AwkwardMD and Omenainen Review Thread

[DDX84]

[No personal attacks or trolling - including creating accounts for this specific purpose. Heated discussions are fine, even welcome. However, personally attacking / kink-shaming a fellow author or reader is not allowed within the Author's Hangout. Threads which devolve into the exchanging of insults will be closed and repeat offenders will be given a timeout, per the AH rules.]

 

[alohadave]

Massive troll post

Got tired of trolling AI threads have you?

Just go away, it's not funny.

 

[AwkwardMD]

[No personal attacks or trolling - including creating accounts for this specific purpose. Heated discussions are fine, even welcome. However, personally attacking / kink-shaming a fellow author or reader is not allowed within the Author's Hangout. Threads which devolve into the exchanging of insults will be closed and repeat offenders will be given a timeout, per the AH rules.]

Okay

 

[DDX84]

Okay

Not a surprising rebuttal.

It's difficult to fight back when your own quotes make your position clear.

 

[Omenainen]

Not a surprising rebuttal.

It's difficult to fight back when your own quotes make your position clear.

Fight back what? Did you read the story and what parts of the review do you disagree with?

 

[DDX84]

[No personal attacks or trolling - including creating accounts for this specific purpose. Heated discussions are fine, even welcome. However, personally attacking / kink-shaming a fellow author or reader is not allowed within the Author's Hangout. Threads which devolve into the exchanging of insults will be closed and repeat offenders will be given a timeout, per the AH rules.]

 

[Omenainen]

[No personal attacks or trolling - including creating accounts for this specific purpose. Heated discussions are fine, even welcome. However, personally attacking / kink-shaming a fellow author or reader is not allowed within the Author's Hangout. Threads which devolve into the exchanging of insults will be closed and repeat offenders will be given a timeout, per the AH rules.]

 

[DDX84]

[No personal attacks or trolling - including creating accounts for this specific purpose. Heated discussions are fine, even welcome. However, personally attacking / kink-shaming a fellow author or reader is not allowed within the Author's Hangout. Threads which devolve into the exchanging of insults will be closed and repeat offenders will be given a timeout, per the AH rules.]

 

[Omenainen]

However, by all means, keep calling people deranged rather than refute what AwkwardMD admitted to. All serious reviewers resort to ad hominem attacks, don't they? I honestly didn't think you'd crack after only three posts, but this thread is the fucking bush leagues, so allowances have to be made.

You’re right, I should have said “publishing reviews attracts comments like yours and you’re surprised people don’t want their names posted on it”. My bad.

 

[Bazzle]

Can everyone calm down?

Emily asked for a review, she got a review. She did not like the review.

No different to the theatre. The actors and directors often don't like the reviews given. Hell, has anyone ever watched the children's movie Nativity? Perfect example of review driven performance? (If you haven't, do so, its funny!)

Clearly maybe the "error" from Emily is that the story purpose might not be so obvious, until she commented about it? Its a story where the purpose comes to fruition at the end. That is methodology. Some might not like it, but its a way of telling a story.

The theme of the story hit a nerve for the reviewers and then their review hit a nerve with Emily.

Can everyone take a breather and relax?

Us authors NEED reviews. We all want to be patted on the back and told well done. But we also need to learn what readers are taking from our stories. We think they are the most amazing thing since sliced bread when we hit publish.

We need to learn about our mistakes. I know my sentences run marathons because of anonymous comments. I am trying to fix it.

Please dont fight the reviewers. Look at what they are saying and think about it with your own stories? We need deeper reviews than "Wow, thanks, I came."?

B

 

[Omenainen]

If you're looking for subject-matter experts, Claudine, you might want to look further afield than some anonymous users in the Literotica comments section and a handful of your pals from the Literotica forums. All of whom belittle those comments every day on these forums. So, yeah, your mileage definitely varies.

This would depend on the subject matter, surely.

Talking of ad hominem, I get the impression that Claudine is not a compliment, but I have no idea what you’re referring to.

If Bramblethorn didn't have the balls to attach his name as a contributor to Emily's review, he shouldn't have held your hand in your DMs trying to teach you the basics. I don't think he was too scared, though. After all, he was the only one who clarified that his work was part of your review, and you didn't even attempt to disclose that you had contributors who wanted to remain anonymous.

