Am I a new member of the Cult of Mean?

[author_by_night]

So at a site, I read a fanfic that was... well, to say the least, it needed a lot of work. The chapters ranged from about two paragraphs to one page long, and the author really doesn't have a sense of punctuation.

So I left what I thought was a very constructively critical review.

Here's what I said:

Okay. This is promising, but there are a few problems. I really hope you understand that I am not trying to flame or be offensive - take these as tips.

First, you can't start your first story with "testing." It throws people off, you know? Plus, it's a little annoying when you expect to see a story and see "testing."

Second, you really need to write longer chapters. Some of them are a little too short, and could easily be merged. In fairness, a lot of people on this site post short chapters - even I used to - but it is easier to be drawn into a story with longer ones. Here's an idea - write your fic in Notepad, Word or another Word Processor, then post. That way, you won't run out of time.

Finally, and I hope you don't take this the wrong way, you need to work on your punctuation a bit. All sentences end with a period, and there should be a comma before the last quotation. For instance:

"Yes," said Mark, laughing. "I agree."

I hope that helped. If you have any more questions, drop me a PM.

Well, apparently, I very much offended the person, as they replied:

Ok Ok I see what you mean OK BUT I AM DOING IT IN WORD BUT RATHER FEEL THAT I CANT TYPE SO MUCH SO SORTLY SO GO #%^#$^#@ $^&@^$ %&*&#$$#% [INFINITE]

And, naturally, their next reply was"beter now". (Written like that).

I'm not sure what I said that merited that response.

On one hand, I do see where I could've been a bit harsh. I mean, it was obviously a first fic, and truth be told, the site in question - ecfans.com - really isn't like Sugar Quill or Fiction Alley. The purpose isn't fanfiction - the fanfiction was a site add-on.

On the other hand, it is still public writing, and I feel you are expected to recieve any feedback.

Thoughts?

Comments

[zarafa.livejournal.com]

ecfans isn't for writing advice... its for warm fuzzies. few people there really appreciate any sort of writing advice or constructive criticism regardless of how atrocious their spelling, grammar, and sentence structure are. i wouldn't take it personally but i also wouldn't offer advice there unless specifically asked for it. if its who i think you're talking about, she's gone off on others who've commented on her lack of grammar.

[author-by-night.livejournal.com]

ecfans isn't for writing advice... its for warm fuzzies.

Good point. In fact, I don't think I ever really got any heavy crit when I used to write there, except from one member, and looking back, I needed some pretty heavy criticism. It isn't like I didn't used to do one page chapters with horrible grammar. And I still proofread my works, go to a site where we're assigned a beta reader... and appreciate that the site does it.


But still, I think people need to realize that not everyone at a site is going to just smile and say "perfect" when it's not, no matter how nice we are.