Dear Fimfic Authors... · 5:32pm May 29th, 2015
Beware of fan fiction "White Knights."
Having someone defend your story always feels nice. Its true, when people start criticizing it, sometimes the criticism can hit pretty hard and it's not as easy to ignore as say, some petty dude that's pissed off at you making false accusations and showing their ignorance on the matter. No, I'm talking about when people go out of their way and tell you what is, in their opinion--educated or not--wrong with your story and someone consistently denies there's anything possibly wrong with it.
But sometimes, there's people commenting in your story that actually have something to say, not to be mean, but because they want you to improve. They might criticize the content of your story, the formatting, characterization, etc. and explain why. They spend time telling you the issues you have and what to look for.
And then the White Knight comes in, brandishing the Lance of Idiocy and telling you that no, what these people are saying is wrong! What you're doing is fine! The White Knight likes it or isn't bothered by it, so it cannot be a problem! You should stay doing what you're doing and ignore those critics! What do they know anyway, as long as their opinion differs from the Great and Useless Loyal White Knight?!
These are the guys you have to be wary of, even more so than the bitter critics or trolls that tell you uselessly how your story is bad but never even bother suggesting improvements. These guys are actually dangerous. They foster passivity and lack of improvement. They feed your ego, effectively blocking advice that if you think about it could possibly benefit your story and your future writing.
You always get "well done!" and "loved it" and my personal favorite, "This is the best thing I've ever read in my life!" And those are nice and valid. You also get negative ones: "Didn't like it."; "It's crap" and my personal favorite, "This is the best thing I've read in my life!"
Sometimes you get jerks that tell you like the jerks they are that your story is not good for this and that reason, their attitude itself making their otherwise on-point commentary a waste to read and readily invalidates their worthiness.
But if you simply ignore all the criticism and don't even stop to see if it's objectively true, you will never ever improve as a writer. And listening to some jackass that tells you that everything you do is just perfect, instead of a more thoughtful or honest commentary is not doing you any favors.
So, authors, do yourself a favor: If you have a White Knight blindly defending your writing, appreciate their loyalty, but put their comments aside so that you can take an honest look at your work and the comments and decide if they have some validity.
This is the best thing I've read in my life.
3107889 My personal favorite! How did you know?
well done!
So a white knight is basically a black knight who, instead of shouting "You can't beat me! I'm invincible!", shouts "You can't beat them! They're invincible!"
3107895 Well, that's part of it. They also assure you that you are great and powerful, and to ignore the neigh-sayers for the fools they are.
This times a thousand.
It's a little difficult to distinguish who they are. I suppose it's something to look out for, though. Then again a "White Knight" could just be someone lazy who doesn't want to comment often.
Unless I'm your editor you have to mess up pretty damn bad for me to turn against you, I wouldn't say I'm a white knight. But unless I'm editing for you I won't question your story much either aside from the occasional type or blatantly obvious error. When I am your editor however I promise that I WILL find at least 1 more typo after you post the chapter... Every. Damn. Time.
3107901 Yeah, but basically, talking to them is like this:
"You write well, good Sir Knight, but the judging's over. This author's spelling is poor."
"'Tis but a nitpick."
"A nitpick? He misspelled every single word from the title to 'The End'. Including Twilight's own name."
"No, he didn't."
"Well, what's that then?"
TtWwaiililltet SWAppoqrtke;lkle;lkl m
"....I've seen worse."
I used to do a lot of critiques. They sometimes weren't all that nice. Actually they could get pretty brutal. They weren't mean spirited but more often than not, when I could tell a writer did something because they were purely being lazy or the like, I didn't spare any mercy.
I still critique, but in private now because holy fucking shit can the white knights crawl out of the fucking wood work, more than a god damn year later and just go on and fucking on about how me as a person, is this and fucking mean that, I'm wrong and the writer is perfect and Tommy Wasso is a gift to the world and just,
Dude
I wrote that critique over a year and a half ago.
The author didn't even respond.
And while it may be good for a laugh like what's mention a fore, I eventually stopped because it just got annoying. Even when I could say that the story does a lot of good but has some glaring issues, they still swarm and project their beta like a... Well, angry fan boys.
Constructive criticism always welcome. Even if I don't actually make the changes
Even if suggested changes are grammatically correct
Wait, there are people who take those seriously?
I mean, I love my readers, but some of the hyperbole I've gotten in comments… you'd think I started a new religion or something.
Udderly ebin.
Ah, the white knight.
So often he believes he is a champion of justice, but in the end he is always just trying to joust a windmill.
I have a creeping suspicion that I've done this once or twice without realizing it. I typically avoid addressing specific comments in stories, but given the frequency with which I drunk-read fanfiction, there's no telling....=P
3107913
I don't think you fall into what D was talking about. He's talking about the people who go out of their way to tell any critics that they're wrong and that the story is perfect.
