanfiction, and I'm surprised that so many have tried to become editors at such a young age. I don't know whether to applaud their youthful ambition or shake my head at the thought that they can do it at their age. My teenage writing output was dogshit.
And yeah, literary criticism is hard. I said I didn't have a good grasp on it myself, and I'm still trying to find out how to get one.
1161004
Fandom is weird.
Just look at "became a brony" stories.
I mean, consider that a fandom for a MLP cartoon started on 4chan.
That most people were exposed to it because it happened to be the #1 meme on the internet.
I discovered it via YouTubePoop.
I actually have never met a brony who became one because they watched the show on TV.
I have also never met a brony who became one due to MLP (or crossover) fanfiction.
The music, the art, the memes, the trolling, the vids, the controversy, the cons, the news media. These overshadow the show's own ability to attract fans, and the show is out there. It is advertized, publicized, there was a showing of EG this morning at a theater near me.
In fact every single fandom aspect is actually more accessible than the show itself.
Except fics.
The fics are at the end. The far end.
Maaaaaybe a brony could give a friend a fic link to something not especially show-like and they will like it. But that won't make them a brony, because, well, it wasn't show-like so why should the connection be made? If all someone is going to read is FO:E and a LotR crossover then they aren't really a ponyfan, they are a Fallout and LotR fan enjoying a novel crossover concept.
But it's not really reasonable attraction of readers and writers.
We do not and never will, in our culture, have a way to put fics at the front.
What we need to do is convince the people who are already fans, brony or casual, that checking out fics is just as viable as checking out a SFM vid, a music vid, some artwork, or watching the show itself. And that won't happen by anything the fandom itself does. That will happen by the general perception and awareness of fanfics changing. And as I pointed out, there are changes afoot. Things are happening that will make ponyfans and the pony-curious hesitate to click that "No-Fanfic Mode" button. To type "fanfic" after "mlp fim"" in Google instead of "art" or "music" or "clip."
We have... little control over this, we can just encourage it by continuing to try to raise awareness.
But as for the fandom, I think the ficdom could use a bit of concern over how many of these curious ponyfans will check us out, and turn and run as opposed to stay and poke about. Because the fandom has outgrown it's internet roots quite a bit, and we have far more potential than the Sonic or Furry fandoms to maintain readership once it is acquired. The lulz are just not the priority any more.
This is also why people who slam EqD need to back the fuck off. Because I really don't care if EqD is there for the community. It's there for the fans. But if you use EqD or FiMFiction as a first impression of someone giving fanfic a try, which do you think will give a better one? 2nd chances rarely exist in reality when someone's time and interest is up for grabs.
1160931
>This has led (with an added dash of politics. don't you dare deny it...) to EQD creating a blanket rule to exclude us TCB authors.
Semi-incorrect. All TCB posts went to a large post organized first by Seth because there were far too many of them AND because people who didn't like the original didn't care, but he still wanted to post them. Midnight Shadow took over after Seth stopped caring. That is, until drama and other bullshit in your sub–group made him quite keeping up with it. No one else at EqD cared enough about the universe to put up with you all to take over that position. Whether you think it's justified or not, TCB is viewed by a lot of people as even more acidic and toxic than the rest of the fic-reading fandom. No one wants to sleep with crazy.
At times, I regret ever trying to include notes about why fics failed back when I started pre-reading. It was another guy and I that first began to give reasons. Had pre-reading stayed pass fail, people would bitch, but the opacity would prevent so much minor bitching. Of course pre-readers pass fics they like. Much in the same way as Tor's screener approve stories they want to see published.
I DO agree that EqD has too much emphasis on Grammar. It's given way too much weight and the amount of obscure cases and BULLSHIT CMS references is dumb.
Without EqD insisting on some basic quality, I never would have gotten into pony fic at all. I remember well when I was 15 and got that 36k modem. I read fanfiction. Most of it was shit, even to my 15 y/o self. I stopped reading fanfiction because it was crap. Were it not for something imposing some sort of barrier to entry, I would have never seen the good stories in the fandom and never would have written my own.
If you care at all, my opinion of what EqG should do (which I have provided in a much more detailed form to the current pre-readers) is to attempt to post more fic of a wider variety. I developed a small demo of a way to post up to 9-12 (depending on image size) fics in one block without requiring clicking past the break (something that KILLS views.) The short version of my proposal was to attempt to post 6-12 fics/day of a wide variety of genres, so that everyone has SOMETHING to read that isn't awful. It may not be Shakespeare, but it's better than searching on fimfic or ffn.
1160971
The thing is, when you try to convince someone to read fanfiction, they ask "why?" Especially if they have ever tried in the first place. Being able to say "here is a story and *why* you should read it" is more compelling than "come on! It'll be fun!" Showing that people can give reasons beyond "I LIEK HORS STORY" is an important step to being seen as legit. If they see that there is SOME site that is legit and deals with fics, then they are more likely to believe that some stories are worth reading.
<>
The thing DPV mentions *is* an issue. The internet is full of shit and everyone knows it. If you're no better than the rest of the net, then you're just shit. The amount of support child porn gets from this community is astonishing and worrying. And it has kept a number of people I know from ever bothering to come back. (That number is 3, btw). \
FWIW, I don't care so much. I'm far more anti-dark than anti-scootabelle or w/e is the flavor of the week.
1161017
My 15 y/o writing was shit too. It's probably part of being a teen. I hate CMS bullshit and have often mentioned that grammar ain't everything, but then I read a fic that had three editors and still has so many errors in the opening paragraph that I can't finish it.
I also think that being 15 has a lot to do with liking what I call "Linkin Park" fiction. Usually labeled [sad] and/or [dark], these are commonly commented on as being "deep". I'm sure you can find your own examples.
Being 15 and liking that isn't a problem to me. I'm perfectly satisfied only to have people who want to read fic read my stories. Then, I have no aspirations to become a professional writer of any kind. The fact I'm selling copies of my most popular work amazes me. I do not care to force people to see me as legit, because I'm not convinced I am. To be fair, I don't think many of the Tom Clancy's Net Force, Forgotten Realms, Star Wars, Warhammer 40k, etc published books are any more "legit" than my words. They're just licensed.
