the value of constructive criticism
Aug. 7th, 2020 11:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
leeseokminIf you’re reading welcome to Dia Can’t Shut Up! Today I’ll be talking about constructive criticism since I see a tweet thread floating around kfandom every other month or so and I’m at my threshold for the discourse. I’m going to preface with I think I cover a lot of ground here and even if you’re uninterested in concrit in relation to wanting to improve your craft, at least approach this post through the lens of understanding how to improve on the feedback you give a friend if asked for it. Buckle in for what is going to be 2300 words on constructive criticism.
First of all, it’s important to establish a parameter for this. You should absolutely draw attention to racism and insensitivity in fic. Racism is indisputable, and when I say insensitivity, there needs to be a link to the context of the fic in itself. If I were to write fic set in Korea and misrepresent a cultural event, tell me about it. If I’m writing from the perspective of an Asian-American, however, there’s no need to jump the gun considering that the diaspora experience is different. This is why my post is going to be omitting how to tackle critique on racism/insensitivity, as 1) it deserves it’s own post and not to be shoehorned into this one and 2) it is an extremely nuanced discussion that overlaps with dismantling the actual racism/homophobia/transphobia within ourselves and in fandom and therefore, requires more work from the writer themselves as an individual in our greater collective than a comment pointing this out can do. This leads me to my first point.
WHAT CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM IS NOT
Hereby referred to as concrit, a framework of what concrit is and isn’t is important. What I see as examples to show why unsolicited concrete is bad, the “concrit” in question, is in fact, someone either being nitpicky or as an asshole. The range of nitpicky commenters start at this would be good if x bottomed, who pick at the metaphors or similes we choose to draw, pick at punctuation style (there’s a point here about personal writing style), who point out poor pacing/plot holes/characterization without explaining themselves and slowly tip over into the asshole category. Assholes do the aforementioned on top of sounding rude and entitled, accuse writers of writing into triggering themes a writer was not trying to do, saying what writers can and cannot do in writing their fic and the worst of the lot are the people who do these and have public rating systems. Like boo, you whore! I’m not going to downplay how the entire range can be demotivating, especially to newer writers. The first example can range from annoying to off putting and with the second, even the most thick-skinned writer would be uncomfortable. What these things are not, however, is constructive criticism. In the longterm, calling the above examples concrit does more harm to 1) writers, new and old and 2) the art of critique, points I will be addressing later on.
SO THEN, WHAT IS CONCRIT?
Concrit, by definition, is a method of giving feedback that provides specific, actionable suggestions. The keyword here is specific; what we tend to see in comments most of the time is often vague and subjective with little to no contribution on actual writing improvement. In the context of writing, in particular, concrit comprises the following elements. 1) Concrit requires specificity on a level that draws attention to singular aspects of a work, often with direct quotations. If I say that x’s characterisation in a story is inconsistent, I would highlight an example of a) an action and b) a polarizing action, which leads to: 2) Is this criticism rooted in context? If you are criticizing characterization, is it within the context of the existing characterization of this work and this work only? Was the character’s polarizing action explained by plot decisions between point a, the first action and point b, the polarizing action? If you are criticizing representation, is it within the social fabric established within the world; a fantasy setting is going to have a very different social fabric compared to say, an idolverse setting which even then, differs across countries. 3) An actionable solution must be provided. This last bit is highly reliant on the relationship a writer has with the person offering the criticism. Even within academic level workshops, where crit is insanely harsh, moderators are reliant on consistent grouping in order to build bonds between writers and increase their reciprocity to crit. When you’re close to a writer and are able to explicitly recognize their style, the writer is also much more likely to encourage an actual resolution, such as soliciting how they should improve on the issue raised. If you don’t have a very close relationship with the writer, this part can be addressed by bringing up the stakes of leaving the criticism unresolved, in which the author then has the option to act or to not act, at least in the academic sense. In fandom, this last bit straddles the line between solicited and unsolicited, and the response you get as an individual will differ. Lastly, and most importantly, 4) all of this occurs in a dialogue. In a professional setting, it is very much a consistent, evolving conversation on a work that is in the process of being published.
