How should fanficcers handle criticism?

I am not good at receiving criticism for just about anything in my life even if I don't outwardly express it, I do take criticism a bit to seriously than most. Whether it is proofreading or grammar, how should writers handle criticisms of their works?

"Eratoeir is a Gangsta."

With maturity and tact.

Fanfiction I hate.

Take example from Andrew Dobson, then do the opposite of that.

I joined the police just to kill people.

Sadly not a lot of people possess this trait.

edited 27th Dec '14 3:26:32 AM by GAP

"Eratoeir is a Gangsta."

Thread title changed as requested.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Thanks.

"Eratoeir is a Gangsta."

Depends on what kind of criticism it is. If it's written politely and meant as constructive (ex: "your premise is good, but your description could use some work and the dialogue is a bit awkward"), then don't take it as an insult. Take the advice into consideration as you continue your story. You don't have to apply it, but you should at least give it some thought. For that matter, if they dislike the story and explain what they didn't like, that's also worth noting.

If they're just being rude (ex: "ugh this story is crap, wtf did I just read"), then they're obviously not interested in helping you as a writer. Best to ignore them.

For that matter, if they're trying to make you cater to their tastes (ex: "ewww why are you pairing Alice with Bob? He obviously should be with Carol!") then don't pay any attention to them. It's your story, not theirs.

edited 27th Dec '14 10:33:54 AM by SapphireBlue

Depends if it's criticism^note "this is what's wrong with your story, and this is how to fix that," "here's some examples of good/bad things in your stories," "this doesn't make sense within the narrative because," or complaining^note "you suck at x," "why are you writing D when H is a superior character," "you write slash so clearly you're ghey". The first should be at least listened to, whether or not you agree with their advice. The second can gdiaf^* go die in a fire.

That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw

In general, considering only criticism that offers solutions as constructive is unfair. You cannot expect a non-writer to necessarily have solutions to a problem that has already defeated a writer. Attempting to point out a problem by saying something doesn't work is also useful criticism.

Nous restons ici.

I think you should remember that a reader is not a writer and giving constructive critisim is hard. But I always found that even vagues impressions (like: this character comes off as whiney) is sometimes helpful, because it helps you to reasses your approach. That doesn't mean that you have to agree with the commenter, but it is helpful to understand where they are coming from.

As a general rule: If they aren't using any swearwords, be polite, even if you feel that they are rude. Remember that your reviewer might not be a native speaker and therefore might express something a little bit stronger than intended. Remember that this reviewer took the time to actually leave you some lines, something he most likely wouldn't do if he didn't like something about your writing. In a way every review which isn't obvious trolling is a compliment. Remembering this will help you to deal with harsher comments.

Remember also that there are a lot of writers out there who want their readers to be as honest as possible and are not happy with other writers who treat every kind of critisism as "trolling". This kind of behaviour just causes reviewers to stop reviewing eventually.

It depends upon the criticism. Pithy comments that are misspelled or personally insulting get ignored by me. Ones that are polite and have something to say about the fic, a legitimate gripe? What I do with it depends upon what I wish to do with a given fic.

Most of my fan fiction, particularly one-shots, are written in the moment and go without any plans to revise them because I have a short attention span and move on to other things. Some stories, however, if I think criticism I've gotten is spot on and I feel like I want to tweak the story, I'll do that. I'll maybe even thank particular critics for helping me improve the piece.

Occasionally, I have something I'm not planning to revise that I find criticism on that I agree with and I am not always able to respond to someone, so I sigh an say to myself, "Yeah, another one who thought this one was rushed." - This happens a lot on what is probably my most (in) famous fanfic, the Legend of Zelda sci-fi/western AU, "The Great Desert." I've seen some reviewers hold that (co-written) story up as the greatest fanfic they'e ver read and I've seen a vocal (majority?) speaking of thinking it started out strong but feeling it fell apart at the end. There is an interesting case because I wanted to do a "rebuild" on the fic after Skyward Sword came out because a lot of Skyward stuff would fit well with the au world, and I kept all the crit I got on the first fic in mind for that... and then I got bored and abandoned the rebuild after a few chapters.

