Meta Month 3: A Rant About Rants
Dec. 3rd, 2011 08:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wallwalker posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
personalapocalypseSo during my time online, quite a bit of my time has been spent on various rant communities. Even when I wasn't posting to them (and I won't link them here, you probably know about them, and if you don't they're fairly easy to find) I was reading a lot of them and nodding my head in complete agreement. There were a lot of people out there complaining about things, and a lot more people who just reacted with "Yes, this!" over and over again, or similar things. I'm sure we've all done it. I still do it, sometimes.
It's only after years and years in fandom and a lot of hindsight that I start to see that these rants aren't always harmless venting. I think that they can be counterproductive. And not just to the people reading them, but to me, as I was writing them. I'm finding, more and more, that ranting makes me bitter - less inclined to go out and find new things, more inclined to just turtle up in my own little lair and just ignore everyone else out there.
There's another aspect of it, too. I think that reading too many rants at a particularly impressionable time in my life is part of the reason why certain sorts of writing are so hard for me. I got used to reading so many angry quibbles on wording, so many people saying how much they hated it when people used certain sorts of words to describe this action or that (sex scenes, for instance.) And then someone else would come along and rant about exactly the opposite sort of terminology. I think, continuing along those lines, that I've seen rants about every single possible way that someone could write about people in intimate moments, and when you see enough of those you start wondering if there is a good way to write that scene that's been kicking around in your head. Maybe, I would think, it's better to just leave it there and never write it. And you never improve that way.
Which is another reason why I'm trying to avoid ranting about badfic and the like. Just about everyone started out writing badfic at some point or another. Maybe no one's ever seen it; maybe it's just scribbled down in a notebook somewhere. But no one started out knowing exactly what they were doing. Sues are annoying, yes. So is badfic. But everyone starts somewhere, and starting is a delicate time.
I'm not going to tell people never to rant again. But I will say this. New authors, if you feel the slightest bit insecure about your abilities as an author, this is the best advice I can give you. Steer clear of rants. Advice, constructive criticism, yes - seek those out, and pay attention to them. They will help you very much. But with pure angry rants, sooner or later you'll come across something that will make you doubt your own ability to learn and grow as a writer. It can take a long time to get over that.
It's only after years and years in fandom and a lot of hindsight that I start to see that these rants aren't always harmless venting. I think that they can be counterproductive. And not just to the people reading them, but to me, as I was writing them. I'm finding, more and more, that ranting makes me bitter - less inclined to go out and find new things, more inclined to just turtle up in my own little lair and just ignore everyone else out there.
There's another aspect of it, too. I think that reading too many rants at a particularly impressionable time in my life is part of the reason why certain sorts of writing are so hard for me. I got used to reading so many angry quibbles on wording, so many people saying how much they hated it when people used certain sorts of words to describe this action or that (sex scenes, for instance.) And then someone else would come along and rant about exactly the opposite sort of terminology. I think, continuing along those lines, that I've seen rants about every single possible way that someone could write about people in intimate moments, and when you see enough of those you start wondering if there is a good way to write that scene that's been kicking around in your head. Maybe, I would think, it's better to just leave it there and never write it. And you never improve that way.
Which is another reason why I'm trying to avoid ranting about badfic and the like. Just about everyone started out writing badfic at some point or another. Maybe no one's ever seen it; maybe it's just scribbled down in a notebook somewhere. But no one started out knowing exactly what they were doing. Sues are annoying, yes. So is badfic. But everyone starts somewhere, and starting is a delicate time.
I'm not going to tell people never to rant again. But I will say this. New authors, if you feel the slightest bit insecure about your abilities as an author, this is the best advice I can give you. Steer clear of rants. Advice, constructive criticism, yes - seek those out, and pay attention to them. They will help you very much. But with pure angry rants, sooner or later you'll come across something that will make you doubt your own ability to learn and grow as a writer. It can take a long time to get over that.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-07 02:32 am (UTC)I'm really having this problem with fandom -- both with reading fic and with finding new source material to be excited about. I get so cranky and worked up about everything a story isn't giving me that I miss the good stuff. And then I sort of internalize that and turn the same eye on my own work, and end up deciding that it doesn't have any worth either.
Squeem has been encouraging me to post more lately by telling me that not sharing and not posting is the online equivalent of staying inside all day and never going out to experience anything or meet anyone.
I think that reading too many rants at a particularly impressionable time in my life is part of the reason why certain sorts of writing are so hard for me.
Totally. I've been seeing a ton of rants lately on realistic sex scenes, and how you're not Doing It Right if you're not including all the gory details, and it makes me needlessly critical about my own writing, when clearly whoever's writing these rants is looking for something different out of sex scenes than I am. And there's always this attitude in ranters that there's a Right way and a Wrong way to write, which I see now is ridiculous, but I got really caught up in that when I was younger and less experienced, and that attitude's had a lasting impact on me. I think sometimes ranting is just venting, and sometimes it's a way to feel superior to less experienced or just different writers.