A Little Rant from a Newbie Editor

Hello, everyone. I'm Advarielle and this is the first thread I create in this forum. I just want to vent a bit about my job and because I work as an editor, I figure that it's acceptable to be here. Not to mention I hope newbie writers and editors can learn something from my story. For extra information, as an editor, I not only deal with manuscript for novels but comics, too. I'll begin now: Recently, the company I work for do an event in which young, aspiring writers and artists have a chance to be published if they pass a test. Apparently, pretty much everyone who passed the test is a fan of animanga, and because I do watch/read animanga from time to time (I used to watch/read them more avidly in the past, but real-life issues and the fact that I don't like most of the newer ones mean I rarely watch/read them now.), my seniors and superiors pretty much dump them to me. Their logic is basically that I'm young and I dabble in the same stuff that they dabble in, so I can connect and instruct them better.

I'm horrified at my new task. I'm pretty sure that anyone who dabble in animanga community and have read the stuff from the aspiring writers from that place whether they are young or old know that it's 100% crap... (Before any "not all of them" complaint comes up, do you think I would complaint here if their works are not crap?) Unfortunately, I'm right. Holy shit, their works are horrible whether it's a novel or a comic. Before any "Of course, it's crap. They are still a bunch of amateur." refutation comes up, I already know about that. The problem isn't only their works are bad, but they also consider themselves to be god's gift to the literature world. In other words, I can't guide or correct them because they don't listen to anything I said. Heck, I just draw as a hobby and my drawings are better than those so-called artists who want to draw for a living. How can I help someone who doesn't think that they need help or think that they know more than me? I'll give you some examples of their works. Just a gist, though. And, by the way, these aren't the worst.

At this point, I don't know which one at fault. Is the fault of the testers for having such a low standard? (I'm not a tester and I'm not close to any of them, so I don't know) Is this the sign that the quality of writers and artists (at least in my place) had sunk so low? Or is this the sign that the taste of the consumers (at least in my place) had became so shitty? I want to write more, but this post is already pretty long, so I guess it's enough for now. I'll write more about my job later. Thanks for reading.

EDIT: Putting most of the text into folder thanks to a recommendation.

edited 14th May '17 8:42:57 AM by Advarielle

...are you always this abrasive towards them or is this just because you want to vent about it, thus ending up sounding more bitter and sarcastic as a result? I mean, even reasonable people can get really defensive and uncooperative when somebody gives them advice in a jerkish manner. Not saying that you are (especially because you're just starting out at what I could only assume a very stressful job) but maybe something to consider. Or maybe I'm just naive as all hell and can't believe that 70-90% of a events' "winners"all are talent-less hacks that are under the delusion that they're under Protection from Editors.

I'll be back with more in-depth advice after I deeply analyze the descriptions of stories A, B and C.

edited 12th May '17 8:41:10 AM by handlere

Of course, I'm not this abrasive towards them when I'm on the job. I'm a professional. Strict? Sure. I'm strict as long as it's appropriate and necessary. Abrasive? What is the point of doing that? I need to work with them and because they are also young and amateur, I also have to guide and advise them. Antagonizing them won't help me with that department.

Read the descriptions of their stories first. There is a reason why my superiors and seniors dump them to me. I mean from all of them (There are a lot of them. I just write about three of them there.) only one person is salvageable, and it's not because her story is that good. If you're interested, her story is the melodramatic "I love you, but you have cancer" romance story and not the good kind. But, at least she is willing to listen to my guidance and advice, and to change and improve herself.

I mean at this point, I consider focusing on her. I'd rather spend my time and effort on someone who is actually willing to recognize her faults and improve. Until the rest of them grow more mature and develop more self-awareness, I don't think I can help them at all.

You wrote that they don't listen to advice but in your examples I see them doing exactly that, even if in a somewhat conflicted way that missed the core of the matter.

What else would you call the creation of a (overcomplicated and redundant, but that comes with it being done on the go) new backstory to try to make the conflict between Moon and Sun gods less obviously black and white? Or the part about the hero's grandmother in the last example? Or how the writer with the cliche amneasiac protagonist thought it was a cool idea the link it to the high-tech precursors?

Now, I understand that there is one thing those all have in common: they missed the reason behind the advice, the problem that inspired it, be it a conflict that tries to present itself as ambiguous when it is anything but, a blank protagonist, a contrived setting that feels like an Excuse Plot, or something else.

