Cam's Open Letter to Doctor Who Fanfic Writers, part the third

[misscam]

Oi! Doctor Who Fanfic Writers (and writers in general, really)! A moment of your time, please - yes, once again. (Letter one and two, if you missed the previous fun.)

Okay, I've ranted before about various things I'd rather not have in Doctor Who fanfics - and now I shall rant about what I'd rather not have in author/reviewer behaviour. Because I am an opinionated meanie, clearly. But consider these helpful advice not to piss me off at least, eh?

"Ooooh, love it! Say, I think you will also love my fic, "The Amazingly Poetic Doctor", available on my LJ..." No. Don't pimp your own fic in a review for someone else's. It looks tacky, is tacky, and makes your review just look like lipservice to get some reviews on your own. No. Leave a review, then if you absoloutely must have the author's opinion on your fic, contact he or she in some other way.

"This isn't fanfic, this is better than fanfic!" Until you get paid by the people who own the work you're writing stuff based on, you're writing fanfic by its very definition. Now shut it, I'm trying to stop laughing at you.

"Speeling doesnt mattar!" Yes, it does. For one thing, the brain reads by recognising the shape of the word, and if you've misspelt a word, the brain can take longer to sort it out. It can even be so hard to figure out you'll throw readers out of the story. For the other, language is the tool a writer is dependent on. Leaving your tool out to rust in rain and snow and neglect ain't exactly going to fill people with confidence that you're constructing a magnificent construction, you get what I'm saying. Now love on the language a bit and at very least hit spellcheck. Oooh, it makes me all tingly when you do.

Author's Notes: Here's how I felt today. I woke up with tingling toes and realised it was the muse speaking to me... Gee, that's fascinating. But I'm here to read fanfic, not Days of Author Amazing's Life. Don't make your author's notes long, epic tales of things barely related to the fic at all. If people are curious to get to know you, they'll come to your LJ or strike up a conversation. Tell them about the tingling then, yeah?

"Well, not everyone can writing as great as Author Amazing!" Barf. So, you love Author Amazing. I'm sure Author Amazing loves you too, but don't let that love rob you of every whiff of tact there, buster. That kind of thing just makes others wonder if you're really a sockpuppet of Author Amazing, not to mention it's not really that helpful. We all have different styles, and we can't all be the same. Find more tactful ways of saying it could be better, or be blunt without the Author Amazing fangirling. If you really want to mention a story you think the author could learn from, personal contact can be splendid. Or at least bring up other examples from Author Fab and Author Splendid too, so you seem more like someone wanting to help and less like the Author Amazing High Pimper.

"Hehehehe someone pointed out the TARDIS actually isn't pink but I cant be bothered fixing it hehehehe." Oh dear. Look, little laughing chipmunk, when someone points out a factual flaw in your fic, it's generally advised to fix it. Oooh, the wonderful technology called 'editing'. Because chances are if someone spotted it, others will too. It distracts from the story. Some facts are facts. Get them right.

"I'm the BEST. Best, best, best." Oi. Get your ego in check there. Or get your lack-of-self-esteem-compensation in check there, as the case might be. Proclaiming yourself the best doesn't only annoy other authors, it can always be called into question by how you define 'best'. Maybe you write excellent characterisation, but your plotting could use some work. Maybe your plots are utterly brilliant, but the readers don't always feel emotionally connected to the characters. Maybe you've written what is hailed as the best story of the fandom, but another author has more consistently amazing stories. It's okay to feel you've become a good writer. It's okay to feel flattered readers proclaim your fics to be bloody brilliant. It's also okay to embrace a little humility and modesty and realise other authors can be great too *and act like it*.

"Ur just jealous!" You're just being defensive. So, someone critisised your baby. Bummer. But hey, this is what happens when you post online. Not everyone will love it, and they're free to say so as much as they want. Doesn't mean they're jealous, doesn't mean they want to ruin your day, doesn't mean your fic is utterly crap either. But it can be the case that they have a point or two. Maybe your Canon characters were acting a little unlike they would in the series. Maybe you were a little unclear about the fate of of your villain. Maybe you did rush to finish it. Maybe you can do better next time. Granted, not every piece of concrit will always be helpful as tastes do vary, but actually doing something with the concrit you get rather than just get defensive will get you places. If nothing else, your reviewers will love you more for not being a twat. Yay.