THE EXISTING PROBLEM WITH CONCRIT
Concrit is very much an involved, engaged process that cannot be simplified into one static comment on an already published work but there are issues with how it’s being treated as of late that can be dissected into the following. 1) There exists a flawed understanding in what concrit is. It is often conflated with the examples I raise in the first point and not what it actually is, as I raise in the second. Also congrats, you just got a very brief, extremely condensed version of something I spend a minimum of 20 hours a week doing in a semester. Real concrit is exhausting, is work, and is an art form. 2) The current platforms fic writers utilize (AO3 comments & CC) are flawed and the closest we come to an “ideal” ecosystem, in this case, is Twitter DMs. I think this one is self-explanatory, as long as “concrit” is one-sided and not part of a dialogue, it’s not concrit at all as far as I’m concerned. 3) People try to offer concrit on published works. This one is something I’m torn on. On a personal level, I’ve definitely taken complete/published works back to the editing board after receiving concrit. The nature of writing to me is that it’s ever-evolving. It’s rare for me, personally, to not want to constantly go back to editing and already published work. But this is not about me, it’s about a broader collective and in that broader collective, I promise that unless this was PWP written drunk and posted at 3 a.m., it has already been read over by either an author astute enough to locate their own issues in their writing or gone through a cycle of people the author trusts with their writing. What you deem as “concrit” is irrelevant to this greater collective. 4) Some of y’all are assholes. No substantive required.
BUT DIA, HOW IS REJECTING CONCRIT HARMFUL?
If you don’t want concrit because you’re doing this for fun and know what the problems in your writing are, that’s great. I think the bigger issue right now is that people look at concrit extremely negatively without having a proper understanding of what it entails and go off on tangents on why unsolicited concrit, which is really just nitpicky assholes on the internet, is bad. This is half of it. The other half of it is the rhetoric that only entirely positive comments will help you become a better writer, and therefore, there is no longer space for concrete in fandom. The fact is that this is not true for all writers. All writers love positive commentary but some of us genuinely want to dig deeper and treat fanfiction as a serious avenue for writing; there are definitely fanfiction authors who have gone into professional publishing using fanfiction as a launchpad and other who are passionate about writing but cannot translate this in real life and therefore use fanfiction as a serious writing outlet. This perceived rejection against concrit harms new and old writers: some of us need an outside set of eyes in order to grow, but there are people telling us that everything is perfect as it stands. In writers who crave constructive criticism but are not getting good constructive criticism, there is a high chance of stagnation in our writing and turning this frustration inwards. The truth is as writers, we’re aware of our issues in writing and intensely self-critical, but good constructive criticism genuinely helps break out of that behavior and identify areas where we need genuine work and areas where we’re already good. Without understanding the core of constructive criticism, we’re moving into an environment where even when a writer solicits concrit, we are unable to give them something workable to improve their writing. This leads to the second bit: beta readers and constructive criticism is inherently tied together. For all intents and purposes, in the early 2000s to 2015, beta readers very much acted like professional editors, engaging in constructive dialogue with a writer about their fic, talking through concerns on plot/pacing/characterization, providing sensitivity reading, understanding the writer’s style and providing spelling and grammar cleanups. But lately, there are very few people who offer that kind of thorough beta reading. It’s also tied into a response that if some people love offering unsolicited concrit, concrit here referring to examples of nitpicky assholes, they should become beta readers. These people should not become beta readers, because there is a fundamental misunderstanding of what concrit entails: their comments cannot always be conflated with genuine concrit. Again, this is fine if you don’t care for it but there are people who do, and one of the cool things about fandom is that it’s always been very self-contained. It’s important that we create an environment that stimulates a resurgence of people willing to offer a service that enriches the whole fic-writing experience. Also, you know, that whole what if you and i were on my google docs at the same time and we were both girls and we kissed. Some people fall in love with their betas! Another thing that this environment creates is a loss of respect for the art of critique, in general. A good example of this was people being disappointed that the Taylor Swift album, Folklore, received an 8.0 rating, which is generous by Pitchfork standards. Equally, there’s a music critique out there who thinks Folklore is a 10.0 and another who thinks it’s a 2.0, and that’s human nature. Critique, unless it’s not grounded in learned expertise, is actually neutral. In the context of fic writers, this means that any solicited concrit (and even some unsolicited concrit) is neutral and you control the response. Which leads to the last bit: so much amazing art (music, painting, dance, writing) has been created as a response to critique. Every time you’re like I am writing about these two characters fucking because they’re married and in love (that’s me, I’m writing that) because you disagree with a tweet that said established relationships are boring (that’s also me), that is an extremely beautiful response to critique that sparks a new facet of creativity. The truth is that art and critique go hand in hand, and the rejection of critique will eventually lead to either a stagnation in writing or in the worse case scenario, a backslide in quality.
