9960 réponses à ce sujet

[lillitheris]

I’m not quite sure what this thread could be used for, if anything, but let’s have one anyway.

So, post questions about style, vocab, setting, lore, the corner you painted yourself into, whatever!

Request beta reading/sanity checks/reviews — preferrably of excerpts rather than entire chapters but if you’re not spamming the thread, it’s not really a big deal.

Complain loudly about lack/deluge of reviews or other interaction and/or their quality, bemoan writer’s block, lack of time etc.

Also, if you have any great (or even good) articles/posts on other boards/whatever to give either standalone or as an answer to a question, please do! I’m sure, for example, that there’s tons of wisdom on the FFN forums, but their forum system is officially the only one worse than BSN’s on the entire Internet so I can never get myself to delve into it.

…

Here’s a post of mine from downthread about analyzing your visitor counts for self-improvement.

Modifié par lillitheris, 30 juin 2012 - 08:43 .

[MidnightRaith]

Love this idea. I will be posting/lurking here quite a bit, I think.

[IliyaMoroumetz]

Self-Insertions are of the DEVIL! They are made of egotistical ******!

[o Ventus]

I have an awkward fanfic confession--

I like to write my own fics, but I don't much care for reading others. Does this make me a bad person?

Also, then end of a school year is a terrible time to be a writer.

[MidnightRaith]

I do not like SIs. They are essentially pointless in the realm of Mass Effect because of the existence of Shepard. While Shepard does have a basis in character, there are enough gaps to fit yourself into the situation if you truly desired to. They are also prime for creating Sues and Stus. Because you are writing yourself into the story, you do not have the necessary detachment from the plot in order to do what's necessary or best for the fic.

Many people fall into the trap that they NEED to be the best character in the plot. Or that they would find the "best way" in any situation because they played the game, read the book, watched the movie, whatever and knew the plot. That is extremely boring writing. People appreciate flaws. Flaws are what make characters relatable, not perfection.

SIs nearly always also derail the story from the characters that are actually in it. Some tend to overshadow even Shepard, who is the BigDamnHero. That's not a good thing. Doing so unbalances the story and makes it even more whimsical and unbelievable than it started out with.

Maybe there are some good SIs somewhere, anywhere in some fandoms, but I've never come across them. The authors that typically write them show signs that they cannot characterize properly, hence using themselves to literally drive the story onwards. They just don't show signs of good work, in my honest opinion.

[IliyaMoroumetz]

A 'Good SI' is a contradiction in terms. Nothing good ever came from it and nothing ever will.

Case in point. Neo from the Matrix movies? Self-Insertion to the extreme.

[MidnightRaith]

IliyaMoroumetz wrote...

A 'Good SI' is a contradiction in terms. Nothing good ever came from it and nothing ever will.

Case in point. Neo from the Matrix movies? Self-Insertion to the extreme.

I am pretty negative on the idea. Ever come across Twilight SIs? Those are by far the worst fanfictions I have ever seen in my entire life. Best examples of the worst SIs....

EDIT: A particular type of fanfiction I like are AUs. Provided that the author set limits for themselves, kept things IC and kept to the rules of the IP. I don't like off the wall AUs that are poorly disguised publishings of an author's original work who is too lazy to create their own IP and characters.

Modifié par MidnightRaith, 26 mai 2012 - 07:15 .

[lillitheris]

IliyaMoroumetz wrote...

A 'Good SI' is a contradiction in terms. Nothing good ever came from it and nothing ever will.

I have actually read a couple good self-inserts, not ME though. There’re a couple listed in the ALL fics list, but I haven’t had the time to read them yet…

I have formulated that self-insertion is only about as good as…self-insertion

But of course sometimes that’s good too :happy:

Modifié par lillitheris, 26 mai 2012 - 08:39 .

[lillitheris]

o Ventus wrote...

I have an awkward fanfic confession--

I like to write my own fics, but I don't much care for reading others. Does this make me a bad person?

Nope… I assume you do read published work at least? Also, do you care about having readers yourself?

Also, then end of a school year is a terrible time to be a writer.

Wait ’til you work full-time

[lillitheris]

Another topic: copyediting after publishing? I mean strictly that, no plot changes or anything like that, just cleaning up the text. I find myself doing this quite a bit, and don’t really think it’s necessary to specifically make a note of it but I’m not sure what the etiquette is… I don’t think any of the popular sites notify subscribers if a previous chapter/equivalent has been edited, anyway.

