FF.net Fic Suckage Rant -aka- Who's Bright Idea Was It to Let These People Near a Computer, Anyway?
Well, school started last week, and, just in case further proof of my innate talent for procrastination was required, I now seem to be functioning somewhere in the vicinity of 2 weeks behind actual time. I spent all last week compiling bookmarks into a master Naruto fic recs list, and all weekend wading through ff.net looking for stories I haven't already read that don't suck. And, boy are there a lot of the sucky ones! I'd gotten so used to ff.net sending me "new story/chapter" emails pointing the way to the yummy fic by authors I like, that I'd forgotten how much utter crap there is on that site.
It got so bad that, by Sunday night, I was really excited when I found a fic whose formatting wasn't in danger of making my head explode... I wound up reading maybe 1 actually good fic along with a few more that were decent, and about then 40 or 50 so-so stories that lured me in by being slightly better than the rest of the trash I was wading through.
Okay... so, maybe some of you think I sound overly critical, but I'm not really. In the end, I'm all about the story, once I get started on a story, I want to find out what happens, and I'm willing to put up with a lot of crap along the way. Basically, as long as the author has a minimally decent command of the English language and their story is interesting in any way, I'm there. If a story has an interesting plot OR good characterization OR well done writing (comedy/descriptive passages/etc), I'm willing to overlook some shortcomings in one or more other areas.
Entirely too often, however, I innocently click on a story that has a vaguely intriguing summary and discover a story that leave me in awe... because it shouldn't be possible to write that badly. You know the ones... where you can decipher just barely enough--through the awful grammar, poor formatting, obvious misspellings, and netspeak--to determine that the author is poorly reproducing some already overused plot using doppelgangers of your favorite characters (who act nothing at all like the originals, for no apparent reason, no explanation offered). Sometimes I wonder how it is that these people have managed to avoid learning about the existence of spellcheckers--included in of most word processors (and ff.net, I might add)--and if they've ever actually encountered the original manga/book/anime/movie/series/80's hairdo that their fic is based on. Really, though, I'm usually too busy scrambling for the back button to bother thinking about it.
It got so bad that, by Sunday night, I was really excited when I found a fic whose formatting wasn't in danger of making my head explode... I wound up reading maybe 1 actually good fic along with a few more that were decent, and about then 40 or 50 so-so stories that lured me in by being slightly better than the rest of the trash I was wading through.
Okay... so, maybe some of you think I sound overly critical, but I'm not really. In the end, I'm all about the story, once I get started on a story, I want to find out what happens, and I'm willing to put up with a lot of crap along the way. Basically, as long as the author has a minimally decent command of the English language and their story is interesting in any way, I'm there. If a story has an interesting plot OR good characterization OR well done writing (comedy/descriptive passages/etc), I'm willing to overlook some shortcomings in one or more other areas.
Entirely too often, however, I innocently click on a story that has a vaguely intriguing summary and discover a story that leave me in awe... because it shouldn't be possible to write that badly. You know the ones... where you can decipher just barely enough--through the awful grammar, poor formatting, obvious misspellings, and netspeak--to determine that the author is poorly reproducing some already overused plot using doppelgangers of your favorite characters (who act nothing at all like the originals, for no apparent reason, no explanation offered). Sometimes I wonder how it is that these people have managed to avoid learning about the existence of spellcheckers--included in of most word processors (and ff.net, I might add)--and if they've ever actually encountered the original manga/book/anime/movie/series/80's hairdo that their fic is based on. Really, though, I'm usually too busy scrambling for the back button to bother thinking about it.