thefourthvine | Rant: Enough Is Enough; or, Signs I've Read Too Much Fan Fiction

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Rant: Enough Is Enough; or, Signs I've Read Too Much Fan Fiction

In other words: I've lost it, and it's time for another bitter, mean-spirited, entirely unnecessary rant. If you're still in the dewy-eyed phase of FF love - in other words, if you see nothing wrong with "Harry eagerly mouthed Snape's huge, aching, weeping cock, laving it with his tongue and nibbling it until Snape screamed with his gushing release" - don't look behind the cut.

Let's start with the three that commenters reminded me of after the last rant*.

Ghost. Very evocative, no doubt, of a sort of gentle, shivery, not-quite touch. But you can have too much of ghosting in a sex scene; we've reached a point where in some cases it seems to be not so much, say, Kowalski/Fraser as Kowalski/Fraser/Unusually Frisky Legions of the Undead.
Card. Again, a term that describes a certain behavior clearly, and we could all use clearer descriptions when it comes to FF. But, really, this one only works if one of the partners has long hair. Even then there should probably be a two-card limit in any given story. And please, folks, let us have no more carding of chest hair. This is only appropriate if one of the partners is a sheep. And no one should take that as an invitation to write sheepslash.
Shell of an ear. Unless your character has seashells attached to his head (and if he does, I love you), this phrase has extremely dubious utility. For one thing, it makes me mutter, "Your ears are like petals, Grace! Veritable petals!" And that kind of thing is really difficult to explain. For another, it has been done somewhere beyond being done to death. And, finally, the kicker: it isn't even that descriptive. Seriously. Go to a mirror. Look at your ear. Does it not look far more like a dried apricot or a prune than a shell? It does. So you should not use "he licked his shell of an ear" until you have used "he licked his prune of an ear" at least twice.

And now for the all-new ones, i.e., clear indications that I should be getting out more than I do. Or maybe meditating or something.