[MidnightRaith]

o Ventus wrote...

Also, then end of a school year is a terrible time to be a writer.

 Ha, well I used to spend my class time writing rather than paying attention to the teacher.... God, high school was not challenging enough to retain my attention at all....

[GenericEnemy]

I can't seem to write fanfics for crap, but reading them is something of a hobby for me. I particularly enjoy OC fics, with an original plot and cast set in the MEverse. 'The Fall of Khar'shan' by spartan13579 (Deviantart) and 'Smoke and Mirrors' by CommanderVerner (FF.net) are particular favorites. Both spin intriguing plots, even though the latter is only in it's beginning stages.

My inability to write fanfics is strange, seeing as I've never been a particularly bad writer, but with fanfics I seem to procrastinate and never get anything done. Any tips on how to stop this?

Modifié par GenericEnemy, 26 mai 2012 - 09:04 .

[CrazyGreggy]

SI's have one use - to showcase the absolute need to avoid them. Like that photo of yourself getting completely hammered in your young and stupid days.

[lillitheris]

GenericEnemy wrote...

My inability to write fanfics is strange, seeing as I've never been a particularly bad writer, but with fanfics I seem to procrastinate and never get anything done. Any tips on how to stop this?

I find the chapter-wise publishing system very handy for that. I’ve set myself a goal to produce one chapter (2500 words minimum excepting special cases) every other day. It’s enough time to produce quality text – I hope anyway – but not too much that you start slacking off, and it establishes routine. A chapter per week is just asking for trouble.

Also, if you have problems with long fics, try short ones, and vice versa?

[MidnightRaith]

lillitheris wrote...

I find the chapter-wise publishing system very handy for that. I’ve set myself a goal to produce one chapter (2500 words minimum excepting special cases) every other day. It’s enough time to produce quality text – I hope anyway – but not too much that you start slacking off, and it establishes routine. A chapter per week is just asking for trouble.

Also, if you have problems with long fics, try short ones, and vice versa?

Every other day? Hmm, I may just try that. I have no problems writing above 2500 in 9/10 cases. Words length comes very easy to me. I do procrastinate though. One question, why is a chaper as week not as good as every other day?

[lillitheris]

I’m feeling kind of whiny today, so I’ll get this off my chest:

I’d really like more interaction with my readers. Unity has around 400 regular readers and it seems to be climbing* but I think only 7 or so different people have commented on it either on my thread here or in FFN reviews. One guy (?) leaves a comment after each chapter, and that’s always nice.

It’s not so much that I need to have a daily fix of ultra-detailed and useful reviews or OMG UR AWSUM (although a girl can dream, right?), I’d be just as happy if someone told me they hated something I wrote every day, or that they stopped reading because of X.

OK, maybe not as happy…but I wouldn’t be displeased. You know what I mean. Interaction! I’m a social animal.

* I’ve actually been keeping an eye on the visitor count and trying to observe trends and drop-offs…I have 3 chapters after which there’s a sharp drop-off. Some of this is natural erosion, and some just coincidental, but I’ve been looking at those chapters to see if there are particular problems with them that might be contributing to it.

[lillitheris]

MidnightRaith wrote...

lillitheris wrote...

I find the chapter-wise publishing system very handy for that. I’ve set myself a goal to produce one chapter (2500 words minimum excepting special cases) every other day. It’s enough time to produce quality text – I hope anyway – but not too much that you start slacking off, and it establishes routine. A chapter per week is just asking for trouble.

Also, if you have problems with long fics, try short ones, and vice versa?

Every other day? Hmm, I may just try that. I have no problems writing above 2500 in 9/10 cases. Words length comes very easy to me. I do procrastinate though. One question, why is a chaper as week not as good as every other day?

Deadlines are good. You don’t need a week to write 2500 words, and therefore shouldn’t take a week. Too much time means you get sidetracked and don’t feel an immediate need to rein yourself in.

[MidnightRaith]

lillitheris wrote...

I’m feeling kind of whiny today, so I’ll get this off my chest:

I’d really like more interaction with my readers. Unity has around 400 regular readers and it seems to be climbing* but I think only 7 or so different people have commented on it either on my thread here or in FFN reviews. One guy (?) leaves a comment after each chapter, and that’s always nice.

It’s not so much that I need to have a daily fix of ultra-detailed and useful reviews or OMG UR AWSUM (although a girl can dream, right?), I’d be just as happy if someone told me they hated something I wrote every day, or that they stopped reading because of X.

