“Also, the characters in the story are based on real-life people.
Therefore, the characters are the same age as the people they are based
on. So I wouldn’t call it ridiculous.”
sorry :(
wont happen again
—-
seen you a lot around the Pokemon section, and I recently came across
the review you left on the CT100 fic by AwesomeGrovyle. First off, you
ALWAYS capitalize a Pokemon’s name, regardless if it’s a specific one
(such as Ash’s Pikachu) or a random one (such as that Eevee). Please
don’t correct a person if you’re not correct yourself.
With that out of the way, if you don’t like a fic, don’t read it. No one
forced you to click on the link. You made a conscious decision to click
on it, so read it at your own risk. (Yes, I admit that I frequent the
thread) It is not more than an extended joke. You saying that is like
saying that any AU fic is a joke. It’s for fun, and there are plenty of
other fics for you to release your Grammar Naziness onto, which leads me
to my next point.
As I mentioned in the title, you review. A lot. Not a single one of your
reviews that I’ve read had any sort of positivity in it. In fact, most
of them are Copy-and-Paste with a few words tacked on. It’s annoying,
and people don’t like it (yes, I have seen some authors’ reactions).
Please keep things to yourself; you’re not helping anyone get better if
you take away any strand of hope that their fics might be decent.
Good Day.
(inb4 grammar corrections and a long scathing review on my fic)
—-
Hey thanks for my first review. I slowed down a little and made it
better and included some suggestions. Can you look at it again along
with several other stories of mine.
—-
in the future. As for character bios, I’ve seen them in actual books.
(i.e Warrior Cats Series)
As for the trainers starting at ten, I already knew this. I just wanted
to try something different. I want to have Katy and her siblings travel
together so they can form a closer bond. And I put Shane in there
because he is Katy’s best friend in the story.
Also, the characters in the story are based on real-life people.
Therefore, the characters are the same age as the people they are based
on. So I wouldn’t call it ridiculous. It’s not like there is a rule that
all kids have to be ten years old to start a journey.
That’s all I have to say. Have a good day.
happy to see that my writing got you thinking in diverse directions.
Such is, and has always been, my intention in writing for Pokémon, and I
love seeing reactions that I did not expect when I release new
adventures. However, I am curious where you found a dictionary that does
not include logical inconsistency as “contradiction,” but does include
“sciency” as an adjective.
You are welcome to load up a plate or three at my word salad bar any
time you like; just remember to bring the biggest bottle of Newman’s Own
you can find because their proceeds go to charity and that means that
my exacting and detailed prosaic structures will not only provide hours
of quality entertainment to my readers but also have a marked
appreciatory effect on mankind itself.
Have a good evening, and keep reaching for the stars! ( ^_^)/
Cool. I’ll do my best to remember this:)
I’m sorry for the delayed response, (I was sick for awhile) but I need
to ask you something. What are you talking about with narration? I’m
just confused. If you’re wondering, I almost never force a story, and I
found that writing 2 people talking was actually far easier than
narrating, but still required quite a bit of effort. I was also just
wanting to try something different, and if you don’t like it, that’s
your opinion. I do realize you’re a beta reader, too, so your opinion
does matter quite a lot. If it’s okay with you, could you follow my
story to give me criticism for what I’m doing wrong?
—-
AmsonSayA response to your review at https://www.fanfiction.net/r/10011438/
Young Sir Farla,
You sir are an asshole ripper and a smellt ass fart. Do you have
vibrations in your ass everyday or every minute??? Sir I understand your
concern and critisizm over my writing but I don’t appreciate yu
squirtleing you’re orgasmic grammer nasiz on me.
I will come after you with a smelly dildo the size of, wel, Uranus.
Pun intended.
Thank you, and good day.
The Ripper Of Urethra.
—-
RayLi1992I’mtaking most of your advice in your review to heart, but there’s one
thing that’s nagging me. You told me not to capitalize pokemon as it
isn’t a proper noun, but the thing is, it’s quite a common thing to do
in pokemon fanfiction- while yes, it is technically incorrect to do so,
it’s become quite a normal thing to do, so I decide to do it anyway.
—-
Thank you for all of the information and tips on my story. But I do
think that you are being a little picky with just how you tell me what’s
wrong. I appreciate the advice, but without even one compliment about
my story, well. I don’t know, maybe I’m just a little shocked at how
blunt you are about everything, but still.
Backhanded compliments are better than none at all. Maybe tell me how I
could improve the story. And maybe try to be a little nice while
knocking someone down?