I'm one of those people that second guesses my own comments. 9 out of 10 times I'll discard what I've written, not being sure if it's going to be useful to the author/developer/content creator/community.
But this time, Wanderer D, you are spot on!
Sometimes my comments might look like this kind of comments. I tend to defend authors and explain things. But I alway point out that this is my opinion. When I see comment pointing some inconsistency or plot hole. I tend to defend it by giving possible explanations why this is not such a big issue. But I just hate people glorifying stories, and attacking critics without any explanation for their point.
I am trying to keep a defined amount of positive/negative criticism. 1/3 if I think the story is bad (There is always something good in it, and I hate to make author feel bad) 2/2 if I liked it, and 3/1 if I think it was incredible (There is always something to improve. )
I would suggest to other commenters making their own forms for this. There is no point in Making authors feel bad or just drowning them in praise.
If this is the best thing anyone's ever read in their life, then they should go read more, because this comment is among the stupidest and most pointless things I've written in my life.
Yeah, I can go along with this, though I've seen a number of "critiques" that made me wonder whether the person posting had actually read the story, or just skimmed it and filled-in the rest from his own imagination. I can understand wanting to use a clue-by-four on such, but hey... Life's too short.
3107913
I would love to have you as an editor, or to have an editor to begin with.
Amen.
In a world where decent authors struggle to get anyone to actually tear their stuff apart so they can fix it, newbies don't know how good they have it when people swarm in to tell them where they're going wrong and what to do differently in order to improve. "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all" is really one of the worst pieces of advice we as a species have ever come up with. There can be no improvement without critics, and success is just about the worst teacher there is.
Amen
While I understand what you're getting at... I'm not sure it's a useful thing to talk about this way. For one thing, most people don't think they have White Knights, they think they have friends who are supporting them. Many people, including some people who have already cheered for this post (as well as myself) fall into this trap. Someone else's friends are White Knights, your friends are good writers who understand you.
And often those friends who are supporting other people do really enjoy their work, and/or disagree with the people leaving criticism. And sometimes those friends are right. I know I've seen critical comments on the stories of both friends and non-friends, and had to step in and say "wait a minute, Mr. Critic, this is the worst advice I've ever heard in my life. Author, ignore this guy and go right on writing." Sure, maybe I'm White Knighting, but I'm White Knighting because that critic is going around doing more harm than good.
It can be tough for an author to figure out who to listen to. Personally, my advice is to look at the reputations of the people you're talking to. Look at how they write their comments, what kind of things they say. If your critic is CluelessUser and is telling you that your story sucks because it's too long, and your defender is a member of Seattle's Angels or RCL who's telling that person that their understanding of story pacing is BS, that's not a White Knight. If your critic is a member of the RCL or Seattle's Angels, and your defender is your friend Joe, whose story has almost as many upvotes as downvotes, then he might be a White Knight.
Basically, smart people can disagree with smart critics, dumb people can disagree with dumb critics, smart people can disagree with dumb critics and dumb people can disagree with smart critics. It's important to be honest with yourself about who you're listening to and why.
3107943 nah, I'm borderline. I always have confidence that authors have their fics planned out, I have told authors to hold the course if they know where they're going... even if I do usually do give a heads up with that advice that they need to be careful.
If I'm editing though... I have made an author re-write a chapter before.
3108027 I did edit for you once a few years back (now I feel old)
Is White Knight a user or a group?
3108111
Not sure if a joke.
But a "White Knight user" is a kind of user, or a type of behaviour, where an user is fanatically praising a story, and trying to stop any criticism, positive or not.
3108097
Still not exactly what D's talking about. In your case, you're telling the author that you believe they have a plan. In what D's talking about, you'd be telling critics to shut up because the story's perfect. I think you're worrying about it too much, man
Kudzu could definitely learn from this. The chase is like DBZ. If it's the first big fic you read then it can do no wrong and is the coolest thing ever. But to everyone else the first 50 chapters just show wasted potential, plot points not quite being justified enough, characters slightly OOC, etc. But for every one making a measured criticism there were 5 defending his decisions who couldn't wait to see how he would explain the latest chapter's shenanigans, often times hundreds of chapters later. Since it's a million words long, he ofc gets around to explaining everything, but anyone who tries to critique his execution is disregarded as just not buying into his vision.
I hate to pick on him so much, but it's just a perfect example of this problem on a big scale.
3108140
Thanks!
3108036
Worse yet.
In a world where an author can get an actual response on their writing, there are many who are just wishing someone would just say something about it.