OK, maybe not as happy…but I wouldn’t be displeased. You know what I mean. Interaction! I’m a social animal.

* I’ve actually been keeping an eye on the visitor count and trying to observe trends and drop-offs…I have 3 chapters after which there’s a sharp drop-off. Some of this is natural erosion, and some just coincidental, but I’ve been looking at those chapters to see if there are particular problems with them that might be contributing to it.

Okay, I'm going to bring the review discussion we were having over here. I'll try out your suggestion on your fic over the next week or so and review. I need to set the habit, so I should start somewhere and you are asking for them.... Maybe I'll coincidentally notice something about those three chapters. Don't tell me which ones they are, I want to go in unbiased. 

But yeah, I know the feeling of not getting enough feedback. Two of my fics suffered from disinterest in general and that was a bit painful.  However, Striking has over 605 hits over 5 days and nine reviews. That really boosted my confidence. 

[Obsidian Gryphon]

Oh hey, nice. I'll give it a shot. Just took it into my head to try one ME fanfic. Me no high expectations. Just let me fall flat gently.

[fainmaca]

Hey guys, not sure if its cool to post this here, but I have a question that is specifically regarding a design choice in my particular fic (Regarding Reaper enemies and naming conventions). So I'll just leave a link here.

I'm also going to weigh in on the SI angle. I think it is a very poor creative decision. Firstly, in a game franchise like Mass Effect, the main character is already the avatar of the author (The Shepard in my fic is always me in my head. That's why I don't describe him, so he can be every reader's avatar.) It makes writing objectively almost impossible, as you don't want yourself to fail on any level, so Mary-sueism is almost inevitable. But it also creates a character that can be very hard to like, because it says 'I couldn't/didn't want to come up with any character more awesome than myself to drive this story', and that gives off a very arrogant vibe that is transmitted directly through the character. In short, an SI always feels fated to fall flat.

On the topic of copyediting after publishing- I think it is okay, within reason. I myself am guilty of it, as I know there are errors in previous chapters I need to correct, but I want to finish the fic first, while I still have my ideas. But the story must be legible in the first place, and the errors cannot be so disruptive that the reader loses track of the story because of it. A few forms in stead of froms is fine. Shaperd sening Grus calibratons!. is not.

As for reader interaction, I don't think there is a better aspect to the process than hearing back from people who have read your stuff. I love nothing better than to chat with somebody who has read my fic (I've done this a couple of times on TOR, actually, and it's a brilliant feeling). When somebody does a play-by-play of my chapters, telling me what worked and what fell flat, I pay attention to every word, because that's the only way I get better as a writer. Its also a little bit of pride that 'somebody's reading what I wrote, that's amazing!', but the occasional boost to your ego is a good thing, as long as you don't let it go to your head.

Its an unfortunate fact that you're always going to have relatively few people commenting on your fic as opposed to reader numbers. Its just the way of the internet. I've enjoyed over 70k hits to my story on FF.net, and have 200 reviews to show for it after 46 chapters (So about five a chapter, I guess?). BSN is worse, as I've been writing for 20 months now and I think I've only had ten or so comments on the 3 threads I've made to advertise the fic. Hopefully threads like this will prove to be a good way to connect with your fans.

I always try to give recommendations of good fics to my readers when I post a chapter. Granted, sometimes I forget, but I try!

[lillitheris]

MidnightRaith wrote...

Okay, I'm going to bring the review discussion we were having over here. I'll try out your suggestion on your fic over the next week or so and review. I need to set the habit, so I should start somewhere and you are asking for them....

Awesome! I’ll hold you to it for your own good

Maybe I'll coincidentally notice something about those three chapters. Don't tell me which ones they are, I want to go in unbiased. 

Haa, I won’t! To be fair, though, I have copyedited each of them (see message below for details).

But yeah, I know the feeling of not getting enough feedback. Two of my fics suffered from disinterest in general and that was a bit painful.  However, Striking has over 605 hits over 5 days and nine reviews. That really boosted my confidence. 

That’s great! I dunno, it’s just really weird for me because I can see a number of people reading it continuously, but never hear from them… They can’t hate it if they keep reading, can they? :happy:

[lillitheris]

fainmaca wrote...

Hey guys, not sure if its cool to post this here, but I have a question that is specifically regarding a design choice in my particular fic (Regarding Reaper enemies and naming conventions). So I'll just leave a link here.

This is perfectly fine, even without linking… I’ll hop over there ASAP.