The problem with the Linkin Park-type fics is entirely the fact that much of the fandom that reads fics IS 15 and CONSTANTLY goes on about them. My Little Dashie is the face of horsewords primarily because of people who aren't discerning or emotionally mature. To people who are, it makes the entirety of ficdom look like emotionally underdeveloped 15 year olds. No one who ISN'T that wants to dip their toe in crazy. So, in terms of applause or condemnation, I think stapling a "keep at it :D" sticker to the back of their head is where I'd go.
1160978
One problem, I think, is that EqD has gotten a lot of /fic/ reviewers as pre-readers lately. They tend to be far more concerned with grammar than normal people. They USED to recruit popular authors. Most of those burnt out or didn't ever want to deal with it. Now they are churning through /fic/ reviewers. Eventually, those will all quit too.
The other part of the problem is that no one wants to deal with That Guy. If a terrible story that makes you hate the world a little more comes through, it's a lot easier to kill it for grammar (which can be "proved") than for subjective reasons. This is a byproduct of trying to send back reasons for rejections instead of the usually "yes/no".
I would honestly love a site that posted the top 10% of fics. I think EqD doesn't post enough, but fimfic is worthless nearly, because it posts almost everything.
1161134
i guess i'm just questioning why anyone who's dismissing fanfiction as a whole would be compelled to read something about why they should read something, when it's easier not to read anything at all. i think spinning a story in an attractive fashion might have some merit to it, but there's still an entrenched bias to overcome, and i'm not sure that's doable without completely upturning the foundation of fic perception in the first place.
in regards to the unsavoury stuff, i guess i'll have to concede that other people have different thresholds for tolerance related to awareness; if i was interested in something, i'd find it pretty easy to put on blinders to focus on the parts of it i liked (which i'm kind of doing right now, along with everyone else who engages in specific facets of the community) - the fact that it exists isn't a nice pretty ribbon on our fandom's lapel, but i think overstating its importance in comparison to focusing on the value of the good, rather than bemoaning the bad.
i think in regards to EQD's role in all this, there is a big part to be played, but i'm not sure to what degree EQD and the prereaders see perceive their own significance to be. in my mind, there are a great many stories that get posted to this site and shared around that are well worth everyone's time to read; but again, speaking from personal experience, there seems to be a difficulty of separating personal preference from 'worth' of anyone's attention - not necessarily objective worth, but maybe even saying 'hey this is cool you should give it a look'.
i don't know that i agree with saying grammar is a big stumbling block - it's a difficult one to land on, because to someone whose used to it being second nature, misplaced commas and grammatical errors can be a really bit stumbling block to enjoying a story. i'll usually go a few pages into something before realizing i'm not going to be capable of parsing it due to errors before giving up. i admit that i'm probably in the minority over that though.
wasn't there a big poll about changing EQD's fanfiction structure a while ago? did anything come of that?
1161150
The poll. One of the things that came from it is, my opinion on what they should do was asked. They are also trying to come up with a standard response form. The grammar issue and rejecting enjoyable fics because of grammar has been mentioned and I think enough of them want to try to change that, so I hope it's going to happen. The bad news is that they are also going to a form-style rejection. No more multi page notes from EqD. Some may elect to, on their own email/fimfic accounts, help out, but a short bullet point list is the goal. One thing it will do is allow faster turn around time.
I've also propsed that strike go away and instead utilize a timeout system. "Don't re-submit for at least $x weeks" or something. If a fic is improving each time it comes back and it's not coming back more than one or twice a month, I don't mind it. I HATED seeing fics fix the two example errors and resubmit. That is why strike were born.
1161063
i.imgur.com/Yz8o38u.png
Also, I have seen a few people who got into MLP because of fic. The Mechanic is one. I have seen a few people who got into fic because FoE and actually like the show too! The number of "I just like FoE and don't like the show that much" people do outnumber the former, but you can't do much about it. Somepoeple really do just want $OtherIP, but with ponies.
NOW FOR MY STORY AGAIN
I got into ponies because 4chan and trolling. I liked making /b/ explode. It was fun and relieved stress. Ponies were and easy way to do that. I posted them because it worked. When someone linked the episodes, so I went to have a watch and actually became a fan of the show. It's true I never would have watched without 4chan, but I wasn't a *fan* until I saw the show. Maybe that has something to do with my intense dislike of [human] and [dark] and [i haven't ever watched the show] type fics.
1161134
Noble did. But Seth pretty much made it impossible for him to take over for compilation; which still strikes me as an unfair practice. If you have a bar for standards, why be afraid of letting people try to reach it?
Put another way; I couldn't (literally could not) care *less* who does or doesn't want to sleep with crazy. I should have the same right as anyone to try my story against the gauntlet of standards.
I don't care about internet politics, I don't care what other TCB authors have said and done, and I don't care what people's opinion of TCB as a whole are. No offense; I don't even care what the pre-readers want, or don't want, or like, or dislike.
If we all operated by the logic of 'most of them are kuh-razy and toxic, lets hurt them and avoid them like the plague', then this world would be in a far worse position than it already is for bigotry and intolerance.
There is no valid argument to the contrary either. It is fallacious to prejudge someone based on the actions of others, especially in this context.
(As a side note; anyone want to experience *real* toxicity? Come be a TCB writer for a few months, and deal with the antis and the pre-judging audiences. Its a whole 'nother ballgame. Don't believe me? Ask Noble; he knows too.)
Sure, but the major bitching and allegations (founded or unfounded) of sub-rosa behavior by pre-readers would be overwhelming. I am of the opinion that making a process opaque is only a short term means of 'protecting' those who carry it out, and it inevitably leads to them abusing their power (intentionally or unintentionally), and/or being accused of doing so anyways. So the damage gets done one way or another.
A lot of damage has already been done either way; I've never met another Brony who had good things to say about EQD that didn't already work as staff there. I know that such things are a fallacy and prejudgment, but it is a worrisome trend nonetheless. Its not about how good or bad you are, but about how good or bad your publicity is.
I suppose I ought to clarify; what concerns me more is when stories get failed because pre-readers didn't like them. As far as I'm concerned, that's not a valid reason. Only glaringly vast errors, or a breakage of the rules, is a valid reason.
I don't want pre-readers to pass/fail on either what they like/dislike, or what they think *I* or the fandom would like/dislike. I will make all those judgements for myself, and I'd prefer that in the case of my stories that I have the opportunity to get them out there so others can likewise judge for themselves.
This is why I never trust single critics on a review; I need a great many aggregate professional and amateur reviews of something from differing viewpoints before any of the criticism becomes useful to me in deciding whether to consume that thing.
