fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #1963 ]

[ SECRET POST #1963 ]

⌈ Secret Post #1963 ⌋

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

01.

__________________________________________________

02.

__________________________________________________

03.

__________________________________________________

04.

__________________________________________________

05.

__________________________________________________

06.

__________________________________________________

07.

__________________________________________________

08.

__________________________________________________

09.

__________________________________________________

10.

__________________________________________________

[ ----- SPOILERY SECRETS AHEAD ----- ]

12. [SPOILERS for ASOIAF]

__________________________________________________

13. [SPOILERS for Game of Thrones]

__________________________________________________

14. [SPOILERS for Prototype 2]

__________________________________________________

15. [SPOILERS for Young Justice]

__________________________________________________

16. [SPOILERS for Avengers]

__________________________________________________

[ ----- TRIGGERY SECRETS AHEAD ----- ]

17. [TRIGGER WARNING for suicide]

[Oblivion]

__________________________________________________

18. [TRIGGER WARNING for rape]

[Spartacus: Blood and Sand]

__________________________________________________

19. [TRIGGER WARNING for abuse/rape? I think. better safe anyway]

[Rihanna, Man Down]

__________________________________________________

20. [TRIGGER WARNING for abuse]

__________________________________________________

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 000 secrets from Secret Submission Post #280.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 1 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

05. http://i.imgur.com/IJu1g.png

Are you me? Seriously, I could have written every single word of this secret (except that I still read other people's fics and constantly compare myself to them *sigh*).

Edited 2012-05-18 23:53 (UTC)

You're not alone, OP.

My writing's average at best. Sure, being objective about one's own work is difficult, but re-reading some of my older stuff I'm pretty sure that I'm an average writer. I love getting reviews, but some leave me feeling uncomfortable and undeserving. Like the "this is (one of) the best/my favourite [insert theme] fic in the fandom!" kind of review, because I know that's not true and I could list about a dozen fics with that theme from the top of my head that are actually good. Then it feels like the reviewers only said it to be nice, in which case I feel bad because they meant well and I'm being ungrateful.

And on the note of rec lists, one of my fics got recced along with some really awesome fics, and all I could think was 'D: WHY? What if someone reads my crappy fic and stops persuing the rec list? Then they'll never read those other, actually great fics!' I honestly felt (and still feel) guilty that I might be costing the other authors the readership, attention and praise they deserve.

And while I don't have a "this is terrible" folder, the number of unfinished fics I'm too embarrassed to even glance at again, never mind finish is ridiculously high. :/

I hope that you'll put your fic back up. Yes, I know you don't feel it's good, but someone liked it well enough to rec it, and readers don't always read for the things writers think they're writing.

And I'd like to go back in time, find the people who mocked you on ffrants, and kick them all. Hard.

Seriously, the stories you have out there may or may not be wonderful, but if they're getting good comments, they're good enough to let live. Think of them as a guide to the writer you were when you posted them, or something. You're not the only writer who feels like their stuff isn't much good, but to be honest, most of us aren't looking to read great literature when we're hunting out fanfic, and probably wouldn't keep reading if we found it. Good enough will do.

If it isn't just your writing, but other areas in your life as well where you feel as if your best isn't really worthy of praise, you ought to find someone objective (usually a counselor or other professional) to talk your feelings through with, because chances are that will help you to be more objective too.

OP:

Oddly enough I'm otherwise very confident in myself and proud of what I do. It's just writing where I'm extremely self-depreciating. But thank you for your advice :)

Please don't be your own worst critic. Your self-flagellation (and in this case removal of a fic that people were enjoying and you probably enjoyed writing) doesn't make anything better. You are worth more than you think you are. You are totally allowed to be proud of yourself when other people recognize your work as worth reading.

I'm so sorry, OP. I am also really anxious whenever I write, and I'm always thinking 'gee, this other person is so much better at it', but not so much as you. Just remember that people really have no need to compliment you when you're just a writer on the internet, which means their praise is genuine. Think of it like that and don't be so critical. You are probably amazing. ♥

Congratulations! You've made it past the Dunning-Kruger Threshold:

http://sheilaoshea.blogspot.com/2010/03/dunning-kruger-threshold-or.html

I dunno, I think being counted among the other great fics in your fandom makes you a decent writer at the very least. I tend to get worried about the quality of my writing (especially when I get favorited by people with usernames like Twilightgrrrl1543 *facepalm*), but then I realized that I was one of the few people in my (admittedly small) fandom whose fic the BNFs actually review. And I realized that my reviews tended to have more depth than "lol that was so gud update plz".

