[ SECRET POST #3821 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3821 ⌋

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

01.



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02.
[Movie: It Comes At Night]


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03.
[iZombie]


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04.
[New Girl]


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05.
[Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid]


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06.
(Doctor Strange)


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07.
[Fire Emblem]











Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 26 secrets from Secret Submission Post #547.
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

[ketita]

Huh, that's an interesting point. I don't know that it necessarily reflects on all aspects of achievement in life, but I agree with you that that sort of immediate gratification - even more immediate than reviews or kudos - can be very addictive.
And it encourages writing little posts that give immediate results, rather than developing writing skills and getting in for long-term stuff.
For me, writing multichapter fics was probably some of the best things I ever did in terms of acquiring useful skills. My planning, plot construction, and ability to keep ideas in my head and arrange them coherently and interestingly improved a lot, and those skills still serve me.
Not to mention accepting criticism...

[(Anonymous)]

Not on all aspects, no. But I do think that writing long-term projects does - as you said - give you valuable skills that can be put to work elsewhere; that might be in writing things as a career, that might be in writing things for your job, it might just be improved communication and critical thinking skills. And, as you also said, the ability to accept criticism (or at least constructive criticism) well is incredibly valuable. (It's also valuable to know how to maturely handle random bullshit that that you don't deserve, which may or may not come into play writing multi-chaptered fic.)

Addiction is a good way to describe that bit of immediate gratification, I think. Which, again, can contribute to a warped worldview. Then again, with how technology has changed how we as a society communicate, it's maybe hard to say what constitutes a warped worldview. I do still hold to the idea that not a lot of effort leading to a lot of squee and praise is helpful to no one, though.

[ketita]

Yeah, see, the thing with criticism is also being able to look at unconstructive feedback and recognize it as unconstructive, or just disagree with it. I'm not even talking about random trolls, but about people who may leave snarky/less than positive comments.
Learning how to let that roll off is also good, imo. (not saying that the people who leave jerkish comments are okay, of course!)

afaik there have been studies that show that things like Facebook notifications are addictive, so I absolutely believe that posting immediate-gratification short things in fandom spaces can be linked to the same thing.
While it can definitely be NICE to sometimes get accolades for something small as a pick-me-up, for me the best feeling is still getting reactions to something I worked hard on.
(I'm still vaguely sad that my most popular fanfic to date is FAR from being my best, imo! But it just appeals to the audience on an easy level...)

[(Anonymous)]

It is awesome to get recognition for something you worked hard on. And yeah, baffling when the random thing you-as-author are less fond of or know you worked less on gets less attention than something you really put a lot of effort into. Ah well.

Also, yeah, being able to tell the difference between constructive and unhelpful feedback, also valuable. I missed that one. Good point there.

[ketita]

I still remember on one of my WIPs where I made a pretty controversial decision regarding characterization. And to some extent, I had to stick to my guns on it, and hope I'd convince the readers - and not everybody liked it, and even my betas disagreed with me to some extent. It also made me examine my own decision, to see how much of it was artistic disagreement, and how much of what they were saying was true.
It was a good learning experience.

Though I think that also the push for constant accolades, and accepting everything with open arms, is also not the best. I know that when I started in fandom, I worked hard to improve the quality of my writing.
Again, not saying there should be gatekeeping, but communities can promote certain norms without being aggressive about it...

[(Anonymous)]

I think it's possible to build a culture of encouraging self-improvement that isn't restrictive or unwelcoming. It's difficult to do when the social norm seems to be shifting toward all-positive-all-the-time and any sort of criticism (constructive or otherwise) is met with hostility. It's also difficult to encourage the type of self-reflection you're talking about with the apparently pervasive attitude of "Well, [offers excuse here] so don't criticize this."

I feel like this is maybe linked to a widespread idea that effort is not something about which one should be proud; it's the tendency to spend an hour getting dressed and doing makeup and then brushing off any compliments with "This old thing? Oh, I just threw this together." If you don't put in anything of yourself, then you can't be hurt by a rejection of it. So people pretend to put in no effort until they're actually putting in no effort, and then there's no vulnerability.

Which cycles back around to knowing how to appropriately handle constructive criticism, which is HOW ONE GROWS AS A PERSON.

[(Anonymous)]

Exactly.

And reading helps a lot with one's writing skills, too. I've seen lots of people advising budding writers to read a lot, both well-written stories and badly written stories, so they can learn what works and what doesn't, and how to understand the rules of grammar and punctuation (and even how to sometimes try bending or breaking those rules, depending on the type of story they write), and other things of that sort. I think some people tend to forget about that aspect, too.

[ketita]

Yes!
Reading is SO important. But tbh, I'd say that it's better to first read the "good" stuff, to work on your palate... I remember a year or two back I was reading the Dark Elf trilogy. The first book was atrocious, so badly written, but I somehow got through it. Then, when I started the second, I remember thinking "huh, it's not that bad!"
And then I NOPEd right out of that, because I figured those books were corrupting my brain and my ability to discern good writing from bad XDD