Comments, concrit, why Sabine will never be the president, etc.

[sabinetzin]

I'm just gonna ramble here for a minute:

I'm not a "writer", and I'll never be one; I'm just somebody with a writing addiction.

I can't not write. It drives me crazy when I can't. I have to be working on something- it doesn't matter what it is, but my day isn't really complete until I've written something. And I write whatever, y'know? I really don't care, as long as it scratches that itch.

And I have to get it done- just writing something and keeping it isn't really enough for me. I don't use betas, except when it's required in a challenge, because I can't stand to wait even long enough for someone else to read it. I gotta go, I gotta get it out, I gotta get it off my goddamn couch and into the real world.

And once it's gone, I obsess about it. I go back and silently fix things. I sit around and wait for comments. I dream about getting comments- and I don't mean that in a figurative way, I mean that I literally dream at night about checking my email and finding comments in it. I read every single comment I get on a story multiple times; I turn them this way and that, looking for the most out of them. I love it when you comment, even if your comment just says "lol" (unless it's a dramatic story. This happens to me a lot, because I can't stop making jokes and throwing in one-liners, even in super-serious stories. I narrow my eyes at those comments.).

But, at the same time, I just can't respond to every comment I get on a story anymore, because when I did, it made me miserable. My anxiety is such that I'm totally fine talking to five thousand people at once, but one-on-one interactions make me severely uncomfortable, and having to do it fifty times for one story was just unbearable for me. I imagine that sounds ridiculous if you're an extrovert, but think about, like, having to ask somebody out for the first time fifty times in one day. That's about the level that I'm working at, here.

That's why I'm shitty at commenting in general, no matter what kind of post we're talking about, so I totally get it if you can't comment. It's why I'm a Delicious-er (what's the agentive for Delicious?) instead; it's way more comfortable for me to tag the stories that I like than comment on them, and authors can still check their stories and see that I liked it.

Except that Delicious keeps getting me into drama, but that's for the second part.

So I tell you all of that, because I feel like you need to know my position on writing as a whole in order to understand my position on concrit in specific.

It cannot be overstated that my personal life motto is, "Don't be a dick." And I think we should just agree right now that unsolicited criticism- even if you think your criticism is constructive- of fic by somebody you don't know and who doesn't have a "concrit welcome" policy is a dick move. Don't get up in somebody else's shit while they're trying to have fun with their friends. Yeah, I know that they posted it publicly on the internet, and you can do whatever you want, but would you walk up to a pickup basketball game and start critiquing people's jump shots? It's the same thing, and it still makes you a dick.

(Sidebar: It does not, in my personal opinion, make you a dick to go back to your friends and go, "Girl, did you read that story? That shit was BANANAS." It's raining on the author's parade that's the dick part of it.)

And, y'know, I've thought about it, and I really don't want concrit anymore, because me? I've gotten a whole lot of crit and almost no con. And because I am a Southerner, and I have been born and raised in a culture of honor, my immediate response is, when it happens in my journal, "Get your ass off my property," or, when it happens on Delicious, "Come over here and say that to my face."

And it drives me crazy, y'know? I only ever get criticised on stories that I really like, where I really tried to do something different; and getting criticised on those stories has real world implications for me. I work myself up over it- I get into imaginary fights with the commenter and lose sleep and let it color my whole day. It has gotten bad enough in the past that I've had to take a Klonopin and go to bed, because I really can't handle it.

If somebody I really liked and respected wanted to give me constructive comments on a story- and there are people I know and respect, like zulu and torachan, who give good (read: fair and comprehensive) reviews- that would be different. But for every one of them, there are ten assholes who are only interested in criticism, and I can't handle that, and I know there are a lot of other writers who can't either. Think about it before you give crit even if you think you are nice (cause some of y'all are wrong about that)- the person on the other end of the comment is not a machine, and you may be fucking stuff up for them. What's your real motivation? And saying "can't take the heat, GTFO the kitchen" is not responsive; I am providing you with something for free, that I made with my own hands. Don't be a dick to me (especially on Delicious, because I stalk that shit, and I will know if you say nasty things about me).

And the second part of it is that I feel like, for me, concrit isn't really constructive, because I can't write any better than this. What you see is what I've got; I'm not holding anything back, here. [ETA: I should clarify: I think I'm improving as a writer, as the time passes, but I usually don't think a particular story can be improved upon after I'm done with it.] I write what I want and need to write- there's no real motivation for me to improve, because, like, I'm never gonna write a (non-academic) book. Writing longer stuff takes too much out of me. 20000 words is just about the cutoff; anything longer than that, and the work is not commensurate with the reward anymore. I'm not an ~author~, I'm like a rat pushing a pellet machine, and I feel like it's kind of a waste of time on the commenter's part (but that is poss. my low self esteem talking again).

So here's the take-away message: This is supposed to be fun for both of us. Too often, readers and reviewers think of authors like fic-generating machines (and I can cite examples); and in turn, authors think of readers like feedback bots. And that's bullshit, y'know? Like, I just wanna hang out and tell stories to my friends. And yeah, I hope they really like it, and I hope they're all, "Damn, yo, that story kicked ten kinds of ass," but maybe they didn't think so, and that's cool too. Just, just try not to be a dick, y'all.

(Also, hi, I'm provisionally crossposting more to DW)

Comments

[carolyn_claire]

Hi, I'm provisionally reading you on DW. *g*

I think more clarity of expectations/thoughts/feelings on the part of posters (of stories) might help; there's been a lot of "But I just don't know what to dooooooooo that won't get me chewed out/hurt someone's feelings" going around that maybe could be at least partially dealt with by writers including notes, the way we do with warnings and summaries and whatnot, that tell the reader what kind of feedback we're into (and even what we're not.) Come to think about it, I think I'll probably post about that, now. Hmmm.

[sabinetzin]

Hmm. That's a good idea that I hadn't thought about, actually. It wouldn't have to be intrusive, either; there could be a little "Feedback policy" link in one's header like some people include their warning policies. ::strokes imaginary beard thoughtfully:: I will have to put this to ponderation.

[carolyn_claire]

Yes, the policy link thing might be an even better way to do it than adding verbiage to every header, now that you mention it--one could get really specific about one's desires and fears about feedback without appending an entire paragraph to every story, and one could tweak it, at the central location, as one felt led to. I like that.