You claimed his work as your own. You are caught in a lie and you don't know what you're doing.

This is inaccurate. Bramblethorn didn’t write any part of the review.

I reserve the right to have discussions with people, sometimes even about (gasp!) reviews. And to even ask questions from them (the audacity!)

For a reminder, me and AwkwardMD do these reviews together. We post them as coming from one of us, because it feels silly to say “we thought…”. Sometimes we ask other people for their comments or expertise, and rest assured that they have the opportunity to be credited in public as well as us thanking them privately for their help.

 

[AlinaX]

“Claudine? Oh, she’s still top. But it’s not her fault. She’s gifted for that and doesn’t need to make any effort.”

Today I find myself rather enjoying Colette's Claudine At School.

 

[AlexBailey]

I’m relieved to see this thread back open!

Thanks so much to AwkDoc and O and all of their conspirators for putting in the effort. It’s a great value to the community and I sincerely hope it can continue more smoothly.

 

[AwkwardMD]

Our thread got unlocked, so I figure this is the perfect time to deliver an unasked for, off-the-cuff hot take.

In a recent review, we gave advice on sentence structures. Lots of people have chimed in on this, arguing that in technical terms starting sentences with conjunctions is legal and fine, but I stand by our advice for two reasons. The first is that, as near as I can tell, nobody arguing this fact read the story. The one exception to this was SimonDoom who, after pointing this (And and But are fine!) out, immediately turned around and agreed with us that the real problem, the sentence fragments, were endemic, detrimental to the readability of the story, and needed to be fixed.

Our advice was to not to chide the use of and or but as sentence starters but to give an author advice on how to spot sentence fragments. Imagine I was giving advice to a toddler on how to walk. Assuming the existence of a very smart two year old, I might say “You put your left foot down, and then your right foot, and then you alternate feet.” Then someone overhears me, not seeing the toddler, and proceeds to skip around me going left left right right as if that somehow proved a point. Don't be that guy.

Important context gets stripped away as advice shifts from people who read the story to people who haven’t read the story but are reading the thread, to people who aren’t reading the thread or the story. The sentences were badly constructed, and in need of fixing. It’s excruciating to repeat, over and over, “Did you read the story?” and be met with “No, but”

The second is something that I have talked about many times, but for some reason always gets lost in the shuffle. We are two random people on the internet. We are not worth trying to impress. We are authors ourselves, and as such that makes us peers to the other authors at large on Lit. We are not and have never claimed to be an authority, and as such we are not capable of laying down any rules for others to follow. We have said this so many times that it’s embarrassing to need to repeat (but here we are).

Rules are good to get started until you know enough to know when to break them. We will have failed if this thread churns out clones of our own writing. What we have always wanted was to get people to a point where they didn’t need us.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I made this* in honour of the original AMD review thread's fourth anniversary:



Just sayin'.

*typed words into a meme generator

 

[Omenainen]

My take on the aftermath of the EmilyMiller review

It is an important ability for an author to be able to differentiate between themselves and their stories. Your stories are not you, and comments on your stories are not aimed at your person. My review is not me, it’s a comment I make on a story presented to me.

From EmilyMiller’s reaction to the review it seems to me that she lacks this distinction. She doesn’t differentiate between herself and her stories, and our persons and our review, and that’s why she feels like we’re attacking her personally. If this is the case, I understand where she’s coming from, but her lashing out at us with accusations and insults is still unacceptable behavior.

A review should always be about the story at hand. Coming in, a random reader doesn’t know who you are, or what you have said in your other stories, or whatever else that is outside the story itself. This is the starting point for us when we write a review. We do alter our approach based on if the requester has asked us to focus on certain aspects or dismiss others, or if the review has been asked for a single chapter in a series, which limits the things we can see about the overall story or characterization.

The one thing outside the story that we look for is the author’s “Lit experience”, evaluated by the amount of stories posted. If asked to review someone’s first story (or close to it), we are more lenient on the content and more likely to offer advice on categories and other site mechanics. While I do think all reviews should theoretically have the same approach, I think first-time authors (or close to it) deserve more encouragement than the story itself might warrant. On the other hand, I think that a more accomplished author benefits from an in-depth approach as opposed to “really nice, keep it up, I came.” I don’t think anyone benefits from feedback that is not honest.

