#It just seems like people are genuinely confused why fanfic writers don't want feedback and so I figured I'd give my personal logic

[nedjemetsenen]

Why do Fanfic writers generally hate “constructive” criticism?

This is a topic that comes across my dash a couple times a month, but those posts generally focus on how unsolicited criticism is rude. Today, I wanted to take a moment to talk about the ways that it’s also generally useless even if you’re trying to be helpful. To do this, I will be using examples from my own comment section, but please do not seek those comments out. This post is about informing, not about creating a hate mob.

Issue One: You don't know if your criticism is already known

No story is perfect. There will always be flaws. Sometimes you find a flaw that the author can improve on. Sometimes you pick up on something that the author accepted as a flaw during the writing process for whatever reason. It may have been because they're writing for fun. It may have been because they liked the flawed version of the story better than the story without the flaw. It may be because they genuinely didn't know how to fix it, but still wanted to tell the story flaw and all.

To give an example of this, here’s an excerpt from a truly lovely comment where the person also tried to give some helpful feedback:

you did a fantastic job with the characters you altered to fit the story. They were mostly rounded and felt like whole people instead of cardboard cut-outs. However, this made the characters that you didn't change feel very flat. [List of characters] often felt like window dressing, like they were included solely because they were part of the original show.

This is exactly why those characters showed up in that fic and the issue of them being window dressing isn’t something that I introduced. It’s a flaw in the original work. To fix this issue, I would have cut these characters or merged them into one character. But this wasn’t original fiction. It was fanfiction, so I decided to sacrifice quality for the sake of honoring the source as it felt wrong to remove these guys when they’re a classic part of the roster. I also actively chose to not develop them more as it would have killed the pacing and added nothing to the story I was trying to tell. There are characters that I arguably should have given more screen time to in that fic, but these were not those characters.

Issue Two: Timeliness

Unless the story is newly published, you have no idea if your criticism is still useful. Even if it is newly published, how long has the fic been going for? Are you critiquing a chapter from 3 years ago or last week? Unless it’s the latest chapter, you don’t know. Even if it is the latest chapter, you don’t know when it was written. Sometimes people find an old work of theirs and just post it without editing because they don’t want to edit and they know people will enjoy the story as-is. Sometimes people write the whole fic and then post it week by week while they work on the next one.

I recently had someone ask me for some feedback on a section of dialogue and I pointed out an area for potential improvement. The person who asked for the feedback has read some of my stuff and pointed out that I’d used a similar technique in a fic and they were absolutely correct. I had. But the fic was a few years old and I simply haven’t yet taken the time to go back and edit all 100k+ of it. I write at least a quarter of a million words every year and that means that I’m always learning. It’s incredibly rare for me to reread an old piece of mine without finding something to edit. It won’t always be something major, but it’s there. Waiting. Taunting me.

Along similar lines, if you're pointing out a flaw that's specific to the story, I'm not sure what you're expecting to happen next. While some writers go back and edit old works (I certainly have), a lot of writers consider older works done and prefer to focus on new ones.

Issue Three: Most people are shockingly bad at giving good constructive criticism.

Constructive criticism is a skill that you have to learn and practice. It’s also genuinely difficult to learn as it's the difference between helping a person tell the story that you want to read and helping them tell the best version of the story that they want to tell. The first is not good crit, but it is the crit that most people give.

There are times when I’ll beta for a fic and think “that character would never do that”, but that’s terrible feedback because I’m imposing my version of the character over the author’s take on the character and they’re not trying to tell a story with my headcanons. They’re using theirs and my job as an editor/beta is to accept that and help them tell their story as best they can.

I've also been given feedback like this. Here’s an excerpt from a comment where someone pointed out something that they didn’t like in one of my fics:

it's cute to see him like this once in a while but he's a grown man and "adorable" feels a little out of place in this situation

This is utterly useless feedback and I will die on that hill. In my opinion, I wrote this character perfectly because this is how I see him. It’s my headcanon and the version of him that you'll see in all of my fics. What’s funny is that I actually think that I got the female lead in this story a bit wrong. I should have toned her down, but this was early in my journey to learn these characters and then we’re back to issue two.

Final Thoughts

If an author asks for constructive criticism, then absolutely feel free to give it to them, but if you've ever wondered why most authors don't, the above is probably why. It's why I only welcome grammatical corrections and historical/cultural accuracy corrections on my own fics. Those are the only comments that I've ever found useful.

There are times when I seek out other types of feedback. I just don't get it from random readers after the story is already published. I get it from select individuals during the writing process and that's the feedback process favored by most writers as it's the one that's most likely to lead to improvement.

If you ever come across a fic that you love, but you feel like it could use an editor, my advice is to leave a comment saying how much you love the story and then offer to beta read (the fandom word for an editor. No I don't know why fandom has a different definition for that word than the definition used in the publishing industry. It just is what it is.) And if you don't want to take the time to beta for someone, that's okay! But if you don't want to make the massive time commitment to truly help the person improve, then maybe don't give unsolicited feedback that's more likely to make them stop writing altogether? I promise you, that person will improve on their own just by writing more. I certainly did! If you read the fanfic that I wrote when I was 13, you'd be shocked by how bad it is compared to my current stuff.

I personally consider that fact a source of pride.