Moreover, It was not hard to discover that thing. The critics didn't get their say until after that piece of media was widespread and discovered. Critics have no business controlling what media gets discovered, and what doesn't.
I don't want one, or two, or even a small *group* of people, (I don't care how nice they are, or what their credentials are) deciding on behalf of me and potential readers, whether or not I have earned a spot on a site that will provide better discovery to readers, based on what they (as a group, or individuals) like/dislike.
I want them to decide based on set, unmovable, achievable, and fair rules and standards that I can hold them to as much as they can hold me to, so that if I do my work to fix any glaring errors, that I can have the chance to run the far scarier and more important gauntlet of audience reaction.
Well even in an ideal world, no one is going to like the idea of standards on the internet. Tight standards, or worse the appearance of tight standards, but in reality a situation where 'standards' is actually 'did a pre-reader like this? Y/N?' is going to inflame people like pouring napalm onto an open and lit stove.
Here is my problem; sure send a story back on provable issues. But if those can be fixed? Then in my view a pre-reader has an obligation to post that story, even if everyone present hates it and wants to light it on fire. It is, with respect, not your place or right to judge whether an audience will enjoy something or not based on subjective factors. It's just not.
Just like it's not my place to say "I fixed all the provable errors in my story, and followed the rules to a tee." I'm the author, so I'm biased. This (not deciding what you like, and don't like) is what a pre-reader is for; checking rule adherence and ensuring that the author minimized errors.
I agree with a caveat;
As a CSC guy I see Fimfic's problem as one of code and design. It is fine to post everything, as long as your system promotes an environment where stories that people will enjoy are prominently displayed and given accolades. You could even do away with EQD's fic segment in a perfect world where fimfic was properly coded, and just script up a mirror of the feature-box on EQD and let that be that.
The bad voting system, and its abysmal abuse, coupled with the appallingly poor design of comment votes and the feature-box design, and the atrocious implementation of the 'tag' system, makes this impossible for Fimfic in its current state.
TL:DR;
To authors, myself included; please learn to at least adhere to basic quality standards, and to take rejection with civility.
To pre-readers and critics and Grammar Nazis (but especially to pre-readers); let me show you a conversation I had just now with Noble;
Guardian; "Your job isn't about what you want, or what you like. hashtag; welcome to cold hard facts"
Noble; "Sad, but true."
Guardian; "No its not sad! I don't want ONE person's opinion of my story holding it back! F**K that noise! I want the decision to be the audience's, and theirs alone as a whole."
This applies to all quality-firsters; the opinion of a single person only matters when that person has a good relationship with the person they're giving the opinion to. I don't know most Grammar Nazis, or pre-readers! And in the words of Cave Johnson? "I don't want your damn lemons!"
I just want a basic, not-too-tight-fisted, not-too-loose quality-gate, based on set objective rules.
Put another way; I don't want anything from you that is subjective, unless I know you well and trust you.
1161212
> Then in my view a pre-reader has an obligation to post that story, even if everyone present hates it and wants to light it on fire.
I'm very glad you're not involved with EqD then. That line of thinking is fucking stupid. You essentially want to judge fics solely on objective issues. Which is exactly what your so called "quality first" readers do. Fuck that. All that does is eliminate people who don't have a modern copy of Word and the ability to read words out loud. You're still going to get shit fics posted.
>Put another way; I don't want anything from you that is subjective, unless I know you well and trust you.
Then stay on fimfic, I guess? Don't use EqD because, and this is the real cold hard truth, subjectivity is all that matters. In any form of media. Ever. Anywhere. This is why Twilight is a HUGE success despite being trash.
>Guardian; "No its not sad! I don't want ONE person's opinion of my story holding it back! F**K that noise! I want the decision to be the audience's, and theirs alone as a whole."
Then EqD becomes as worthless as fimfic. Where the audience *is* deciding. You don't want EqD to be a pseudo-publishing thing. You want them to be a signal boost blog. If you want to post somewhere where no one can tell you "No, this isn't good enough" or "We don't like it. No thanks" well, you're on FimFic right now.
1161254
I could not disagree with this more (and this difference of opinion between you and me illustrates the split I'm trying to put a pushpin on and classify);
Objectivity is all that matters. The difference between me, and a quality-first person, is that in a pre-reader position, I'd allow smaller errors to slide because no one wants to go back and move 10,000 commas that no one notices in the first place when reading.
I see your view as not only foolish, but self-important and arrogant, you see mine as silly and entitled. Hence conflict. But I digress.
Subjectivity allows pre-readers to reject a story based on things that don't reflect the desires of the writer, or audience. Rejection based on subjectivity serves no purpose, because you can not reliably align yourself to the desires of the audience. The audience is indeed so widespread, and so divided, that subjective gating has no business in media, because someone somewhere is bound to like content if it is at all consumable.
As an example; assuming the no-TCB rule comes down, I could go try to submit my stories to EQD. The first is 230,000 words long, so I doubt I could find all the minutiae of mechanical errors, but I'd give it a good through sweep first, and fix any issues on an initial send-back.
The problem with subjectivity?
If it so happens that most pre-readers have pre-judged TCB to be bad, then I'm shit out of luck, because you guys will find ammo to reject me no matter what I do, or how hard I try to be civil, and adhere to standards mechanically.
Never-mind that plenty of people might like my story; that it even convinced some who despised TCB before, to enter the genre. Never-mind that I've had people tell me it literally altered the course of their lives. You guys would even throw it out if Celestia herself could vouch for it, if you disliked it, because you have the power, and no one is holding you to objective standards.
And that'd be wrong; it gips me out of the chance to get a bigger audience after I worked tirelessly for a year to do something most people on this planet can't (write a long-form epic,) and it gips the audience, and it further gips everyone who then came and wrote in my sub-universe and would benefit from the original being seen.
That's why subjectivity has to go.
Correct! But as you pointed out; Twilight got popular. Who are we to tell it that it doesn't have the right to do so?
And you guys wonder why you catch so much flak?
If everyone keeps that attitude, I'll be surprised if EQD's fic segment even lasts another season before everyone burns out, or people cut it out of the loop.
Critics have no business controlling whether media gets discovered or not. You want to be critical of submitted work? Then use an objective based submission system, and combine that with your thoughts and feelings by appending two pre-readers' subjective reviews; one from a positive critic, one from a negative one.
