Preach Electric to a Microphone Stand · 12:15am May 7th, 2018
I have entertained the idea of doing story reviews many times – mostly because there are a lot of talented people in this website, and I always thought that spending twelve thousand words relentlessly sucking King of Beggar’s cock in public sounds like an ideal Saturday. Sadly, I never started that project. Instead, I chose to befriend King of Beggars, and then proceeded to relentlessly suck his cock in private.
But I didn’t choose to step away from the review game because I was coy or insecure – I might not be the most active user lately, but if you think I would ever shy away from gargling mayonnaise, you’ve never read a blog of mine – but rather, because reviewing is such a fucking pain in the ass.
Like – I’m talking big reviews here. Swooping fuckin’ analysis of the whole thing. What works, why, what doesn’t work, why. How many genitals can I fit between my teeth. What makes the story worth your time. What makes it not worth your time. Yaddah yaddah.
In short, answering the eternal question: Is this story good? And fuuuck meee. That is not an easy question to answer.
See, accurately judging if a story is good is not the same as knowing if you like it. I like trashy terrible sometimes-pornographic-if-I’m-unlucky indie comics; that doesn’t mean they’re good. Fuck, I like them because they’re shitty. If they’re too good, I lose interest. But when you’re reviewing something, your personal opinion isn’t as important as the “objective” truth: is the story good, or does it just appeal to you in particular?
I tend to shy away from answering that, because I only have so much free time, and your mom is not going to fuck herself. But then, of course, this January I ran – and judged – a comedy contest. Which means I had to go and review forty-seven entries.
So, that was a mountain to climb right there. But, shit, did I learn things by climbing it.
Yeah okay so—this blog is nominally about (The Flesh is) Weak, I know. I should get to the point as soon as possible. But to talk about that story is to talk about public reception, or reviewing in general. It’s talking about story quality.
Reading, Writing, and Wreading
First thing I learned I had to do when judging that contest was to read every story twice.
No fucking shit it took me so long to get the results out.
Something that will never stop amazing me about the internet is just how many people genuinely think that you can write a masterpiece without having read a single book in your entire life. I’m sure somewhere in the wild there’s a fucking pilgrim who wrote the memoirs of his family without even knowing how to read – there’s always an exception, and it’s always a pilgrim – but as a general rule? Fuck me, man. If you wanna know how a story works, you need to read a bunch.
However, the opposite is not quite true. Constant readers make good writers. Constant writers, though? Absolutely fucking terrible readers.
I see this aaaaall the time. Go to any story on the site and look for the people who didn’t like the story. Read their comments. If the author got lucky, the comment is complaining about something that is in the story. If the author didn’t, the commenter is complaining about something that isn’t actually fucking there.
I’m talking about stuff like “This story is bad, because it should have been a classic Greek tragedy, and that means Fluttershy should have died due to her own fatal flaw. This means, sadly, that I can’t give this story a good score.”
Then you look at the fic, and it’s a Twinkie romantic comedy. And you softly, gently, whisper: What the fuck are you talking about.
Bad reviews aren’t new, but bad reviews written by writers are on a whole ‘nother bloody level. ‘Cause there’s this tendency they have, y’see, to rewrite the story in their head as they read along. Anything that doesn’t follow those guidelines is immediately a mistake, and should be called out and fixed appropriately. Anything that follows those guidelines is a good choice.
This is where all those “this should be…” comments come from. The reader (who’s also a writer, so let’s call him Wreader) makes a judgement call at the very start of the story, and then blindly fucking grabs that shit and never lets it go. Call it expectations, if you want – it’s still unfair for the actual writer, no matter how you look at it.
Because what’s happening here is that the Wreader isn’t telling the writer if his story is good or bad. He’s saying: this is how close you got to how I would have written this. A wonderfully masturbatory statement, but bud – know ye fucking place, Jesus Christ. If I were to judge all the sex I've had by the quality of my own handies, I would’ve died a virgin. Goddamn.
Mind you, I’m a Wreader myself. Like, big time. Whenever I’m reading a story, there’s always this nagging voice in my head that’s going “OOOH I WOULD’VE DONE THIS THIS WAY INSTEAD!” or “AAAH NO THIS IS WRONG, IF YOU DO THAT THEN LATER YOU CAN DO THIS AND IT’D BE COOL!”. At no point I’m wondering if the story, y’know, works. I’m too busy mentally jacking off.
Is this completely useless? Not really! This is part of learning how to write. Shit like this, when used accordingly, makes you a better writer. Doesn’t help the actual author you’re reading, though. You’re just pissing the guy off. Like, okay, glad that you really dig the idea of Pinkie fucking dying halfway through the fic and the rest being a wankfest, but can you tell me what you think about the actual thing I wrote, instead of whatever manifesto you just typed on your cortex? Please?
