My heart bleeded, girl

Happy Birthday, ninjetti75!!! Have a good one, Josh. Also, where the hell have you been??

Okay, let's talk about concrit.

I have opinions and so does everybody else, I'm sure. Right up front, I have to say YMMV.

This is what you have to know about me. My first two years in fandom, I lurked around in XF. Then I spent over two years in the Sentinel fandom, which is when I started writing. At that point in time, being in the Sentinel fandom meant Prospect-L, which was a mailing list. TS was a very centralized fandom, with one major gen archive and one major slash archive. There were two main slash mailing lists, Senad and Prospect-L. If you posted fic to the archive - and you did, or else no one would ever see it - it also got posted to a mailing list called SFX.

I hung out at P-L. It was a wonderful place, full of wonderful, intelligent people. It also allowed discussion of fic, with or without the author's permission. The big rule was, criticize the story, not the writer. Readers were considered to be as important as writers, and in fact, if an author decided to join in the discussion of their fic, their opinion wasn't given any more weight that that of the readers.

Of course some writers didn't like it. It's hard to separate out criticism of your story from criticism of yourself, especially yourself as a writer. P-L was known as the mean list, but it wasn't mean. It was honest. It is, frankly, where I learned how to write.

I mean, nursing school and my interpreting degree didn't involve a lot of creative writing or literature classes. I had no idea what I was doing when I started writing. (What's this POV shift you speak of?) And the very first fanfiction story I ever wrote or posted, wow. I waited to see what P-L said about it. My fear was that it would be ignored completely, but it wasn't. The actual feedback I got was nice, but the comments on P-L were wonderfully constructive criticism.

So, yeah, lots of public concrit went on. And I realize times have changed and fandom can't do that anymore. Too many special snowflakes, and besides, LJ is different from mailing lists, and we all don't hang out together in one place, really. The atmosphere is just different now.

Okay, disclaimer. I've never gotten the kind of concrit I'm talking about in the rest of this post. Over the years, a few people have told me they didn't "get" a particular story. And one time someone pointed out to me that quoting a section from a Dick Francis book in my story and not attributing it was not cool, and I did a headslap and added a disclaimer. (Did I mention I didn't know what I was doing?) But otherwise, no one has ever told me any of my stories suck. I assume that the people who think they do either told their friends in email or IM or else posted it somewhere I didn't happen to see it. Or, you know, on P-L. :)

I like public concrit. It's what I was raised on and there are ways to do it without being hurtful.

What I wouldn't like would be someone writing to me to tell me how my story could have been better if only I had written it the way they thought I should have.

So, for example. Take my Big Bang this year. What a bad story. Dean would never act that way. Oh, god, more post-Mystery Spot angst. Has she ever actually been to Florida? Mary!vision? What a stupid idea. Post it to your LJ, an anonymeme, delicious, IM someone, email your friends, whatever. That's fine by me.

Don't write to me and tell me all that. That's what I had betas for. By the time I posted it, it was what I wanted it to be. I wrote the story I wanted to write, I posted the story I wanted to post. It will not help me to be a "better writer" in the future if you tell me I Did It Wrong. It will only piss me off.

(Okay, again, nobody said any of that that I know of. I'm just using me as an example.)

Or, have another random example. Maybe a J2 story. Kidfic, sweet and schmoopy, with some character development, not any real conflict, just a nice, pleasant story. My guess is, the author knew the story she wrote and wanted it that way, or she wouldn't have posted it. Writing to tell her she Did It Wrong and you would have enjoyed it more if there was some conflict, or the kid was a brat, is just plain rude. It's not going to help her be a better writer in the future.

Don't like the story? There are a bazillion J2 stories out there chock full of miscommunication/homophobia/tragic accidents/terminal illnesses/disabilities/bratty kids. Go read one of those and move on.

And if you feel that strongly about it, by all means post about it in your LJ. Locked or unlocked, I don't care. But don't shove it in the author's face.

Okay, that's just my opinion. I know a lot of people probably disagree with most of it, and that's fine. I'm very happy with one line or one word feedback, as well as the in-depth stuff. And if I read a story I don't like, I move on. I think concrit is presumptuous. *shrugs* Who says my criticism is constructive anyway?

Thanks to drvsilla I wrote this while watching Professional Bull Riding.