fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2976 ]

[ SECRET POST #2976 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2976 ⌋

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

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[Homestuck]

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[NCIS: Los Angeles/Hawaii Five-0]

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[Left Shark (Katy Perry? Super Bowl?) and Bad-Dragon .com]

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[hindsight]

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 016 secrets from Secret Submission Post #425.
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.

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So I left a review on a long story that I've read before in pieces as it updated, on anonymous cause I was too lazy to log in. I've enjoyed the fic and wanna see where it's going, but on rereading it all at once there were some trends that jumped out at me as aggravating, and I left a review that was basically like "This story is great but the fact that you do xyz to z, y, and x characters, and so on and so on, is annoying to me, jsyk", or whatever. Not fawning like the 1000 other reviews, but not nasty or name-calling or anything.

...aaaand like 10 minutes later the author updates their blog like "ANONYMOUS TURNED OFF CAUSE OF THIS ARSENUGGET FLAMER" and I'm like wtf? With a "If you're so good let's see YOU write a fic" and everything.

Does this happen to anyone else?? I've reread my review like 10x and still don't think it's a flame, just a critique. I thought the author was so level-headed, too....

I wouldn't have used the word "annoying" personally (if you actually did), but they still overreacted. Wow.

I think some people just want glowing praise. 100% glowing praise. Anything less is a flame. It drives me crazy. I know some people just write for fun, but still.

You're not giving us enough information to judge. Specially since people tend to minimize how assholish they were to make themselves look good.

That's fair enough but I don't want to give details about the story in question. I DO think that even if I was more assholish than I thought I was, it was kind of a confusing move to instantly post the review to their blog like 'hate with me, loyal followers'. When I've gotten harsh reviews I've wanted to respond privately and/or not draw attention to it.

Are you new to fandom? It's pretty common for authors to react this way when they get a harsh or even just overly blunt review.

NAYRT - I honestly think it depends on the fandom and kinds of sites more than fandom in general. I used to go to pretty critical websites and was shocked it wasn't the norm.

I guess I don't get why that's a comment you have to leave at all? Did you expect them to change it for you? I mean, if it were a gift or commission, OK, but just on a story somebody is writing because it's a story they want to tell? It may not be flaming, but it is kind of shitty and entitled.

NAYRT, but how is it shitty and entitled? If you submit something to the internet, people are going to leave feedback. I'm in a writing group and we tell each other what to write or not write all the time. And we're one of the nicer local writing groups.

Yes, but do you tell people what to write (while they're writing it) based on what you personally enjoy or based on what is objectively more solid story telling?

But if you don't think it's shitty to be "just so you know, your story annoys me," I don't know what to tell you. Other than (to OP) stop reading it.

Exactly.

It's not just shitty, but plain unhelpful. It's bad feedback. Why does XYZ annoy OP? Is it because of personal reasons or is it a genuine flaw with their writing that they should work on fixing? If it's just a personal thing, then it's a pointless comment to leave; you can't realistically expect them to excise every random anon's personal annoyances from their fics. If it's a genuine story telling problem, then it's good to bring to their attention, but describing it as "annoying" is neither nice nor helpful.

To avoid drama and maximize the chances of your advice sticking, you have to be very careful about how you word it. Otherwise you might as well not bother leaving feedback, for all the good it's going to do. As OP has learned, being careless about how you word your reviews will often just cause the author to raise a stink about flamers, which doesn't get anybody anywhere.

This. I'm surprised it's so difficult for the OP to understand. "XYZ annoyed me" isn't concrit. It's not helpful at all, unless the author's sole aim in writing is to please that one person.

Frankly, if I were in a writing group who said things like "You should write X" or "don't write Y", instead of actually addressing specific issues in the writing, I'd leave it. It doesn't sound like a nice writing group at all.

Re: apparently I am a flamer now??

(Anonymous) - 2015-02-27 04:25 (UTC) - Expand

Re: apparently I am a flamer now??

