Random spiel, apparently because I have leftover words today

[petronia]

The first insightful thing I've heard anyone say about concrit in ages. Specifically, the point that "concrit" and "negative feedback" are NOT EQUIVALENT CONCEPTS and should not be discussed or treated as such. For one, if concrit is done right, it shouldn't need sugarcoating. Also, almost no one ever gives real concrit in comments to a fic post, especially not on a community, and that may not be the best place for it anyway (logistically speaking, that is, not as a matter of etiquette). Personally, i.e. I don't claim this is true of everyone - though I've seen a lot of pro writers saying the same thing - I tend to find each story is its own beast, with its own internal challenges. In other words, once the story is finished and I've posted it publically, your concrit is very unlikely to "help me with the next story", unless it's something along the lines of a spelling error I never knew existed. It's interesting, but useless. The next story will have an entirely new set of things wrong with it. >_>

Which is all to say that the final decision taken by the blind_go mods is the sensible one, but the dust-up could have been avoided. XD And if anyone wants to go through something like a blind_go round (or an SSBB issue - can I point you to the beta pool if so) and try to provide some insight into the mechanics of each story, on their own time and their own LJ, they ought to be commended! I do mean want to do it: it's not "helping other writers" out of altruism (and then getting snippy because they don't want to be helped), okay. XD Either that is how you like to think and talk about fic anyway, and you just want to speak your mind like any reasonable person, or you hope it will help the level of writing improve in your fandom, so you can enjoy better fic. Or both. And that's as it should be - long-term intelligent self-interest beats altruism by a mile. Personally, I am not in the least interested in helping other writers improve. XD XD XD In fact, when I write "thoughtful" responses or reviews I have to pretend the original writer will never read it, because assuming otherwise muddles my mental processes. What I want to talk about is how the book or short story affected me. Not you, Writer Person! Meeee!

...Ironically, of course, I give a lot of concrit in my function as SSBB editor. And I gave up sugarcoating it approximately eight issues ago. XD

Comments

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

If you'd be interested in a long discussion on concrit, synecdochic has a fascinating post (http://synecdochic.livejournal.com/239518.html) teasing apart the differences between concrit, commentary, review, and recommendation, all of which fans often conflate, to much confusion and argument.

I see it much the same myself - I welcome/demand concrit from my betas, but it's not constructive from readers after the fact (unless it's typo corrections or the like) because once a story is posted, I'm not going to rewrite it.

[dipping_sauce]

Yes! It annoys me so much when people mix up review and concrit. A review is BY and FOR readers; it is, authors, to steal a phrase, NOT FOR YOU.

And I gave up sugarcoating it approximately eight issues ago.

AND IT WAS ABOUT DAMN TIME.

[meril.livejournal.com]

What I want to talk about is how the book or short story affected me. Not you, Writer Person! Meeee!

This is why I totally suck at "feedbacking" fanfic. Fannish culture indicates that you have to engage with the author when trying to discuss a story, and most of the time I can't make with the fawning comments the author wants when my real, unfiltered comments to said author are along the lines of "the smut appears to be put in here just to gain a readership because fans won't read gen" or "Wikipedia isn't a primary source, it's a stepping stone" etc.

(Of course, when I used to have a Vox, I was dumping random book thoughts out there and David Louis Edelman found a ramble about his book on it and linked to it on his blog and called it a "bad review"--it wasn't FOR HIM. Or for anyone but myself and a few Vox friends. I immediately flocked that thing.)

[petronia.livejournal.com]

And so far exactly zero persons have pitched a fit about it, i.e. the general population is perhaps not one of delicate swooning damsels as we sometimes assume??

IDK - I have seen a buttzillion people say "I never offer concrit because the first time I tried it the psycho writer chewed me out in public," but I've never personally witnessed this happening ever, whether to me or to anyone else.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

That is a great post - I think a lot of these recurring discussions recur because no one actually means the same thing by the words they use. ^^;

Yeah - I set up the writing journal as an informal venue for WIP concrit, and it's worked like a charm in that respect, but once the story's done it's like, "Whatevs! Too late!"

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Whereas my comments would be like, "This story reminds me of a song / my last marketing class textbook / this friend of a friend [insert lengthy tangent]". XD

I actually quite admire people who consistently leave insightful feedback - it's a genuine talent IMO, that very few people have.