And, y’know, judging the comedy contest meant that I couldn’t do this. I had to be fair to the writers. Reading something twice helped – it meant that the first time, sure, I was wreading the shit out of the story. But the second time? The second time I already knew how the story ended, and how the story went. I could judge its execution without misunderstanding what anything meant, or without thinking the story was heading in one direction when it was actually going for something completely different.
I genuinely think that some of the media that you ‘have to consume twice’ before really getting it sorta suffers from this syndrome. First time we get to ‘em, we’re too busy expecting it’ll do what we want it to do, instead of appreciating what it’s actually doing. Second time, though, you already know what you’re in for. And then, suddenly, you like the thing.
Opposite also happens, mind ya. You wread something, and love it. You read it, and it’s like pulling teeth.
Weird fucking thing, I know. Not all writers are Wreaders. And that’s cool! Some are, though, is my point. Check any comment section in this website – or in the Writeoff! – and you’ll see what I mean.
Icky stuff. It’s insidious: you do it without ever meaning to. It’s just too easy to fall into its arms. Sorta like your mom. We always end up there, huh.
Three Kinds of Quality
This is the kinda thing that I could spend fucking hours talking about, so I’m going to go out on a limb and get to the point as soon as possible. Otherwise, we’re never wrapping this up.
In really general terms – and I mean really general terms – there are three ways in which a story can be seen as “good”, or in which a story has “quality”, defining quality in this context as “it does what it sets itself up to do”, or “it executes the idea with enough skill to be impressive”. Those three ways are:
Technically
A story with technical quality is one that’s well-written, to put it simply. When it has great prose, when it has a particular musicality, or great use of language? That’s technicality. Or when the dialogue is particularly engaging, or when it flows well. Descriptions sound cool, story’s easy to understand, easy to read, does weird shit with the prose…
All that stuff? That’s technical. Whatever that deals with the execution of the idea, the writing part of a writer’s job. This is the most ‘purist’ kind of quality, I guess. It feels like it should be what matters the most. It’s certainly the one I care the most about, although lately I wonder if that’s just preference. Guess that’s what the blog is about.
Conceptually
A story is conceptually good when the core idea behind it – the prompt, the plot, the story – is appealing, engrossing, interesting, or whatever adjective you wanna give it. More often than not, this tends to be the most important bit for the casual reader, and the thing the Wreader gets caught up in the most. If you write a story where Twilight and Pinkie smooch, the technicality is how you write it, which words you use in every paragraph. The concept is the fact that Pinkie and Twilight smooch in the story, and then they fight dragons.
Funny thing about conceptuality – if you write a technically great story with a fucking shit concept, chances are it will flop harder than my sex tape, but the few who’ve read it will say it’s amazing. If you write a good conceptual story but butcher the technical details, though? You might be popular! And also labelled as total bullshit.
Because a good concept goes a long way, but if the execution is faulty? You’re not doing it justice. There’s a high degree of wreading in this, if you notice it. ‘Not doing justice to the concept’ implies that there are better ways to write the story, so once again you’re judging the story not for what it is but for what it isn’t.
Is this bad? It sounds bad. Honestly, writing it down, it sounds absolutely terrible. But I don’t want to knock down technicality. Growing as a writer implies getting better at the technical details; conceptual shit is easy to nail down from the get-go, and the only limit – literally! – is your imagination. A story with extremely uneven levels of quality is always going to cause a minimum degree of uneasiness in the reader. Because in the end what this means is that the story isn’t as good as it could be – and I realize that this has a weird sniff to it of wreading (we’re judging it for what it isn’t, right?) but at the same time, I just said quality can be roughly defined as the ability of a story to be the best version of itself it can be.
So I think there’s a lot of truth in that, actually. I do believe execution, technicality, is way more important than concept. It’s not preference. Because a mediocre concept executed well can be an amazing story, but a great concept executed shittily will never fail to be, well. Utter fucking bullshit.
Sentimentally
Hah hah ooh boy. This is the real meat of this whole fucking essay, boys. This one’s a fucking doozy.
When a story is sentimentally good (which is a term I think I just made up in this context? But maybe I didn’t, I ‘unno) then it means the story is engaging. As in, you read it, and you wanna know what happens next.
And I can hear you already – wait, isn’t this, like. Something that happens if the story’s good already? Usually you get engaged in something because of the plot, or because of the prose, or shit like that, right?
Well, not really. Truth is, if a story’s engaging enough, people stop giving a shit about the plot, or about the technical side of things, or about anything. They become invested. They get into it. And it might be the single shittiest fucking story out there, but they’re into it, and so they like it, and so they perceive quality.