Fimfic's problems stem from the fact that the audience *isn't* deciding, or rather not with working voting systems. The current system A; allows abuse (which is rampant), B; does nothing to help undiscovered stories get seen, C; forces genres to compete with each-other, which should never happen.
Fix those problems, and you wouldn't even need EQD in the first place.
I'm not sure I want EQD at all; not if the attitude is one where pre-readers get to 'shoot down' or 'kill' works based on subjectivity.
That's an arena I don't want to compete in, because no one can. It might as well be called "X Y and Zs' list of our personal favorites; bugger off to all else."
We have tumblr and twitter and favorites lists for that.
I am fine with hearing that. But not from people who are controlling my exposure. From the audience once I've been exposed.
1161212
Hoo boy, where to start.
Firstly, and most importantly, no. No one is obligated to post your story. Not Sethisto, not Knighty, not whoever operates FFN. At risk of sounding pedantic, a site is owned by its owner. They are entitled to operate it as they see fit, and to set whatever policies they feel are most appropriate.
As pointed out, there is already a site with nearly no barrier-to-entry: this site is called fanfiction.net. You appear to be of the opinion (correct me if I'm wrong) that EQD should have no restrictions, with the exception of checking a little grammar (but not checking too much grammar, for you state that you don't want to fix every last comma). You want to be posted on EQD because you want (or rather, feel entitled to) a signal boost, and that rejection by EQD means you are being denied an audience.
Now, there are plenty of stories on Fimfiction that have acquired several thousand views, despite not being posted on EQD. EQD does offer a sizable signal boost, I cannot deny that, but let's not claim that a lack of EQD means you're being deprived of a readerbase, because that simply is not true.
Let's take a step back for a moment. EQD generates a signal boost. Why?
One reason is that they restrict the flow of fics. Dozens and dozens of new fics are posted on Fimfiction each day, to say nothing of chapter updates. A potential reader on EQD can only read so many words in a day. If EQD posts more stories per day, this divides the reader's time and attention, and each story will receive a smaller bump as a result. That's purely math.
The other reason, possibly more important, is that, no matter what opinion authors may have about EQD, readers trust it. Yes, there's occasional spats about "why did X get rejected but Y get accepted." But there are a sizable number of readers (hint: it's very roughly the size of the bump you get from EQD) who turn to EQD as their primary source of fanfiction. Why do they do that, when they could go to Fimfiction instead and see all of the fanfics? Because, from a reader's perspective, EQD delivers. By whittling down to fics that the prereaders select, they strike a balance of delivering some, not all of the better fanfics, while not overwhelming the readers with too many stinkers. In short, the reader's average experience is higher than digging at random through Fimfiction's search, which is the point of a spotlight blog.
Because, let's not forget, EQD is a spotlight blog. Literally says "Powered by Blogger" at the bottom.
If EQD lets all fics onto it, the average experience is lowered. Meaning less people trust it as a go-to source for fanfiction. Meaning the "EQD bump" becomes much, much smaller. If getting onto EQD only afforded you five extra views, would you bother?
"But that's not fair!" you exclaim. "The opinions of a select few are determining what gets onto EQD!"
Yes. Remember, it's Seth's blog, and he appointed prereaders to help moderate the fics. Together, they are trying to provide the best user experience for the readers first, authors second. You can debate whether their practices are not serving the readers optimally, but any argument that starts with an author's entitlements is fundamentally flawed in premise.
"But it's only one group! Why should one group have all the power?"
I agree 100%. Enjoyment of literature is by-and-large subjective. EQD does not hold a monopoly on the concept of fic spotlighting, or fic recommendations (Arguably, EQD doesn't even do the latter). Rather than browbeating EQD, and forcing them to lose their readers' trust for the sake of author entitlement, we should provide readers with more alternatives to choose from, by introducing competition. I'd encourage you to read some of the comments in the other blogpost, where an idea is being kicked around for integrating user-generated reviews and recommendations into Fimfiction. Everyone—not just one biased group—is given a voice, and fics can be spread virally, rather than depending on a single group of gatekeepers.
1161442
Of course, I'd never argue otherwise. But you shouldn't always do something just because you can. That tends to badly impact your reputation, and/or people's desire to use your service. My assumption here is that EQD wants to better its system, rather than continue with existing potential imperfections.
People prefer to use a site like EQD when the people judging them for entry are just as bound by objective rules as the submitter is. We see this in things like sports too, where the referee can not just run roughshod over the rules, because no one would watch the game at that point, or play it.
In some sense it is. There are plenty of readers who don't bother with taking the time to search the wider archives of stories, and only look at what they're spoon-fed.
Without competitive alternatives? This gives EQD a monopoly (though, given the way the feature box is so responsive to EQD activity, it could be called an unintentional oligopoly, but I digress.)
If EQD's fic section didn't exist, or had objective bounds rather than subjective, or there were substantially different competitive alternatives, this would not be a concern.
True, but if you have a larger influx of fiction, you can institute a timer delay to ensure each day only has a certain number of items posted within it. That's *easy* to solve.
You're also discounting one of the other important reasons EQD is a signal boost, that has little or nothing to do with any of what we're discussing; it has been (and for now) continues to be a fairly popular site.
Its been around a while, and was around early (getting in on the ground floor so to speak) and thus it tends to be high traffic, at times even agnostic of factors that would otherwise drag it down. Nothing more magical or complex than that.
I would argue, in-fact, that while it is technically Seth's site, that because it has gained so much power, it is now invested with a moral responsibility to 'behave' so to speak. No there is no legal or pure logical boundary that says the site has to do this, or not do that... but once you begin serving a user-base and they become part and parcel of your success, from an emotional and moral standpoint they are like investors. And investors get a say in how a company is run.
Fewer than you think, and that's in decline to hear some of the pre-readers tell it. I think more of the reader-base is made up of readers of convenience; they're there because (true enough) only good fic gets through, but they never stop to think about the good fic that doesn't.
Apparently more than a few readers also distrust the site as a result of the subjectivity in the system, and its getting worse not better. That's the information I've been given at any rate.
That depends. I believe there is a balance of mechanical rules that would allow the ratios to remain relatively nominal. This is because I believe that if someone has to ability to produce something that meets basic standards (EG; fully readable, with no serious errors) that said thing is worthwhile enough that it doesn't 'lower the IQ of the room' so to speak.
