Yes, and the fact that you haven't seen it work for other fics (when there are quite a few works in progress out there) doesn't necessarily mean that your advice is the best for people in general either.
No, but in the absence of further information, I'm not sure what I have to go on besides "this option doesn't seem to work out for most people, maybe try something else."
That's why rewrites happen sometimes: because some people are so unsatisfied with what they're doing that the idea of continuing to work with what they have feels like a chore. It's not a good idea to encourage people to continue to build on a plot they absolutely do not want to work with if they're sure that's exactly what they don't want to do.
Of course. Indeed, total plot unworkability was one example I used for when I
would consider a rewrite a good option. TheCharredDragon's post didn't suggest that they were at the point of finding their plot totally unworkable or that they were feeling they weren't able to continue at all, which is why I didn't address that situation.
This is exactly why you can't generalize, which is what you've been doing by saying that performing a rewrite neither works nor is a good thing to do.
I think you can generalize, though. If nine times out of ten something doesn't work out for the average person, I feel comfortable warning the average person away from it. Also blah blah I never said that blah ("not a good thing to do" I'll own, though--
in general, not as an absolute).
My point is that there are a lot of works in progress, and to say that the methods of the people working on these is incorrect when you yourself have not done a rewrite nor thought about doing one is just straight-up unfair. You're basically speaking for these people and refusing to acknowledge that what they're doing is working for them.
I've... considered rewrites many times? I've done them in the past, right here on Serebii? I'm working on one
now?
Is it unfair of me to say that the methods of people who like to write invincible characters are incorrect? If someone asked, "This last chapter I was working on is really long. Do you think it's a good idea to post a chapter over forty pages," would I be disrespecting people who post super long chapters by saying that generally speaking people find chapters of that length overwhelming?
If the answer is yes, then I don't know how we can have any sort of discussion at all. That means that any sort of criticism, any sort of disagreement, is somehow unfair or disrespectful because I haven't surveyed every single writer, accounted for their individual situation, and explained in detail why you might possibly get away with something that in general is just
not a great idea. If saying that I think that the method someone uses is wrong is the same as saying that they're a bad person or a bad writer or that
they specifically are doing something wrong, how can I ever try to help someone avoid the common pitfalls that writers experience?
Also, I fail to see how I ever claimed to be speaking for anyone but myself.
You are basically saying that the works-in-progress that happen to be large-scale rewrites are never going to finish (and yes, that's what you're saying by looking at things statistically, seeing that they're not finished, and saying that you've never found a rewrite that's finished, so therefore, the entire method is dangerous), which is rather discouraging and a little disrespectful to the people who are writing these stories.
Yet again, what I'm saying is that it's
not likely (I said I knew of at least two that have finished) that they'll finish, not that they will. never. finish. I'd be an awful statistician if I claimed that. I'm sorry if you find that discouraging, but those are simply the facts. The disconnect for me is how this somehow goes from being discouraging to disrespectful. I would think that by giving someone my best possible understanding of the odds would be the most respectful thing I could do; wouldn't anything else be lying, if by omission if nothing else?
Yes, you're trying to offer up advice that applies to authors in general, but I do feel that in the process, you're disrespecting authors who don't agree with you by saying their methods aren't going to work. In other words, what I'm saying is you're talking a lot about statistics, but you're not really addressing why people perform rewrites.
How is it disrespecting someone to say that you think something they're doing is not working or is not going to work for them in the long term? Isn't that exactly what we do in reviews all the time? "I don't think it's a good idea to have your protagonist be such a passive character. It makes the plot stagnate." I thought the idea behind constructive criticism was that you told someone what you thought is not working
so that they could fix it and do better. How would it be better for me not to warn someone away from what I believed to be a dangerous practice. You're welcome to make the argument that it's not actually dangerous, but I object to the idea that I'm disrespectful for finding it dangerous and for trying to warn people away from it. At no point did I say something like doing rewrites
makes you a bad writer or
makes you a bad human being.
I had literally three sentences about statistics in my previous post, which was the first to address statistics in any concrete way. (If you're referring more generally to "it usually doesn't work out," then yes, I did spend more time on that--but that's not really statistics, and I still put plenty into motivations.)
Three sentences. I spent multiple paragraphs on the reasons why people rewrite things.
You literally just said that rewrites are generally bad ideas, but at the same time, there are times and places when rewrites can work. You can't say that it works for some people but that it's still generally a bad idea in the same breath.
Yes... yes I can. Maybe this is where the real heart of the matter lies. "Generally" does not mean "true in every imaginable circumstance." It means "true in most circumstances." There is absolutely no logical contradiction in saying "Generally, I think this is a bad idea, but you may be the exception."
If this is why you keep going on about how I said rewrites were never okay, then it's easy enough to clear this matter up, I guess. "Generally you should not do this thing" is worlds away from "You should absolutely never do this thing." When I said that I thought they were generally a bad thing, I never at all meant they were universally bad under all circumstances, should never be tried, or any permutation of that.