[phussenartzzz]

Excerpt from my Fanfic

THE RESULTS ARE IN AND I'M GONNA POST THE FANFIC EXCERPT!!! (Sorry to the 7.7% who didn't want this but majority rules in my book)

Okay so we all read the title and I just wanna get some things across first and foremost.

I'm posting this for feed-back purposes. I just wanna see if this seems like a good enough story to post because I started thinking about it and realized that reading fan-fics (Saiouma one-shots on Wattpad mostly in this case scenario) have given me ideas for my own one-shots that I wrote down but wasn't confident enough to start typing because I didn't wanna be seen as "cringe" or a "terrible writer". I've seen so many good ideas from people on here like @thelemoncoffee and was like," Imma start publishing my ideas". Please consider commenting feedback or if you think it's worth it; reposting this. And so, with further a-do, my bros, brosephines, and broskis, I present you with an excerpt from:

The Prince and the Amethyst Dragon

"Well, well, well, you really shouldn't be out here roaming these streets alone ya' know~. You could be mugged, kidnapped, or worse, killed." Kokichi's facial expression turned dark and full of all kinds of malice. "And to top it off it could be by anyone, even me." Shuichi felt like his heart was in his stomach, but he had to find a way out of this. "W-well you wouldn't dare lay a-uh, a finger on me. I am Shuichi Saihara; son of the king himself." Shuichi exclaimed, feeling a little bolder now; standing tall above the other male trying to intimidate him. However despite his best efforts, Kokichi wasn't intimidated but his facial expression changed from malice to an almost child-like awe. Saihara gradually yet painfully realized that in revealing who he really was; he'd messed up. "Wow, just, just wow. A real life prince!" Kokichi lowered himself to a bow and reached his hand forward to take Shuichi's and gently kissed it while simultaneously looking up at him and winking."It's an honor to meet you, your highness.~" Shuichi's brain felt scrambled; this guy just threatened his life and now he's "honored to meet me". What was this guy's deal?

"Ohhh come on now, that was an obvious lie. I'm not gonna kill you silly, you gotta read in between the lines Shumai." S-Shumai?! What was this guy on? Whatever it was Shuichi didn't need any more parts of it. He needed to make it back to the castle before he got in trouble for sneaking out; he didn't need any more trouble than he already had. Kokichi trailed alongside him and then said, "So don't you have like- a magic carriage or something waiting for you? All this walking has me bored out of my mind." Shuichi sighed and calmly replied "Well, I do this every Friday night so I'll be fine." Kokichi still followed Shuichi, the sounds of the night filling the void of silence. Then Kokichi had an idea. He walked in front of Shuichi; now walking backwards, and announced his idea. "Hey Shuichi, I've just thought of a waaayyyy better idea that I'm sure you're gonna like." Shuichi doubted he'd like the idea but let the boy go on anyway. "I'll take you home but- in exchange, you gotta give me a kiss~. Nehehehe," he said smugly looking at Shuichi with his finger to his lips. Shuichi was clearly flustered by this and it showed on his face. "What are you trying to say, that you know a short-cut?" Kokichi pondered for a bit then said "Yeah sure, a shortcut or whatever call it what you wanna call it. Just follow my lead and I'll have my beloved prince back home, safe and sound in his castle in no time flat!" He then added, "Also the whole thing about you having to kiss me was a lie" Of course it was a lie Shuichi thought, but then proceeding to lightly blush seeing the child-like grin on the other boy's face. "Umm, so might I ask what's the plan then?" Shuichi asked clearly confused."Follow me."

Kokichi beckoned him towards a dark woodland area. Shuichi really began to question why he was here genuinely following him considering all that happened between them tonight, and yet here they were. Kokichi stopped abruptly and turned around. He looked both ways nervously like he was trying to see if there was a dangerous entity in the dark out to get him. "Okie dokie, Imma need you to wait riiiight here for me please. I'll call out when I'm done." Just as he was about to turn and vanish into the woods he turned around one last time and said, "I need you to not tell a soul what your about to see, I don't normally do this type of stuff for strangers but tonight I'm feeling nice. However, if you do snitch, I'm gonna have to kill you for real, and we both don't want that to happen, now do we my beloved prince?" Not again with the death threats. "Okay no need to put my life on the line again, I promise." Kokichi nodded his head and was consumed by the darkness of the woods. Shuichi stood there anxiously waiting. Minutes later he heard something from the woods "Your safe Shuichi, come on." Hesitantly Shuichi stepped forward and into the woods. "Kokichi?" He cried. "Come closer, you're almost there." Was the reply he got, but he still didn't see him.

"Kokichi can you not mess around right now, where-" Shuichi stopped dead in the middle of his sentence and his tracks. He saw two glowing eyes staring at him, one a golden yellow color and the other, a mythical purple. Shuichi was like a deer caught in headlights with fear and astonishment. He didn't know what to do, and contemplated running away from the beast and waking up in his bed at home safe from all this chaos knowing it was all just a bad dream. Then the dragon cooed to Shuichi, "Come closer, my beloved; believe me, I won't bite."

So that's it so far :) I hope you enjoyed this excerpt and like mentioned prior PLEASE feel free to comment your thoughts/criticisms or drop a question in my ask box. Thank you good citizens of Tumblr for allowing me to be myself, and sharing my interests with y'all :) Stay tuned for more Shuichi x Kokichi content

Thank you once again for your time <3