Yes; I am saying that any story that is readable and fluid in the English language is worth posting to a signal booster, because the proportional effort that had to be put into it to make it passable means it is worthwhile to some reader, somewhere.
This combined with a delay timer for releases would prevent any sort of decrease to the bump, especially if you're careful to mix the ratios of types of fics released/updated each day to ensure that you touch on all the potential reader bases.
I disagree here too. I believe that the system should exist as much to serve authors as to serve readers, and not at all to serve pre-readers or critics. If a person put creative effort into something, I believe they have a right to at least get a fair objective shot at being signal boosted, without the problem of subjectivity to pollute the waters.
Mayhaps I'm just biased because I and my entire genre have been burned badly by subjectivity. I'll admit that's even likely. But you try living in the shoes of an author who's genre has been unfairly blacklisted, and then tell me you still believe in the power of subjectivity.
I won't argue with this solution, because I agree and believe that competition is always going to better any field into which it is introduced.
I believe EQD is already losing their readers' trust. And I believe the only way to get it back is to cut back on, or entirely remove, subjectivity. But either way competition is always a good option.
Even Creationists like me must admit; Darwinian natural selection sure as heck works, when it's given free reign.
I'll certainly take another look at that link (I've seen the post already, but haven't waded into the comments). I have an interest beyond the authorial in such things, since my major is in CSC and I have always been fascinated by the dynamics of online systems that deal with subjectivity problems where they meet computational and design problems.
I believe there is a golden mean where design and computation meet to solve problems of subjectivity. Somewhere out there.
1161315
I agree with you 100% on the failings of the FiMFiction coding issues.
Now I have a question.
Why doesn't anyone make the same stink about RBDash47's criteria for getting featured on his Pony Fiction Vault as they do about EqD?
You have a guy who runs a prestigious blog totally devoted to fanfiction that gives exposure and acclaim to several select fics which he has read, and enjoyed especially well for subjective and objective reasons.
He gets no flak for his decisions. As he shouldn't. It's his blog and he features the stories he wants to.
So when you have another blog that does not feature fic exclusively, they feature everything pony, yet has more posts regarding fic on average per day than anything else other than breaking news, despite fic being the least appreciated fandom community; they use less subjective criteria, they actually accept fic submissions and provide critical feedback, they feature incomplete and just published stories, they even made attempts to cater to subcommunities like TCB and FO:E despite them being decidedly non-mainstream and equally as disliked as they are appreciated; and they even seek community input.
But when it comes down to it it's their blog and they feature the stories they want.
Yet somehow their prereading team is considered a bunch of fuckers.
This might not be the most popular opinion, but the only fundamental difference between the way the 2 blogs are run IMO is that EqD accepts submissions, which means they give rejections.
By trying to be fair and accessible they have put themselves into the horrible position in any creative field of saying no to a creative person.
It does not matter if they are justified or mistaken in doing so. No reason will ever be good enough for a creative to have their creation rejected. Even if they agree, it will still hurt.
But what is more unjust is disregarding all the amazing amount of good EqD has done and does every day for the fic community because of a 2 letter word.
They might not be perfect, they might not be correct, but they sure as hell do more good than harm.
As for TCB, well it's not my thing. I have seen the same concept done better (Xenogenesis) and worse (The Host) and am not sure how such a misanthropic, nihilistic, OOC concept spawned such a devout subcommunity in this specific fandom, but to each their own.
I was sad when MSTs were banned. I was sad when Meta was banned. I am sad foalcon and rapefics and gorefics are allowed. But the truth is that no fandom is designed to cater to anyone's interests. Just be glad you can still post your TCB fics on FiMFiction and have a group to collect them all.
1161134
Oh if only the majority of foalcon was foal shipping with sex. If only...
1161464
Agree, I'm not trying to argue that status quo is god. I'm simply stating that changes must be made for the right reasons, after weighing all repercussions.
Not particularly, no. Let's say EQD posts 10 fics per day, but by changing the standards to be more objective, they now start getting 50 fics a day. You can either post all 50 fics in a day, and risk oversaturating the market. Or, you can post only 10 a day, but then accrue 40 fics in your backlog, then 80, 120, 160, causing EQD posting to fall irrevocably behind.
Hypothetical counterexample: I write a story where Dash breaks her wings and cannot join the Wonderbolts. Grammatically, it is flawless. Execution-wise, it is milquetoast and cliche, a story that has been told hundreds of times already in this fandom, and I put zero effort into making it original or unique. I would not want this story of mine to appear on EQD, because it would be damaging the signal-to-noise ratio. If EQD is flooded with gramatically-flawless Dash-breaks-her-wings stories, I'm not going to turn to them for fanfiction, because it would be impossible to find the good stories buried within. At that point, why not just use the New Stories feed on Fimfiction? The elimination of a few fics with run-on sentences is not worthwhile enough, and this comes from a guy who reads his share of low-viewcount fics.
Put another way, if every fic gets a spotlight, then no fic gets a spotlight, because spotlighting becomes meaningless.
I can sympathize with the pain of authors aiming at moving goalposts, and in EQD being called upon to serve the community to the best of its ability. I simply, again, feel that all repercussions should be weighed, and that dropping EQD's requirements to bare-bones grammar-only is not a positive change.
1161504
I can't speak to the wider world but personally? This is the first mention I've ever heard of this person, and his vault. Literally.
Isn't that a bit of a pre-judgement?
I find it silly to assume that sapience is somehow cross-linked with the human body (which could stand to be improved and/or replaced if we ever had the technology; which is kinda the point of TCB).
If you can keep the same mind, soul, and self in a better body why wouldn't you?
Especially if you're about to be put in a situation where refusing means death at the hands of a natural disaster.
Its also a pre-judgement to assume that TCB is nihilistic and misanthropic. Some of it is... much of it isn't.
Most stories strike an exploratory and optimistic tone not unlike Star Trek. Or put another way; no one ever accused the Bourne series of being misanthropic, but it is a lot more critical of the human race and nihilistic than TCB, and dark in its perception of sapient life.
1161616
I am absolutely, positively not going to argue about TCB. My only point with that paragraph was to set up the paragraph below it.
