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A Review For Painfully Bad Fan Fiction

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Re: A Review For Painfully Bad Fan Fiction
Post by Exidor   » Mon Apr 09, 2018 9:27 pm

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Imaginos1892 wrote:If you write a story that nobody wants to read, you have just wasted your time.


My POV: Depends upon why one is writing in the first place. If I'm writing a story *I* want to write, then my time is not wasted, whether others like the story or not.

Then again, I didn't start out writing for pay, so there's that to take into account. (getting paid was a delightful surprise) :)

Imaginos1892 wrote:If you do not convey your meaning in a way the reader will understand, have you really told your story? ALWAYS keep the reader in mind.


My POV again: There is no one "reader". An author writes for an audience, not (exceptions exist) for an individual. An author is never going to get his meaning across to each and every individual that picks up the book to read.

But in the case of "fanfic" - IMNSHO, the author is writing stories *they* want to see about their favorite characters - the audience they write for is themselves. With that in mind, I rather doubt most worry about anyone else understanding what they mean.

As always, the mileage of others varies. :)

(And yes, I agree there are some absolutely atrocious fanfic stories out there - in all genre.)
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Re: A Review For Painfully Bad Fan Fiction
Post by Imaginos1892   » Tue Apr 10, 2018 8:05 pm

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Exidor wrote:My POV: Depends upon why one is writing in the first place. If I'm writing a story *I* want to write, then my time is not wasted, whether others like the story or not.

If I write a story and nobody likes it, I'll be pretty disappointed.

Exidor wrote:But in the case of "fanfic" - IMNSHO, the author is writing stories *they* want to see about their favorite characters - the audience they write for is themselves. With that in mind, I rather doubt most worry about anyone else understanding what they mean.

Well, no, I probably wouldn't write a story I don't like. Of course, I'm really hoping other people will like my stories too, but if they're hard to understand or painful to read, that's not likely.

I do my best to convey my ideas in a way that anyone reasonably proficient at reading English should understand.
———————————
Barnette: "Maybe I can't help you, but I'm not going to live with knowing I didn't even try."
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Re: A Review For Painfully Bad Fan Fiction
Post by Daryl   » Thu Apr 12, 2018 2:01 am

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You folks who are more literate than I am might want to help Whitehead with his current project posted on here.
This is about his sixth attempt in creating a world, usually steam punk. Going from his comment his grammar has improved over time, initially it was quite difficult to follow.
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Re: A Review For Painfully Bad Fan Fiction
Post by The E   » Thu Apr 12, 2018 7:29 am

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Daryl wrote:You folks who are more literate than I am might want to help Whitehead with his current project posted on here.
This is about his sixth attempt in creating a world, usually steam punk. Going from his comment his grammar has improved over time, initially it was quite difficult to follow.


No. Not until he shows an actual ability to actually sit down and write for more than the few minutes it takes to type up a forum post here. It seems to me (and this is a lesson for aspiring authors) that he's quite hung up on the idea that he needs a completely formed world before he starts thinking about the story.

Worldbuilding is fun. It's necessary, even when you're telling a story in mundane reality or when writing fanfic set in someone else's universe (where "Worldbuilding" means figuring out who your characters are, what situations they're in, and how they got there). But all worldbuilding is meaningless if you don't have a story to tell (unless you're writing a D&D supplement, of course); ideally, the world you're creating should be more than just a backdrop or an excuse to have something cool happen.
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Re: A Review For Painfully Bad Fan Fiction
Post by cthia   » Wed Apr 18, 2018 10:15 am

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Reminds me of one of my favorites...

"Just give arrogance enough rope and time and it'll hang itself."

The SLN comes to mind.

Terekhov is my hero. Finish this for me...

"What makes people like you..."

:D With so many teeth, a shark has the best smile in the business.

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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Re: A Review For Painfully Bad Fan Fiction
Post by Imaginos1892   » Wed Apr 18, 2018 7:29 pm

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Yup. If you're going to write, WRITE! Don't just write about writing, or about planning to write, and don't write about dreaming about writing either.

When I finally started writing, it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be.

cthia wrote:"What makes people like you..."

I put something very like that into one of my stories:

Helga wrote:"Because we have conscience, because we make the distinction between right and wrong, those like him consider us weak. They never believe we can be just as cold and ruthless as they are when we need to be, and they're always surprised when they find out how wrong they were."

———————————
It’s reassuring to find that the world is crazier than you are.
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Re: A Review For Painfully Bad Fan Fiction
Post by Daryl   » Thu Apr 19, 2018 2:08 am

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In Sirling's Dies The Fire series there is a great example of "What makes people like you". The lead goodie has a winner take all joust with the lead baddie, and deliberately spears the baddie's horse to get him on the ground. The baddie is shocked by this underhand tactic, which is more akin to what he might have done.
In WW2 Hitler scoffed at Britain as a country full of shopkeepers. Later in the war they carpet bombed his cities.
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Re: A Review For Painfully Bad Fan Fiction
Post by Imaginos1892   » Thu Apr 19, 2018 11:40 am

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Oh, right, I should have provided the context. They've got the Bad Guys tied to chairs, and Helga is watching the Worst Guy bleed out after one of her soldiers stabbed him in the throat on her orders.

Helga wrote:"Because we have conscience, because we make the distinction between right and wrong, those like him consider us weak. They never believe we can be just as cold and ruthless as they are when we need to be, and they're always surprised when they find out how wrong they were."

Worst Guy does look pretty surprised, at that. Then she shoots Hired Meat Number Two twice with a suppressed .45 after confirming that he's guilty.
———————————
"But when they're this advanced, this habituated to sadism and depravity, there's only one thing to be done." She sent to Gary, "Do it."
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Re: A Review For Painfully Bad Fan Fiction
Post by The E   » Thu Apr 19, 2018 12:36 pm

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To quote Pratchett:

“Something Vimes had learned as a young guard drifted up from memory. If you have to look along the shaft of an arrow from the wrong end, if a man has you entirely at his mercy, then hope like hell that man is an evil man. Because the evil like power, power over people, and they want to see you in fear. They want you to know you're going to die. So they'll talk. They'll gloat.

They'll watch you squirm. They'll put off the moment of murder like another man will put off a good cigar.

So hope like hell your captor is an evil man. A good man will kill you with hardly a word.”
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Re: A Review For Painfully Bad Fan Fiction
Post by grendel_one   » Fri May 11, 2018 12:52 pm

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search youtube for 'Trapped In A Island With Josh Hutcherson' for the best bad fanfic review
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