RANT: Why I'm losing patience...
Saturday, July 30th, 2005 08:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seraiNOTE: The rant below is not aimed at any one particular person. It's prompted by an accumulation of things that I've been noticing for a long time now, perhaps as long as since I started reading LOTR fanfic. (Please see the note at the bottom of this post for further elaboration.) This kind of thing has happened MANY times, so don't get all weirded out, OK?
You know, if I posted a fic that had an error in it - misplaced punctuation, bad verb tense, incorrect sentence construction, etc. - and someone noticed it and let me know what the problem was, I wouldn't get upset about it. If the correction was a reasonable one, then I would say "Damn, didn't notice that. Thanks!" and make the correction. I wouldn't insult the person that pointed it out to me, call him/her names, whine and cry about how mean people are, or anything else like that. And that's because not only do I want to enjoy myself writing stories, I also want to feel proud of the job I've done, regardless of the fact that no one is paying me.
Yeah, it's a hobby. Yeah, I'm posting it for free. Yeah, I'm doing it solely to amuse myself and bring enjoyment to people of like minds. But that doesn't mean that I don't care about the quality of what I'm presenting. I can't do anything about whether people think a story of mine is a good idea or not, or whether they think slash/het/gen is a worthy topic, or whatever other conceptual problems they might see. But I can do something about technical quality, and I put an effort into carefully editing my fics to make sure that all the little bits fit together as they should. Maybe I would like to put the verb before the noun every time, but you know what? English doesn't work that way. The rules may be inconvenient, but they're the rules, and there's a difference between knowing the rules and breaking them for considered reasons, and just being ignorant or sloppy or uncaring.
I used to be very tolerant of mistakes of this kind in fanfic. Back when I first discovered online fics, I was so charmed and enthused that I didn't much care about whether an author made mistakes or not. It was such a treat to read about Frodo doing Sam that such things as overuse of commas were a minor irritation. But you know, that first flush of excitement wore off a long time ago, and now I find myself clucking my tongue and rolling my eyes whenever I see things like that, and sometimes giving up on the story altogether. And since the movies ended and the LOTR madness has died down for me, I'm back to doing most of my reading out of published works, which makes the problem even worse. That's because I'm now reading literature that's been carefully edited by professional editors, and they make a pretty damning contrast.
Yes, fanfic writers don't have professional editors. More's the reason to be careful on one's own, and not rely on others to do that kind of work for the writer. And more's the reason not to be pissy when someone points out an error. And I'm sorry, but I never have and never will accept the "shut up and be grateful" argument. I'm grateful for good writing that's technically sound and flows well. I'm not grateful for sloppiness or arrogance on the part of people who call themselves writers because they have a great idea and can type. Technical quality is not a luxury, nor is it showing off or upstaging the reader. Technical quality is a way of showing respect for one's readers, by putting time and effort into polishing one's work to a high shine. Good writers know how to construct a clear sentence, which verb tense to use, where to put the commas (and how many to use!), etc. A good story combines that with ideas and characterizations that are interesting. None of those elements is expendable; it's the combination of them that makes a good piece of work.
And I'm not talking about personal preference of content. I dislike anachronisms in LOTR fic, both in the content of the story and in the narrator's voice, but I'm aware that some people don't care about that. Fair enough - that's a question of style. But, putting too many commas, where they, don't belong, (as I've just done) isn't a question of style. It's simply wrong, and muddies the sentence up to the point where the reader gets confused as to what's happening. Using "lay" when one means "laid" isn't a bold choice; it's a mistake, pure and simple.
In my view, anyone who wants to write stories should take the time to learn the rudiments of correct construction, at the very least. And if the writer makes those mistakes because he simply doesn't know better, it behooves him to take any corrections pointed out as a favor, meant to improve his writing, not as an insult meant to condescend or belittle. For gods' sakes, if I make a grammatical error in a letter I type for my boss, I don't get all hurt or annoyed when she points it out and asks me to check more carefully next time. If I were making chairs and my customers complained that the legs were wobbly or that they kept getting splinters, I wouldn't moan about how mean they were being. I wouldn't have those attitudes even if I were doing those things as favors, for free, because being paid isn't the point. It's doing a good job that's the point. No matter what I'm doing in life, I want to be sure I'm doing it right.
That's why I spend hours scouring even my shortest fics for mistakes. It's why I sometimes spend hours working on pictures that I scan to send out to my Yahoo picture club. I don't get paid for any of those things, but that doesn't matter. "But why are you stressing when nobody's gonna notice?" I hear you cry. Honey, I'M going to notice, and if just one other person notices there's a mistake, then that's one person too many, and the mistake has to be corrected. Because even one splinter will make the experience of sitting in that chair uncomfortable, and one badly tensed verb can make that fic irritating instead of sweet.