So, I don't know. Hit or miss. I don't usually respond directly to my reviewers because I'm kind of introverted, even online, so someone has to say something to really get my attention for me to respond or I have to be in a particularly friendly mood. Mostly, if I "take criticism" it's just to quietly revise the fic, take down the old one, and post the new and to thank helpful critics in notes.

Sometimes, when I'm doing a multichaptered piece where I don't even know entirely where I'm going with it and I wind up taking advice of my reviewers / con-critters and letting them shape the further chapters.

So, I guess I mostly don't respond so much as "quietly follow advice."

In which I attempt to be a writer.

It depends on how you go about it - you can't just say, "X is bad," and expect the author to go fix your nebulously stated opinion, you need to be more specific, "X doing Y is bad because ..." and that gives the author at least a point to start from.

That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw

Exactly, specificity is of the utmost importance. My preferred method is to have a conversation with the reviewer if possible via PM to see if I can't address some of their concerns.

"You cannot erase God with an edict."-Romney Wordsworth

You are again asking more of a reader than they may be able to give you. Because a person is not able to tear down the parts of a story to determine cause and effect does not make their opinion invalid; so long as they are attempting to point out a fault without being malicious they are offering you useful information.

edited 28th Dec '14 12:19:24 PM by Night

Nous restons ici.

I agree. Figuring out why something doesn't work isn't easy. You can't expect your reader to be able to. But an impression can be helpful because it gives you some information where to take a look -again, that doesn't mean that you'll agree with your reviewer or find a solution, but one should always keep in mind that we put out stories into the net knowing fully well that they might be flawed. So why the heck are so many authors expecting their readers to be perfect reviewers? When someone tries, one should at least appreciate the effort.

Should you edit the work according to the critique?

My AO3. Results may vary

Depends on the reasoning of the critique. If it's something that's relatively easy to fix that doesn't change the entire story, I might think about it. If it ends up sacrificing my take on the 'verse/characters, then I wouldn't.

It also depends on why you're writing the fic to begin with. Most of my fics aren't written so that I can learn how to write better, they're written so that I can playing with world-building and watch character's personalities bounce off each other.

Depends - SPAG^* Spelling, Punctuation, Adverbs, Grammar should absolutely be fixed, period, because those affect the basic readability of your story. Other criticism, as noted, should be done on a case by case basis - I've had people complain about someone acting OOC because I hadn't yet written what was causing them to act differently, and can't lampshade it without ruining the reveal. I've also had criticism of "X wouldn't say that like this, they'd talk more like this," and they were right, so I went back and changed it.

That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw

& Does that also mean that you would have to rewrite the whole scene or even whole chapter again? I had some experience with essays when I was in school but it seems as though that you need to able to stick to canon and understand the plot in order to get the results you want.

"Eratoeir is a Gangsta."

It really depends on a situation. Sometimes it is just a point one can pay attion to in the future.

Most of the criticism I've gotten has either been something that a) I can't fix without ruining an upcoming plot point, or b) something that can be fixed by rewriting/adding/deleting up to a single paragraph. I don't know if that means I'm really good, or my critics limit themselves to pointing out things that don't require me to scrap an entire chapter. I already want to, at some point, rewrite the first ~20 chapters of my fic Reloaded, because I feel my writing has improved drastically in the last two years, but (luckily?) no one has called me out on my earlier poor writing.

That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw

For me at least, I tend to think that all criticism should be at least considered, however briefly. Even if a person is a jerk about pointing out issues, it doesn't preclude them from having a point. That said, consideration of a critique can be as minimal as just looking at the comment, asking "should I address this?" and saying "nah".

