giggles, sorry, I forgot not everyone thinks of life in terms of desserts. Sprinkles are tiny bits of yumminess all on their own. Frosting is the best thing evar. Sprinkles on frosting - swoon. lol
I really shouldn't be on this thread, given my most recent episode with feedback, but I couldn't resist. It's the sprinkles!!
I love getting feedback and I rarely give it. Partly because I tend to save stuff and read it offline, and am too bone lazydisorganised to go back and then send fb when I am online. When I do give it it's because something has really moved me - in either way.
Quite often if I like something I don't feed back, which is bizarre, but I end up saying "I loved it" and having nothing constructive to add, and I feel very embarrassed when I see other people's wonderful literate feedback.
I do give constructive fb for grammar etc (rarely characterisation because I doubt that my own knowledge - in all my fandoms - is good enough to criticise other people's, and also rarely plot because I'm just amazed and envious that other people can write plot, because I totally can't). I'm confident about grammar, spelling etc.
But then I get bitten in the bum, because the last time I said gently to someone, "I loved your story - fantastic plotline - but can I suggest you get a beta because English isn't your first language and though there aren't major problems you have a couple of points where it's very clumsy and unrealistic..." and her reply came back "Well thanks but I already have TWO betas" followed by much snarkiness which showed me that she had complete faith in her betas and none at all in my ability to read, never mind appreciate her writing...
So I'm inconsistent, really. I try to fb my friends because I a) value them and b) value their writing and c) want them to continue because most of them just awe me with their ability. (And yes, that does include you.)
Blimey. I wrote an essay. Sorry, didn't mean to... *g*
Well, I'm one of those writer that love a "love it" *G* Though I love a bit of explanation about the things that worked especially well. As a reader, I also often fail to give a very explicit fb, sigh.
My writer's ego is a strange thing. Usually, it's pretty strong. It has to be - I'm a freelance writer and rarely have someone working on texts with me. Sure, texts could always improve - but since I'm working on them alone, on delivery I have to feel very happy and confident about them. Same with my stories. And if someone doesn't like a story or aspects of it, it's often a difference in taste. One time, I had two betas on a story and what A corrected into one direction, B wanted to get corrected into the other. I like to hear if something (setting, pairing) worked for someone or not, but I haven't made the general experience that reader fb really helped my writing.
Which makes me prone for a beating by the "you've got to improve" fraction, but when you're already quite good (which I know I am), it's become more a matter of taste and style IMVHO, and I don't want a big compromise on many things. It's my artistic license that gets touched at certain points, and I defend that one rather strongly. There are people who are "allowed" to critize A LOT in my fiction and I accept it. But they are rare and know how to tell it nicely.
But for all this ego, there can be that one fb that crushes it into a small puddle and makes me want to burn my stories. Sigh. Which probably means that while my writer's ego is slightly inflated, it's not too big and stable. Sometimes I want to have Shatner's Ego!
Concerning this non-native and English fb, that's really a problem. When I started, I also had a not-so-good beta but I had to rely on her because I didn't know better. It was hard to accept for me that she was not good as beta because she just didn't see my English mistakes (though she is okay as a writer). Maybe the person who shot you down now for telling you will learn that herself over the next stories. I'd hope so at least.
There are surprisingly many stories where people claimed that two betas have read it, and it's full of glaring typos and stuff. Maybe these are errors brought in while editing the final version...or the betas were indeed blind. No idea. It's strange.
Well, wrote an essay too. Thanks for saying that you value my writing. I love to hear fb like that. It's part of what keeps me going, even when I usually write stories for myself (as in "I write what my muses want me to"). Many hugs :)))
I do have to resist the urge to anti-squee - and not always sucessfully. I have found that it's helpful to email a friend with a "WTF?" grumble.
I love feedback, but I love it as a conversation, a la LJ. What irritates me about ff.net is that all that shows is the person's feedback, not any response one has to it; with LJ, you can actually have a conversation about a story and come to a better understanding, both as a reader and as a writer (I've made alterations for clarity after a discussion of what a reader initially thought was a canon error, e.g.).
Not to mention that ff.net is full of crap stories with squee reviews.
Well, what I learned over reading&writing, there are a few, very few stories on whose quality people agree, but many more where opinions diverge quite a lot. As a writer, that's good because it means even if you write, dunno, crappy Kirk/garbage can, someone for sure will step up and say "Great story, I always wanted to read about Kirk/garbage can, please write more" ;)
As a reader I am also guilty at times to write a better fb than deserved, when e.g. it's a newer writer, a writer who had a stuck muses for a long time, or the writer wrote something which I LOVE to see more of *GGG*
P.S. Glad to see that you're a critical beta, I was wondering at times if you were especially nice to me with your beta fb *G*
Yeah, I'm pretty harsh on crit in general... but I'm like that to everyone when I bother to feed back. Many of Henry Higgens's comments apply to my feedback! :(
Hmm - Kirk/Garbage Can. Actually, there's Doctor/Tardis out there; Kirk/phaser would not surprise me.