COOL! I’M A WRITER, AND I WANT TO INCORPORATE CONCRIT INTO MY WRITING PROCESS.
I genuinely believe it’s unfair to hold fic writers up to the same standards as professionally published writers, or even fandom writers who are in a BA/MFA program. As someone in a BA program myself (and my concentration is poetry so really, I am somewhat of a world apart from fiction writing), it’s unnecessary for your fic to hold up a 5 component novel structure for instance. There’s also an argument to be made that anything under the novella range (17500-40000 words) does not require that kind of structure. Within the context of RPF, other rules that shift are rules of characterization: RPF is written on the premise that those engaging in the fandom have already perceived the persona of the characters that we are writing to, and therefore, RPF writers do not necessarily need to write into existing rules of characterization. In order to self-concrit, or raise specific questions to betas, you need to shift from valuing technical acumen into valuing discussion. Questions such as does x come across? Am I infodumping here? Was the resolution too quick? helps you as a writer reflect. And if you have a beta, any natural question they have is usually a good point of concrit such as why is x reacting to this in a way that doesn’t fall in line with previously established behavior? also fall under concrit. The truth is once you or your beta have questions about a specific moment in your story, and engage in a dialogue and discuss possible actions, you’re engaging in concrit! If both of you have similar understanding of technical expectations in writing, you can also ask questions of each other on this level and really dig into it.
Unsolicited concrit is uncomfortable at best and awful at worst, but the more we shift into this mindset that sets us against it, the more fandom as a whole has to lose. I hope you appreciated this post! This isn’t necessarily 100% comprehensive, but I did try my best to address points I often see in Twitter threads. If you feel there’s something relevant to this that I missed, let me know! If you disagree with any of this and want to talk about it, feel free to send me a DM on Twitter (heads up that my replies won’t be consistent because I’m on a twt break, but I’m willing to discuss thoughts).
First of all, it’s important to establish a parameter for this. You should absolutely draw attention to racism and insensitivity in fic. Racism is indisputable, and when I say insensitivity, there needs to be a link to the context of the fic in itself. If I were to write fic set in Korea and misrepresent a cultural event, tell me about it. If I’m writing from the perspective of an Asian-American, however, there’s no need to jump the gun considering that the diaspora experience is different. This is why my post is going to be omitting how to tackle critique on racism/insensitivity, as 1) it deserves it’s own post and not to be shoehorned into this one and 2) it is an extremely nuanced discussion that overlaps with dismantling the actual racism/homophobia/transphobia within ourselves and in fandom and therefore, requires more work from the writer themselves as an individual in our greater collective than a comment pointing this out can do. This leads me to my first point.
WHAT CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM IS NOT
Hereby referred to as concrit, a framework of what concrit is and isn’t is important. What I see as examples to show why unsolicited concrete is bad, the “concrit” in question, is in fact, someone either being nitpicky or as an asshole. The range of nitpicky commenters start at this would be good if x bottomed, who pick at the metaphors or similes we choose to draw, pick at punctuation style (there’s a point here about personal writing style), who point out poor pacing/plot holes/characterization without explaining themselves and slowly tip over into the asshole category. Assholes do the aforementioned on top of sounding rude and entitled, accuse writers of writing into triggering themes a writer was not trying to do, saying what writers can and cannot do in writing their fic and the worst of the lot are the people who do these and have public rating systems. Like boo, you whore! I’m not going to downplay how the entire range can be demotivating, especially to newer writers. The first example can range from annoying to off putting and with the second, even the most thick-skinned writer would be uncomfortable. What these things are not, however, is constructive criticism. In the longterm, calling the above examples concrit does more harm to 1) writers, new and old and 2) the art of critique, points I will be addressing later on.
SO THEN, WHAT IS CONCRIT?
