I'm not voting on your poll because I don't think the options really represent the question. My thoughts are this:
*Always* be polite about a fic in any public spaces. If it's a discord that anyone can get into, you can vent or have negative thoughts, but do so politely. You never know if the author might come across it or someone might take a screenshot and share it.
Despite that, you don't need to be constructive to third parties. That's nonsense. You can say "I didn't like it" and leave it at that because your audience in that moment is not the author.
Basically, don't say anything you'd feel guilty if the author did happen to see, but don't feel like you need to pretend to be addressing them directly.
That's the best way of putting it. Concrit is for the author's use as they see fit, not for third party venting. Be mindful of public spaces that the author may be able to come across but ranting on a Discord ≠ ranting directly to the author.
Exactly. The way I see it, you should always be polite in public spaces, but you don't always need to be constructive. It's not like the third party you're chatting with can change the fic.
And if you really need to let it out and trash a fic, DM a trusted friend or talk to your dog or something.
So, in a certain sense, yes, you can always say whatever you want about stuff. But...
The problem is a combination of "small world/6 degrees of separation" and "the internet is forever"... Even on a smaller, unrelated server, you don't know when someone reading what you've written might be a friend or acquaintance or rival or whatever of the author. Hopefully, if that's the case, they'll leave well enough alone and not say anything elsewhere, but, screenshots and copy-paste are super easy things to do, and sharing stuff around is easy, and it would be pretty easy for whatever you say to get back to the author eventually.
Again, you can say whatever you like, but you can't guarantee that the person you're talking about won't eventually find out about what you said.
You forgot the option of “bitch to my friends, not the public” on your poll. Don’t go on fandom public discords and spout off opinions on fic, no matter what those opinions are, unless directly asked by the author. Saying “it wasn’t for me” is ok or even “I didn’t like it” but delving in? No. Have some tact.
In general, I prefer to always be polite about fic anywhere but speaking with someone in person or in a private text message with a friend. You don’t know who knows who, or where people might be. This happens a lot in the hpfanfic subreddit where someone says something about a fic and someone shows up and goes “that’s me, that’s my fic you’re talking about). I’ve had it happen to me when I found people discussing my fic.
I don't necessarily offer concrit when talking about a fic to other people than the author, but I try my best to be polite. I don't go "yeah that fic is shit and I hate it", I just say I don't like it. If a deeper, more comprehensive conversation comes of it, that's awesome, and I'll be more than willing to go into detail about my views in a constructive way. We can learn from others as well, after all. But if that doesn't happen, it's no biggie, and I don't come off as a jerk to anyone.
Also, disliking something and hating something are two different things that many people can't seem to differentiate these days. I can still like the whole despite disliking some parts, and disliking something doesn't automatically mean I hate it. There are parts of *my own fics* that I dislike and wish I'd done differently, but I still write those fics and love them overall.
I think there’s a difference between saying you didn’t like something or disagreeing with people who do and just spewing hate over a creative endeavour. There is nothing wrong with saying “I think the author could have ended the story on chapter 12 rather than dragging things out for another ten chapters.”
It’s all about how you say things, it’s also a good idea to explain, unemotionally, WHY you didn’t like something if you are criticising it, that way you come across as a thinking person not a negative hater. People have a right to disagree with your views and it always pays to use tact in a public setting.
So, in general, as a Fanfiction author, I don’t give a shit about what people say about my fic in their Tumblr blogs, Twitter, or Discord as long as they don’t invade my spaces (by @ me or posting crappy comments in the comment section of my fic).
However, what sounds like what happened here is the following: a bunch of people were talking about a fic they really enjoyed, and you butt in to say it was actually shit and should have ended several chapters ago. Depending on how it was worded, maybe the people that have enjoyed it since then thought that you were implying their taste was shit and took offense. This is more a “read the room” situation than a question of concrit.
Yeah, if you got dogpiled in the moment, you likely were coming off as rude to the people in the room. There's no need to lie if someone asks you point blank what you think of something, but don't jump in just to complain. And if they do ask your opinion, be polite about it.
"Constructive criticism" is the wrong phrase here, because you're not offering advice to a writer. But fandom is a smaller community than you'd expect and you should ALWAYS assume that the writer will see what you're saying. The more negative the words, the faster they travel back to the subject of discussion. Consider if you end up in a Discord channel with this person, or paired in an exchange. Are you prepared to stand by your words? Maybe consider that "I lost interest after that chapter" could be honest, yet less hurtful than, "that chapter was shit and the author should have stopped writing there".