Sensitized. I happily read past this the first 3,000 times I saw it. The next 3,000, which seemed to pass in a matter of days, had me wincing slightly. I have now reached the point where I am so sensitized to "sensitized" that every time I see it I snap, "What, sensitive isn't good enough for you? Maybe you should try being sensitish or sensitic! Maybe you're suffering from sensitism! Maybe you're just too damn sensitiful and sensity and sensitianesque!"
Needful. Is there some Guide to Writing Good Hot Sex somewhere that says that "needful" is a sexy word and "needy" and "necessary" are not? Because even if there is, know that there's a lifetime limit on this word. And if you've written more than four thousand words of FF, you're probably over the limit already. Time to see what "needy" or "necessary" can do for you.
Fisting. Do I need to explain why this is a problem word? I do? OK. See, yes, this is a very evocative term to describe clenching, for example, the sheets, usually from sheer sexual ecstasy (but sometimes because your cock is sensitized, or because you're feeling needful). But it also describes a sex act, and, see...OK. I should not have to tell you about that sex act. If you're writing NC-17 FF, you should already know about it. So let me just say: it's a good word. In moderation. But maybe you want to think twice about it in certain contexts, and that goes triple if you're using it in the phrase "fisting his cock," which makes me recoil in horror every time I read it.
Flashing. This should be used exclusively to describe the activity involving a trenchcoat and a lack of underpants. The only appropriate use of the phrase "flashing eyes" is when one is describing Scott Summers without his glasses on. Also, tiny hint for you: if your original character has flashing eyes, you might want to ask someone for an unbiased opinion about whether she's a Mary Sue. Because the chance is there. More than there. I'm sorry, but it's better you know, right?
People are allowed to say things. Hell, I encourage it. In America, it's a right, written into the Constitution and everything. So no need to be shy about having your characters do it. Yes, "said" substitutes are occasionally nice, but if your characters routinely utter, wail, articulate, orate, hiss, declaim, or allow words to escape their lips, they're being drama queens. Annoying drama queens, if that isn't redundant. Someone needs to give them a good hearty smacking, and I would like to be the first to volunteer.
Random word mutations. "Never mind" is not one word. No, it isn't. No. It isn't. Neither is "all right." Neither is "shut up." Neither is "how come." This is not German, people. This is English, and we do not just randomly combine any damn words we feel like combining. We really don't. So stop writing as though we do.
Pleasure nubbins. Can we just say nipples? I can. Can we therefore skip nubs and buds and - please god no no no - nips? I definitely can, and I encourage you to give it a try.
Cunny, peach, box, yoni, ya-ya, and bunny. (Special thanks to makesmewannadie for bringing up this one.) If you can't bring yourself to write "cunt," for god's sake don't think these words will let you off the hook. They will only put you on another hook - the one on which we hang people who use terrible, terrible synonyms for female genitals. It may be het, but that does not give you a free pass to write your sex scenes in language five-year-olds have given up as childish.
Towering, proud, generous, rampant, and jutting. Cocks do not tower, at least not in my world, and I am sincerely grateful for that. And while their owners may in fact be proud of them, cocks themselves typically do not have such high self-esteem. And, again, while their owners may be generous, cocks aren't usually all that philanthropic. (Yes, yes, I know the ones we read about do love men. It isn't the same thing at all. Trust me.) Rampant sounds like what a male bovine does on a hot day; cocks should not be rampant unless they are on a coat of arms (and if you've ever written about, say, Aragorn's coat of arms featuring nine cocks rampant, or whatever, know that I love you). And jutting is what piers do, for god's sake. Please, either find new adjectives or explore the world of adjective-free cocks. I'm begging.
Special note for Sentinel writers. "Hippie" is what Blair is. "Hippy" is what the women Blair dates (or, in your stories, probably doesn't date) are. When you say Blair is a hippy witchdoctor, what you're actually saying is that he's a curvaceous practitioner of traditional medicine. Which he isn't. Unless of course you want him to be - your story. But you should know what you're saying about the boy. (And please don't tell me the dictionary lists "hippy" as an alternate spelling for "hippie." I know that. It does that because people misuse the word so much. But when there's a choice between two spellings, and one spelling leads to confusion and one doesn't, do you know which one you should choose? That's right! The not-confusing one! We have enough trouble with pronouns in fan fiction without deliberately causing further confusion, y'know?)
Special note to Due South writers. "Mountie" is a noun. You can use it as an adjective, yes, but only with great caution. And be aware that phrases like "Mountie cock" and "Mountie ass" (especially if "hot, sweet" precedes "Mountie") can derail a sex scene like nothing else on this planet; yes, they can also work just fine, but if you're in any kind of doubt at all, you probably should just skip the whole Mountie thing. And while we're on the topic? I don't know what the hell a Mounty is, but he isn't a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. And please don't ever, ever, write a sentence thus: "The Mountie panted as he mounted Ray." Because those kinds of things can strike a person blind and insane.

Yes, I realize you're all thinking I need some kind of sedative, but these things needed to be said. They really did. Or, well, I needed to say them.

-Footnote-

* Got one I didn't mention? I want to hear it. I encourage you to be as pedantic and difficult as possible; it will make me feel better about this rant, for one thing.

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Hey there. I just wanted to let you know that I like both your rants and your fic recomendations, so I friended you. I don't have any diction rants (yet -- and beyond the usual homophones that get confused), just a general dislike of cardboard characters. But I'm still pretty new. =)

I'm not sure, frankly, that acquiring peeves of such astonishing pettiness and alarming intensity as mine own is something anyone should be looking forward to. But, hey, if you read FF, you'll be getting them whether you want them or not, so you might as well be eager.

And welcome. I'm happy to be friended! It takes me a while to get around to friending people back, because I tend to choose posting over LJ maintenance (hence, for example, my exceedingly dull layout and scheme), but I do get there eventually.

(Love that icon, btw. Who is it?)

That's Connor, from Angel. It's an icon done by

cleapet; I have three icons she made, two of Connor and one of Faith.

I actually have a number of grammatical pet peeves from my years as an English major in the creative writing department. It's amazing what an eighteen-year-old writing semi-depressed poetry can inspire in the way of psychotic neuroses. In a kind of bleak, morbid way, of course.

