One last post on the subject, and then, I promise, I am done. 8)
One last question.
Imagine a girl. Who loves Captain America 2, even though she never saw the first one. Or who has been watching Battlestar Galactica reruns non-stop for the last couple of months. Or who found that old Orlando Bloom folder and thought about PotC movies for the first time in years.
Imagine that girl, having an idea. How awesome would it be if Peggy time traveled to the present to help Steve? Or if Starbuck was a Cylon? or if Elizabeth’s best friend from childhood showed up and they ran off to be lesbian pirates?
What if.
What if she could find herself, find a place for herself in a world, in a place that she loved? What if between work and school and family and friends and afterschool activities and a thousand other things, what if that girl wrote her story? HER story. One unique to her, even if it was every trope in the entire world, all rolled into one monstrosity on FF.net.
Maybe she wants to be a writer someday. Or a filmmaker. She wants to create comics. Or tv shows. Or run websites. Or maybe not any of that. Maybe she wants an audience. Maybe she just wants to share this one story with a community she loves.
But she writes it and she posts it and someone says, “Mary Sue.”
And if she knows anything about fandom, if she’s been on the internet, she knows that’s bad. She knows that means she’s failed somehow, that this story, this fun thing that she’s thought so much about, is somehow unacceptable.
She’s told that her female characters are unwelcome. Her story is unwelcome. She is unwelcome.
Maybe she shrugs it off and keeps writing. Maybe she conforms, writes fewer ‘Mary Sues,’ and more canon white het males. Maybe she grows up and becomes a screen writer and carries a life time of ‘girls don’t belong’ judgments into everything she creates, perpetuating the cycle.
And maybe she just stops trying to find herself in that world. Maybe she internalizes it. Maybe she keep dreaming, but never posts another word.
I am adult, with experience, and a job, and something of a readership. And let me tell you, the first time that landed in my comments, it hurt. There was a drop of shame in my stomach, a little roll of nausea. That I had created A MARY SUE.
My first thought? How to devalue the character. How to lessen her. How to strip her of the things that made her funny, made her clever, made her loyal and strange and amazing. Because my readership, I thought, didn’t want amazing.
Amazing was a failure, somehow.
I caught myself doing it. I caught that thought before it got too far. I caught myself thinking, “does she really need to be here?” when I never thought that about any of the male characters. I caught myself.
And then I got angry.
I got angry with myself, that I was so easily browbeaten. That I had almost let one anonymous voice, one mocking, disdainful voice, change how I saw this character. That I almost let someone do that to her.
That I had come so close to writing her out. Because she was a Mary Sue.
I don’t care if you use the term as gender neutral. It’s not. It carries connotations in fandom. It carries shame. It carries the unspoken weight of ‘fake geek girl’ and ‘codebabes’ and ‘I like my fangirls like I like my coffee, and I HATE coffee!’ It is another attempt to shame and silence, and I am done with it.
And if my niece grows up in ten years, and gives me her fic, about how Angelica Perfecton gets engaged to Spider-Man and saves Tony Stark by fixing his armor and teaches Steve Rogers how to paint?
Then I will be so overjoyed that she is a fan. That she is a fan who CREATES. Who makes the space safe for herself. Who dreams big. Who wants to be the center of the world she loves so much.
Because it is her right to do that without shame.
“I don’t care if you use the term as gender neutral. It’s not. It carries connotations in fandom. It carries shame. It carries the unspoken weight of ‘fake geek girl’ and ‘codebabes’ and ‘I like my fangirls like I like my coffee, and I HATE coffee!’ It is another attempt to shame and silence, and I am done with it.”
Not as often as they probably should – because some authors are rightly afraid of it, mostly due to the fact that no one actually knows how to give constructive criticism.
But Aria, you might say, there were things wrong with this fic! And I liked things about it too, but the author might want to know what those wrong things were!
You’re right. They MIGHT want to know. M I G H T
This isn’t a high school english class. If they aren’t actively inviting criticism, don’t fucking give it (and I’m not talking about spelling or grammar mistakes here). I’m talking about criticism to their characterization of characters. Or of the way a fic is written, or the POV of it’s in.
If people don’t invite the criticism, don’t give it. It’s that simple. Some people don’t give a shit, and considering none of us are getting paid to write fanfiction, sometimes we don’t give a flying fart in space if our characterization is right. We just wanna write the story. (If Authors want it, they should actively advertise that fact.) Here’s an example of what is at the bottom of every single one of my AO3 fics:
Excellent!
