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[Shadow of Light Dragon]

Sarah1281 wrote...


Are people ever happy to get lukewarm reviews?

I think this has, by now, been pretty thoroughly replied to by others in the thread.

I also have this overhanging impression that FF.Net spoils a lot of us with plentiful and swift gratification. We get so glutted with shining one line reviews that whenever we get a *hint* of reader dissatisfaction in the seas of praise it nags at us. We can obsess over a bad or lukewarm review for a long time. In part I think it's because we don't get *enough* criticism or 'meh' responses, so some of us don't know how to handle it purely because we're not used to it or even because we don't *expect* it when everyone else is showering us with praise.

Praise is nice, but reviews that says something didn't work for them can be useful, even without an extensive critique. In a way it's like a heads up for you to read back over that chapter and ask yourself if you enjoyed that piece of writing as much as another piece. Sometimes you can figure out the why yourself.

I wasn't trying to complain with my first post, just sharing a revelation I'd just had upon someone telling me I'd come up with a 'decent prompt.'

Ah, well if we're talking *prompts* I understand hating the word even less, I'm sorry to say. XD It's just a prompt, and I'd take it to mean while the poster isn't particularly inspired by it they can still work with it. But we feel how we feel about things, I guess.

[Shadow of Light Dragon]

leonia42 wrote...

 I'm currently following my Dalish Warden around and I'd like to understand her a bit better, she's illiterate you see when it comes to Common (or whatever the human language in Ferelden is actually called)

FWIW, it's either Maric or Loghain in DA books who refers to the Ferelden language as the King's Tongue (while speaking to Dalish, no less. Apparently the elves talk to each other in elvish as much as possible amongst themselves, but I suppose they learn tKT from merchants, travellers and city elves who flee to the travelling clans).

I think it would be correct to call the language Fereldan (with an 'a'), but don't believe I've seen it termed such.

Raonar wrote...

I did get a bit of criticism, but oddly
enough, they were from people that didn't have FF.net accounts
(anonymous as it were) so i couldn't respond and say thanks for taking
the time to disect it.

While it's disappointing not to be able to thank reviewers like this, I wonder if it's not partly inspired by readers not wanting to get a possible angry reply (per Punisher's post). I do know there are people who frequent FF.Net but don't have accounts, though.

[Sarah1281]

Shadow of Light Dragon wrote...

Sarah1281 wrote...

Are people ever happy to get lukewarm reviews?

I think this has, by now, been pretty thoroughly replied to by others in the thread.

I also have this overhanging impression that FF.Net spoils a lot of us with plentiful and swift gratification. We get so glutted with shining one line reviews that whenever we get a *hint* of reader dissatisfaction in the seas of praise it nags at us. We can obsess over a bad or lukewarm review for a long time. In part I think it's because we don't get *enough* criticism or 'meh' responses, so some of us don't know how to handle it purely because we're not used to it or even because we don't *expect* it when everyone else is showering us with praise.

Praise is nice, but reviews that says something didn't work for them can be useful, even without an extensive critique. In a way it's like a heads up for you to read back over that chapter and ask yourself if you enjoyed that piece of writing as much as another piece. Sometimes you can figure out the why yourself.

I can only think of three reviews that I've gotten that I would consider constructive criticism. I suppose it's possible that in the six years I've been writing fanfiction that I've gotten more but they didn't stick with me. The first one was for a parody story I wrote saying that they feel that the protagonist should have been more upset about a certain part of the story that I just glossed over and explained why they identified with that event. The other two were written by the same person for two different stories saying that they liked my writing style but was 'wasting' my skills with the stories I was writing. Because this has been misunderstood before, let me clarify that they did not feel that writing fanfiction was wasting my skills, just that they felt that I could write better fanficiton than the ones I was doing.