I don’t at all mean this in a rude way. I just wish that you were more considerate when writing the review.
But thank you for reading and reviewing either way.
Sorry about that I ended up making some changes that I shouldn’t have then. Thanks for telling me.
sorry you don’t like my story. I’m a new author and as such I’m bound
to make a lot of mistakes. But I will like to thank you for the review
and I will try to honestly fix my mistake later on in the future.
For the capitalizing the pokemons names, it’s just a bad habit.
You know I honestly try my best and Aura Runes is not my best work and most likely never be.
And if you don’t like it don’t read it, I’m NEW. That just shows me that
nobody reads the author’s note at the top of the page and now I will
probably go back and fix all the things that you don’t like.
I will try and use your advice on the speech but, THE WHOLE POINT OF THE
STORY IS TO GO THROUGH THE IMPORTANT PLOT POINTS. ARE THE PARTS WHERE
YOU SELECT YOUR STARTER OR WHEN YOU GET THE POKEDEX NOT IMPORTANT PARTS
OF THE STORY. I accept criticism on the way I write but it is my story
and I decide on the way it is written. Thanks for the feedback on the
speech.
This is actually really helpful. Thank you.
First of all, I would like to thank you for your review. I believe reading them will help me improve in my writing.
I guess I wasn’t expecting such a harsh critique right off the bat. I’m
not criticizing your review or anything, it just surprised me.
Most of your points are valid. I know I picked a Generic title, I
literally couldn’t think of anything else… Also it is a generic topic,
but that is something I decided to write about. There is not an
infinite amount of topics I could think of. Capitilization isn’t at the
top of my worry list, although I will try to improve. Its a habbit right
now. How I started was so I could get across my characters description.
And they are just starting out on their adventure. I thought about
starting with a current event and reflecting back until the begining of
the adventure, but I stuck with this. I must of missed taking professor
out, because I didn’t intend on that staying at all… Must’ve missed
that. I am not perfect in some of my writing styles like quotations.
First person is supposed to five a more connected feeling to the
characters, hence why I chose it. Also I personally prefer seeing more
than one persons POV on something, considering many people are
different.
Again, I thank you for taking the time to review my work. I want to
promise that it will get better, but I’m not going to give a promise I
may mot be able to keep. I hope you consider reading on when I post in
the future and thanks again. I will take all your advice!
If you do keep reading though, I would prefer if you PM’d me a review
like that. I can’t stop you if you don’t of course, but it would be much
obliged.
-peanutgallerybrown
Thank you Farla for the warning I’ll be writing the start of the story next chapter.
It may me a tricky puzzle but I’ll ask all the lovely people I’ve met to help me!
Now would you like to be a peice of the puzzle?
If so that would be great!
And thank you for reviewing I don’t mind to much what people write to me
( as long as it doesn’t say “I hate you, you suck” or something like
that )
All the people that have reviewed my stories have become my friends so
what makes this any different I’ll go over to your stories right now and
start reviewing!
I suppose I should thank you for your reviews… but I noticed that you
also posted them on your blog. So, now I have to thank you for
publicizing it there, too; to the few people who might take interest in
it because of your kind and thoughtful opinions.
I actually realized the thing with the semicolons, and there is a reason
for their excess… But it’s a strange one, and I intend to remove some
of them soon, anyway. I wasn’t trying to appear sophisticated, though…
merely attempting grammatical correctness.
Thank you for the compliments… They seemed a little odd, coming from
someone who is clearly a strict critic, but they seem good-natured. I
get the feeling you don’t really want to criticize everything, all the
time… you like to read for the fun of reading, don’t you? If that’s the
case, why bother complaining about the impossibility of the PokéDex
entry? I am fully aware it was premature and scientifically impossible,
but wasn’t its invention impossible, as well? Could you not have just
enjoyed the story and saved your stinging comments for people who are
your own age?
You obviously don’t care at all that I didn’t capitalize ‘Pokémon’ every
time it came up… although I believe that is grammatically correct,
right? And the Pikachu’s name is capitalized because it is capitalized
in the game. If you played Black/White or any game beyond it, you would
notice that all pokémon names are capitalized. Although I see your
point, that we don’t capitalize Rat and Animal… does it really matter?
Pokémon names are copyrighted, so I let them stay professional and keep
that first letter in caps, thank you. …But like you said; once Ash HAS
his Pikachu, its name is Pikachu because he failed to give it a
nickname. Same with Charizard and the legendary trio, whom you didn’t
mention for some strange reason.
