fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3371 ]

[ SECRET POST #3371 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3371 ⌋

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

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Notes:

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

And if your readership stats go down, and reviews dry up, because of the poor writing and confrontational attitude, so what. At least YOU know what a good job you are doing.

"confrontational attitude"

You can challenge someone to explain themselves civilly, but if someone is butthurt because you ask them to explain their critique and justify and accusation that's their problem.

If you come at someone with an accusation, you should probably be prepared to give an explanation. if you can't even back up your accusation, it's probably bullshit. Someone expecting you to is not being confrontational unless they're aggressive about it.

Your logic does not follow at all - if the writing is poor, readers can give specific examples of where the problem lies and then the author can improve that. Asking for critique to be constructive isn't confrontational.

Why would a reader be motivated to do that. They've left their critique, if the author wants to act on it then they can, most readers are not going to get into a back and forth with an author (esp. since most get super defensive) over it. They have better things to do with their time than submit to a cross examination. You can demand they cite examples all day long, but most of the time they've made their point in the initial review and will do nothing except check the next chapter to see if it's been taken on board before bailing.

Why would a writer be motivated to change if the critiques left are vague?

Okay, you aren't concerned about hearing why what you are doing is wrong, I'm walking away now.

The opposite, actually. I am concerned with hearing why what I'm doing is wrong, so I want something more than, "I don't like this/this is wrong/your OC is a Mary Sue." Why don't you like it? Why is it wrong? Why is my OC a Mary Sue? A detailed critique provides a jumping off point; a vague critique gives me little to go on.

Edited 2016-03-27 23:39 (UTC)

"they've left their critique"
Except its too vague to be taken into account seriously. Its like of someone just went "this is bad" - well how is it bad? How is this character a Sue? Is she too overpowered? Does she seem to not fit into the universe? Does she fit in too well, so it seems forced? There are a lot of factors, and just substituting one word in place of actually going "its unrealistic that everyone likes this character" or "why is this character secretly a princess that's pretty cheesy"

Or you pay attention to the part where I said take their responses into consideration and use them to improve in the future, because that's great too.

The reason I specified to challenge them for a reason is because in my experience, when people call out Sues, it's just by saying "wow what a sue but it's fine I guess??" or some variant, with no actual critique. If they leave proper critique from the word go, then follow up on that advice immediately because you've just found a rare gem in a see of assholes.

I think I might just start prefacing suggestions with "in my experience" at this point.

TBH I think the person who responded to you is just butthurt at the idea that to be listened to and taken into consideration they need to give more than an accusatory complaint.

I'm sure people like this would love to convince authors that they'll lose their readership if they dare to stand up for themselves and ask an unhelpful reviewer to expand on their accusation.

Probably. And the bad thing is, they're probably right, because the more vocal parts of most fandoms tend to be the entitled little shits who insist everything should pander to their preferences. As soon as something doesn't pander to them, it's bad and whoever made it should change to pander to them, or just stop completely.

It'd be nice if the vocal minority would shut up once in a while, but eh, that's fandom.

People are not obligated to even comment that. They can just go "what a goddamned Sue" to themselves and backbutton out. Start following the advice here and only taking seriously when you get solid crit, that just is dumb advice amigo. You come back at the people who tell you it is a Sue and they will just be all "Okay, I'm walking away now" and you'll lose them all the faster. The only way to avoid Sue-accusation is by natural character development over time. Create your character as just a background extra with lines in another fic and over the course of a canon of work slowly increase their part one line at a time.

It'd help if you told us the canon you are writing for, of course, cause then we can advise you how to make your character best fit. Unless it is MLP they are not going to be accepting of a stranger interfering in their lives right out of the blue. Hell, even then. Some canon characters in other canons spend the entire run of the show from season one to season twelve refusing to accept any additions or new faces. You gotta be realistic about this and work with the canon personalities.

I love how you seem to think that if your critique is questioned that the author's whole readership will just drop the fic with you.

Not everybody is as softskinned as you are, hon.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ SECRET POST #3371 ]

Re: How do I NOT Write a Mary-Sue?

DA

Re: How do I NOT Write a Mary-Sue?

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