Questioning my writing skills.

[LLJade]

Hey, this is to anyone who's read fan fic. I got a review on one of them (a non Astro Boy) one and well, this is what it said:

Hey! You suck! "Chance Encounters" is perhaps the worst short story I have ever read, and your fanfiction is no better. Please quit school. You will never succeed as a writer, and your major in English is truly ironic (meaning you are an imbecile). Or, better yet, just die. Yes, die please. I think that would suit us all!

That review has pretty much upset me to the point of tears. I know damn well who wrote it, but I want to know if everyone here shares that opinion. Do you think my story is good has everyone just been saying that to make me feel better?

That story he talked about btw, "Chance Encounters" that was my fault in a way because it was SUPPOSED to be bad. My professor doesn't like mysteries (which is what I write) and told me to write one that didn't have a dead body in it. I wanted to see how she woudl react when I didn't go into it and low and behold, she loved it. Still though, for those who have read my Astro Boy fic, do you think my writing skills are that bad?

[fafner]

I must say I did not take the time to read it
That was not because I found it bad, but because I was busy at the time I got the link, and I did not find the first lines interresting enough to interrupt my busy work

Now I am stuck with some maintenance in my computer and have plenty of time, and will have a look and give you some feedback

Here is the link to the fan fic, I think you forget to remind it
http://www.mediaminer.org/fanfic/view_st.php/62554/

[LLJade]

No, I didn't foget to put it there. I'm just worried now of what other people think of my writing. I do hope to become an actual writer someday, but now I'm scared because of that review on an old fan fic. I mean, I didn't expected to get published right away, but now I'm wondering if maybe I don't get published at all.


Lauren

[fafner]

Now that I had time to read some of your writing and think about all this, it seems evident to me that the person who posted the review either intended to hurt someone "just for fun", or simply can't tell apart what he/she likes or dislikes from what is objectively good or bad. If something is bad, there are ways to tell it so it doesn't hurt the author and eventually help him/her to improve. Obviously, the review is only intended to hurt, or maybe the author of the review thinks you really suck and all hope is lost, but according to what I read, it *can't* be so bad
Clearly you can safely ignore a single destructive review as this one. Questions arise if *all* the reviews say the same thing :wacko:

I will cite a proverb I think comes from the StarWars universe, it must be a Correllian one:

If someone says you have a monkey face, just ignore him. If a second person say you have a monkey face, maybe you should worry. If all persons says so, it is time to look yourself into a mirror.

Well, I'm citing from memory, it may not exactly be accurate, but the idea is here.

[DrFrag]

I couldn't find Chance Encounters (is it online?) so I can only comment on your Astro fanfic. And I have to say it's f***ing excellent. That person just has an axe to grind because there's no way their destructive criticism even makes sense. I mean, "please quit school" and "just die"???? That's not a review, that's a personal attack. Notice the lack of any objective reference to your writing itself?
I stand by my online review of 10/10 overall for Eternal Bond, with one minor point. Since I was your proof reader, it might be a bit narcissistic of me that I gave you 10/10 for spelling and grammer. But putting 9/10 would be kind of like me saying I hadn't done my best to check it. (For what it's worth, the first draft of my second novel caused MS Word to report it didn't have enough memory to continue to display spelling and grammar errors. I have NEVER seen this before, and I have half a gig of RAM! :wacko: )

Your writing is excellent, but if you think I'm reading it through Astroboy-boot-coloured glasses, ask for someone at http://www.nanowrimo.org to review it for you. It's certainly not a fanfic based forum, but there are a few people in the Sci-Fi forum who wrote fanfics and there's no shortage of people willing to review other people's works.

[LLJade]

Thanks, that means alot to me. You have no idea how much I appricate that.

And to clear things up, Chance Encounters, isn't on the net. It's a stupid story I wrote for my Fiction Writing professor last year. When I went to meet with her, she told he she didn't want me to write any more stories with dead bodies in it (that's my original stuff, horror and mystery) and to "write what I know". So to please her, I wrote this stupid story called Chance Encouters, which I made BAD ON PURPOSE because I wanted to see how she would react.

She loved it. <_<

However, since then, I've been harrassed by this guy who won't shut up about that one story! I didn't think he'd go so far as to stalk me on the net to trash me about my work.

[jeffbert]

I am not an English major, but did take a few literature courses in college. I will add my comments:

Notwithstanding the typos in the first chapter, I found it rather engaging. The text immediately captures the reader's interest. Because you begin in the middle of the action, I find myself looking for a reason for the fight, or at least, some clues as to how it started. Not that the lack thereof is a fault, but that it rather seems a good thing. Novels that begin peacably risk losing the reader's attention. When I first tried reading MS's Frankenstein, I found it too boring, and looked elsewhere for a compelling novel.

Your description of Livian entering her apartment is also quite vivid. I agree with Doc that that person has an ax to grind. As he or she has not offered any examples of wherein lies the fault of your writing, that alone should tell you to ignore the critique.

I have noted a few errors. Please forgive my noting these publicly, rather than in a private message. Note that there are other typos, but I make due with these.

"I saw we both take him down."

"The dude with the green hate fumbled back to his feet"

"The laughed at him"

"each standing back to back with each other, still holding on to their companion's hand"

Ok, so common usage and PC may be at issue here, but subject verb agreement is too. My rule is to use a spellchecker, but never forget to reread my work to ensure correctness.


My critique is that you do damage to Livian's peaceful character. :angry: It is the same thing as Futurama did to Santa Claus. Xmas will never be the same!

[LLJade]

I'm surprised I missed those. I'll have to fix them and put the chapter back up. Can you send me the others in a PM. And I'm guessing you don't like the change too much, do ya? I was afraid I would get some 80's fans pissed.

Lauren

[fafner]

Originally posted by LLJade@Jun 5 2004, 03:01 AM
So to please her, I wrote this stupid story called Chance Encouters, which I made BAD ON PURPOSE because I wanted to see how she would react.

She loved it. <_<

However, since then, I've been harrassed by this guy who won't shut up about that one story! I didn't think he'd go so far as to stalk me on the net to trash me about my work.

Make something bad on purpose to displease someone and you actually please him/her; I don't know if it should be taken with upset or pride

Anyway, about this person... If he/she is harrassing you about that, it's clearly because he/she wants to hurt you, nothing more. You should just ignore him/her, don't give him/her the attention he/she does not deserve. People hurting others need "feedback". If the victim does not react, what use have they to hurt people?
If he/she e-mails you, trash the mail and put a filter on his/her address.
If he/she contacts you by messenger, block him/her.
If he/she sends you private messages on a board (like this one), throw him/her away to the admins :wahah:
If he/she tries to despise publicly your work, chances are that his/her audience will go and actually see your work. If you are afraid that they could judge you with "Chance Encounters", just gather several of your works with any instance of "Chance Encounters" (if there is), or put links to your other works.

Don't let the sucker take over your life :angry:

[LLJade]

Well, when I wrote that stupid "Chance Encounters" stories (which shall never go up on the net), I did it because I wanted to please the teacher, but at the same time see how she would react when I was not writing in my usual genre.

As for the ignoring thing, I did do that while I was in school, even after he tried to hit me with his car. What scares me about this is that I never told anyone on campus my account name for the site my stories are on. I don't know how in the world he found out. I'm afraid he might be some kind of hacker.... and a very psychologically disturbed person at that if he went though all the trouble just to find my account.