(Anonymous) - 2015-02-27 04:52 (UTC) - Expand

Re: apparently I am a flamer now??

(Anonymous) - 2015-02-27 05:58 (UTC) - Expand

It isn't shitty or entitled. As a rule, feedback includes both positive and negative comments, and if the writer does not want to receive either one, they should mention it.

Just because you CAN leave a comment, doesn't mean you should. And I should add, I have no problems with "I like your story, but I think xyz is out of character, etc." is fine. But that's not the comment OP apparently left.

Just because an artist is a whiny little bitch doesn't mean you shouldn't tell them they suck.

Re: apparently I am a flamer now??

(Anonymous) - 2015-02-27 19:41 (UTC) - Expand

Re: apparently I am a flamer now??

(Anonymous) - 2015-02-27 22:35 (UTC) - Expand

If you're going to leave negative feedback, it's always a good idea to say what you would change or give suggestions. Otherwise it's just 'lol this sucks.'

Re: apparently I am a flamer now??

(Anonymous) - 2015-02-27 01:58 (UTC) - Expand

ayrt

Well, I didn't notice it at first so I thought they probably didn't either?? I've had people harshly review my stories before, like "I thought your story is pretty good until I got to xyz part and I thought you got that character COMPLETELY wrong, like amazingly wrong, and that completely killed my enjoyment." And even though I didn't really agree I PM'd them to thank them for their review and tell my point of view on why I wrote the character that way--and I was more careful how I wrote him after that. I don't think it's 'shitty and entitled' to critique a fic...is it 'entitled' if I go "Dude, you may not realize this but EVERY TIME x character speaks you say 'x mumbled' and I'm getting really tired of his mumbling, what's wrong with 'x said'?"

"Dude, you may not realize this but EVERY TIME x character speaks you say 'x mumbled' and I'm getting really tired of his mumbling, what's wrong with 'x said'?"

That's not necessarily entitled, but it's also not what you said you said.

Re: apparently I am a flamer now??

(Anonymous) - 2015-02-27 02:00 (UTC) - Expand

You shouldn't have left it on anon. I bet if you said it with a name to your review, the author would have been a little more willing to listen.

Plus the 'this is annoying' does sound kind of entitled, like you're expecting them to change stuff just for you.

YES. Thank you.

I don't know if I would call that constructive criticism, and I don't think I would have offered it unless they asked for criticism.

Telling someone the pacing of the story is off or they could stand to use less epithets is helpful if they're willing to take your advice.

However, telling someone that you don't like decisions they've made about characters or the direction the story is headed is overstepping. It's their writing and if you don't enjoy it you don't have to read it.

The author is definitely overreacting... but your paraphrasing of your comment also sounds entitled. "This is annoying to me" is not the most diplomatic of phrasings and you had to have known it was going to rankle, especially on anon.

Did the author request concrit? If they didn't, then you erred. Even if they did request concrit, saying that something is "annoying" to you isn't very constructive because it sounds like it's about your personal taste, not the writing itself. Leaving a review that complains the story didn't meet your preferences makes it sound like you expect to be catered to, and that sounds rather entitled. I wouldn't regard it as a flame, per se, but I'd wonder why you felt the need to be slightly aggressive about an issue that's not really the author's problem.

Exactly. I wish people would think more.

sometimes I think a lot of people on the internet do feel entitled to some "right" to comment on and judge everything they see because its there.

Yeah, exactly.

Doesn't sound constructive to me. I'd say, though, that a lot of people don't really know what "constructive criticism" entails. It seems that many people just think it's any criticism, but not all criticism is helpful. For instance, "I didn't like that X's dress was red because red is an ugly color" isn't at all helpful, whereas, "I didn't like that X's dress was red because that color's loaded symbolism is a bit played out and doesn't serve the purpose of blah blah" is constructive. It's not just what you didn't like. Concrit is about labeling the strengths and weaknesses of someone else's writing, rather than your personal preferences, which is what your comment sounds like, in my opinion.

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