There are examples a-plenty of this, but it’s interesting to look at those that have this aspect nailed down, but fuck up the other two. I highly doubt I need to explain why The Twilight Saga’s plot is bullshit – HEY REMEMBER THAT TIME WHEN THEY GO TO THE WESTERN COAST OF BRAZIL FOR THEIR HONEYMOON BECAUSE I CERTAINLY FUCKING DO– or why its writing is absolutely fucking hilarious. And yet, a lot of people got super into those books.
Was it because those people were dumb? Not really. I mean, we’ve all liked dumb shit in our youth; looking down on this particular demographic is just fashionable, so we all do it. Eragon is another piece of shit with diehard fans. I love Harry Potter to death, it’s one of my favorite sagas of all time, and I will die on that hill if I need to – but I’m also aware I plain don’t know if the story has flaws.
I mean, maybe it does? I can’t see them. If you point them out to me, I’ll go “yeeah truuue” but then I’ll make a conscious effort not to think about them. Because I’m not being analytical while reading those books. I’m being emotional.
To me, Harry Potter was fundamental when I was a kid, because it was one of the first books I ever read. I grew up with those characters. I don’t give a shit if that seres is objectively good, because it's important to me, and that’s all that matters.
That’s the sentimental bit, in my opinion. It’s its own shade of quality. One most people can’t control, I think.
Because here’s the thing – whether a reader gets invested in a story or not tends to be something that the writer can’t control. You can polish your technical skills, and you can do some brainstorming to spice up those concepts, but the fucking feeling? Fuck me running. That’s on the reader. Me, I am into Harry Potter because I read it when I was super young, but unless you have a fucking time machine or have a really specific idea on what your audience is gonna be, this is a no-no.
Some people get into stories because they relate to them. Sometimes, the story is just so long that you get extremely invested (I’m sure right now that you can name a couple extremely long fics on this site that have dubious quality, and yet people are into them, because they’ve been reading them for so long that Stockholm Syndrome became a thing; I won’t say any names because that would be against the very point of the blog, though).
(I’m not talking about Austraeoh though.)
(I respect SS&E, god dammit. Fuck all y’all.)
Wait where was I. Right. You get invested.
I don’t fucking know – maybe the story is about characters you just really like, and so, you get so engaged in it that you fail to even notice the most glaring flaws in the text. I was a diehard fan of Allegrezza when I first read it, because Octascratch was my life and blood. I genuinely found it to be one of the best fanfictions I’ve ever read.
Then, uh, I got slightly over that pairing – still like it, just, not obsessed anymore – and tried to re-read it.
And.
Hrrm.
I still like Allegrezza! But, mostly because of nostalgia. (If you’re into Octascratch tho, check Mercy, Mercy, Mercy! that one still rocks). I was extremely into its more sentimental quality, and so I didn’t give a shit about the other two facets of the story. But once that quality “decreased” (which, seeing how it’s all in the reader, means that I simply stopped being so into it to such an irrational degree, because I would’ve fucked that story if I had the chance back in the day, let me fucking tell you), I could appreciate the other two.
And well, the magic was gone. But Aventis Astari didn’t do anything here – they wrote their story the way they wanted it, as best as they could, and it just happened to appeal to me. Then they didn’t do anything related to the story for a couple years, and then it didn’t appeal to me anymore.
Sentimental quality is completely outside of the writer’s grasp. WHICH BRINGS US TO…
I Wrote a Trollfic, a Story Purposely Designed to Be Lacking in Quality
And its name is (The Flesh is) Weak.
Right – look, I have a rather low opinion on trollfics. More power to you if you write them, or if you enjoy them, but if you ask me? Writing an ironically terrible thing still means you wrote something terrible. Trying to be self-aware about it doesn’t make it better, at least in my opinion.
Still, I also understand it can be fun to just let go and write bullshit now and then. I have no problems with that. Writing SHOULD be fun. Above it all, that’s something I will never discuss. Fuck suffering for your art – that’s something people say when they don’t know how to enjoy themselves. Fun is where it’s at. So if you write a trollfic because you genuinely like the schadenfreude? Screw it, I respect that. I’ll give you the fingerguns for that.
If you just write trollfics because it’s easier to be ironic than to genuinely try, though, eh. I’ll save the bullets.
So why did I write a trollfic, then, if this is what I think about the genre? Well, I had a half-serious-half-jokey idea lying around (Fluttershy gets pregnant with Discord, gives birth to the universe) that came out of an extremely serious conversation about what was the biggest thing Fluttershy could fit in her vagina. High art. The joke came from the context behind it all; the seriousness came from me saying “Fuck, y’know what I should do? I should play this shit as straight as possible.”