And a plain layout is *good*. It says, "World, my words are for more important than the manner in which they are displayed." This is my mantra, as I have the design skills of a rabid monkey with Parkinson's.

It's amazing what an eighteen-year-old writing semi-depressed poetry can inspire in the way of psychotic neuroses.

Well. Thank you for bringing back traumatic memories I've been working for years to repress. I wasn't an English major, but I took two poetry writing classes (chanting the mantra of every college student: "They fit in my schedule!"). The first one was full of fantastic writers; I'd say at least 30% of the class was writing publishable poetry, and I don't mean in the student magazine, either.

So I was totally unprepared for the horror that was the second class. I had every poetry-writing stereotype known to man in there:

Gothiquettea, who scattered words like "death" and "love" and "blood" randomly on a page and turned it in.

The Genius, who refused to edit or proof or even re-read his work, because doing so sucked all the brilliance and energy from it, and the errors weren't errors but style.

She Who Is Obsessed, who wrote every single poem about some aspect of Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles (including eight poems about the tragedy of Claudia), and who spelled her name with a lot of extraneous vowels.

Mr. I Have Issues, whose poetry ranged all the way from "poems about my troubled relationship with my father" to "poems about my troubled relationship with myself."

The Reason Why TMI Is a Useful Acronym, who, like so many before him, thought mind-numbingly explicit detail about his sex fantasies, which he often confused with reality, would make for compelling and interesting poetry, and, like all those before him, was proven as wrong as a very wrong thing.

And so on. I'm sure I was some stereotype myself - possibly Sulky Girl, sitting in the corner of the class making crosswords, dreading her turn to read her work out loud, and wishing all her fellow students somewhere else. Anywhere else. It was then that I realized I am not brave enough or strong enough to walk the path of the creative writer. At least, not without killing most of my fellow walkers.

And a plain layout is *good*. It says, "World, my words are for more important than the manner in which they are displayed."

My plain layout mostly says: "World, I know better than to think I could ever make anything more attractive or visually interesting by fucking with it. I may not be creative or talented, but by god I know boring is a better choice than hideous, and that has to count for something." That's my motto, and I'm standing by it.

I love your stereotypical poetry class. Those are great, wonderful stereotypes in there; I'd forgotten how much fun it can be to mock those people.

I went from the horrors of a fiction writing class full of people who thought that all work should be praised and that, "I wanted to like this, I did, but I just couldn't, but I think that if you tried this it would work so much better," (not my critique) was a cruel insult to a work, to an apartment I shared with a poet who was about to go to graduate school and wrote some of the best poetry I've ever read. Total culture shock. In a good way, though.

Those are great, wonderful stereotypes in there; I'd forgotten how much fun it can be to mock those people.

You were an English major and you've forgotten the joys of mocking? I thought that's what you lot did: subtext, late nights, and mockery.

I went from the horrors of a fiction writing class full of people who thought that all work should be praised...

Good lord. You can't have been in the FF world for very long, then, because, well, we inherit these people after they get laughed out of creative writing classes. We also get really, really good writers - never doubt it - but there are some deeply sensitive souls out here, and by "sensitive," I mean "whinging, self-important, and bitter."

Lord. I think, by that definition, I'm sensitive, too. Must rethink this carefully. Mockery is much less fun when one ends up inadvertently mocking oneself. (Note pompous pronoun use! Guarantees profundity!)

You were an English major and you've forgotten the joys of mocking?

I plead the defense of dating an architect who can't spell to save her life. My only real English major friend is up in Maine, and I'm in Florida. Hard to continue the mocking, you know? Also -- and please! don't tell anyone, you'll ruin my reputation -- I kinda feel bad when I'm not nice. Sometimes.

You can't have been in the FF world for very long, then, because, well, we inherit these people after they get laughed out of creative writing classes.

