Word Cruft · 11:15pm Apr 22nd, 2013
I just ended up thrust out of a story and downvoting it because the author had too many unnecessary qualifiers. This isn't even "show don't tell" or an adverb hate-on. If you don't need to clarify something, don't. The worst phrase in the fic (before I stopped reading) was "just recently realized". The word recently adds nothing to the meaning of the sentence. It screams 'edit me for brevity' about as loudly as anything can. If it was a vocal disfluency as part of a character's voice, that would've been one thing, but it wasn't. It was in the narrative. It gets worse. The full sentence was, "There were giggles and gentle teasing thanks to Berry's invigorated personality from the booze she just recently realized was kinda strong."
Kinda strong.
That sentence could have ended with a period after 'booze' and the story would have lost nothing. If the strength of the booze matters, make it 'strong booze' and then stick a period on it. The point at which the character realizes the booze is strong doesn't matter. Frankly, if you're calling it 'booze', you're already implying that the strength of it overpowers the taste of it. Perhaps it is too much to expect authors to have a grasp of implication where alcohol is involved. Many people seem to regard all alcohol as booze. Even very strong alcohol can be better than booze. Has nopony heard of sipping whiskey? Philistines, the lot of you!
From there, the story goes from slight LUS to impenetrable LUS, making it hard to even keep track of who is talking and to whom they are talking as they do. Meanwhile, the grammar degraded and the sentences remained crufty. It's very frustrating. It puts me into 'red pen' mode. The concept is salvageable if the prose were reworked.
Bonus points: The author refers to the characters as fillies a dozen times during the story, which was quite jarring due to the age-inappropriate nature of the term. I'm guessing this happened because they got tired of calling them mares (71 times). The word 'filly' should be used more cautiously than that in a sexualized story. Which, yes, this was. That is why I am not linking it.
EDIT: I'm posting this as a blog instead of as a comment because I'm afraid of upsetting the author of the piece. Am I phrasing my criticism too harshly? Should I go comment on the actual story?
I would say go ahead and comment.
Maybe it will hurt some feelings, but the author can either take something from this or not. But if you DON'T leave a comment, the author has nothing to take away from it.
That and I always believe you should explain why you downvote a story.
You aren't phrasing it too harshly. So long as you can frame the comment in a non-vague manner that points out your attempt at helpful criticism, then by all means comment.
Even the most thin of skinned author on the site can accept helpful criticism. You are helping them by pointing out an issue that can be fixed with a little due diligence.
Well, despite how horrible your sample sentence is – and it is – the author would probably benefit much more from a polite critique than just a downvote. FWIW...
1027373
The sample sentence isn't that horrible. I think it highlights the nature of the fic quite well. It's drowning in petty issues. None of it is catastrophic, just an accretion of
until I can't take any more.
I don't know if I want to weigh in on whether you should post an actual comment or not. I often don't when I downvote, just because I don't want to risk getting sucked into a protracted discussion with an offended author about why their story really, really, really sucks. Then again, part of me thinks they deserve to know. Then again, the part of me that enjoys leaving long comments feels like I have better things to do with my time than try to correct people who get my downvotes.
I've tried to be a little better about downvoting just as a way of helping to keep the top stories list rationally ordered, but most of the things I downvote are still of a character where I don't feel like arguing about it. Generally, unless something is getting far too much praise for its quality, I only downvote things where I feel like the author is demonstrating a lack of interest in writing well. Most of what I read out of the new story list gets no vote from me rather than a downvote, because I don't want to discourage new writers, however terrible they may be.
Anyway, it sounds like I'm far happier reading about your experiences with this unnamed story than I would be reading the story itself, so there's that.
1027377 To my mind that's even more of a reason to leave a critique, even if it's a small one and to the point. Personal choice, though – they do take time.
Actually, I admit I have a problem with covering my writing with "suddenly". Oh, and "actually", too. I actually think I "actually" as bad as Quizzical Greystone if I'm not careful to self censor. Oh yes, and I suddenly realised that my other big problem is ponies who find themselves doing things. "Suddenly, Celestia found that she had..." is probably the prototypical sentence I've been training myself to eliminate with extreme prejudice when editing.