Concrit, by definition, is a method of giving feedback that provides specific, actionable suggestions. The keyword here is specific; what we tend to see in comments most of the time is often vague and subjective with little to no contribution on actual writing improvement. In the context of writing, in particular, concrit comprises the following elements. 1) Concrit requires specificity on a level that draws attention to singular aspects of a work, often with direct quotations. If I say that x’s characterisation in a story is inconsistent, I would highlight an example of a) an action and b) a polarizing action, which leads to: 2) Is this criticism rooted in context? If you are criticizing characterization, is it within the context of the existing characterization of this work and this work only? Was the character’s polarizing action explained by plot decisions between point a, the first action and point b, the polarizing action? If you are criticizing representation, is it within the social fabric established within the world; a fantasy setting is going to have a very different social fabric compared to say, an idolverse setting which even then, differs across countries. 3) An actionable solution must be provided. This last bit is highly reliant on the relationship a writer has with the person offering the criticism. Even within academic level workshops, where crit is insanely harsh, moderators are reliant on consistent grouping in order to build bonds between writers and increase their reciprocity to crit. When you’re close to a writer and are able to explicitly recognize their style, the writer is also much more likely to encourage an actual resolution, such as soliciting how they should improve on the issue raised. If you don’t have a very close relationship with the writer, this part can be addressed by bringing up the stakes of leaving the criticism unresolved, in which the author then has the option to act or to not act, at least in the academic sense. In fandom, this last bit straddles the line between solicited and unsolicited, and the response you get as an individual will differ. Lastly, and most importantly, 4) all of this occurs in a dialogue. In a professional setting, it is very much a consistent, evolving conversation on a work that is in the process of being published.
THE EXISTING PROBLEM WITH CONCRIT
Concrit is very much an involved, engaged process that cannot be simplified into one static comment on an already published work but there are issues with how it’s being treated as of late that can be dissected into the following. 1) There exists a flawed understanding in what concrit is. It is often conflated with the examples I raise in the first point and not what it actually is, as I raise in the second. Also congrats, you just got a very brief, extremely condensed version of something I spend a minimum of 20 hours a week doing in a semester. Real concrit is exhausting, is work, and is an art form. 2) The current platforms fic writers utilize (AO3 comments & CC) are flawed and the closest we come to an “ideal” ecosystem, in this case, is Twitter DMs. I think this one is self-explanatory, as long as “concrit” is one-sided and not part of a dialogue, it’s not concrit at all as far as I’m concerned. 3) People try to offer concrit on published works. This one is something I’m torn on. On a personal level, I’ve definitely taken complete/published works back to the editing board after receiving concrit. The nature of writing to me is that it’s ever-evolving. It’s rare for me, personally, to not want to constantly go back to editing and already published work. But this is not about me, it’s about a broader collective and in that broader collective, I promise that unless this was PWP written drunk and posted at 3 a.m., it has already been read over by either an author astute enough to locate their own issues in their writing or gone through a cycle of people the author trusts with their writing. What you deem as “concrit” is irrelevant to this greater collective. 4) Some of y’all are assholes. No substantive required.
BUT DIA, HOW IS REJECTING CONCRIT HARMFUL?
If you don’t want concrit because you’re doing this for fun and know what the problems in your writing are, that’s great. I think the bigger issue right now is that people look at concrit extremely negatively without having a proper understanding of what it entails and go off on tangents on why unsolicited concrit, which is really just nitpicky assholes on the internet, is bad. This is half of it. The other half of it is the rhetoric that only entirely positive comments will help you become a better writer, and therefore, there is no longer space for concrete in fandom. The fact is that this is not true for all writers. All writers love positive commentary but some of us genuinely want to dig deeper and treat fanfiction as a serious avenue for writing; there are definitely fanfiction authors who have gone into professional publishing using fanfiction as a launchpad and other who are passionate about writing but cannot translate this in real life and therefore use fanfiction as a serious writing outlet. This perceived rejection against concrit harms new and old writers: some of us need an outside set of eyes in order to grow, but there are people telling us that everything is perfect as it stands. In writers who crave constructive criticism but are not getting good constructive criticism, there is a high chance of stagnation in our writing and turning this frustration inwards. The truth is as writers, we’re aware of our issues in writing and intensely self-critical, but good constructive criticism genuinely helps break out of that behavior and identify areas where we need genuine