And YES the sisters act all girly! Heavens to Betsy, Farla, I based them
off prissy schoolgirls! If you read up to chapter four, you might
understand better… but I don’t blame you. I didn’t have it published
before you’d already moved on to your next victim…
I must say, though… your second review was rather hurtful. There wasn’t
even any constructive criticism, as in the first one… Just bashing, it
felt like.
…And now I have a question for you: Are you actually trying to help
FanFiction authors improve their writing, or just crush them so they
won’t want to continue writing, and you can sit back and laugh at them
with your blog friends? Having fun at the expense of others is pretty
heartless, you know. What would Sora say? ^-^
Your two conflicting reviews confused me, and I can’t say you came off
as a nice person… At the end of your first review, you said, “Very
promising.” …Your next review was full of stinging sarcasm, and you
called the secondary characters ‘cartoonishly horrid’ (and might I add,
‘cartoonishly’ is not in the dictionary).
So, based on your long first review and extremely short second, I have
come to the conclusion that you were either intoxicated while writing
the latter; or sick of my story and eager to flame it so you could move
on to the next one, and your blog’s readers could see more of your
‘humorous’ reviews to other authors who might not have a full grasp of
grammar and spelling.
My goodness! Don’t you have anything better to do than sit around at the
computer/electronic device and read stories that you know won’t be
worth your time?! …Actually, now that I think about it, you probably
don’t. Judging from your profile picture, I can see that you are making
an allusion to Parry Gripp, aren’t you?
Lazy harp seal has no job.
…Sorry, couldn’t resist. Anyway, thank you for your time in reviewing my
awful story. Thank you for taking it literally, because that is
definitely how fiction writing is supposed to be read. And thanks for
analyzing it, and harshly criticizing the characters the second time
around. I appreciate it. Really. ^-^
This last response is a sad case. Everyone always complains about the fact that you never give enough compliments in their reviews. “You should be more positive.” “What parts of the story did you like, though?” “Do you have anything nice to say?” Compliments are meant to be given considerately and meaningfully. It’s what makes them… well, complimentary. They’re meant to encourage us to do the right things and to keep doing them well. They aren’t contracts. Just because someone receives a good review on one chapter doesn’t mean that they are obliged to like the next one. And simply because someone has a positive opinion of one chapter does not imply they should continue having that opinion regardless of how the other chapters work out. “This part was good. Therefore everything else I write will obviously be just as good.” That’s just plain hubris.
The problem with some authors is that they will fish and fish for compliments all day because it means that they don’t have to do any more work. “They said my story was great! That means it must be perfect. Time to write more and not improve any, because why bother?” People get angry at criticism for a lot of different reasons, but mainly its because the author is forced to do something, and that something is either believe you, the reviewer, messed up, or even more unlikely, that they, the author, messed up and needs to improve. For a lot of people, it’s just easier to blame the other person, cover their ears, and go “Blah, blah, blah, I’m not listening, blah.”
Aaaactually, as an author, I can tell you that you’re at least partially wrong. Believe it or not, compliments are actually really helpful to the author because they encourage her to keep writing. Telling me what part you liked about the story, or what part of my story was a strong point, does help me improve in the fact that yes, I did get so and so wrong, but I also did do something right. Positive reinforcement is a thing, and it is really powerful. When I first started out fic writing, I got a lot of encouragement, even though my writing was, well, amateurish at first. But the more I was encourage to write, the more I did write, and one of the fundamentals of good writing is to keep writing, as it’s the best way to improve. So yeah, you might feel like we’re fishing for compliments, but when I’ve spent over three weeks working on a forty page fic that I painstakingly proofread to the best of my abilities and the only thing I get for it is a lot of negativity or just plain ignored, I am going to feel like crap.
It’s the same thing for artists. Positive stuff helps us improve, and, honestly, Farla’s tone in some of these reviews is really harsh. Granted, she does deal with a lot of immature people, and most of what I said might apply to the more mature writers, but never underestimate the power of compliments and positive reinforcement. Honestly if she included even one positive thing about each fic that she reviewed (where applicable), she would get a lot more positive replies.
I’m not saying that All compliments to All authors turn out this way. But some do. Giving the author a ‘spoonful of sugar’ to go along with their bitter review does not always lead to such happy conclusions as mutual understanding and goodwill. Positive reinforcement might be a powerful force, but so is having a sense of self worth that isn’t determined by how many ‘likes’ or ‘favorites’ one gets on their story.