Author Amazing: I'm so mean to the Doctor and Rose in this fic! Doctor: You are! Rose: I hate you. No, not you, Doctor! Sigh. The character(s)/author dialogues prefacing or ending a fic, what joy. I'm sure it was cute in your head and all and maybe some found it funny the first time, but - it's not that cute and it's not that funny. Seriously.

Helloooo, has your summary gone missing? Rating? What Doctor it is? Hellooooo? Sometimes, I like a little more then the title to go on before I decide to read or not, mmkay?

"I suck at summaries but plz just read!" No. This gives me Omnious Vibes for the rest of the fic. If you can't be bothered back an effort to find even a sentence to tell me at least some of what your fic is about, I will suspect you don't bother to make much of an effort for the rest of it either. Yes, I know, summaries can be a pain. Been there, cursed at that screen. But try, yeah? Strive to un-suck. You're certainly not going to improve unless you try.

(A/N: I'm sticking an author's note in the middle of the fanfic to tell you I have a pink sweater just like Rose's.) Don't. Just don't. I don't care, I'm trying to read the bloody thing and you're just annoying me enough to make me stop.

"You didn't like my fic! Let me lob a totally backhanded insult about your writing ability at you!" Classy there. I bet you're just the cutest little snot of the kindergarten. (In other words, embrace your inner maturity already, sheesh!)

"I didn't win the fanfic award I was nominated for, so it must've been rigged! Cheating! Cheating!" Whoa, back up there, Mulder. Not everything is a conspiracy. Tastes will vary (see Eurosong for painful examples), readers will forget to vote, other fics will be good. Fanfic awards tend to bring the wank, but you needn't add to it.

"You have the Doctor also washing his rufflable hair with vanilla-scented shampoo! YOU RIPPED ME OFF!" Oi, Caps Lock outrage. Okay, plagiarism does happen and when it does, it's a pain in the ass and a drag to deal with. But coincidences also happen. Sometimes, two people have similar ideas. If you feel a fic is being a little too similar, get some second opinions. Don't cry plagiarist right away, as that will colour everyone else's opinion on the matter from that point on. The more specific it is in similarities, the more likely it is to be less than a conincidence, but there isn't always a sure guide. Also, helps to check your facts. If the fic you accuse of plagiarism turns out to have been posted years before yours, the last laugh is not on you, but about you. (But in cases of clear copy & paste, show no mercy. EX-TERM-INATE!)

"Hey, this Grissom/Sara tale of lustful love using bug metaphores I wrote would be perfect as a Doctor/Rose!" You don't say. But Grissom isn't quite the Doctor, and Rose certainly doesn't sound like Sara, so just replacing character names, not so brilliant. Rewriting fics can be educational, painful and amusing, but come clean on it being a rewrite or readers can feel quite led on. (And while at it, if you're rewriting a fic other than your own, get permission first or the Caps Lock outrage will justifiably land on you.)

"UR SICK! You paired Rose with Mickey! She belongs with Nine! Also, Ten sucks. Bash, bash, bash!" Oh, do shut up, yapping gnat. Don't insult a fic merely for writing another pairing than your Holy OTP. Amazingly, not everyone likes the same pairings as you! The world is in fact not a Hive Ship. And don't write a fic soley to bash threats to your Holy OTP, either. (In fact, don't bash them at all. Your opinion of character E is not neccesarily the Canon characters' opinions of character E, shockingly enough.) You will just insult people who do like that character (and might still enjoy the Holy OTP, O Horror!) and look immature. Oh wait, it *is* immature.

(As per usual, take this with a grain of Cam-salt. Heck, I can even name a few of those I've done myself. Tsk, tsk.)

Comments

[briasoleil.livejournal.com]

I've been wondering quite a bit recently if there was a missive, suggesting that spelling is optional, that I might have missed. Because I've seen a lot of dreadful spelling of late. And nearly everywhere. By adults and teens alike. It's frightening.

Why doesn't everyone else have dictionary lust and grammar geekiness?

[misscam.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah. kaltia pointed me towards the gem of someone proclaiming this earlier: Also what if you said that to a british person, there is not right way to speel stuff over there!

...

English, now without standardized spelling. It's like bizarro world.

