[ SECRET POST #3805 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3805 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 40 secrets from Secret Submission Post #545.
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

[(Anonymous)]

If people enjoy it, that's great! That just hasn't been my experience but if there are people out there who genuinely get a lot of reading them then I have no issue with it.

[(Anonymous)]

There are plenty of self-insert fics that get a lot of kudos, so clearly there is an audience for them.

[(Anonymous)]

If I'm honest I don't pay attention, I usually only hear about self insert fic when people are complaining about it so I was basing my questions off of that.

[(Anonymous)]

The most likely explanation is they get kudos from people thinking they are being nice or being kind to the newb. Unfortunately there are few quicker ways to kill a fandom than filling it up with bad Mary Sues, Self Inserts, OCs, or combinations there of. That was one of the reasons that they used to be so discouraged and many original archives and mailing lists banned them on sight along with script fics and song fics, and other low effort low bar to clear newbie stuff. Fandom used to care about policing its own and making sure that it was exciting enough to continue in. People came in knowing they were going to change and develop or they were sent back to lurking instead of churning out drabbles, scene-only fics, cuddlefics, and the rest of the OC/SI stable.

I mean sure it is possible to do a decent self-insert fic or OC centric fic, the Ranma, Evangelion, and Sailor Moon fandoms in their heyday were proof of that, but it takes a lot of skill and care to do it right. It is something that a writer should do after they've put out their first few shitfics, once they've learned how to write characters and develop plots, not as a first effort in itself.

Do these SI or OC fics that get kudos actually merit them on story construction, plot, or characterization? Or do they just look something fluufy that is given to someone as the internet version of a "you participated" star? Be honest now.

[(Anonymous)]

Alternatively, fandoms die because the new blood - young, often unskilled writers - are driven off by elitist... Helpful People(TM)... while they're still bumbling around making mistakes, writing easy access 'beginner' stories, and learning how to spin a story.

Positive reinforcement generally works better, when it comes to learning how to write.

[(Anonymous)]

Without a solid incentive they keep recycling the same newb errors for years, all the time thinking they are doing a good job because nobody bothers to correct them. They just get kudoses and white knighted instead.

[(Anonymous)]

Hardly, please show me where all these self-insert fics are getting tons of kudoes and have the following to get whiteknighted. They're ignored if anything.

What's more common is that people don't put out their out at all in fear of being ridiculed.

[(Anonymous)]

And fear is good. It makes people improve.

All those years of zines, e-zines, webrings, mailing lists, they all thrived on that fear of rejection. It spurred people on to do better. It placed an easily overcomeable with effort barrier, and made people actively engage and move forward. Fandom has only gone into a stale death spiral since the bubblewrap era of just endorsing the feels.

[(Anonymous)]

I'd rather people have fun than stress themselves out over a hobby. There's still incentives to improve like getting more attention and the like of the craft itself too.

[(Anonymous)]

Fear of failure, of getting dragged because someone might think my work was cheesy, that never helped me improve.

Writing, and more writing, that's what got my skills up.

You sound like the kind of person who kicks puppies for 'training'. "The only way they'll learn," or some such bullshit.

[(Anonymous)]

Exactly. If anything, fear of public opinion has made me stop writing entirely for years on end before. It's also a big reason why I have no interest in going pro. What is an easily surmountable task for one person can be practically impossible for another.

I love writing. Have ever since I could pick up a pencil. It's that passion for the art that keeps me coming back to writing even if it took me a good, long while.

My writing isn't popular, but the few people who like it really, REALLY like it, so I'm going to keep sharing (no, I don't write self-inserts anymore, just the occasional OC when no canon character will fill the necessary role). But it took the better part of my forty-some-odd years on earth to get there.

[(Anonymous)]

Same. And that same principle spans across multiple art forms for me. The realization of "wow my writing is kinda shit" is what made me stop writing entirely for a solid decade. Feeling that my drawing wasn't very good was what made me feel like I should probably just not bother.

On the other hand, realizing that I was actually starting to get pretty good at drawing, and more recently that my writing was in fact half-decent, is what made me feel like I COULD improve, and it made me want to put in the needed practice. If anything has most held me back in life in general it's this idea that if I feel like I'm good at something, that will somehow make me worse at it. Because the reality is the exact opposite.

None of which is to say that constructive criticism should be avoided, but that itself is a bit of an artform that requires both honesty and tact. Yes, those two things can coexist.

[(Anonymous)]

DA

I think you're right.

A massive influx of unskilled writers can cause more passable writers to flee, but I think more fandoms go inactive due to what you describe. I'd argue that, currently, a fandom dominated by fluffy, low-effort fic is more likely than not influenced heavily by a climate of negativity and nitpicking, whether it be negativity towards poorly written "shitfics" or (more commonly) negativity towards fics with a subject deemed sufficiently problematic.

[(Anonymous)]

DA

Such fics are bizarrely popular in some of my fandoms, to the point that it makes it difficult to browse for other types of fic. I'd rather drink a glass of my own spit than read Canon Character x OC fic, but I must say that I don't understand your angle here where you guess it's fine if people like it but you just find it so hard to believe that anyone actually does. The fact that self-inserts are so pervasive as to be an annoyance shows that plenty of people do in fact like them.

The fact of the matter is that sharing any kind of fanwork opens you up to criticism from people who hate it for whatever reason. People shouldn't stop posting and advertising their niche fic just because you think no one cares and you think they need to be protected from themselves. If that were the case, no one would write or post fic about anything besides the most popular ships.

[(Anonymous)]

I guess I thought it was more popular because people liked writing it but I didn't know the statistics of people who liked reading it.

I understand your point.