But that is because, as you said, they are new. Those are some of the challenges of new writers: when to stand tall and when to swallow your pride, when to take advice at face value and when to twist it to fit your vision. You just came to face new writers on the "proud" end of the scale.

In short, no, writers are not getting worse. It is just that you were less likely to see the first works of people who have yet to learn before.

At least that is my opinion as an amateur facing my own problems (those related more to productivity than to how refined my ideas are, now that I already had my share of years of sorting out the gems from the dust.)

EDIT: So, in my opinion you are right those writers may not be mature enough for your help as a professional, but they are not really a reson for general cynism.

edited 12th May '17 8:06:01 AM by EternaMemoria

If they listen to my "advice", but none of the problem is fixed. I seriously question whether they listen to my advice in the first place. Comically missing the point isn't that funny in real-life. I understand that they are new, but they have to improve fast if they truly want to make a living from writing or drawing. This business is ruthless and wait for no one.

Sorry if I sound that cynical or bitter, I know it isn't much of an excuse, but as I have wrote before: "This is a rant." I don't completely blame them for all their faults. As I have wrote before, they come from animanga community and a good number of them also happen to read light novels. It's hard to come up with a good story when your inspiration and "muse" are horrible as fuck. Damn, those light novels go downhill fast. How did they go from Legend of Galactic Heroes to whatever the fuck is that shit? It does give me more insight to the mindset of these new writers, though.

Well, I'm back. Ish.

A). This may be just me, but I actually think that there's some merit in this setting. I mean, sure, the moon gods makes monsters that threaten humanity, and the sun gods defend humanity from them, and that's seemingly it... but what if, say, the moon gods are Obliviously Evil and don't know that their creations are threatening humanity? That way, the sun gods can still be the "good guys" and there would still be Gray-and-Grey Morality. Well, White and Gray Morality, but I digress. I don't think that he meant this, but it's something you can pitch to him, at least. (Do note that this is something I just pulled out of my ass in five minutes or so. You don't have to suggest it if you don't want to.)

Also, worldbuilding non-stop is a common mistake that newbie writers do. (I should know, I still do it myself.) Just prod him towards actually writing the characters and the plot, unless he's stubborn

B). This guy has a serious case of DADD, Draft Attention Deficit Disorder, wherein an author constantly has second thoughts about his story and decides to change it on a whim after seeing something that he judges as "hype". Again, I should know, I once did the same things as this guy did. Just tell him to jot down his sudden bursts of inspiration as separate concepts first before deciding if that idea that he has really fits with the story that he's writing or not. (At least, this is how I deal with my case of DADD. Again, tell him this advice or not, it's your decision.)

About the story itself, the MC being an amnesiac so that the writer can just write his backstory later also smacks of DADD. Also, the setting is bland as hell, even later on. It mainly seems like the writer is inspired by GATE or some light novel like that where the protagonist's faction curb-stomps the enemy with little to no effort. Except that GATE was obviously nationalistic propaganda, so it fails even in that aspect. Are you sure that the writer doesn't just change ideas every five minutes because even he thinks the setting is weak?

C). Holy hell, it's just Generic Light Novel/Manga/Anime Battle High School no.9018! HELP ME! IT BURNS! IT BUUUURNS! AAAAAAAAAAAAAA

...ahem. With that being said, the MC's power-set is bland as all hell, I have to agree with you there. The writer could've done so much more with the "god-blessed" concept, but he just had to make him a fusion of Wolverine and the Human Torch. Also, I kind of feel offended that you compared his powerset to MOBA characters. MOBA characters at least have four different abilities that aren't just super strength or super-toughness. Also, as I said before, the setting is just your typical battle magic high school stuff here, which means that there's also nothing new in the setting as opposed to Story A or even Story B. I hope for your sake that this writer doesn't even think about adding a harem to his story, or else I'd probably shoot him before you'll do.

As for the final question here, it's probably a little bit of all of them. I mean, Story C appeals to the same crowd as The Irregular At Magic High School does (which is people looking for power-fantasies), Story A has a semi-unique setting with a lot of unfulfilled promises (basically like anything Peter Molyneux ever made), and Story B... may have been a better story in an earlier version of the draft? Seriously, even I'm struggling as to why that story was chosen.