You're working with statistics and your own personal experiences to say that this method is incorrect when, obviously, it works for some people.
What... else could I possibly go off to say whether or not something has merit? What do you want out of me, here? Yet again, the fact that it may work for some people does not make it something worthy of recommendation to most or even many people. I mean, there's that one guy who apparently lives almost exclusively on candy (my idol), but suggesting that it's in any way a good idea for the average person to try doing the same would be a huge error. He makes it work! Doesn't make it a good idea for most! Doesn't make it disrespectful to tell someone that they're probably going to be real unhappy if they switch to that all-Skittles diet!
It's not okay to say that it should never be done
Great! Good thing I never said that, whew.
Or in short, I'm saying that if you haven't considered doing a rewrite, then please do not call the method generally a bad idea because you have no idea what another writer's specific circumstances are.
Even if I hadn't tried a rewrite in the past, I don't see how that fact would be relevant to my argument. And I'm sorry, I don't see why it's bad to call an option I think is generally a bad idea like I see it. I am not going to suggest that someone not bother with their dialogue punctuation because they might be the next e e cummings; I am not going to suggest that they scrap something and start over because they might be that one person in a hundred for whom that might work out. Again, if I know of specific mitigating circumstances, I will take them into account with my advice. In their absence, though, I don't see what's bad about making statements based on what I've seen to hold true for many other people.
Ultimately I don't know what was so offensive about my post. Was it the wording? I apologize if it came off as dismissive or abrasive. Indeed, I apologize to anyone who was offended by my post; it wasn't my intent at all to attack or devalue any of the writers here. I also apologize to the people downthread who are desperately posting to try and bury this conversation; I really will shut up after this, even if things get even more silly, I promise. Was it that I was too firm about my stance and did not cover potential alternatives to the best of your satisfaction? I didn't think that TheCharredDragon was really looking for an at-length discussion, but simply asking me to be more explicit about other options would have been fine. I can't tell if you're just mad about something I never said ("never do rewrites, they are unworkable and you will fail") or there's something else going on here. In the end I can't imagine that if someone had posted, "Hey, I was thinking about writing this story where the hero gets in a lot of trouble, but then suddenly Azelf appears and bails him out, does that sound like a good idea?" and I had in turn posted that I thought having a legendary bail them out was one of their worst options ever, I would have gotten anything like this sort of pushback. I'm just baffled by why in
this particular issue it's sacrilege not to couch my statements in a bunch of qualifiers and "well it's okay if XYZ"s.
By straight-up saying that what other people do is incorrect while blatantly refusing to acknowledge why one happens (by saying all of this can be remedied via bulldozing straight on through and ignoring the needs of each specific situation).
I've acknowledge
multiple times that some people may need to do a rewrite for one reason or another, and that there are many cases where it may be the best option. At no point did I make some kind of ultimatum like "bulldozing straight through" is universally the best option or even possible in all situations. You have been consistently mischaracterizing my argument, and I'm not sure how I could have altered my post to satisfy you.
All options are valid in that case, and there is no best way to go about fixing things because everyone works a little differently.
There is no universal best way of handling something like this, but that doesn't mean that all options are equally good. I stand by my statement that for most people, a rewrite is not the best option. Again, this may vary on a case-by-case basis, but in the same way that I would not tell someone that I think starting their journeyfic with someone waking up and eating breakfast is a great choice, I would not tell someone that starting over and rewriting their fic from scratch is a great choice. As far as I've seen, it just usually isn't.
That said, I do believe I've already asked you not to continue this conversation, so I'm going to have to ask you again. Please do not continue this conversation. It's just not going down a path that's wholly respectful of the writers of Serebii's community.
I would prefer not to continue this conversation in public either; I certainly wasn't expecting some huge thread-deraily flamewar to come out of what I thought was a pretty straightforward and innocuous comment, but feel free to contact me in private if you have anything else to say. But I find it extremely disingenuous for you to try and get several hundred last words in and then attempt to shut down the conversation by taking away my ability to reply to them, especially when you're trying to make out like I'm some kind of terrible person for expressing an opinion you don't care for. You were the one who decided to start in on this discussion, and if you want to end it, all you have to do is stop posting about it. But I'm not going to just sit around and let you spin it like I'm the one at fault for the drama here. All in all I don't think that your behavior during this discussion has been very respectful to me, and I am, after all, a member of that same Serebii writers' community you claim to speak for.
Let's talk about your old shames. What was/were the worst fanfic/s you've ever written? Leave out no small details!
Not much of interest, really. My old stories were bad, of course, but not in any novel way--your usual ridiculous Sues and purple prose and melodrama. I thought I would write some huge multi-epic interconnected series, and that was just a spectacularly bad idea, but nothing really out of the ordinary.
starliteevee said:
And it had a pretentious title of "The Legendary Child." I'm so ashamed of it, but least it got me a start in humility and I've since learned that I really need to listen to advice from others (which I promise I always do now).
I wonder how many newbie writers had at least one story with some variant of "legend" in the title. It seems to almost be a rite of passage.
