(Don't) Listen to the "Experts"! · 4:05am Aug 15th, 2015
I'll admit, this is going to look unusually petty of me, but a certain incident today has got me feeling like this cannot be left unsaid. Everyone fawns over groups like Equestria Daily, The Royal Guard, Seattle's Angels, and all those snazzy reviewers who've got nice little English degrees, yeah? They're the experts, after all. They know what they're talking about.
Well... no. I'm not saying this unilaterally, as there are some points that they are correct on, and there are definitely people among those ranks who can clearly explain the rules of writing. But the problem is, most of them seem to cling too tightly to the "rules" of writing.
Take this quote from a TRG reviewer (name and avatar cut off for the sake of avoiding personal attacks). Now mind, this is someone who helps decide whether the group will or will not feature a story. He has one-third of the say on whether that fic gets approved. Also note that this is a group assumed to be so credible that they were granted site posts for their featured fics.
See the issue here? He's speaking in absolutes. And that's understandable. The "rules" of writing are written in absolutes.
But the rules aren't always right.
See, the problem is that professional authors—masters of the craft, even—break the rules all the time. They don't break every rule, and they don't do it for the sake of defying authority or whatever, but they do it. J.K. Rowling used so-called saidisms in Harry Potter. Ernest Hemingway used overly brown prose, and James Joyce used overly purple prose. Alice Sebold, author of The Lovely Bones, used the phrase "My name is" to start her book. All of these are things one shouldn't do... but they did. And they're lauded in spite of it. (Or in the cases of Hemingway and Joyce, even because of it. Many an author has followed Hemingway's advice of trimming as much as possible, and I've met a few people who admire Joyce's ability to turn a paragraph into multiple pages' worth of writing.)
How can this be? The rules are set in stone. We're not supposed to break them. Or are we?
The thing to remember (and the thing these reviewers seem to forget) is that learning the rules is only the first step to becoming a master writer. The second step is learning when and where the rules can be broken. In the end, it's about what's best for your story, and frankly, sometimes the rules get in the way. If you must choose between what is "right" and what is right for the story, always choose what's best for the story.
So... don't ignore the rules, but just remember that even the "experts" in this fandom are amateurs themselves, and they ultimately have only as much importance as you give them. Still listen to their advice, and definitely thank them for their time, but don't hang on their every word. The validity of their feedback varies wildly, as I've seen some great stories get trashed and some (quite honestly) terrible and bland stories held up as examples of great literature. Basically, the fandom's critics are people, and as such, they make mistakes. Do be polite, but do not expect them to be infallible or even expect them to be completely objective or correct. This is for fun, not for fame or for money (unless you're on Patreon, I guess. But then you're beholden to your paid audience more than anyone else.) If you like what you've written, or if your intended audience liked it, that's all that matters.
If you're still confused on what I mean, PM me or comment below, and I'll try to sort out any confusion or ambiguity. I also apologize if this seems overly aggressive toward reviewers. I was one of them, you may recall. It's just that they're not always right, and people forget that.
Now to wait for someone to miss the point completely and think that I'm butthurt over a rejection or something. Or for someone to stop listening to constructive criticism and start stagnating as a writer because they took the "ignore the critics" bit too far.
"Learn the rules. That way, you can break them."-Said by quite a few writers in history, and a few top tier writers at Bronycon, SEVERAL of whom were former members of the Royal Guard. A philosophy I adore personally, nice blog post.
"never use said-isms"
the actual friend? I always love when authors try to spice up the sentences with synonyms and replace tediosity (not sure if it's a word, but you know what i mean) with vivid prose, when authors always write said and does and thought in such boring context, i have a tendency to completely skip to dialouge and occaisonally miss important details in the small bits in between them, I love when authors care about how interesting their story sounds rather than just the story itself, what were they thinking
also I know, that's my own opinion and doesn't represent everyone, not even close, but I know I'm not the only one who thinks like this, and it seems shameful for some reviewers and authors to disregard such a viewpoint just because it doesn't fit within the rules or what have you. I usually strain to think (or google search) alternatives to said and similar verbs/adjectives because I feel like people are going to get onto me for not doing it, and when I'm done writing, (in the painfully few times I've done it on this site) I feel smarter and more author-ier (whatever that means)
remember folks, variety is the spice of life
I'm always a bit suspicious whenever I hear someone tell me to always do something or never do another thing when writing. It seems odd to me, seeing as how each writer is unique and things that always work for one writer may not work well for another, and things that never worked for one writer may turn out to be just what another needed. I find that the "absolutes" in advice are usually opinions rather than actual advice. I'll keep those bits of info in mind, but I hardly ever use them as a solid rule.
