MEFA reviews

[wiseheart]

Reading the ones I got so far was mostly pleasant. The most reviewers seemed to like my stuff. Some of them complained about the typos, though - well, I'm terribly sorry, but when so very few people seem willing to do any beta work at all, spellchecker and proofreading my own stuff can only take me so far. Besides, my spelling isn't any worse than that of many a widely popular authors (not all, I would hurriedly add) who have the advantage of being native speakers. And to think that I extra re-read and corrected those stories... it was lost effort, apparently.

*is mildly pissed*

Someone also complained about the "constant head-hopping" in "The Prisoner of Dol Guldur". I'm not entirely sure what they meant with it. Granted, the story is written in steadily shifting POVs: those of Enadar, who's trying to find out who he is and where he is, and the others who try to heal him after his ordeal. But since these sections are clearly separated from each other, it should not be so very hard to realize through whose eyes we are seeing things.

*is moderately pissed*

The other reviews, though, were very positive, so all in all I shouldn't be too unhappy. Even if it does annoy me that some people can only see the negative things (unless you are one of their icons, that is, in which case grammar and spelling don't matter). Interestingly enough, these usually are the same people who'd never do the beta work, as it would require some effort from their side.

That said, I probably won't check out the reviews again until the MEFAs are over. Why upset myself? I accepted the nominations to get people read my stuff. I have achieved that. The rest shouldn't matter, right?

Comments

[mistry89.livejournal.com]

Congratulations!
I definitely think you should accentuate the positive :)

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

I'm trying. It's not easy, though. I've been fighting this patronizing attitude about typos ever sine I appeared in the fandom. The maddening thing is that a few typos here and there are given more importance than an entire story. Not to mention the frigging double standard that Big Name Autors rarely or never are criticized for the typos in their writing, while second grade ones like myself are constantly picked about them.

The stupid thing is, I really try to avoid them. I have asked and begged on various lists to find proper beta readers - aside from Larner, may the Valar bless her, nobody offered. And no matter how many time I spellcheck and proofread, I always overlook some. When you read your own writing, you often unconsciously see what you wanted to write, not what you've actually written.

Besides, I've read a lot of stories by insanely popular authors in all my fadoms that were a lot worse, despite being written by native speakers and having had two or more betas. So no, I don't understand why some self-proclaimed grammar experts must always bother me about my spelling.

[lissas-elves.livejournal.com]

I remember the story of Enadar - wonderful story! have read it several times - and don't recall having any problems figuring out who's thinking what. It's good to hear that you got many good reviews.

>>The other reviews, though, were very positive, so all in all I shouldn't be too unhappy.<<
Quite right! I think you should enjoy the good reviews - you're allowed to be happy about them - and treat the others as suggestions rather than negative reviews. But that's probably easier said than done.

I can't even begin to imagine what it must feel like being nominated to the MEFAs. I mean, after all, a MEFA nomination is a serious pat on the shoulder.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

I kow. And I'm glad that I got repeatedly nominated in the recent years and even won at least a honourable mentioning each time, because it means that people actually do like what I wrote.

All that grammar pettiness still annoys me. If they want to help so frigging much, why don't they offer to do the beta reading, instead of making me seem as if I were too lazy or too stupid to spellcheck? I do spellcheck, dammit! But without a native beta, it's very hard to keep a certain level, but I'm still a hell of a lot better than many native speakers when writing, and it annoys the living hell out of me that I always got picked on a few spelling mistakes in a twelve-chapter story?

They aren't able to say anything of importance about the story itself, so they pick on the typos. Which aren't all that numerous. What a sorry lot!

[lissas-elves.livejournal.com]

I do spellcheck, dammit! But without a native beta, it's very hard to keep a certain level,

Oh, don't I know it! Betas are a blessing, particularly to us ESLs - don't know what I'd do if I had to manage without their help, and I only write tiny little pieces at a time.

You on the other hand are a very productive writer and it would be very much work to beta your long stories. Perhaps that's why? I mean, most everybody would be willing to beta 1000 words, but 100,000 ... that's another story. :-(

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Well, they're only 100,000 words after the tenth chapter or so. My chapters are rarely longer than ten pages, and most of the Halabor vignettes never got longer than six!

But if people won't beta, they shouldn't wine about a few mistakes that got overlooked, even after repeated proofreading. My grammar isn't *that* bad that one needed to complain about it all the time.

And one more thing: there are phrasings that I wouldn't change, even if a native speaker said it sounded weird for them. First and foremost, it should sound true for *me*, and if others can't accept a little poetic licence with the language, well, that's their loss.

[jen-rock.livejournal.com]

I can't believe people are complaining about the occasional typo. It's not that big a deal. I have them and I think most people have them at some point or another. I don't use betas but I do read my stories over several times after they're finished to catch any mistakes and I use spell check. But I sometimes miss things because I'm seeing what I thought I typed rather than the actual words on the screen.

In the fourth chapter of "Knowledge Burns," I have a line that's supposed to read "...protect the species," only I typed it as "...protest the species," and didn't catch it before posting. I fixed it in LJ but I wasn't going to reload the chapter on ff.net just for one mistyped word so it's still there. I actually think it's somewhat of an amusing typo.

So you shouldn't let those negative reviews get you down. Some people are just way too nitpicky.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

I'd prefer to use beta readers if there were enough available because I'm not a native speaker and English can be really demanding sometimes. But there are so few people who have the time or are willing to begin with, so it's really not fair to pick on me for a few mistakes when there's so little help to have.

Besides, I think extensive research, detailed worldbuilding, decent writing and in-depth characterization should be more important than the one or other mistake that has managed to escape spellcheck.