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catscradle Apr. 5th, 2002 03:00 am)
catscradle Apr. 5th, 2002 03:00 am)Well, I've been away for a while. Lots of things with work and school that needed to be attended to, but that's mostly done now. I can goof off at will. Woohoo! Go me.
My first rant is on fanfic. I'm starting to believe that 85% of all fanfic writers have never read a book. A good book. Did they pay attention at all in their literature classes as to how sentences are constructed? I'm no grammar nazi, misplaced commas never bother me. I'm not even too picky on spelling, so long as I can understand the word implied. But the structure needs to have a logic. The characters need to have a voice that somewhat reflects the canon source. Deus ex Machina, while a cool latin triva term, is not a good practice over and over in a fic.
A good writer is also a good reader. READ books - lots of them - if you want to write. Most people can't just sit down for the first time and write. It takes a lot of time and practice. Writing is a skill that must be developed if it's going to get any better, and one of the best ways to do that is to just read from the pros. See what works and why it works. Don't just look at the structure, but the ideas too. Analyze books. Tear them apart and see how they work from the inside out. The other thing, of course, is to write. Write and keep writing. Go back over your writing and see if the story works or at least resembles a cohesive structure. Are your characters performing impossible feats and speaking in a lingo that more resembles the popular teen hang spot in the mall? You might want to re-evaluate that then. Don't get discouraged and never write again if it doesn't work out the first time or you get some negative criticism - keep practicing. Always try to improve no matter the positive feed back. As I said, writing is a skill and it goes rusty if you don't brush up every now and again.
I've heard a number of folks claim they aren't professionals, so they won't work on their skills unless we start paying them. That's certainly their perogative, but I almost always hear these same people bitch and complain when they don't get feedback. If you can't take the time to work on your writing skills, then I'm not taking the time read and comment.
So that's my rant for the day. Now I'll probably take a personality test and find out I'm George Jefferson in a "Which 70's Sitcom Character are You?" test.
My first rant is on fanfic. I'm starting to believe that 85% of all fanfic writers have never read a book. A good book. Did they pay attention at all in their literature classes as to how sentences are constructed? I'm no grammar nazi, misplaced commas never bother me. I'm not even too picky on spelling, so long as I can understand the word implied. But the structure needs to have a logic. The characters need to have a voice that somewhat reflects the canon source. Deus ex Machina, while a cool latin triva term, is not a good practice over and over in a fic.
A good writer is also a good reader. READ books - lots of them - if you want to write. Most people can't just sit down for the first time and write. It takes a lot of time and practice. Writing is a skill that must be developed if it's going to get any better, and one of the best ways to do that is to just read from the pros. See what works and why it works. Don't just look at the structure, but the ideas too. Analyze books. Tear them apart and see how they work from the inside out. The other thing, of course, is to write. Write and keep writing. Go back over your writing and see if the story works or at least resembles a cohesive structure. Are your characters performing impossible feats and speaking in a lingo that more resembles the popular teen hang spot in the mall? You might want to re-evaluate that then. Don't get discouraged and never write again if it doesn't work out the first time or you get some negative criticism - keep practicing. Always try to improve no matter the positive feed back. As I said, writing is a skill and it goes rusty if you don't brush up every now and again.
I've heard a number of folks claim they aren't professionals, so they won't work on their skills unless we start paying them. That's certainly their perogative, but I almost always hear these same people bitch and complain when they don't get feedback. If you can't take the time to work on your writing skills, then I'm not taking the time read and comment.
So that's my rant for the day. Now I'll probably take a personality test and find out I'm George Jefferson in a "Which 70's Sitcom Character are You?" test.
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From:
Bad fic
And I am way tired of the fanfic convention of formatting thoughts with a special punctuation mark. Granted - mea culpa - I did shit like that in SotP so I'm not saying I'm not immune. But that was in a story with flashbacks and telepathic communication, and sometimes flashbacks and thoughts and telepathic communication, which to me indicates I should have figured out a different way of writing all that in the first place, but point being at least at the time I had a reasonable excuse that there wasn't any formatting in a text-only medium that covered that need.
However if all you're doing is thoughts there is a way to format this - in fact several - without ever needing to make use of the italic command. USE THEM! If I see one more author who uses slash marks, colons or brackets to indicate thoughts I'm going to take a hostage.