Maybe a lot of you don't care about such things. Fine. But I do, and they make me tired. I can't tell you how many fics I start reading only to shut them when I come across mistakes that would have been crossed out in red if I'd included them in a composition when I was in sixth grade. (That goes for conceptual howlers as well, but that's a different rant altogether.) I realize that on the internet this severely limits my fiction reading, but I'm fine with that. And if you don't care if I read your story or not, then I can't do anything about it. But the problem exists, and being the gadfly I am, I can't be silent about it. Do you care about your work being clean and polished, or don't you? If you do, then put the effort into making sure it's ready before posting. If your time for writing is limited, then don't post until you find the time to do the polishing - your audience can wait. (If they want quality work, that is. Some don't give a rat's ass, but are those the readers you want or aren't they?) And for Hermes' sake, don't whine if someone points out a mistake. Learn from it and don't make the same mistake next time.
So that's it right there. I know this rant makes me sound like a bitch (which I am, so save your breath about that), but it's the truth as I see it. Like it, leave it, think about it - whatever you wish. I just had to spout off again. Just my nature, I guess.
NOTE AGAIN:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rabidsamfan posted a little while ago about mistakes and corrections and such, and I commented in her LJ. This rant is NOT meant to point at her, as her situation is not one that I'm referencing - what happened with her fic was different, and I said so in my comments there. However, it did get me thinking about other situations where the posts and comments touched on similar situations, and so I'm talking generally here.
You know, if I posted a fic that had an error in it - misplaced punctuation, bad verb tense, incorrect sentence construction, etc. - and someone noticed it and let me know what the problem was, I wouldn't get upset about it. If the correction was a reasonable one, then I would say "Damn, didn't notice that. Thanks!" and make the correction. I wouldn't insult the person that pointed it out to me, call him/her names, whine and cry about how mean people are, or anything else like that. And that's because not only do I want to enjoy myself writing stories, I also want to feel proud of the job I've done, regardless of the fact that no one is paying me.
Yeah, it's a hobby. Yeah, I'm posting it for free. Yeah, I'm doing it solely to amuse myself and bring enjoyment to people of like minds. But that doesn't mean that I don't care about the quality of what I'm presenting. I can't do anything about whether people think a story of mine is a good idea or not, or whether they think slash/het/gen is a worthy topic, or whatever other conceptual problems they might see. But I can do something about technical quality, and I put an effort into carefully editing my fics to make sure that all the little bits fit together as they should. Maybe I would like to put the verb before the noun every time, but you know what? English doesn't work that way. The rules may be inconvenient, but they're the rules, and there's a difference between knowing the rules and breaking them for considered reasons, and just being ignorant or sloppy or uncaring.
I used to be very tolerant of mistakes of this kind in fanfic. Back when I first discovered online fics, I was so charmed and enthused that I didn't much care about whether an author made mistakes or not. It was such a treat to read about Frodo doing Sam that such things as overuse of commas were a minor irritation. But you know, that first flush of excitement wore off a long time ago, and now I find myself clucking my tongue and rolling my eyes whenever I see things like that, and sometimes giving up on the story altogether. And since the movies ended and the LOTR madness has died down for me, I'm back to doing most of my reading out of published works, which makes the problem even worse. That's because I'm now reading literature that's been carefully edited by professional editors, and they make a pretty damning contrast.
Yes, fanfic writers don't have professional editors. More's the reason to be careful on one's own, and not rely on others to do that kind of work for the writer. And more's the reason not to be pissy when someone points out an error. And I'm sorry, but I never have and never will accept the "shut up and be grateful" argument. I'm grateful for good writing that's technically sound and flows well. I'm not grateful for sloppiness or arrogance on the part of people who call themselves writers because they have a great idea and can type. Technical quality is not a luxury, nor is it showing off or upstaging the reader. Technical quality is a way of showing respect for one's readers, by putting time and effort into polishing one's work to a high shine. Good writers know how to construct a clear sentence, which verb tense to use, where to put the commas (and how many to use!), etc. A good story combines that with ideas and characterizations that are interesting. None of those elements is expendable; it's the combination of them that makes a good piece of work.
