To review, or not to review...
Aug. 12th, 2002 07:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
graculusSo, there's this website (can't remember the name or url and I can't be bothered to search for it... ) that's posting reviews of SG fanfic and they finally got around to me...
[Please note this isn't a rant along the lines of 'how dare they review my work of creative genius, who do they think they are????' - I really can't be bothered with all that. This is more a 'huh?' post...]
Back in the mists of time, when the fandom was young (summer 1999), I got suckered into co-writing a story that kind of took on a life of its own. 690kb or so later we finished it, and no matter what anyone (critics included) might think of it, Price of Knowledge is a piece of SG slash history.
So, what's the point of reviewing it?
That's what I'm trying to figure out - it certainly doesn't help me as a writer, three years and a few hundred thousand words down the line.
I'd be the first person to say that there are things I'd do differently now if I was writing PofK in 2002 instead of 1999. I learned a lot writing that story, working with Jen, and in the fic I've written subsequently (with the help of some outstanding editors in a variety of fandoms) I've learned even more.
Am I ever tempted to go back to old stuff with a blue pencil? All the time. I don't do it, though (and not just because of threats of physical violence over that idea from some of my friends..*g*).
Because where do you stop with that? Where do you draw the line and say that you're going to leave a particular piece of fic alone? That you're going to stop tinkering with it? You have to stop somewhere, otherwise your overall output would be zero as you languish amongst piles of fic that are almost but not quite perfect enough to be shared with the readership.
Does this review help people coming into the fandom? I'm not convinced - after all, you have to find said review first. And don't most of us go through that thing when we get into a new fandom anyway, where we hoover up everything that's ever been written indiscriminately and then it's only after the first blush of newness is over, that we start to be a lot more picky?
How about people who've been in the fandom for a while? Well, I still get mail on a regular basis from people about PofK, some of whom tell me that it's one of their favourite stories, and it even won an award in the fic awards thing last year. So I guess a lot of people must have read it already, right? The story in question having been around since there were only a handful of stories over on Area 52, I find it hard to believe that anyone who's been in the fandom a while hasn't either a) read it or b) made up their mind they're not going to read it.
So who does that leave? Oh, of course, it leaves the reviewers. Well, I hope they got their jollies, but I'm still not at all sure what this review was meant to achieve for anyone else other than them.
It doesn't change the story, flaws and all. It's not going to change how I write now, since I'm not the writer I was when I co-wrote PofK anyway, not any more. It doesn't change the fact that people like the story and will probably keep on liking it. I doubt somehow that reviewing it's going to make more people (or less) read it.
It might be more interesting for me if the site in question actually ever gets around to reviewing something I wrote this millennium - that way their comments might be helpful for me as a writer in terms of feedback.
Personally, though, I'd rather someone dropped me a line.
[Please note this isn't a rant along the lines of 'how dare they review my work of creative genius, who do they think they are????' - I really can't be bothered with all that. This is more a 'huh?' post...]
Back in the mists of time, when the fandom was young (summer 1999), I got suckered into co-writing a story that kind of took on a life of its own. 690kb or so later we finished it, and no matter what anyone (critics included) might think of it, Price of Knowledge is a piece of SG slash history.
So, what's the point of reviewing it?
That's what I'm trying to figure out - it certainly doesn't help me as a writer, three years and a few hundred thousand words down the line.
I'd be the first person to say that there are things I'd do differently now if I was writing PofK in 2002 instead of 1999. I learned a lot writing that story, working with Jen, and in the fic I've written subsequently (with the help of some outstanding editors in a variety of fandoms) I've learned even more.
Am I ever tempted to go back to old stuff with a blue pencil? All the time. I don't do it, though (and not just because of threats of physical violence over that idea from some of my friends..*g*).
Because where do you stop with that? Where do you draw the line and say that you're going to leave a particular piece of fic alone? That you're going to stop tinkering with it? You have to stop somewhere, otherwise your overall output would be zero as you languish amongst piles of fic that are almost but not quite perfect enough to be shared with the readership.
Does this review help people coming into the fandom? I'm not convinced - after all, you have to find said review first. And don't most of us go through that thing when we get into a new fandom anyway, where we hoover up everything that's ever been written indiscriminately and then it's only after the first blush of newness is over, that we start to be a lot more picky?
How about people who've been in the fandom for a while? Well, I still get mail on a regular basis from people about PofK, some of whom tell me that it's one of their favourite stories, and it even won an award in the fic awards thing last year. So I guess a lot of people must have read it already, right? The story in question having been around since there were only a handful of stories over on Area 52, I find it hard to believe that anyone who's been in the fandom a while hasn't either a) read it or b) made up their mind they're not going to read it.
So who does that leave? Oh, of course, it leaves the reviewers. Well, I hope they got their jollies, but I'm still not at all sure what this review was meant to achieve for anyone else other than them.
It doesn't change the story, flaws and all. It's not going to change how I write now, since I'm not the writer I was when I co-wrote PofK anyway, not any more. It doesn't change the fact that people like the story and will probably keep on liking it. I doubt somehow that reviewing it's going to make more people (or less) read it.
It might be more interesting for me if the site in question actually ever gets around to reviewing something I wrote this millennium - that way their comments might be helpful for me as a writer in terms of feedback.
Personally, though, I'd rather someone dropped me a line.
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Re: To review, or not to review...
Date: 2002-08-13 11:25 am (UTC)I understand the need to sort out the wheat from the chaff (I read stuff in a number of fandoms where the chaff has enough of a stranglehold to appreciate it when that happens).
However, most of the forums where I've seen this happen, don't tend to bother to go back to the stories that have been around since before dirt was invented in that fandom. They start at the here and now and move on.
The existence (or otherwise) of reviews of my fic don't bother me. I just don't get the point of starting with stuff that's been around so long.
Unless we're preparing for a big influx of Jack & Daniel fans into the fandom when Sci Fi start airing season 1 episodes?
Re: To review, or not to review...
Date: 2002-08-13 11:43 am (UTC)*shrugs* They've only reviewed one of my fic, and it was one of the most recent (set S6). But looking at the review itself, it seems partly that the reviewer (Madrigal) picked PofK because "holds a sentimental place in my heart as it's the first Stargate story I ever read." So maybe you're right about this partly being something for the reviewers to get their jollies *g* Or maybe she honestly thinks that because she enjoyed it as a first SG story, others will. I guess it remains to be seen how many new SG fans choose what fic to read first via GR ;)
Unless we're preparing for a big influx of Jack & Daniel fans into the fandom when Sci Fi start airing season 1 episodes?
LOL. Hey, anything's possible!