Posting separately for sorting convenience

[petronia]

Not doing any more of the meme from yesterday because for some reason they all came out wrong, which put me in a temper. :/ Instead I will witter about other things.

I like reading other people's GyouTai fic but I have a problem with writing it myself. It's like I can't feel it. Not in the Watsonian "I just don't grok these characters" sense but in the Doyleist: I have trouble hooking my own ideas up to the canon. So it may be a problem with ficcing for Juuni Kokki in general. With Ono Fuyumi I get the opposite of what I get with Kuwabara Mizuna - the disturbing impression that she thinks nothing like me. She's not dark in the same way as I'd write dark, and she's not twee in the same way as I'd write twee. The issues on which she seems to want to focus aren't the same issues on which I'd focus, given the same basic setup. So I can try to think like her but I have no inner assurance that I wouldn't be shooting miles wide of the mark. (And I do like to aim for the same mark as the author, because if one doesn't sooner or later one wakes up in the morning with one's face in the keyboard and a rant on the monitor re how JKR had to resort to mangling her own characters in order to shoot down the [insert] ship.) Then I thought you know maybe it isn't Ono Fuyumi, it's the bloody anime. But there's no way for me to tell that unless I read the books, and I'm not sure I want to. ^^;

What it comes down to in this particular instance is this: if Gyousou and Taiki don't learn and and evolve from what they were in and of themselves and to each other before everything went to hell in a handbasket, then there would have been no point to everything going to hell in a handbasket other than we-are-all-fortune's-fools h/c. But what was so wrong with them before? ...A lot that I can see, to be honest, but you'd have to descend to that level of hidden inner motivation on which every human being is a bit ugly. Ono's done it, and perhaps she intends to do it again, but I don't know if she'd pass the same judgment on them as I would.

***

EDIT -- Since people are coming through metafandom: thoughts continue in the next post. ^^

I gather from the comments that this entry was triggered by an actual instance of one of Pru's fics being put up for detailed litcrit sans permission recently, of which I wasn't aware when I read the entry last night, but I figured as much anyhow. I haven't gone and looked at the thread because I know it'd be an unpleasant experience. I'm glad that she came out and made the statement she did (with grace and caveats at that), despite the fact that as a fanfic author one has about a 1 in 1000 chance of not coming off wanky if one makes a public statement to the effect that one is not always absolutely and effusively grateful to have people telling one what's wrong with one's writing. It's the nature of the beast.

I've never taken a public stance on the matter because I suspect my opinion is too left-field to do anyone any good. XD But since I broached the subject, it is the following: I don't like unsolicited "concrit", and I'm deeply conflicted by and suspicious of beta-reading.

I don't like people telling me what's wrong with my stories because I can't imagine anyone does. What a writer wants is for people to tell other people, intelligently or at the very least enthusiastically and at length, why those other people should read the writer's stories: to wit, because they are awesome. In other words, what a writer wants is a good review so they can hem and haw in a bashful fashion and spend the rest of the evening privately glowing in a corner. (By the way, thanks to everyone who's recced me recently. ^^ I probably saw it and felt too awkward to jump in saying 'hey thanks for reccing me!', but it's uniformly appreciated.) I didn't make this monumental discovery in the field of psychology, nor did fandom - in fact this is such a blindingly obvious truism I don't see why it should be made the polite thing to tack on a line of "...but you could fix this!" at the end of one's FFN review, as it seems to be nowadays. Of course I understand that no one is under an obligation to give me a good review, and of course one might eventually be glad to be told that something is wrong with a story. But it's in the same way as one might be glad as an adult that one's parents were too poor to give one an allowance or didn't speak English well enough to help with one's homework: because it fortifies the character. Plus sometimes the critiquer is just plain wrong. I don't know why people who write fic for fun even bother pretending they're pleased instead of irritated to get critiqued, unless it's that they don't want to be called a wanker. IMHO that's closing the stable door after the horse has bolted, as it's well known already that writers are all wankers. Even published authors have to pretend to be gracious, and everyone can tell it's fake. This is fandom, we should be more free.