[meril.livejournal.com]

But oh do people complain about that sort of reaction! You just can't win. (someone told me to never complain about not getting comments on fic, because 1 in 100 readers never say anything, so just multiply your comments by 100 to see how many people read it)

I'm tired, sorry, and most of my reading lately has come in an absolutely craptacular RPF fandom that has just gone through a little spell of concrit meta. It didn't help.

I wish there could be a way to learn how to leave insightful feedback. It would help a lot at work.

[woodburner.livejournal.com]

I pretty much never offer concrit unless it's specifically asked for. Which is just as well, as while I don't think my concrit is totally useless or anything I am not all that good at it.

I think for a lot of people it's like you said - who cares about concrit after the fact? XD I don't really want concrit on something unless I've specifically asked for it, because unless I've specifically asked for it I'm not planning on making any major changes. So that makes the concrit simply irritating. Especially if I find I agree with it.

[aishuu.livejournal.com]

I don't think there's definitive lines between all forms (since we all seem to operate under a different code).

My lines:

- When I "rec" a fic, I am telling other people to "go read" and "why." I also assume the writer may eventually stumble on it.

- When I "review" a fic (usually at ff.net or LJ), I am being complimentary to the writer directly.

- When I "concrit" a fic, I'm discussing the fics pluses and minuses, with an eye out to both the writer and potential readers. I'd use this term also for the old "Fanfiction Review" forums I used to belong to (Like The Preventer's Fanfiction Review, or the Suzaku Seishi Review).

- When I "C&C" a fic, I am providing a pointed analysis of the fic as a whole, deconstructing the entire work. I rarely do this anymore, but it's meant for writers who want to be able to improve their fic/their overall skills set. I like watching these on the FFML, because even if the fic isn't mine, it can help me as a writer. A writer is always learning new tricks.

- When I "rant" about a fic (usually under flock on my private journal), I am discussing what has set me off in a negative way. These rants are meant for friends, and I assume the writer will never find them. I think this is what you lean toward (though you also internalize things more than I do).

All of these have one thing in common: They're a form of evaluating the work. And when I see something that I feel "restricts" the form of evaluation to find acceptable, it can set me off... especially in a community like blind_go, since part of the reason I was attractive to the comm was for the concrit aspect.

In short, I like to discuss fics, but I'm not about the monologue. I'm about the dialogue, if that makes sense?

[petronia.livejournal.com]

I think it would be great if everyone defined what they meant by their terms every time this discussion was raised, though it's a great burden to the process. XD Personally, I mean "review" for and only for third parties, and "concrit" for and only for the writer - but my "concrit" is probably more like your "C&C", and it's pretty much always private or semi-private (eg. locked fic journal). I don't find any value in dissecting someone's fic for other people to read, that is - I'm not here to teach a master class. XD

Actually, I don't rant about fic - or about published books, for that matter. I only get the urge occasionally when editing SSBB, because I have to finish reading all the stories, even the ones I bounce. XD; Usually if a fic shows signs of annoying me, I stop reading it immediately, move onto something else and forget all about it. Life's too short. When I talk about how a piece of writing "affected me", I mean a directly personal sort of response, eg. this story met my kink, reminds me of something that happened to my RL friend, is sort of like this other book I read except not, etc. I assume some writers would find it interesting in the way all reader response is interesting, but as "concrit" it's fairly useless. And the tone will be positive by default, because I liked it enough to finish reading it and even afford it some thought. XD;

And, for the concrit aspect, really? I would have assumed that there would be less concrit on a comm like blind_go than usual, because people would not want to give it if they don't know who the person on the other side is and how it's likely to be received. ^_^;

[sub-divided.livejournal.com]

I would get to the last line of a story and hit "post" even before checking for grammatical errors, and then do all of my editing to the (public) LJ entry, so I would love getting sentence- or paragraph-level feedback from flisters. It was a good system for me because I could finish and "publish" fics before I lost interest in them, and then knowing that other people were READING my bad prose motivated me to revise.

Also, I think the fact that I WAS following advice, 9 times out of 10, encouraged people to give it to me. Or maybe they were just reciprocating, XD. Either way I know that I used to get a LOT of really good advice, especially from early friends like keraha.

