Chance's Note: I don't know who wrote this, but I dearly love what they said <g>. If anyone knows the author please mail me.
The idea is the easy part; anyone can come up with a story idea. Anyone who has ever thought about a character and said, "I wonder..." or "What if...?" has had a story idea.
Having a story idea does not make you a writer. I cringe every time I see a story drop with an opening like "I thought of this on the bus a=dn I came home and I typed and tpyed and typed as fast as I could into email and I don't have a spellchecker but htis is really really coola dn I know evehr one is gonna luv it so i wanted to post it right awy and apleae please tell me how mcuh oyou luvd it and no flames."
There are bad writers. They write bad stories. They believe them to be good stories. They're wrong.
There are people who post story ideas or brief vignettes, and expect the same sort of praise as someone who actually writes a story gets. There are those who have no grasp of grammar or sentence structure (and I'm not talking about people whose native language isn't English -- that's an entirely different thing. I'm talking about people who are writing in what is supposed to be their mother tongue.). There are those who can't maintain a point of view, or even a tense, for more than five words (I have honest to God seen fiction with lines like, "He raises his hand and waved goodbye." -- and it wasn't a fluke, because the same sort of thing happened throughout the story). There are those who think nothing of making a tough middle-aged male character who's been trained in some of the worst hellholes in the world into what amounts to a weepy 13-year-old girl who falls apart when someone gives him a *look*.
A story has a beginning, a middle, and an end -- of some sort.
I once heard someone make a wonderful analogy about writing: A writer's primary tool is the English language; you need to have an excellent command of that tool to be an effective writer and create your work of art, just as a carpenter needs to know how to use power and hand tools to make beautiful furniture. (Nice, huh?)
I took it one step further, to counter the argument that there's no such thing as objectively bad writing: Someone who uses bad spelling, bad grammar, bad punctuation, bad plot flow, and bad characterization has written a bad story, in my book -- just as a carpenter who didn't bother to level the beams or use long enough nails or square off a corner or lay an even floor has built a bad house, even if some people like the basic shape of its layout or the color of the paint on the trim.
No matter how wonderful your idea is, no matter how wonderful your plot is, if the reader can't figure out what you're saying you've lost her. If a reader has to spend time deciphering your bad spelling and convoluted grammar, she's not going to bother finishing the story (there is one hell of a lot of fanfic out there, and most of us don't have the time to waste on stuff that takes three times as long to read as it ought because of poor mechanical skills on the author's part).
To be a writer, you have to know how to use a writer's tools -- spelling (much though it appalls me to have to add this to a list of tools that people should consider before writing, I've seen far too many stories where not even the character's name -- the media-based character's name -- was spelled right to feel comfortable leaving this reminder out), grammar, punctuation (yes, it matters!), syntax, phrasing, semantics, rhythm, flow, show-don't-tell, POV... all things that make people want to read your wonderful idea.
This was good, but I thought it could use some work...
Some people would have us believe that the above statement is a flame.
I don't get this concept. To me, a flame is a personal attack on someone -- their physical appearance, intelligence, religious beliefs, upbringing, sexual mores, whatever.
Yet there's this idea that it isn't "nice" to say, "spellcheck would have made this even better" or "I liked this a lot, especially x, y, and z. But the constantly shifting tenses were a bit unsettling, and kept throwing me out of the story. Have you considered using a beta reader to catch details like that?"
And in saying something "not nice" like that, a person has therefore "flamed". Excuse me?
Has everybody just forgotten about the Emperor's New Clothes? (Apologies to fen from cultures where this reference makes no sense, but this childhood tale explains my point best.) Do people actually read that story and think that his courtiers were being kind, were being helpful, were being encouraging, were being nice, when they decided not to tell the emperor that his "new clothes" were no such thing? I always thought the emperor would've been a hell of a lot better off -- would have avoided completely humiliating himself in public -- if that little kid from the crowd had been the first one to see the "new clothes", and had given the emperor a bit of honest feedback about it.
Saying, "Running this through a spell-checker would have made it better" just plain isn't a flame.
It's feedback. It's helpful feedback.
Sort of like, "That's a really pretty dress, but the back hem is stuck in the waistband of your pantyhose." Helpful. My response to people who tell me things like that is a fervent, "Thanks!!!!" This response is accompanied by a quick, deep sense of embarrassment (and often a blush), a fervent wish to be elsewhere, and resentment that no one else bothered to say anything, assuming that I'd passed more than one person before anything was said. Not a comfortable feeling, at all -- but sooooo much better than walking around all day with my dress caught up in my pantyhose (or a big
spaghetti-sauce stain on my shirt where my breast got in the way, or a piece of broccoli stuck in my front teeth, or whatever).
