Perfectionism?

I notice I have a particular problem with writing. When I wrote my two FF6 fics, the second one practically done with the last chapter on the way real soon, I looked at them as fairly decent fics. I went through them tooth and nail with Word Spelling/Grammar check. However, once they were put up by Weiila (many thanks), it wasn’t until I read them on the fiction site that I noticed a problem. The problem was that a good amount of typos in both stories was found. Fixing every little bug I could find, I patched up the stories so far, but a lingering question remains in my mind. If you notice an error, but it’s so insignificant that most readers won’t notice, should you still bother to go through them again and again once they’ve been put up, putting the moderators under stress to revamp and repost the whole motherf***** just so you feel satisfied that both the moderators and readers know you’re a good writer? I feel rather guilty of bothering Weiila with this perfectionist BS in both my stories since January.
“Yep, he made another redraft. This guy doesn’t stop until it’s perfect ;)”

I don’t see it as a bad thing. As long as it’s not something where you’re bugging people to update every month for one error you’ve found, it’s fine. When I come across typos reading stories I want to go in and fix it.

For most people, an occasional typo or two isn’t a problem…but with me, it’ll eat me alive from the inside like a flesh-eating bacteria until I fix it.

So I guess it varies from person to person. But there’s nothing WRONG with it.

Fan Writer Insecurity: It’s an evil that plagues ALL of us, at some point in our writing lives. God, I remember how I was DEADLY afraid people wouldn’t like my stories when I starting posting them!

But you know what? I eventually realized that OTHER PEOPLE’S OPINIONS DON’T REALLY MATTER. Why? Because fanfic writing is mainly supposed to please THE AUTHOR. Sure, it’s great when others like your stories. And, you certainly can learn from other people’s comments. Unfortunately, this is the Internet. The next person to review your story might be a knowing, kind person who will critizice you fairly (like Weiila) OR, it could be an embittered bastard who has nothing better to do than hurt the feelings of newbies. Some of them will even proceed to deconstruct your story, telling you EVERYTHING that is supposedly “wrong” with it, for no other reason than to be mean- completely forgetting the point: that this is done FOR FUN.

As a writer, you only have TWO real responsibilities: one, make sure your story makes sense, and two, make sure it’s readable (otherwise, why even post it?) Other than that, just write it the way it pleases you to- that’s the whole point.

As for the typos, don’t be a perfectionist. Yes, I used to try to catch them all, too. But there always are some that slip through, such as ones that a spellchecker won’t catch because they look like real words, just not the ones you intended. This happens so often most of us don’t mind them as long as we understand what you mean. Just watch out that a typo doesn’t alter the whole sense of a sentence (writing “deaf” instead of “death” for example).

Actually, drafting and redrafting is what authors call ‘polishing’ their writings, although they tend to do this before they send their work off to the editors. One thing that helps you find out the kinks in a story is to wait a few hours after you’ve finished writing (play Quake, watch tv, or whatever) and then go back to the work and read it over again.

Don’t worry Herr, you’re not causing me any trouble :slight_smile:

Well, I would say that you can never, ever, truly edit your own work anyway. That’s why authors send their work to editors. When you look at your own writing, you know what you intend, so that’s what you see (though sometimes the editors unknowingly change something right to wrong, ie. I have heard it said that when Tolkien submitted Lord of the Rings to the publishers they changed all spellings of Elvish to Elfish and so on). But anyway, that’s why I’m waiting to submit my story to Weiila; I’m going to finish the whole thing, then get my father to edit it for me. After that it should be reasonably correct, at least from a grammar perspective.

Certainly a wise plan. However, no one knows except for you ladies and gents that I really write stories. The last people I’d want to edit my story would be my family, my brother would just laugh at me and my parents are too busy. Besides, bothering them from college would be a pain in the ass anyway.

Try reading it aloud or get a friend to read it aloud.

