[ SECRET POST #6075 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #6075 ⌋

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


01.



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02.
[Fallen London]



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03.
[Krazy Kat]



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04.
[The Lost Tomb]



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07.



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08.



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09.
[Transcript: I swear the hell, none of you people think writing is "real" art that takes "real" effort, not compared to the other kinds.]


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10.
[Transcript: I bought a red immersion blender just so I could name it Tom Servo.]






















Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 12 secrets from Secret Submission Post #868.
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

[fscom]

09. https://images2.imgbox.com/40/21/087osJnw_o.png
[Transcript: I swear the hell, none of you people think writing is "real" art that takes "real" effort, not compared to the other kinds.]

[(Anonymous)]

This is basically what its like to be a writer on Deviantart.

[(Anonymous)]

Who is "you people" in this scenario?

Surely not all the writers-themselves in this particular community?

[(Anonymous)]

Do you swear the heaven too?

[(Anonymous)]

If this is about paying fan artists vs. fic writers, the difference is that artists use tools that actually cost money. Writing only needs a computer, tablet, or phone, which the writer likely already has.

I don't think most people think artists should be making money on fanart, but payment for supplies is different.

[(Anonymous)]

It has a very low barrier to entry and, unlike with art, people can't tell mediocre or good writing apart at a glance. Not saying I'm happy about it, but that's just how it is.

[(Anonymous)]

Also, the thing is that what one person finds to be "good writing" might be boring drivel to someone else. It's a very subjective thing.

[(Anonymous)]

Um, I think most people can tell. I think some people can just overlook it and have a good time with the fic anyway.

[(Anonymous)]

At a glance? If it's like a mass of text, sure, but usually you have to engage with a work before you figure that out.

[(Anonymous)]

Ohhh haha - my bad, totally missed that!

[(Anonymous)]

I mostly agree with you, except that bad writing is harder to put into words why it's bad. You need to understand things about the technical side of writing to describe it. Which is very different to 'his head's too big for his body' or 'woah human spines don't bend like that'.

I'm a classic case in point. I understand writing is an art form, I write myself. My writing is bad but I lack the knowledge to improve it. I cannot formulate the introspection required to make it better.

[(Anonymous)]

Once you start getting into critique, though, you can sort of interpret what people who don't know as much about writing are reacting to. "It was just a misunderstanding/why don't they just TALK to each other" means the conflict was poorly developed or insufficient. "The ending was stupid" usually means the ending didn't sufficiently address the themes of the story or characters, or the themes it was addressing weren't hammered home hard enough in the rest of the work. "The dialogue was weird, people don't talk like that" is, I think, usually more about the writer needing to spend more time really getting to know their characters and develop their voices than it is about word choices and sentence structure - it's about the characters not feeling Real.

No one starts out being able to put it into words, but we all have gut reactions to fiction - the whole job of a writer is to draw out those gut reactions! My writing has improved SO much from reading other work and being thoughtful about my own feelings on it. There's always a really tough climb between understanding what good fiction looks like and why things work to actually being able to do it yourself, though. Which sucks, because you spend a long time being great at critiquing yourself and terrible at actually making good stuff, haha.

OP

[(Anonymous)]

In the few days between submitting this and it getting posted, an addendum has occurred to me:

On the other hand, a substantial segment of the internet seems to be under the impression that the other kinds of art just show up ex nihilo with no artist actually involved in the process. ... Unlike with writing, I don't think any of them would endorse this belief in explicit discussion, but their actions make clear how they conceptualize it.

Re: OP

[(Anonymous)]

Sorry, some people are proving your point by dragging writing through the mud... as a visual artist, and not much of a writer, I agree with your point in the secret and addendum. The truth is that art, visual, writing, etc, is viewed as a commodity, especially nowadays. Just something to consume then move on, and unless you're on the top of the tree no one will think much about what you do as art, or at least not properly.

People are completely unaware of how it is to be an average artist because they can only think of big names when it comes to recognizing it as an art form, and this shows in how they treat artists and art who are not those big names.

[(Anonymous)]

I think writing is something that anyone can do and I think that's what's so great about it. There's no real barrier to entry; anyone who wants to write a story can do so and can post it. Some people will enjoy it, some people won't, but I think that treating writing as something that needs a certain level of skill or ability or talent to do is inherently a bad thing. Anyone can tell a story if they want to and they should be encouraged to do so regardless of their level of technical writing skill.

[(Anonymous)]

+10000, but honestly, I wish this was the sentiment people had about drawing as well. I know why you're less likely to be satisfied with a final product when you try to draw when you don't know how, but it's just as much an easy thing to get into and you don't need all the expansive coloring pencils and tablets people think you do.