I think self-deprecation is only natural, but what you need to remember is this: your fic is not that important to other people. Even if you spend hours obsessing over it and being embarrassed about what you've written, the people who read it are going to stop thinking about it within minutes. That's the line of thinking that has helped me post three mediocre fanfics.

This is why people don't comment fics they love: only worthy readers should bother. Approaching fic authors can be as scary as posting fics.

Self-deprecation is problem of almost everybody, except young enough kids, who shouldn't receive too harsh comments or encounter places like fanficrants because it twists their future ability to accept constructive criticism.

I'm right there with you, OP. For every one story I finish, at least five or six get tossed because I think they just don't work or don't compare to the great fics in whichever fandom I'm writing for. Hell, when someone says "this is really great!" or the like, I can only say "I'm so glad it worked for you," because I can barely type "I'm glad you liked it," let alone comprehend it. (We won't even get into how I can't say I'm proud of a story, because that's a rant for a shrink's office, seriously.)

And TBH, when someone puts me on a recced list, I pretty much freak out, and not in a good way. It's just a lot of pressure added on to the stress I already put myself under. All I can say is that you're definitely not alone, and that I hope knowing that helps you power through.

From the Dunning-Kruger effect wiki page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect):

The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than average. This bias is attributed to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their mistakes.

Actual competence may weaken self-confidence, as competent individuals may falsely assume that others have an equivalent understanding. As Kruger and Dunning conclude, "the miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others" (p. 1127).

I'm sad to hear you deleted your recced fic from the internet, though of course the work is yours to do with as you please. But for readers who love your fic, it's probably very disappointing.
Accurate self-criticism is difficult. Even now that I've improved a lot since my early teen years when I, too, was on the receiving end of a sporking, I still have a bad habit of thinking terrible things are good and good things are terrible, but also thinking good things are good and terrible things are terrible so I'm not even reliably backwards. Outside feedback can be a big help because they don't have all the same baggage and attachments with your writing that you do.

I wish I knew what to say, OP. I could tell you just like everyone else that you are probably fantastic and shouldn't be so hard on yourself, but that isn't going to magically solve your confidence issues.

I really hope you find a way to get through them and gain some perspective. *sends hugs and encouragement* Please don't give up! Keep doing what you love and remember that the most important person to please when you write is yourself - you're never going to satisfy people 100% so you really shouldn't take criticism personally. Write because you love it and try not to sweat it so much. Good luck. :)

This is why I absolutely hate communities like fanficrants. With their feelings of inflated self-importance the only thing that matters to them is how horrible these writers are for dirtying their fandoms. They never think about the people behind the story that they are horribly slicing to bits and pieces. Good concrit is needed to form great writers, but these communities never provide it. I wish people would not go to such places. x__x

Depends. There are a number of rants - on both sides - on ffrants that actually do have a point in what they're saying. Could they stand to be a little nicer about it? Maybe...but it *is* a rant community, and the internet and that, sadly, comes with the territory.

I totally understand you. I was never sporked or ranted on, but my early fic was, well, written like a typical, pretentious twelve-year-old.

OP, I would encourage you to repost the fic you deleted, and tell yourself it was good. Try to turn your self-critical thoughts around, and your feelings will probably follow. You don't have to constantly praise yourself, but you don't have to constantly criticise yourself either. Or you can just say, "Hey, all these people say this fic is good- I've clearly been outvoted." It's okay to sometimes ride other people's opinions to make you feel good about yourself.

If it would help, you can get a beta and ask them to not only catch mistakes, but give you an honest opinion. Hearing another person you have a relationship with tell you you're good can work a lot better than hearing it from random fandom people.

I have people like you on my f-list, really good writers who are constantly down on themselves and complain incessantly about how shit they think their writing is. They're a huge part of the reason why I don't even bother trying to write fic anymore.

I've had weird experiences like that as a reader, rec'g someone's story only to have the author pop up and say, "That's not what I would consider my best story."

Well, then rec a story you like, author, and stop telling me what to like. It's my opinion and I have a right to it.