Ah, I can understand that. I remember trying to write a bunch of times, and always doing it in secret. It wasn’t till I tried to write a Chrono story (in that case an exact scene from the game in story format) that I actually showed it to anybody (though I felt very embarrased in doing so), to which my mother told me I should try writing my own thing. I went half way and began to write a fanfiction with an original storyline. Granted it’s not complete as of yet, but there is nobody aside from my second-youngest sister who has read the whole thing, and none of the rest of my family really know it, other from what I’ve told them about it, or the few chapters they might have read at my request. They tell me it’s good that I’m writing, but don’t usually show much of an interest in the writing itself (aside from my 11 year old sister; then again, of all my siblings she’s the most like me. She’s the only aside from me whose ever played RPGs. Moreover she likes writing, too). They’re usually too busy, but I also think they don’t fully understand the difficulties that are connected with writing; I sure couldn’t before I started. And as far as my friends go…I’m in engineering, and for an engineer to be more engrossed in literary persuits than in scientific matters is decidedly odd. Whenever I show any of my writing all I get is a “you should be in arts.” Perhaps it is a true statement, but it gets unnerving after a while.
So I can understand why you’d feel that way, because to some lesser extent I’ve always felt that way (though it has begun to wear off in the past few years).

That’s what the kids/privates I hang with in the Army say. They’ve seen my drawings, but not my writings, and are dumbfounded as to why I’m in the US Army. Apparently artists and writers aren’t exactly found in the Army, but I guess uniformity and indoctrination can do that. As far as editors, I don’t know anyone really into this kind of stuff, except you people as stated before, so I can’t go to my roommate and ask him to edit it. I also can’t go to my friend otherwise she’ll just laugh at me like my brother. However, I really don’t give a f*** what they have to say, because I’m the one with the talent and not them.

That reminds me of the art school I was at two years ago. It had great courses and all, but the mentality got on my nerves until I almost burned out completely. It went like “When you’re here, you do art and NOTHING else”. I couldn’t sit down on the breaks and make some notes on a story without somebody coming past muttering that I should be drawing instead, teacher and student alike. If I hummed a little while I was painting something, somebody came by and mentioned “There’s a music school in this town, as well.”
The hell? :stuck_out_tongue:

I think that overall, it’s not a good idea to have family look at your writing, they’re almost too close as well and they can easily be more prone to just say “Oh, this is great!” to make you happy than anything else. Rommel, Krispin, you seem to get along real well already, why don’t you check each other’s stuff out? :slight_smile:

Yeah, family members aren’t too good to ask.

If I asked my mom she would be like: “Why are you writing this, you’ve got homework to do!” :stuck_out_tongue:

So I mostly send Weiila my stuff when I see her on ICQ.

In my case, my family never understood my fascination with “cartoons” (in fact, I’ve always read ALL kinds of fiction, from comics to classic literature, but they just didn’t understand that.) They tried to discourage me, but at least they were genuinely concerned that it was stunting my social development… Never mind that I was a well-behaved, A-student child. My older sister Ivonne, who basically took it upon herself to raise us after our parents’ deaths, was especially worried, convinced that my fascination with fantasy was going to hurt my mind!! She took me several times to psychologists, hoping I could be “cured”. The fact they always said that I was perfectly Ok never convinced her. It wasn’t until I was in my teens that I put my foot down and told her to GIVE IT UP. She did, although she still thinks this is a stupid waste of time.

I suppose most of us go thru something like that: average people just don’t understand , because they think animation, video games, etc. are “kids stuff” not realizing that there are some very good stories in them (better than classic stuff, sometimes, in my opinion; you could NOT get me to read another “Classic” Spanish Novel even at a threat to my life!) :thud: Maybe someday they’ll understand, now that stuff Like Spider-Man, Lord of the Rings and Finding Nemo turn into the BIG blocksbusters at the movies.

You people are lucky to have the Net, in the old days we depended on Snail Mail to get in touch with others who shared our interests.

It’s actually pleasant to see other people who don’t wish to change/grow up… Esp. People who are in the same age category as one’s parents :stuck_out_tongue: (Namely, me)

Yeah basically if my brother or my friends saw me do this, they’d think I was a massive nerd or one of those anime/fantasy freaks (why it’s so wrong to like that stuff even just a little bit I haven’t clue).