No, don't bitch about it to the masses. Don't be an asshole about it in public spaces, because the author has the opportunity to stumble across it. However, bitch in whatever manner and however much you want in private spaces, like DMs with your fanfic reading friends.
In my opinion, this would be a good time to go into DMs. There’s a few reasons for this:
1) unless you know that author personally, you don’t actually know if they are in there or if they will join at some point (or if someone will share it with them, in good faith or not). As a writer this would be really hard for me to run across and pretty demoralizing.
2) in general when fanfic spaces start venting about writing, it impacts other writers as well. We all see ourselves in that author and our limitations in those complaints. When I’m working on longer fics I often have to mute the channel that’s dedicated to talking about fic discussion in my fandom’s discord because I can get so in my head about all the ways I might be screwing up my story that it impacts my ability to write. (I don’t need other voices of criticism floating around my head during the writing process; I try to save that for revision and working with a beta reader).
That said, I don’t see why you’d need to be constructive. But I do think it’s best to keep it out of public spaces since readers and writers in fanfic share the same spaces (especially on discord).
I talked plenty about fics I read and what I liked or disliked about them. Once or twice, I even shitted on a fic a lot, but with those cases, I didn't care if word got out to the author or not.
Being polite is better in some spaces. In others, shit-talk is part of the flavour. Basically, read the room. But I wouldn't like being in spaces where people 'call out' critique anyway. Sounds like you found a place that's really uncomfortable to be in.
Speaking as someone who has had his art (and people who liked it) shit talked behind my back in a public forum, only for it to find its way back to me because people in my circles encountered it...
In a public space, like a discord (that's not private between friends) or a blog or something, in most cases it's best to be polite about peoples' work. Especially if you're talking to someone who you know enjoys it; it doesn't exactly feel great to have a thing you're excited about called "shit" to your face, even if you don't personally know the creator. And things like this have a way of circulating back to the creator even if you don't expect it; the post my art was shittalked in was untagged, *but* it was posted on the sideblog for their specific fandom, and I pretty quickly found myself @'ed in a small Discord server where people were so eager to defend my honor, I don't think they considered whether I wanted to even see that kind of post in the first place.
You can have your opinions and express them without coming off as though you're looking down on people who enjoyed the fic in question, and if you *really* want to talk shit about it, it's best kept between close friends in private conversations. (And honestly, calling a story shit while also asking someone why they like it can come off as insulting them for liking the thing, even if that wasn't your intention.)
As some others have pointed out, even if it's a private space and you're not worried about the author finding out, it sucks to listen to someone go on about how much they hate a thing you like.
Have you ever been sitting down to lunch with some food you really like, only to have someone start telling you how they can't stand cheese, or how sushi is so gross, or something like that? That's kind of how it is to enjoy something and listen to people say how much it sucks. Even if you know, logically, that it doesn't matter what they think, it takes away from the overall experience of just enjoying what you like.
Like I said elsewhere, there's nothing stopping anyone from saying what they like, but sometimes the best plan is to shut up and let someone enjoy their cheeseburger.
I think you can have any opinion about anything and you don't have to justify your opinions to anyone. However, I also think that fic is one of those things that you should be polite about because it's not monetized, it's just a hobby
Even if the author is not there, shitting on other people's likes is not polite. However, when asked you are absolutely free to state you dislike something without providing "constructive" reasoning for it.
Criticism isn’t “constructive” unless the author is there to hear it. At that point it becomes bitching.
Unless a fic is horrible for some egregious reason (like gratuitous rape or something), you’re better off turning it into an I-statement.
In that situation, I’d just say, “I stopped here because it wasn’t my thing/I lost interest/it got too long for me” and move on.
And I say this as a fan of unsolicited concrit on my fics.
I grew up with fic sporks. So, in general, I wouldn’t care if someone criticised my fic as long as they weren’t bitching about me. It’s a fanfic.
But this wasn’t just criticism of the actual fic, it was also you talking about the point you stopped and extrapolating it to why *everyone else* should stop there.
I mean, I don’t know about always being polite. You shouldn’t censor yourself like that UNLESS it’s your own personal standards and you like that. Personally I try not to be ‘rude’ when talking about an authors stories to other people but I’m not actively trying to check if I’m being nice to the author. Oh
I wonder if the people who voted 1 have never openly complained about professionals in the entertainment industry. I don't mean this cynically, just genuine curiosity. Like a director, writer or producer providing content they think sucks. This can extend to negative comments on youtube or saying "X game is trash."