Though I must say, it seems unnecessarily cruel to delete your story just because someone said it was their favorite. I want to feel compassion for your neurotic insecurity, but your reaction just seems so inappropriately vengeful that I'm struggling with it.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2012-05-19 03:43 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2012-05-19 03:51 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2012-05-19 15:38 (UTC) - Expand

Really feeling you here, anon, I really wish I could have the confidence I had when I just starting out fanfic writing, too. I posted purple-prose lemons, Mary Sue OCs, poor scifi, melodramatic angst, silly songfic, and script-format parodies without a care in the world. It was so much fun. Now everything I write has to be flawless and intelligent and awesome or I can't even choke the words out - which means, of course, that I can't write anything. Even if no one else sees where I fall short, I do, all the time.

(I seriously do not know how authors whose stuff is professionally published can stand it. Any of them with the slightest self-awareness must look back at what they wrote ten years ago and just want to die, and they can't just delete it from the world like we can.)

Reading other people's great fic makes me feel better, though. It's when the fic I want to read and I know others might appreciate isn't out there that I start getting hives, because I know I should write it, but I just don't trust myself to.

Tl;dr, self-esteem issues suck balls.

I could have written part of this, OP. When I was 16 I started writing. I feel like the minority in fandom (as a 'fic author) because I am one of the few who can honestly say I didn't really start writing until I was near adulthood. Most people in my fandom, at least, have been writing since they were little kids. Admittedly, I wrote a Digimon 'fic before I knew what fanfiction was, but let's be honest here, when I found that notebook years later, I burned it. In the wood stove. Yeah. So embarrassing. But other than that, no. I had a late writing start compared to a lot of people. So there I was, in 2000 or so, reading 'fic. I join FFN eventually, and after that sometime, post my first story. The urge to write is so overwhelming. I think most people like me remember their first 'fic forever because it was such a pivotal moment in their life or something.

But that thing was shit. For a 16-year-old, it was shit. My English education was pretty limited regarding writing (I'm still not quite sure what an adjective really is, tbh), so it's easy to see why my writing was so shitty, but man, it was. I bet I was talked about on FFR, but I wouldn't know because I was reaping in hundreds of reviews and laughing diabolically. I had a really supportive environment when I first started writing. So sure, I wasn't 12 and carefree or anything, but I was 16 and pretty damn happy about writing 'fic.

Fast forward to 2012 and I've been writing 10 years. 16 --> 26. And the difference in my writing is CRAZY. What else is crazy? How I feel about my writing. How I feel about writing in general. Don't get me wrong, OP. I'm not trying to make this into a mememe post here. I'm trying to explain why I think part of how you feel is pretty, well, natural.

When we're new writers, we're happy to get reviews, and we don't really know enough about the faux pas of fandom or how to write properly to begin with. Things like the proper use of a comma don't really matter, and if a character does something a little OOC we don't really notice or care (if we even know what OOC means).

I got the occasional flame as a teenager, yeah, but you know what? I learned a lot. Fandom is SO not a waste of time. Fandom probably even saved my life. Writing fanfiction was there for me to do when I really had nothing else to enjoy. And my fandom friends-- that I met via fanfiction!-- have always been supportive. So it's like, wow. Fandom. Writing. All this shit that I've learned. Wow.

But now when I write, I look at a story and I go, ugh, that's OOC, ugh, that's wrong, ugh, what am I doing, ugh, that won't work, ugh, I can't post this yet because I haven't finished the other approximately-23-chapters-but-will-end-up-being-abandoned-at-chapter-three-anyway--

I digress. The older we get, the more we learn, the more aware we become. But something to remember is this: our tastes are not those of our readers or our friends. One of my fandom buddies explained this to me when I was down and out about my own writing because I know some professional-grade writers and compared to them I look like a 13-year-old writing for the first time. (And when those good writers commented on my stuff and said positive things, I thought, they're lying, no way do they mean that, why are they being nice, what is this madness.)

But anyway, try not to be so down on yourself about it. I have read some great fics that just TOUCHED me for some reason. Maybe it was the way the author phrased a certain part, maybe it was the way the characters acted. I mean, something doesn't have to be whoa-perfect for it to be an enjoyable read, y'know? In fact, I'm in fandom to read what I wanna read, and I'm not looking for professional writing or I'd be elsewhere, right?

We're here in fandom to have fun. Not to feel bad about ourselves, or our hobbies, or anything like that. /hug

Hey, I'm not quite brave enough to stay logged in to write this -- but no, you're not alone.

I'm going to give you advice, actually , which I try very hard not to do under normal circumstances. But if I were you, I'd sit down with one of your friends and make him or her listen to you. Say right out at the beginning, "I know you think I'm a good writer and I have nothing to worry about, but there's something I'm struggling with and I need you to listen to me."

