Has anyone else drawn the ire of story critic Stacnash? 🤣

[THBGato]

Lit version of one of those early Christian synods debating endlessly about the nature of the trinity or how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

You mean the ones that led to the east-west schism and the slaughter and repression of Arian Christians?

Cripes, has it got that bad?

 

[MrHereWriting]

Possibly. Although they strike me as the type that wouldn't be able to hold back their comments on ANY story they read.

As for the "averageness" of my catalog, I'll just say most other readers disagree and at least LIKE my stuff.

This person's lists are all over the place.

No one should feel validated if they are on this critic's Top List (and if they do, they're nothing more than the puppy who loves anyone who gives them a treat) nor should anyone feel dismissed for being on their Bottom List.

I had a guy read one of my series and he would leave comments like "I gave you a 4, but I'll give you a 5 if this happens next" and I told him "Give me a 1 because nothing you suggest is going to happen."

 

[MelissaBaby]

Oh, come on, let's not make up ways to give her credit. I checked those lists quite thoroughly and read the comment/review she left for each story in the list. In every single case, the score she gave the story perfectly corresponds with the star rating of the author. There is no doubt whatsoever that she is rating authors based on the score she gave to the one story of theirs she chose to review.

I am neither giving her credit, nor denouncing her, because I don't know enough to do either. And neither does anyone else.

 

[Voboy]

Like many threads in the AH it's taken a life of it's own. I'd say we're having a good time and a productive discussion of our various perspectives on feedback.

Overall I consider that a good thing.

This. This is bonding.

Stacnash has me in the five-star category, which, okay! cool! but they did so citing one of what I consider to be my most middling stories. I was playing with consent and duty and good and evil and shit like that, and produced a tale about a cop who has to get fucked by another cop to preserve their undercover status.

It's good, but I think it's far from my best. Maybe stacnash just liked that theme; I dunno.

 

[SimonDoom]

Like many threads in the AH it's taken a life of it's own. I'd say we're having a good time and a productive discussion of our various perspectives on feedback.

Overall I consider that a good thing.

I think this is the attitude one should take about threads generally, and why I oppose closing threads on the ground that they have "run their course" relative to the opening thread. Nobody owns the right to a thread.

 

[Comshaw]

Absolutely, I've never argued against that, but that's not an indicator of quality nearly so much as popularity.

Yet no matter how many times I take great care to explain that it's not sour grapes nor that there is anything wrong with that, it's simply a grounded reality to take your feedback and scores as accurately as possible instead of taking those red Hs straight to the ego. That's it. But you in particular have never been able to accept that. So I reamin your bitch cunt villain.

While I'd love to take up the argument presented by the two statements above, we've been through it more than once, a number of times in fact, so I think that's enough for me. As the old saying goes, "No good comes from beating a dead horse". I ain't a gunna do it. So you can just stay my "bitch, cunt villain" and I'll go on to other things.

He did question, not assume. He said 'it looks like ...'

Like this.

Firstly be accurate. AwkwardMD didn't say "It looks like..." What was said "It sounds like..." granted it's a very small difference and it sounds like I'm trying to pick the fly shit out of the pepper, but it is a difference and when quoting another, accuracy is paramount.

Secondly, it was a compound sentence made up of one statement and one question.

Statement: " It sounds like you're ruling yourself out of creating something that good by accepting that Lit isn't the right venue for it,..."
Question: "...So why try?"

The assumption was that I was ruling myself out. The question was why try.

Comshaw

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I am neither giving her credit, nor denouncing her, because I don't know enough to do either. And neither does anyone else.

You made an assertion that goes against practically all evidence we have in Stacnash's case, and there is no small amount of evidence either. There are thirty or so very detailed reviews of hers out there.
You are also relativizing this evidence and claiming that no one knows anything. Well, we do know quite a lot about this person in the sense of her attitude and her reviewing process to make a reasonable judgment.

 

[Comshaw]

I think this is the attitude one should take about threads generally, and why I oppose closing threads on the ground that they have "run their course" relative to the opening thread. Nobody owns the right to a thread.

Personally I think the "run its course" explanation is the mod's way of trying to get ahead of an outbreak of assholitis. I understand it, but I don't agree with it. Close the thread if it gets out of hand, otherwise leave it be.


Comshaw

 

[MelissaBaby]

You made an assertion that goes against practically all evidence we have in Stacnash's case, and there is no small amount of evidence either. There are thirty or so very detailed reviews of hers out there.
You are also relativizing this evidence and claiming that no one knows anything. Well, we do know quite a lot about this person in the sense of her attitude and her reviewing process to make a reasonable judgment.

I made no assertion, I posited a couple of methods by which she might have chosen the stories she reviewed. Where you see phrases such as “may have” and “could be”, there is no assertion.

I’ve followed this from the start. I know as much about it as anyone. I even remember some of the poor behavior by board members that has been memory holed since much of the discussion was deleted.