I trust that before asking a review from us the author has checked some of our previous reviews, or at the very least the opening post of the thread, to see what we’re about. If they don’t, why would they think it’s worth asking? It is not my place to dictate who and for what reason is allowed to ask for one. My part is to decide if I offer up my time and insight, the part of the requester is to decide if they want to use it and from what motivation.

It is insulting to claim that we would treat EmilyMiller differently from anyone else. It implies our reviewing process would depend on who’s asking, insulting our ability to be objective. I don’t know on what basis this even could be personal: I don’t know EmilyMiller or any of the other authors we’ve done reviews for. Before my time, AwkwardMD has given a very positive review for a person she absolutely loathes. I don’t know enough about anyone here to have such strong opinions.

It is nonsensical to say that we should have treated EmilyMiller differently from anyone else. That undermines the reviewing process but it also undermines EmilyMiller’s right to request a review. It’s not our place to assess who or why asks for a review, and it’s not anyone else’s, either. If she can’t handle one, she shouldn’t have asked for one, but that’s for her to decide and not anyone else. It’s patronizing to think other people should know what she wants better than she does.

We are familiar with opinions on how we give reviews that are too harsh, or that anything that’s not unequivocally positive should only be said in private. Anyone is entitled to this opinion, but to impose it on others is overstepping. “I don’t want that so nobody should.” If you don’t want a review from us, then don’t ask for one. It’s not your place to tell other people they can’t want it or have it. We obviously think this is something worth offering, and there are people who think it’s worth getting. That’s enough for us to keep doing it.

If anyone wants to discuss this particular review, please read the story, read the review, then tell us what you disagree with and what points you would have made instead. We are more than happy to get reviews of our reviews, but only if you can be bothered to read the story first.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

@EmilyMiller
Link

Review part 1/2

There were a few sentences I liked in this story. For example, “Alan’s flowers were already wilting on the passenger seat” feels like a poetic foreshadowing on how the rest of her day will go. “This was where aspiration came to die,” referring to a neighborhood, paints a vivid picture with few words.

***

Technical stuff.

The level of technical comments we give depends on the story but also, to some extent, circumstances around the story. I have a theory that the site is more lenient toward a new author’s first submission, and so are we with our reviews. According to the foreword this is your 50th story. Fiftieth. For comparison, I have 32 stories published under my account, so I’m approaching this with the “by now you should know” attitude.

On a technical level, the story is plagued by SPAG problems. The most prevailing and disturbing one is sentence structure.

At least 30% of the sentences in AHDN are not sentences, they are improperly punctuated dependent clauses. If it starts with And or But, it’s not a sentence that stands on its own. You are writing compound sentences and probably, in your head, pronouncing them like compound sentences, but you are punctuating them as if the independent clause and the dependent clause are separate.

Take this example:



“Can you hold me?” is a question. “I want to be held.” is a statement. “Can you hold me, I want to be held?” is a compound sentence that is also a question, but it doesn’t scan quite right. “I want to be held, can you hold me?” would work much better.

“But can you hold me.” is a command that would read extremely strangely coming from this character in this moment. “I want to be held?” doesn’t scan at all. Who is he asking?

It’s okay for the first draft to read “I don’t think anyone can top that, and I’m not sure that I even want to try, but can you hold me, I want to be held?” A good second step is to go through and chop it in pieces like done here. The third should be to go through again and end up with actual sentences. For example: “I don’t think anyone can top that, and I’m not sure that I even want to try. Can you hold me? I want to be held.”

Rule of thumb: don’t start sentences with conjunctions. You can do it sometimes, but using it as much as you do makes the text painful to read. Even if you had an editor, this is something you should do yourself. I don’t think anyone’s ideas are so precious that the actual writing in the writing should be left to an editing team, even if you had one.

Another puzzling one is this weird way of citing inner monologue in third person:



You also don’t use semicolons correctly.

Sometimes, authors are trying to convey something with improper sentence structures or unconventional dialog. For that to work, you need to at first convince the reader that you know how to do it right, that doing it wrong is indeed a stylistic choice. Bucking convention requires understanding the convention, and this story does not demonstrate understanding the convention.