Great blog post!
3320861
Thank you! Personally, I think that TRG is the most credible of the bunch as a whole (Prak certainly seems to know his stuff, and he clearly demonstrated why the issues he pointed out were problems. And he's personally involved in quite a few of the approvals and rejections. They have/had a few other writers I respect as well. Still, even they are not without their problems as far as objectivity goes.
I know that there are a few struggling and new writers among my followers, and I felt this simply had to be said to them. I was wary about it, as advice on criticism is hard to express accurately, and it is so very easy to end up causing more harm than good. But when I saw the quote I included, I couldn't stay silent any longer. Too many developing writers blindly follow the advice of reviewers because they are supposedly experts, and it can be crippling to their development. After all, writing is an art, and art is subjective by its nature.
My advice? Write for your audience, not some arbitrary piece of recognition. Know what you want to do, find the best way to do it, and own it. The rules of writing are like LEGO instruction booklets: They show you a way of doing what you want to do, but no one's stopping you from adding your own twist to it.
3320932
I'm trying to be a proofreader though, but I'm learning slowly... And honestly, I have this question in general, why CAN'T we write GOOD fiction and FUN fanfiction? Someone once told me that I'm not a good writer because I cannot just accept it as 'just fanfiction' and that I take my writing to seriously... Well, YEAH I take my writing seriously!
Thank you so much for that!
Learning to write is like learning to drive a car once you can you discard most of the rules and find a style that suits you. Obviously certain things remain but if everyone writes the same then it would be boring
3320939
You can absolutely write good fanfiction that's also fun! Contraptionology! by Skywriter is a great example, in my opinion. It's a comedy, but it's also incredibly heartfelt and works well as a character study of Applejack. At the risk of sounding arrogant, my own story, Icky-Sicky Pinkie Pie, was well-received, and I had tons of fun writing it. I don't think it works too well as a story, but I wrote it as an experimentation with Pinkie's voice, something that I appear to have succeeded with. Similarly, any of my comedies that made people laugh
in spite of being unbelievably juvenile and stupidqualify to that end. As long as you're reaching your intended audience and accomplishing what you set out to do, you are succeeding. End of story."Good" is subjective, but for whatever definition you're using, there's undoubtedly some way of improving on that front, as well as someone willing to point out areas you can improve upon.
3320881
Saidisms are one of the more hotly-debated topics in writing, and for good reason. It depends heavily on style. Personally, I hate dialogue tags, and I try to minimize them, but I don't think saidisms are inherently problematic. It's a matter of how they're used and how often they're used. They can be an issue if the author is specifically avoiding the word "said", but as long as it's not a distraction, it's really more of a nitpick. Saidisms are picked on because they're telly and distracting, and an author needs to decide if the audience needs to be told how it was said or shown through body language.
To eschew them entirely is foolish, but unfortunately, many people tell new writers to never use them because it's easier than demonstrating proper use.
3320918
Absolutes are absolute bull.
(See what I did there?
)
Yes, caution is advisable when dealing with binary advice. "Yes/no" "always/never" and the like are more of guidelines. For most such cases, "In general..." should be inserted at the start of the sentence. Even with grammar, it's not an absolute. (For instance, a note from a character who's illiterate should probably include mistakes. If you're going to clean it up, you should at least have your narrator mention such.) It's 2:30am, so I'm struggling to think of examples, but I know there have to be better examples of breaking even the rules you would expect to be absolutes.
3321009 "ten and two, push/pull steering, both hands on the wheel at all times!"
*drives with one hand resting on the bottom of the steering wheel and the other lazily slumped over the gearstick, and steers with the palm of that one hand*
>tfw why am I still alive?
3321009
Eh... I think more rules apply to driving. There are laws that are actually enforced there. But I get what you mean. Writing is a matter of style, and there are few all-encompassing rules, if any.
To use your analogy, the rules are like speed limits. You don't have to stick strictly to them. It would be impractical to do so all of the time, so there is some give. But how much leniency there is depends on who you ask. Just as some people debate over whether it's within five miles per hour or a "Nine you're fine, ten you're mine" enforcement, people argue over how strictly the rules apply to stories. And much like drivers, authors can play it safe, or they can experiment to see how much they can get away with. And the audience is like the officers, deciding how far is too far. (Beyond that, the analogy starts to get stretched.)
"Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong."
– Neil Gaiman
One of my favorite writing quotes and advice.
Where's the dang upvote blog button?
Having seen the argument in question, I can say that you made your argument masterfully.
While I appreciate the effort for anonymity, it isn't necessary.