If you know so much more than I do, please explain to me why she picked certain stories by particular artists, because I’ve seen no such explanation from anyone. And that was, after all, the issue I was addressing.

 

[Comshaw]

Here's something this thread has made me think of.

Are you one of those people who are your own harshest critics? Everything you do could have been done better, even if the result here says it was a success? People gush over it, and you're like "Yeah, they're just easy to please"

Or, are you the one with a high opinion of your work and any naysayers simply don't know what they're looking at?

Problem with this question is I don't think anyone wants to own up to being the latter, but I think we know there are writers like that on the site and we can see it in some threads here from time to time.

My most popular story here, the thing has monster numbers, always makes me shake my head. Its not a bad story, but its simple, predictable (my biggest personal knock on it) kind of sappy (which is not my style) and something I wrote for a friend so the initial motivation for the story wasn't even mine. "I want a best friends become lovers' story, and sweet, don't make it one of your trainwrecks" was the request. I can tell you three major flaws in the piece, but people continue to gush over it. Its like that movie everyone says you have to see, you see it and you're like "Um, this sucks."

I mentioned this to someone and got the "You're too hard on yourself" but I think I'd rather be that way than the "What do you mean you don't like this, what's wrong with you. It's not me, it's you. Types."

So we're gunna' do a "tell the truth" are we? Okay, I'm up for that.

First let me address something Plathfan said about baring ones self to strangers. I've always tried to be here on the net just like I am in RL. I have no desire to try to be someone else. It's to damned hard being myself without trying to add another personality on top of it. Besides, how does one do that without getting them confused? I can't do it. So what you see here is what I am, warts, scars, failures, successes, humor and pettiness, just a normal human being. And I have no desire to hide the dark side of myself or try to magnify the better side. The truth about me is just that, what I am. I have no desire to hide from who I am, because over time I've accepted my faults and enjoy my virtues. Since I sobered up in 1992 I've tried to live by one mantra: what you see is what you get.

That said, let me get back to LC's questions.

Am I my own worst critic? Damn straght I am. I cringe like a whipped dog when someone finds some dumb shit mistake in one of my stories. The real question is what do I do with that? The same thing comes to me each time it happens: 'You can bet that ain't gunna' happen again! You ain't getting another shot at me for the same thing.' I take every rightly fired criticism to heart and to be honest, it's painful. But it doesn't stop me from going back and doing it again.

But let's look at the second question. Do I have a high opinion of my work? The truth is, I have a very high opinion of many of my storylines. I think they're great. I know they could be told better and the mistakes I make detract from them, but the stories themselves are good and some great.

Can I do better? As I said before, Oh hell yes! I want to write a story that when the reader is done they have tears in their eyes, or are giggling at a passage for hours, or have those characters dancing through their heads for days. I've accomplished that for a few readers, but that's not what I want. I want the majority who read my work to do that. Just one story, just one like that and i can fade into oblivion as a happy man.


Comshaw

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I made no assertion, I posited a couple of methods by which she might have chosen the stories she reviewed. Where you see phrases such as “may have” and “could be”, there is no assertion.

I’ve followed this from the start. I know as much about it as anyone. I even remember some of the poor behavior by board members that has been memory holed since much of the discussion was deleted.

If you know so much more than I do, please explain to me why she picked certain stories by particular artists, because I’ve seen no such explanation from anyone. And that was, after all, the issue I was addressing.

We have no evidence as to how she is choosing the story to review, but that's not exactly the point.
I mean, I could use common sense and maybe hypothesize that she prefers to review standalone stories rather than chaptered ones (which makes perfect sense), also stories of reasonable length, and possibly stories that contain kinks/tropes/themes she enjoys to read? But that's all pure guessing.

On the other hand, there is plenty of evidence that she judges an author based on the one story she chooses to review.

To be clear, what you said was:

She may have read a number of your stories and chose to write about one she thought is representative.

She reviewed one of my Halloween stories, which is neither one of my highest or lowest scored, viewed or commented, but somewhere around the middle. Why that story, unless she thought it was around my "average".

It's you who made a guess here. And if you think about some other cases, you will see that your guess goes against reason. Or do you think that she read all of @lovecraft68 's 150ish stories here and then chose the one she reviewed as his average one? I mean, how do you average one's stories unless you read them all? And since that story was rated one-star, does that mean that almost half of his stories are zero-star stories?

My point is, you made an unreasonable guess that tries to relativize the criticism of Stacnash's approach to reviewing.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

You did what? The hell she’s done to you, ppl?

When I said it only takes someone like Stacnash to prick the balloon of pretense and send them spiraling, I thought I was exaggerating to make a point, but this?

Lord, have mercy.

