Maybe the way we look, the art we make or the parts of us we feel are miserable.

I posted this as a reblog to something already but I feel like this deserves a post of its own. This will be a rather general post about fandom etiquette, but I do think it’s important, so here goes.

1. Most writers (not all, but definitely most) don’t want unsolicited criticism (not in comments, not in fic recs, not anywhere public). Why?

First and foremost, we don’t know who you are. We don’t know if you have any experience writing yourself, we don’t know if you have any experience with editing, betaing, how familiar you are with the characters, the canon, different narration techniques etc. Basically, we don’t know if the criticism is coming from a trusted source or simply from an entitled commenter who didn’t get exactly what they wanted.

A lot of writers already HAVE trusted sources of criticism, namely their alpha and beta readers. These are the people the authors trust, these are the people who mostly have experience with SpaG, editing, plotting, story structure etc. Believe me, when I tell you this, a good alpha/beta won’t just nod along and say everything is perfect - a good alpha/beta will give credit where credit is due and give criticism where criticism is due.

Sometimes writers don’t want ANY criticism on some (or all) of their stories. Not even from an alpha/beta. Sometimes we just can’t be bothered with editing, sometimes we don’t have time, sometimes we just want to key-smash the story onto our AO3 to get all those sudden feels out, just throw it out there into the whirlwind of readers in its pure raw form because we die as warriors.

People who offer unsolicited criticism often do it in the name of “helping writers get better”. And fair, most writers do want to get better, in which case see point one and two of why unsolicited crit isn’t the best way to go. And some writers couldn’t care less about getting better because maybe that’s not their ambition in life and they just write to get those stories out.

2. Fic ratings suck for most of us writers. Why?

We are tender souls who are very often majorly insecure about our own writing and seeing a rating (be it on a 1-10 scale or something else) just makes us a) start comparing to other writers, b) putting pressure on ourselves to write a 10/10 fic c) cry

It also kind of sucks because it brings that “real world” mentality into fandom. The world where everyone is competing against each other, the world where you always feel like you have to score the highest, the world where everything you do is judged. The world that pressures you about being productive and efficient at all times.

3. How CAN you help writers get better, you ask, if you cannot openly offer criticism?

Become an alpha/beta reader. We LOVE alpha/beta readers (This is time for me to say Hi to all of you alphas and betas who make our fics better! *waves*) Yes, you won’t immediately know how to do it (I didn’t either and I still wouldn’t consider myself a great beta) but you will learn by listening to what the author wants/needs (communication with the author is of utmost importance!). An important thing to note is that betaing includes a lot of flailing over the great parts and lots of sincere, but kind, criticism of the parts that don’t work. If you come up with suggestions for improvement, even better!

You can start posting writing tips! Tumblr is a great place for that. If you are a writer yourself or if you simply have some observations to make that you think will help either writers of a specific fandom or writers in general, you can make your blog a reference blog for writers. You can treat different themes ranging from grammar and spelling to plotting to characterization etc. It’s completely fine to criticize fandom cliches and things you find problematic, just don’t call out specific writers and be prepared that not everyone will agree with you.

You can start online writing workshops or writing challenges where your aim could be exploring a certain style of writing, or a certain character or even just the uses of punctuation. We’ve had some amazing workshops and challenges on the Drarry discord and I can definitely say that these kinds of events help writers a lot. But these events do take a lot of time and effort to organize - also a fair amount of knowledge and skill. However, even just participating in the events as a writer and then being able to comment on other people’s works (criticism/suggestions for improvement are welcome in such workshops!) allows for criticism in an overall positive and encouraging environment.

participate in discussions! and I say discussions, not public callouts or attacks or anon messages!

Lastly, I’d like to reiterate a point that I think is very important. Fandom is, for a lot of us, an escape from the outside world. People who are wont to criticize fics/art etc often make excuses that “it’s a tough world out there” and “if you can’t take the criticism don’t write” and stuff like that. The thing is, fandom can be better than the harsh outside world. It is a place where we support each other, where we try to create a comfortable, safe environment that serves as a respite from real life. That isn’t to say that we blind ourselves from the real world. No, we simply believe that even the real world would be able to function the same way - with positive reinforcement, with people helping one another, with people working together, with people respecting each other’s boundaries.