Only a couple of months, since about April. So yeah, newb. But it's not as big of a deal in FF, at least for me, because I'm not in a class I paid several hundred dollars (public school) to attend while getting dicked around by idiots who have no desire to improve and view writing less as craft and more as masturbation, where they just want to have their little orgasm of a story and get patted on the back for it. If someone wants to do that, fine. I couldn't really care less. But there are real writers here, too, who are just fascinated by a world already created and who actually want to create the best story possible, and that's great. So far, I've only offered constructive crit for one writer, and she is an ex-journalist whose story didn't really need a lot of work anyway. But what I said, she dug, even when she disagreed. So that was cool.

The whole cult of self-gratification in FF is hard to get around from a writing standpoint, though. I had to beg to get people to tell me bad things about my stories, almost literally in some cases. Maybe I'm just weird, but I don't really trust compliments (about a piece) that aren't followed by criticism -- but no one gives criticism! You have to request it like ten times, and finally people will say, "Um, I don't know about this, maybe, it's okay." When, really, what I want is an asshole editer who will tell me all the things that suck so that I can just assume anything not mentioned was good. =)

There are good reasons why no one gives criticism. Including:

Lots of people don't read critically. This isn't like a class, where everyone has an opinion and has to be able to express it; it's more like journalism, where most people who read your work are reading for the content and paying little attention to the writing.
Those who do read critically have learned to stay quiet. I give occasional unsolicited constructive criticism, so I'm personally familiar with this. The most likely response to careful con crit is silence - no acknowledge of any kind. The other two responses, effusive gratitude and vicious flames, are equally likely. People who don't enjoy that - and there can be truly nasty fandom-wide flame wars spawned from a single remark - stop offering criticism. There are people who have secret LJs solely for commenting because they don't want to end up being stalked (it does happen) or trolled in their real LJs (again, it happens) or flamed endlessly. But most critiquers just learn to bite their tongues.
The majority of commenters don't have time to critique the work they read. Most readers don't comment, as I'm sure you know, but feedback is one of the things that keeps good writers writing. So some people are careful to comment about every story they finish, so that the author doesn't feel like she's publishing into a void. But, of course, if you comment on every story, your comments will be shorter and not as critical; it takes a lot of effort to assemble a good, careful critique. Also, people usually have their own writing/editing/recommending to do, which, again, means they don't have a lot of time for critiques. And then there's RL, that famous devourer of fan time.

What you sound like you might need is a beta reader. Beta readers are the editors of the FF world (I'm just being very thorough here, so if I'm telling you a lot of stuff you already know, skip it). They work with a few authors, and they provide everything from grammar fixes to criticism to moral support. Betas are the people who get out the whip when your comma addiction starts to show. They're the people who gently inform you that the 8-paragraph dissertation on buttocks a) derails the story and b) makes you look like a world-class perv. They offer 15 different ways you can fix the PoV problem that is destroying chapter 4. And when you can't write chapter 4 at all, they're the ones who cajole, beg, threaten, and order you to get started. Most really good stories will have a beta reader acknowledgment somewhere. Good and experienced authors warn when the stories they've posted aren't beta'd, or have been self-beta'd.

If you have sufficient betas in your life (and most people need more than one, because all betas will flake out sooner or later, and beta work can take longer than the writing does), then you're looking for audiencers. These are people whose taste you trust and whose honesty you also trust; they can read a story before you post it, or soon afterwards, to answer the last few nagging questions ("Yes, that transition does work" or "No, I'm totally lost in the middle part") and to give an honest evaluation of the work, complete with criticism (if you want it and you need it). Audiencers may also be the first people you talk to about a story idea - they can say, hey, that's been done, or wow, write it now now now, stuff like that. And audiencers trust you in return to write good stuff and take their comments like an adult. Audiencers are, basically, really good readers.

And if you have both betas and audiencers, you should probably a) count your blessings and b) go hug them. (I sound like a freaking motivational brochure: 101 Ways to Praise Your Beta.) The average reader will always enjoy your work uncritically. Which, when you think about it, is sort of a blessing, no?

This message brought to you by the Committee to Encourage Beta Abuse. (And I apologize if I sounded like I was lecturing; this stuff is good to know, and sometimes people really don't know it, so when in doubt...)