Of course, what this comes down to is my parents were too poor to give me an allowance when I was a child and didn't speak English or French well enough to help me with my homework. So I grew up with the conviction that I know better than everyone else, no one can solve my problems except me, and furthermore my problems are no one else's business. In other words, I don't really think your concrit does me any good. If you critique an unfinished draft, it doesn't do me any good because it's not finished, so you're not judging it on a proper basis insofar as I'm concerned. If you critique a completed fic, then it's complete meaning that I like it the way it is, and will see no reason to change it to suit you or the Queen of England. (I completely and profoundly identify with the Tolkien of whom CS Lewis complained, "You cannot make suggestions because he either ignores you or tears the chapter up and rewrites it altogether.") And even if you don't tell me about the problem, in three or six months I will re-read the thing and discover it for myself anyway. I won't be grateful to you for telling me in advance, because you can't convince me - only I can convince myself. If I still don't see it months later, you were wrong.

All of this goes out the window if I think you are as good a writer as I am, or better.

I'm really conflicted by the whole beta-reading process. I don't usually offer my fic up to be beta-read, but I've had drafts beta'd several times at the other person's offer, and I've always loved the result. However, it's always been someone I consider as good a writer as I am or better, and even so I never implemented more than half the suggested changes. If I were beta-reading me I'd feel underappreciated. ^^; I also think that I am personally really arse at betaing other people's stories. Either I am a weenie and limit myself to catching typos and shifting punctuation around, or else I rewrite it as if it were my fic - which is utterly horrific and makes me want to apologize afterward, as if I'd commited a heinous act distantly related to rape. When I read X's story I want to read X's story, not X's beta-reader's story (or I'd be over on that lj). But for all I know this is what other writers want when they ask for their stories to be beta-read, and are glad to get it. If so it would explain why I can tell when I'm reading a story that's been extensively beta-read ("several rounds" is the phrase oft bandied about - how is that even possible?), and why they always seem so airless and plastic. An extensively beta-read fic exudes the opposite of the quality the Japanese call wabisabi. I can't tell you what's wrong with it, there usually isn't anything wrong with it structurally or technically, but it reads like all the soul's been sucked out of it. Like it wasn't written by one specific person with their textual quirks and foibles and hang-ups, but by the anthropomorphic personification of Generic Slash. And I'd much rather read Bad Slash than Generic Slash.

EDIT -- Charmian found me an interesting discussion on the community in question and implications thereof for fandom. If you've read Pru's and my post I suggest you read this one as well.

Comments

[troisroyaumes]

::poking head out of lurkdom to comment::

All of this goes out the window if I think you are as good a writer as I am, or better.

I was trying to sort out my own reaction to rageprufrock's post, and I couldn't really pin down how I felt about criticism until I read this. Actually, I think that is the crucial point for me. I usually get bristly about concrit (particularly when it's about a line or a word that I intentionally chose), but when it's from someone whose writing I respect, I feel uncharacteristically pleased at the feedback. Of course, I don't really receive concrit on fanfic all that often to begin with, not having written that much. >_>

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes, the case of the reader who doesn't like a line or word that you intentionally chose. XD That one is infuriating because it usually comes down to taste. "Well, I think 'crepuscular' gives a nice ring to the sentence. Whose story is this, anyway?"

I almost never make those changes, but tend to come around to the reader's opinion 2-3 years later. Even so I'm not sure it would be any use for me to go with a leap of faith in the other person's judgment - I'd still have to change it for something, and I wouldn't know what.

[karabana.livejournal.com]

I'm with you on not knowing how to beta-read; there's so much style that I don't dare touch, and all I'm good for is grammar and maybe punctuation, at the *most* clarifying things that were worded strangely.

But at the same time, I keep hoping that a better reader will criticize my work, such that even if I don't like/take the specific advice, they will be able to point out to me something about the craft that would have taken much longer to figure out on my own.

