Writing is a craft involving both creative and technical aspects. Optimal, of course, is an excellent story, excellently told. However, particularly when reading fan fiction, one must at times be willing to forgive, at least to a point, weaknesses in one area or another. Even in the Daria fandom. Yes, Daria fans are smarter than everyone else, and yes, all our writers (well, maybe not Ronin) are a cut above the writers from other fandoms, but we still have some things to overlook when it comes to the stories. (If you are a Daria writer, of course this doesn’t mean your stories. You are the exception.)
Sometimes it’s broken rules. Yes, writing has rules. Spelling, grammar, punctuation. These things matter.
Sometimes it’s a weakness in the story. Poorly conceived, poorly plotted, poor characterization. Or even just not a good story, at least for some. Not every story can appeal to every reader.
Sometimes, it’s a corker of a story, or at least it could be, it’s just not written well. Good ideas suffer when poorly executed.
Even when a story isn’t particularly appealing, if well told, I still quite enjoy it. I can also overlook a number of weaknesses in technique if the story is good. There is, however, a tipping point, when a story becomes unreadable. This might vary. For example, I was completely unable to read one story that was recommended to me because of the flagrant abuse of italics. The story may have been fabulous, but I could not read it.
What’s your tipping point?
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If a story abandons all pretense of logical consistency, I'll drop it. (See: Heroes past season one). This isn't to be confused with a story that's intentionally absurd (a comedy).
I also really don't like melodrama, especially if it's shoehorned in (see above). Not to be confused with some nice well-written angst, like Darius. (Stuff I abandoned reading from melodrama overload: the webcomic Faans, the comic Strangers in Paradise (which also seriously violated the logical consistency rule), one or two fics in this fandom).
Bad punctuation. I know because I used to be a major offender.
"it's" used as a possessive rather than a contraction. That bugs the crap out of me.
I'm a bit of a grammar nazi in my head. If I see someone using to, two, and too wrong, for example, it distracts me. By itself though, that won't stop me. When I come across a brick of text that doesn't even try to separate dialogue though, I can get frustrated easily. I don't like reading something five times and still not knowing what I read.
Another thing for me is completely out of character dialogue in an otherwise in character setting without explanation. Some of the older fics I've read especially seem like they could be interesting, but the dialogue doesn't seem right, or even human. Sometimes it's a translation issue, and you can't do much about that, but if I can't hear Daria saying what she says in the story (and so on), it comes off as fake and unreadable.
Poor style really turns me off. Fics that read like the narrator is verbally talking to the reader are especially annoying to me; it makes it seems as though the author has never read a professionally-written novel. I don't expect Tolkien-level prose from a fanfic, but there is an accepted style for fiction, and an author who doesn't understand the stylistic differences between vocal and written communication needs to do a bit more reading before they start writing.
Formatting and grammar issues also annoy me, but I can fix that by copying the text into a Word file and correcting as I read.
The nice thing about Dariafic is that there are enough competent writers out there that I can afford to skip the poorly-written stuff while still having plenty to enjoy.
Author's note: (The irony that this is an unspellchecked reply is not lost on me.)
Author's note 2: Strangers In Paradise! That takes me back!
My biggest turn off is expositional dialogue. You know, when a couple characters are talking and one of them says, for example, "I'm glad both of us 20 somethings are having a go at city life after recovering from our troubled past in Oaklahoma as outcasts from our straight laced boring peers!"
If you're going to be expositional- why not just *write* it? Summarizing a life story in dialogue is as unnatural as those one sided phone calls on sitcoms- and we *know* we all can't stand those.
Other stylistic things I hate is when the author makes a habit of just telling us things about charactors rather than showing us.
At times- it can be quite artistic and sometimes more dramatic to simply say, "She missed him." or "And he fell."
But more often then not you could improve a story by showing these things rather than just bluntly throwing them out there.
"She looked at his picture briefly, but stopped herself before getting lost in the lonliness it always inspired."
Instead of:
"She couldn't look at his picture."
I'm not advocating verbosity for verbosity's sake... but.
An author does more than list events- she tells a story.
Over (and out)
Author avatars. I hate it when the author uses the characters as a sounding board for his/her beliefs or ideas, thereby taking the character so OOC that it may as well be another character entirely.
I also can't stand 'realism for realism's sake' - when authors have very bad things happen in their fics to the characters - even if they should logically be able to either avoid those problems or finda way out - 'because that's what would happen in real life! It's 'edgy!' I'm not reading it for the 'real life' experiences, I'm reading it because it IS fiction. The same goes for the 'sudden happy Hollywood ending' - where somehow, the people just forgive, forget, and go on as if they immediately got past everything just for the sake of a happy ending.