Having emojis between scene breaks is one thing, but having them inside the scenes to signify a break that isn’t a break is redundant and puzzling.

Making up phrasings like ‘phone is something that can work, used very sparingly, in a story that’s otherwise stylistically impeccable.

***

Beyond technicalities lies the storytelling.

I've read this story and I won't disagree with the technical issues mentioned. However, I believe that you approached your review with a prejudicial "by now you should have known better" perspective. While your advice was mostly sound and accurate, it was delivered with an attitude wrongly influenced by your stated perception of this writer's experience.

If we look at this writer's portfolio of works, there are nowhere near 50 stories. There are currently 59 submissions, many of which are series or multi-part stories. With that many submissions within 17 months since her first was posted, I see a creative ingenue striving to improve her abilities. Not the seasoned writer that you took her statement about "my 5oth story" to portray.

Hopefully, to every extent possible, you will consider the experience of a writer more carefully in future reviews. And I mean their true experience.

 

[jsmiam]

I composed this early, and resisted all urges to post. But one very specific thing occurred here (among a long list of other things) that can’t be brushed aside, especially in light of more defending/excuse-making by the reviewers. (Sidenote: I blame the forum software for (somewhat and sometimes) retaining abandoned drafts. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here. )

Firstly: from an epic rant directed at the reviewee one crabby day last October/november that I later edited then apologized for the tone, I’m most definitely not just another one of the self anointed white knights on steeds galloping to the rescue. I even had one SAWK(c) (Self Anointed White Knight) bomb all my stories and write nasty comments. In other words, I’m no SAWK, and I’m risking (who am I kidding, I’m guaranteeing) that I’ll pay for this post by offending the SAWK community.

Questioning the impartiality:
If I’m not mistaken, there was a prior disagreement of sorts between Omen vs Emily, right? Before the review, although perhaps after the request for a review. Also loosely around sex work.

With that looming in the background, perhaps a recusal would have been better? Or just admitting some sprite was involved in the review? Because to my memory and scanning (admittedly I don’t read walls of text (nor Walls of Ston of text,) so I could easily have missed it,) I don’t recall strict grammar rules being applied to dialogue as a regular occurrence in the awkward-omen reviews. So, dwelling solely on just that, the very first citation, prominent and lengthy with regard to grammar-within-dialog, it makes the review not seem typical. It makes it seem like a little revenge took place for the prior tiff or other history.

Shoulda recused.

So: is grammar within dialog routinely critiqued by awkward-omen? For my quick scan, I haven’t found it done regularly at all. (Methodology: I used lit’s search feature, set to “this thread only” and searched for the word “grammar” then scrolled through posts by awkward-omen that critique grammar. Results: by my rough estimate and not entirely valid research methods, dialogue grammar is rarely critiqued, and rarely this harshly. Plus these snippets add fuel.

Awkwardmd, July 7, 2023: “A simple example is the way I use short sentences and simpler word choices in my sex scenes to feed the animal brain that takes over. I want the reader to feel that breathless rush, and so when characters get naked my sentences get choppy. Bad grammar but who fucking cares. Simple. To the point. Tactile. All feeling, no thinking. Tongues, and panting, and nails scratching across my skin.” (Speaks for itself)

Awkward, Jan 3 2024: “The premise has weight, and it keeps a sense of itself. Nothing wanders too far from the core, which is fantastic. Love to see it. Much more natural dialog this time around too (though there was some fiddly punctuation within the dialog that stood out simply because the punctuation/grammar/technical writing everywhere else was exemplary).” (“Fiddly??” Such gentle critiquing. )

Awkward, June 5, 2020: “
You have a habit of starting sentences with participle phrases. These are dependent clauses that do not stand on their own as full sentences. These are some examples:

Washing my hands thoroughly, I turned the machine to sixty degrees and set it going.
Dumping them in the washing basket, I shoved the towels and sheet in the machine.
Clasping my arms across my chest, I put the front door on the catch and scampered down the stairs to collect our mail.

In your relatively short story, there were dozens of sentences that start like this, and it stood out to me.” (Not dialog)
((End of snippets))

To be fair: awkward-omen do get passionate on “rules-of-sex-topics”, sex work included. Other writers have been similarly lectured (double let’s-be-fair, not many as harshly.) I will stick to grammar within dialog for my focus, and say the rest of the review is representative of awkward-omen’s general pattern.

