If you read my last Story Spotlight post, then you know that sometimes when I'm at my computer, I'm not working on my own book (like I probably should be), but I am instead checking out Fictionpress and more recently Wattpad in search of something interesting and well written, doling out constructive criticism as I go and secretly hoping to cause one of the people I critique to go read something I've written and in turn comment on that. (Preferably something I've written this year.)
So I admit I have something of an ulterior motive, but hey so does everyone. Your parents probably had any number of secret reasons for you being born. Maybe they needed another tax write off. And it's not a sinister one, so I have no guilt.
But anyway, I recently took a look at three different stories, two of which I was genuinely interested in and one which I admit I was drawn to simply because the summary was a horrendously common "I suk at summaries lol" and I wanted to impart some advice and hopefully make the poor author stop being so generically bad.
None of the three stories ended up being worth writing up a story spotlight on. There was a story which lured me in with a zany title and promises of cyborg adventure fun times, but at time of reading it consisted exclusively of a single prologue which detailed a horrible childhood accident (presumably giving birth to the titular cyborg). Nevertheless, I was genuinely alright with it and wish there had been more, since what was there wasn't enough to make me want to set up notifications.
See, I don't "follow" or do the local equivalent lightly, like a lot of other people on the internet (no offense). I don't friend someone on XBL or Steam unless I've played with them on two separate occasions and enjoyed both times. I won't favorite an author online unless I like at least two of their works. I won't subscribe to a Youtube channel unless I enjoyed at least two of their videos. Okay, I completely break that rule on Twitter, but that's just because I can't take Twitter very seriously. And neither does it. 140 characters is not enough space for serious. I digress.
The other two stories consisted of a story about a human/alien hybrid caught between the two sides of a human/alien war and another prologue, this one to a story about angelic warfare and fallen angels and also the apocalypse? Pretty sure there was an apocalypse thrown in there. They mentioned nuclear war once.
I left some constructive criticism on all three, opening by stating my intentions were benign but this was going to hurt, like the nurse who gives you your shots. I admit, I got a tad scalding at times. I'd just finished a marathon of Zero Punctuation, it rubs off on me. But I tried to keep my tone light and supportive. I think I did a fairly good job of it too.
The author of the alien story offered a brief reply, paraphrased as such: "Thanks for the feedback. I'll work on it." The author of the angel story opted to assume the fetal position and have themselves a brief cry. That in an of itself isn't the end of the world. Criticism can hurt sometimes, even if it is made with best of intentions. As long as you don't ignore it, you're doing fine.
But this is where it gets interesting. Because a fan of the story, not the author, but a fan of the story, decided to take it upon themselves to stick up for the story, and responded to my criticism with a levelheaded and dignified acknowledgement and rebuttal.
By that of course I mean they cursed me out (that'll show me, trying to call the writing style immature), declared that they and plenty of other people liked the story (which clearly means it is flawless and couldn't possibly be improved by something like proper grammar), informed me that the author's work was way more original (I never slagged the author's originality. If anything I think I'd actually praised it, but what ever) and all around better than mine because they'd seen my work (And I wonder what they meant by that. The single, three year old story I have on Wattpad? Or the various five year old stories I have on FF.net?) and my work was just a rip off of most Sci Fi RPGs (Now they're just making things up. I wrote PJO stories that borrowed from CoD and zombie movies [not as cool as it sounds] not from Sci Fi RPGs. My Wattpad story was about a fat guy joining the CIA and dying. What Sci Fi RPGs was this kid playing?), and if I wanted to be "that guy" I could take my critique somewhere else because I'm a horrible human being. Also, fuck me, apparently.
And my apologies to you sir or madam. I did not realize that the word "comment" translates directly to "cheerlead." Constructive criticism, which I'd left, is meant to help the author improve their work. Those who cannot accept it are doomed to fail.
All of this came to my mind as I read the extremely eloquent and well thought out response to my criticism, and suddenly I realized that the "Reply" button was sitting there, mockingly mooning me and daring to fire back.
"No, it's okay, you don't have to stoop to their level," it cooed seductively. "You can be calm and rational and be the bigger person and make them see the error of their ways. Then after lunch you can cure cancer and go piggy back riding sea horses on the moon. It'll be wonderful."
So I did not click the reply button, and I never will. In fact, I intend to never directly acknowledge my extremely well mannered new friend ever again. Because some people are just not worth the effort, and those people typically conveniently coalesce in the comment sections of the internet.
I still wanted to rant out my rebuttal though, so you guys get this. And to you, my silver tongued fellow Wattpad connoisseur, to you who will almost certainly never read this, I say
Fuck off.
No comments:
Post a Comment