I don't give better feedback than is deserved to someone who writes a rarepair I like - actually, I set my bar higher, just because it is rare. If there's very little out there for a pair I like, I really don't want any of it to be lousy... which is one reason I'm delighted to have been able to suck Kat into some of my nobody-else-writes-it pairings. :D
I don't give better feedback than is deserved to someone who writes a rarepair I like - actually, I set my bar higher, just because it is rare. If there's very little out there for a pair I like, I really don't want any of it to be lousy...
I completely understand you, and often I have that feeling too. (The higher bar mostly happens with K/Mc and K/S/Mc, so I've become reluctant to ask others for these pairings, as the results are very mixed.) However, at other times I'm so happy that SOMEONE writes it, it's just okay. I'm not consistent here :)
P.S. I envy you for Kat *G* She doesn't write a fraction of the TOS I'd like to see from her, lol!
Hy is SO picky that once she is satisfied with a story of mine, I feel confident that it's good and after that those little pointless compliments like "Great story!" are all I need to feel good about it. Constructive crit is welcome but I may not agree with the person and almost NEVER (well, never yet) change an existing story for anyone's concrit but Hy's. I've written so many that one particular story getting no fb or all bad fb doesn't really bother me unless it's one I really, really liked myself. A beta needs to help a writer achieve the WRITER's goals, so if the beta doesn't agree about some vital character points or something, there are going to be problems. Those are my blabby comments.
Constructive crit is welcome but I may not agree with the person and almost NEVER (well, never yet) change an existing story for anyone's concrit but Hy's.
I did so in a very few instances. For example, someone once gave me a major slap for having badly researched the effects of a heat stroke. The person was right, BUT the way xe posted it was a few lines about the story and then two _long_ paragraphs ranting about my error (which were a few lines in a novelette!). I really disliked to get the fb in this way and I feared it would spoil the story for all those readers who don't care f*ck about the medicine, but are now shoved into the litte error head on. I still corrected the error as good as I could without changing the whole part, because it bugged me.
Good point about the beta helping to achieve the writer's goal. I take my betas very seriously and usually accept 95% of their advice (except for general, personal beta statements like "I don't care for non-con" in a story where I want to have non-con inside). But readers...they often have their own agenda or simply a different taste.
I also always remember that there are stories of mine that got not one single line of fb in the group and then suddenly won a GO. Not that I get it, but, well...fb doesn't really say a lot sometimes.
Thanks for your comments :))) And give a hug to Hy.
Also, I don't anti-squee because I don't see the point: at any given time, there are four billion people in the world who don't like something. Why would they all waste time talking about it?
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(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-28 01:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-28 02:08 pm (UTC)Sorry, need a "translation" for that. Is that good or bad?
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-28 02:21 pm (UTC)I really shouldn't be on this thread, given my most recent episode with feedback, but I couldn't resist. It's the sprinkles!!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-28 03:29 pm (UTC)Well, considering that I hate frosting and would prefer the sprinkles, I guess it's not a comparison that translates well for me *G*
P.S. The problem is that I don't know many English words in the dessert world, LOL. Guess my characters should eat more ;)
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-28 02:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-28 02:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-28 03:10 pm (UTC)I love getting feedback and I rarely give it. Partly because I tend to save stuff and read it offline, and am too
bone lazydisorganised to go back and then send fb when I am online. When I do give it it's because something has really moved me - in either way.Quite often if I like something I don't feed back, which is bizarre, but I end up saying "I loved it" and having nothing constructive to add, and I feel very embarrassed when I see other people's wonderful literate feedback.
I do give constructive fb for grammar etc (rarely characterisation because I doubt that my own knowledge - in all my fandoms - is good enough to criticise other people's, and also rarely plot because I'm just amazed and envious that other people can write plot, because I totally can't). I'm confident about grammar, spelling etc.
But then I get bitten in the bum, because the last time I said gently to someone, "I loved your story - fantastic plotline - but can I suggest you get a beta because English isn't your first language and though there aren't major problems you have a couple of points where it's very clumsy and unrealistic..." and her reply came back "Well thanks but I already have TWO betas" followed by much snarkiness which showed me that she had complete faith in her betas and none at all in my ability to read, never mind appreciate her writing...
So I'm inconsistent, really. I try to fb my friends because I a) value them and b) value their writing and c) want them to continue because most of them just awe me with their ability. (And yes, that does include you.)
