[ SECRET POST #2860 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2860 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 062 secrets from Secret Submission Post #409.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[elialshadowpine]

Coming in late, but I wanted to echo the comments above re: music and "soulless". IME, after doing crit on original work for over ten years, the number one thing I see that results in blandfic is over-editing. I have seen SO many people show me an AMAZING first draft that just needed some very specific edits and/or line edits, but... well. As an example. One particular person, who I am no longer friends with, had her first book requested by an editor, who really loved it and told her she wanted to make an offer on it. Instead of doing this, T freaked out, decided it wasn't good enough... and rewrote the entire thing. And made it horrifically bland in the process, because she was afraid to have anything daring or possibly offensive, anything that would make the characters or the world setting stand out.

I should add, don't mean concerns about SJ issues; this was LONG before RaceFail and the current SJ related conversations in SFF; she was terrified of ANYONE disliking her work for ANY reason, so she edited out anything that she thought might upset anyone, even if the rest of us were going, "... huh? The fuck?" If you polish so much that you rip out all the witty lines and the characters maybe don't all sound alike but don't have their own "spark", if you edit all your description so it's neat and tidy but forgettable, what you get is blandfic.

I'd put money on this being the problem, but the part I can't help with is how to go about telling your friend. If you're close to this person, you might ask to see the work in progress before she edits it and see if that's the issue -- buuut, a lot of people are terrified to share their first draft work with ANYONE unedited. Some people edit as they write, too, and if she does that, then even seeing first draft may not help you to determine if that's actually the issue. :-\