And yes, it was just part of the review. But it was the first part. - lengthy part. And a citation was involved. The reviewers picked what to cite. They chose grammar within dialog.

And the way the reviewee responded to the review was wrong too: Publicly venting in this thread. Publicly venting in other threads. Privately venting. And even though she didn’t necessarily ask for an army of white knights, she has one. Venting would set them in motion, and she knows that. And she asked for a review knowing these particular reviewers require bowing down to them, and she got one. Then didn’t like the results.

Recap: if there’s a plethora of reviews targeting grammar within dialog, i haven’t found them. This review appeared to be not just like all the others in that specific way. Which opens the door to cast doubt on other parts (particularly the degrees of harshness) of the review. Was this review truly typical and unbiased?

Requirements for rebuttal: any rebuttals should prove irrefutably that grammar within dialogue is routinely critiqued by awkward-omen the way it happened here. Three examples less than a year old, like my three. A noteworthy ratio, one in three or four reviews (where grammar is the focus) proving that grammar within dialog is focused on regularly. I found my three opposing examples very quickly and easily. If I’m wrong there should be no trouble refuting me, Quickly and Easily.

 

[AwkwardMD]

I composed this early, and resisted all urges to post. But one very specific thing occurred here (among a long list of other things) that can’t be brushed aside, especially in light of more defending/excuse-making by the reviewers.

This is amazing! Thank you! Out right now, will respond when I am able!

 

[Constories]

Okay, so I read the story, and I also read the thread.

So as I began to read, I immediately noticed what the reviewers mentioned. Fragments were very common, and it gave the work a choppy feel. I've come to understand that Emily felt that the grammar advice was nit-picky, but I disagree.

We come to this thread seeking criticism and hoping for praise. We can't be too disappointed when we get one or fail to get the other.

However, out of curiosity, I dropped the first page of this story into Pro-Writing-Aid, and I was surprised to see that the fragments were NOT flagged. In fact, PWA didn't have too many corrections for the story at all. As such, I could see how an author might interpret the grammar corrections as unjustified quibbles.

But here's the thing, we specifically come to this this thread to learn how to get an opinion on how we might improve our stories... If O&A had posted their responses as a comment, unrequested, it would have been uncalled for. But they didn't. They posted it as a response to a review request.

Smoother prose would have benefited this story, and that is true, even if you think the story is a masterwork.

I also received an unfavorable review in this thread... on a Loving Wives story, incidentally, but I didn't take it as a personal attack. I don't think the review against Emily was a personal attack either.

I won't comment on the business about PM's, because I don't know what all was said on both sides.

---

Since this is a review thread, I will offer my own personal critique on the story. I enjoyed the way that in particular scenes, the FMC was portrayed as a real human with genuine emotions. That is important and often overlooked in erotica.

My biggest personal complaint about this story is the fact that it doesn't really belong in Loving Wives. How ironic, considering I wrote a non-erotic, burn-the-bastard story and stuck it in LW, right? But to me, LW stories need the passions to be marriage focused.

If it's a cheating story, the marriage being damaged is the focus.
In a cuckold story, the erotism of the marriage spoiled is the focus.
In a BTB story, the passion of anger over marital betrayal is the focus.

This story had none of that. It was the life of a sex worker, who incidentally was married. That makes for an interesting twist... But it doesn't epitomize what LW is known for.

Just the same, the story earned a 4.0+ which is a very respectable story for LW. That is impressive by itself.

---

If I had to point out any in place where I thought the reviewers were a bit harsh, it was the fact that they both hopped in, separately, for a 2 part, very long beat down of the story.

I can't be bothered to go back through the entire thread and see how common 2 part reviews are, but suffice to say, I can't remember seeing one before. At the very least, they aren't the norm. Reading the review kinda felt like a tag team beat down, and this is coming from someone who agreed with many of the ideas.

[Answered by AwkwardMD, and related to maximum allowed post length]

Anyway, I appreciate A&O for providing this review service, and I applaud anyone who has the guts to offer their story up for critique.

We all need to remember that IF you think that the review was tainted by personal bias, you are always free to ignore the advice.

