Apr
28th
2013
Twilight's Bird Feeder, chapter 4 removed. · 12:53am Apr 28th, 2013
In light of some, thankfully quick, very honest criticism, I've decided to retract the recently publish fourth chapter. The chapter has been unpublished, but not deleted (so as to preserve the comments that were made) and the content has been purged.
I understand the criticisms that were levied against the chapter and will take them to heart as I endeavor to rework the chapter into something that is actually enjoyable and worth reading.
Thank you to bats, Echriedz, Blaze rod, Casual Quill, and Quillery for calling out my mistakes.
I apologize to everyone reading for wasting your time today. I only hope I can keep from disappointing you all in the future.
What criticisms? I am still working my way through it, but nothing seems THAT bad. Mostly just seems somewhat hastily written compared to previous chapters.
I rather liked the bit where Luna compares the library with Celestia's room.
1038999
The imagery in the chapter was beautiful. The technical quality of Hyzaku's writing is not in question either. The problem was with where the narrative went. Rarity set up a scenario explicitly for the misunderstanding to be cleared up. That proceeds to never happen. No explanation is given for why it didn't happen. It just gets dropped. Check for comments marked 'chapter 0' to see the complaints that were levied.
In short, I'll just quote bats:
I spent a good twenty minutes trying to think of a response to this, and I honestly cannot disagree with anything bats said. I fucked up, so I'm gonna fix it.
1039012 Thanks for the kind words as well. Makes me feel a tad less shitty knowing I did something decently.
Still completely pissed at myself for not realizing those issues beforehand.
1039012>>1039014
Okay, having now finished the chapter, I think I do have to agree with both Casual and bats. Luna in particular was grasping the idiot ball pretty hard.
I think you are being to hard on yourself. This chapter is salvageable I believe. I can even buy into the competition for Twi's affection, but it needs to be approached from a different angle.
this is why i wait till a story is complete to read it :)
we all make mistakes and it's hell easy to want to turn things in a different direction when a story is released chapters at a time.
1039014
I'm looking forward to reading the reworked version. I really do enjoy reading your work and I'm glad you didn't take my comments personally.
1039066 I'm always rather rough on myself when I mess up. I had fun writing it, and the concepts weren't necessarily bad... but I wrote myself into a corner really hard. In retrospect I know exactly where I screwed everything up. Sadly, it's because of how I planned for the story to progress and what I ended up doing with the characters went in conflicting directions and, instead of stopping and reworking things, I just shoehorned Rarity's little sabotage to force things to conform to the original plan I had set up back when I started writing chapter two. The way the chapter flowed organically into having Rarity actually suggest a proper solution was not in my original plan and ended up messing everything up that came after.
1039080 Yeah, but I'm not a good enough writer to get away with only posting completed stories. If I can't catch a fundamentally destructive flaw like this on my own, then I just can't trust myself to write an entire story before posting it. I love my pre-readers to bits and they've helped a bunch with technical corrections, but finding people willing to check for narrative flaws like this feels like searching for the fountain of youth. It's doubly frustrating knowing that a big reason I didn't catch it myself is simply because I'm the damn author and I couldn't distance myself enough from my own work to be objective about it until the problem was pointed out by someone else. The reason I pulled the chapter is because I know with near absolute certainty that, if I had read this kind of thing in someone else's work, I'd have called them out on it just like bats did to me.
1039099 I always, always appreciate honest criticism. I'm not afraid to admit that I'm very, very frustrated right now, but it's entirely my fault and I'd be loathsome individual if I took out my frustration on someone whose only intention was to be helpful. I might have a good grasp on language and narrative structure, but I know I simply don't have the ten-thousand hours of experience needed to call myself a master of writing. Self improvement is a very important quality to me. I love writing and I greatly enjoy it when something I do can bring happiness to others. The better my writing skill, the more fun the entire experience is for everyone involved. I get to convey my ideas with more clarity and my readers have an even better story to read and enjoy. Striving to better myself is a pretty obvious decision, for me, so I can't help but be thankful to those who take the time to help me improve.
Totally agree with Quill. The writing was superb, and the only problem I had was with that one particular scene. Look forward to reading the new version.