Only, y’know it was kind of too ridiculous a concept to do it right now and pull it off. So I just put it on the back burner, and thought, “maybe later”. Then a Writeoff round came by.
If you don’t know what the Writeoff is, it’s a competition where you submit stories anonymously, and then people vote on them. You’re not allowed to reveal which one you wrote. This is to maintain objectivity; by the end of the whole thing, whoever got the best score wins, and supposedly we all learn something. It’s pretty neat in theory!
In practice, it’s a bit of a mixed bag. The Writeoff people are nice, really, but the fact that authors aren’t allowed to participate in the discussion, the fact that you can’t edit the story, and the fact that everybody is specifically out there to judge your story’s quality and vote on it, instead of simply reading it and enjoying it, means that…
Look, to put it bluntly: 99% of the people reading and voting on your story are going to be writers. Who are actively participating in the competition. A couple cool outliers stand out (HI HORIZON HOW’S IT GOING YOU ARE GENUINELY ONE OF THE BEST REVIEWERS IN THE FANDOM DID YOU KNOW THAT), but most of the Writeoff crowd doesn’t read. They wread.
They wread hard.
Am I being unnecessarily callous towards the Writeoff? Maybe a little. They’re good people, and they genuinely try. But wreading is extremely common in there, at least in my experience. That can be frustrating, and I am anything but a mature person, so now and then I go full child and go aeh, fuck it, I’mma play a joke on them. So, knowing that the Writeoff tends to favor a certain kind of story – thoughtful, grave, ominous serious pensive stuff – I went and wrote (The Flesh is) Weak.
I didn’t really try to make it good, which is why I call it a trollfic. I just made up shit as I went. I didn’t care for technical details, I added random shit that meant nothing but sounded cool (repetition, parentheses). I didn’t care for the plot, I didn’t care for engaging the reader. I just made shit up as I went, because it was fun to throw shit at the wall.
I had a lot of fun! I also wrote what I personally perceived as hot garbage. Conceptually, it was edgy bullshit with no particular hook or moral or anything beyond the concept of Isn’t This Fucked Up, You Guys. Technically, it was a mess. I submitted it to be cheeky, to make people tear into it and try to guess which idiot had sent it, then see it’d been me all along and then ask me to fuck off in a friendly way. We’d all have a laugh.
In other words: I expected it to fail.
Holy shit, it didn’t fail. It didn’t fail at all.
I Failed at Writing a Trollfic Because I’m Hard-wired for Failure
Here’s the thing: I didn’t give a shit about technicalities. I didn’t give a shit about conceptual matters. But the writer has no control over the sentimental side of it.
Before y’all call me out for being condescending: I’m not saying that the readers just irrationally got into the gripping story of Isn’t This Fucked Up, You Guys. A bunch of people pointed out, rather poignantly, that some bits were engaging, in a technical or conceptual level. The repetition comes back in the end and ties up the story in a neat little bow. There’s an underlying theme about immortality that might be engaging, and adds a bit of depth to the story. Certain bits of imagery – count your teeth, and all that – stand out as particularly memorable.
It’s not as utterly shitty as I thought it would be. Because I was having fun and throwing shit at the wall, but some of that shit stuck. It wasn’t by design, sure, but how the fuck are the readers gonna know that? They judge a story for its final form, they don’t take into account the process behind the whole thing. If shit works, they notice. Simple as that, and authorial intent be fucking damned.
So the story didn’t fail. It didn’t win – a lot of people loved it, but a lot of people hated it, too – but it really didn’t fail. Then I posted it to Fimfiction (as explained in the previous blog, mostly to prove a point; the fact that it was THIS particular story was mostly incidental and due to the fact that I don’t have any other story to post at the moment) and more people hated it, and more people loved it.
This got me thinking about quality, and also about quality judging. It also got me thinking – is this even a good story?
Can we even fucking know?
I Have an Existential Crisis
So here’s what I think happened, at least to me. The writer has no control over the emotional side of things – and in my case, the story had fucking negative sentimental quality. I fucking hate this story.
Because that can happen, too, turns out. And some other people thought the story had positive sentimental quality, because, check this – they care about Fluttershy. Yeah, somehow it slipped by me that in a website about the MLP fandom, people would care about MLP characters, because I suppose my father was right when he told me drinking bleach would make my brain stop working once I grew up.
So my negative sentimentality regarding this shit made me absolutely ignore the good things it had. And the positive sentimentality in some readers made them ignore the flaws.
Because, no, fuck, it has flaws. Like, it DOES have flaws. Jesus Christ, the prose does a lot of weird shit and definitely not all of it works. It’s super condescending, in the sense that it keeps repeating the same shit AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN with no real bloody fucking—THIS THING.