I can't have it both ways, I know. ^^: *sigh*

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Yes, what you want is for someone to tell you something you never realised about the craft. And it has happened to me.

Maybe it depends on the quality of the critique/beta. So maybe what we should do is critique the critique. XD

[karabana.livejournal.com]

*G* Maybe we should, if we could manage it. And I must confess that it's rare and hard to get a hold of good critiques. Proving that one will be worth someone else's time and effort is justifiably difficult. *_*

[sesame-seed.livejournal.com]

*pokes* ot, but.

projecttt? :D

[karabana.livejournal.com]

Working on it, thank you for the long overdue poke. =P

It's 13/20 done. x_X

[marici.livejournal.com]

As far as I can tell, the litcrit forum was a bunch of cranky critiquers getting their literary rocks off. Mightn't an author be happier not looking?

[lazulisong.livejournal.com]

well, it's sort of like poking a sore, you know. You can say, They're a bunch of wankers and are just going to make me mad, but they're TALKING ABOUT YOUR FIC and so you have to go look. Even if it's going to hurt you.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Yes, of course the author would be happier not looking, but you underestimate the humanity of most authors. XD I mean, people are talking about you. How do you not look?

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

d00d. you just transcribed the black and depraved innermost thoughts of the nice and unassuming authors of the world. such a breach of the Writers Conspiracy Conventions might be punished, I'd watch out for assassins bearing red pens coming to 'edit' you.

The only kind of criticism I really *like* to get is straightforward proofreading, e.g. "you mispelled this word." Because damn, typos are embarrassing, and no matter how many times I reread my stuff I always miss a couple. I'd rather hear about them asap so I can fix them and everyone who reads the story after that never needs know how stupid I was.

I don't use betas, usually. The one time I do request criticism is when I have a story with a particular theme or aim that I'm not sure how successfully is conveyed. As the writer I can be too close to a story to judge whether a scene is rushed, or a twist is neither too obscure nor too obviously telegraphed. I've given stories to people particularly asking whether they figured such and such out in advance, or whether they think there's too much y or woul'd like to see more of x. But in those cases I'm already aware there's something amiss, and while I want honest opinions, I tend not to want too many suggestions. I don't mind being told what's wrong but I bristle at being told how to fix it. Would rather figure it out for myself.

Paradoxically I really enjoy editing other peoples' stories, though I do run into the problem you mentioned of drawing the line between improving someone's prose so it says what the author *wants* it to say, and turning it into my own words. And the couple friends I've beta'd for take my editing with much more grace than I can manage...

[sodzilla.livejournal.com]

I'm ambivalent about this. I personally always have someone check over my stories before posting, for grammatical errors and the like if nothing else. That kind of thing is helpful. I also welcome *some* forms of stylistic crit as I tend to mix up pronouns and the like.

That said, I can get very hurt when people start tearing into my conceptions of characters, or my extrapolations from available source materials. Sure, what I write might not be how you see things, but if that's so hurtful steal my idea and write it better. Don't try to force me into writing my fic the way *you* think it should be written.

[sub-divided.livejournal.com]

I'm sort of schizo about this. On the one hand I like to pretend that what I'm writing is understandable to absolutely everyone -- not just what happened, but what the significance was and how the syle contributes to that and etc etc. For me, the ideal story is a joke that everyone gets after exactly the same length pause. If there are one or two side bits no one got that's fine, that's what comments are for, but the main point should be obvious after a little bit of thought.

More than anything else, I admire writers who achieve transparent effects: everyone gets it but no one can point to why. That's not me, though. In my own mind I'm embarassingly transparent.