Twidash FTW
1039154 i wouldn't expect you to post it when it is complete, i just read way too much, that i can't keep up with what has changed or what has happened between long delays, so i choose to wait till a story is complete to start it now. but writing it all in one go would be jut crazy
1039178 I know there are writers in the community who do just that. Few and far between they certainly are, though.
I tend to not read more than a chapter or two on incomplete fics anymore simply due to a huge backlog of stories that just stop updating. I'm more than happy to sit and read a completed story over the course of a few days. And I also don't mind missing out on stories and ideas if it means not being subjected to perpetual cliffhangers. That's why I just put anything even remotely interesting into "Read It Later" and just trawl through that list once a week for anything that's finished to read.
1039080
With certain stories I wait until they are done too. At the Grand Galloping Gala by RainbowDoubleDash is the most recent example of one I deliberately waited on. But I generally prefer the opportunity to comment on the story as it is in progress, especially if I get to chat with the author while I am at it.
1039197 True. I don't mind following an updating story if I know I can trust the author to actually update. Of course, I also love being able to discuss things with authors too. Nothing drives me away from a fic I'm on the edge about faster than an author that never responds to comments on their stories. It's one reason I always try to reply to comments if I can think of anything meaningful at all to say.
I've just got so many fics in my tracking list that die before ever getting to a 4th chapter that I all-but-refuse to read the first chapter of an incomplete fic until I see the author's update schedule. Never ending cliffhangers drive me crazy. That's a big reason why I'm trying to focus on only writing for one story at a time instead of giving in to my ADD and hoping around to write whatever pops into my head on a given day.
1039222
Some of the stories with bigger followings I can understand if I never get a reply. Though, it is why I rarely comment if the chapter already has more than one page of comments. Though, I do have a problem where if I have actually interacted with the author in some capacity at a point beforehand, and I don't get a reply on the story (or blog), I start to think said author hates me now, even though I know, intellectually that probably isn't the case.
1039230 I'm not talking about the big-fanbase stories, I just mean when I browse the site and find, say a fic in the feature box that's been there for a day or two and has a page or more of comments with not a single one from the author. Seeing an author that can't even bother to respond to either praise or criticism is a huge turn-off for me as a reader. It gives me a vibe that the person just doesn't care about their work(s) or the reception they get. If an author doesn't care about their own works, why should I?
Half the fun in posting stories to socially driven sites like this one is being able to directly communicate with your readers and followers. I utterly adore recognizing people who take the time to regularly be vocal about my works. It's great to find those people that regularly comment on things and be able have conversations. I just don't understand how someone could completely ignore that aspect of being an artist, so seeing people like that just drives me away.
1039254
I am in complete agreement.
1039193 we have the same system
I also favorite anything i read, so then i got a catalog of everything i have read too. so there are some fics i gave negative reviews (mainly troll fics that where beyond stupid) in there, which is the opposite of a favorite, but whatever i use the favorite system to meet my needs.
1039178>>1039193
*quietly hides the 37,500 drafted words out of a planned 55,000 word fic that's not going to be released until it's finished* *whistles innocently*
1039254>>1039268
I try to respond to a lot of the comments on my stories and blogs, but to be honest I don't have anything to say to a lot of them. "Hey, I liked this," is a nice comment to get, but I feel like responding "Thanks!" is a waste of time. If the comment is thought provoking or asks an important question, I have been known to write whole essays in the comments to people. I try to be nice and approachable, and I take criticism politely (I also try to leave helpful comments on stories I'm reading), but even doing a round-up "Thanks!" comments to a dozen "Nice chapter," comments feels like I'm bloating the comments section with useless garbage. I hope that doesn't make me look unapproachable or that I don't care, because that's certainly not the intention.
1039311
) speaks well of both you and your readership.
Actually, the fact you take criticism so well is a major point for you, and the fact that neither you nor your readers tried to tear my face off for my comment on "Fluttershy Kicks a Puppy" (
1039324
I remember your comment on FSKaP. I knew going into it that it would be a rather contentious story, where some people found it funny and some people didn't. I don't think I actually responded to you...*checks* I didn't, because WolfeTrax said everything that I would have said in response. While I personally find the ending funny, the ending is also tragic, and the ratio of humor to tragedy varies based on personal aesthetic.
I'm glad you had a good experience with some of my more regular readers. A few of them can be rather bitey, although that usually only happens when someone stops by to drop am "I don't get Twidash, it's overdone and I hate it, go away," style comment. I can't really control them, beyond asking them to break it up if things get heated (which I've had to do
), so it's nice to know that they're not off-putting. 