People should get more into art in general, and share it too, no matter how good or bad they are at it.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, and anyone can doodle a couple of stick figures and call that good art by your logic.

Look, writing, good writing, is not something just anyone can do well, or even decently, without a massive amount of effort. It takes hard work, a basic grasp of punctuation and grammar, and a hundred other skills you don't know you need until you start trying to write something that's not just coherent, but substantial. Skills that take forever to learn on your own and learn only marginally faster with guidance. By your reckoning, at least the way it sounds to me, you'd be okay with AI writing because it can just plop out whatever, and everything is good to go! Look! Art!

Sorry, I don't mean to be so aggressive here, but you sound like someone who doesn't take writing as an artform seriously. You underestimate, or don't care about the agony writers go through trying to write a good story that might be read by a million people, or five. A real story that moves readers and makes them think, not some half-assed thing a barely literate ten-year-old writes on a sugar high in half an hour.

Again, I'm sorry if I come off aggressive and hyperbolic, but your post is maddening to me. I wish it was as easy as you said, but it's really, really not. Not at all.

[(Anonymous)]

Okay, but "art" =/= "good art". Aside from AI, I think any time someone writes a story, they're doing art, even if that art is low-effort shite. We don't need to say it's not art in order to say it's bad or low effort.

And, like, not everyone writes fiction with the goal of making it Good. Some people write to explore ideas or feelings, to express something, to spend some time in a fantasy world they like, to have a fun time with friends, etc. And the same goes for visual art - the intentions and end results of, say, art created in an art therapy group or kindergarten class and art created to be sold at a gallery show are totally different, but they're both still art.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't disagree with much of what you're saying, but my larger issue with your stance is that your definition of what art is gives AI product room to call itself art, and you kind of waved off the point I was trying to make about that.

To further that point, I want to say there are AI evangelist out there fighting tooth and nail to make what AI does be seen as art, and your low thresh hold for what art is and how it's made kind of makes their argument from them.

[(Anonymous)]

You're a perfect example of why I find so many writers shitty and intolerable, actually. :)

[(Anonymous)]

Honestly, fic writers will never get the credit/praise/acclaim they deserve. Any number of white guy action novelists can get their knobs sucked for shitting out a vapid formulaic airplane read, and a fic writer can spend months or years crafting something that's profound and surprising and talented, and get a fraction of the love.

I think a lot of it is a misogyny thing, honestly. Fanfiction is something girls do, so it must be frivolous and silly and not Serious Art. Fic is almost always by and for women and girls (and I say this as a male ficwriter, lol) and the art women and girls are into is ALWAYS devalued and ridiculed. Think "chick flicks" and "mommy porn" vs the mountain of limp, half-assed action movies out there.

[(Anonymous)]

I believe writing is art. Not everyone agrees.

IMO Writing is dismissed as "not real art" because "anyone can write".

We take for granted that honing the skills to be a good/effective writer takes a lot of work because learning and mastering the craft of writing is not something one can visualize.
Drawing, you can watch someone draw their picture, see how the strokes of their penmanship has improved.

Art means creating something.
Good/elevated art, on the other hand, is something people can have further discussions on, but art is art.

If it's an art you don't know or don't like or don't care for, saying it's not real art makes you an asshat I would want nothing to do with.

[(Anonymous)]

Throwing in my two cents as someone who draws AND writes, by my experience people tend to fall in three major categories.

1- People who also write or at least tried to at some point in their life, and go "Yeah writing is fucking hard, actually"

2- People who don't write but engage in other creative pursuits and go "I don't have firsthand experience, but I can imagine writing is fucking hard, actually."

3- People who have never engaged in a creative pursuit since their pasta art made in kindergarten and go "Pfff what's so hard about it, I could do it!"

(Also subcategory a, or what I call "the white whale": People who have never engaged in a creative pursuit but also have the common sense and decency to say "I know jack all about this, so I'm gonna trust you when you say that it's fucking hard, actually")

Yes, I am generalizing for comedic purposes, but also... Kinda not. It is a sad reality of not just writing, but any sort of creative work that there will always be people not having the faintest clue of the effort that goes into these hobbies/careers and very much underestimate and trivialize somebody's else work. You just kinda have to make peace with it, imo : T

[(Anonymous)]

Well said.

[(Anonymous)]

I do think the educational system might actually be somewhat to blame for people not seeing all kinds of creative endeavors as art. And I mean all kinds - crocheting, making miniatures, beading, jewelry design, writing, dancing, flower arranging, architectural design, photography, graphic design, animation, and so on and so on. I feel like whenever art was brought up, it was nearly always in reference to something on canvas, and whether or not it was, it was often something very old, and it seemed like only things that art scholars or art critics had analyzed counted.