If people are so fragile that they honestly cannot handle the thought that someone out there doesn't like their story, or cannot handle being told that they spelled something wrong -- and I'm aware that some people really are that fragile -- why on earth are they posting stories where dozens or hundreds or thousands of strangers can read them? Why are they making that fragility the responsibility of all those strangers? I'm sorry if you can't handle being told you spelled something wrong, but it's not my fault that you can't handle it (or that you spelled it wrong, for that matter).
You know what bothers me most about this little trend that fandom's got going, though? Not even the fact that people are demanding I tell them I liked their story (and may I just say, anyone who demands feedback has lost me as a reader forever) -- it's the fact that because so many people have gotten hysterically upset at being told a spell-checker would help their stories that people who write LOCs are now afraid to say anything helpful. To anyone. Like, to me. So I don't get any criticism other than from my beta readers (bless them all), much though I'd like it, and despite the fact that I ask for it. God knows, it's affecting me on the other end of things, too; I tend not to send helpful feedback to people because I don't particularly want to be accused of flaming. It's a damn shame, because so many people out there do want honest, helpful, critical feedback, so that they know if they're walking around with broccoli stuck in their teeth or not.
I think it really sucks that people who can't stand the heat are not only staying in the kitchen, they're insisting that everyone else turn off the ovens for them.
Just what does "LOC" mean, anyway?
I almost put this in with the "I thought this could use some work" rant, but decided it was just different enough to merit its own page.
I saw someone on a mailing list post an explanation of the term LOC to a newbie. And cringed. She posted two definitions; the first one, "letters of comment", was correct. The other one is what caused the cringe, and the gritted teeth, and this page: "loads of caring".
Fandom is NOT a group therapy session, okay? We don't all love each other; hell, many of us don't even like each other.
I'm not going to pat you on your little head and stick a gold star on your forehead for being such a brave girl and posting a story. I expect people to be aware that it takes more than just showing up to get applauded.
A letter of comment is just that -- a letter (or email message) that comments on a story. That's it; no other restrictions. "I really hated that" is a perfectly valid LOC (and is not a flame, btw -- it's simply a statement of opinion. "I really hated that, you stupid cow, and I hope you die!" is a flame, OTOH.). I don't have to care about you to write an LOC; I don't have to love you, I don't have to like you, I don't have to know you. All I need to write you an LOC is to have been moved in some way by your story, and to have wanted to comment on it.
But I seem to be in a rapidly dwindling minority. More and more, people seem to be adopting the "loads of caring" definition. I dunno, maybe it's an internal flaw on my part, but I just don't care about people I don't know, except in a fairly abstract way. I don't cry myself to sleep at night over the plights of strangers; I don't tear up in happiness as I go past a wedding party whose members I don't know; I don't mourn when a funeral procession passes me by. I don't call random numbers on the phone and ask if the person who answers is wearing a sweater, because it's a bit nippy today and I was worried about them. I can't send loads of caring to a total stranger, because I don't feel loads of caring. I feel amused or intrigued or stunned or exultant or annoyed or angry or satisfied or frustrated by people's fiction, but I just generally don't find myself feeling deep wells of caring for the authors. So I send letters of comment about stories that move me.
As I said, though, I seem to be in the minority. And the trend of "loads of caring" LOCs has led to another thing -- obligatory LOCs. Obligatory in the sense that authors are demanding them, and demanding that they be the 'caring' kind. Many (not all -- yes, I'm aware of that) of these authors don't care about being good writers, they don't care about the quality of their work, all they want to do is pound out as much stuff as they can so that lots of people send them these 'caring' LOCs. Praise and nothing but praise is the order of the day, and woe betide any letter writer who stints. She's liable to find her words, if not herself, held up to public disapprobation for 'flames' like "I didn't agree with that take on the character".
I can understand why people want praise -- it's a very glowy-making thing, praise is, and I like it just as much as anyone else, and I've saved every compliment anyone's ever sent me on my writing -- but why on earth do people think they deserve it just for finding their keyboards? And why do other people agree with that, and send off the praise? And honestly, does it mean as much if you know that people are sending praise because they feel obligated to do so, and not necessarily because they really thought your work merited it?
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