Also, you have said that these weren't the worst ones. Now I'm just curious as to how bad those are. I'm fully expecting stuff that rival My Immortal or Sonichu in terms of how bad they are, which just raises the question of what the testers were on (or how much the testers were bribed, or how much the tester's family/friends/pets were threatened) to even pass those stories through. Are you sure that there were even testers in the first place?

PS: They read light novels for ideas? Damn. That explains a lot. Also, I'm pretty sure Legend Of the Galactic Heroes is a normal novel first, not a light novel, so yeah. It's kind of like comparing the Divergent triology to Nineteen Eighty Four, in my opinion.

edited 12th May '17 8:50:26 AM by handlere

My question is "how much time and effort do you have to give these people?" Is your company grooming them to be pros or was the whole event a fishing expedition to see if they could find anyone worth grooming? Are you being paid to cull the slush pile or to actually make these into publishable works?

Because it sounds like you've gotten the slush pile (where the task is to see if there are any that might be salvageable, not to try to salvage them yourself), and you're treating it as an accepted work that is to be edited.

Clarify that with your bosses, before you give these aspirants that aren't listening to you any more of your energy.

1) The setting is cliched as fuck, but as I have wrote before that isn't a deal-breaker. Thanks for the advice, but, unfortunately, I don't think that can help me. I wish it can, though. I already told him that if he can't pull off gray vs gray conflict, it's okay. He can just make it the classic good vs evil conflict. Sure, it isn't unlikely to be the attention-grabber that he wants his first work to be, but it's better to focus on the thing that he can do right now.

I mean have you ever read a story that is written by someone who is clearly don't understand what he wrote or try too hard to do something that he can't? Horrible.

But, he is either hung up on his goal or his pride is hurt that I think that he isn't good enough to pull it off, so he begged me: "I can do it just give me a little more time." Yeah, right... I'm glad that he is enthusiastic about his work, but his enthusiasm isn't the problem here. It's his current ability and knowledge, and, most importantly, time. At this point, as long as it isn't offensive, I'm fine with whatever.

2) I already told him that, but I guess it doesn't hurt to tell him again. To be honest, he got a good imagination, but he is completely incapable of taking it to an interesting direction. I'm pretty sure that almost everyone consider a kingdom of wizards vs a kingdom of space marines to be at least worth a look for its absurdity at least, but no... He doesn't want firearms, even a goddamn musket, to exist in that story because if firearms exist, there is no point in having knights and swords.

But, he is fine with wizards hurling fireballs and the protag having a ray gun. *sigh* I can't understand his logic at all. If he seriously wants to make an awesome magic and technology in the same setting story, he needs to watch/read/play less anime/manga/JRPG, and play more Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura instead. Too bad, it's too "old-school" for him.

3) I don't exactly have more to comment here. It isn't that the setting is un-salvageable. I'm pretty sure it can become at least decent if those tournaments, seriously, replace wars with a lot of power plays and backstage deals. He can even use it to criticize the student athlete practice, but none of those are going to happen with this author. So sad...

As for the worse ones, they aren't only bad, but potentially (or even outright) offensive. I'll give you a taste of one:

Basically, in this story, my nation is under attack by foreign monsters. (Yup, the fact that the monsters somehow also need to be labeled "foreign" is already a red flag.) Those foreign monsters launched numerous attacks covertly to destroy our tradition and culture. (Why would these monsters specifically have to attack tradition and culture? Another red flag.) The protag and his friends have to reclaim my nation from those foreign monsters. (Another red flag.) And a sentence keep popping up like: "My nation is getting invaded everyday in every single way." and numerous other variations of it. (Another red flag.)

Yeah... I'm not touching this not-so-subtle xenophobic ultra-hard nationalist shit. And the saddest thing is without the entire xenophobic ultra-hard nationalist shit, this story got nothing. Just another generic shonen shit. According to my superior, this shit means the writer is proud of my country or something. I'm slowly dying inside here. T_T

Interested in other worse stuff? There are also "religious" stories like what happens to Naruto if you replace the ninjas with imams/Islamic priests? The fuck did I just read there...

Sadly, they are going to be published, but the treatment is different based on the media.

The comic ones are going to be as a compilation of one-shot stories, and then the company will do a polling and choose which one is going to be released under a new comic magazine label that they want to publish based on that polling.

The novel ones are just local government-sponsored event to give a chance and rally local young, aspiring writers.

I guess it's obvious that my company treat the artists more seriously than the writers here and what is my goal when dealing with them. Unfortunately, despite the fact the writers are just slush pile, they can't be too bad or the local government are going to be embarrassed and pissed.