Blimey. I wrote an essay. Sorry, didn't mean to... *g*
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-28 04:02 pm (UTC)My writer's ego is a strange thing. Usually, it's pretty strong. It has to be - I'm a freelance writer and rarely have someone working on texts with me. Sure, texts could always improve - but since I'm working on them alone, on delivery I have to feel very happy and confident about them. Same with my stories. And if someone doesn't like a story or aspects of it, it's often a difference in taste. One time, I had two betas on a story and what A corrected into one direction, B wanted to get corrected into the other.
I like to hear if something (setting, pairing) worked for someone or not, but I haven't made the general experience that reader fb really helped my writing.
Which makes me prone for a beating by the "you've got to improve" fraction, but when you're already quite good (which I know I am), it's become more a matter of taste and style IMVHO, and I don't want a big compromise on many things. It's my artistic license that gets touched at certain points, and I defend that one rather strongly. There are people who are "allowed" to critize A LOT in my fiction and I accept it. But they are rare and know how to tell it nicely.
But for all this ego, there can be that one fb that crushes it into a small puddle and makes me want to burn my stories. Sigh. Which probably means that while my writer's ego is slightly inflated, it's not too big and stable.
Sometimes I want to have Shatner's Ego!Concerning this non-native and English fb, that's really a problem. When I started, I also had a not-so-good beta but I had to rely on her because I didn't know better. It was hard to accept for me that she was not good as beta because she just didn't see my English mistakes (though she is okay as a writer). Maybe the person who shot you down now for telling you will learn that herself over the next stories. I'd hope so at least.
There are surprisingly many stories where people claimed that two betas have read it, and it's full of glaring typos and stuff. Maybe these are errors brought in while editing the final version...or the betas were indeed blind. No idea. It's strange.
Well, wrote an essay too. Thanks for saying that you value my writing. I love to hear fb like that. It's part of what keeps me going, even when I usually write stories for myself (as in "I write what my muses want me to"). Many hugs :)))
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-28 04:10 pm (UTC)I do have to resist the urge to anti-squee - and not always sucessfully. I have found that it's helpful to email a friend with a "WTF?" grumble.
I love feedback, but I love it as a conversation, a la LJ. What irritates me about ff.net is that all that shows is the person's feedback, not any response one has to it; with LJ, you can actually have a conversation about a story and come to a better understanding, both as a reader and as a writer (I've made alterations for clarity after a discussion of what a reader initially thought was a canon error, e.g.).
Not to mention that ff.net is full of crap stories with squee reviews.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-28 04:18 pm (UTC)As a reader I am also guilty at times to write a better fb than deserved, when e.g. it's a newer writer, a writer who had a stuck muses for a long time, or the writer wrote something which I LOVE to see more of *GGG*
P.S. Glad to see that you're a critical beta, I was wondering at times if you were especially nice to me with your beta fb *G*
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-29 04:44 pm (UTC)Hmm - Kirk/Garbage Can. Actually, there's Doctor/Tardis out there; Kirk/phaser would not surprise me.
I don't give better feedback than is deserved to someone who writes a rarepair I like - actually, I set my bar higher, just because it is rare. If there's very little out there for a pair I like, I really don't want any of it to be lousy... which is one reason I'm delighted to have been able to suck Kat into some of my nobody-else-writes-it pairings. :D
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-29 10:03 pm (UTC)I completely understand you, and often I have that feeling too. (The higher bar mostly happens with K/Mc and K/S/Mc, so I've become reluctant to ask others for these pairings, as the results are very mixed.) However, at other times I'm so happy that SOMEONE writes it, it's just okay. I'm not consistent here :)
P.S. I envy you for Kat *G* She doesn't write a fraction of the TOS I'd like to see from her, lol!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-29 10:08 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-29 10:27 am (UTC)I did so in a very few instances. For example, someone once gave me a major slap for having badly researched the effects of a heat stroke. The person was right, BUT the way xe posted it was a few lines about the story and then two _long_ paragraphs ranting about my error (which were a few lines in a novelette!). I really disliked to get the fb in this way and I feared it would spoil the story for all those readers who don't care f*ck about the medicine, but are now shoved into the litte error head on. I still corrected the error as good as I could without changing the whole part, because it bugged me.
Good point about the beta helping to achieve the writer's goal. I take my betas very seriously and usually accept 95% of their advice (except for general, personal beta statements like "I don't care for non-con" in a story where I want to have non-con inside). But readers...they often have their own agenda or simply a different taste.
I also always remember that there are stories of mine that got not one single line of fb in the group and then suddenly won a GO. Not that I get it, but, well...fb doesn't really say a lot sometimes.
Thanks for your comments :))) And give a hug to Hy.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-29 10:11 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-29 10:15 am (UTC)