As for RBDash47, before knighty and FiMFiction there was RBDash47 and The Pony Fiction Archive. The Pony Fiction Vault is his version of a fic only EQD, containing only complete stories he considers excellent or noteworthy, providing full e-reader downloads, as well as interviews with each author which are also featured on FiMFiction's front page feed along with knighty's announcements, Wanderer D's writing advice blogs, and the Seattle's Angels reviews.
1161641
Huh. Well maybe I'll take a look at it one of these days when I'm less busy. Right now there's too many irons in the fire.
1160931
"Take me for example; I believe quite firmly in good storytelling. But I also have no time or desire to re-read what I write five times, and wait on eight professional pre-readers to go through each chapter twice, so my work can be EQD-perfect. I prioritize the speed of telling my story over having perfect spelling and punctuation."
Then DON'T PUBLISH.
You wouldn't want an artist to post half colored sketches and go 'good enough!' or a musician to post their backing track and move on, so why would anyone want to read a writer's work if they can't be arsed to do the work to polish it?
Have a little pride in your craft, man.
1161991
I do; enough to do one self-re-read and have two pre-readers do a once-through.
But I don't have any desire to spend a month in the pre-reading process. Its not worth *that* much to me, and never will be.
I find striving for *total* perfection to be a stupid waste of time.
1162030
If your method is producing stories that are getting rejected by EqD on grammar grounds, then clearly you need to 'waste' more of your time on improving your writing basics. Hint : Proofing as a method of going from draft to final manuscript is a writing basic.
It isn't that hard. The barrier to entry on EqD is absurdly low if you can string words together in a readable and grammatically unoffensive fashion.
1162036
I have no clue if they'd get rejected on grammar grounds; I've not yet tried. I have however seen stories rejected for extremely small mechanical issues.
Just recently, Noble told me one about a fic getting auto-rejected over mechanics issues that many pre-readers didn't have a problem with, because the one staffing the submit box seemed to have a problem with the author who submitted the story and effectively used the situation as ammo.
Not as I've heard it. But we'll see... (Missed the point of the argument much?)
For the record? Most of my errors are punctuation based and have to do with commas, hyphens, and semicolons. I tend to abuse them in minor ways to try and get the pacing that is in my head out onto the page.
Other than that, no in fact I do not need to waste time improving my writing basics; I was one of only two students to make an A+ in my undergrad screenwriting and upper level fiction writing classes, and I have not lost points one single time in my university career for errors of coherence.
That's not so very much in terms of the wide wide world; but it sure proves I know how to string sentences together coherently as far as I'm concerned.
1161616 My attitude, and I'm sure you're not going to like this, is that you aren't writing MLP fanfiction. You're writing TCB fanfiction. And that's not what EQD publishes.
Fanfiction is about writing stories in a world created by someone else—taking someone else's sandbox and playing in it. TCB stories and FoE stories are about exploring a setting that is not the setting of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. There's a connection, obviously, but the vast majority of MLP fans aren't familiar with either TCB or FoE. It's a bit like writing "Mork and Mindy" fanfiction and calling it "Happy Days" fanfiction (or "The Jeffersons" / "All in the Family", or "NCIS" / "JAG", all of which are spinoff pairs based on a largely diverged setting but techinically sharing a common canon).
Beyond this, it sounds like you think grammar and spelling are basically the only objective standards to which fiction can be held. I always take exception to this claim. An experienced reader can see a lot more than that. Are your characterizations consistent and compelling? Are you writing a tight narrative, or are you wasting words on weak prose that doesn't accomplish goals related to character, setting, plot, or theme? Are your conflicts well-structured or does the reader have to muddle along trying to figure out where you're going?
There's a measure of subjectivity in these things, sure. But there's a measure of subjectivity in all forms of measurement. I say I'm 5'9". I'm not. But I'm within a half-inch tolerance of that height. Reader measurements of characterization quality will vary, but generally speaking inconsistent characterization shows.
Now, I actually tend to agree to some extent that if a story is up to spec on all the higher-level writing skills, it probably deserves to be published. But if it's up to spec on those skills, it's going to be sucking readers in by the fact that it's a good story at that point—because succeeding on plot, setting, character and theme is, yes, basically synonymous with being a good story. So something like that is going to get published. But lowering the bar from "good storytelling" to "good grammar" is a fundamental abnegation of the craft of writing.
So to a certain extent I agree with you—a story that gets the things that matter right should be published. We just seem to have significantly different ideas about what things matter.
And you still have to contend with the fact that TCB fanfiction is a thing unto itself, outside MLP fanfiction.
I'm really not trying to be incendiary here. I can tell you care a lot about your story, and that you've had readers who have really cared for it. But you're basically telling everyone that you're entitled to have a major website dedicated to a different-but-related fandom prominently display your work as long as it meets minimal high school English standards.
Recognition is something you have to earn, through a lot of hard work that is not confined to just writing a story. It's not something anyone can gift to you.
1162150
I did a sort of Turing test on my work. I asked myself (and Noble; since he's a pre-reader, and I need backup to make the test valid) whether it would still hold up if I removed the FiM elements from it, or altered them so much as to be able to theoretically publish it for-profit.
Our conclusion? It would remain passable, but loose *much* in the translation, and not be close enough to the original work I created to bear the same name, or be good enough to publish.
Ergo, I choose not to accept your view for the moment. *shrug.*
If you want to make any further judgement on my story specifically, you have to read it. :P
My concern is that objectivity is not being enforced in the areas you list thereafter, and that doing so is a very difficult and shaky concept.
In short; what worries me is system abuse. It's the stories I hear of people getting rejected because they couldn't find an advocate amongst the pre-readers, and despite the fact that they produced excellent work, they got thrown out because the tyranny of the majority said 'We don't serve your kind here.'
Call me a paranoiac (It isn't paranoia if they're really out to get you) and you'd probably be right; but I tend to take the view that it is worth hobbling the power of web-based administrators, and even cutting into the efficiency of their task, in order to restrain them to very very specific rules.
---Assuming it has been seen by enough readers in the first place. You underestimate the fact that we have a specific hate group dedicated to trolling and rate-bombing our fics. These people made serious death threats against one author, in fact.
Don't ever assume that just because a story is good, that it is suddenly going to suck in lots of audience. Even without a dedicated group of haters shadowing it. I dug up two movies and a book this week alone that are *fantastic*, that no one ever seems to notice or talk about, and that have little to no following.
I read plenty of fiction, even here, that has never seen the light of a wider audience, and definitely deserves to.