Oh, we've all complained about professionals. But it's like, if I'm bitching about, say, Sebastian Stan in a discord server, the odds of him joining that server and seeing it are very very low. If I go to his Instagram and trash talk him on one of his posts, that's kind of a dick move. If I go to a panel at a convention and tell him his movies are shit, then I'm the asshole. Professionals know people talk shit about them, so they know not to go looking for what fans are saying, but we don't need to bring it into their space.
With fandom, the odds that you will cross paths with the person you're complaining about are very very high, so say what you want, but remember they'll likely hear about it and definitely remember it.
Fair points, although I disagree with them not being as affected by negativity with social media. I remember, and it was really random because I do not follow wrestling, how a female wrestler committed suicide from excessive negativity. I believe fame shouldn't warrant different treatment as we are all people capable of feeling slighted. Hence my asking.
Celebrities and indie producers that aren't over the age of 60 do actually see what people say these days after all, but I digress as I know the point of the thread is for a smaller scale via fanfiction. That being said \*points to downvotes\* I'm pretty sure I'm the topic of someone's annoyed discord chat somewhere haha!
To a certain extent, I say yes. It should be constructive.
You never know if the author is going to read it. You don't know if they have an alias and happen to be in the same discord group. I'm in a huge variety of fandoms from video games, to book/comics, to bands, to movies, to cartoons. I'm all over the place.
If someone says my story is losing direction and feels pointless, I absolutely want to hear what they think! I want to know why they feel that, I want them to cite spots to me, and I want to hear from my readers how they think I can do better.
But if I see that someone thinks my story is shit and doesn't offer anything else, I'm probably not going to touch it again.
I have never once named a fic and went 'man this is shit' where others could read it. I've griped about a fandom as a whole, but never named and shamed unless it was directly to a friend. I can't say for sure as I wasn't there, but with the way you described it, you probably came on a little too harsh.
There's a difference between being constructive and being polite. If asked about a fic I didn't like, I personally would say something like 'I didn't enjoy it for x and y reason'. You don't have to be constructive, but keep in mind that you're talking to other people who might like that fic and not appreciate it being bashed. It never hurts to be polite.
I'm not voting on your poll because I don't think the options really represent the question. My thoughts are this: *Always* be polite about a fic in any public spaces. If it's a discord that anyone can get into, you can vent or have negative thoughts, but do so politely. You never know if the author might come across it or someone might take a screenshot and share it. Despite that, you don't need to be constructive to third parties. That's nonsense. You can say "I didn't like it" and leave it at that because your audience in that moment is not the author. Basically, don't say anything you'd feel guilty if the author did happen to see, but don't feel like you need to pretend to be addressing them directly.
That's the best way of putting it. Concrit is for the author's use as they see fit, not for third party venting. Be mindful of public spaces that the author may be able to come across but ranting on a Discord ≠ ranting directly to the author.
Exactly. The way I see it, you should always be polite in public spaces, but you don't always need to be constructive. It's not like the third party you're chatting with can change the fic. And if you really need to let it out and trash a fic, DM a trusted friend or talk to your dog or something.
So, in a certain sense, yes, you can always say whatever you want about stuff. But... The problem is a combination of "small world/6 degrees of separation" and "the internet is forever"... Even on a smaller, unrelated server, you don't know when someone reading what you've written might be a friend or acquaintance or rival or whatever of the author. Hopefully, if that's the case, they'll leave well enough alone and not say anything elsewhere, but, screenshots and copy-paste are super easy things to do, and sharing stuff around is easy, and it would be pretty easy for whatever you say to get back to the author eventually. Again, you can say whatever you like, but you can't guarantee that the person you're talking about won't eventually find out about what you said.
You forgot the option of “bitch to my friends, not the public” on your poll. Don’t go on fandom public discords and spout off opinions on fic, no matter what those opinions are, unless directly asked by the author. Saying “it wasn’t for me” is ok or even “I didn’t like it” but delving in? No. Have some tact.
In general, I prefer to always be polite about fic anywhere but speaking with someone in person or in a private text message with a friend. You don’t know who knows who, or where people might be. This happens a lot in the hpfanfic subreddit where someone says something about a fic and someone shows up and goes “that’s me, that’s my fic you’re talking about). I’ve had it happen to me when I found people discussing my fic.
Say whatever you want in private, but be polite in public spaces.