I apologize if I sounded like I was lecturing; this stuff is good to know, and sometimes people really don't know it, so when in doubt...

No, s'all good. I knew most of it, but not all of it; a lot of what I knew I wasn't sure about, and thus it was nice to get written confirmation. Most of my whining about the lack of criticism comes from my roots as a writer: I went to the "nerd high school" and thus any writing that I did was heavily criticised and critiqued by friends and teachers alike. I was nineteen before I encountered anyone who just said, "Oh, it was nice," about a work. In fact, I never really learned to read casually. Whenever I read, I'm looking at the way something is said or written or what not (the only exception is William Gibson; for some reason, his writing style completely eludes me and all I can do is just sit there and go, "Wow.").

Essentially, it's not that I don't understand the lack of criticism found in FF. I do, I get that perfectly. It's just something of a foreign concept to me. Does that make sense? The best analogy I can draw for you is someone who doesn't care about proper grammar and punctuation. I understand that people don't care about that, and I can even understand how someone can view that as unnecessary ("You understood, who cares past that?" type of mentality). But it's still a completely foreign concept to me. I can't imagine not caring, personally. I hope I've explained that all right.

Oh, I totally get that it can seem weird. It was weird to me, too, and I'm coming from - well, not quite the same background. But similar in that I was not used to the idea of "nice" being a reasonable response to anything. (I had to learn that here "nice" doesn't necessarily mean "it sucks beyond all measure and I can't or won't help you fix it." In other words, "nice" used to be a deadly insult to me.)

And I can't turn off the critical faculty, either; in particularly severe cases, I read books with pen in hand, so that I can correct the errors and move on with my life. (Otherwise I tend to remember the mistakes to the exclusion of, you know, the content of the book in question.) My internal editor functions when I'm reading FF, too, which is, in part, why I do this site - if I'm going to evaluate every damn thing I read, I might as well make the results of my evaluations available to others. (It's madness, but it's functional madness, and that's got to count for something.)

But then, fandom is weird in a lot of ways. This is just one strangeness among many. (And that's why we love it.)

Yes, thank you! 'Nice' is an insult. Unless you're in the company of your parents and you want to use a different set of words to describe how your significant other looks, but that set of words would certainly make them all-too-aware of things the two of you do together which they would most certainly rather not know about. Then, it is acceptable.

I saw this a little bit ago and thought you'd get a nice chuckle and cringe combination out of it with me: "...Buffy was pail and shaking..."

"...Buffy was pail and shaking..."

See, now, that's impressive on many levels. Because, yes, it does initially leave you wondering if she met a demon with the ability to transform people into vibrating domestic liquid-holding implements. But even after you make the mental correction, it's still somewhat weird. Buffy does not so much go for the paleness and the shakiness, in my (admittedly limited) experience of her; her coping mechanisms seem to be more on the kicking ass and then kicking some more ass side of the scale.

I like it. May I snag it for my next rant? It's an excellent example of the Problem with Homonyms, right up there with Hugging Human Waste Syndrome.

Of course you're welcome to snag it for your next rant. My pet peeves are your pet peeves.

So I assume you've encountered the whole character-bash fic, yes? This is one of the main things I don't understand. So far, the only incarnation I've seen of it is Willow & Buffy bashing, because pretty much the only fanfiction I've read that wasn't Buffy (or Angel) was supplied by you. But it's hilarious! I mean, not in the intentional-comedy sense of it, but in the unintentional comedy scale (think: The Karate Kid, how Daniel beats Dutch, that's just funny, but they didn't mean it to be) it's almost off the charts. I love the idea that there's some person sitting at a keyboard, anger spewing about a fictional character, writing this story where the previously-not-as-great character gets some random and contrived come-uppance.

Sorry, that's just my newest observation about fandom, and it amused me so much, and -- yes, I admit it, I'm purposely trying to draw rants out of you. I apologize.

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Rant: Enough Is Enough; or, Signs I've Read Too Much Fan Fiction

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