Thumbs up, Wanderer. This is great. Especially this:
Ha! Brilliant.
yea I agree
This is de worst thing 1 have ever red! It's s0 bad that 1 think u literally gave me cancer! the onyl way 2 clean dis stain off of your life 4ever is to nuke da WEBz!
Alternatively:
This is so glorious and right and you hit all the nails on the head! Please notice me, senpai! I will gladly lick the heels of your shoes if you so command me. This piece is a work of literary art and needs to forever be preserved. Above hater: go f*** yourself! Wanderer D is the best author on this site and if you don't believe it, you can go die in the fire that I will light under you when I tie you to the cross!
(All foolishness aside, D, you raise a lot of good points. White Knights and trolls can be the opposite extremes of the same problem: a lack of cohesive feedback I am sure a lot of other authors suffer from. Also, the troll part physically hurt me to write. I hope it entertained someone.)
Okay, I REALLY need to dig through yours and Obs's blogs and bookmark pieces like these. Lord knows I keep finding people who need to hear it.
Sage advice in a somewhat sarcastic way.
Pretty handy, actually.
~Skeeter The Lurker
3108185
RealityCheck has a lot of white knights too. I feel like he's gotten preachier over time and wonder if it's related.
3108062 I definitely agree with your point, I guess that's what I was trying to say with appreciating them for their loyalty. I mean, every opinion is valid on some level, right? But I figure, if they can only say good things because they love your work, maybe it's time to pay attention to what others seem to have issues with. In the end it's always up to the author.
There's a story I read once that goes by the name of "Mother," By Foals Errand... The story so far at the time was okay, but had some major, MAJOR issues. the author of said story tried to send it in to EQD, and when the inevitable rejection came along, made a poll asking if they should leave the story as is or what-have-you, or if it's good as is. They even said that They really didn't want to change anything because some ideas for the story that they had just wouldn't work then. Cue the White Knights skewing the poll toward the extreme side of "Don't change anything."
the comments were ridiculous, and when I tried to defend the EQD ruling and point out flaws that I saw were very valid, and make a case for a total re-write, it was of course, ignored.
Being a White Knight serves almost no purpose whatsoever. (Though I admit it's nice to receive what is essentially the equivalent of a pat on the back). "I love this!" or "MOAR NOW!" is NOT valid feedback. If you don't have much to say, at the very least comment on the story itself, your favorite part of the chapter, how you enjoyed this particular part of their writing style, ANYTHING. You'll be spending a mere five minutes doing so, and it gives the author something they can actually use, and shows them what they're doing right, and what others want to continue to see.
3108233 Thanks, Ponky! I actually thought no one had found it funny.
If an author actually cares about and requests constructive criticism of their story/writing, then White Knights are a problem for the author. Otherwise the critic is the "problem" for the author.
Most authors care very little about technical polish or writing to improve. They just either write indulgent fantasy fulfillment or gimmick fics for creative challenge. And their readers/fans lap it up.
It is no surprise there are staunchly ignorant defenders of bad fanfiction when bad fanfiction is so popular.
Yeah, I've had this kind of fan before. They're not fun to deal with.
3108702 I just read it again and it still made me laugh out loud. Very clever!
Always right on point, per usual. Thank you for your continued blogs with sage advice!
I'll be logging this one actually. I know a few people who need to see it ...
3107921 It's very important not to believe your own hype.
3108686 In fairness... trying to meet EQD standards can be a nightmare. Sometimes you just have to accept that story won't make it, and write another one, rather than waste time rewriting a story that, while flawed, was perfectly enjoyable despite EQD. They have lightened up a bit now though.
I have a problem...
I think I might be that guy...
3144218 lol, if that last review was any indication, you might, but then again, you defended very specific points and highlighted positives for something that was indubitably very hard to write, so you might not be necessarily a white knight in all his glory. More like a Sir Gawain. Yes. You're a Green Knight. Persuasive. Best of luck, bro!
3144440 You should read my comments on If Horses Had Gods and Prisoner of War. Once I'm more awake today I'm gonna go back over those last two chapters and see if I still agree with everything I wrote.
(Green Knight's not the same thing at all! Now I want to make a fic about him, though)
I'm too harsh on myself as a creator to possibly ever fall for a white knight. I love whatever I make for a while and I feed off it, yes. Give it a month and I'll think "Yeah, it was okay. But now I can do better." And that's when I rely on the negative/constructive input. Because negative input can help too, but only (ironically) in large quantities. If a LOT of people are saying "Hey! That was awful! Why would you write that!?" and are mentioning a specific aspect or portion of whatever you made, chances are you're better off not doing that specific thing again. As for the honest-to-goodness constructive stuff, bring it on! I am nothing if unwilling to improve.
Never Stop. Do Better.
Quotes from The Abyss and Fallout: Equestria, respectively.
AIP§