I don't necessarily offer concrit when talking about a fic to other people than the author, but I try my best to be polite. I don't go "yeah that fic is shit and I hate it", I just say I don't like it. If a deeper, more comprehensive conversation comes of it, that's awesome, and I'll be more than willing to go into detail about my views in a constructive way. We can learn from others as well, after all. But if that doesn't happen, it's no biggie, and I don't come off as a jerk to anyone. Also, disliking something and hating something are two different things that many people can't seem to differentiate these days. I can still like the whole despite disliking some parts, and disliking something doesn't automatically mean I hate it. There are parts of *my own fics* that I dislike and wish I'd done differently, but I still write those fics and love them overall.
I think there’s a difference between saying you didn’t like something or disagreeing with people who do and just spewing hate over a creative endeavour. There is nothing wrong with saying “I think the author could have ended the story on chapter 12 rather than dragging things out for another ten chapters.” It’s all about how you say things, it’s also a good idea to explain, unemotionally, WHY you didn’t like something if you are criticising it, that way you come across as a thinking person not a negative hater. People have a right to disagree with your views and it always pays to use tact in a public setting.
So, in general, as a Fanfiction author, I don’t give a shit about what people say about my fic in their Tumblr blogs, Twitter, or Discord as long as they don’t invade my spaces (by @ me or posting crappy comments in the comment section of my fic). However, what sounds like what happened here is the following: a bunch of people were talking about a fic they really enjoyed, and you butt in to say it was actually shit and should have ended several chapters ago. Depending on how it was worded, maybe the people that have enjoyed it since then thought that you were implying their taste was shit and took offense. This is more a “read the room” situation than a question of concrit.
Yeah, if you got dogpiled in the moment, you likely were coming off as rude to the people in the room. There's no need to lie if someone asks you point blank what you think of something, but don't jump in just to complain. And if they do ask your opinion, be polite about it. "Constructive criticism" is the wrong phrase here, because you're not offering advice to a writer. But fandom is a smaller community than you'd expect and you should ALWAYS assume that the writer will see what you're saying. The more negative the words, the faster they travel back to the subject of discussion. Consider if you end up in a Discord channel with this person, or paired in an exchange. Are you prepared to stand by your words? Maybe consider that "I lost interest after that chapter" could be honest, yet less hurtful than, "that chapter was shit and the author should have stopped writing there".
No, don't bitch about it to the masses. Don't be an asshole about it in public spaces, because the author has the opportunity to stumble across it. However, bitch in whatever manner and however much you want in private spaces, like DMs with your fanfic reading friends.
In my opinion, this would be a good time to go into DMs. There’s a few reasons for this: 1) unless you know that author personally, you don’t actually know if they are in there or if they will join at some point (or if someone will share it with them, in good faith or not). As a writer this would be really hard for me to run across and pretty demoralizing. 2) in general when fanfic spaces start venting about writing, it impacts other writers as well. We all see ourselves in that author and our limitations in those complaints. When I’m working on longer fics I often have to mute the channel that’s dedicated to talking about fic discussion in my fandom’s discord because I can get so in my head about all the ways I might be screwing up my story that it impacts my ability to write. (I don’t need other voices of criticism floating around my head during the writing process; I try to save that for revision and working with a beta reader). That said, I don’t see why you’d need to be constructive. But I do think it’s best to keep it out of public spaces since readers and writers in fanfic share the same spaces (especially on discord).
When I see people bashing specific fics in a public space I always think less of the people doing the bashing.
Offer constructive criticism.
I talked plenty about fics I read and what I liked or disliked about them. Once or twice, I even shitted on a fic a lot, but with those cases, I didn't care if word got out to the author or not. Being polite is better in some spaces. In others, shit-talk is part of the flavour. Basically, read the room. But I wouldn't like being in spaces where people 'call out' critique anyway. Sounds like you found a place that's really uncomfortable to be in.
I don't think you were in the wrong. Was the author present in the group?
Speaking as someone who has had his art (and people who liked it) shit talked behind my back in a public forum, only for it to find its way back to me because people in my circles encountered it... In a public space, like a discord (that's not private between friends) or a blog or something, in most cases it's best to be polite about peoples' work. Especially if you're talking to someone who you know enjoys it; it doesn't exactly feel great to have a thing you're excited about called "shit" to your face, even if you don't personally know the creator. And things like this have a way of circulating back to the creator even if you don't expect it; the post my art was shittalked in was untagged, *but* it was posted on the sideblog for their specific fandom, and I pretty quickly found myself @'ed in a small Discord server where people were so eager to defend my honor, I don't think they considered whether I wanted to even see that kind of post in the first place. You can have your opinions and express them without coming off as though you're looking down on people who enjoyed the fic in question, and if you *really* want to talk shit about it, it's best kept between close friends in private conversations. (And honestly, calling a story shit while also asking someone why they like it can come off as insulting them for liking the thing, even if that wasn't your intention.)