Several people here have said that they prefer reviews that literally say variations of 'It was okay but nothing spectacular' to no reviews at all. I don't get those kinds of reviews often but they always annoy me. I'm not getting reviews that say 'I didn't like this section' or 'this part doesn't make sense to me.' These reviews are not in any way helpful. I would prefer that the writer didn't bother. It's not like I'm demanding to only be praised, I just get nothing out of the one-sentence 'meh' reviews save getting discouraged and unable to write when I read them. Getting those reviews doesn't make me a better writer or tell me what they didn't like about the story. I'm liable to get these kinds of reviews on any story I've ever done so it's not even a matter of 'well, this one story in particular needs work.'

I wasn't trying to complain with my first post, just sharing a revelation I'd just had upon someone telling me I'd come up with a 'decent prompt.'

Ah, well if we're talking *prompts* I understand hating the word even less, I'm sorry to say. XD It's just a prompt, and I'd take it to mean while the poster isn't particularly inspired by it they can still work with it. But we feel how we feel about things, I guess.

Okay, I wasn't even particularly upset. It wasn't a prompt that that person had the option of filling because it was specific for another person and the response was 'decent prompt, great prompt fill.' I wasn't insulted or anything of the sort. I just saw the word 'decent', felt a twinge of annoyance, and realized that I hate the word. What's not to understand about that? It's just a word that I dislike and feel is unhelpful. To me, calling something decent means there is nothing particularly good, bad, or even memorable about a story and I see it as a vaguely positive comment. It probably shouldn't annoy me as much as it does but it's just a pet peeve, not any profound observation.

I honestly didn't expect that comment to spark a huge debate and (while I'm inclined to believe it wasn't meant like that) I find all the implications that not appreciating 'Your story was okay, I guess' reviews means that you want nothing but mindless praise to be rather condescending. People talk about how in the real world, you have to sit through people ripping your story apart word by word and I get that but I don't see what it has to do with my initial remark. I don't even want to be a professional writer. I'm just doing this because I have so many ideas and can't get them out of my head any other way.

[maxernst]

Do you ever find that you write yourself into a corner? My original conception of my current story was that it was basically a framing narrative to allow Aedan to recount the story of the Blight from the perspective of several years later. However, the frame grew to become the dominant narrative. I ended up writing about 15,000 words to get to the beginning of the storytelling. The problem is that the structure of alternating between the current action and the recollections of the Blight is forcing me to pad out the middle of my story and I'm finding myself trying to hurry through the story of the Blight. I feel like the Blight story is increasingly becoming synoptic and the middle section of my story drags...and it's a shame because I thought of ending to it that I really like after fumbling around unsure of where it was going. Maybe that's the problem: I've gotten more interested in the destination than the journey...

[jackkel dragon]

I'm having the same problem: good ideas for the ending, but no journey.

[Leonia]

Heh, I'm having similar issues. The build-up and the "filler" always bores me senseless.

[jackkel dragon]

leonia42 wrote...

Heh, I'm having similar issues. The build-up and the "filler" always bores me senseless.

I may be wrong, but I'm told thinking of it as "filler" (whether it is or not) really doesn't help...

So why do I think of it as filler?

[Leonia]

Sure, I'll try thinking of it as fluffy Varric chest hair.. that'll make it more exciting.

[Shadow of Light Dragon]

Sarah1281 wrote...
It's not like I'm demanding to only be praised, I just get nothing out of the one-sentence 'meh' reviews save getting discouraged and unable to write when I read them. Getting those reviews doesn't make me a better writer or tell me what they didn't like about the story.

But could we (yes, 'we', as I also get discouraged with a certain flavour of reviews) learn how to handle and get past this kind of criticism if we actually receive more of it? It's not only about getting better at writing, but getting better at dealing with bleh reviews so that they *don't* affect our motivation to write.

I just saw the word 'decent', felt a twinge of annoyance, and realized that I hate the word. What's not to understand about that? It's just a word that I dislike and feel is unhelpful.

Fair enough.

I honestly didn't expect that comment to spark a huge debate and (while I'm inclined to believe it wasn't meant like that) I find all the implications that not appreciating 'Your story was okay, I guess' reviews means that you want nothing but mindless praise to be rather condescending.

