Well, I think I just crushed a girl's dreams of becoming an author -_-

The Core Media Forum
#6

I’m ashamed of my first writing attempts beyond words can say. For a beginner’s work, they weren’t all bad, I suppose… but I have this neurotic fear of looking like a colossal moron. Which, of course, makes me look back on the old days and think “I wish I could go back in time and smack the stupid out of me.” It’s probably why I don;t write anything anymore, because in four years, will I look back on it and think “this was crap”?

Criticism is an awkward thign for the beginner. We’re like children: we draw/make something, and we want to hear how it’s good, instead of how it could be better, because it’s good enough, right? We might say we want to hear what people think, but what people think should be “I’m gonna hang this up on the fridge!”

You did the right thing in telling her like that, Weiila. Maybe soon, she’ll come out of her rabbit hole and try writing again. Or mayeb she won;t. But if that’s the case, I don;t think that having someone else tell her in no uncertaint erms that it was bad, would have made much difference anyway, so at leasy she got a friendly putdown.

#7

I have no problem with criticism so long as it approaches the boundaries of reasonable, so I see no problem with yours. I once wrote a song with a line in the chorus amounting to “I don’t know just what it isi I mean,” upon which I got three negative comments stating that it almost sounded like I, or the speaker, didn’t know what I/they meant.
Comments like that generally deserve whatever angry, abusive reply they receive, but simple grammar corrections and statements of fan-fiction etiquette don’t warrant any sort of angry response or a tear-filled one with a cessation of writing. I had numerous canon errors someone was chill enough to point out in my firstfanfic, and I was glad for the help. Anyone who seriously wants to become a writer should be, as well. If she doesn’t want critiques, she doesn’t dream of becoming a writer, she has dreams of becoming a person who writes. There’s a big difference, idealogically.

#8

That’s nice dear, but what are- oh. :frowning:

Well, the general distribution of “authors” being sixteen years old, lacking a grasp for grammar and idea of plot, plus being in posession of an abundance of hormones is enough to turn me off from reading fanfiction for fun.

I’ll tell you something, though; the first time I read one of your fics (I think it was called <i>Those not chosen by the Faerie</i>) I thought there was hope in the fanfiction world after all, so I browsed other fanfics for a while, only to be disappointed :frowning: I think that most writers try for a pastiche, but it’s hard to convert video games, movies, or anime into writing, which is what most of them write about anyway, despite its monumental difficulty.

#9

Hell… I practically BEG for any kind of criticism. To be honest, I hate being ignored more then being flamed. At least I know how good I really am, or am not when there is feedback.

… Just my two bits.

#10

If she really has a writer spirit, she’ll follow your advice. Otherwise, Weilla, you’ve done a good action towards mankind as a whole by helping to reduce the spread of gibber in the internet.

#11

At least originality isn’t a requisite there. I’m off to eat some pastiche.

#12

I can’t see how anyone would want to read about it either. Original stories are far, far better.

#13

Not necessarily. Plenty of original stories are very, very bad. Plenty of fanfiction is Okay. Okay trumps very, very bad.

#14

Oh man, I agree with this so much. ANYTHING is good, as long as I can work with it!

#15

If she decides not to pursue the writing realm, just remember that you saved her a whole bunch of time.

#16

Thanks guys XD For all of it.

Well, she sent me a new version of the story, though the only change I could see was that she had added a line or two about Nintendo sending TV signals to other planets, to explain that Pokemon and Sharingan thing.

-_-

I told her that there were still problems, went English teacher on one of her paragraphs, and advised her to try writing a shorter story with only a few characters in, instead of trying to write a long story with EVERY character in. Every character as in “Why is this guy alive if they know about this?”

She wrote back just saying she’d try that. I hope she has better luck with that. And gets a beta, seriously. I keep feeling bad for her because she seems to be so enthusiastic but she needs so much help and doesn’t seem to want to really understand that.

#17

Well, if she really does pursue this option, look at it this way:

Like the rest of us, she will slowly get better and better as she continues to write, especially if she has people like you helping her. And like us, she will one day become halfway decent and look back on her old works with fear and embarassment.

#18

Wouls you rate the book “The Giver” poorly for not having enough description, and being pretty much boring through the first half of the book. I bet you would be too disgusted to go on if it were not for someone persuading you to read it. Go on…respond.

#19

I wouldn’t know, I haven’t read it.

#20

Wouldn’t “the Giver” be better if its first part wasn’t boring? Unless the second part is so extraordinary it wipes out the boredom you had to endure.

#21

I couldn’t stand the Giver. It was a waste of my time. The first two-thirds, more than half, was unbearably dull, and the idea, theme, and concept of the book had all been done before and much, much, much more successfully. It is not so much a bad book as a total waste of the trees that made the paper to print it.

#22

Man, looking back on my first bit of fanfiction (which I rarely, rarely do, even though it’s in the server, or was, in uncomplete form), it’s just…cringe. I kinda want to start over with it though, since I kinda did like the idea. >.> Alas, no time.

Also, at least she’s taking your advice partly, better than nothing. Well done with helping a writer who at least wants to write. :slight_smile:

#23

Meh. It’s ok. She was only writing fanfics anyway. Tell her it’s not important because if she wants to be a success, she should write real books instead.

#24

Why would anyone who wants to be a success turn to writing? Supposing we use the life-style meaning of success. Otherwise a fanfic can be rewarding for its writer, even if it’s not a ‘real’ book.

Which reminds me that fanfics are a perfectly valid form of writing. Faust and Dr. Faustus (edit: both of them) are glorified fanfics based on the book of Faust. Milton’s Paradise Lost and a major part of Blake’s poetry are fanfics of the Bible and Bible-related books. Granted, there are countless lousy and worthless fanfics but then again there are countless abominable books, records, games etc.

#25

You completely missed the point.

The point is that in fanfiction people write about characters from games or shows and make them do what they wished they could see the characters do, and it’s just really fucking cheap to read. If you can write at all, you can create your own original characters pretty easily and you should. I don’t read fanfics because I don’t like seeing characters ripped out of their context and thrown into the stupid fantasy of some amateur writer.

There’s only one kind of fanfic I approve of: the kind that interprets the same story in a new way or tells it from another character’s perspective. You don’t change the original story though and you don’t add on to it. And you don’t friggin put yourself into it. Those should be like, the three commandments of not screwing up your fic.

I have no problem with people putting themselves in an original story though, even as the main character. I actually think that’s pretty awesome :stuck_out_tongue: Assuming the rest of the story is well written.