IS IN THE ACTUAL FIC.
At one point in the story, Celestia sits down, and explains the entire plot to the reader. She’s talking to a statue. She just – she sits down, the pacing goes to a halt, and she carefully and painstakingly explains everything. No subtlety, no rhythm, no respect for the reader’s intelligence. Nothing! Just, here’s what happened! I’m going to literally tell you!
Then she gets up!
And she keeps talking!
Jesus Christ, she’s talking to a statue, halfway through she just fucking leaves, and then she keeps talking to the statue, because I couldn’t be arsed to come up with a way to make that shit work. That is not how talking works. That is not how statues work! Fuck! I was writing a trollfic! Or, trying to. I failed. But I was trying!
It’s absolutely not a perfect story. And all the prereaders – ‘member I’m ESL, so I gotta have those every time, most of the time – hated it. I was so fucking cocksure it was going to fail. I was so smug about this.
But—and this is a huge but—but all the people who openly hated it after reading it and told me about it? They all knew it was a trollfic. Because I’m an insecure twat, and I told them before they read it. “Hey, check out this hot garbage I wrote, isn’t it hilarious”. And they agreed! They thought it was garbage. But they already knew it was garbage. When presented this without knowing it was supposed to be garbage, most people lacked that negative sentimentality. And so, they liked it. ‘Cause they like Fluttershy, mostly, and this one happened to appeal to them.
Was it the repetition? The story has a certain musicality. Was it the weirdness of it all? By ignoring most literary conventions, I suppose I might’ve end up doing something fresh by accident. Was it just the fact that the concept is so ridiculous, and so – facetiously – played straight in key of horror that it kinda works?
I have no fucking idea. I went out to write a terrible story and a lot of people liked it. I think it has some glaring, undeniable technical and conceptual flaws. I also think I’m naturally biased towards this story, and that means I can’t judge it accordingly.
I keep thinking how it’s garbage, how I wrote it without thinking about what anything meant, or trying to make it better. I keep thinking that I have written much better stuff, because I gave a shit.
I can’t fucking read this shit.
I keep wreading it instead.
On Quality
So where does this leave us?
Judging the comedy contest, I soon noticed reading something twice is almost fundamental for some people – mainly, me – if they want to make a fair assessment of how good a story is. Enjoying a piece of writing is easy, but judging its quality is completely different.
What does that mean, though, for writers? For feedback? When you write a story, how do you know if it was good or bad? If sentimentality is so out of your control, and it affects people in such a way, how the fuck are you gonna trust anything? “I loved this story, it was great, you’re a great writer” – right, neat, great vibes you’re giving me, but is this true or are we fooling ourselves.
Yikes. Scary shit. How do you know if a story is good?
Well, that’s the thing.
I think we just gotta judge its quality and call it a day.
Maybe sentimental quality is not such an oddball. Maybe it’s simply something that’s slightly harder to nail down than the other two kinds of quality – but that doesn’t mean it’s forcefully bad, or ignorable. If a story has such sentimental quality that it keeps grabbing people, is it really that bad?
No. I don’t think it is. Because if it got people into it, it did something right. It does have a quality, it’s good in at least that regard. Maybe the other two facets of a story are a bit more pure, maybe they’re more objective – but that doesn’t mean that getting a reader to care for your story is useless, or that you shouldn’t take it into account.
After all, I’d be foolish if I didn’t acknowledge that sentimental quality and conceptual quality are extremely related. I can see people defending the idea that they’re actually one and the same – honestly, I kind of see it myself.
So maybe it’s not as complicated. We can all think of massively popular stuff that we hate, but if it’s popular, it did something right. Maybe it was just a good marketing strategy, and it’s not something that we should congratulate the writer for – but it still did something right. Much as we hate it.
So yeah. If you’re a writer… Maybe you should trust your audience a little? Always trust yourself first (I’ll always dislike (The Flesh is) Weak, I’m sorry), but be aware that you also have biases. Even if the bias is simply that you prefer one kind of quality to another kind of quality.
If you’re getting feedback, take it with a grain of salt – you should always do that nonetheless – but also, be aware that the story you wrote caused a strong enough reaction for the reader to give you said feedback. Something in there is good enough or bad enough. Find out what, and take that as a lesson on what to do and what not to do. We can always learn. But do make an effort to learn, because this is a two-way street. Nothing is perfect. Your readers might be blind to your flaws. Never grow complacent.
Crowdsourcing also works. It’s why the comedy contest had three judges; that way, whatever bias I have will probably conflict with the other judges’ biases. That way the quality of the story can be judged in a more appropriate manner. I do honestly believe the comedy contest results were fair. I do think we selected the best stories. I made a point of reviewing everybody who asked me to, in a way, to make sure that was set in stone – and so far, it seems that most people agreed. So there are ways around this problem.