I'm also going to weigh in on the SI angle. I think it is a very poor creative decision. Firstly, in a game franchise like Mass Effect, the main character is already the avatar of the author

I agree, the concept seems hard to really make work for ME (or maybe more pointless than hard). Still, there are several SIs in the ALL fics thread, I have to check them out at the same point…

On the topic of copyediting after publishing- I think it is okay, within reason. I myself am guilty of it, as I know there are errors in previous chapters I need to correct, but I want to finish the fic first, while I still have my ideas. But the story must be legible in the first place, and the errors cannot be so disruptive that the reader loses track of the story because of it. A few forms in stead of froms is fine. Shaperd sening Grus calibratons!. is not.

Tehee, that’s what school is for! OK, I admit, I do use a spell-checker since it’s just a keystroke away in my editor… I don’t understand why someone wouldn’t!

My problems tend to be more with sentence structure, tautology, and so on rather than mixing up words and typos. And, my commas are, all, over the, place at times. In fact, I just did a little tidying, I’ll give a few examples in a separate post.

As for reader interaction, I don't think there is a better aspect to the process than hearing back from people who have read your stuff. I love nothing better than to chat with somebody who has read my fic (I've done this a couple of times on TOR, actually, and it's a brilliant feeling). When somebody does a play-by-play of my chapters, telling me what worked and what fell flat, I pay attention to every word, because that's the only way I get better as a writer. Its also a little bit of pride that 'somebody's reading what I wrote, that's amazing!', but the occasional boost to your ego is a good thing, as long as you don't let it go to your head.

Substantive reviews are always awesome. Personally at this stage – and maybe just because of my personality – I really just crave the feeling of interaction with the reader, regardless of whether it’s substantive, positive, or negative (trolling excepted, of course).

I’m sure more than a few people have written dissertations on the psychology at play from both perspectives, writers and readers. Many people don’t want to leave negative comments, many don’t like leaving ‘empty’ positive comments, many just don’t think about it, I’m sure there’s plenty of learned etiquette people carry with them… I have a few lines in my intro and my profile asking for any input, but don’t really want to overdo that either.

Its an unfortunate fact that you're always going to have relatively few people commenting on your fic as opposed to reader numbers. Its just the way of the internet. I've enjoyed over 70k hits to my story on FF.net, and have 200 reviews to show for it after 46 chapters (So about five a chapter, I guess?). BSN is worse, as I've been writing for 20 months now and I think I've only had ten or so comments on the 3 threads I've made to advertise the fic. Hopefully threads like this will prove to be a good way to connect with your fans.

I hope so! There’s naturally a lot of diversity in what authors want, too, but that’s where proactive means theoretically work best… if the author’s set up a thread, or given a twitter nick or whatever, they probably appreciate input.

I think I owe you a review or two, too…I read a few chapters of ItU before (the early parts of) ME3 swept me away.

[lillitheris]

Short case study of copyediting… I just went over chapter 2 of “Unity” again since it’s been a while. I think this is the third pass I made over it.

I try to keep this vague, but it could contain small spoilers, I guess, so read the chapter first if you want to

Here’s a rough diff:

•  
• Added glossary entries for HIs and ion drives (I have an intro/glossary/dramatis personae chapter to avoid cluttering with A/Ns)
   
• Added action tags to 5 lines of dialogue, i.e. from “blah blah blah” to “blah,” moo said, “blah blah”
   
• Changed two swear words, one for a milder and the other for a stronger.
   
• Removed/rearranged superfluous repetition of names in 4 sections, i.e. from Joker did meh and then Joker moo to Joker did meh and then he moo.
   
• Removed the word ‘literally’ from a sentence.
   
• “The empty in the space itself” to “the empty of the space itself”. (Space referring to the vacuumy thing around Earth.)
   
• Removed an unnecessary elaboration about ship tossing around “like a kayak in rapids.”
   
• Added a few action clarifications. One person was described “head still turned toward the ceiling”, changed it to “head still turned up to examine the ceiling”. Another person was described getting flung, added an explicit note that they weren’t wearing their harness.
   
• Rearranged 5 or 6 sentences, because I’m prone to using this very construct with a long ‘aside’ in the middle of the sentence so that you almost forget what the actual point was, for better readability.
   
• Removed 2 instances of the word ‘gentle’.
   
• Added a sentence to description of damage to a ship to make it explicit that it was actually being destroyed.
   
