HD World Cup: Critiques
Prefacing this by saying that I'm in a horrible mood and loaded for bear. But that does not mean that I don't stand behind this statement. It just means that on any other day I might have just decided it isn't worth it. But being pissy beyond belief, I think this needs to be said.

You know how I feel about this topic in general. I've said enough about this when the brouhaha over critical reviews boiled over and burned the tips of all of our fingers.

But I'm going to add a postscript to those writers out there. Naturally, this doesn't apply to the trolls who are just gearing up to smash someone's ego to bits. This is for the writers who have received comments about their fic that could be construed as constructive. Frankly, if you only want to receive the warm fuzzies, then I really do not think you belong in a competition. Your fic is ALREADY being voted on. People are all ready making a value judgment on your writing. That's not up for negotiation. (Of course, gift exchanges are an entirely different writerly animal.) But a competition automatically sets up the dynamic that your fic is being regarded in relationship to three others. Say, your fic gets five votes out of ten. Right there, right there someone is making a judgment on your fic. Don't you want to know why you didn't get eight or ten? Are you really satisfied with hugging your five little laurels to yourself? Don't you want to take that story and improve it? And if you really don't understand why you got only five laurels, you've got people telling you why you didn't. Free concrit.

Sure it hurts to know that one of the fics got more points than yours. READ THE COMMENTS. Maybe there's a damn good reason. Maybe this person kept their focus. Maybe this person had a great idea.

Short of the awful assholes that we know are part and parcel of LJ, there are some really thoughtful, intelligent people here and I think you should use them. If you get ten different opinions on why your story didn't work as successfully as it might have (five laurels as opposed to ten), then that's more difficult. But if you got seven people saying that the ending didn't work, then maybe the ending didn't work. Is that a tragedy? No, it just means that you go back and see what you did and think about it and come up with an ending that works for the story. That's it. These are only stories. We aren't in competition for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Learn from people. Or not. That is your choice.

Readers? This one's for you. There is a person on the other end of your comments. Be thoughtful and considerate, don't be a troll. If you think that your opinion is perhaps not something for the rest of LJ's eyes, then put in your comments that you'd like to discuss this after the fest is over and leave your email address.

I think that if people really only want warm fuzzy comments, then I think that commenting should be disabled and only the votes tabulated. I tend to be very polite in general whenever I am commenting on a piece of fanfiction, but I do not think that the writer's ego is the only factor in this equation. You don't have an audience if you don't have readers.

Think about what you're asking. You're asking the reader to park their brain at the door. Although this SEEMS like a fair exchange of ideas, it's not REALLY. I only want the really nice and laudatory comments. Even though I'm writing for a prompt and an ideal (fanon, canon EWE, or Epilogue--there are RULES here and hurdles to jump over), even though it's a type of game (i.e., my performance is to be judged), please do not judge me at all. Don't judge me if I have addressed my prompt appropriately. Don't judge me if I have written a story that conforms to canon or to fanon or whatever.

See what you're asking? You're changing the rules because you don't like the game. That's not fair. It's not fair to the other writers.