1039311 It's always tricky making blanket statements. When I try to respond to comments, I do try to have something to actually say. Sometimes, "thanks" really is the appropriate response when someone drops me a comment filled with praise that's more complex than "Lol, that was funny." If the comment has meaning, I can usually find something meaningful to say in response. I do this because, as a reader, nothing makes me enjoy having left a comment more than acknowledgement from the author. Granted, I typically won't comment if I don't have something of value to say. As long as I leave a comment with a meaningful message, it means a lot to know my message wasn't completely ignored, even if the response is the author disagreeing with me.
For me, it's important to retain humility. I don't write stories just for myself, I write for other people. Doing something for the sake of others means that I should never distance myself from those who partake in my works. Personally, I find even the small, insignificant interactions to be meaningful. When something I made brought someone else enough joy, or meant enough to them that they were compelled to take the time to actually tell me what they thought, then the least I can do is try to recognize that and be grateful.
Generally, when I notice an author is ignoring the comments, it's because I had something I wished to say about their story and I was checking the comments to see if it was worth my time to type out my thoughts. I see it so often that authors just outright ignore criticisms (legitimate ones) that I tend to check for author responses before leaving any form of critique. If the author can't even be bothered to reply at all, then I move on and sometimes even blacklist them from my reading choices. With lots of praise, I can understand not always responding... especially if a story gets suddenly featured and gets a few hundred comments in a day or two. Not only is that a bit daunting, but as you say, how worth while is it to respond to generic praise? It's mainly when I see good, poignant comments totally ignored that my red flags start going off.
Of course, I'm also the type that loves teasing and misdirecting my readers both in my stories and my interactions with them.
Sometimes it's just plain fun to find out why this one reader thinks a fic is going a certain direction even if I know they are wrong.
1039347
On the whole, the actual comments thing on FKaP was a reasonably positive. I make a criticism. Someone makes a reasonable counterargument. (More reasonable than my own comment really.) No feels were hurt. THIS IS HOW IT SHOULD BE. I am usually a bit gunshy about leaving negative comments on a story I didn't care for, due to some past experiences (in at least one wherein I was the one being a tosser), but I also think if you feel strongly enough about something to downvote it, then you should at least explain why.
Note, FKaP is not the only story of yours I have read, and my view of your stories is generally a positive one. FKaP was more the odd one out.
1039361
I used to be one of those people who just say "good story" or other short comments. I was fairly nervous when I first joined, and it was actually about a month before I even left behind THAT much. I think the first story I ever commented on was "Eternal". Short replies of thanks were a major part of what encouraged me to start leaving longer, more thought out comments. A short acknowledgement is not necessarily meaningless.
1039361
This is possibly the most fun thing ever. There's nothing quite as satisfying as seeing people make predictions in the comments. I can be a little hesitant to respond to those for fear of spoiling my own story, but reading them is the best.
I think we probably have similar styles of replying. Maybe leave the informationless "nice chapter," "good story," "hey look an update" comments alone and respond to the more in depth ones, even if that response is only "Thanks very much for taking the time to write this." I don't always leave in-depth comments, but I'm of the opinion they should happen more often on stories in general so I like to let people who do make them know that I appreciate it very much, even if the comments aren't positive (especially if the comments aren't positive, honestly. How can I improve without knowing what I did wrong?).
1039380
No worries. As I said, I knew FSKaP would be a bit polarizing. That's the thing with stories, they are rarely liked by everyone. I try to follow Kurt Vonnegut's Self Assessment when writing, and one of those rules is: "Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia." So I tend to write stories that I personally would want to read. Fortunately, I seem to have broad enough tastes that other people want to read them, too. Most of the time, anyway.
1039380 I know what ya mean. I have a fairly negative history around a lot of the comments I leave on stories. It absolutely staggers me how much people will lash out at someone for leaving honest criticism on a story. Granted, I'll be the first to admit that I have a terrible tendency of sounding a lot harsher than I actually intend to whether I'm typing or speaking. To a point, I know I can come across as somewhat rude in my critiques, particularly if I don't make a point of clearly stating what I did like about a story in addition to the bad stuff. That's a large part of why I often check for author responses before I bother commenting, it helps me check the author/reader temperament before I end up offending someone.
