now I need a little give and take
Okay, here's a question for you lot:
What do you do when you leave feedback and in response, the person says, "And I love your work as well" or "I owe you feedback! I loved [X] story so much!"?
This happens to me not infrequently, and I feel like a tool answering in someone else's comments, but I also feel rude *not* saying "thank you."
There are any number of these odd quasi-social etiquette questions that plague me, when I am not daydreaming of Dean and Sam's sekrit incest baby.
I just like saying "sekrit incest baby," misspelling and all. It pleases me on levels that are probably terrifying to examine in any detail. I also imagine every time I say "sekrit incest baby," someone else hits the "defriend" button, and that kind of makes me laugh, too.
***
So after I posted about things that will make me hit the back button, hossgal asked me what kinds of things will keep me reading a story even if it has errors or problems, and this is much harder for me to answer.
First of all, I can't hate the writing style. There are some styles that are just never gonna work for me, no matter how well-written, though if there are enough other good things, I may slog through it anyhow. But if I hate the style (if I don't like the tone, if there are endless descriptions of stuff that I don't give a rat's ass about) and there are errors - technical, canon, or character-wise - I am out of there.
The one thing that generally trumps all my elitist fic bitch impulses is humor. If something is genuinely funny (and meant to be) - if I laugh and laugh - I will put up with all sorts of spelling mistakes and canon errors etc. There is far too little good comedy written in fandom - it's hard, first of all, and second of all, too many people think wacky premise automatically means funny, and that's just not so. You get a couple paragraphs if you start out funny, but if it's just a one-note joke that's stretched far beyond its capacity to amuse, that gets old really fast.
But yes, comedy is king - if I am laughing, I will overlook many, many things that would otherwise have me diving for the back button.
The other thing that will keep me is emotional truth. If a story feels true to me, if it's moving me in some way, if I recognize the characters and relate to what they're feeling, then I will put up with problematic things - tense shifts or random POV breaks or homophone difficulties. If I rec the story, I'll certainly mention them, but I'll say something like, "This story really nailed the characters as I see them" or "I was crying so hard by the end I didn't care that the author had trouble distinguishing between might and may" (a huge problem by the way, people. Just don't use "may" unless you're absolutely certain it's right - too many people screw it up and it's annoying).
And wrapped up in that, is, yeah, recognizing the characters. That's key. I'll click out of stories that are technically perfect and have really graceful writing etc. if I have trouble with the characterization. Or I'll finish them - hoping to get some glimmering of why the author has chosen to 'mis'characterize someone - but not leave feedback. And then I'll get on AIM and start asking people, "Did you read [X]? What did you think?" to see if I'm crazy. Because it really bugs me when I feel like a story could have been awesome but there's something in it that just really rubs me wrong, and I want to find out if it's just me, if maybe the author and I just don't agree on certain things, or if it's a problem other people have noticed with the story. (Of course, most of the people I speak with regularly on AIM tend to have similar views of characters and taste in stories, so...)
The other thing that keeps me reading is a plot that is interesting and suspenseful and smart. If I can see five paragraphs in where the story is going - hey, it's fanfic, I'm here for more of the same, with slight variations, that doesn't bother me much - but if the plot is really smart and different, I'll stick around to see how it all plays out, and like it better if it surprises me (as long as the ending makes sense - no deus ex machina, no cheap surprise endings that don't have clues laid out along the way) - this is especially true in gen stories, because there is no pairing to keep me around.
Because yes, I will stick around if the story is about one of my OTPs and if it hits my bulletproof kinks in some way. I have also recced stories with the caveat that "this story could use a good beta, but it hits my kinks so hard, I don't really care." If there is a lot of stoical pining, or UST or love that is believed to be unrequited but turns out to be requited after all, or angry shoving leading to up-against-the-wall sex, or lots of witty banter that is perhaps not punctuated correctly, I will stick around.
But I am a fickle beast. There is one story that I loved - I mean, I was ready to gush about this story publicly and insta!rec it - and then I hit this paragraph really close to the ending, and it totally threw me out of the story, and to this day, when I see the story recced, I feel angry, because I want to love it the way everyone else does, and the way I did, but that one paragraph just feels so gratuitous and pandering, that I can't. And I've tried rereading, but gah.
Oh, and here's a little well-known way to keep my attention - make Remus a bassist. Seriously. When I first read "Marauder Rhombus," I wrote the authors a rather gushing email and in it I actually offered to do a line edit of the whole damn universe - an offer I haven't made to someone I didn't know in... years, because I am lazy and also I got tired of people leaving fandom after I betaed for them (true story - happened in XMM a few times; apparently, I am a brutal beta? I don't think so. I think I'm the easiest, most laidback beta ever, but who the hell knows?) - because I loved it so much, beyond the flaws in the writing early on, and I really wanted to just clean all that stuff up. Mostly because I loved the Remus characterization and the Remus/Sirius UST SO MUCH, and Remus played bass, and wore black hair bands on his wrist, and god, I might have to spend some time soon rereading "Marauder Rhombus," because just thinking about it makes me all fluttery in my belly. I wish there were more stories in this universe. *cough* ::looks at marginalia::
Of course, all of this is in regard to stories that I would already be interested in (my fandoms/pairings/characters) that have a few problems - punctuating dialogue, difficulty with homophones, the occasional canon error, a degree or two more typos than can reasonably be expected to have escaped a beta's eye - not stories riddled with spelling and grammar and canon errors, or about pairings I hate or in genres or fandoms I don't read.