You might say that you would feel like ‘crap’ if you got a poor review after all of your hard work, but you should still realize that with or without the review, you would still be in the exact same place from a writer’s standpoint. Negativity doesn’t destroy writers. The lack of ambition to improve does.
Okay, I agree with 99% of what you’re saying, but I have to call bullshit on the “self worth” part. Yeah, that’s been an issue for some of the people who have been replying to Farla, but for more mature writers, positive feedback is about the worth of their craft, and that’s completely valid. We aren’t getting paid. We’re doing this because we have stories we want to tell, and the reason we specifically want to tell them rather than keeping them in our heads is because we hope that other people might get something out of them. If it becomes clear that, despite our best efforts, no one does, a sense of self worth isn’t going to keep us writing.
Which isn’t to say that reviewers are obligated to pay fanfic writers in compliments, not any more than publishers are obligated to pay money to anyone who sends something into the slushpile. Besides, many of the people Farla reviews really aren’t giving their best efforts, and withholding praise may be the only way to encourage them to, in Farla’s word, “try harder.” I’m just saying that while expecting everyone to shower everything you write with positive feedback is being entitled, needing positive feedback to feel validated in your writing definitely isn’t.
This is pretty much it.
Yes, positive reinforcement is awesome, but only when someone’s done something worth reinforcing. Complimenting the little things that you like in a fic you mostly don’t care for is one thing, and Farla does seem to try to do that (though maybe not always quite as emphatically as some might prefer). But the current review culture expects reviewers to go even further than that: even if there’s nothing that actually stood out to them as good, if they want to comment at all, they’re expected to wrack their brains for something they maybe didn’t actively dislike as much as they did other things, and compliment that. At that point, you really are using the power of positive reinforcemnt to reinforce mediocrity.
True enough. I’m honestly trying to defend the veteran authors more than anything, because while we do need our faults pointed out, we tend to pour a lot more of our hearts and souls into making sure our fics are, at the very least, awesome. At least, that’s what I do.
Yeah, that’s crap. Empty compliments just for the sake of doing it help absolutely no one. If you’re so crushed by a negative review that you forsake your hobby, you a) obviously didn’t care about it that much in the first place and b) have too thin a skin to be posting a story in public in the first place.
Someone who really cares about their art wants to improve,– not be patted on the head and given a cookie– and the only way to do that is to know what you’re doing wrong. Positive reviews on my writing are nice, but the best ones are those that tear it to shreds. No one has improves at writing by making the same mistakes over and over, you improve by being corrected and reading high-quality works.
Most importantly, when someone compliments me, I want to know I’ve earned it, not that they’re saying it because God forbid my delicate sensibilities be offended.
Aw, but some of us are born with a super thin skin!
Well, I mean I try not to let a lot of stuff get under my skin, but I’m not as thick skinned as I should be.
I’m not saying you should be handing out empty compliments. I’m just saying that when someone has put a lot of effort into their work–and it shows–and the only review they receive is one that tears their work to shreds, they are going to go “but was there anything actually good in my work or was it all crap?” When/if they do that, they shouldn’t be called a sad case or have people saying that they’re fishing for compliments the way Pat said in his first comment.
Also, a pat on the head every once in a while could go a long way into encouraging someone. Peer pressure is a thing, and support from you peers is a huge thing. It really can make a difference between crushing your passion and making it blossom, especially when you’re first starting out.
It’s not that everyone suddenly needs to come up with a “thick skin” out of nowhere. If you’re *so* much on the edge of quitting your writing at any given moment that one person not praising you topples you over, something’s inherently wrong with your self-esteem that no review can fix just by giving out enough compliments. You’d quit no matter *what* they did.
but I also did do something right.
Which is why the idea concrit must have positives ends up toxic in the long run. Compliments need to be for when something’s actually right.
When you make it standard that no matter how bad a story is, you have to invent one nice thing to say about it, people eventually realize that you’re lying to them. So then you have to say two nice things if you want anyone to believe you actually mean it when you say something’s good. And pretty soon “say two nice things” becomes the standard for concrit (“praise sandwich”), but eventually people realize you’re lying to them, and you have to say three nice things before anyone will realize you actually mean your compliments and aren’t just softening the blow, so pretty soon you have to say three nice things for concrit, but eventually people realize you’re lying…
For an example of just how fast praise is devalued when it’s officially mandatory, look at gift fic exchanges, which always lead to lots of people angsting about how their recipient said it was good but probably was just being nice because it wasn’t a longer review so they really hated it/the review is really long and their recipient was probably trying to be polite and cover up how they hated it.