Going back to your question! “But Aria, there were things wrong with this fic! I liked things about it, but they wrote Dean completely wrong! And they invite criticism, so I’m going to tell them they wrote Dean wrong!”
No, you are going to stop right fucking there and think about that for a second.
1. Dean Winchester is a very, very complicated character at BEST when it comes to writing him.
2. The only person on the PLANET who could tell you that you are writing Dean wrong is….. WAIT. THERE ISN’T ANYONE. He’s a television character, and as such, is open to interpretation.
3. This is not your story. Maybe in YOUR story Dean doesn’t act that way. But it’s not your story. So how would you know that Dean was written wrong? Here’s a clue. YOU CAN’T.
4. Why the hell is it your job to tell the writer they did something YOU think is wrong? Why not tell them what you liked instead?
Now, let’s imagine that despite all of this, you still want to tell the author that YOU think they wrote Dean wrong. (Even though it’s not your place to care, and this isn’t your story.) Believe it or not, there is an APPROPRIATE way to offer this information to the author!
Here’s how you offer constructive criticism to authors. Believe it or not, I can sum it up in one sentence.
YOU ASK QUESTIONS
Understand? No?
Here’s how it works. Let’s take the example of wanting to talk to the author about Dean’s characterization that I mentioned above. You liked other stuff about the fic (let’s say you really liked the monster they picked, and their plot had some nice twists!), but you really want to tell them about Dean. Here’s how I imagine you’d write the comment:
“I really liked this fic, but I think Dean wasn’t very…Dean. He didn’t act like himself at all!”
First off, I’m going to speak for every writer here for a second (this is my opinion, but I’ve yet to meet a writer that likes this phrase, so….):
“I really liked this fic, but…” – *AHEM* THIS SHOULD NEVER BE WRITTEN. EVER. EVER.
It’s the fanfic equivalent of saying “I don’t mean to be rude, but…” or “I’m not racist, but…”
DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHY THAT PHRASE IS BAD NOW? It insults the author, the fic, and their writing. And frankly, saying that you liked the fic in a general sense is not enough to excuse yourself for writing more insulting shit afterward. Which is exactly what you proceeded to do.
Okay, let’s go on to the rest of your comment. “I think Dean wasn’t very…Dean. He didn’t act like himself at all!”
So, I have a severe problem with how VAGUE this comment is (and I get stuff like this regularly), because if you’re looking to help the writer, specifics are KEY. Okay, so outside of that, how is this supposed to help the author? How are they supposed to improve based on your comment? Are they somehow supposed to realize that the right way to write Dean by osmosis? The point of constructive criticism is to help someone GET BETTER. You are doing nothing but tear them apart.
You really want to help someone get better? You ask them questions about the story. About their choices. Understand WHY they wrote something they way they did. Maybe they made a mistake, maybe they didn’t, but it’s their fic, it’s their choice, and you, as the reader offering constructive feedback, should ask questions to understand their intent!
Here’s how your feedback SHOULD have looked:
“I really liked this fic! I enjoyed the monster that you picked and that you had a bunch of plot twists and turns as they did their research! I wasn’t expecting the ending at all, and I thought you did a really good job with it. Was Dean doing all of the research because he lost a bet with Sam?”
You list the positives. You call out what you liked about the fic in SPECIFIC so the author will keep doing those good things. Then you ask the question about characterization (because normally Sam does the research) in a way that promotes conversation about the choice. This opens up a CONVERSATION with the author that will allow you to discuss the choice in greater detail.
THAT IS HOW IT BLOODY WORKS. ASK. QUESTIONS.
But Aria, you might say. I don’t leave comments like that!
Fair enough, but a lot of people do. I’ve gotten two almost exactly like that in the past five days. One of which, after a 127k fic, asked a single sentence question of why people prefer a certain character topping. THAT’S IT.
Hilariously, I don’t prefer that character topping, and told the commenter as much. But do you know how disheartening that is? To put that much effort into a story and then…get that sentence? If I didn’t have as much writing experience under my belt as I do, that could turn me off writing for a while.
I wrote this rant because that DOES happen to people – and the person I once was. People get turned off of writing because of comments like that. I know I used to. All the time. It isn’t our place as readers to DO that to a writer.
Authors are told to have a thick skin. While this is true, and that’s fine? Readers need to learn how to give criticism without fucking insulting someone and their time and effort. Y’all aren’t professional editors and publishers. There’s only a certain level of critique I expect of something that I do for free, outside of a full time job. Remember that. None of us get paid to do this, and we aren’t in English class.