To be honest, I blame the testers, my superiors, and the local government here. The testers for not doing their job properly or according to them: "They just need to fill the minimum quota here." And my superiors and the local government for this so-called youth event that is definitely just a front to corrupt some money from the central government.

Okay, another rant for today. I'll start with a good news. That one artist that is salvageable have leveled up. After some interviews, I find out that she doesn't put her heart in her horrible, melodramatic "I love you, but you have cancer" romance story. She just does it because she doesn't have any idea, think it's popular and consequently increases her chance to get published, and think that her interest isn't interesting enough to be made into a story. (I want to write the gist of her new story here, but because she wants to keep it a secret and publish it. I can't do it until she gives her permission to me. )

That is a wrong mindset to have as a writer. This is cheesy, but when you're writing, the only limit is your own imagination. There is nothing that isn't interesting. You just can't imagine it to be interesting. In fact, writing about your interest is good for amateur, first-time writers, you should know the inside-out of your interest, right? In other words, you can focus on writing than researching. Let's use as an example, gardening. How can one make gardening to be interesting?

I guess that is long enough for now. I want to write the not good news here, but this post is already long enough. I'll write it later. In the end, this is less rant and more like an opinion piece, huh? I'll write the rant later. Thanks for reading.

EDIT: Putting most of the text into folder thanks to a recommendation.

edited 14th May '17 8:43:10 AM by Advarielle

Okay, this one is the rant. So, I apologize in advance if I seem too abrasive or rude in this post.

Recently, I received a lot of submissions of stories about e-sports and they are practically similar to each other to the point that it's kinda creepy. After some investigation, I found out that this is caused by Chinese SAO wannabe masquerading as an e-sports novel that has been adapted into animation. Fuck me.

Now, before any of the fans of that mess decide to maim me, I'll wrote this: First, this genuinely happens and not something I make up to have an excuse to criticize your beloved story. Second, this isn't an attempt to covertly criticize your beloved story while masquerading as an attempt to criticize the stories that are submitted to me because I'm going to criticize them both at the same time. Yes, I think all of them are shit.

EDIT: Putting most of the text into folder and replace a word thanks to recommendations.

edited 14th May '17 8:44:05 AM by Advarielle

I'd stick to criticizing the writing and ease up on calling the people "shitheads." Calling them a shithead is not literary criticism, it's being a dick.

edited 13th May '17 9:14:06 PM by dragonfire5000

Triple posting isn't helping, rant or no rant. Just use the folder markup or something to keep it from being a Wall of Text.

To start, I don't think blaming anyone is helping your problems. If you don't know how the testers did their job, then you can't really complain. Also, if you do want to complain, doing so on TV Tropes is useless. Speak to your supervisors if you genuinely think someone hasn't done their job properly. Remember that these are amateur writers. The testers knew that and (probably) judged accordingly.

Anyway, speaking as a writing tutor and a graduated student of creative writing here. Making suggestions and giving advice to writers is basically my job, so I know that feel, so to speak. Something that is really important to learn about this kind of work is that "You cannot fix their problems for them." The writer has to do all the heavy lifting, or they won't bother following your advice.

In that respect, it's just like any other situation where you give advice to someone. "You can bring a horse to water, but you can't make it drink."

I want to stress that a lot of works by amateurs are terrible at first. And because they are amateurs, you can bet that they think they know what they're doing. Writing is just like any other activity, but I like to make an analogy to exercising one's body. "Everybody starts somewhere." People don't start working out by lifting 90 lbs dumbbells; they start with the 15 or the 20 lbs ones (or even lighter in younger cases). These writers are still "lifting" the 20 lbs weights and you're over here lifting the 90 lbs weights. They can't be at your level right now. They have to learn more about writing, and it seems that it's your job to help them improve.

That said, you were clearly ill-prepared for the task your bosses gave you. That's more a criticism of your bosses than it is of you. They should have prepared you for working with writers this way. I myself have some advice for you when working with writers.

edited 14th May '17 12:49:21 AM by WaterBlap

Fixed that yesterday.

I already know that blaming anyone without being able to address the problems isn't helping. I don't need to exactly know how the testers did their job in order to know that they did a shitty job, looking at the result of their job. I also already know that complaining here is useless just like I already know that complaining about Trump, Putin, Kim Jong-Un, and so on in here or the internet is useless and a waste of time, so what is your point? I seriously don't understand your point here. I do it because I just want to rant and share my experience with others.

