Ranting · 10:06am Jan 14th, 2013
Yes. I realize most people followed because of my two mildly successful stories, but at this point in time I feel the need to rant a bit. If you find this entertaining, well good for you. Really this is just me expressing some frustrations I have with fanfiction and its writers. Also a quick note before I begin my madman's ramblings, most of these things rarely appear on this site. And without further wait have my ramblings.
The first thing that will always get me is the infamous first story line. Whenever I see that, not a care is given. Oh wow, you decided to take the brave step of reading fanfiction to writing it. Congratulations. But if you say that and expect me to come in and give compliments because you tried, then you have another thing coming. I mean seriously, I don't care if you have never written a story before or if you have written hundreds, I just care if it is a good story that is decently written. It's great that you decided to try your hand at writing, but don't expect me to be overly nice because of it.
Next comes the criticism warnings in the summaries. The whole ' I'll take constructive criticism but not flames' kind of thing. Seriously, you are posting stuff on the Internet, how can you not get some negative reaction. People who put this in their summaries tend to want to just get nice 'great job' and 'I love it' comments. If they hear some tear apart their story to help them improve, they take that as 'flames'. But really it shouldn't matter if you post things and it gets bad results. You should post things to express the story that you want to tell. And if you do put this in your summaries and actually accept criticism, then I'm not talking to you.
Honestly, the thing that people who write the stories to just get quick praise and an ego boost are aggravating. With any of my stories, with any of my writings, I openly welcome anyone who wishes to tear me a new one. You want to know why? Because it will help me become better as a writer.
And this segues into my next topic wonderfully. Comments. They are a great way to reach an author and say something about a story you like. But please if you comment, make a real comment. While hearing 'moar' and 'I like this' is nice, the comments that actually say something mean three times more. Why? Because it helps me know what I did right and what I did wrong.
The last little bit I am going to rant about is very specific to this fandom, and that is the word choice. My huge problem with word choice comes from the people who do not spend the time to use the correct terms. The best examples are with the pony terms. By this I mean everypony, somepony, and anypony. As a writer you are writing stories about techno colored horses in a society where they are one of the dominant species. Don't be a willy-nilly about it and use one instead of pony. You look at some of the best pony fanfiction out there, and odds are they used the proper terms, within obvious reasons on why the ideas would be ignored, like with HiE fics. The other little word choice that will get me all the time is reading someone use human appendage terms on a pony. This gets me because humans are bipedal and ponies are quadrupedal. This means they have fore and hind legs, not arms and legs. Once again obvious cases excluded, like anthro fics.
So if you are reading this after having read my long fanfic rant, feel free to comment. I say these things because I am a reader first and a writer later on that list. If you want to argue with me on these things feel free. If you want to give me an award for saying these things, don't. It's like the participation ribbon. There is no real need for it. I'm not doing anything groundbreaking, so there really is no need to try and reward me for it. Also feel free to add to this with things that you hate, like maybe blog post from authors that have nothing to do with any of their writing projects.
I am guilty of a couple of things in here. First, the whole 'constructive criticism but no flames' I am halfway guilty of. I have this in my author notes, but I accept all types of criticism. I see all sorts of criticism as constructive as long as it tells me what's wrong or needs to be fixed. But when you post 'this sucks' or 'it's shit', you have no excuse. Of course, I'm going to expect it. It's the internet after all.
But for 'one' or 'pony', while the latter is proper, I believe that its use is pure choice. It sounds good in the show, but what if somebody uses it in a dark setting? It feels like it would throw off the flow a bit. But I still believe that part is choice. As for human appendages, that should be a no-brainer. xD
The first two really bother me as well. Just because it's your first story does not mean that you shouldn't put your all into it.