I know part of it is how I approach critiquing, too. That most of my critique posts have taken around 2 hours a piece to write is almost assuredly playing a part in the reactions I get.
1039396
Wise words indeed.
1039401
This is one of many reasons why I don't (well, didn't anyway) do any pre-reading. I am often afraid to level criticisms on a story because I am terrified I will end up saying it in such a way as to either offend or hurt the author in question. As I said, the main reason I left a comment on FKaP wasn't because the ending rustled my jimmies, but simply because I feel if you downvote, you should say why. It bothers me when someone downvotes a story, and just leaves it like that.
1039396 Yes it is immensely fun seeing what my readers try to predict. I know when working on What Brings Us Together I ran into a lot of odd responses to certain things that happened. Like when I poked fun at RariShy, I clearly (or so I thought) foreshadowed Rarity being totally straight... and then a bunch of people got pissed when it turned out RariShy wasn't happening. Or, in the same story, when I had Twilight clearly state in chapter 2 that she and RD weren't having sex, when the topic came up again a few chapters later and I reaffirmed that they were still not having sex yet, some readers tried telling me I was wrong... about the story I was writing.
It was pure amusement.
1039414 Yeah, I find that even though my critiques are sometimes harsh, if I'm working with someone whose expecting me to offer honest critiques they tend not to get offended. If they do, then they weren't really looking for criticism in the first place, I tend to find.
I totally agree about commenting when you down vote. Except with 2nd person clopfics... they know what they did...
How dare they think 2nd person is a valid pov! 
1039425>>1039414
This is an interesting dichotomy here. I don't downvote fics. I've issued exactly four downvotes out of the thousands of fics I've read (and that's not a hyperbolic statement, I've read millions of words of fanfiction). One of those downvotes I changed my mind and reversed after pressing on another chapter passed my 'reason for downvoting,' because my curiosity got the better of me and I discovered the writer had miraculously managed to fix my problem. Two of those other fics have been obliterated from the site because the writer discovered they had written themselves so far into a corner they couldn't recover from it and scrapped the whole thing. Currently there is one fic in existence that has a downvote from yours truly.
I view downvotes as a very specific statement. What a downvote says to me as a reader, or at least what I feel it should say in a perfect world, is that the story has failed to live up to its promises based on the initial impression. I don't downvote for poorly constructed stories, stories with weird premises, stories that don't suit my tastes, stories with pairings I don't like/am morally opposed to, etc.
My feelings are that a potential reader, based on the description, can decide whether or not the premise is something they're interested in. Just because I personally find foalcon clop morally repugnant doesn't mean that those stories don't have their audiences. If a reader sees the description for some foalcon clop, they're not going in with blinders on. It's not really my place to judge those folks. Then from there, if the grammar or characterization is crap, generally speaking a reader can tell in a few paragraphs or even in the first sentence if they're willing to put up with it.
My downvotes are to serve as a warning. That warning is "this story fails to live up to what is implicitly promised from the description and first impression of the writing. At some point, it's going to veer off the rails, crash, and burn."
I have passed up on upvoting a ton of stories and have not favorited a huge number more, but downvotes are a special warning from me. Because, frankly, what isn't to my taste is simply what isn't to my taste. If I read something that I think is cheesy and dull, I won't upvote it, but I don't feel like it actually wasted my time. If it's too bad, I'll just stop reading. I think others can make that judgement call on their own as I did. But if a story starts off interesting, with a good hook and writing that's at worst not off-putting, but then five chapters later does something completely insane and out of the blue, flying in the face of the tone and type of story it was at the start...Like, say, have a mane six character accidentally commit murder (true story, bro), I'm going to throw up a red flag for others.
That's my take on the downvoting system. As an unapologetic romance writer, most of my personal experience with downvotes comes in the form of anti-ship votes, so it's hardly something that I actually pay attention to, going more off the number of upvotes to views more than anything else. But in a perfect world, it should mean something. So I behave as if they do.
1039469
That actually mirrors my own views on downvotes. Currently, there are exactly two stories on FiMfiction with a downvote from me, for more or less exactly the reasons you said above. I try to make sure it isn't about a personal reason (YMMV on if I succeed) but rather on what I think is a fundamental flaw in the story itself. I know that not everyone is going to agree with me of course, so a downvote is still an opinion, but that is also why I think one should comment if you downvote. If you think the story has a significant enough flaw to gain a downvote, then you should try to make the author aware of it. Even if the author does not agree with the assessment, it might still be helpful in showcasing a different viewpoint on the story.