I have done all of those things that you post here before I post my ranting. I'm sorry if my ranting is misleading, but that is a rant and a gist of my job, not a detailed transcription of it. It seems those who read my post think that I'm abrasive or domineering to those writers, but I'm not. I mean I'm ranting here, not on the job. Amateur writers are terrible are bloody obvious, but that doesn't mean I can't rant about them.

It seems that you think that I tend to overstep my boundary from my post about writer A. The thing is I'm not. If I gave a writer a specific advice, it's because they asked me to be more specific. Let's make one thing clear first. I limit my involvement to the foundation or basis of the story. Once the story starts, I take a much less hands-on approach. This is the main reason why I'm more directive to him because his foundation is wrong. His work doesn't match what he said what his work is.

I gave him those examples to find out if he just doesn't know what gray vs gray conflict is or if he doesn't want to make it. After it's clear that he doesn't want to, I told him to make something else that he both want to and can do. Not my problem that he insisted on making things that he doesn't want to and can't make.

Regarding Writer A, I'd say don't get so hung up on how the writer is describing the conflict. Does it really matter to you, or to the story, whether the conflict is white/black, or gray/ gray? Your problem, as you describe it, seems mostly that you're irritated that the writer doesn't really understand what "gray vs. gray" means, which I'm sure is galling, but doesn't ultimately matter. The readers, if there are any, will define the conflict how they like. Let Writer A have his/her hobbyhorse. That doesn't seem like a battle worth fighting.

I enjoyed reading your rants. I'm one of those people who gets a bit too much enjoyment from other people's mistakes and failures XD And I love reading 1 or 2 star reviews of books so this was much like that. I can understand where other commenters on your thread are coming from though. No writer likes to have their work discussed negatively, especially behind their back and in a public place. It's best to discuss these critiques privately, maybe with a few close friends in a space only accessible to them. As entertaining as it is to read negative reviews, when it's for a unpublished and beta work from a newbie author... that can come across as a bit mean.

I remember when I had friends laugh at one of my stories that they didn't know was mine, since it was an anonymous submission to the literary magazine we all worked on in high school. I was really crushed, especially since they were my friends and they were supposed to treat all the submitted works equally. Oh, and I was sitting right behind them while they were laughing :c

I doubt that the newbie authors you are working with will be able to find this forum topic, but if they will or have, be warned... they might not be so happy.

I think you edited your posts while I was working on my response (it did take me a long time to write, LOL).

My point is that these forum threads usually have a point. They generally aren't a troper's personal blog. If you are searching for something (e.g. advice, help, a place to "talk shop," etc.), then making a thread can be helpful. However, I think a thread that is literally created solely for the purpose of complaining is a waste of everyone's time.

I did not simply mean that "complaining on the Internet is useless," but rather "trying to force this thread to be your personal complaining sphere would make this entire thread useless." I have no idea what a mod or forum herald would say about it, but if this is really just for you to complain about your job and if you're not looking to get feedback on anything, please let me know so I can stop wasting my time.

That was my point.

But, unless you confirm anything to the contrary, I'm going to assume good faith, and respond accordingly. Personally, I think it'd be interesting to talk shop with other critics or tutors (etc.) here in the forums (though maybe that'd be a different sub-forum, I honestly don't know).

I expected your transcription to be somewhat accurate, even though it's a rant. I treated it as though it was relatively accurate to the best of your memory. Remember, that post is all any of us here has to go on.

That's fair of you to say. It's just that this is how you've presented yourself to the community here, so the expectation is that this abrasiveness is normal for you. But it does make sense that you're not normally like this.

Yes, that's what I was thinking, but it seems that that was not the case, which is great.

Question: What do you mean by "foundation or basis of the story"? It seems like you were generally focused on the backstories of these works, which is why I ask.

Concerning what you say about his foundation being "wrong," I agree with Robbery that you shouldn't get so hung up on how the writer is describing the conflict. This also goes back to my eighth piece of advice above about the fact that writers don't always know what they're actually writing.

edited 15th May '17 6:05:41 PM by WaterBlap

What company is that? I'll apply there. See the link in my sig.

I don't think they can say, or at least not publically, what with the fact that giving out the company's name kind of would be like airing their dirty laundry by now. Take it to PM if you really must know.