InsaneJournal

WRITETALK: Participation Policy Or Comment Conduct or [insert alliterative phrase of your own choice

“Writetalk” is a series of posts in which I post new, rewritten chapters of AST and point out my reasoning behind what I’ve changed, and ask for input and criticism. Beta by consensus? Writing in public? Actually, writing in public kinda sorta almost fits. If you just want to read the story, do that. If you just want the meta, do that. Both is cool; neither is cool.

What I’d love to get:

• spelling corrections, word corrections, etc
• inconsistencies and stuff that don’t make sense
• what you think there should be more of/less of, or what you think is balanced about the part the post is abou

Why I’d love to get it:

• there’s only so much I or my close fan friends that regularly or semi-regularly take a look at my fic can catch before I post it
• since I don’t want to repost A Surreal Tale immediately, I’m not going to get much crit back until I’ve already put my foot in it. And I never get much crit by posting fic blind anyway, no matter how many times I say it is welcome. I thought maybe changing the context of things might help :P
• I have been in fandom for about two years now, and so far, the random comments I’ve gotten from reviewers and so on have been far more helpful for refining my ideas than my fruitless search for a beta.

What you should know straight up:

• naturally, I’ll credit (and if I’m feeling extra thankful, fic :D) for the help I get
• I am not obliged to change anything
• don’t be surprised if what you wanted changed doesn’t happen exactly how you might have wished
• there ARE some things I’m not willing to change without a fight, or without drastic thought
• there are some things I cannot change, either because I don’t know how or because I genuinely can’t. If you’re new to this take a look at my (short!) writing manifesto to get an idea, and feel free to make mistakes when you comment the first time. No one (read = me) will shun you over it unless it is obvious that you are trying to be hurtful or offensive.
• I really don’t want this to be a debate over preferences like slash as opposed to het or woobie!Draco as opposed to, I dunno, super-manly!Severus. If you find that the argument that is taking place is over preferences like that, please take it back to your journal. Why? I find that such debates don’t really go anywhere, is all. People prefer what they prefer, and are unlikely to stop preferring that just because other poeple’s preferences don’t include theirs.
• as to the above, I have an example for your reference below:

commenter1: I don’t think X should be dating Y. It just doesn’t feel right to me.

That, to me, looks like a preferences deal. While I won’t hate you for hating on (or just disliking on or feeling uncomfortable on) X and Y’s loving, you probably also don’t want to hang around waiting for me to write it out of the story if I haven’t already showed an inclination towards doing so. Just sayin’. However:

commenter2: I don’t think X should be dating Y without some more clarification. So far, neither of them have said even ONE THING about liking each other— where’s the setup? It feels like it came out of the blue for me.

That is a genuine hangup. It is crit I will probably feel upset about for a while if I feel like I’ve done a good job with the setup, THEN go back and look sideways at the fic and see if that setup isn’t all in my head just in case. It is crit that will get RESULTS.

Naturally, if you have any concerns about making a comment, IM me or email me or leave me a comment at this screened comment entry, and we’ll talk about it. I don’t pretend that I’m perfect and will never be offended at anything; I do say with a reasonable amount of certainty that I will be able to at least talk to you about it civilly. And that at the very least, we will agree to disagree.

Last Word:

This is an experiment, and my responses and posts and most of the comments you’ll read (crosses fingers and hopes there WILL be comments) will likely reflect that. Feel free to comment and tell me if I have put the word “hammer” in this post where it Should Not Be, or if I really want to clarify some point, or if there is a ready-made comm I can actually positutely do this in fo’ realz ALREADY. I’m likely going to go continue looking for one as soon as I post this, but I’m not holding my breath.

If you would much rather talk in private but feel odd about emailing or IMing me, go hither to this screened comment entry and put forth thine comments, and lo, we shall converse in great privity and, erm. I think I used a couple of those wrong :-/