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[howtofaillife]

[howtofaillife]

i am in fact NOT being very brave about it and will whine and complain until i die. As is my right

[howtofaillife]

I used to work for a trade book reviewer where I got paid to review people's books, and one of the rules of that review company is one that I think is just super useful to media analysis as a whole, and that is, we were told never to critique media for what it didn't do but only for what it did.

So, for instance, I couldn't say "this book didn't give its characters strong agency or goals". I instead had to say, "the characters in this book acted in ways that often felt misaligned with their characterization as if they were being pulled by the plot."

I think this is really important because a lot of "critiques" people give, if subverted to address what the book does instead of what it doesn't do, actually read pretty nonsensical. For instance, "none of the characters were unique" becomes "all of the characters read like other characters that exist in other media", which like... okay? That's not really a critique. It's just how fiction works. Or "none of the characters were likeable" becomes "all of the characters, at some point or another, did things that I found disagreeable or annoying" which is literally how every book works?

It also keeps you from holding a book to a standard it never sought to meet. "The world building in this book simply wasn't complex enough" becomes "The world building in this book was very simple", which, yes, good, that can actually be a good thing. Many books aspire to this. It's not actually a negative critique. Or "The stakes weren't very high and the climax didn't really offer any major plot twists or turns" becomes "The stakes were low and and the ending was quite predictable", which, if this is a cute romcom is exactly what I'm looking for.

Not to mention, I think this really helps to deconstruct a lot of the biases we carry into fiction. Characters not having strong agency isn't inherently bad. Characters who react to their surroundings can make a good story, so saying "the characters didn't have enough agency" is kind of weak, but when you flip it to say "the characters acted misaligned from their characterization" we can now see that the *real* problem here isn't that they lacked agency but that this lack of agency is inconsistent with the type of character that they are. a character this strong-willed *should* have more agency even if a weak-willed character might not.

So it's just a really simple way of framing the way I critique books that I think has really helped to show the difference between "this book is bad" and "this book didn't meet my personal preferences", but also, as someone talking about books, I think it helps give other people a clearer idea of what the book actually looks like so they can decide for themselves if it's worth their time.

Update: This is literally just a thought exercise to help you be more intentional with how you critique media. I'm not enforcing this as some divine rule that must be followed any time you have an opinion on fiction, and I'm definitely not saying that you have to structure every single sentence in a review to contain zero negative phrases. I'm just saying that I repurposed a rule we had at that specific reviewer to be a helpful tool to check myself when writing critiques now. If you don't want to use the tool, literally no one (especially not me) can or wants to force you to use it. As with all advice, it is a totally reasonable and normal thing to not have use for every piece of it that exists from random strangers on the internet. Use it to whatever extent it helps you or not at all.

[howtofaillife]

barry has been getting praised left and right for his performance in the banshees of inisherin and i’m so so so proud of him! this is what he deserves!

[howtofaillife]

“Spring, dreaminess, sleepiness, healing under the gentle moonlight, inability to think yet I’ve been enjoying it.”

— Zinaida Nikolaevna Gippius, from Selected Works; “Memoirs of Martynov,” (via paper-fairy)

[howtofaillife]

“I cannot help but isolate myself, and so I am aware that I will be apologizing constantly for the rest of my life; it is a horrible feeling.”

— Emilie Autumn, from The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls

[howtofaillife]

Happiness Will Come To You.

[howtofaillife]

“You can be a stranger to yourself; you almost certainly will be, at some point or another. It is inevitable, as inevitable as the moment of rupture that sends you hurtling toward the self you were always going to be.”

—Carmen Maria Machado, Both Ways- from It Came from the Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror edited by Joe Vallese

[howtofaillife]

I have definitely been there; the horrible ordeal of being exhausted after small activities and feeling like you need to explain yourself for just existing.

📖 Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times by Katherine May

[howtofaillife]

bringing this back for women’s day this year

[howtofaillife]

sorry for the delay in responding to your message. I was walking around the house with unclear intentions

[howtofaillife]

— Fiona Apple

[howtofaillife]

reviewers when women are getting abused onscreen: árt

reviewers when women are having fun onscreen: terrible content

[howtofaillife]

my cauldron is leakinggggg fuckkkk

[howtofaillife]

simultaneously underwhelmed and overwhelmed with life

[howtofaillife]

i’m not “lazy” i’m just a fragile victorian maiden. i can only handle 1-2 mildly taxing activities a day before i have to put myself down for a nap until dinner

[howtofaillife]