On the other hand I know that I am fooling myself thinking it is the same for everyone. XD I can never tell how effectively I'm conveying something until other people tell me what they think. That's why I appreciate comments about style or effect or wordchoice or whatever -- I like to see how well the point I was trying to get across, got across. (^^;, because there is always a point.) I love it when people who are better writers than I am comment because their insight is awesome, but I appreciate comments from non-writers just as much, because they're my audience too.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I have never come across criticism I didn't like, and this is why. Probably the key difference here is that I can be really wishy-washy in my opinions, so that very often critism about theme or characterization *will* convince me I was wrong, and I'll rewrite accordingly, I don't use beta-readers because they're a hassle and because quite frankly nothing I write is "worth" it, but I do use livelournal as a kind of generic Beta Reader.

XD. I agree that specific advice is very often useless (exception: grammar). I usually follow general advice, though. It's because I'm not writing for me -- I'm writing for you. I had something to say, and I thought the best way to say it was through fic. I allow my opinions to change in comments because thinking in a vacuum is boring.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_mike/]

I've always used the pastry metaphor for that last; you start with flour and shortening and ice water and try to handle it as little as possible, else the texture suffers.

Getting someone to glance over your stuff is (can be) useful because they come from a position of ignorance; I find there's a bunch of stuff I assume when writing that might or might not actually make it into the text. Am full of blind spots.

(actually criticizing style and word choice and stuff is dangerous ground, and the 'i'd write it like *this*' is something to be aboided at all costs.)

[mtgat]

(in through metafandom)

(actually criticizing style and word choice and stuff is dangerous ground, and the 'i'd write it like *this*' is something to be aboided at all costs.)

It depends on the circumstances. If I'm betaing someone whose work is of good quality, who has a strong sense of her or his own voice, who makes conscious word choices, etc, I don't usually go for the "I'd write this sentence like this" crits. Otoh, if I'm betaing for someone whose idea of a good paragraph is "He stood up from his char and went around to the other side ofthe table and sat down in a char again," and this is exactly how actions are described throughout the story, I'm going to be offering a few words about using action to describe character, and I'm going to use examples. Betaing means you offer help on things that need "fixing," be it spelling, grammar, POV, or whatever, with the knowledge that the author isn't obligated to change anything. It's far better for a beta to tell me "You really don't sell the twist at the end of the story. Why don't you add a scene where the characters discuss *thing*?" than for me to get feedback from readers going "WTF?" (and not in the fun way).

I see my job as beta like someone who helps you get ready for the prom. You get in the dress and fix your hair; I check to make sure your makeup's on right and that you don't have flyaway hairs in the back of your 'do, and I help with the last coat of polish on your manicure. I might even help you choose your earrings if you're not sure which pair works. (I understand this metaphor is probably not the best for you specifically.)

[canis-m.livejournal.com]

Oh dear. 無理をゆってごめんなさいね。 I can't help trying to plague other people into writing, though, one's own fic doesn't go very far to satisfy one's readerly urges. You know how it is. I should stop plaguing Tin as well.

RE: what was so wrong with them before, even granting that things were wrong, I'm more inclined to ask, couldn't they have been allowed to work on what was wrong in a kinder, gentler, non-handbasket fashion, as (I think) they had gotten a start at doing? But I always ask things like this, stupidly.

...A saving grace of writing for teensy-weensy-to-nonexistent fandoms, I suppose, is that one doesn't have to fear lusty lit-critters getting their splooge (which may not be malicious but is clearly not fruit flavored, either) all over one's stuff. -_-;

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Oh, it's not really because you asked. XD; I've been obsessing over this point. Last week I was thinking that I'd have to write an unpleasantly dark how-Taiki-finds-Gyousou-again fic in order to hash out the issue and settle where (I think) they're going with all this, and I'd about figured out what needed to be said, but then the weekend happened and I lost track. ^^; I was trying to retrace my train of thought. You and Tin tend to leave that bit for Ono-sensei herself - hopefully - but I can't see a hole in the wall without trying to put bricks there, even if I'd rather build a turret.

PLAGUERY

[canis-m.livejournal.com]

In that case--one line? (http://www.livejournal.com/users/obakesan/82144.html) Just one? Since Sabina hath left me so unsatisfied XD

[quixotic-sense.livejournal.com]

What kills me, though, is that the community that sparked off the furore is dedicated to Stargate: Atlantis. The fandom is barely a year old -- probably less -- and I wouldn't have pegged the actual show (a pleasantly cheesy SF opera) as something that would generate this much tortured meta.