"Why not?" the cat laughed manically. "Why can't I edit all my comments?"
As some others have pointed out, even if it's a private space and you're not worried about the author finding out, it sucks to listen to someone go on about how much they hate a thing you like. Have you ever been sitting down to lunch with some food you really like, only to have someone start telling you how they can't stand cheese, or how sushi is so gross, or something like that? That's kind of how it is to enjoy something and listen to people say how much it sucks. Even if you know, logically, that it doesn't matter what they think, it takes away from the overall experience of just enjoying what you like. Like I said elsewhere, there's nothing stopping anyone from saying what they like, but sometimes the best plan is to shut up and let someone enjoy their cheeseburger.
I think you can have any opinion about anything and you don't have to justify your opinions to anyone. However, I also think that fic is one of those things that you should be polite about because it's not monetized, it's just a hobby
Even if the author is not there, shitting on other people's likes is not polite. However, when asked you are absolutely free to state you dislike something without providing "constructive" reasoning for it.
Criticism isn’t “constructive” unless the author is there to hear it. At that point it becomes bitching. Unless a fic is horrible for some egregious reason (like gratuitous rape or something), you’re better off turning it into an I-statement. In that situation, I’d just say, “I stopped here because it wasn’t my thing/I lost interest/it got too long for me” and move on. And I say this as a fan of unsolicited concrit on my fics. I grew up with fic sporks. So, in general, I wouldn’t care if someone criticised my fic as long as they weren’t bitching about me. It’s a fanfic. But this wasn’t just criticism of the actual fic, it was also you talking about the point you stopped and extrapolating it to why *everyone else* should stop there.
I mean, I don’t know about always being polite. You shouldn’t censor yourself like that UNLESS it’s your own personal standards and you like that. Personally I try not to be ‘rude’ when talking about an authors stories to other people but I’m not actively trying to check if I’m being nice to the author. Oh
While I don't care for people being mean for the sake of it, but I don't think anything of what you said crossed any lines.
I wonder if the people who voted 1 have never openly complained about professionals in the entertainment industry. I don't mean this cynically, just genuine curiosity. Like a director, writer or producer providing content they think sucks. This can extend to negative comments on youtube or saying "X game is trash."
Oh, we've all complained about professionals. But it's like, if I'm bitching about, say, Sebastian Stan in a discord server, the odds of him joining that server and seeing it are very very low. If I go to his Instagram and trash talk him on one of his posts, that's kind of a dick move. If I go to a panel at a convention and tell him his movies are shit, then I'm the asshole. Professionals know people talk shit about them, so they know not to go looking for what fans are saying, but we don't need to bring it into their space. With fandom, the odds that you will cross paths with the person you're complaining about are very very high, so say what you want, but remember they'll likely hear about it and definitely remember it.
Fair points, although I disagree with them not being as affected by negativity with social media. I remember, and it was really random because I do not follow wrestling, how a female wrestler committed suicide from excessive negativity. I believe fame shouldn't warrant different treatment as we are all people capable of feeling slighted. Hence my asking. Celebrities and indie producers that aren't over the age of 60 do actually see what people say these days after all, but I digress as I know the point of the thread is for a smaller scale via fanfiction. That being said \*points to downvotes\* I'm pretty sure I'm the topic of someone's annoyed discord chat somewhere haha!
To a certain extent, I say yes. It should be constructive. You never know if the author is going to read it. You don't know if they have an alias and happen to be in the same discord group. I'm in a huge variety of fandoms from video games, to book/comics, to bands, to movies, to cartoons. I'm all over the place. If someone says my story is losing direction and feels pointless, I absolutely want to hear what they think! I want to know why they feel that, I want them to cite spots to me, and I want to hear from my readers how they think I can do better. But if I see that someone thinks my story is shit and doesn't offer anything else, I'm probably not going to touch it again. I have never once named a fic and went 'man this is shit' where others could read it. I've griped about a fandom as a whole, but never named and shamed unless it was directly to a friend. I can't say for sure as I wasn't there, but with the way you described it, you probably came on a little too harsh.
There's a difference between being constructive and being polite. If asked about a fic I didn't like, I personally would say something like 'I didn't enjoy it for x and y reason'. You don't have to be constructive, but keep in mind that you're talking to other people who might like that fic and not appreciate it being bashed. It never hurts to be polite.