Honestly, I was talking about mindless fanfiction praise elsewhere (and how some people DO want nothing but gush and can't abide a negative/neutral word), so some of it did seep into this thread in response to your post.

That line of thought was not so much 'Not appreciating bleh reviews = people only want praise,' but more 'How is an uninsightful gush review any more productive than an honest opinion?' Obviously praise makes us feel good, even if our writing isn't, but it doesn't improve our abilities or technique. Yet we rarely complain about such 'positive' reviews. Just the other ones.

People talk about how in the real world, you have to sit through people ripping your story apart word by word and I get that but I don't see what it has to do with my initial remark. I don't even want to be a professional writer. I'm just doing this because I have so many ideas and can't get them out of my head any other way.

I understand not wanting to be a professional writer. But do you care about being a *better* writer? (Note: not implicating anything about your writing style. IMO everyone can improve and polish.) Because the point I was trying to drive at is that improving skills comes from dealing with both positive and negative opinions. If it's only positive then there's no incentive to refine or change style, and artists can stagnate or even continue using poor forms.

I hope I am making sense...

[Maria13]

What about suggestions? I find them useful. I had people telling me that the time jumps made my story difficult to follow so I laid out a timeline and take particular care to alert readers over that. I was also told that people wanted to hear how a certain character was getting on so rather than abandoning her as originally envisaged her progress is revisited every now and then and I think that made the story deeper...



What do other writers think?

[Esbatty]

@Maria13: I got one in particular that I heard from several readers from here on BSN and one from a rather scathing review on FF.net. It seemed it was universal that readers did not like the harshness by which Morrigan regarded Cousland despite the fact they were reunited and had rekindled their relationship. My version of Morrigan wasn't "soft enough".



Posts and comments and PMs slowly started coming from the first few installments and the murmurs grew to more of an outcry until I relented and finally gave the readers what they wanted to see. It came sooner than I had planned but I had planned for this unhardening of Morrigan, lol, and thus it was an easy enough scene to write once I augmented my notes and changed up my internal writing soundtrack for the chapter.



After that people were very pleased with the turn, and in the end, it also changed the way I was going to write the supporting character Omen as she was no longer the catalyst for this later change to Morrigan. And that too, people grew rather fond of Omen and the whole time I was grooming her to becoming a bit of villain to the story.



So I did find the suggestion helpful. Or rather it was a demand than suggestion lol.

[Maria13]

@Esbatty, I think it's one of the nice things about writing FF. you can, to an extent give your readers a little of what they want. I don't think I would compromise a major plotline but additions and minor modifications are a different matter...

[Esbatty]

Maria13 wrote...

@Esbatty, I think it's one of the nice things about writing FF. you can, to an extent give your readers a little of what they want. I don't think I would compromise a major plotline but additions and minor modifications are a different matter...

It wasn't that big of a plot change but it made them happy and "refreshed" the story for me so I had to attack it at a different angle to accomplish what I wanted. Plus now Morrigan is eating for two again and for a possible sequel/one-shot it fixed a bit of continuity that woulda taken some "handwaving" to fix should I decide to revisit the storyline.

[nos_astra]

@Maria13 I remember that I was one of those who were easily confused by the jumps back and forth. I attributed this to language issues, but it got easier when you added months and years.


I used to follow many fics and sometimes wrote lengthy reviews, but I stopped reviewing altogether. I figured it might be a cultural thing that I can't do the flavour of concrit that is appreciated. Now I just shrug and take a mental note not to come back for this fic.

Modifié par klarabella, 15 décembre 2010 - 12:41 .

[Maria13]

@Klara from what I've seen you're a pretty deep thinker and I hope I appreciated your comments. On the time thing I took it on board because several people were saying it (including my SO!) and I am new to writing so I worked out eventually that you should not put artificial barriers in the way of people following things, again, this isn't "Ulysses" it's FF...

[Mahkara]

maxernst wrote...

