[ SECRET POST #2183 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2183 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Sorry for late, overslept.

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 067 secrets from Secret Submission Post #312.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 - 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)]

f I can't include those critiques, then I feel like I am lying at least a little, because I'm leaving out a quarter/third/whatever of what I should be saying in the review.

Thanks, this is pretty much exactly how I feel about responding to people's work in fandom. In practice most of the reviews I leave are completely positive, but if I do have a little niggle somewhere and I think it's important enough to say, I'm going to say it, and I very much want the same in return from people who read my fics.

I do fear that something of value will be lost, but then, I love getting into conversations/meta with people in fic review threads. That's the best part of participating in fandom for me, and I wouldn't give it up for the world, and I certainly think that shutting down all crit ever stifles some of those conversations.

[femme_androgyne]

I just figure that if getting concrit is really that important to someone, then they can say so. I'll go out of my way to leave reviews if I know someone welcomes crit, even though I only really review fic if I liked it, so it's not like my reviews are ever overwhelmingly critical. It's usually a lot of:

"I loved what you did with [x]. I'd never considered the significance of [thing he did in canon] before, but I really liked how you handled it. You also completely sold me on [pairing x/a], which is odd, since I usually ship [x] with [y] and [a] with [b] instead. There was one thing that had me scratching my head a bit. In [scene from earlier chapter] you had [x] thinking about his past romantic relationship with [z], but in [later chapter], the narrative claimed they had only ever been friends. It's not that big of a deal, though. I loved the fic, anyway. :D I see in your profile that you've written some stuff for [other fandom I enjoy], too, so you might be hearing from me again! Congratulations on the awesome story!"

Apparently I'm a bitchy entitled bitch, though, for wanting to be able to leave those sorts of mean, evil, hostile reviews that will clearly scar the author for life.

[citrinesunset]

See, to me, I wouldn't even see that as concrit. I would see that as an honest reaction. I'm fine with people mentioning things that bugged them in my fics. People have said things like that to me, and it's no big deal. But it doesn't really register as "concrit" to me.

I'm more hesitant about concrit because I associate that more with giving advice and suggesting ways it should be changed, which I don't necessarily want unsolicited.

[femme_androgyne]

That's actually pretty typical of the kind of review I will leave when I know someone won't be angry with concrit (it's a real review with the serial numbers filed off, in fact). But I've had people get angry about very similar reviews before, so I just don't risk it. I figure no one is so desperate for my opinion that they'll feel deprived if I don't review, so whatever.

The only time I've ever offered specific advice about how to change a fic (as opposed to pointing out plotholes or inconsistencies) is when I was betaing, which I haven't done in a few years because I got too busy for awhile, and I just haven't picked it up again. Even when I was betaing, though, I never insisted that authors needed to change their style, pairings, or plot to suit me, although I did once beta for someone who thought that it was basically the same thing when I pointed out that they hadn't developed a pairing *well*. (It just showed up out of nowhere when the characters had had literally one prior scene.) Needless to say, I never betaed for that person again.

[citrinesunset]

Yeah, I believe that some people would react negatively to stuff like that, which is a shame because there's nothing particularly presumptuous about stuff like your example.

Maybe I just have a different idea of concrit than a lot people, because it seems like a lot of people do see it as including things like your above example. But I've gotten comments like that and they've never felt like concrit to me. Just helpful, honest reactions.

My idea of concrit is more shaped by my experiences with betas and critique groups, so I associate it with that sort of in-depth, line-by-line feedback and editing that I get in those contexts. And honestly, no, I wouldn't want someone to just do that for one of my fics without any invitation at all. It would be off-putting.

[femme_androgyne]

I choose to believe that the main reason that the discussion around this secret is such a clusterfuck is that half the people involved in it are working from a different definition than the other half.

[citrinesunset]

It's certainly possible! And I do think that's the case to a large degree.

Also, I think there are a lot of entitled people out there--both writers who don't want to hear anything that isn't gushing praise, and "critiquers" who act like they're God's gift to writers, or who make rude/entitled comments under the guise of concrit. I think who you've encountered more will probably influence your feelings somewhat.

[(Anonymous)]

Your comments are the type of comments I absolutely love receiving. I'm thrilled to get any comments, but I love getting comments that actually address specific points of the fic and point out things that are unclear or inconsistencies, since I'd rather fix those if at all possible. You seem like you'd make an excellent beta.

[stainless]

*agree*

[(Anonymous)]

Lately I have started sometimes saying that I welcome crit, and it feels weirdly like fishing for comments. I really feel like it shouldn't have to be said.

LOL yes HDU ruin a fic writer's day like that. Fic writers are such fragile little snowflakes, aren't we?

[femme_androgyne]

And then when I was done I told them that Santa doesn't really exist, too. Because I'm vindictive like that.

[(Anonymous)]

That sounds like a great critique to me! the whole 'sandwich critique' technique is what I use, always sandwiching a negative between two or more positives. IF I can't think up more than two positives, why did I waste my time reading the fic? XD

Mostly I'm ignored, but sometimes I get grateful replies with things like "TY, English isn't my first language so I didn't know that" or "yeah, I see what you mean, but I think i'll keep it like this because of (x)! ^^" I did get flamed once but they were like 12-year-olds or something so I was like 'there there sweetie"