Likewise, I agree with Night and Swanpride that criticism doesn't necessarily need to offer a solution to be constructive or useful. It certainly helps for that to be the case, but even if all a person does is point out that X doesn't work, it's a useful piece of information to have because it lets you know that at the very least, it's something that you need to look at and decide whether that one criticism was a fluke or whether they had a point. I.e. you have to think about it and not just go "well, they didn't offer any solution, so I'm going to ignore the problem".

On the whole, my main suggestions would be this:

1. Consider all criticism. Don't dismiss anything out of hand because you don't like what's being said or the way it's being said.

2. However, you don't have to agree with all the criticism you receive. Just because somebody suggests changing something doesn't mean you have to always listen. You can look at the suggestion, and say "I prefer doing it a different way." Receiving criticism is helpful not because it tells you how to change the story, but it draws your attention to the elements where change might need to be made. But whether to make those changes are entirely up to you and what you want to do with the story.

3. Account for taste. Or to put it another way, do your best to determine whether a criticism is an actual problem with the story, or just the critic driving a Bias Steamroller. Sometimes it's obvious; if somebody leaves a "This story sucks because it's X/Y and not X/Z" you can probably chalk that up to taste unless they give you some reasons why your use of X/Z doesn't work. But with other occasions it's more thorny because what one person likes, another person hates. I've had cases where two people proofread for me and one thought I needed more description, and the other thought I needed to trim some description out. Different people like different things, and that needs to be taken into account. As the author, you can have the final say on it, though you have to recognize that you can't please everybody.

4. Prioritize common critiques. If only one person criticizes a plot point, it might just be them. If multiple people point it out as an issue, it means that you should look at it more closely over things that only one person notes. And again, you don't have to listen to what they say, but it's always good to take that alternate perspective and use it to inform your decision on how to handle it.

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Even flames can sometimes have legitimate grievances with your story.

Everything is useful, and you shouldn't dismiss anything out of hand, even if at the same time you should never prevent it from making you unable to tell the story you want to tell. Simply because maybe your idea is stupid, and a reviewer can make you realize that.

edited 31st Dec '14 10:40:59 AM by IAmNotCreativeEnough

himitsu keisatsu seifu chokuzoku kokka hoanbu na no da himitsu keisatsu yami ni magireru supai katsudou torishimari

Though I am not a writer, (I don't have any time to do so, plus I'm too much of a perfectionist,) I feel that reviews that point out a specific problem without suggesting a solution may be more helpful than those who suggest a solution without stating the "problem". At least, if the reader tells you the problem, you can A: see if the concerns are valid and B: if so, how to go about it. Suggesting a solution without stating a problem doesn't open up the reviewer's psyche at all aside from "I want this!" and is just as bad as saying only "This is bad" or "It needs to be 20% cooler".

Probably the most constructive reviews boil down to the form of X {[is too/has too much] Y}/{[is not Y enough/doesn't have enough Y]}. Even if Y is just an impression you have on reading, it at least lets the author in.

Now, if several people are pointing out a "problem" that you plan on as making sense after The Reveal, you may want to make an Author's Note along the lines of "Several of you are saying X. And, yes, it isn't normal. You'll find out why [X is happening] later in the story." Yes, it does indicate that X is important, but I think that doing it that way, you still keep secret how it's important. Which (hopefully) will keep the readers reading to find out the "how/why".

Oh, and:

That read as a Double Negative. I'm thinking that you meant "able" instead of "unable" because never prevent = always allow. And flames are sometimes so scathing that a less committed writer can get a Heroic BSoD from one, resulting in Screw This, I'm Outta Here.

edited 1st Jan '15 11:39:44 AM by DonaldthePotholer

Ketchum's corollary to Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced tactic is indistinguishable from blind luck.

It is a double negative, yes. Intentionally. The point is, as I explained, sometimes we have stupid ideas that we think are awesome, but are really, really frikkin' stupid, and don't merit being written, so you should discard them for something better.

himitsu keisatsu seifu chokuzoku kokka hoanbu na no da himitsu keisatsu yami ni magireru supai katsudou torishimari