One more thing that I'm not a fan of is when an author consistently tries to shoehorn characters into the action/situation of the fic without logical explanation simply because 'they're in the show, so we have to show them!' This one bugs because it shows, to me, a lack of common sense or creativity in the writer. Just because a characteris in the show doesn't mean that you have to use him/her all of the time - in fact, you could use that absence later to build on story for those missing characters, as well as show how the characters on tap act, relate and function in the absence of the others.
Finally, bad love scenes (or any specific scene that is supposed to convey or provoke a specific emotional response). I hate it when someone writes a scene that is obviously to be romanticm erotic, funny, etc., but the style of the writer - for whatever the reason - all but ejects you from immersing yourself in the moment. There's one writer who tries to write sex scenes that are so clinical, so direct, so badly written that the scenes are almost painful to read.
Well I do have mixed feelings on realism and the author's voice.
I think that the difference between good fiction and great fiction is one has a story to tell- the other expresses an idea in the fiction.
Regarding the latter- the problem often occurs when the author intrudes upon the story. If at any point you're taken out of the story then the story ceases to be a vehicle for a message- it simply becomes your flimsy artifice for a more than likely pithy manifesto.
And as far as "That's how it would happen in real life." It has its place- if your set up your characters such that it would.
If the point of a character, say Daria, is that they're too emotionally withdrawn and insecure that they push others away- then it makes sense that she would, for example, perhaps not have the emotional fortitude to say goodbye to her dying father.
If action isn't character driven then you have no story- just a sketch.
Even a story where a character fails to grow beyond their "Fixed Actions" has potential for a dynamic resolution. The point of a story in the example above might be that, given the chance to grow out of her normal trappings, Daria misses a unique chance for growth. And subsiquently she is changed in so much as at the start of the story she is withdrawn- with the possibility for change, and at the end that possibility is removed and the reader assumes she will continue trapped in her fixed actions. While the character simply continued as is- there *is* something different at the end- there is character driven action.
I try to do this with my stories- i spend a lot of time thinking "Who is this person and why are they doing this."
And that is a very good question for all authors to ask of their creations- because often you come to the conclusion "She wouldn't!" and you are, by serendipity, inspired to a more pleasing resolution- both to author and reader.
If at any time the author betrays the reader then you've more or less ruined a story and lost their trust- and if you do that- why write?
Regarding the latter- the problem often occurs when the author intrudes upon the story. If at any point you're taken out of the story then the story ceases to be a vehicle for a message- it simply becomes your flimsy artifice for a more than likely pithy manifesto.
I hate this. If a writer can't manage to craft the story in such a way that it can stand on its own, they, and their readers, would be better served by an essay.
I'm going to drub a safe target - something I've written myself. :p
I mentioned on the PPMB that I'm considering a overhaul of the serial series I started yonks back and has mostly faded away by now. The reason for this is that the stories are simply not well written. The characters have great potential, but as written they're flat and too Sueish for my tastes. The plot ideas have potential, but they're delivered a ham-handedly in the current version.
These were some of the first stories I wrote, and I've learned a lot since then. Compare a random Heather story to Exchange Students or The Misery Chicks and you'll see what I mean.
I guess the point of this is: don't be afraid to re-examine your own works with a critical eye, and don't set too much store by your ego. :D
Writing *is* rewriting...
You haven't written something until you've written it 3 times.
If the process takes less than two weeks you may be rushing things a teensy bit.
"You haven't written something until you've written it 3 times."
I don't think I agree with that statement. Lots of people self-edit as they write, so progress through the first draft is slow, but successful. That way, there's less rewriting. Certainly, it helps to review and rewrite, especially if you can put it aside for awhile. But different writers work in different ways, so there's no hard and fast rule.
As for me, bad grammar/no caps will kill the joy of a story faster than anything. Also, I don't like it when the characters get too far away from canon depiction. I'm not a canon-nazi, but there has to be a logical progression to say... Daria as gun moll for a mobster. Otherwise, it's just like a bad remake.
I couldn't disagree more with the idea of "Editing while you write."
You can't edit a sentence until you have a whole paragraph, you can't edit a paragraph until you have a whole page, and you can't edit a page until you have a whole story.
I guess it depends on what you consider 'editing'.
I don't think making changes in syntax during the drafting process is 'editing'.
most of the time I attribute "great first draft" to laziness or ego on behalf of the writer.
Mine would be simply a story that doesn't interest me. It can be well written, but if the basic concept of the story doesn't interest me, I'm not going to get very far reading it.
I tend to self-edit and rewrite a story three times...
I can put up with a lot if there's *something* that interests me, but if there are no paragraphs, especially for dialogue, then I'm outta there.
The only no-paragraph story that works for me is Stacy Rowe, Seeker. But that is a deliberate choice on the author's part, not simply a matter of doesn't know any better, and I can deal with it because it comes out in manageable chunks.
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