The Pit's ugly mark lives on.

[fuyu]

You know, I really abhor the "only say nice things!" culture that has surrounded fandom in general. It makes it damn near impossible to give constructive criticism without worrying that you might upset or offend the person you're trying to help.

There's a lady on Gaia who has a lovely Gaia fanfic in progress - lovely in terms of, she really knows which way is up when it comes to characterization and she actually thinks out her descriptions and background information and just puts DETAIL into the writing. She's not spectacular, but she's good. The story makes me squee a lot. However... she's got some real issues with grammar. Like, the whole time I was enjoying her fanfic, my inner grammar bitch was crying. So, I just suggested to her that she could do well to get a beta reader to help her with grammar issues.

She hasn't responded yet, which makes sense as I made the suggestion in a slow thread and she might have wandered off briefly (god knows I do that all the time XD). And she seems like a nice, reasonable woman. But I just can't help being anxious that I might have offended her by pointing out her flawed grammar.

Gah.

Comments

[trenchkamen.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I do the same thing to people, but it tends to be in "real life". I attack my friends' stories with a red pen, but they tend to be people who are okay with that, like Kaity. I'm not so apt to do the same kind-suggestion thing online, I guess for the same reason that I am afraid somebody with a real grain of talent will get discouraged.

It's odd how us ficbitches can be so polite in many ways about this.