#concrit

As someone who’s neither a native English speaker nor a professional author… Please don’t do this? Like, I’m actually genuinely puzzled at the number of comments I saw under that post that thought it was an ok thing to do. The general fandom rule about constructive criticism is “unless author has directly stated they are ok with being given concrit, please refrain from giving it”. I thought it was a well-known rule at this point, but apparently not.

Even if you mean well. Even if your intention is to be nice. You don’t know how it’s gonna be received and perceived by the author. Do you really want to make them feel like shit because you thought your opinion mattered most than them sharing their work for free?

You have no idea how much strength it takes for someone to post a story they wrote for free on a free website so that you can read it on your free time. You have no idea of the struggles they might have gone through with their story. You have no idea who they are, and what that story means to them. Do not be a dick is literally the least you can do.

99% of non-native English speakers are taught British English in school. Hell, as a non-native English speaker, the only reason I write in mostly US English is because of how influenced I have been by the tv shows and music I’ve been listening to for two decades, but the basis of what I’ve learned academically are in British English. I was once told it was “clear I was Australian” because my characters were putting butter on their sandwiches, and even though I can laugh about it now, when I received this comment I remember feeling miserable and like I would never be as good of an author as anyone who has English as a first language.

AO3 has the ability to turn off comments, moderate comments, restrict comments to logged in users only, or let anyone comment on your story. Most other fanfiction hosting websites do not allow comments to be turned off and in the case of some (wattpad) highly encourage comments even on individual paragraphs.

Over on reddit, someone said it is an unwritten rule of fanfiction that you should never leave a negative or critical comment on a story. This was countered most strongly by many arguments. Despite many people asserting that their stance was the one truth and that there was no debate on the topic - there was a lot of debate about what criticism even is and where the line should be for if giving concrit is alright.

So give this some thought:

I know that most of us fic writers/readers are familiar with the etiquette surrounding unsolicited advice/feedback/concrit on people's fics. But I haven't seen anything about when people do want constructive criticism.

Well. Story time.

I've been writing fanfic for six months now, and just had a look back at something I wrote back in October, a VelKleya sex pollen story. I think I expected to see a lot of problems, find it "cringe", or something like that. But either it wasn't that bad, or I have failed to refine my skills, because I actually really liked it. What a fun surprise!

I could have made the 3rd person points of view more distinct, I suppose, but I labeled them, so it was clear enough. And I'd include a little more environmental detail now. But still, I don't see too much I'd do differently.

Then once the PC is revealed to be alive, the three of them could’ve been happy to be together but now nervous for Teylan. “Where is he? He could be anywhere across all 3 territories! But which is worse, him being all alone or with Mercer??” The PC had been kidnapped, but they at least have survival skills (gained after being on the frontline for all major events). The chances of Teylan surviving in the wilderness or escaping an RDA facility were significantly much lower than the PC’s. He would have almost zero chance of being able to make it on his own.

Instead of saying “eh he’ll come back when he feels like it”, Ri’nela and the PC should’ve at least tried to search for him. Figure out what happened to him after the attack. It could’ve been an optional side quest that just ends with you figuring out he’s with Mercer earlier than when you see him there in the main quest line.

Plus, Nor not worrying for Teylan at all!! He has even less idea what happened to Teylan than the PC and Ri’nela did, and yet he never asks. Never questions what happened to the fourth member of their clan. If the PC and Ri’nela didn’t go looking for Teylan, then it at least would’ve made sense for Nor to try to go searching only for the two of them to persuade him not to (to continue hiding Teylan’s betrayal.)

I don’t know, I just feel like there should’ve been a LOT more intensely emotional interactions after the party massacre. Sure the Resistance humans had a lot going on, but I definitely feel like outside of them, the Sarentu themselves should’ve had their own fears & anxieties at the forefront given there’s literally only 4 of them left and they’ve already been through so much together.

I initially posted this on Reddit and I can’t stop thinking about how much this perspective would have helped me when I first started posting. So I thought I’d share it here as well in case anyone else find it helpful.

I see a lot on here about how negative feedback can set back fic authors. And I get it. I had to train myself out of getting defensive about feedback on my writing because of my job but it was difficult and shitty and there were a lot of tears involved.

I just wanted to share some things that help me feel better about negative feedback.

1) The person giving you feedback matters.

What I mean by this is, who the person is matters. Feedback from someone you know matters more than a stranger online, feedback from people who have writing expertise matters, feedback from somebody who is invested in what you’re doing matters the most.

When some random gives you negative feedback you have no idea how capable they are of making a judgement. What are their qualifications? Are they the kind of reader you’re writing for? Does it matter what someone thinks of your romance heavy fic if that person hates romance?

My best mate really dislikes Terry Pratchett. I love Terry Pratchett and I am heavily inspired by Pratchett. I can trust her to put aside her general dislike for my style of writing and give me objective feedback because I know her and I trust her.

Some stranger online hates my writing style, eh, I don’t care. To be honest, someone telling me my writing is amazing online has a limited impact of my own perception of my writing. I get that it isn’t necessarily that easy to shrug things off but practicing seeing feedback in that framework really helps.

2) Everything is terrible to someone.

I am in the incredibly lucky position of having a popular fic on ao3. It’s had a load of engagement and whilst a lot of it has been positive I still get negative feedback.

Someone will call it the best thing they’ve ever read and then immediately below that will be someone calling it unreadable.

It boils down to the fact that comments are opinions and people dislike things. A lot of time they’ll try to point to something as a reason for why they dislike something to try and make their opinion feel more objective but ultimately not liking something doesn’t mean that thing is bad.

If you want to make yourself feel better, find a fic that you love and scroll through the bookmark comments. I guarantee you’ll find a couple of ‘this is terrible why does anyone like it’ comments on every single one.

3) Constructive criticism isn’t constructive if it hasn’t been asked for

Giving feedback to someone who isn’t ready to receive feedback isn’t helpful. If someone is giving you feedback when you haven’t asked for it, they are telling you what would make your work better for them.

And you don’t know them. So what they want you to do might not match up with what you’re actually trying to achieve.

How can someone give you helpful feedback when they don’t know what you’re aiming to do?

Ultimately, someone giving you feedback isn’t trying to attack you (most of the time, there’s some proper bullshit that gets thrown at fanfic authors). And getting feedback is an inevitable side effect of posting anything online. Receiving feedback is really difficult and I hope this helps, it helps me!

———

What if you want feedback?

Plenty of people write fanfic for the joy of it and don’t particularly care about getting better at writing. But if you do want to get better there are better options then listening to strangers online.

I have an IRL friend, we both did English degrees and she is a big fanfic reader so I trust her to give me feedback.

I have other friends and family who are happy to give me a general vibe check. I’m super lucky on that front.

If you don’t have someone IRL that you trust I recommend joining fanfic discord groups, reaching out to other authors and sharing small segments of your writing for feedback. Be clear about the level of feedback you want and why you want it.

Seek out writing podcasts or lectures (I’m a big fan of Brandon Sanderson’s lectures on writing fantasy).

Do writing exercises.