[hahah, suckers. take more invisi!crit, i dare ya!]

[reenka]

Seeing yet another rant on the ev01 that is unsolicited con-crit, I just have to wonder... where -is- it??! I don't see it! So where! Where! WHERE??!

...It's not just that -my- stories never get con-critted except by my close friends (sometimes rarely maybe), it's that I like -never- see con-crit on anything I read in HP on lj, and I do browse comments. Forget crit, I don't tend to see more than 5 words at a time (because typing is hard work, y'know). I sometimes get "crit" (like, 'oh, that was confusing' or 'write more' or 'omg INCEST'-- I dunno if that counts, more like flames and general grumbles I guess, but I'm desperate) on Fiction Alley, but the closest I've ever come to seeing con-crit on an HP story on lj in the last year or two was someone pointing out that a g-spot wasn't a prostate, nonono. (Even I was tempted to make an anony!comment with that one.)

...Yes, indeed. (Hello, fandom. Good-bye, fandom.)


Possibly there's all this critique going on other fandoms that I just don't see. I mean, not that it keeps me up nights, 'cause mostly I just don't -care- and find all this hilarious to the max, but... still. I realize HP fandom would implode with wank were crit to be more common, but maybe there's all this crit made on like, Snape/McGonagall stories, so of course I never see it.
    Just to make it clear, I'm not really implying con-crit -helps- or anything. I just like it; I like thinking about fiction analytically, my own and others'. Keeps mah brains sharp as feathers, and so on. Um. Call me crazy, etcetc. But I do have to admit I don't really -want- con-crit, not really-- what I -want- is to discuss stories, talk about them with other writers and readers. Detailed feedback is just the same as 'con-crit' to my mind, 'cause it's basically all the same anyway; any detailed feedback wouldn't be 100% positive if it was honest, so. But positive isn't the point so much as a bonus, to me.

Actually, I'm one of those people who cringe and have to admit that they don't write fanfic to improve themselves nor do they edit-- that is, I mean well and I -want- to edit and theoretically become a better person/writer/wanker/etc, but basically I don't 'cause I'm too lazy. So if you do point out something wrong with a fic of mine, odds are I'll get a happy light in my eyes, exclaim 'yes! thanks! wow, you're right!' and then never touch it again 'cause it's Too Much Effort. Though I don't have the excuse of 'but I have a -real- life to concentrate on, PLEBIANS!!1', because I don't, but still.

I just find it ironic, I guess, 'cause unsolicited con-crit is so hard to come by as to be very -very- rare and precious. Perhaps I'm just in the wrong fandom, and this one's just too big and/or has the wrong demographic and/or I picked the wrong pairing (....let's just not go there). Perhaps some people attract it more. And by 'some people' I really mean people who write long, popular fics that lots of people read so at least -some- of them would crit. Well then, I'll just be going now. Heh.

...No, no, I have to get this off my chest:
    When people say they're "in this for fun"-- you see, it seems I have a different definition of 'fun' than they do, and that's fine, it's just that they don't realize that their fun is not my fun. Why does fun have to = mindless and/or pleasant? And where does that leave people for whom mindless = unpleasant?

I think the very fact that I can ask that question shows you why I never go to parties. ^^; Or, well, uh, deal well with 'groups' together with 'entertainment'.... ><;;;;; *facepalm* But that may or may not be merely a tangent. Suffice it to say, this is all about the conflict between writing as a group social activity and writing as a personal quest for [whatever]. I sort of appreciate both aspects, but it really gets to me when there are so many people going, 'but we're not really writers, we're fanfic writers, so LEAVE US ALONE-- I MEAN NO, NOT ALONE, OBVIOUSLY WE'RE NOT -LIKE- THAT, BUT--' ...Yeah -.-

Comments

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I have just very little clue what anybody gets for fanfic because I read very little and then only really know what I say to it when I comment. I usually just like to say what I liked and why. And if I didn't understand something then I feel helpful saying that because I figure that's a mistake the person can fix.

But I really don't know where people are getting concrit--frankly I seem to see rants about concrit far more than concrit itself! Either somebody is saying what kinds of reviews they don't like or they're saying they're bad authors and don't care, or they're defending the bad authors because their souls are more precious than good stories.

There's stuff like fanficrants, of course, but that's different.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

I have this suspicion that in other fandoms, especially with an older fanbase, there's a lot more fic discussion (like, we're talking Blake's 7 and Due South or whatever). And I guess HP is one rung above anime fandoms, ahahahaha. Oh, such evil glee I have. But anyway, yeah, in HP there's... uh... not much of anything-- I mean, I don't think there's really any forum that encourages it. Even in Gundam Wing, which is anime, there's a novella contest where readers rate novellas for a contest, and submit mini-reviews and such as a way of judging... and man, there's unhelpful comments but lots of interesting ones too! Anything like that in HP would just be seen as flames.

*sigh* I don't know what I'm babbling about, but I feel bad if for a week or so I just stop replying to comments, which I, er, sometimes do~:))

See you (and Maya) next week, btw!! :D