Fuck Nazism in providing constructive criticism.

[Psychic Robot]

/rage

I'm in a writing class, and we're supposed to provide "snark- and attitude-free" criticism on the various pieces students have submitted. I thought I was doing a pretty good job of this, but I wasn't. In fact, I got marked down for the following comment:

"Right now, you're suffering from Robert Jordan syndrome: Characters Show Up. You have all these interesting characters, but nothing happens with them."

So fuck you, Professor Douchebag, and fuck you, Untalented Hack Bitch Writer.

See, we're supposed to be writing creative fiction. This girl's piece was neither creative nor entirely fictional. In fact, it was just her D&D group. The assignment was to write a short story, 8-20 pages. Well, this shitstain write like 7.5 pages with 1.5" margins, so she fucking failed right then. But, to make matters worse, nothing happened in the plot.

Her main character was pregnant and was apparently the only one who could SLAY TEH DARGON because that's what YE OLDE PROPHESY said. (Fuckwit cliché burns.) What's best of all is that she was outside the dragon's den. And then she didn't actually fight the dragon. Instead, she had vague, poorly-written memories about other characters (at least six of them)...and I'm pretty sure she described them as their classes in 3e (as in, she called a ranger a ranger). At the end, she entered the dragon's lair to fight the dragon...and that was the end of the story. No big fight. No climax. No nothing.

And I was fucking nice to that piece. I pretended that it had redeeming qualities. I pretended that she wasn't a lazy, fatass hack who wrote about her fucking D&D group with a shitty plot that's been done to death by people whose writing wasn't a bunch of bullfuck. (Thank you, LAGO.)

So fuck that Nazi bullshit. This next time, I'm writing crap. Originally, I intended my writing to help the writer by pointing out what was wrong with the piece. Now I'm only going to write nice things that will be useless because they're not true.

/rage

[CatharzGodfoot]

That's some hate. Probably justified, but for this class you might want to avoid criticizing anything at all ever.

[Maxus]

That is exactly why I have never taken a creative writing course. Mineralogy required us to write and critique the writing of classmates for scientific papers on god-fucking-damn minerals, and I had to be very, very careful about how I worded things. I couldn't say something like,

"My internal copy editor has laughed his green sunvisor off and is choking to death on his cigar. You have no idea of how to approach formal language, but damned if you're not trying so hard you're dying; the problem is you're trying so hard that you're being convoluted and butchering the language."

Instead, I had to think and then say something such as...

Also, the phrasing sometimes goes past 'formal' and into 'convoluted,' but it's not nearly as bad as something I've seen. I've marked excess words, try reading this out loud with the words and then without them. You generally provide solid details, but the section on 'uses' needs to be fattened up a little. Google "industrial uses" and [mineral's name] and see what comes up.

Sometimes, it's *hard* to be nice.

And, PR, I can tell you that from the class's point of view, you shouldn't have put in the Robert Jordan crack and then give a trope name. Saying there's characters but no action probably would have been fine, as well as saying that you were disappointed that you got interested in the characters (lie a bit if you have to) and were anticipating a good fight, but you got left hanging.

That's how I'd phrase it, anyway. I think it's called 'diplomacy'.

[Koumei]

On the one hand: it surprises you to be told you're an insulting jerk?

On the other: it does sound like you filed the edges off that review, and they really do expect you to be Very Very Nice. I suggest lying.

[JonSetanta]

School is not a place for creativity.

In fact, it's rarely a place for learning. You give them money and waste years, they give you a degree or certificate that might mean something later.

PR, probably best that you vented anywhere other than on the girl's paper. That kind of (at time, subconscious) outburst will indeed get you a penalty or eviction on your part. Or just a pissy professor for a semester. Ahem. Not as that last bit was on a matter of experience, no.

[Surgo]

It sounds to me like you were marked down for more than what you posted, and you're not posting some other stuff you were marked down for. More context, please.

[Draco_Argentum]

"snark- and attitude-free"

What part of the word syndrome says non-snarky to you? Its constantly used for snarky remarks.

[ckafrica]

Well the fact that you'd get marked down for expressing your opinion is lame. People you can't handle criticism of their work shouldn't be writers. But on the other hand your criticism in your internet writing, even at it's most restrained, reverberates the opinion of "you suck giant moose cock with aggravated herpes, and like it".

If you are going to make an serious attempt at engaging people who expect absolutely no hostile undertones (let alone overtones) than you should not say things you even dream would be offensive. Because if you imagine it could possibly be offensive, than it most certainly is to someone.

Welcome to the BS PC world we live in.

[Elennsar]

Yeah, because it is impossible to be informative, critical, and polite at the same time.

Bullshit.

[Neeeek]

Sort of reminds me of when I took a creative writing class about 10 years ago.

We all had these long stories we were suppose to write, and then spent the rest of the class going over them. One day, this girl wrote something about a clown. It took everything in my being and a hangover to resist telling her "This is the worst pile of crap I've ever written. It has no depth of character, no plot, no worthwhile language and is generally a waste of the time I spent reading it. It is by far the worst thing anyone in the class has written. Stop writing. You just plain suck at it."

The sad thing is, I did say a less...vitriolic... version of that in class, and she seemed to think she'd done something good.

Sigh.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

I have trouble helping others revise papers. And I have trouble with other people revising mine, for one reason: Most of the people I have classes with are morons. Their papers tend to be dull and full of weasel-words, and they tend to make idiotic comments about mine.

For example, I wrote a 1500 word essay that used a lot of scientific terms for various tarantulas. One person who revised me paper said I used too many abbreviations. After interrogating her for about five minutes, I realized she meant to say contractions. (I have problems with not using contractions. Except so far, all my English teachers have said they don't care if you use them, while all my non-English teachers said they'll take off points for them.)