And, if you’re a reader? Fuck, then the point of this blog is easier. Read. Don’t wread. Don’t fucking judge something for what it isn’t. Keep in mind that there are shades to a story – is the plot good? Is the writing good? Did I get engaged? – and try to juggle that. Read twice if necessary.
But don’t wread, because that’s actively harmful for the writer. You’re telling them they did something wrong when they didn’t. There are two sides to every coin, and reviewing is hard. It’s a hassle. Acknowledge technical and conceptual flaws, don’t just focus on sentimentality. Make an effort. Why do you think I avoid making reviews?
The Conclusion
I don’t think I’m going to try to write any more trollfics any time soon. I will host or judge in more contests if the opportunity arises, though. Call it personal preference.
Look, quality is in the end something nebulous. What we consider garbage today might be seen as a classic in the future. It’s happened before (HI JOHN KENNEDY TOOLE), it’ll happen again. What matters, in the end, is that you write what you wanna write, and that you manage to create something you, yourself, like.
I suppose, in the end, that’s always going to be the main moral behind my blogs. What matters is that you do something that you enjoy. What matters is that your own stories make you happy. Challenge is useful, and listening to criticism, and growing as a writer, and learning to appeal to people and learning to become someone people wanna read – that’s extremely important.
But that’s about growing, right? It’s always about self-growth. You do that stuff because you want to become better for yourself, because you want your stories to have quality. To be the best kind of story they can be. No matter which tool you use for them.
I won’t personally write any more trollfics because, in the end, they don’t make me happy. But if you enjoy them, keep enjoying them, and just because I’m a sourpuss doesn’t mean you’re in the wrong.
It just means our sentiments aren’t in sync. But, hey, we can live with that.
This feels relevant!
4855059
The one key difference between Aragon's attempt and mine.
Aragon:
> Ha ha oh my god how many people like this shit what the fuck
MrNumbers:
> Ha ha wait shit someone commented saying this is so sad it made them want to kill themselves jokes over jokes over aaaaa-
Aragon I’m going to eat your neck.
As an extensive pre-reader (including, once to our host here) there's a mental process you can use to try and help break you out of this habit if you suspect you're falling into it.
Before you begin commenting, consider the question "what precisely do I think the writer is trying to do here?" Like, actually consciously consider it, sit down and ruminate for some time not on the story, but on the goal of the story.
Then evaluate the story in terms of whether or not various bits of it are successful or unsuccessful in achieving the goals the author set out to achieve.
The single most common phrase I use in any attempt to pre-read or edit something is "I'm not sure this is doing what you want it to do." This frames things squarely in the context of "how is this thing I'm about to tear into helping, or hurting, the author." It centers them and not me.
Now, sometimes you are gonna be wrong about what the author intended. That, itself, might be a red flag for the author; if one person doesn't get what they were trying to say, that's probably the persons problem. But if many people don't, that miiiiiight be the authors.
But it helps a lot to consider the edifice that they're trying to erect, actually set out to do this as an actual goal. It brings you outside of yourself and forces you to engage your brain and question your own assumptions.
One exception here, because there's always an exception: sometimes, what they're trying to do is bad and worth criticizing in its own right. Some authorial goals are morally and/or ethically repellent.
Since we're taking off the masks, I helped Aragon with some minor proofreading of the story before it was sent to the writeoff. I was given some very interesting instructions when asked to read the story that immediately raised my suspensions, and I think at one point I asked him point blank if this was his Sic Transit.
And yet, despite that, I actually enjoyed a lot of the story. I knew it was bad in a lot of ways, but Aragon has a way with words, and legitimately enjoyed some of the lines and thought that the overall concept was at least interesting and unique. And I thought he set the mood pretty decently as well, monologues aside. I don't regret reading it, and I don't think anyone else who enjoyed it should either.
Also, ever since I picked up writing, I've definitely found myself wreading a lot more. It got to the point where I was legitimately worried that I wouldn't be able to enjoy anything that was the creme-de-la-creme anymore (I had just finished reading a bunch of stories by Horizon and Aragon, as well as The Mare Who Once Lived on the Moon and The Enchanted Library, so this was a legitimate concern as I was reading them with a very critical eye. Of course, they turned out to be the best of the best, so it worked out). And then I read a story that had extremely severe flaws on a technical and conceptual level... and adored it. And I never felt more relief than in that moment, because I was worried that learning to write had poisoned my ability to enjoy reading.
I've learned over the years that the last kind of quality is the only one I really care about. I'm willing to put up with all sorts of stupid ideas/plots and bad writing if I can get invested into it. It's why I still think fondly of The Twilight Saga, because I loved it as a teenager and it really helped me become the avid reader I am today. For all its flaws, I think I would still enjoy it on reread because of the memories it evokes.