PS: This was a LW story, and I only publish LW content with this account, which is why I even bothered commenting like this.

 

[AwkwardMD]

---

If I had to point out any in place where I thought the reviewers were a bit harsh, it was the fact that they both hopped in, separately, for a 2 part, very long beat down of the story.

I can't be bothered to go back through the entire thread and see how common 2 part reviews are, but suffice to say, I can't remember seeing one before. At the very least, they aren't the norm. Reading the review kinda felt like a tag team beat down, and this is coming from someone who agreed with many of the ideas.

It's like it's my birthday!!!

It appears that either the new underlying forum software has a 10,000 character limit on posts OR a character limit option was always there and it was somewhat recently changed. The review, as originally written, is 14,288 characters. We have only once before, since the change was implemented, written a review that topped this limit and had to be broken in two, but we would have posted it as one part if we could have.

 

[AlexBailey]

But here's the thing, we specifically come to this this thread to learn how to get an opinion on how we might improve our stories... If O&A had posted their responses as a comment, unrequested, it would have been uncalled for. But they didn't. They posted it as a response to a review request.

Does this outfit make me look fat?

 

[AwkwardMD]

I composed this early, and resisted all urges to post. But one very specific thing occurred here (among a long list of other things) that can’t be brushed aside, especially in light of more defending/excuse-making by the reviewers. (Sidenote: I blame the forum software for (somewhat and sometimes) retaining abandoned drafts. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here. )

Thank you so much for this.

Before everything else, I am not aware of any prior dust-up between Omen and Emily. The closest thing I can recall was when Emily posted a review of Victoria14xs's story in the AH, and Omen asked why it wasn't here in this forum. We are quite keen about encouraging wider conversation here. I asked Omen, and she didn't know. (EDIT: It's possible that Emily interpreted a previous conversation with Omen as confrontational. We are quite blunt. If this is the case, Omen had no idea.)

***

You are 100% correct. We very, very rarely talk about dialog. In fact, as far as I can recall, we have only ever once gone into it.

In Feb 2020, @yukonnights wrote a story where he experimented with limiting dialog tags, he said and she said. The solution they tried was to use proper nouns within the dialog. It was a lot of "Dave, why are you—" and "Well, Stacy, that's a great question, and—"

It was a stylistic choice put in place to serve a purpose, and while I gave them props for attempting something new (still love the creativity), I didn't think it worked and I said as much. There was a long discussion that followed about the nature of proper nouns in dialog. Much like the current conversation, lots of people who didn't read the story spread into the AH and what went on there turned unhelpful fast. Here, in this thread, there was a more productive conversation between myself @SimonDoom @ElectricBlue and @Bramblethorn .

Where we landed, I think reasonably, is that even the most noun-heavy realistic conversations between two people, alone together in the same room, face to face, would include a proper noun perhaps once or twice per minute of back and forth dialog, while a conservative read of that story's dialog would have proper nouns coming out at a rate of 15 or 20 per minute.

At the time, I said "Don't do it" and then, in later responses, I clarified (just like I've done here) that I use proper nouns sometimes. It's a rule. Rules have their place, and there are times to break them. A mother character shouting "Johan Sebastian Miam, you get down here this instant!" is a perfect good example of an exception to a rule.

Now, this veers into some conversations Omen and I have had behind the scenes, but I don't mind sharing that here. Should I have included this disclaimer at the time? "Don't use proper nouns (except when you're breaking the rules, and there are times to do that, and I do it myself sometimes)" Functionally every piece of advice we give has exceptions. Would we be well served by including them all? Would that improve the readability of the review?

I think that the answer is no. In my experience, it's easier to have a few disclaimers, like this one, posted in between larger reviews once every 5-10 pages of the thread. Generally speaking, once we post something like this, everyone sort of gets it in their head and we'll have a period of relative peace where our motives can be trusted.

It's a cycle. Eventually, enough time will pass and someone new will come along who doesn't trust our motives for criticizing them, and chooses to believe that the motives were malicious as a shortcut to ignoring us. To be clear, this is perfectly valid for that person. It's wrong, but that's okay. The purpose of this thread is not to say enough nice things about enough other people to engender a large circle of friends for ourselves, it's to elevate the art (including our own).