***
What do you do when you leave feedback and in response, the person says, "And I love your work as well" or "I owe you feedback! I loved [X] story so much!"?
This happens to me not infrequently, and I feel like a tool answering in someone else's comments, but I also feel rude *not* saying "thank you."
There are any number of these odd quasi-social etiquette questions that plague me, when I am not daydreaming of Dean and Sam's sekrit incest baby.
I just like saying "sekrit incest baby," misspelling and all. It pleases me on levels that are probably terrifying to examine in any detail. I also imagine every time I say "sekrit incest baby," someone else hits the "defriend" button, and that kind of makes me laugh, too.
***
So after I posted about things that will make me hit the back button, hossgal asked me what kinds of things will keep me reading a story even if it has errors or problems, and this is much harder for me to answer.
First of all, I can't hate the writing style. There are some styles that are just never gonna work for me, no matter how well-written, though if there are enough other good things, I may slog through it anyhow. But if I hate the style (if I don't like the tone, if there are endless descriptions of stuff that I don't give a rat's ass about) and there are errors - technical, canon, or character-wise - I am out of there.
The one thing that generally trumps all my elitist fic bitch impulses is humor. If something is genuinely funny (and meant to be) - if I laugh and laugh - I will put up with all sorts of spelling mistakes and canon errors etc. There is far too little good comedy written in fandom - it's hard, first of all, and second of all, too many people think wacky premise automatically means funny, and that's just not so. You get a couple paragraphs if you start out funny, but if it's just a one-note joke that's stretched far beyond its capacity to amuse, that gets old really fast.
But yes, comedy is king - if I am laughing, I will overlook many, many things that would otherwise have me diving for the back button.
The other thing that will keep me is emotional truth. If a story feels true to me, if it's moving me in some way, if I recognize the characters and relate to what they're feeling, then I will put up with problematic things - tense shifts or random POV breaks or homophone difficulties. If I rec the story, I'll certainly mention them, but I'll say something like, "This story really nailed the characters as I see them" or "I was crying so hard by the end I didn't care that the author had trouble distinguishing between might and may" (a huge problem by the way, people. Just don't use "may" unless you're absolutely certain it's right - too many people screw it up and it's annoying).
And wrapped up in that, is, yeah, recognizing the characters. That's key. I'll click out of stories that are technically perfect and have really graceful writing etc. if I have trouble with the characterization. Or I'll finish them - hoping to get some glimmering of why the author has chosen to 'mis'characterize someone - but not leave feedback. And then I'll get on AIM and start asking people, "Did you read [X]? What did you think?" to see if I'm crazy. Because it really bugs me when I feel like a story could have been awesome but there's something in it that just really rubs me wrong, and I want to find out if it's just me, if maybe the author and I just don't agree on certain things, or if it's a problem other people have noticed with the story. (Of course, most of the people I speak with regularly on AIM tend to have similar views of characters and taste in stories, so...)
The other thing that keeps me reading is a plot that is interesting and suspenseful and smart. If I can see five paragraphs in where the story is going - hey, it's fanfic, I'm here for more of the same, with slight variations, that doesn't bother me much - but if the plot is really smart and different, I'll stick around to see how it all plays out, and like it better if it surprises me (as long as the ending makes sense - no deus ex machina, no cheap surprise endings that don't have clues laid out along the way) - this is especially true in gen stories, because there is no pairing to keep me around.
Because yes, I will stick around if the story is about one of my OTPs and if it hits my bulletproof kinks in some way. I have also recced stories with the caveat that "this story could use a good beta, but it hits my kinks so hard, I don't really care." If there is a lot of stoical pining, or UST or love that is believed to be unrequited but turns out to be requited after all, or angry shoving leading to up-against-the-wall sex, or lots of witty banter that is perhaps not punctuated correctly, I will stick around.
But I am a fickle beast. There is one story that I loved - I mean, I was ready to gush about this story publicly and insta!rec it - and then I hit this paragraph really close to the ending, and it totally threw me out of the story, and to this day, when I see the story recced, I feel angry, because I want to love it the way everyone else does, and the way I did, but that one paragraph just feels so gratuitous and pandering, that I can't. And I've tried rereading, but gah.
Oh, and here's a little well-known way to keep my attention - make Remus a bassist. Seriously. When I first read "Marauder Rhombus," I wrote the authors a rather gushing email and in it I actually offered to do a line edit of the whole damn universe - an offer I haven't made to someone I didn't know in... years, because I am lazy and also I got tired of people leaving fandom after I betaed for them (true story - happened in XMM a few times; apparently, I am a brutal beta? I don't think so. I think I'm the easiest, most laidback beta ever, but who the hell knows?) - because I loved it so much, beyond the flaws in the writing early on, and I really wanted to just clean all that stuff up. Mostly because I loved the Remus characterization and the Remus/Sirius UST SO MUCH, and Remus played bass, and wore black hair bands on his wrist, and god, I might have to spend some time soon rereading "Marauder Rhombus," because just thinking about it makes me all fluttery in my belly. I wish there were more stories in this universe. *cough* ::looks at marginalia::
Of course, all of this is in regard to stories that I would already be interested in (my fandoms/pairings/characters) that have a few problems - punctuating dialogue, difficulty with homophones, the occasional canon error, a degree or two more typos than can reasonably be expected to have escaped a beta's eye - not stories riddled with spelling and grammar and canon errors, or about pairings I hate or in genres or fandoms I don't read.
***