Similarly, my current longfic is flawed. I wrote the thing over a year ago, and now that I'm editing it I'm seeing all these cracks that I don't have time to fix because of my weekly update schedule. I'm bandaging as best I can, but there's still a lot of stilted dialogue, telling over showing, and just general lack of flair in my writing. Not to mention all the plot holes and contrivances I've had to invent to fix those plot holes.
And yet, I'm seeing comments from people who love my story and are apparently really invested in it. And at the end of the day, I think that's all that matters to me. I want to get better technically and conceptually, of course, but as long as people enjoy my stories I am content.
Wait, is no one going to address the real issue here?
...how do you not know how to shave?
How do you think a electric shaver is just gonna make the hair disappear??
I mean, the blog post was interesting and everything, but, how?
Those tags are absolutely the best. Solid advice, too. I know I constantly have to avoid thinking "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if..." when reading a lot of works.
Proper reviews is hard, yes. That's why I don't do 'em. I mostly avoid the
wread... no, I can't do it. I can't enable your corruption of our beautiful English language. I mostly avoid the problem of reading as a writer except in a few cases where the author of a story just gets so close to something I really enjoy and then seems to swerve away at the last minute. On the plus side I've got the good side of it. My brain tends to automatically fill in plot holes and fix problems in otherwise bad stories while I read them. So that's nice!... Wait, that was a trollfic?
Oh goodness. This is how it felt when you realized that comic was porn, isn't it? (The Flesh is) Weak is my lesbian porn comic.
On a less staggeringly moronic note, very good point on the varying forms of quality and the distinction between reading for the benefit of the reader versus reading for the author. I admit, concept and the sentimentality in inspires are the doorkeepers that decide if I read a story... at least, one by an unfamiliar author. Technical skill is what determines if I can stick with a story, but I won't even put my foot through the door if that door doesn't intrigue me. As for reviews, I try to partition the parts I can use and the feedback the author can use as best I can. I may not always do the best job (and sometimes it really just comes across as a summary of the parts I liked best (okay, a lot of the time,)) but hopefully I'm helping.
As for the Writeoffs, I really need to get back into them, but I always feel bad with how I don't have the time to review literally every entrant anymore.
Hoo boy... I remember thinking to myself that it was sure to get a movie the first time I finished reading it, and getting all giddy when they actually announced the upcoming movie. And then I was kinda devastated when I learnt how viciously the series was being criticised for its flaws. For a long time, I thought the critics were either snobs or just plain jealous.
But holy cow did the author have an inexplicable infatuation with the word aye in the second book. It was noticeable even to me at that time, and I hadn't really gotten into writing yet. As I got older and read more from better authors, the more I fell out of love with the series, until I couldn't even bring myself to finish the last book.
The first book will always be special to me, though. It's kind of the real-life embodiment of sub-par stuff hitting the Feature box. I'd argue that it's a great way to introduce readers to the fantasy genre; it's easy to read, and it will look totally rad to anyone too young to be familiar with the symbiotic dragons concept from The Dragonriders of Pern, the plot of the original Star Wars trilogy, or the setting of The Lord of the Rings.
I find myself doing this with nearly every episode I watch these days. Do we call it wratching?
It's definitely something to be aware of when giving critique. Or receiving it.
Y'know, I saw the bit where you said the blog was about X story, shortly after talking about the comedy contest entries and I immediately thought:
So I read it and I wondered where the comedy was and if the author had completely forgotten the original prompt before realising it wasn't part of that competition at all.
And then I had to decide whether to upvote, downvote or novote.
I eventually upvoted because well, it was an idea I hadn't seen/read before and even though the writing and use of white-space was a touch awkward the concept came through well enough, plus the littler details pushed it over the margin.
(A truly poor author wouldn't have thought to make the body horror radiate. "count your teeth" indeed!).
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After reading the blog I thought of this exact story.
I feel like a good author is simply incapable of writing like a poor author.
With effort, they could make something literally unreadable but to make something which was only marginally readable?
They can't do it.
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I think I said this once before, Numbers, but it bears repeating:
The single most interesting thing about Sic Transit to me is that, if you had written it in 2010/2011, it would have been considered cutting-edge and brilliant, a true standout piece. People would have begged you on hands and knees for the "next chapter." Six stars on EQD.
Because back then that sort of story was all the rage; it was the newest hottest newest thing back in the dawn of days, ESPECIALLY pre-Changeling but post-Discord. Some of the biggest beasts in this jungle have written stories based on your exact premise there; some of them are still ongoing.