 The problem is that the structure of alternating between the current action and the recollections of the Blight is forcing me to pad out the middle of my story and I'm finding myself trying to hurry through the story of the Blight. I feel like the Blight story is increasingly becoming synoptic and the middle section of my story drags...and it's a shame because I thought of ending to it that I really like after fumbling around unsure of where it was going. Maybe that's the problem: I've gotten more interested in the destination than the journey...

Hah, I am the master at writing myself into a corner!

I haven't read what you've written, so I can't speak for your story. But in general, I hate filler. This is especially true with fanfiction, where...OMG, I know what happens!  So if the author really isn't overly motivated to, say, write about the epic slog that is the Deep Roads, I really don't want to read 50K words that even the author wasn't thrilled to pump out.  (TBH, I've stopped reading stories like this.  They start off being really interesting, but then slog on and on and on and never end, so I turn them off alert and figure that however great the ending might be...it isn't worth it.)   This is where a bit of exposition to me is a good thing.  Skip to where things get interesting again.  Add just enough backstory that readers know what's going on, and cut the rest.

There's a reason "Rule 17" (Omit needless words) is such a classic rule of writing.  I'd argue that about 90% of writing out there could stand to lose 25-50% of the words in it and be stronger for the cuts (and if you feel inclined to argue, remember all those classics that sell in abridgement.  Yes, people don't to read every word written even by great writers!).  So if you're thinking "this is boring me", I'd argue that you're probably boring readers, and that it might be time to move to something more interesting.  Esp. with fanfic, where we probably know most of the backstory, and can be filled in on the parts we missed with a bit of clever writing.

[nos_astra]

@Maria13
I suppose, think too much. It's just fan fiction after all.

@maxernst
I had something like this planned to. Tell two parallel stories, past and present. I scrapped the idea when I changed the focus of the storyline from ZOMFG the Wardens to other characters. Re-telling Origins is only interesting if you really change something.

Modifié par klarabella, 15 décembre 2010 - 04:37 .

[Sialater]

I'm afraid to finish my fic.



I've admitted it before.... but it's killing me to wrap up The Rescue.

[LupusYondergirl]

@Mahkara : So true... I wrote about one quest in detail for my Origins timeline story: Circle tower... and the only reason I did is because the main character is a mage and I hated how the game doesn't really react to you stepping around the corpses of basically every single person you've ever known. If I'd been writing about a dwarf I'm sure I would have spent more time on the Orzammar city part, alienage slavers for a Tabris, etc. Those make sense to focus on, since they would have a personal impact.   (but even then I barely touched on the in-game fights and such since, like you said, we all know what happens.)

And I still wouldn't even have gone into detail on that quest if I hadn't expanded on the story at the beginning to elaborate on her background and life in the tower. There's really no point in, say, conjuring dead friends out of air and saying "oh, that corpse was my friend". The impact just wouldn't be there unless you've already established that this person exists long before.

Although I like seeing some aspects of the deep roads (to use your example) included. I think a full third of my word count for the entire Orzammar quest is about the broodmother encounter. Since, you know, when the main character is a woman and they're in a group with two other women, finding out what happens to women captured by the darkspawn would be a Big Deal for them. I've seen that same bit done very well in a few other fics, usually the ones with female protagonists.

@Sialater: I know the feeling.

Modifié par LupusYondergirl, 15 décembre 2010 - 04:45 .

[Mahkara]

LupusYondergirl wrote...

Although I like seeing some aspects of the deep roads (to use your example) included. I think a full third of my word count for the entire Orzammar quest is about the broodmother encounter. Since, you know, when the main character is a woman and they're in a group with two other women, finding out what happens to women captured by the darkspawn would be a Big Deal for them. I've seen that same bit done very well in a few other fics, usually the ones with female protagonists.

Oh, yeah. I totally agree.  There are a lot of interesting parts of any game.  Just a lot of writers don't seem to be very interested in one part or another...and you can tell by their writing...and it makes for a miserable slog.  I honestly think that the whole lost, abandoned cities, Broodmother, and artifact of unspeakable power and evil is *really* fascinating, and Branka is one of the more interesting characters in the game to me.   BUT!  If she's not interesting to a writer, I'd really prefer that they admit it and go "eh, don't feel like fleshing this out..." rather than go on and on because they feel that it's important to cover the paragon quest line.