It was why I added the clause of you deal with too many immature/mature writers. I know that a lot of fics, especially on the pokemon tag, are downright unreadable without your IQ dropping. I also know that most of the people who reply to your reviews are little kids who don’t like being told that they suck, which is why you tend to be pretty harsh with your reviews.
I’m not saying that you should invent compliments. I’m just saying that if you think a fic is decently written or has a few plot points that caught your interest, you should point it out more often. I know you already do that, but you tend to do it kind of…harshly, even then. I don’t know. Maybe it’s your thing, but I’m just arguing that when someone says, “okay, but was there anything decent about my fic?” It doesn’t mean that they should be called sad or are fishing for compliments, the way Pat said up there.
But that literally is fishing for compliments. Note that there were people who said that even said it after telling me they refused to fix anything I mentioned.
If a person says, “Oh, I see what you mean about my plot being bad. Do you think I should start a new story or can I fix this one?” I might say that this and that element of the plot is salvageable. That’s constructive. But that’s not the same thing as praise, because I’m not necessarily saying those elements were good and they deserve cookies for thinking them up. I’m saying they’re workable elements of a story.
Praise is when something stands out as actually deserving of praise, and the ten thousandth story of some kid waking up and eating scrambled eggs can go fuck a cactus.
I agree with that last paragraph, and, again, you deal with a lot of immature writers. I agree with pretty much everything you said, but not the fishing for compliments bit.
People who refuse to fix their mistakes and still ask that are indeed fishing for compliments, and that I won’t refute because, again, they are being immature.
However, if a person has taken your word into consideration, and still asked that kind of question, it doesn’t mean they’re fishing for compliments. They could be balking, and if so, they are going to feel the powerful need to stop writing fics, because if they were bad enough to get such a harsh review, they would need the feel ashamed of their work.
Augh, this is really hard to explain. I keep writing and rewriting, trying to explain my POV in this, but it keeps coming out wrong. I hope I explained it well enough, at any rate.
If someone seems like they’re trying to follow my advice already, yes, I would try to avoid further harshness. Being harsh has already accomplished the goal of encouraging them to change.
But those people usually aren’t saying “Don’t you have anything nice to say?”
[I’m just saying that if you think a fic is decently written or has a few
plot points that caught your interest, you should point it out more
often.]
And when I have nice things to say, I do. No one here is withholding praise just to be an asshole. Consider for a second that suefic often has nothing to offer. There are many pieces of writing with no redeeming qualities. No one gets a star for trying, and they shouldn’t, because you’re not special for it. Stringing together a few sentences does not mean you’ve accomplished anything.
Look. I was once that little kid who got a mean review from Farla. I even revenge-reviewed her out of spite. And then I realized she was right, and if I really liked what I was doing I should suck it up and do better next time. (I was also one of those people who wrote a sheepish apology email… and here we are today!) When someone scored a goal on me, my teammates didn’t come over and tell me what a great goalie I was. This is no different.
Pick up the pieces and move on. The world doesn’t owe you. The best revenge is living well, so improve and show her what’s what. Trust me– that first positive review is like some kind of miraculous cocaine… and it’s precisely because you know you’ve earned it.
It’s scary that some people don’t expect at least “one nice thing,” but actually think they deserve nothing but nice things. The whole “don’t like, don’t read” bullshit, for example, or “if you don’t have anything nice to say . . .”
For example. I left a negative review on a terrible Twilight fanfic, and the author immediately posted a chapter about how she was quitting writing the story because of it and she fired off an angry reply. The line I’ll always remember was “But I have still got 220 reviews for 13 chapters. I’m not saying your judgement of my story is wrong – but all the other reviews can’t be lies . . .” Yes. Yes, they can all be lies, if every other person was trained to give nothing but supportive, shallow responses. “Great! Update, plz!” “So funny, LOL.” “Nice, update ;)” Some of the worst stories I’ve ever read have gotten only positive reviews, because the sane people who know they’re terrible have been conditioned not to say so.
I’ve told people to go find the stories they think suck and see how many got the same reviews. It’s easy for newbies to gloss over the flaws in their own work because they know exactly what they thought they were saying and how they assume the plot’s progressing.