I agree with you completely, but what confuses me is that there seems to be this message that I'm taking an extreme totalitarian stance on 'the rules' while saying (in the part of the post you have provided here) that abuse of that rule can lead to a rejected story, and that leaning towards fewer saidisms (not zero) will help your chances with the big sites (or blogs, or whatever).
Nothing you've actually said here contradicts my positions on... anything, really. I'm not sure what the issue actually is. I don't find it overly aggressive at all, just confusing.
(EDIT: "They're the experts, after all." —Says who?)
3321162
Yes, that sounds like a good stance. It's much easier to point out problems than to come up with solutions. I've noticed that on some of my stories, where I or someone else look at it, notice that something's off, but we can't quite figure out what's off or how to improve it.
3321314
Heh, thank you.
3321453
I actually expected somewhat of a flame war over this, as it is kind of controversial. I mean, what is right and wrong in writing has been debated since the first group of people got together to make an arbitrary set of standards. So that's why I featured your comment anonymously.
You did clarify your stance later, but the issue is less of that specific instance or your specific stance, and more of that this is the feedback that a lot of struggling writers get. Some will press further and get clarification, but the ultimate issue is that they're told these absolutes at all, even if the exceptions to the rule are clarified later. These absolutes and set-in-stone rules are something of a trend I've noticed in initial feedback from... anywhere, really. (Except Equestria Daily, which has given me mostly subjective feedback, which is its own problem, at least in terms of sorting the wheat from the chaff.)
Some newer writers are fantastic about feedback. They're polite, and they ask for clarification on what they don't understand. Then once they fully understand, they make an informed judgment on whether or not to heed that advice. The issue is, however, not everyone digs further. For those who only hear the absolutes and the rules and how not sticking to them is terrible and wrong, it's really discouraging. That is the issue being addressed here, not any one review group in particular, and certainly not singling out any reviewers.
But in addition to that, I also don't want people to hang blindly on the every word of... well, anyone. Perhaps their intended audience, especially if the story is written for one person in particular, but a lot of newer writers assign far too much importance to the approval of any big review or critic group. I mean, Twilight's Library got assigned such importance, and that group was as close to the bare minimum as standards can get. I don't refer to any of these groups as experts because they actually hold such high standing, but because people treat them as such, and because some of them treat themselves as such.
I'll admit my argument was slightly muddled by frustration. I'm so tired of people judging their worth by whether or not they got approved by [insert alphabet-soup review group here]. Especially Equestria Daily. The Royal Guard is actually the one I'm least upset with, because even though it seems to hemorrhage approvers, it's still got fair, clear standards and I trust the people I recognize within the group to make a reasonable judgment on technical merit. And besides, your group makes no bones about the fact that it's purely technical standards, not actually on whether the reviewer found it enjoyable or not. 'S probably part of the aforementioned hemorrhaging problem, actually. In other cases, especially blog reviewers, I've noticed quite a bit of subjectivity bleed into the review, and people get discouraged because that reviewer didn't like a story that was clearly never going to appeal to them anyway.
Hear, hear. I actually had a blog series planned around clearing up "never"s, and you make me want to go revisit that idea.
Having read through the argument that sparked this post, what I'll say is that I think both sides definitely started on the wrong foot (and then rightly backpedaled in later comments) by saying something should always be avoided or never be done. Like you say, it's a matter of explaining the "rules", and when someone doesn't have time to (or is too fired up from reading an extreme they disagree with, or whatever else), I feel like they'll always tend to fall back on stating the easy extreme that they prefer. And I hate seeing it happen.
I agree with most of what you said, though I take issue with some of the implications. I'll note here that I don't have an english degree and that what I'm about to say is mostly my opinion, but I believe many will agree with it regardless.
The reason the rule exists—and the reason most online critics and reviewers will advise to follow it—is that new writers often don't use saidisms with a purpose in mind. Essentially, saidisms are useful to distinguish certain segments of dialogue as more important or impactful than other lines or to clarify the tone with which the speaker says their dialogue. As such, they're to be used sparingly, if at all. Well-written lines of dialogue convey the emotional state of the speaker without needing saidisms, making their use, as InquisitorM said, telly and redundant.
The commenter that InquisitorM was replying to essentially advised to use saidisms wherever possible. This is bad advice because doing so will leave the writer with the literary equivalent of a cheese-and-bacon-stuffed jelly donut which has been deep-fried and glazed with salt and sugar. Trying to make every line of dialogue feel impactful leads to every line of dialogue feeling the same and leaves no room for you to escalate things when you want to write climactic emotional scenes.