I think that Zute had the right idea in basically saying "half the game wasn't interesting to me, so I'm just going to skip it".  

[Raonar]

Yes, the broodmother is a real nightmare fuel. When i get to her, it will really suck because there will be two female wardens in my party, one of them (CEF Tabris) having had actual Urthemiel-induced nightmare of darkspawn trying to take her and turn her into one.

The only one who will get anything 'positive' out of that whole mess is the protagonist, a DNM that will realize that's what his dead lover would have become if he hadn't shot her through the heart with an arrow five years prior to the present time. (yeah, long story. She asked him to do it, basically, because she was being dragged off and he was on the other side of a chasm)

Yea, my wardens have issues.

Also, to that point about filler. I'm pretty sure I haven't really done filler. Since my tale includes all SIX wardens, I really had to invest time for all of them... hence my story has 32 chapters (over 350,000 words) and just close to half of the main quests pre-landsmeet done (Redcliffe and Circle Tower).

And yes, I agree with Lupus about the pre-defining the biography and all because the impact has to be felt when something nasty really does happen.

As for finishing the story... I actually do look forward to it because the last chapters will have the biggest twist ever (at least i think so).

EDIT

There is a lot of humor to make up for the really twisted stuff I write though (see sig quote :innocent:)

EDIT 2

BTW, is it just me or are people reviewing less and generaly no longer reading DA fanfiction as much as a couple of months ago?

Modifié par Raonar, 15 décembre 2010 - 06:33 .

[Mahkara]

Raonar wrote...

BTW, is it just me or are people reviewing less and generaly no longer reading DA fanfiction as much as a couple of months ago?

I'm not sure. I feel like I'm getting about as many reviews as ever.  It may be story dependent/reviewer dependent.

I do think that there's a lot more stuff out there, though, so it's harder to differentiate one story from another. So unless someone has a really unusual idea/already well developed fan base, I think that a lot of stuff just sort of vanishes.  I put out a bit of Cousland/Alistair stuff under a different name that got like 1 review each.  I'm guessing that a lot of this was not due to that I suck as a writer (although, eh, possible...maybe I just suck at Cousland/Alistair fic) but rather in that there's so much Cousland/Alistair stuff out there already that most people just aren't going to read it unless it's by a writer they already know and love.

This might also explain why there are so many peculiar pairings suddenly appearing - writers need to differentiate somehow, so they go for some pairings with really random NPCs!

[Raonar]

Yeah, the fandom saturation effect is what I call it when something gets 'overdone' according to some.



Speaking of unusual pairing, what kind of odd ones DID you stumble upon? Just so I can compare my own (though shipping is just a secondary element of my tale or third if think about it well enough).

[Sarah1281]

Well, I saw an Isolde/Alistair's non-HN Queen although that was only a small part of the story. Zevran/Sigrun strikes me as unusual. Morrigan/Alistair. Morrigan/Leliana. Warden/Daveth. Alistair/Cauthrien. Connor/Habren. Anora/Fergus. Anora/Bryland. Alfstanna/Alistair. Cailan/Celene is practically canon but I still find it disturbing. Wynne/Irving or Wynne/Greagoir strikes me as odd, possibly because I prefer to think of Greagoir as less hypocritical than that and partly because I don't like to think of Wynne like that (even though I know she had a son at some point). Cullen/mage as a functional relationship. Architecht/anyone. Shale/Morrigan. Hell, Shale/anyone. She's a freaking golem. Dog/Morrigan. Dog/any other non-dog. Male Warden-of-one-origin/female Warden of same origin or two of the same gender, same origin. Anora/Loghain. There are a LOT of odd pairings for one reason or another.

[Raonar]

... you mean all of those have actually been done? I know i once stumbled upon a Shale-Oghren oneshot but... I mean seriously, you found all of THOSE?