I suppose that I could say the same of Harry Potter, though, and that canon and fandom-generated works are very different. I've been lurking and reading fanfic, and I do admire the volume and quality of works that have been posted in such a short span of time. Still. SGA's main appeal for me was a sense of fun and banter, even though the underlying politics and assumptions in canon make me twitch, and I can't see how a litcrit community will enhance my fanfic reading experience. But I suppose I'm not exactly the best person to be speaking about these things.

[sophia-helix.livejournal.com]

Hey, pointed over here a few weeks late by metafandom.

re: beta-reading...in my fannish tenure, I have been in different groups and fandoms at different time that valued beta-reading from "eh, if you want" to "ONLY MORONS DON'T HAVE BETAS." I spent a long time petrified to post without having at least one editor, usually two or three (once I think I hit five), then swung hard the other way and quit using betas at all, and now am somewhere in the middle.

What it boils down to for me, these days, is -- why don't I want editing? Am I perfectly happy with the story as it stands, or am I just sick of looking at it and want to get some feedback now? It's almost never the former, so when it's the latter, I try (if I'm being good and rational) to determine my degree of exhaustion. Are there some very difficult problems which I know could be worked out with the help of a good editor? Or is the idea itself so problematic that this is the best I can do without writing a different story altogether?

I'm beginning to learn that, if there are just hard problems, I can stop and get help. This esp. works if I remember that, in a few months, if I post a story I know I could have made really good with some editing work, I'll be really grumpy with myself. But if the whole story is problematic, but I'm, like, 75% happy with it? Screw it and post. Life's too short.

But I know what you mean about being confused by the massive amounts of editing some stories get. Like I say, I've been in groups before where everyone had tons of betas, and sometimes it felt like everyone'e stories ended up being group projects, instead of the work of individual writers. And honestly, the very best writers I know? Needed the least editing, and sometimes worked with no betas at all, or minimal editing. I think that says something.

Here via metafandom

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

I don't like people telling me what's wrong with my stories because I can't imagine anyone does. What a writer wants is for people to tell other people, intelligently or at the very least enthusiastically and at length, why those other people should read the writer's stories: to wit, because they are awesome. In other words, what a writer wants is a good review so they can hem and haw in a bashful fashion and spend the rest of the evening privately glowing in a corner.

Well, no. That's what one writer wants: you. And there are other writers who only want to hear good things, sure. Lots of them. But there are also writers who want to hear the truth. And the truth is there's always something wrong, because nothing is perfect. Not your fic, not mine, not even if it's published professionally. Even published writers have editors, and when they don't, well, it's painfully obvious. IMO, there will always be something you could change to make it better, whether it be this bit of awkward phrasing, or rewriting a paragraph to make things clearer (in a fic I just betaed, I pointed out that I couldn't imagine how these two large guys were having sex lying down in the front seat of a car, to which the author replied, "oh, well he has one of those huge old boats of a car with one long bench for a front seat." Doh. That needs to be mentioned somewhere; the audience can't read your mind). There is always room for improvement, and I'd rather people tell me so than lie about it.

Re: Here via metafandom

[petronia.livejournal.com]

IMO, there will always be something you could change to make it better, whether it be this bit of awkward phrasing, or rewriting a paragraph to make things clearer

Actually, I disagree with this. I don't disagree that nothing is perfect - not my fic, not your, not published work etc. - but I think at some point one has to stop fiddling with the text, and knowing when to stop is as important as knowing, say, when to end the story proper. Making improvements to suit too many people too often runs the danger of the end result becoming airless.

I suppose as considerations run that's a fairly high-level one, but it definitely affects my reading experience.

