Grrrr... · 8:04pm Nov 1st, 2012
I swear that nothing makes me as irritated in writing as people that are obsessed with format.
I know I've hit on this before, but it just burns me up.
I submitted Diary of a Silent Tyrant to EquestriaDaily and it was sent back unread (by the prereaders. I guess there are pre-pre-readers) with the following strikes.
--Incorrect semicolon use.
--Extra spacing.
--Ellipses use.
This drives me bananas.
I used ONE semicolon! One! The purpose of a semicolon is to indicate space great than the space indicated by a comma, so it's use is really going to be murky. I feel my use of semicolon was warrented. They didn't. That would be fine if it was an ongoing problem. THERE WAS ONE!
Extra spacing? I guess what they mean is that I put a space between the paragraphs and the three dash indicators that let people know it was a new day in the dairy. It was aesthetically pleasing, but I guess aesthetics in writing aren't cared for. Who cares that it now looks cramped on the page as long as the single space between paragraph rule is applied?
Ellipses Use. I've always used an ellipses to indicate a trailing off of words. After doing some research, I can see their point in calling me up on that. Many of the times that I used it were grammatically incorrect, but made the sentence read better, in my opinion. That's fine, though. I'll give them that.
Equestra Daily is doing what they feel they need to do to have quality on their site, and I'm all for that. However, I feel like you should have quality STORIES first. They are starting at the wrong level. I think to be more effective, they should have someone read it for artistic merit and THEN worry about if it is grammatically incorrect. What is the point of going over a story with a fine tooth comb grammatically, just to find out that they don't want it anyway?
It's an educational experience, at least, but it is like a bad professor in college. You should be learning material to apply to life in a good class. In a bad one, you learn how to do work for a particular professor. Equestria Daily makes me feel like that. I'm not learning how to write. I'm learning how to write for Equestria Daily.
So I've made their changes in hopes that I will get to what I really care about: Whether the story passes artistic muster. If they don't like the story because of the story, I'm fine with that. Not liking the story because of a questionable semicolon is moronic to me.
This blog is now hilariously ironic.
500100 I know. I didn't expect to submit the story again, but I believed in it, so eventually I just took out everything that they didn't like, even though I thought it worked to make the story better. Sometimes you just have to cooperate.
That rant was born from the frustration of not being able to make my case. I think it is unfortunate to not be able to tell the readers that even though something is non standard that it actually strengthens the writing. However, I still believe at the end of the day it is there site and they can do with it what they want. It would just be nice if there was a little more artistic freedom to play with formats.
500702
I tend to allow a little leeway when I pre-read, at least... and you're absolutely allowed to disagree with anything a pre-reader says. Well thought-out, logical objections will be things we'll always take into consideration.
500933 Hmm, I guess I never really thought about discussing it with the pre-readers. The emails that I get back are pretty terse a lot of the time and EQD's submission site sort of puts out the "Don't argue with the readers" vibe. I have another story I'm thinking about resubmitting, so maybe I'll try some back and forth on that one if it gets rejected. Thanks for your thoughts on this. It will probably be a big help, actually.
500944
No problem. I know back when I was submitting one of my first few stories, a pre-reader brought up the point "Celestia doesn't use contractions, so it seems awfully OOC for her to use them in narration." My response was an "LOLNO" with linked examples where she uses contractions in canon. I kept the contractions in, and the story passed. Eventually. I was nervous as all hell contesting that, but it worked out.
500965 See, that's the kind of thing that gets me down on the readers. It's just needlessly nit-picky to say that contraction use is OOC for Celestia. Turning a blind eye to Equestria's problems would be OOC. Being cruel or uncaring would be OOC. Something as simple as contraction use is ridiculous. I mean, sure, if she's all of a sudden sounding like Applejack, then yes, but just some contraction here and there aren't OOC even if she NEVER uses them in the show. Am I to believe that Celestia is formal at all times? Even in her head? That's ridiculous to me.
We all want good stories with growth. We want originality. Yet when I have Fluttershy give Rarity a mischievious poke while gently teasing her about something, I get "Fluttershy is not mischievous. This is OOC". So Fluttershy is just gentle and caring all the time unless she is scared. She has no other emotions.
My point is that you shouldn't have to even give examples. Unless the behavior is significantly different than usual and/or makes no sense in context, a larger range of behavior shouldn't be a critiquing issue. Otherwise, we are going to get a bunch of stories where the ponies are slavishly devoted to their on-screen person and no growth can happen. It's like complaining that Fluttershy is OOC when she confronts the dragon in Dragonshy. Yes, she's OOC. It's growth!
It's all subjective, though. One person's growth is another person's bad writing. That's why I feel the need for a greater back and forth. Now that I'm more aware it can happen, I'll take advantage of it.