Webnovel.Forum

yu_ba_bu_neng Is there a problem with your reading comprehension? How does me pointing out that insults are not useful suddenly equate to me approving of feeding people's egos and encouraging people to praise the story? Why are you assuming that I'm part of this bubble community?

If the writer can't spell something right, then tell him what he/she misspelled. You know, point out the words, and give him/her the correct spelling. Not throw a "don't write a story" comment into his/her face. How is that even remotely helpful? If you think it's unintelligible, point out the segments and offer suggestions on how to make it intelligible. Perhaps point them toward a beginner's guide. Advise them to read more. Not insult them and tell them to delete their story or stop writing. Instead, you should be enouraging them to practice more. Obviously, writing - just like every other craft - requires tons of practice. In fact, telling them "don't write a fucking story" is one of the worst piece of advice ever. How are they going to improve if they don't practice?

I'm not saying we should let writers assuage and inflate each other's egos and praise each other incessantly without any criticism. The only thing I disagree with is your hyperbolic insults and demands that people stop writing stories because that is in no way useful advice. It is not constructive, it is destructive, demeaning, insulting and condescending. The only thing you achieve is coming across as an arrogant asshole, and contrary to your claims, it's not going to help anyone improve or grow.

yu_ba_bu_neng

yu_ba_bu_neng ^ Heres my reply that constructive criticism is only worth it if the story is not something that 12-year-old indian kid wrote in English as fanfic for his favorite anime.

And my reply is that you should still offer constructive criticism whether the other party is a 12-year-old Indian kid wrote a fanfiction or not, instead of insulting him and telling him not to write. Why do you think I brought up recommending them a beginner's guide? I disagreed with you on that, and somehow you claimed that I didn't comprehend what you said. Uh, no? In the first place, I simply said that you can't insult people, and that you should give constructive criticism, and then you went off on a long rant about bubbles and egos when I never said anything about that. Why bring it up then? And then you claimed that I didn't understand what you said, but I was responding perfectly with suggestions for people who don't have basic writing skills, like beginner's guide for example. Also, you don't have to point out every spelling mistake, just a few of them. And advise them to read more - again, something I mentioned above. But hey, you just want to insult people, you clearly don't care about whether they improve or grow, which is why you're so aggressive and dismissive of my counter-suggestions.

I notice you make a lot of assumptions about me, even calling me a "writer" of fanfiction. I don't read or write fanfiction, probably for the same reasons that you don't, but I have no intention of belittling the writers, insulting them and putting them down. I'm not an arrogant prick, unlike some people.

yu_ba_bu_neng something that's utterly trash. Just tell the person to gtfo

This is what I take issue with. If you think it's bad, fine. But there is absolutely no need to be so rude about it and even tell people to "gtfo." Imagine if I tell you to gtfo from the website. Not very nice, right?

Also, I didn't insult you or do any personal attacks. Where did I insult you? Oh, maybe there's one part that you seem to misunderstand. I simply said the only thing you achieve is coming across as an arrogant asshole if you insult people with condescending remarks, not that you are one. Comprende? No? Yeah, you have some comprehension issues. Yet you're the one scorning writers for poor English and being unintelligible. Funny, you're the one throwing out words like "trash", "shitty," and telling people to "gtfo" and using "brutal honesty" as an excuse to insult and be mean to others, yet you get all defensive over me supposedly throwing "personal attacks" and "insults" at you. Pot calling the kettle black? Can dish it but can't take it? Wow.

Tomoyuki
That's the difference between us, I took it out as an suggested general guideline while you target me specifically. Obviously you're incapable of understanding this, this is clear to me now. I will disregard everything you have written so far and ignore you from now on. I'm not sure which third-world-country you crawled from but just go back there and stop bothering me anymore.

fantasybliss30
Its not a matter of being a newbie. The actual CN and JP sites where this genre and the novels in it originate from have a bunch of newbies who get varying amounts of respect depending on the quality of their stories. One thing I've always found consistent (at least on the novels that end up getting translated/worked on and the miniscule amount I've researched on) is that the original grammar, which admittedly is in their home language, is always at least decent and not 'child like'. Obviously I'm not including the crappy MTL's and such that sometimes make their way here or books written by actual children.

