I got a couple of interesting questions over the last week, which I wanted to take some time to respond to in detail:
anonymous asked:
How can an online community give the kind of constructive criticism that writers give writers? It’s too late after the story has been posted.
Hold on, slow this down a bit, you’ve got a whole bunch of assumptions rolled up in this question that I don’t necessarily agree with, that I want to parse out before we go any further. Here are the big ones:
1. I assume that when you use the term “online communities” here, you’re talking about story collections like the NCMC, CYOC, and the like, but here’s the thing–I’m not necessarily convinced that these sorts of communities are the best place for writers to receive “““““Constructive Criticism””””” (see number two) at all. These sorts of collections ought to be designed to deliver stories to readers first and foremost. This isn’t to say that writers don’t need a place to get feedback; merely that sites which are focused primarily on readers’ needs are never going to be able to prioritize writer feedback in the first place.
2. Ugh…. “““““Constructive Criticism””””” is a pair of words I’ve given up using. I too, in the past was an avid defender of constructive feedback, but the last writing group I was a member of demonstrated to me that what we tend to think of as constructive is actually some of the least helpful criticism writers can receive. But first, what is constructive criticism, for those who aren’t familiar with the term? In general, it means that critics in a writing group ought to focus on ways the story could have been better, and minimize feedback about what the story does badly. This sounds nice, sure, but the reasons we want to focus on “““““constructive””””” comments are not because they are inherently better feedback, but because so called negative or destructive feedback tends to “hurt peoples’ feelings.” It’s true that no writer wants to be told that their story is a piece of shit. But the fact is, sometimes you write stories that are pieces of shit (fuck knows I have entire folders of them). Part of becoming a better writer is about taste. Its about knowing when the core of a story works and when it doesn’t. If one has to treat every story as though it is inherently redeemable, then suddenly nothing a writer produces can actually be bad by necessity. What good does that serve? If I write something bad, the most important feedback I could receive from someone would be telling me to scrap it and start over. This, however, isn’t at all “““““constructive””””” and I know many, many critics who would go through all sorts of contortions to avoid saying anything like that to a writer, and that’s just a shame.
3. Leapfrogging off of that, writer’s don’t give very good criticism for the reasons above. Critics give good criticism (or rather, good critics give good criticism). I am not someone who thinks that, in order to critique something, you have to be versed in that particular art–that is, I hate hearing someone say, “What do you even know? Have you even written a story before?” Criticism is an art in and of itself. You don’t have to be a writer in order to know what a good story is–think about it, if that were true, then literally *every* story would be critically successful, because they would all be crafted by writers, who necessarily know what good stories are by virtue of being writers. It’s nothing but a circular defense of ego. The best criticism I’ve gotten has come from readers who have never written anything. Often, the most useless feedback comes from writers hoping I will turn around and compliment their work in return. Of course, this isn’t to say someone can’t be both a good writer *and also* a good critic, simply that such a creature is relatively rare, and even then, their skill as a critic has little to do with their skill as a writer.
4. Is it really too late after a story is posted? When is a story ever finished, anyway? I’ve written the same story numerous times, all in different forms, whether it be City of Bears or Pigtown, and I doubt I will ever actually be finished, and the criticism I received after each attempt generally fueled the direction for future versions. It is true that criticism can only ever be received and given after a work is “posted”, “published” or “finished”, but if the assumption above is correct, that would mean that all criticism necessarily arrives too late to be of any use, which wouldn’t make much sense unless you think of criticism as some sort of intervention–as the attempt to guide a writer’s fingers as they are in the process of writing, as some kind of divine guidance. If that’s your conception of criticism, I’d suggest you turn to religion. Criticism is hindsight, “should have done,” and “will do in the future.” It isn’t something that, if applied like a balm, will make a story magically better if applied at the right time. But even then, stories are never finished–though writers at some point have to be finished with the stories they write. We give up on them–they never force us to stop.