[Bigode]

It took everything in my being and a hangover to resist telling her "This is the worst pile of crap I've ever written. It has no depth of character, no plot, no worthwhile language and is generally a waste of the time I spent reading it. It is by far the worst thing anyone in the class has written. Stop writing. You just plain suck at it."

The sad thing is, I did say a less...vitriolic... version of that in class, and she seemed to think she'd done something good.

Some specific words, pretty please?

[Judging__Eagle]

Man, if someone tried to pull that shit in any of my classes, everyone would rip into them.

If you do anything hackneyed or half-assed, you tend to know that your work sucks.

On the other hand, that's mostly because we're shown day in and day out what we're expected to do.

With writing.... there's a lot of well, bad writing out there.

In my own creative writing material, I'm actually really fond of first person stream-of-thought writing. The reader sees what the character sees as the character sees, and reads the characters current thoughts.

Deducing where the character is, or what they're doing is sometimes lost on people.

Usually, I'm not always concrete on the setting, but I know what images I want to describe and what thoughts I want the character to have.

However, whether the main character is a welsh archer pissing and shitting on his arrows that are shoved in the ground before showering english or roman troops with their primitive bio-weapons, or some guy with his fellow tribesmen in a post-apocalyptic setting using a bow and arrow to ambush raiders that use heavy armour and firearms is up to the reader. Of course, sometimes the story goes sideways, and the reader isn't sure if the character is actually crazy, or really does have a bloodthirsty animal spirit riding on their shoulder. I like throwing people for a loop though.

Also... that "story" that you're describing PR... damn, I've have 1st level fights that sound more exciting than that.


DM: You guys see 12 kobolds, 80 feet away. They have crossbows and aim them at you.
Bugbear: Uh... there's 6 of us.
Monk: Wheeeee! I'm gonna charge them!
Rogue: This is gonna suck.
Wizard (me): Hmmm, I run forward.
DM: Okay.
Me: Then cast Obscuring Mist. They're all LOS'd.
DM: @_@ What?
Rest of the party: Time to melee these fools.
Me:

[Neeeek]

Some specific words, pretty please?

I really don't remember. It was a long, long time ago.

[Psychic Robot]

Well the fact that you'd get marked down for expressing your opinion is lame. People you can't handle criticism of their work shouldn't be writers. But on the other hand your criticism in your internet writing, even at it's most restrained, reverberates the opinion of "you suck giant moose cock with aggravated herpes, and like it".

There's a vast difference between what I would say to a real person and what I'd say to the Pathfinder failcrew. I seriously thought I was being nice in my critique, as I happen to like Robert Jordan, despite the fifty thousand characters that show up, talker for a little bit, and do absolutely nothing to further the plot.

[Elennsar]

It sure doesn't sound like it, though. It sounds like "you suck like Jordan".

If you just put "You have interesting characters, but nothing happens with them. I was hoping that there would be ____." or something would express the same point without coming off as attacking.

[Surgo]

There's a vast difference between what I would say to a real person and what I'd say to the Pathfinder failcrew. I seriously thought I was being nice in my critique, as I happen to like Robert Jordan, despite the fifty thousand characters that show up, talker for a little bit, and do absolutely nothing to further the plot.

That's fine and all, but if I was grading your critique I would mark it down too. Not because it was harsh (was that even the reason you were marked down?) but because inserting text like "Robert Jordan syndrome" is completely meaningless to anyone who doesn't regularly read a relatively obscure website and has no real business being there.

[Crissa]

I'm with Surgo. That was totally snarky.

Also, ckafrica, this has nothing to do with 'PC'. PC would be if he made some sort of racial joke, or he commented about how lame the characters were.

-Crissa

[the_taken]

I guess I can understand how some of these bad writers were thinking. When I was, like 10, I wrote what you could have described Freespace fanfiction. It focused on the pilots of two fighter squadrons and what was going on in the hanger bay. I give it to my english teacher to rate, and he came back with questions like "why is there a war?" "what roles are these characters performing?", "what message are you trying to give to the reader?", completely ignoring the quality of the language. I was confused.

Can't remember what my point was...

[angelfromanotherpin]

"what message are you trying to give to the reader?"

Oh man, I had one writing teacher who was convinced that sci-fi could not be good unless it was also some kind of social commentary. That made me laugh really hard.

[Absentminded_Wizard]

That thinking is hilarious to anyone whose first exposure to sci-fi was Star Wars.

Edit: And it's particularly bad in the case of the taken's elementary school teacher. Kids in particular should be allowed to wallow in vacuous fun (although I'm not sure how much fun conversations in the hangar are).

[Crissa]

The war itself may be unimportant to the story, but the message is important.

Not just social message, but implied message. To Kill a Mockingbird may annoy me with its hammer-over-my-headness, but that it showed something important to our past and how people should and shouldn't deal with it was... Well, important. Not to my life, ultimately, but important when it was written.

Words that merely flow well are missing a vital part of what the medium can be.

-Crissa

[Roy]

So... one of the Paizils is PR's professor?

[CatharzGodfoot]

Edit: And it's particularly bad in the case of the taken's elementary school teacher. Kids in particular should be allowed to wallow in vacuous fun (although I'm not sure how much fun conversations in the hangar are).

Apparently writing vacuous fiction involving your friends dying in terrible ways in important for building social bonds in elementary school.


Violence in Boys' Writing Considered Beneficial

[Neeeek]

That thinking is hilarious to anyone whose first exposure to sci-fi was Star Wars.

Are you under the mistaken impression that Star Wars wasn't social commentary?