This Is One Of Those Meta-Titles About The Title Being The Title · 4:56am Jun 8th, 2012
Well, once again I've failed to quickly write more of SatR - please don't hate me!
In all seriousness, though, I'm getting up bright and early to write tomorrow!
Having no job besides my crappy weekend one gives me far too much free time, and thus I've begun to foster my gaming habits again (not that they aren't great fun, but it really stops me from being the least bit productive).
In other news:
Being still relatively new to Fimfiction, I had yet to realize just how much shit goes on here (and I don't mean that important stuff actually happens... as much as I like pony fiction, I think we can all agree that 99% of this isn't actually important). I've already seen plenty of the over done, poorly fanfictions coming in daily, but that's to be expected with any fandom; what caught me by surprise is the lack of users genuinely trying to help people get better.
To illustrate my point, let me highlight the two most common times of comments stories here seem to receive:
Comment 1: "cool story, I really like it (because it's ponies and my otp, but I don't want to come across as shallow, although I'm so clearly transparent) - TRACKED"
Comment 2: "oh god no... this is terrible and shit and you shouldn't write again ever" (not even going to come up with something clever for this; you know these types of comments)
I realize that not ever comment can be a treasure trove of literary wealth, so no, there's nothing inherently wrong with saying that you liked a story and your faving/tracking it (I honestly don't know what the difference is, and I've heard some of the people on this site are really elitist about that shit... but really? Like, that's what you're going to be elitist about? Okay...), because you're being honest. The real problem with Comment 1 is that far to many people resort to it, and don't bother to offer the slightest bit of constructive criticism or anything else (it just irks me when I write an "alright" fic, and it's just swarmed with Comment 1, and I think to myself, "Really? Did no one think that this could be improved? Not a single person added some constructive criticism?).
Now, Comment 2 shares a similar problem in that most of these people don't bother to add anything useful/insightful to their comment; they just insult and attack authors. Sometimes these people are completely right: some work that comes through the Fimfic doors is complete garbage and hardly deserves to be called literature (just because I want to foster new writers, doesn't mean I'm not going to be blunt about things). However, this does not mean that said people are always entitled to leave hurtful comments with not a single shred of constructive criticism; hell, half the time they don't even bother to point out why they don't like the fic, they just bitch about it and call the author nasty names. I think I've made my point, but I'll just say it quickly: These comments achieve next to nothing and are a waste of space where perfectly good criticism could be.
I know that there are people out there that are legitimately trying to help new writers get better, and to those of your out there, I salute you and wish to join your ranks. Do you know what I mean by that? Well, let me explain it, short and sweet:
Every once and a while (I'll decide a specific time period/schedule later) I'm going to come onto the front page and look for new stories that are quickly becoming attacked, and seek to help the author with honest and straightforward constructive criticism.
Obviously I'm going to skip troll fics and look for stories that are clearly written by new writers that are legitimately trying (though, it's often questionable how much they actually care).
So, to wrap things up:
-I'm writing more SatR, don't worry!
-I'm on a mission to help new and struggling authors! (some people might see this as an ego trip because I'm posting it, but hold on just one apple-bucking-minute)
-And finally: If you know of a fic that's gotten a bad rep lately, but not one has bothered to try and add anything constructive and/or intelligent to the comments, let me know. I'm also now totally open to reviewing requested fics (AKA, if you've written a fic and want an opinion and/or advice on improving your story/writing, just drop me a message/comment). I might consider doing pre-reading in the future, but if I do, I'll likely go to one of those groups as well.
Well, that's all for this, dare-I-say, needlessly long blog/journal post.
Have a good night/morning/afternoon/evening everyone, and look forward to more SatR (and maybe even other stories) from me soon!
yeah, I can relate to this.
The main problem though, is that a lot of people are just here to read, and don't really have the ability to make criticism, or are afraid to.
162450 It's understandable, as I realize most members are not people who have been writing for more than a few months (if at all) before joining the site. So, of course, back to my point of "there's nothing inherently wrong with saying that you liked a story and your faving/tracking it", which I would be even more comfortable with if people kept their comments based on the level that they can legitimately add to a conversation in a calm and rational manner. I realize that sentence sounds awkward (but I kind of like it), so what I'm trying to say is:
If people only leave comments saying they liked the story because they know the don't have the literary knowledge to add anything more, than fine. However, when you're going to state that a story is bad, you need to explain why it's bad, else you simply don't like it based on personal tastes; if you don't like it and you cannot contribute anything intelligent to it, then leaving nasty comments isn't going to help anyone.
I also agree that far too many people are afraid to leave criticism because they're scared of offending authors and/or coming off as assholes, but, honestly, all authors need to learn how to take criticism; learning to accept and acknowledge criticism is how we become better writers (hell, it's how a lot of us become better people in general).