So, with those four assumptions interrogated, why should I bother answering this question? Because, at the heart of it, it is a really, really good question. Dispensing with the problems above, we’re essentially left with, “How can we form an online community which is designed to encourage and nurture writing?” I don’t really have an answer to this question, as good as it is, but I can point to some things it would have to have. For one thing, it would have to have a system for giving feedback, though not necessarily ratings (which are only really useful for an audience) and also not necessarily open ended comment fields (which are prime feeding for trolls). It would have to allow for stories to be edited, extended, rewritten, erased, and co-authored. It would have to attract people who are less interested in passive consuption of content, and more interested in giving criticism. Perhaps most important, it would have to have a place for people to post pieces of criticism (i.e. reviews, commentary, etc.) and give that sort of content prominence along with stories themselves. In fact, the sort of site which might be most helpful for writers might not be designed for writers themselves–it will actually be designed for critics. That, of course, is only a broad sketch, but does demonstrate the problems involved, and the amount of work and thought that would have to go into such a design. It also should show that no existing website (that I know of) is up to the task.
anonymous asked:
If cyoc, ncmc and mcstories added ratings for a) quality of writing and b) quality of story wouldn’t that be adding more restrictions to the type of stories posted?
A few points of clarification. First, when I offered up the suggestion of those two categories, that was referring only to the NCMC, not to those other two sites. Second, I was advocating for a replacement of categories, rather than an addition. That is, instead of all eight or something dominant categories (those across the top of the page) which are in some cases vague and overlapping (what, exactly, is the difference between ‘hypnosis’ and ‘mind control’?) or under used (when’s the last time there was a ‘statue/robot’ story written anyway?) it would make more sense to streamline the number and type of categories. I suggested those two you mentioned because those are, I think, what a lot of the audience at the NCMC cares about, that is, “is the story well constructed?” and “is it written well enough that the story can be enjoyed without grammar/spelling getting in the way?” This is not to say that these are things I myself necessarily care about, of course, but given the audience of the NCMC, I think it would be appreciated.
Alright, now onto the bigger issue, the question of restrictions. I don’t think restrictions are bad things. If someone wants to make a site where the only stories allowed are those featuring father/son incest, or those involving revenge fantasies, or any other possible restrictions you might imagine, then that’s all fine and good. That said, restrictions are simply one component of a larger topic we might call “community design,” that is, the various tools the architect of a site provides to users that control what content people can create for the site and what sorts of communication is allowed between individuals. No site or community can avoid this question of what sorts of interactions it wants to enable and what sorts it wants to hinder
(and keep in mind much of what I say here applies not only to online communities by real life ones as well). For example, by hindering any sort of communication with the moderator, the NCMC effectively structures itself in a dictatorial fashion (again, not necessarily a “bad” choice, but it is what it is). Enabling the audience to give ratings and comments allows that audience to select out and discourage the kinds of stories it wants to see as well, which means that we can even have two different kinds of restrictions on content–explicit and emergent. Explicit restrictions are those built into the site by the architect, like the “ban” on copyrighted characters. Emergent restrictions are enforced through social standards–if something is downvoted, that means the audience doesn’t want to see that anymore. Neither of these restrictions can really be avoided, in the grand scheme of things, because in order to generate a particular kind of content, a community must necessarily try and exclude the kinds of content it doesn’t want to see.
All that said, my general stance is that sites like this ought to try to restrict content less, and curate content more. That is, rather than trying to keep out content the community doesn’t want, it should instead create good design which helps readers find the content they want and avoid content they don’t want to see without the site having to ban the content in question. The CYOC does a better job at this, in my opinion, especially with their new search engine and the recent upgrades to the interactive system, which allow readers to find content they want, while avoiding the content they don’t want to see. It isn’t perfect of course, but no community ever will be. You either have to over-restrict and cut away content you don’t want to see from the community entirely, or you have to under restrict and live with the fact that you’ll be seeing stuff you don’t want to see. Good curation can ease the issues of under restriction, but takes more work. I hope that clarifies things somewhat.
Bracken's Corner 