Once a writer understands why the rule of thumb exists, they can, of course, break it in artful and meaningful ways. That's why the authors you mention use saidisms. That doesn't mean the rule is wrong for new writers. All this being said, this issue really isn't a deal-breaker for TRG prereaders from what I've seen. Saidisms that are used a tad too often are generally given a pass if the rest of the story is good.
Another thing that irritates me—*shakes walking stick*—is when people encourage others to combat what they see as elitism by essentially being snobs about their own writing. Nobody's art is above criticism. Nobody in general is above criticism. If all you want is to write something you like and read it over and over, that's fine, but other people are allowed to have opinions if you post what you wrote on a public forum.
I'm sorry if this post comes off as combative, but this sort of thing really gets my goat. It does so particularly when TRG has recently revised their standards to lay a greater emphasis on overall storytelling rather than just technical adequacy.
<EDIT> Urgh, that feel when you post before hitting the refresh button and everyone has backpedaled and clarified what they meant since the start of the discussion.
Anyway, I should retract what I said about you encouraging snobbishness. That's not what you said. I agree with most of what you said anyway.
3321508
Understood, and fair comment. I make no bones about it: the comment was aimed solely at the reviewer as I think the advice given was god-awful and I wanted a stark counter-point in play. Personally, I'm fine with a bit of drama as long as it has two sides that people can investigate for themselves. I appreciate that even this sentiment tends to be considered extreme by some.
Absolutely. When I formed (well, learned, I suppose) my stance on dialogue mechanics, I wrote an article on it because any strong stance ought to be explainable rationally, rather than adhered to dogmatically. I believe this about pretty much everything.
Naturally, not everyone agrees, but in one-on-one conversations, I feel I've always been able to enrich authors who come to me on the topic (even if they disregard it from a more knowledgeable position).
As Neil Gaiman said, you can get away with anything if you're confident enough. Knowledge is a good path to confidence!
Totally agree.
That cuts both ways, actually. Sure, we pass stories that we haven't enjoyed ourselves – that's just the ability to be objective, or at least aware of other people's subjectivity. I've already passed such a story. On the flip side, a story can fail by dint of not being enjoyed, but it's usually only if nothing else is making it approval-worthy. I suppose it's more that we look for reasons to approve a story rather than to reject it. If I enjoyed it despite significant flaws, then we'll talk because I want to approve it. If the writing is exemplary but the subject matter bores me, chances are we're game on. Give us a good reason to publish and we will, and that's where writing quality comes in.
Well written dialogue makes for better characterisation, stronger hooks, and deeper immersion. The more you can sell me on those things, the less likely I am to find other issues insurmountable. Writing quality works: look at how many stories Pascoite gets approved. It's never a given, but it's a pretty safe bet.
3321531
Absolutely. I understand why some reviewers use blanket statements--it's quicker than explaining every time, and these groups have a lot to go through--but it's damaging without that explanation.
And for the record, I think blog posts explaining the rules and their exceptions would be a fantastic idea. Having a resource like that to link to would probably also be useful for review groups as well, since they deal with it so often. It'd save a lot of time, energy, and frustration on the parts of both author and reviewer.
3321536
That wasn't the intent at all, actually. I tried to convey that, but it probably got lost in my frustration at the practice of giving such overarching advice. I did say to be polite and listen, but I was warning more against hanging on their every word than against taking their advice at all. Technical concerns are a part of writing, but the only way to judge that is to go by the rules, and sometimes the rules are wrong. They're right more often than not, but some rules will need to broken from time to time. I was not aware, however, that TRG revised their standards. I applaud them for that.
Also, to clarify the English major thing, I harped on them because they seem (from my experience) to stick most stringently to the rules, and I've felt that with a few of them, their own writing felt dryer than it needed to be as a result.
3321544
I should have also picked on the PCaRG reviewer, since he or she did basically the same thing in reverse, but I don't think they're all that prestigious. I don't think they are taken to have absolute authority like some of the groups I've mentioned. They might be on the same level as TL. I don't know.
You explained the rule much better in responses, as did the reviewer, so I know it's not a matter of actually sticking to the rule no matter what. It just appears that way to amateurs, and especially when the absolutes conflict, it's frustrating and confusing. I think somewhat of a disclaimer on style may be necessary. Again, I think the Guard has a good system against that, since it takes two approvers to agree instead of just one.
I was not aware that things could be rejected for lack of entertainment, but it does make sense, so long as it's adequately explained. And since, as I have just been informed, the Guard is not just technical merit anymore, it falls more in line with the group's purpose.
3321531 I'd legit be interested in reading those. I'm a firm believer in there being a time and place for certain aspects of writing and not so much a "never use x because it's always bad" mindset.