work and areas where we’re already good. Without understanding the core of constructive criticism, we’re moving into an environment where even when a writer solicits concrit, we are unable to give them something workable to improve their writing. This leads to the second bit: beta readers and constructive criticism is inherently tied together. For all intents and purposes, in the early 2000s to 2015, beta readers very much acted like professional editors, engaging in constructive dialogue with a writer about their fic, talking through concerns on plot/pacing/characterization, providing sensitivity reading, understanding the writer’s style and providing spelling and grammar cleanups. But lately, there are very few people who offer that kind of thorough beta reading. It’s also tied into a response that if some people love offering unsolicited concrit, concrit here referring to examples of nitpicky assholes, they should become beta readers. These people should not become beta readers, because there is a fundamental misunderstanding of what concrit entails: their comments cannot always be conflated with genuine concrit. Again, this is fine if you don’t care for it but there are people who do, and one of the cool things about fandom is that it’s always been very self-contained. It’s important that we create an environment that stimulates a resurgence of people willing to offer a service that enriches the whole fic-writing experience. Also, you know, that whole what if you and i were on my google docs at the same time and we were both girls and we kissed. Some people fall in love with their betas! Another thing that this environment creates is a loss of respect for the art of critique, in general. A good example of this was people being disappointed that the Taylor Swift album, Folklore, received an 8.0 rating, which is generous by Pitchfork standards. Equally, there’s a music critique out there who thinks Folklore is a 10.0 and another who thinks it’s a 2.0, and that’s human nature. Critique, unless it’s not grounded in learned expertise, is actually neutral. In the context of fic writers, this means that any solicited concrit (and even some unsolicited concrit) is neutral and you control the response. Which leads to the last bit: so much amazing art (music, painting, dance, writing) has been created as a response to critique. Every time you’re like I am writing about these two characters fucking because they’re married and in love (that’s me, I’m writing that) because you disagree with a tweet that said established relationships are boring (that’s also me), that is an extremely beautiful response to critique that sparks a new facet of creativity. The truth is that art and critique go hand in hand, and the rejection of critique will eventually lead to either a stagnation in writing or in the worse case scenario, a backslide in quality.
COOL! I’M A WRITER, AND I WANT TO INCORPORATE CONCRIT INTO MY WRITING PROCESS.
I genuinely believe it’s unfair to hold fic writers up to the same standards as professionally published writers, or even fandom writers who are in a BA/MFA program. As someone in a BA program myself (and my concentration is poetry so really, I am somewhat of a world apart from fiction writing), it’s unnecessary for your fic to hold up a 5 component novel structure for instance. There’s also an argument to be made that anything under the novella range (17500-40000 words) does not require that kind of structure. Within the context of RPF, other rules that shift are rules of characterization: RPF is written on the premise that those engaging in the fandom have already perceived the persona of the characters that we are writing to, and therefore, RPF writers do not necessarily need to write into existing rules of characterization. In order to self-concrit, or raise specific questions to betas, you need to shift from valuing technical acumen into valuing discussion. Questions such as does x come across? Am I infodumping here? Was the resolution too quick? helps you as a writer reflect. And if you have a beta, any natural question they have is usually a good point of concrit such as why is x reacting to this in a way that doesn’t fall in line with previously established behavior? also fall under concrit. The truth is once you or your beta have questions about a specific moment in your story, and engage in a dialogue and discuss possible actions, you’re engaging in concrit! If both of you have similar understanding of technical expectations in writing, you can also ask questions of each other on this level and really dig into it.
Unsolicited concrit is uncomfortable at best and awful at worst, but the more we shift into this mindset that sets us against it, the more fandom as a whole has to lose. I hope you appreciated this post! This isn’t necessarily 100% comprehensive, but I did try my best to address points I often see in Twitter threads. If you feel there’s something relevant to this that I missed, let me know! If you disagree with any of this and want to talk about it, feel free to send me a DM on Twitter (heads up that my replies won’t be consistent because I’m on a twt break, but I’m willing to discuss thoughts).
no subject
Date: 2020-08-08 05:28 am (UTC)good point about how much art has come from a response to criticism too! that hadn't really occurred to me, but in a sense all fanfic is itself a criticism of canon so the preciousness some people in fandom have about their own works comes off as contradictory and hypocritical when you look at it through that lens. i think there are some other factors at play here too but they're probably going to stray too far from the topic of this post so i'll leave that conversation for another time.