Critizing the story

[thebullet]

Criticizing the story

Have you guys noticed a trend in the public comments section of criticizing stories based upon the critics' belief that the protagonists should have done something differently? There is a story currently posted called, I believe, My Brother's Wife that is the current brunt of this trend.

The criticism centers on something that happened actually before the scope of the story began; the critics saying that a certain event should not have occurred. Of course, had that event not occurred, there would have been no story and the criticis would have nothing to bitch about.

I guess I just don't like critics who want to rewrite authors' stories. You see it all the time. One favorite critical ploy is to say that what the author wrote happened, or what the author wrote a certain character felt, was incorrect or not true. The critic sees some conspiratorial event going on in the background that throws a different light on the author's conclusions.

From my point of view, an author is the god of his little universe. What he says the characters felt they felt. You can't be rewriting an author's story to make it fit your own concepts. If you want to play god, write your own damn story.

Criticize the writing, the grammar, the spelling, the logic. But don't try to change the plot to fit your own ideas.

Just a pet peeve of mine.

 

[TheEarl]

Loving wives? They tend to be a crazy bunch of readers over there.

The Earl

 

[AchtungNight]

I too have that pet peeve. When I put out my X-Men 3 story a while back, I got comments from a lot of people saying I shouldn't have gotten Wolverine and Storm together (should have been Rogue and Wolverine, or some other combination), that it would have been better to have just Rogue and Bobby instead of the two of them in a threesome with Kitty (come on, people, that was hot!), and (my personal favorite head-shaker) that I should have let Magneto keep his powers. I told these fans time and time again that I wrote what made sense and seemed right to me, and I was not going to apologize for doing so. Hopefully I will not have to go through that again any time soon.

 

[3113]

From my point of view, an author is the god of his little universe. What he says the characters felt they felt. You can't be rewriting an author's story to make it fit your own concepts.

You post in "Loving Wives" and you take your chances. That said, I'm going to play devil's advocate here because MY pet peeve is a shitty story that could have been SO good--and not wasted my time--if the author thought about logic, consistency and versimilitude rather than playing "god." Playing god, to me is playing with yourself. If you post on Lit, however, that indicates to me that want to play with others. And that means that you have to think about their pleasure as well as your own.

And that you shouldn't try to force too many things down a readers throat--and if you do, you should take some note of their complains. Because they didn't have fun--and if they didn't have fun, they won't want to play with you again.

This is not to say your critics are right. They might be dead wrong. They might want a happy ending when a sad one is, indeed, the right one. Right or wrong, however, you should be able to defend your decisions BETTER than, "Well, there's be no story if I do that," OR, "I'm god! If you don't like it go play in your own yard!" These readers took the time to read your story. You can take the time to consider their criticism and see if they have any validity. Especially if you get more than one on the same topic. (If this is just about ONE critic, then all bets are off).

As for "What he says the characters felt they felt"--sorry, no. Good story telling doesn't work that way. You SHOW, you don't tell. Especially if you want the reader to believe it. You don't say, "Sherlock Holmes was brilliant" and expect the reader to take your word for it. You SHOW Sherlock seeing details other missed, solving crimes no one else can solve...and your readers BELIEVE that yes, he is brilliant. Because they're not merely TOLD, they are shown.

If telling was all there was to a story then I could tell one in two sentences: "They saw each other, they fell in love. They had great sex." Take my word for it. It's my universe. I don't have to SHOW you anything. You just have to believe me.

I haven't read the story and I haven't read the comments--but I have read a lot of stories where high-handed authors say the same thing you do to valid criticism: "It's my story, I'll do what I like with my characters!" what that usually means is that they get more pleasure out of playing with puppet characters then they would out of the hard work it takes to play with REAL characters. Puppet characters do and say what you want them to do and say...not what characters who comes to life on the page would do and say.

In the best writing, the character comes to life and even the writer doesn't always know what they will do or say. One of my favorite stories is Tolkien describing his character "Strider" (aka, Aragorn)--he said that when Strider turned up, a shadow in the corner of the Prancing Pony, even he, the author, didn't know who Strider was, or if Strider was going to turn out to be good or bad. And Tolkien was as surprised as the Hobbits to learn the truth.

Tolkien understood, characters who run away with the story, who are not under the control of "God the author" are the best characters. God-the-author can create them, and then throw things in their path like a dragon or a mountain...but the best writers then leave it up to the character to tell THEM what's going to happen next; whether the character will fight the dragon or run for his life.

Those are the characters that readers love and believe in--the characters that create the intreguing stories and make the writer write his best. Characters that are not puppets, but people with minds and wills of their own.

I may be wrong, but it's possible that your readers were telling you that they could see the strings on your puppets--and that they wished you'd have cut those characters free instead of letting the story go in predictable or unbelievable directions. That, in short, they didn't have as much fun reading this story as they might have if you'd have let the characters live and breathe.

Just an alternate point-of-view there.

 

[thebullet]

As for "What he says the characters felt they felt"--sorry, no. Good story telling doesn't work that way. You SHOW, you don't tell. Especially if you want the reader to believe it. You don't say, "Sherlock Holmes was brilliant" and expect the reader to take your word for it. You SHOW Sherlock seeing details other missed, solving crimes no one else can solve...and your readers BELIEVE that yes, he is brilliant. Because they're not merely TOLD, they are shown.