I'd agree with you on what matters agnostic of entry standards... The difference is that you still trust pre-readers to judge those things, so you are fine with making those part and parcel of entry standards.
My trust is much shakier, because I was introduced first to friends who had suffered rejection, and then to the fact that my genre is unfairly denied entry, and *then* to the pre-readers after a fashion via one of them.
I prefer a world where we have to wade through a dearth of crap to get to good stuff, to a world where because we have a shining beacon of standards, we don't... but the beacon is based on subjectivity, so some good creators get left in the cold.
(An *Ideal* world is one where we have a 24/7/365 trustworthy and incorruptible way of measuring these important subjective aspects of stories)
You're not being incendiary, you're being quite civil and logical. I take no offense at that; you raise valid points, even if I find personal reason to disagree with some of them.
Also; any author who tells you they don't care about their story is probably lying.
Partially. I'd amend that to full high school level English rather than minimal. I wouldn't argue this at all if someone could present a way to bind the subjective with objective rules. To ensure that abuse of power never happens.
If you promised me a pre-reader who isn't biased against TCB? And promised that none of those who are would interfere with his or her judgement? I'd not be afraid to present my work to run the gauntlet of a high bar of standards in all areas.
My career requires me to be a decently good writer (Game Designer with a CSC major and Film Minor); I hold no silly illusions that I'm a great one, but I know from feedback in the university environment at 400 and 500 level story/fiction/screenwriting classes, that I can churn out content that could pass EQD's muster.
But my genre has been, to this point, banned. And we may or may not yet have finally won the right to submit. So forgive me (and I ask for that seriously, not sarcastically) if I'm a bit suspicious, and want to err on the side that benefits authors who get left out.
I feel like I would be walking into a kill-box by trying to submit my work to EQD, precisely because of pre-readers who will say 'meh, I don't like TCB. So I'll find some subjective way to kill this so I can get rid of it.' That's the kind of attitude and situation I want to render impossible with harsh and tight rules on the pre-readers' practices.
I still also take issue with the idea that TCB is somehow a totally separate IP. I've seen more than a few crossover and AU things on EQD, and Fimfiction alike, that no one complains about. Why are we such a specific target?
I could browse EQD's fic list and nail a dozen fics or more that don't fit the standard you just laid down.
I feel like TCB gets a bad rap even amongst those who like it, because lots of people say 'it isn't FiM.' Well how is it not? It has Ponies, Equestria, and often characters from the show interacting with the plot. That's the basic definition of fanfic yes?
Maybe there are some fics that aren't very much FiM-related. But Look at mine; they rely heavily on aspects of Equestria, specifically as we've seen it. The rely on specific villain characters, and on Celestia, and Luna as seen in the show.
FiM-based forces, characters, settings, and concepts are main drivers in much of TCB, mine included.
Not at all. If I write a piece of fiction that stars a new NCIS team, in a new foreign location, and deals with major new emergent plot issues... but it is obviously set in Bellisario's canon, and the plot is sometimes driven by past plot points of NCIS, and regular NCIS characters... then it is NCIS fan-fiction.
If I write a story starring new characters, that frequently visits Earth, and deals with a major new plot issue... but is also obviously visiting and relying on Equestrian locations/geopolitics/magic, and whose plot is driven by past FiM plot points in some cases, and by regular FiM characters... then it is FiM fan-fiction.
An elaboration on the meaning there would intrigue me. And I suppose what I'm arguing for, at the end of the day? Is better protection from unethical bias, and better treatment of my preferred sub-genre, so that I can at least have the door open to even make the attempt to earn recognition in the first place.
Discoverability is the thorny un-computability problem of writing.
In this particular situation it is hard on us TCB authors, because the system is biased against us, we have a hate group that follows us and tracks us to keep our work from being seen as far as they are able, and legitimately civil audience members don't take a moment to see how we actually fit into FiM fiction.
So it shouldn't surprise anyone that I'm not enormously trusting of the current pre-reading system.
I'm already the type of guy who thinks Snowden is a hero, and political parties should be forced to dissolve after a set number of terms to give new ones a chance...
I am 'that guy' in terms of refusing to trust people with authority. I want everything, including the kitchen sink, nailed down first. At the end of the day, even the very best of us do bad things with authority while no one is looking, unless we are restrained. I have no doubts the pre-readers are for the most part (if not in entirety) wonderful people. Noble Cause is one of my closest friends in the entire world, and he vouches. So I accept that.
But I see friends and family, and everyone else under the sun, abuse power all the time. Often unintentionally. And we need protection from that.
1162200
This, this right here is what I mean about it being a separate fandom. This is not the test. The test is whether you can remove the TCB elements and have the work hold up, and it should hold up with them removed, or it's TCB fanfiction. The test you're doing seems to be about judging whether it's fanfiction at all, and I don't think that's in question.
Now, I know I'm putting out a bit of an undue burden here. Yes, any crossover story is going to be facing the exact same issue. So I guess perhaps more properly TCB could be considered a giant lump of crossover stories? And as such, they would face the same problem as all other crossover stories: finding an audience among people interested in both fandoms, or alternately managing to be accessible enough to entice people who don't know both, which seems like a big ask.
I suppose this is my bad, but you're responding to a different argument than the one I was trying to make. What I was trying to say was, "if a story is hitting the important storytelling considerations, the pre-readers are going to like it anyway". No, telling a really good story doesn't mean you'll suddenly get new readers beating a path to your front door, but it does mean that people tasked with reading and judging your story should be sucked in and enjoy it, and want to publish it. Maybe I'm viewing the world through rose-tinted glasses here, but I just don't see much reason why a story that's well-structured and compelling wouldn't get accepted. (But, speaking globally, I don't see a whole lot of stories I think are so well-structured and compelling that they'd be no-brainers for selection)
But I guess really, it sounds like there's just not a lot of common ground for us to talk across. I trust the EQD pre-readers to do their jobs and do them well, and aside from the anecdotes that can run amok here—which I tend not to trust because the ones I've seen are never backed up with details—I've never really seen much evidence that the pre-readers are failing at what they're supposed to do. Whereas it sounds like you don't trust them to do their job... and yet it is their job, however anyone else feels about it.
1162218
By that rule, almost half the stuff on EQD should be immediately removed. No offense; but I find it as ridiculous as you find my assertion that pre-readers should only be allowed to pass/fail on basic writing mechanics.