Also, I'm not sure how wanting to hear good things about one's writing equates to wanting people to lie. I don't want my readers to lie; I want to do a good enough job that I can be relatively sure they're not lying. XD

Someone I know said (in a comment on another thread relating to this discussion I can't find right now) that there is what the writer's head wants, and what the writer's heart wants. I can only imagine that the writer's heart wants the warm glow of having done a good job and the urge to do a better one next time. But the writer's head is more complicated and has riders attached like "only from people I know have a good grasp of characterisation" or "only if it's constructive".

Re: Here via metafandom

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

Making improvements to suit too many people too often runs the danger of the end result becoming airless.

But that's just it. It's not making improvements to suit other people. I don't just change everything willy nilly. But often someone can point something out that I didn't notice myself because I'm too close to the story and things make sense in my own head that don't make it onto the paper. Look at all the published books that have plotholes. It probably made sense in the author's head.

Also, I'm not sure how wanting to hear good things about one's writing equates to wanting people to lie. I don't want my readers to lie; I want to do a good enough job that I can be relatively sure they're not lying. XD

But no one can do that. Sorry, but there is not one single thing written (or filmed, or drawn, etc.) ever that is perfect.

Because I want my writing to be as good as possible, I'm willing to listen when people say hey, this doesn't make sense, or hey, this bit is awkward. I might not change it, but it will make me take a closer look at my story and see if they have a valid point or not. Not everyone has a valid point. An author shouldn't just accept everything. But if you're unwilling to give any consideration to the people who do have a point, and only want to hear praise, then you might be losing out on a chance to make your fic even better. After all, look at all the really bad fic that gets tons of praise. Praise isn't a sign that something isn't crap.

Re: Here via metafandom

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

And I'm not trying to insist that everyone should use betas or be willing to listen to concrit, but rather why I feel it's very important to me as a writer, not to just be happy with where I'm at, but to strive to be better. And for me, listening to others is definitely a part of that.

Here via metafandom

[zvi-likes-tv.livejournal.com]

Your post is interesting, but you have misunderstood (been mislead about?) the goal of thecuttingboard. It's not to offer constructive criticism to the author, it's to allow discussion of fanfiction among readers. While the author may pick up something interesting in the discussion, she is not, in fact, its audience.

Re: Here via metafandom

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Yes, I realised that soon enough afterward. But then I was never precisely against thecuttingboard's mission per se - I just had the feeling that Pru was going to be seen as whining when she posted about not liking it (end up on f_w or whatever - I don't even know if she did though *g*), and I wanted to state what I believe to be true, i.e. most writers don't like being deconstructed and criticised, regardless of whether they're the intended audience. Some of them are more graceful about it than others, but I'm not much for judging people based on how well they grit their teeth.

It's not really a call for people to put a moratorium on critical analysis; more like a call for people to put a moratorium on calling ficcers whiners for being human.

Re: Here via metafandom

[petronia.livejournal.com]

('nother thought)

Actually, I really appreciate what thecuttingboard is about in theory. I'm not certain it's sustainable in fandom - a system of literary criticism that privileges the readers implies the ability to distance the author, which is much easier to achieve with published fiction when the author is not, yanno, on your friendsfriends. Personality comes into play. Plus as others have pointed out, the criteria on which people judge fic aren't really the same set as those on which they judge fiction. The boundary is worth exploring, I suppose, but one ends up either mixing metaphors or approaching one's squee with pincers.

So as for the initiative itself, I reserve judgment. *g* It's not my fandom, though, so I don't really follow it.

Re: Here via metafandom

[zvi-likes-tv.livejournal.com]

Plus as others have pointed out, the criteria on which people judge fic aren't really the same set as those on which they judge fiction. That's not universally true. I want good writing, good plotting in something that has a plot, and good characterization: all of these things I want from both professional ficition and fanfiction. I do think that fanfiction is a genre and as such, has certain generic criteria that professional fiction doesn't. But I also read science-fiction differently from romance, which I read differntly from mysteries.

As for not being able to distance the author, I think that's a question of authors giving space, whether by not commenting or by deliberately ignoring the discussions taking place there.