Well, duh, not all of them at once. Her reviews are usually around 1k words, which is a quick read. There are around 30 of those. So 30k words of entertaining read in total. I didn't read any of the stories in question, of course. All together, an hour - hour and a half of reading, spread over several days. If that seems a lot to you, you can always entertain yourself with those 1k-word stories of yours.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

You did what? The hell she’s done to you, ppl?

When I said it only takes someone like Stacnash to prick the balloon of pretense and send them spiraling, I thought I was exaggerating to make a point, but this?

Just a girl with a keyboard... Geez. Lord, have mercy.

Wow, yeah, how dare you *checks notes* take the time to do some research about the topic at hand so you can make an informed decision! Textbook delusional behavior!

 

[lovecraft68]

Well, duh, not all of them at once. Her reviews are usually around 1k words, which is a quick read. There are around 30 of those. So 30k words of entertaining read in total. I didn't read any of the stories in question, of course. All together, an hour - hour and a half of reading, spread over several days. If that seems a lot to you, you can always entertain yourself with those 1k-word stories of yours.

Credit where due, her comments are more writing than he's done here.

 

[MelissaBaby]

We have no evidence as to how she is choosing the story to review, but that's not exactly the point.
I mean, I could use common sense and maybe hypothesize that she prefers to review standalone stories rather than chaptered ones (which makes perfect sense), also stories of reasonable length, and possibly stories that contain kinks/tropes/themes she enjoys to read? But that's all pure guessing.

On the other hand, there is plenty of evidence that she judges an author based on the one story she chooses to review.

To be clear, what you said was:


It's you who made a guess here. And if you think about some other cases, you will see that your guess goes against reason. Or do you think that she read all of @lovecraft68 's 150ish stories here and then chose the one she reviewed as his average one? I mean, how do you average one's stories unless you read them all? And since that story was rated one-star, does that mean that almost half of his stories are zero-star stories?

My point is, you made an unreasonable guess that tries to relativize the criticism of Stacnash's approach to reviewing.

Again, a guess is not an assertion. And, no, she wouldn't have to read all of an author's stories to come up with something she considered their average. She could just take a look and say "They've got a handful of stories around 4.70 and a handful about 4.50, I'll pick one with a score around 4.60. Or she could play "Eenie Meenie Mines Moe". It's all conjecture, and for no good reason that I can see.

 

[Djmac1031]

Again, a guess is not an assertion. And, no, she wouldn't have to read all of an author's stories to come up with something she considered their average. She could just take a look and say "They've got a handful of stories around 4.70 and a handful about 4.50, I'll pick one with a score around 4.60. Or she could play "Eenie Meenie Mines Moe". It's all conjecture, and for no good reason that I can see.

Or she could have, as is very obvious in my case, read one story, decided it was a 3, and threw me and my entire catalog in the 3 Star Author bin.

 

[MelissaBaby]

Or she could have, as is very obvious in my case, read one story, decided it was a 3, and threw me and my entire catalog in the 3 Star Author bin.

It certainly could have.

 

[Djmac1031]

Credit where it’s due: he devoured every word she ever wrote, while she never glanced at his. Probably doesn’t even remember he exists.

God bless her soul. She did a number on you two. Left you leaking like a sieve. Maybe I should enroll in her masterclass in tearing down facades.

Funny, I'm having a Lois Lane moment in that I'm just now realizing I've never seen you and Stacnash at the same time...

 

[Comshaw]

Wow, yeah, how dare you *checks notes* take the time to do some research about the topic at hand so you can make an informed decision! Textbook delusional behavior!

Be warned! Yee shall be tied and flogged for trying to use fact and real data to form an opinion! Nothing but guesswork and fantasized "truths" will do! Take heed. Go unto the people and spread the word!

Comshaw

 

[Djmac1031]

Be warned! Yee shall be tied and flogged for trying to use fact and real data to form an opinion! Nothing but guesswork and fantasized "truths" will do! Take heed. Go unto the people and spread the word!

Comshaw

That's the American fuckin' way!

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Great point. There is the message we are trying to send, and there is the message the audience is receiving.
Good feedback allows us see things from the audience's perspective.

Yes, that's the only thing that it does. And this is invaluable. We are creating a reading experience, one that we cannot have ourselves, as the writer knows all of the twists and turns before they happen. Only the reader can have that reading experience. When they get off the ride, hopefully they tell us what that experience was like so that we can move forward and design the next ride.

 

[StillStunned]

Can we redub this thread "If you have a grudge against someone, air it here"?

 

[pink_silk_glove]

and I'll go on to other things.

Please do.

 

[Djmac1031]

And no offense, but I have never read anything of yours nor do I intend to.

that's fine, I don't recall asking you to.

I was joking about the duel identity thing, and honestly dont care either way.

If you've at least read my comments here you'll see i generally dont have an issue with Stacnash nor with what they do. My only issue was the apparent generalization of an authors entire body of work based on reading one story.

After that, have at the review game.

 

[Comshaw]

Please do.

I believe I did. Or did you skip that part?

Comshaw