'Critique' · 12:14am Sep 13th, 2021
Critique, in my mind, is an assessment, an evaluation. It identifies the ideas the writer was attempting to get across, the sensations, the feelings, and judges how well those were communicated. It identifies the good versus the bad and pits these against each other, highlighting by contrast where the writer should focus their efforts to produce future, stronger works. At least, this is what I imagine critique to be.
After some time browsing, I think I'm in the minority.
I've spent some time lurking here. Years. I'm fairly familiar with the culture, I think. Criticism is a given. Story reviews are places for people to give their undisguised, honest thoughts on a story, instead of some saccharine falsehood born of courtesy. Writers are expected to welcome each sharp word and cutting censure as eagerly as kindly words of encouragement and praise. It's supposed to be refreshing. If done well, it is.
But there's an important distinction between judging a story by what the author meant to say, and judging it by what you wanted the author to say.
Projection is 'the process of displacing one's feelings onto a different person, animal, or object'. Consuming a work of fiction is a highly emotional act. You get absorbed, you get invested, a piece of yourself is weaved into the story you're reading. Such that, if you find yourself disappointed, it feels like a small part of yourself has withered away. That time, that emotion you've pushed into the words to make them come alive, feels wasted.
It might feel a little, then, like the time the author put was wasted as well.
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'Death of the author' is a concept dating from the mid-20th century. It holds that the author's intentions and background should not be considered in the interpretation of an artwork. Reviewers here adore using it as a justification for ignoring everything an author ever intended for their work. The author is dead. No one cares what they have to say on any subject. Now, the story lives only in the minds of the readers.
This feels. Simplistic.
Fanfiction comes from the heart. It's a gift from fan to media. It's a window into the relationship between the writer and the media they're writing for. So, it is also a sliver of a view into the author's very mind. It showcases love, resentment, disappointment, celebration, censure, wonder, self indulgence and what-could-have-been. Original novels are sometimes written and sold for money, and thus can be muddied and clouded windows, mirrors designed to reflect whatever is most salable - fanfiction almost always comes from the heart.
How, then, can the author be dead? How can you completely ignore the message they tried to convey? A fic doesn't lose the soul of its writer as soon as you hit 'post'. The effort and thought and love behind it - for all fic is born of love - doesn't dissipate into smoke. A fic doesn't exist in a vacuum; it's a partnership between writer and reader, a shared appreciation and affection for the media it honors. To ignore what was put into a story's creation is to read only the odd-numbered pages of a textbook. It gives an incomplete picture of what is being said. It's the half of a conversation that you glean when your neighbor on the metro is talking on their cellphone.
It, in short, is flawed.
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If fanfiction is a conversation on a phone line, critique is angrily yelling 'I can't hear you' above the deafening roar of the static. Sometimes the static is barely there, and you only mishear one or two words. Sometimes you can barely make out one word in fifty, and in the end you decide it's no longer worth your time and end the call. Most of the time the static is moderately bad. Enough to make you flinch once or twice, but not so bad that it destroys your determination to make out what's being communicated.
Critique is all that torturous unraveling of every word you mishear, trying to understand. Critique is suggesting that the person on the other hand move to an area with better signal, or repeat what they just said, or cut the call and try again. Critique is meant to assist the writer in conveying what they were already trying to convey.
This...isn't what happens, most of the time. Mostly, reviewers aren't at all interested in anything the author ever thought. They project their own feelings on the fic, protesting that it doesn't say or mean or express what they wanted it to. This is hardly helpful. It's empty words. It's eating chocolate ice cream and complaining that it wasn't strawberry. And it's all said with the most offensive sort of arrogance. The ice cream that you made and offered so carefully wasn't strawberry. It doesn't matter that you never intended it to be strawberry. It doesn't matter that it's sweet and smooth and rich and everything chocolate ice cream should be. What matters is that it wasn't strawberry, and for that you should feel bad. And next time, in an effort to please, you create the best strawberry ice cream you can, and someone else is then upset that it wasn't vanilla. You see?
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Does this make sense? I'm not sure that it does. I don't write essays all that often. I'm not very good at it, you see. Surely someone has said this much better than I ever could. With all sorts of historical examples and philosophical concepts to back up their point.
But, hopefully, I managed to get the message across, however simple and rudimentary it is. And if you wanted, I suppose you could point out all the ways that I could have done better. I would appreciate that. It would help me improve.
Thank you for reading.
I agree. Ironically, I just disagreed with a author on the subtext of their work. Well, I concur on literally every point I want to add. In my humble opinion that their is thing's to say about what author does not say or...does not think to say. That can beinterupted in the work...by that word...
(Read, everything is apolitical to the people who don't need to care. Read, being brown? Can't turn that off. And apolitical whiteness.)
Does a author intend to write a sexist character? And when talked about deny it to all heaven?
Is a joke...always a joke even if it hurts people?
Is a message implicit in a given work still given with no concious or malicous intent by the person making it?
Does not film theory exists on this exact premise?
Their ultimately (as I wrote the author) anyone even me can unthinkily put, in or validate ideologys subconciously which is kind of my point. Not just in critique but, we should as whole be...aware of the messages we are sending out...unknowing or not.
Naturally this is difficult thing. And largely out of our control. That being said...I still think it is something that should at least be attempted...least we continue to unexamine themes in our lives that need examining...yes? (Everything)
Any way this was a nice post. Followed!
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A valid point, and something I didn't think to cover admittedly. Once again though I think what you describe can be broken down into a failure of communication of what the author really intended. It's the author's responsibility to convey their message as clearly as they can, and a critic's responsibility to point out where they nonetheless unintentionally fail and need to improve upon. Whether this is inefficiently communicating something...or unintentionally communicating something else.
One thing to point out is that fanfiction is a different medium from most others. It allows easy and direct communication between audience and creator, and changes in someone's writing can be brought about in real time. An author has an expected responsibility to listen to critique and adjust as needed, and this gives a critic a good deal of power in changing not only an author's individual story, but perhaps their entire approach to writing.