Fanfiction Lounge

Fortunately, my mother isn't completely like that, though as of late it's sometimes hard to tell - for my age, I do know that I am a very skilled writer, so sometimes I have to ask her if she's actually impressed with my work or whether it's just another "generic parental comment". She tells the truth for the most part. |D

I don't know what my mother thinks of my writing since she can only read basic English. xD She just goes on and on about when she was a kid, she had this journal where she would write stories. She just says, "Oh yes, you got that from me, not your dad," when it comes to writing, drawing, and me playing the flute. As long as she doesn't suddenly go on saying, "Drawing/writing/playing your flute is a waste of time blah blah blah," I'm happy. :3

What do you think about ratings on fics?

I don't really attention to them since, like many people have said, they may be really inaccurate or mistakes. However, if I see a fic that has gotten a good number of ratings, I'll click on the thread and browse to see if it's anything I would like to read. If it's one or two ratings, it could be some random person or a friend of the author's, but if it has like fifteen, there has to be something that's attracting people, right?

- Kat

Ninja Caterpie said:

...there are parents like that?

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Apparently there was an advert floating around the net a few months back on a site that gave unbiased reviews on your writing, unlike your mom(which was their way of advertising). I actually prefer kind of a mixed attitude towards parental reviewing where you encourage your children, but subtly point out mistakes just so you don't turn them away from writing entirely.

Astinus said:

Yeah, there are. My biological mother is like that, where no matter what it was that I wrote in my younger self-insert Sue-character bad-grammar days, it was the best thing ever!

Some parents just don't want to be truthful to their children, or they just really don't know how to be blunt when it comes to some things. My biological mother? No clue about anything to do with writing, so it's not like she could actually give good advice.

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Is it just me, or did you use your biological mother twice in two seemingly different contexts? It's currently 12:13 at night so I might not be reading this properly, but it just seems odd to me.

Giratina ♀ said:

Fortunately, my mother isn't completely like that, though as of late it's sometimes hard to tell - for my age, I do know that I am a very skilled writer, so sometimes I have to ask her if she's actually impressed with my work or whether it's just another "generic parental comment". She tells the truth for the most part. |D

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Well, my mother on the other hand actually kind of adapted as I grew older. As in, if I wrote something creative in my younger days, she'd praise me and maybe show her friends or something. Nowadays, my mother is kind enough to point out logical mistakes in my non-fiction work so I'm happy with that. :3

Mizan de la Plume Kuro said:

Is it just me, or did you use your biological mother twice in two seemingly different contexts? It's currently 12:13 at night so I might not be reading this properly, but it just seems odd to me.

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It's just Astinus's bizarre family dynamics.

I'm talking about the same person in my previous post. I don't know where you got confused, since I'm currently suffering from a kind of low blood sugar and am in some pain.

Oh right, I forgot. ._.

I think I might've gotten confused at that part where you said your mother complimented your writing and the fact that your mother couldn't really comment on your writing.

So yeah...
On the other hand, ouch. Hope you get well soon. I once had a low blood pressure level from a lack of something, but apart from feeling really tired, I don't think I felt pain. Actually, I 'm not even sure how this correlates to your problem anymore...

Hmm, dude, just post it in the main forum. Create a new thread here and post it there. (b")b

Oh, thought this was the thread to post it in. Sorry!

I'm not asking for screen names, I'm just curios as to how many regulars of the FFL have a Skype account?

I don't but I do have a rarely used MSN. xD

Aside from that,
EDIT:
How do you treat people when you review? Friendly, serious, or straight to the point?

Mizan de la Plume Kuro said:

I think I might've gotten confused at that part where you said your mother complimented your writing and the fact that your mother couldn't really comment on your writing.

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Redstar said:

Yeah, nice mentality there. >_>

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It's kind of like what Elite Overlord Sabre said. I'm the only writer in my family, and I wanted to get advice that would help me grow as a writer. Telling me that my story with no good plot, bad characters, and horrible grammar was "better than any published book in the world" isn't going to help me grow in the ways I needed. It raised my ego until I learned better. But it didn't help me.

So compliments that aren't helpful in the least to help me grow isn't exactly what I would call "good advice".

It's just me being truthful when I say that my mother couldn't give me advice on how to be a writer. I don't know why that makes me some sort of evil person when I know that someone can't help me with what I need to do. It would be like me taking the advice about my job from someone who has no idea at all what I'm doing when I have a fully trained person I can ask who can help me improve.

How do you treat people when you review? Friendly, serious, or straight to the point?

I'm more of a 'straight to the point' kind of reviewer, but I try to be as friendly as possible in my reviews. Sometimes I'll throw in a joke for good measure. xD

How do you treat people when you review? Friendly, serious, or straight to the point?
Mostly straight to the point. I try to be friendly, but sometimes I think I come out too blunt and harsh.

And I'm kind of surprised that most people here seem to show their family and friends their fanfiction. Even the thought of showing anyone I know in real life my stories makes me wince. When I'm forced to show my parents stories for school, they always tell me how great it is and embarrass the hell out at me as I fidget in front of them (which is why I now omit telling them of any of that type of homework). The only thing they know of my fanfiction is that I'm writing it and I get snippy whenever they interrupt me when I'm writing.

Mizan de la Plume Kuro said:

I don't but I do have a rarely used MSN. xD

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The reason I am asking about the Skype: Solovino and I where talking about it the other day when the FFL came up, I got the idea that maybe we should see how many people here have an account and would be willing to attend a "Conference Call" of sorts, basically a chat room with voice.

IDK it sounded like a good idea at the time. (I personally think it would be hilarious.)

How do you treat people when you review? Friendly, serious, or straight to the point?


Friendly, but to the point. I don't necessarily sugar coat it, but I'm also not as cold as I've seen some people. I try to be nice about pointing the mistakes out.

Redstar said:

Telling your kid that they suck and pointing out everything that's wrong isn't going to entice them into continuing working. Legitimate criticism comes later. My mom did the same thing, but when I was old enough she started telling me what issues there was in my work.

In any case, saying no one but those that know of writing can give good advice is rather ignorant, considering the vast majority of people that buy books and read don't know how to write any better than most that get published. The key difference is they know what they like to read and aren't blinded by the technical details.

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1
Please don't change the color of your font, it makes it hella hard to read when using a dark theme. (You too LeSabre)

2
Do you seriously have to argue with everything?

Please don't change the color of your font, it makes it hella hard to read when using a dark theme. (You too LeSabre)

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Buoysel, while I was exploring the Edit Options, I noticed an option that read 'Ignore Post Formatting', so maybe that can help?

And I kind of agree with Redstar, though it really depends how old a kid is. I mean, you can't really criticize a young kid's work because, as Redstar said, they'd probably won't be able to handle it and have problems rising above it. The trick is finding a happy medium between praise and encouraging the kid to do better. Though, with teens, you can probably go all out, as long as you're polite, give praise at the end to uplift their mood, and tell them how to improve.

Redstar said:

1.) I can change the color of my font if I like, but I really don't see what the problem is because my font's color is black... IE: The board's basic setting. >_>

2.) I'm not arguing, I'm discussing. I didn't agree with what she said, so what else was I supposed to do, ignore it? Then I'd be bored for lack of discussion, and miss out on the chance of finding I may have misconstrued what she was saying. If there was no conflict we'd have nothing to talk about.

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I'll take that as a no >.>