Sorry, but I didn't make myself clear, I suppose. First, it wasn't me getting the criticism. I rarely post loving wives stories and usually they are sarcastic as hell. I don't give a damn what the readers think.

What I am refering to is, for example, if the story is told in the 1st person from the female protagonist's point of view. In her thought process she might say that she had been unfaithful to her husband just the one time in question. Readers will jump all over that statement, claiming that she must have been unfaithful over and over again. But this is the woman thinking to herself. What would her reason be for lying to herself?

I'm not referring to a person's character, his/her traits, etc. Rather I am referring to his/her actions in the past tense; or his/her feelings about things. Why, oh why, would the person lie about that to himself? That is what the critics believe. If a character thinks that she still loves her husband regardless of a history of her infidelity, I'm inclinded to believe that from her POV, she thinks she still loves her husband, even though her actions would indicate otherwise. This isn't a sister or friend telling the husband that his unfaithful wife still loves him. This is the unfaithful wife telling herself that she still loves him.

I say, the writer knows the facts of his story. The readers certainly can speculate on motivations, personal qualities. But not the facts. That is the writer's domain.

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

If the author relates the occurance in the body of the story and the ocurrance drives the plot there may be good reason for the critic to reference it. Should the occurance have been included in the text? Should the reference have been made at all?

Those are questions that the critic has to deal with in his/her own mind.

 

[3113]

Hopefully I will not have to go through that again any time soon.

I think you're complaint is a bit different, Achtung. If it's your character you can say, "I know something about this character that you don't...and you'll see why this makes sense." But you haven't that defense in this category. Wolverine, et al, aren't YOUR characters and you know no more about them than any other reader and fan.

Which means those other fans could have been right. A lot of fan writers make their favorite characters do and say what they fantasize about them doing and saying--rather than what is likely given everything that's been established about the character's background, personality, etc. Wolverine is not going to willingly and soberly put on a tutu and happily dance swan lake...no matter how much you may fantasize about him doing so.

Have him do such a thing and you have no one but yourself to blame if people send you angry feedback, upset that you messed with their sacroscant vision of Logan. It's THEIR character as much as it is yours. You need not apologize for what you decided to do, but if you wade into shark-infested waters carrying raw meat you can hardly complain if you get attacked.

 

[MagicaPractica]

I tend to put this in the context of a society where people walk up to soap opera stars and punch, hit, kick, berate them for something the character on the show did. Some of these people below the actors are their characters.

 

[3113]

Rather I am referring to his/her actions in the past tense; or his/her feelings about things. Why, oh why, would the person lie about that to himself?

My characters lie to themselves about their feelings all the time. They think they're feeling in the right when they're really feeling guilty. They think they hate someone when they really love them, think they love them when they really hate and resent them.

But that's not the point is it? The point is that it's in the LW category. And commentators often get very involved with characters and emotional about them. They WANT the character to be more good or more bad than the writer protrayed her. They want more or less justification for the cheating.

It's difficult to tell if the comments are valid critiques or just readers getting too caught up in the whole "cheating wife" thing. A valid critique would explain why the reader didn't believe the wife would FEEL this way about her cheating. Or would only feel this way about her cheating if she'd done it more than once. An invalid criticism would be the reader saying, "She's lying! The bitch! She cheated on him before!" That's just someone projecting their own feelings and problems onto the story and forgetting that the character is a character...not their ex-wife.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I too have that pet peeve. When I put out my X-Men 3 story a while back, I got comments from a lot of people saying I shouldn't have gotten Wolverine and Storm together (should have been Rogue and Wolverine, or some other combination), that it would have been better to have just Rogue and Bobby instead of the two of them in a threesome with Kitty (come on, people, that was hot!), and (my personal favorite head-shaker) that I should have let Magneto keep his powers. I told these fans time and time again that I wrote what made sense and seemed right to me, and I was not going to apologize for doing so. Hopefully I will not have to go through that again any time soon.

You're going to go through that every time you write fanfic...

I had someone tell me that I shouldn't have paired my young actor with the particular old actor, but used a different, even younger actor instead. (Orli, of course)

 

[MzDeviancy]

I had people who loved one of my stories, but slashed their votes because the ending. A few people sent me feedback cussing me out for not having my heroine, her lawyer, and his sister end the story in a three-way wedding. What to do.

 

[3113]

I had people who loved one of my stories, but slashed their votes because the ending. A few people sent me feedback cussing me out for not having my heroine, her lawyer, and his sister end the story in a three-way wedding. What to do.

Were they right? Would it have made it a better story?

 

[Stella_Omega]

I had someone email me;
Wow, you're a really good writer, and that was som eof the best action I've ever read, you deserve a 5, but- I don't like gay action, so I only gave you a 4.5

Don't do me any favors!

 

[AchtungNight]

You have a good point about putting Wolverine in a tutu, 3113. Not that I would ever do that, of course. I must add this corrallary, though- Is every author's depiction of the same character the same? IMHO, no. Think about it. Is Frank Miller's Batman the same as the original Batman? Is Brian Michael Bendis's Daredevil the same as Kevin Smith's? Is my Kitty Pryde the same as Stan Lee's or anyone else's? No, no, and definitely no. Therefore I do have some defense when I write these characters, in my humble opinion.