So I’m going to put this out here. Authors? You get a comment like that? You have a comment that makes you feel bad about what you wrote? Or insecure? You come to me. Sometimes readers need to be taught how to comment properly, and I am more than happy to throw salt, shade and some sass at anyone who thinks insulting your time and effort is okay. Okay?
tl;dr (for those of you that want a quick two sentence summary):
Constructive Criticism does not mean giving a list of complaints, it means that you should ask questions to understand why an author made a choice. It was THEIR choice to make, and you can only understand it, and maybe help them see an alternative choice could have been made. MAYBE.
Got it?
Hi @aria-lerendeair! I liked this post, but I thought it didn’t have enough bees in it? I only come here for the bees. Please write more bees next time, kthx.
Why do so many people fail to include enough bees?
Don’t get me wrong, but I thought Aria was a little OOC in this post and frankly the lack of canon compliance with Aria’s overall blog verse did my head in. Otherwise, an excellent post.
I am laughing, SO HARD. Beautiful, beautiful additions to my post, all of you.
(Note: For the people missing the obvious….THESE ARE RELEVANT EXAMPLES OF REPLIES THAT AUTHORS GET THAT ARE NOT ACCEPTABLE. AND THEY’RE FUCKING BEAUTIFUL.)
I want to share my very first review on my Great debriel slave!fic of death, as an example of what NEVER to do to an author, especially to an author who’s writing in a language that’s not their first, please, and thank you (also fuck you very much if you do leave those kinds of messages, if you are not fluent in at least one language other than yours you’re not allowed to criticize people’s grammar unless it’s because you want to beta for the person. And still. There’s a way of saying things.)
Here we go, admire the tact:
“
This is unreadable. Grammar errors in just about every sentence, shifting tense and incorrect use of capitalization. Also, the plot and progression do not make sense. Get a beta.”
Obviously, you’re all more than allowed (and encouraged) to go check out the first chapter of this fic (link above), to see if I truly write like shit, or if that particular anon was just having a bad day (they only read the first chapter). The fic has only been beta’d from chapter 10 and on. I’m working on it, so keep in mind it’s been written almost 2 years ago and I now, because of those kinds of comments, have very negative feelings about the beginning of this fic.
I’ve made mention of EXCEPTIONAL fanfiction on this blog in the past and now I feel the need to make another mention.
This is literally one of the most fantastic pieces of literature I’ve read in my entire life. Not even counting the fact it’s longer than some novels, it could easily be a piece of fiction in its own right. The amount of world and characterization building are breathtaking. The author, spectralPhobia, managed to take names and characters and references and concepts any fan of Homestuck is well familiar with and make them into her own universe of a tale.
And I mean that quite literally.
I’ve read plenty of alternate universe fanfiction but never one so meticulously well-crafted and put together. As I mentioned, the story could be an original work of its own without the Homestuck elements. But for a fan, those elements just make it all so much more relatable and enjoyable. Even if you don’t like some of the characters used, or whom she chose as the main protagonists/antagonists, or the relationships that occur- I guarantee, you will still be enthralled with this story.
It’s been a long, long, long time since I could confidently claim a story left me on the literal edge of my seat. Gripping at it, my desk, my keyboard- whatever was within reach because of just how hard I was sucked in. The range of emotions I felt multiple times left me with an incredible experience. I cried, I raged, I exclaimed joyously and threw my hands around and would tug at my hair screaming “NOT THIS AGAIN JAKE FUCKING ENGLISH DON’T YOU EVER LEARN?!” (Read the story and you will understand, trust me, he gets better. They all do.)
I’m making this post because it took me far, far too long to find this gem and I’m so disappointed I didn’t get to read and experience it sooner. (Even though, blessedly, it meant I didn’t have to wait for updates, haha.) I want the world to know this work exists. I want everyone in or out of the fandom to know. It’s so beautifully written I think a non-Homestuck could read this, take the characters as they are and still be satisfied. That’s how good the story is.
Oh, and did I even mention? The fact it had lovely artwork accompanying it? The illustrations are wonderful and all made by the author herself, s-opal as she’s known on Tumblr. They add another layer of immersion into an already grand story.
I’m telling you, this is one piece of writing you DO NOTwant to miss. Go and read it ASAP!!! I’ll even give you a link. Though I warn you, as mentioned prior, it is a doozy of a read. But worth every single day spent.
queerhomestuck 