The difference is obviously that they're writing in their own language which makes it easier and helps the story be more fluid/readable. I'm not saying we should force all those fanfic writers to use their own language because this would obviously destroy any hope for major audience they hold but what I am suggesting is that there would be AT LEAST SOME level of skill checking when accepting books to this site. Whether it is by majority peer review or site administrated. Those that can't reach the required skill level, well they should just fuck off. Or get better and try again?

As for the supposed 'negative feedback'.. Well I though I was being quite clear with my style here but obviously I'm exaggerating, we wouldn't really them to 'fuck off'. Not with those exact words anyway. Just decline their works and tell them to get better.

I for one am big believer of NOT giving people some false hope and illusions about themselves and their skill levels. Critical feedback will not crush some aspiring authors dreams if he's actually dedicated. Gold WILL shine and anything can be worked on if you're willing to do the grind. Through-out ages there has been millions upon millions success stories like "When I was starting my trade X they told me I couldn't do it, but then I did it!". In fact such a thing has happened to me too and I obviously beat the premise through my very own hard work. Thinking back now, that actually gave me a ton of motivation to succeed too.

Its just that MOST books here have literally less value as reading material than a fucking shampoo bottle does. There's no need to baby those people at all. Just get rid of them. Only after they've come back and reached the skill level that's presentable we can begin helping them with any kind of feedback you'd like.

e-

@fantasybliss30 @PWS @poziomowiec @Sythcake @Grand_Void_Daoist @US_DreamerDon

I kind of forgot about this thread, sort of shame because there was some real necessary discussion going on but hey that's the reality nowdays- I basically only visit this site like once a week. Every book here can be found elsewhere and those sites are not cluttered with garbage novels to sift though. :)

For those that though I was trolling, I really am not. I stand by my statement completely. 99,9% novels in this site are unreadable garbage. Most of it is because they're written by children who are not English speaking natives. This is a losing business model that's heading for a big crash; nobody has time to look through all those shitty books and just 1 fake review by your friend is enough to permanently put off a potential reader.

Doesn't really matter to me what ends up happening, I operate on whole different sites and most of the novels that end up there get sieved by popularity and demand purely so there's no clutter for me. Its only this site that has the issue.

yu_ba_bu_neng while you target me specifically.

Again, I did not target you specifically or insult you at all. Go ahead and quote me. I simply explained how being rude and condescending makes you come across as an arrogant asshole, and you took that as a personal attack. For someone who promotes "brutal honesty", you get butthurt over...I don't know, me giving an example.

Also, it's clear that you enjoy making assumptions about other people, so perhaps you are the one who should stop posting on the forum, because quite frankly, you're making a fool of yourself.

yu_ba_bu_neng There's no need to baby those people at all. Just get rid of them. Only after they've come back and reached the skill level that's presentable we can begin helping them with any kind of feedback you'd like.

And how are they supposed to reach the skill level that's presentable if all you do is tell them that their stories are trash and that they should gtfo?

yu_ba_bu_neng
Thanks. Yeah. I mean even though your first post sounded very out there to me, your reply to me is more compelling to me that I will definitely like to mull over. I still prefer positive feedbacks for most writers here. But, looking at the responses, it seems that more newbies do welcome brutally honest feedback too. So, I don't think we can entirely dismiss your post here. Maybe it would just be better for readers to ask the authors if they would like any kind of criticism or not, even constructive one.

Brutally honest feedback =/= "your story is trash, delete it, gtfo the site and don't write until you get better."

Brutally honest feedback = "Your story needs a lot of work, you need to pratice more. Here are some ways where you can improve your story, e.g. your protagonist needs to be more fleshed out because currently your characters are flat and too one-dimensional, which makes your story boring. Your dialogue sounds unnatural. Read more and see from professionally written books, e.g. Gaunt's Ghosts series by Dan Abnett, to see how dialogue is handled. On the whole, it seems that you might want to read more (officially published books, not webnovels and stories by other amateur writers) and practice more before publishing here."

You can claim that you want "brutally honest feedback" all you want, but let's be honest, being told that your story is trash, that you're a shitty writer, and receiving demands to take your story down doesn't actually help you improve at all. All it achieves is destroying your self-confidence and self-esteem, and you don't even know where your story went wrong because of how vague it is. And also being told that "you're not worth giving any constructive criticism to until you develop basic writing skills" is meaningless unless you are told how to develop those basic writing skills or what they are, or at least be referred to a beginner's guide.