The problem with the explosion of Internet fandom in general is that there's soooooooo much writing out there. And if you take away the one-shots written by preteens at four in the morning (not to disparage the kids who are brilliant writers) -- usually in every fanfic, there's something that speaks to someone. I know now that I'm hopelessly in love with a certain fic (I won't give the title or I'll out myself, I've been gushing all over the place) -- but I mean, it makes a difference. I have a playlist on my ipod with the same title as the fic. I think about it while I'm working. Metaphors from the fic come into my mind when I'm brooding about other things and change the patterns of the rest of my thoughts. The double edged sword to Internet fandom is that, while it makes it possible for fics written by normal people like us, who may haev writing weaknesses as well as strengths, to touch people we don't even now, it also makes the pool of fic out there so impossibly large that we don't get enough feedback to have a good idea of our own strengths and weaknesses.

I think what I'm getting at is, I don't know you (and I'm not guessing or anything like that), but I'd suspect you have strengths you don't know about. You weren't getting undeserved praise. BNFs are people Just Like Us. I get that you wish you could go back to your old picture of your own writing. I believe you can -- I don't know what it'll take to get there, and it's obviously not just recognition, but don't give up.

I'm in an almost opposite situation. I've put various fics out there that really mattered to me. And (I don't think this is a personal attack) -- the pool of fic out there is just so large that very few people tend to see my work -- and unless I write something for a specific person, I don't feel comfortable telling my friends to go read my fic (that defeats the purpose -- I'm writing it to benefit people). I can't tell you how many people have told me to just write for myself -- but that's called daydreaming, y'know? I haven't pulled down a lot of my old work -- but I did pull down a couple of particularly embarrassing Buffy novels. Now I just write when people ask me to. If I have a request, then I nkow that it will benefit the person who made the request, and that's really all that matters -- I don't have to be personally invested. I'm not a writing genius and I'll never be a BNF, but I'm not too bad, but that doesn't matter -- I ask "why bother" every time I pick up a metaphorical pen.

I'm not a writer, I'm an artist, but I totally feel you here. Everything you've said and felt up there, I've mirrored in some way.

I miss the days where I drew stuff confidently as well-- young, ignorant, and definitely everything I drew was crap, but I had fun doing it.

Now I feel afraid of posting anywhere because I feel like every thing I produced would be something I'd be judged for. I feel that the need to meet the expectations of not only others but also myself has become crippling. No matter how many times people tell me I'm a competent artist, and despite working in the industry when others my age are still in their early college years, I still feel so much stage fright when it comes to drawing, even if it's just for myself. When other people have confidence in me, I feel like it's only because they aren't aware of my shortcomings.

I guess in the end I just wanted to let you know you're not alone in feeling this way, as a writer or otherwise. That Dunning-Kruger Threshold concept is comforting to read... but hey, where I'm coming from, I'd just be afraid I'm overestimating myself by believing that applies to me. Ah, catch-22s...!

man, i feel you. with art rather than writing, but i totally feel you. for some reason people reassure you that oh no you're great or whatever bullshit they try to calm you down with, and that just makes everything worse. feels like being patronized more than being complimented. as though everyone else is aware of how much you suck but they're just too soft to tell you to your face
any time you create something, all you can do is brace yourself for the onslaught of insults that will come your way. and of course nothing ever does. you are your worst critic every time.

i feel you

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2012-05-19 17:49 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

dangercrow.livejournal.com - 2012-05-19 18:01 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2012-05-19 19:52 (UTC) - Expand

I feel you so much on this.

Mmm... sometimes I'm happy with what I write. Sometimes I'm not. I know I'm average, at most. But I'm totally okay with it. Because some people need/want to read average stuff. If you stop writing, you'll never get better, that's for sure. But people already think you're good. I just don't know what to tell you, because you probably know all of this and the problem is that you can't come to terms with what you feel, not with what you know.

But still, worst case scenario: you write shit. So what. You're making people happy with that shit. Because when I read fanfiction and it makes me feel... whoa, I assure you that makes me happy. And when a fic I love gets deleted, it makes me sad. Should you act only looking for your fans' happiness? Of course not. It's all about you. You have to do whatever makes you happy. But maybe you hadn't thought of that, so I thought I might point it out to you.

Summing up: forget what people without a life might have said in the past.

You're the one who has to make the decisions about your own stuff, but in my case, I don't mind posting stuff that I know that it's less than great because less than great things have their audience, too. Fanfiction is about having fun, dammit.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only