• Removed 4 commas, one of which was an actual error, others questionable. Moved 7 commas.
   
• Added 4 words to make it explicit that a character thought about and figured out the cause of an event, rather that the previous implicit form.
   
• Added explicit sentence to make it clearer why a character tries a certain technique.
   
• Dropped the ‘left’ from “right hand left flopping”, since it just looked weird.
   
• Changed ‘crumpled’ to ‘splayed’ because I was using ‘crumbled’ in the same paragraph.
   
• Clarified a detected movement to have been a conscious one.
   
• Changed a weird “a or b not” to a “neither a nor b any”.
   
• Explicitly added that a character looks around themselves to remove a disjoint jump from a dialogue line to a description of a different person doing something.
   
• Changed from “reroute power to FTL” to “remove reroutes so I can FTL” because FTL requires no rerouting, it was for something else.
   
• Changed a mildly glib narrative sentence about the success of a plan to a more neutral description of what happened. Essentially it read a little like I was talking to the reader rather than describing the scene.
   
• Moved a sentence to an explicit character thought rather than a part of narration (I’m sure there’s a fancy name, but I tend to write in third-person subjective, and incorporate the character’s voice in the text itself, so that a Vega paragraph flows a little different from, say, Cortez. Different words, phrasings, maybe less formal descriptions etc.)
   
• More explicitly mention what makes a character feel like they’re well-versed in a certain field rather than imply it.
   
• Tried to make it a little clearer that a character had lost all hope. It’s still a little between the lines, I guess.

So, a little bit of work and a fresh look at the text produced what I think is a fairly significant improvement in readability overall, but the actual storyline stays exactly the same.

(If someone actually wants to see the complete old version, PM me.)

[Seracen]

I think SI's are a step to a much larger form of writing. It's what many author's do to wrap their heads around the writing process. On occasion, it can be done well, as long as the character holds true to a certain sense of ideals and progresses through arcs like normal characters.

However, a true master can hide SI quite handily, especially if the entire thing is original. Case in point: Jim Butcher and The Dresden Files. Although, to be fair, Dresden isn't 100% based off Butcher.

Another case in point, one of my first stories started as an SI, but the sequel to it took the character into a distinct direction that was non-SI, he actually became another character entirely, because of how the story progressed. Also, the sequel was written after I'd gotten used to the medium.

It's like the voice of Optimus Prime once told me (I met him at a con), you can't help but insert a piece of yourself into any work you do.

As for me, I consider that to be where the soul of the work comes from.

Still, shameless author insertion becomes puke worthy, like the obvious blank slate that Bella Swan is, so that any reader can insert themselves into her character.

[hot_heart]

o Ventus wrote...
I have an awkward fanfic confession--
I like to write my own fics, but I don't much care for reading others. Does this make me a bad person?

I was sort of in the same boat. I mean, I only started writing a fanfic a bit over a month ago as an exercise in writing in prose. Once my story's finished, I doubt I'll write any more. Or devote that much effort to a single one, at least.

My real aversion to reading it was people doing that self-insertion stuff, or taking liberties with characterisation and stories. I'm not saying that's a bad thing at all. In some cases, it is very self-aware and done as a laugh or for an experiment. Because Mass Effect is so player-authored, there will always be that unfortunate disconnect, even if you're not using Shepard. I think it takes skill to work around that.

Besides, I'm sure a lot of writers are young and starting out, just playing with what they like to see. And practice is practice whatever way you slice it (though it needs constructive criticism, which FF.net obviously allows).

Anyways, I've looked around at a few authors and there is actually some really good stuff out there. Because the ME universe is layered enough and so rich with potential, people have found many interesting angles and ideas. As an example, I read a short little story called 'Guard Dog' which I think looked at the relationship between Garrus and a Male Shepard who was involved with Miranda. Focusing on the tension between the longtime friend and the possibly untrustworthy romantic interest during ME2. Sure, it took a few slight liberties here and there, and I probably had some very minor gripes with the writing (nobody's perfect), but it was a neat idea, well-told. While I've seen another that was an interpretation of Miranda's backstory, which was very well-executed.

tl;dr version: I wouldn't be ashamed but definitely have a look around for stuff that might interest you. I'd start with searching for stories that revolve around characters you like, and we do have a handy thread for that or FF.net has those filters.

EDIT: Oh, and if any more experienced writers did want to read mine and offer feedback/criticism/whatever that would be most helpful!

Modifié par hot_heart, 26 mai 2012 - 04:37 .