[velocityofsound.livejournal.com]

You so wouldn't complain if the author/character dialogue read as:

Nine: Cam, I want to shag you.
Ten: No, no, no. I get to shag Cam now, as I am you, only obviously more attractive.
Nine: Is that a crack about my ears? You know what they say about...
Cam: Boys, boys. I've got room for two.
Nine: (shrugs) Well, okay.
Ten: (also shrugs) Nothing I haven't seen before.
Nine: Thanks for reminding me. And no, you can't have it back.
Cam: Less talking, more shagging, please?
Nine and Ten: (stop talking, start with the nekkidness)

I love reading the summaries on the CSI page though. Oh man.
This fic is like totally retarded, right because everyone is in middle school and an Oompa Loompa? But it gets ZOMG angsty when Sarah is rapped. PLZ R&R!

Ah yes, where does one begin with those gems?

*snuggles your evil*

[mercuriazs.livejournal.com]

See, that sounds like Sara Sidle got served by Eminem.

[misscam.livejournal.com]

Yes, I would. I would consider it a cruel tease into what I can never have, woe, wail, wah!

Mmm, Nine and Ten both...

This fic is like totally retarded, right because everyone is in middle school and an Oompa Loompa? But it gets ZOMG angsty when Sarah is rapped. PLZ R&R!

Please reboot and retry is right. Do tell, is the Oompa Loompa in on the rapping fun, and does it go bling?

*snuggles your evil right back*

[drakyndra.livejournal.com]

Methinks I know where certain of these critisms have come from. ;)

But overall: Word. Wordity wordity word, with a slice of word on the side.

[misscam.livejournal.com]

No way, I thought I was so clever in disguising them! Clearly, my jealousy have made fail at disguising. Woe.

[dune-drd.livejournal.com]

I got a hunch, too.

*sigh*

I want a wedding dress encrusted with diamonds.... so romatic

*runs off to a corner and pukes*

[b2wm.livejournal.com]

Just "word" to everything.

Always good to have one of these rants come to light when I feel very, very tempted to bash somebody's OTP. Just because it makes utterly no sense to me and the fic's rather short on logic doesn't mean that there's no reasonable excuse to get a canonically straight guy together with a male he'd never meet in canon...

Dr. Who wins the (other fandom's) ship wars again!

[misscam.livejournal.com]

Heh. Well, you can always go after the flaw in the fics itself. My real grievance is with people who don't as such read the fic and just bash it because it has the pairing it has, you know?

There is a difference between saying "I didn't really find character A and B to be as they are in Canon and thus found the pairing rather unbelievable" and going "Ew! A/B ship, you sicko!", you know?

But yay for Who win.

[aelie-baby.livejournal.com]

"Well, not everyone can writing as great as Author Amazing!"

*snort* That sounds familiar.

Excellent rant, I must say. :P

[misscam.livejournal.com]

Heh. You'd be amazed how many places I've seen that, though. It's amazing how many times people just forget tact.

Thank you :P

[cantralian.livejournal.com]

Wow. My mind boggles. Do people really write these things in reviews? I mean, seriously, who writes a review requesting the author of the story being reviewed to go and read the reviewer's story? That's just...stoopid.

And speeling? Speeling definitely matters, and just - wow. Wow to all of them, really. Actually, now that I think of it, I have seen some reviews left on fics which purported to be 'adorably hilarious' interactions between characters and reviewer, and which were actually quite frightening. And stoopid.

Hmmmm.

Is it wrong that I now want to write a fic where the TARDIS ends up pink? Possibly involving giggling chipmunks?

[drakyndra.livejournal.com]

Actually, the TARDIS was (temporarily) painted pink in one of the Classic Series episodes. The Happiness Patrol, apparently.

Look, proof!

[vixenmage.livejournal.com]

*snerk* Gah. Cam letters totallee rox.

Hmmm. I just remembered that I have at least three fics in which (A/N: There are little things like this.) Thank Eru for the PPC to screech and yank and pull such habits out. *attempts to remember to delete those eventually* Actually... the fics themselves sucked...

*thanks Eru they weren't in Cam's fandoms*

[misscam.livejournal.com]

Heh. No worries. We all have sins of our fanfic pasts - I certainly do. Horrid ones. But if we can laugh and learn from them, they served a purpose.