And I'm not talking about personal preference of content. I dislike anachronisms in LOTR fic, both in the content of the story and in the narrator's voice, but I'm aware that some people don't care about that. Fair enough - that's a question of style. But, putting too many commas, where they, don't belong, (as I've just done) isn't a question of style. It's simply wrong, and muddies the sentence up to the point where the reader gets confused as to what's happening. Using "lay" when one means "laid" isn't a bold choice; it's a mistake, pure and simple.
In my view, anyone who wants to write stories should take the time to learn the rudiments of correct construction, at the very least. And if the writer makes those mistakes because he simply doesn't know better, it behooves him to take any corrections pointed out as a favor, meant to improve his writing, not as an insult meant to condescend or belittle. For gods' sakes, if I make a grammatical error in a letter I type for my boss, I don't get all hurt or annoyed when she points it out and asks me to check more carefully next time. If I were making chairs and my customers complained that the legs were wobbly or that they kept getting splinters, I wouldn't moan about how mean they were being. I wouldn't have those attitudes even if I were doing those things as favors, for free, because being paid isn't the point. It's doing a good job that's the point. No matter what I'm doing in life, I want to be sure I'm doing it right.
That's why I spend hours scouring even my shortest fics for mistakes. It's why I sometimes spend hours working on pictures that I scan to send out to my Yahoo picture club. I don't get paid for any of those things, but that doesn't matter. "But why are you stressing when nobody's gonna notice?" I hear you cry. Honey, I'M going to notice, and if just one other person notices there's a mistake, then that's one person too many, and the mistake has to be corrected. Because even one splinter will make the experience of sitting in that chair uncomfortable, and one badly tensed verb can make that fic irritating instead of sweet.
Maybe a lot of you don't care about such things. Fine. But I do, and they make me tired. I can't tell you how many fics I start reading only to shut them when I come across mistakes that would have been crossed out in red if I'd included them in a composition when I was in sixth grade. (That goes for conceptual howlers as well, but that's a different rant altogether.) I realize that on the internet this severely limits my fiction reading, but I'm fine with that. And if you don't care if I read your story or not, then I can't do anything about it. But the problem exists, and being the gadfly I am, I can't be silent about it. Do you care about your work being clean and polished, or don't you? If you do, then put the effort into making sure it's ready before posting. If your time for writing is limited, then don't post until you find the time to do the polishing - your audience can wait. (If they want quality work, that is. Some don't give a rat's ass, but are those the readers you want or aren't they?) And for Hermes' sake, don't whine if someone points out a mistake. Learn from it and don't make the same mistake next time.
So that's it right there. I know this rant makes me sound like a bitch (which I am, so save your breath about that), but it's the truth as I see it. Like it, leave it, think about it - whatever you wish. I just had to spout off again. Just my nature, I guess.
NOTE AGAIN:
rabidsamfan posted a little while ago about mistakes and corrections and such, and I commented in her LJ. This rant is NOT meant to point at her, as her situation is not one that I'm referencing - what happened with her fic was different, and I said so in my comments there. However, it did get me thinking about other situations where the posts and comments touched on similar situations, and so I'm talking generally here.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: Sunday, July 31st, 2005 02:35 pm (UTC)But if I catch an error in one of my peeps posts I will tell them if I know they can take it. Most of the people writing here that are good at their craft want to know if they have made a booboo of the technical sort. The others I just don't waste the braincells no matter how alluring the pairing. Hurts too much dammit.
no subject
Date: Sunday, July 31st, 2005 03:08 pm (UTC)Absolutely. I'll add one little observation though - I am anal about my work too. I go over it with a fine toothed comb and (usually) hand it over to several betas. I accept technical corrections gleefully and use them to improve my writing. In fact, writing fanfiction has taught me more about writing than any schooling ever did. The problem is, I'll still find goofs in my own work. It's almost as if they sneak in when no one is looking, because I KNOW that 'there' was a 'their' a second ago! LOL! I know the rules and where to put my commas *cough*, but mistakes still get past me sometimes.
Because I know first-hand that mistakes can be made even if you are dedicated and diligent, I accept a few errors. But there's a limit. And if the mistakes are symptomatic and clearly show that the author doesn't know something, then they will bug me much more. Further, ff the author displays 'attitude' when someone is correcting them, then I'm even less tolerant.
As an editor, I also have a few rules. I try to send any corrections I make via email, not as a post so as not to embarrass a writer in public. I used to also send an occasional unsolicited correction, but since most of these are met with the kind of reaction you noted, I now just don't bother finishing the story. I am nice about things I note and have references to back my view up, unless I am absolutely certain I am right (a rare but not unknown occurrence).
I guess my point was that we are all human and no matter how much you try, goofs do get through, though there are ways both authors and reader/editors can smooth out the process of correcting them.