That sentence is pretty bad though. I would probably stop reading at that point too. Oh, and google will locate that fic from the sentence alone. Just pointing that out in case you don't want to identify it.
You could omit "The worst phrase in the fic", "It gets worse", and "Philistines".
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With all this encouragement, I did end up leaving a comment on the fic. I still won't link directly to it, but it's by SoulHook. The sum total of my knowledge of SoulHook is that they have a fair number of followers and they mostly write clop. I should clarify that I don't consider this a bad thing. I don't believe in a dichotomy between porn and art.
1027469
I didn't omit the worst phrase bit. I had to have an example to build around. The philistines comment was never going to be anywhere but the blog. That was barely even relevant, just me complaining about an old pet peeve.
I'm too late to the party, but I think you did the right thing. If you have a good reason for downvoting, you ought to explain yourself, after all. It can help the writer.
1027448
Your pre-reader is here to say that you also seem to really like 'for some reason' for, uh, some reason.
1027381
I think that if you downvote over the quality of the writing[1] you owe the writer an explanation of some description. I certainly like to know where both my upvotes and my downvotes come from. I'm sure you do, too.
[1] Rather than, say, deeply despising the premise or feeling that the characters are terrifyingly OOC.
1027531
Ugh. Fine, fine. I will do as you people advise and go provoke confrontation in a very unscandinavian way with authors of things I downvote.
Except for that one story, whose author I refuse to interact with.
1027531
I'm not sure that despising the premise is a proper reason to downvote. If my problem with a story arises immediately and exclusively from its premise - and everything wrong with its writing can be encapsulated in its premise - then that usually indicates a decent story for which I am simply not the intended audience.
I have to have some excuse other than its premise to downvote it. The entire concept of the crackfic is basically "executing a bad premise well", and they can be quite interesting.
1027538
Yes, Bradel, come to the dark side[1], give in to your kvetchiness....yesss....now go forth and conquer!
[1] We have delicious biscuits. Chocolate biscuits.
Dark chocolate biscuits.
1027542
Perhaps I shouldn't have said bad but offensive. You've run into stories, surely, whose premise alone is enough to make you question your faith in humanity in general. You know the sort. There's that unspeakable wretchedness that was an excuse to torment Scootaloo, for instance. I've only heard a synopsis of it, and it made me unwell.
That I'd downvote just of general principles and I wouldn't leave a comment, either. I don't think I'd trust myself to be civil.
1027552
Ah, yes. We've discussed that before. That's not quite what I was thinking when I said a bad premise wasn't a reason to downvote.
1027558
Oh, yes, I know. The mistake was mine -- that was what I thought when I said 'bad.' I'd never downvote a story just because I'm not its audience. No, it takes genuine foulness. Sadly, there's some about in this fandom.
1027531
"Actually," typed PoweredByTea, suddenly finding that he had omitted the last of his overused phrases, "you're right. For some reason, I forgot 'for some reason'."
1027552 I'm borderline on this concept. I'm inclined to agree with you on principle, but, I suspect there are stories that at least appear to meet this criteria but are actually decent (or at least as decent as their subject mater allows them to be). The particular story I'm thinking of, scared me off with the description alone (or maybe it was the description+comments. I forget). If left completely to my own devices, I would never, ever read it; but I keep it on hand just in case I find myself wanting/needing to give a comforting hug to someone unfortunate enough to have gone through something similar.
The thing you're describing I probably agree with you on, though.
1027687 Most stories I feel pretty comfortable just saying, "Okay, I'm not the intended audience for this, so I'll ignore it."
There are one or two I've seen (and skimmed), though, that I consider just so totally virulent that I feel perfectly happy to downvote them without commenting or even reading carefully. It doesn't happen often, but every once in a while someone writes something that I just consider completely beyond the pale.
Given that I've been one of the stronger voices in praise of Horse Voice's "Biblical Monsters", you can probably guess just how vile something has to be for me to feel so passionately negative about it.