On Fri, 22 Aug 1997, Travis Butler wrote:

On 8/21/97 3:04 AM, Mark Page at ayanami@merlin.net.au wrote:

This is misleading. ;)  I'm the one responsible for the below quote using
Caroline as an example (again, sorry, Kun-chan);  don't blame others for
what I write. ^_-

It'd be like someone sending Caroline Seawright (sorry for using you for
the example, Kun-chan, but you also posted in this conversation) a note
that "[Ranma character x] would never do something that hentai!  You
pervert!  How could you violate the vision of the most Holy
Takahashi-sama?  etc..." - does Kun-chan get any useful feedback from that
note?  Not really.    

Sorry to be so blunt and negative ^_^... but wrong. At the very *least*, 
you get the message that this reader disagrees with your charactization 
of the character. If most of the comments are like that (as the original 
poster seemed to suggest), then I'd say it's a message that you need to 
take another look at how you portrayed that character. I may be going 
[snip]

Ah, but you miss my point.  It's not the particular -comments-, but the
way it's phrased.  Take the following two examples:

a) "I just can't see Ranma doing that, it just doesn't feel like something
    he'd do!  Maybe if there was more motivation for it in the story up to
    this point or some sort of explanation... alternatively, maybe he'd
    actually do -this- instead..." etc.

b) "You stupid jerk!  Do you ever actually -read- the thing you write
   about?  That's not in character, you're just a loser who can't write!"

a and b, while saying the same thing ("I don't feel Ranma is acting in
character") say them in rather different ways.  I consider the first one
useful C&C.  I consider the second pointless spam, and also an argument or
flamewar waiting to happen.  The difference between the two is that the
first offers sane comments, elaborates on them, and offers suggestions on
how to fix them.  The second merely annoys the author. 

Now, for the critiquers, there are a lot more *useful* things you can 
tell a writer <g>:
[snip]

Exactly what I meant. :)

And now, your reply to the portion of the letter Mark -did- write. :)

While I hate to sound cold-hearted... tough. Writing is often a cruel 
vocation, and a writer has to learn to take criticism. It hurts, 
especially when it's idiot flaming and not useful critique... but it *is* 
a fact of life in the writing world, and if you want to write and 

True; however, receiving a large amount of 'idiot flaming' as opposed to
useful critique -can- get annoying.  I write for the fun of it; because I
happen to enjoy writing and enjoy what I create.  I don't post most of my
stuff to the FFML anymore (for several reasons; main one being that a lot
of it is original work, not anime fanfiction, and I've generally seen bad
reception of original work on the FFML - namely, no one reads it). 

*And along those lines... there is a certain obligation on the readers' 
part to make positive comments when they enjoyed something. I do often 
find it harder to make specific positive comments; if I really liked an 
entire scene, it's a lot harder for me to say something useful about how 
all the little good bits came together into a pleasing whole, than it is 
to say something useful but negative about the one little bit that felt 
wrong or out-of-place. If a story is very good overall, it just makes the 
remaining problems in it stand out that much more clearly... leaving a 
C&C filled with a few positive statements about the work as a whole, 
followed by a lot of nitpicks about the problems left over. Both writers 
and critiquers need to be aware of this, and adjust accordingly.

Correct; however, getting something like:

"I really liked it; I thought it was a great story overall, but there were
one or two little places that I thought could've been better.  For
example, here..."

...tends to make an author feel better than just "Well, have you
considered changing <x>?".  Both are constructive C&C, but if you did like
the rest of the 'fic but those places, tell the author!

Grammar, spelling, punctuation, formatting, and other technical issues 
*are* real and important, and at least as important here as in 
professional writing. We're all doing this for fun, after all, and 
anything that interferes with that fun is a problem. I admit that if the 
first screen of a story contains enough technical problems to make it an 
effort to read, I'll skip it and move on; I'm doing this for fun, and I'm 
not going to work to decipher something that a good writer should make 
legible to begin with. 

True; while writers are also doing this for fun, there is a certain amount
of effort which should be expended.  At least using correct spelling,
capitalization, and formatting (C'mon, folks.  78 columns per line.  Nice,
normal text.  No attaching Microsoft Word documents as MIME attachments,
etc. (which I've seen done)).  Maybe you've written a very good fanfic,
but if the first thing people see is:

Ramna went out into teh yard "Akan" he said...

It's NOT going to give a very good impression, and most won't keep
reading. Granted, that's worse than most fanfics get for the spelling and
punctuation errors, but I think the point is made. :) 

Just my $0.02 + state sales tax where applicable.

----[Loki]-----------------------------------------------------------------
Jeremy Blackman / Anime fan/fanfic author, Game Designer/Engineer
loki@maison-otaku.net (personal mail) / Maison Otaku Productions founder
loki@thekeep.org      (mailing lists) / Fanfic author / anime
jeremy@lith.com       (work)          / Monolith Productions