This system broke down when my friendslist got larger: it's okay to subject friends to unfinished work, but I didn't want to do the same to semi-strangers. And it's harder to leave detailed comments to a post that you know a lot of other people are reading: your comments are enshrined together with the (hopefully improved) final draft, which just makes the whole thing look "messy".

Recently I've started to think that the true place for constructive criticism is in email, or as comments to Word files or Google Docs. And that maybe if I'd known about Beta readers, I wouldn't have used my entire flist as one or indiscriminately Beta'd every half-decent story on my flist/in the communities I belonged to. ^^; On the other hand, when you agree to Beta a story for someone, it becomes an OBLIGATION and therefore a burden, whereas there's something freeing about deciding to leave detailed feedback on a story, just because.

As for blind_go, most of the participants read each other anyway, so a less formal approach -- linking to critical content in personal journals after the fact -- works perfectly well. Having a regular system with built-in restrictions can really improve writing, but it kills criticism.

[fable.livejournal.com]

*blinks* You weren't around when rageprufrock (or whatever name she goes by now) pitched a fit at one of her fics being critted (rather favorably on the whole, too)?

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Yup, and I quite cheerfully defended her (or rather, her right not to like it). XD

Edit to add - again, question of terminology here! IIRC the folks at that comm were engaging in litcrit, or were trying to, but not concrit. They weren't trying to help her improve, and in fact expected her never to look at it. My defense was along the lines of, "All authors since the beginning of time hate literary criticism of their work, that is as it ought to be, pls don't act all surprised because Pru dares to say it out loud." I don't think I was completely understood of course. XD

Whereas in the above, I was referring to concrit proper, i.e. commenting directly on someone's fic with technical issues. I don't doubt that some people have pitched reactions to that, but I've personally never seen it.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

That does work well with small groups - I mean, that's basically how I wrote Senza Fine, and it was okay subjecting you guyz to first drafts because you opted in. XD After it's done, though, I don't like having previous versions out there confusing people. The version of A Proof by Contradiction on blind_go still gets read, probably more than the "final" draft on my site. But that's my own fault for not finalizing it in time. XD

I do think the true place for concrit is in email, or a closed ML, or a filtered post, or a dedicated fic journal like carnet. Not to avoid hurt feelings (though it would, if hurt feelings were a possibility), but because as far as I'm concerned, concrit something that comes before the finished product, and presumably once the product is finished, you don't want the scaffolding to be left out in the open. Obviously there are people who like to discuss the finished fic they read in that mode - aishuu above being one - but I don't think of that as being concrit, because it isn't constructive or useful... to me as writer. XD;

[emblem.livejournal.com]

Am with you on much of this. XD Like how once I've hit "post", nothing that ANYONE says will change the story. Too late. Any mistakes that are in there have been worked with and it is not worth anyone's, much less my, time to change.

And I'm completely the sort who would only write about how the fic affected me. I have absolutely no freaking idea what the writer would want or need to hear from a reader anyway, good or bad, so laziness wins and I don't bother attempting unless I know them personally well enough to say something real.

I also (possibly out of laziness?) have always figured that any serious writer will figure out their own mistakes, given sufficient (a lot of, in my case XD) time and rethinking and rereading what they just wrote, as well as reading good writing. Or maybe it's just how I try to operate. I mean ... I've got my own mistakes to fix, they can take care of themselves! They don't need me to do it! And anyway they'll learn the lesson more than if I yell at them "but the transition sucks" or whatever.

(I guess the only exception is when someone explicitly comes to me with a draft or something, in private, to look at - but that's a whole different matter.)

[aishuu.livejournal.com]

I do find value in reading the dissections (it's probably the only reason I'm still a member of the FFML). Seeing where other people have gone "wrong" or "right" helps me evaluate my own work - and fanfic IS a fairly unique medium to work with, so I find all the literary analysis styles doesn't necessarily work. I'd say SSBB is more along those lines since all the work is "original."

I am very like you in my fic reading habits - if I don't like something, I'll stop reading. But blind_go is a rare exception, since I committed to replying to ALL the fics. And don't get me wrong - there's usually one or two I have to force myself through.

I think concrit is a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" kind of thing, lately. Well, since 2000 or so... the nineties were the heyday... but that's also because of the shift in what "fic" meant... I remember when anything under 10K was considered a "spamfic..."

I feel old YET AGAIN...