Meanwhile, you have people out there who have downvoted stories as soon as the post (or before, somehow) just because they think M/M pairings are icky.
1039469 That's really what I wish down votes meant. As much as I'd love to be idyllic about the whole voting issue, I'm forced to use them in a more practical sense. I know that all an up vote means is "someone liked this story enough to click a button" and that a down vote is anything from a legitimately bad story to moral outrage to someone who just hates the author and thinks clicking a red button to express their disapproval is a power trip.
I will up vote a story I think is honestly worth reading. I will down vote when the story fails. Stories can fail for a lot of reasons. Poor writing quality to the point of actively detracting from the story, major errors in execution that go unaddressed and actively hurt the story, or if there is literally nothing about the story that makes it worth reading. When a plot twist totally ruins a story because the author can't get over his favoritism of a certain character, when the plot is shoddily constructed to the point of shattering suspension of disbelief, when the author completely butchers a character's characterization, when entire chapters are filled with inconsistencies and a lack of logic, these are things that make stories fail. My down votes are a warning against bad stories, against things that will leave an astute reader feeling like they wasted their time.
I could down vote certain stories preemptively, because sometimes you can just smell a turd before needing to look in the brown bag, but if I can't be bothered to read it and leave feedback then it's not worth my time to click a little button to make it turn red either; there's plenty of other people who will do that for me. I just wish we could see the list of people who vote, like we can see who is tracking a story.
1039479 Yup, I like to call it the "You didn't write what I like!" down vote tax.
I know I've down voted more than a few stories, but I've read a lot of shit. It's a fair enough trade off, I think.
1039509
It was still almost kinda funny how Bronius Maximus got three downvotes on a story before it actually passed moderation just because it had Shining/Big Mac shipping.
1039311 hah, you didn't touch the four fics of yours in my to read file.....yes i'm backed up and they are done. rainbow rambles, was so close the other day, but i read "third times the charm" instead. then another time i picked another over it too....but SOON! it's in the top three to read next out of 40 completed fics in my to read file
1039531 Okay, yeah that's actually kinda funny...still sad, but funny.
1039545
Haha, I know that feeling. When I'm on a reading kick (that is to say all the time I'm not currently in a writing frenzy...which has been all the time for the last month and a half, now that I think about it...
), I read something like 50-80k words a day. It's hard to pick what to read in that time. Much easier to deal with what to read when I writing and the answer is 'when updates happen, as soon as they happen.'
I'll be glad when this little novel thing is done. It's arrested so much of my attention for so long now. I wish I could write 7-10k words a day instead of 7-10k words a week. I have so many ideas, I'd still be endlessly busy.
The first chapter of Birdfeeder was pure gold, and honestly I thought it would be a brilliant one-shot. I was surprised it took the direction it did, and while you can tell from my stories I do ship TwiDash and TwiLuna like a madman, I can't disagree completely with previous comments. I would've gone for a rework of chapter 4 rather than vaporizing it, but I know from the earlier chapters that you can do justice to this story, where ever you take it.
1041887 I am doing a rework. I just pulled the chapter completely off of fimfiction while I fix it. I did kinda panic at first as I wasn't sure exactly how much needed to be rewritten but, having had time to analyze things, the big kerfuffle is actually one very specific line: Rarity's sabotage of the plan and the resultant lack of explanation. All told, in a best case scenario I should be able to fix it by adding the discussion Rarity and Twi had in the kitchen and just doing a bit of tweaking to the events after that. Hardly sweeping changes, but I'm still glad I pulled it when I did. It can be hard to get readers to come back after a bad turn sours them to a story, so I'd rather look a bit silly with all this than risk losing readers over such a simple, yet damaging, mistake.
Also, do forgive me, but praise from you is quite uplifting. I really enjoy your stuff and how you do so much with so few words.
Aw, gee, stop! Now you're making me blush!
Seriously, I was thrilled at Chapter One, and the rest is delicious icing. This is one of the rare stories that I read and don't care where the ship sails, because the ride is worth it. Please keep it up!
I miss this story. I read many many many stories in the course of a week, so to get one title to stick is a massive feat, one I hope you will continue to impress me with. You are among the ranks of Four of Two, After That Fateful Night, and Xenophilia, let's see if you can stay there.