Plenty of fan-fiction is crossover; it depends on both halves of the cross to make it over into the whole.
And I seriously doubt you're going to find many people who will agree with your way of seeing this; just as I will find few to none who agree with my ideas for restrictions on the pre-readers.
What we can both hope for is that the logic and the good within the conclusions of our debate will spur other creative minds to solutions that work for everyone.
Well we do have one advantage; the crossed-over element in our universe is self contained and original. Previous knowledge of another fandom, or IP, is not required. We promptly undo that by effectively being hard sci-fi combined with fantasy, in an adventure setting... But that just puts us back to even with other crossovers.
It is; but it can be done. Especially in a day and age where audiences are so huge, in total, that the law of averages states there are bound to be hundreds or even thousands of fans for any given IP combination.
Aaaaah. Apologies I misunderstood; let me redirect you back to my trust issues for this one. I don't have faith that the goodness of a written work can always overcome bias and pre-judgement.
I should hope so. And I have a good indicator; Noble Cause said he'd gladly publish it if it weren't for potentially dishonorable conflict of interest (So I campaign for the removal of the No-TCB rule so that I can try my writing with others to fulfill the dictates of honorable practice.)
But the problem is that not every pre-reader is Noble Cause. Some probably hate TCB to its core, and might do anything (including very unsavory things) to prevent my work from being posted if the rule was rescinded. I have no way of knowing; I don't know these people, how can you ask me to trust them?
When Chatoyance? One of, if not THE most prominent TCB authors, tried to post a story in a *different* AU? She got, as the folks are fond of referring to it as 'automooned.' For a few small hyphen formatting concerns that the box man of the day used as ammo to reject her. If she hadn;t personally known other pre-readers to advocate for her plight, she would have been labeled 'just another whiner,' when in reality she got burned by the system.
Bias. Bias is the name of the game here, and we all suffer it. What worries me is that there seems to be no admission of this, nor steps taken to prevent natural bias from running its course.
Its true; but I appreciate the fact that you make me question my assertions; they would be less valuable if they went unchallenged.
They shouldn't take it personally; I don't trust *anyone,* myself included and most especially, to do a job like theirs when bias could be involved. I require tight protections and rules because at the end of the day? I'm a realist when it comes to people's behavior, not an optimist.
I don't believe in 'closed proceedings, or 'sub rosa,' or opacity for the sake of 'protecting' those carrying out a task, or 'just trusting them because its their job, or they're nice people.' Holding a job does not immediately make you qualified to hold it, and being qualified does not immediately make the situation all hunkey dory. I demand, in all things, transparency, efficiency, strict rules on both leaders and those they lead, and checks and balances for all parties involved.
Man, for an author, you sure seem to think you should have a lot of power to dictate to the volunteers who accepted an invite to filter stories for a website in their own free time. As well, of course, as dictating the standards EqD sets for what gets posted.
News flash, man. It's a private site. Seth could decide tomorrow that they're only going to post Trixie fanfics from now on, and you know what? He'd be fully within his rights to do so, because it's his site.
You don't like it, you can make your own site, and set whatever posting regulations you like.
You 'demand' transparency out of a group of folks who only give an answer beyond posting a story or not because they want to be polite about it.
1161616
I would love to see this supposedly optimistic and exploratory TCB stuff you're talking about, because so far it comes across as humanity being forced to assimilate into pony culture at gunpoint. It's awfully convenient that this magical barrier just so happens to be hostile to human life and that Celestia just so happens to be unable to do anything about it.
There is one story that I've heard of, called Grayscale, that I haven't read yet, but it sounds appealing to me because in that story, the ponies really can't stop humanity's extinction any other way, and they have to deal with the soul-crushing burden of taking part in essentially erasing the culture of an entire alternate world.
My main reservation about TCB is that it implies that humans and ponies cannot coexist culturally. Either the ponies succeed in absorbing humanity or humanity fights back and declares war, and I'm not looking forward to reading any of that. Though reading Chatoyance's Brand New Universe stories gave me an idea to make my own spin on the idea. Maybe I can dash off a quick story in that regard between my FoE stuff.
1160913
Oh, that's what you were trying to tell me earlier. This makes a lot of sense, yes, and plays into the "reading is more time-consuming" issue that has plagued every author ever.
In response to a later post of yours:
I had an opportunity to talk with someone involved in the music community over the weekend, and he told me that the "Music of the Day" posts, which is basically what this suggestion is, only for fanfic, garner pretty much no views for the songs "featured" in them. People (who are not me) don't look at them because there is too much material to go through at once and/or too much extra clicking to perform. You would basically consign those stories to obscurity by placing them in a compilation post. I had considered this idea when it was first brought up back during the pre-reader survey; I have since changed my mind completely against it.
1161641
Pony Fiction Archive is still the best site for fanfic in this community, in terms of structure and feedback for authors, except that no one uses it, thus making its existence more or less moot.
1162030
I've been reading your posts up to this point. And I have been getting irritated, both with you and myself for being irritated in the first place.
The attitude expressed in the post I'm replying to is the reason why we strive to have standards at all. You only care enough to give your stories a pass or two; far more authors don't even care that much. And if an author doesn't care about their work, why should anyone else care about it? So the big, bad pre-readers sit up on our golden thrones made out of Chicago Manuals of Style and tell authors, "Hey! Give a damn!" Because if we don't, who will? Lack of caring leads to mediocrity at best, which leads to stagnation and brain drain.
You've got something of a point in the story vs. grammar argument, however. The fact is, any grammar-focused rejection is made under the onus of "the readers care about grammar". Because they do, to an extent. There's a threshold below utter perfection where I think it's permissible to post something (1 error per thousand words would be the absolute minimum allowable in my opinion, but that threshold must rise for longer works), but that doesn't mean that we as writers shouldn't strive for perfection. I do, and I still get comments a year on the down the line pointing out missing words in my long-published fics. But I feel like striving for perfection, even if we realize there's a point at which we have to say "Okay, that's all I can realistically do", shows respect for ourselves, our craft, and most of all our audience.
But the fact that I'm getting frustrated with someone who doesn't believe that? I feel like that's playing right into my fears. And I realize that, whatever the problems may be in this community, I am not the person who can solve them, because I'm pretty much a part of the problem. :B But I knew that when I posted this anyway.
Of course, I can't help but sympathize with you in certain ways, because I, too, just want some validation for what it is I do.