But you didn't write it then. You wrote it in 2016. The context changes the piece RADICALLY. I still sit up nights thinking about that.
Something else in that vein; right now Cynewulf is writing a "Luna adapts to modern Equestria, goes on journey with Twilight Sparkle" story. That's another genre that once upon a time was the newest hottest newest thing, back when Luna was everyone's waifu. Remember the abacus memes?
Only that was a long, long time ago. That genre died HARD and was entombed deeply. I'm interested to see what one of the best writers out there manages when they summon it forth again from its resting place, lay it on the slab, and fold a bolt of lightning into it.
Oh, like The Killing Joke?
Apparently I only have one major standard on which I judge most works: "Did it entertain me?"
And only when I am reading something meant to be spooky do I add the additional standard of "Wait, did that actually make sense?" (Or if I am feeling especially thoughtful on that particular day, I guess)
I noticed this because my dad and sister come out of movies analyzing the plot and everything, whereas I'm just looking for "Was I entertained? Good, mission accomplished." (Barring any especially egregious plot holes such as one particular one in the last movie I saw)
Samuel Alexander called it Enjoyment and Contemplation; external examination and dissection of a structure, and embedded experience from within the structure. C S Lewis in turn analogised the two modes of thought to a sunbeam in a darkened shed:
— C. S. Lewis, “Meditation in a Toolshed,” from Essay Collection, p. 607
There's a good blog on the whole thing, drawing on a book that I adore and keep re-reading (Planet Narnia), because the whole hidden-in-plain-sight thing scratches a very particular itch of mine.
This was long, slightly rambling, quite self indulgent, cuttingly critical, and a strong argument for enabling faves and upvoting blog posts. The worst part of this is that the MLP fanfiction community is amongst the most demanding and least hugboxy out of all the interweeb fandoms, and we still see garbage riding waves of popularity. I want to see more of this sort of thing, Aragon. It polishes my black and crusty heart like a floor buffer.
So thanks for that.
Learn to shave in the shower.
Shake the keyboard over a trashcan, maybe an pressure air can.
Depending on the razor, some cut like scissors (most hair trimmers work like this), some fall inside.
My current housemate is violently grossed out by human hair that has left human bodies. Not animal hair (she owns a dog), just human hair. Not hair in place on humans, just shed hair. I've tried to ask how that works, but it's a phobia; she freely acknowledges that there's no logic behind it.
Blood? Fine. Shit? Eh. Food that's been in the fridge so long it's evolved sentience? Whatever. But a single stubby hair in the corner of the sink left over from shaving, and it feels like something is crawling underneath her skin. Or even hair stuck in the drain after someone takes a shower — which drives her even more crazy, because she intellectually knows that having just been shampooed it's probably the cleanest thing in the house, but she can't stand to look at it let alone touch it.
People are weird, is what I'm saying.
Also, if she and I ever have a violent falling out, don't be weirded out when I ask to buy your keyboard off of you.
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Like, I don't know how to shave either and just kind of guessed at it, but it's common knowledge you do it over a sink and not a keyboard, right? Shouldn't it be impossible to not know this?
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First rule of any blog of mine is that half the audience will reply mostly to the tags, I guess?
Also god dammit it's one of these fucking electric razor things, right?
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So like. The fucking hair goes in! Whenever I shave in the bloody sink, literally NO HAIR falls on it until I open the razor and I clean it. Moment I shave on top of my keyboard, though? Fuck it! Looks like suddenly the thing stopped worked properly! You can hardly blame me, man!
(Also, I never learned how to shave with a normal gilette, is what I meant. Y'know, shaving cream, manual razor...? So I just use the electric one because you simply caress your face with it and call it a day. I never go around shaved clean though because the machine ain't that thorough, but I can't be fucked to learn how to do shit properly. I just always have a lil' bit of stubble. MAKES ME EVER-SO-SLIGHTLY MORE MANLY.)
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Topical!
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1) I have used manual razors, never understood the point of shaving cream until later, but by that point I didn't care anymore, and preferred being able to just tap loose hairs out of the blades.
2) I can get a pretty good shave using either:
--a) Manual and Electric, manual to get it shorter, Electric to get it the rest of the way, manual to get missing bits
or
--b) Accidentally push too hard with the electric and shave a bit of skin off. Maybe old-timey razors had less of a margin of error, seeing as its my mom's gift to dad that dad never really used all that much.
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I mean, if you don't want people to talk about the tags in your blog posts, you shouldn't make them this funny!
Also, you're right, I can hardly blame you. To be honest I have absolutely no idea how those things work, I never used anything else than a manual razor, so there. You win!
I really like the take on this post from a music review site I frequent. Yes, it is music instead of literature, but the principle is the same.