***

When reviewing YN's story, I was largely focused on the dialog. The review was largely about the dialog, and about the way we speak, and organic-ness. I'll briefly quote a foreword in case anyone did follow the link above.

Not that anyone is paying attention to the style of what I do, but I usually try to avoid criticizing the dialog of other writers because dialog tends to be a very personal thing. A lot of writers are drawing on the speech patterns of themselves, family, friends, or those around them, and me wagging a finger at them just makes me look like a bitch. There’s a lot of room to have people speak how you want because English is a language with a pretty loose structure, and humans are pattern-recognizing fiends. All you have to do is get in the blalpark, and we'll figure out what you meant.

This is what it looks like when we criticize dialog as a function of criticizing dialog. The thing we're all here to talk about, though, the piece of dialog from EM's story, was not criticized as a piece of dialog, or for its function as dialog. We were commenting on a larger trend within the story, and it just so happened that the best example of seeing the problem for what it is happened between some quotation marks.

A case could be made for Jeff, the character speaking this line, to have this as a pattern of speech. He is defeated, and he is struggling. Had this been something he did, consistently, where several of his lines of dialog ended in a question mark, I would have been tickled pink to point that out as a win. I love the stylistic use of punctuation to imply a pronunciation. Ending every sentence in a question mark? To imply a kind of vocal uptick? Fucking love it.

If you kind of unfocus your eyes and look at that piece of dialog, though, I believe you can see what she was going for. It is our opinion that you can see the bones of the intent, which is that these clauses go together. Lots of them do, up and down the story. Little clusters that, punctuated differently, would greatly improve the flow.

Unfortunately, dialog is really the only place you could see something like this. Third person narration rarely includes questions or exclamations. Everything ends in a period, so every dependent clause reads the same. In fact, it was seeing this piece of dialog that the puzzle pieces finally clicked for me, like "Ah ha! I understand what's happening here! I see the root issue!"

There is always some amount of guesswork on our part when it comes to intent. How something came across vs how it was meant to come across. We always try to have some contextual evidence to justify our interpretations, but we're under no illusion that we don't ever get these wrong. Lots of authors throughout the thread have come back and said "Ah, interesting, but no, I was trying to do X, Y, and Z" and we have no problem admitting we missed the mark. Even when we're wrong, when we start with contextual evidence there is a case to be made then that the author hasn't quite done everything they can to... tie up loose ends, maybe. Consider every angle. That a characters motivation could be made more clear, again, in the pursuit of purposefulness.

I hope this clarifies our position, and if it does not then I look forward to trying again!

 

[MelissaBaby]

I did read the story, but I'd like to address some other issues that have been raised, and about this thread in general.

1. The main problem here is not this thread, but that there has been virtually nothing like it on Lit. It was pretty much the only place anyone could get a serious critique of their work. There are glimmers here and there that that may change. Authors who are not able or willing to receive the kind of analysis A&O offer ask for it anyways, because there is no where else to go. I believe many of them expect the sort of review they read in a magazine or on AV Club or similar sites. Those review are written for the benefit of the audience, however and are nor usually directed toward the creator.

2. Reviewers are under no obligation to recuse themselves from examining the work of authors they have had previous disputes with, or even personal relationship. In the professional publishing world, such a stricture would probably eliminate the majority of all reviews from being published. It is proper, however, for reviewers to add a disclaimer to any post in which a conflict of interest might be present.

3. Imagine I write a Gay Male story set in San Francisco in the 1980s in which I never mention AIDS and none of my characters practice safe sex. I suspect I would get lambasted for irresponsibility, and rightly so. I doubt anyone would say "It's okay, it's just a fantasy." The same standard ought to apply in other circumstances, including sex work. Potentially harmful fantasies should be presented as such.

 

[Winter_Fare]

So: is grammar within dialog routinely critiqued by awkward-omen? For my quick scan, I haven’t found it done regularly at all. (Methodology: I used lit’s search feature, set to “this thread only” and searched for the word “grammar” then scrolled through posts by awkward-omen that critique grammar.

I've been following this thread for years, and I know for sure there are over a dozen different references to grammar and flow just from the last 12 months. Flow and readability are mentioned in some way in pretty much in every single review on the thread, it certainly never came across as a personal affront imho.