Course, now you made me all curious. *peeks*

[kahva.livejournal.com]

"Yapping gnat." I love that, and will have to remember it. :) Word to the rant - is it bad that I now have an image of you rushing out of the TARDIS on a ride-able version of K-9, armed with your mighty Whack The Badficcers on the Head Lutefisk of Common Sense? With a shiny silver Dalek as your sidekick, and Nine and Ten as your lovers, anxiously awaiting your return as you vanquish badfic from here to Galifrey?

And just for you, just to make you all tingly, I clicked the, "Check spelling and preview," option on this post. ;)

[misscam.livejournal.com]

*tingles*

Heh, I am totally down with that mental image. Then again, I'm down with almost anything involving Lutefisk Smacking and Doctor-Lusting.

[calixa.livejournal.com]

Helloooo, has your summary gone missing? Rating? What Doctor it is? Hellooooo?

What, don't you love mystery fic too? The thrill of discovering you're actually reading Jackie/Ten/Dalek smut? And you're three-quarters through when the sexing starts so its too late to turn back now? The train has wrecked, and the SHOW MUST GO ON???

[drakyndra.livejournal.com]

...Just for that, someone has to write Jackie/Ten/Dalek. And then plug it unannounced all over fandom.

It would be hilarious.

[iristigerlily.livejournal.com]

Amen!

[siraj.livejournal.com]

"I didn't win the fanfic award I was nominated for, so it must've been rigged! Cheating! Cheating!" Whoa, back up there, Mulder.

*snerks* Good one! Nice X-Files reference too!

Also, regarding the "You ripped me off" bit, I've got a writer acquaintance on FF.Net that actually started a story and discovered a couple years after she started that someone else had a similar story they'd started about a year before she did. No "You ripped me off" screeching, but it was interesting to find out.

[misscam.livejournal.com]

Heh, yeah, it does happen. I detest plagiarism, but I think it's very possible to get overly paranoid about it sometimes as well. Caution is advisable at times.

[boz4pm.livejournal.com]

*hands you a big, fat, gold-plated WORD with bells on*

I always worry my A/N on the Penny stuff get too long. *is paranoid about stuff like that*

[misscam.livejournal.com]

*pats* Well, at least you'll never beat the length of LQ's infamous author's note.

[belegcuthalion.livejournal.com]

*applauds*

You should ask the Mouth of Sauron - or his "Doctor Who"-equivalent - to declaim those rules in the most dramatic tone available.

"I didn't win the fanfic award I was nominated for, so it must've been rigged! Cheating! Cheating!" Whoa, back up there, Mulder. Not everything is a conspiracy. Tastes will vary (see Eurosong for painful examples), readers will forget to vote, other fics will be good. Fanfic awards tend to bring the wank, but you needn't add to it.

Only too true. I'm just a judge for some awards that were bashed last year mercilessly , just because their aim is to reward "excellency". Bah - shocking!

[misscam.livejournal.com]

Maybe The Master would do it...

That wouldn't be the Mithril awards, would it?

[falena]

Some Cam Pearls Of Snarky Wisdom...Thank you. You just made my day.

[misscam.livejournal.com]

:) Why, thank you. Though I didn't sneak in any Berlu snarking, but maybe next time.

[pontisbright.livejournal.com]

*nods* Especially about the spelling. I miss spelling: it was so comforting, you know?

[misscam.livejournal.com]

It made sense. I miss sense. I miss logic, too. *mourns*

[th-esaurus.livejournal.com]

....Yup, I pretty much agree with all that.

[wickedelf.livejournal.com]

Word to all of this, especially one of my pet peeves:
"I suck at summaries but plz just read!"

Argh, if you can't write a summary, why should I think you could write a whole story worth reading? Grrrr.

[bamfer.livejournal.com]

Many of these I've only seen rarely (I probably lead a sheltered Internet existence). But the one I see a lot is:

"I suck at summaries but plz just read!"

That one cracks me up every time. And I won't read that story, every time.

"This isn't fanfic, this is better than fanfic!"

Oh, dear. I think I've actually committed this particular sin, at least once in recent memory. At least obliquely. I think dear cryptile was the victim of my comment. Will take under advisement :)

[misscam.livejournal.com]

Heh, I was thinking of authors saying that about their own stuff, though.

cryptile writes kick-ass stuff, that much is certain.

[everysecondtues.livejournal.com]

I think I'm in love.

No, seriously, friending you now.

[misscam.livejournal.com]

Aww, thanks.

I am a bitch of fandom, yay.