Subject rants

I know I haven't been updating and I'm sorry about that!
It's just that I haven't had any ideas for posts, and haven't had time to look up bad fanfiction and stuff to get ideas. Or when I have ideas, I don't have time to write them.
Oh well. But here's a post!!

So, I was in class a couple weeks back, and we got on the topic of whether all people from post-colonial countries should write about identity or colonialism. The answer that the class came up with seemed to be a resounding yes, they should, and if they don't then they're just not going to be famous.
Wait... what?
I couldn't seem to get a word in edgewise, so I'll vent my frustrations here:
That is the worst way to think about writing EVER.

First, let's look at how fucking racist that is. Basically the argument was, "If you are Indian, you must write about what it is like to be Indian". But what if an Indian author really just wants to write about love, or family, or death? "No, absolutely not!" The idea is that if they write about anything but Indian-ness, that they're somehow betraying their people and doing them a disservice.
Okay, so does that mean that all black authors have to write about racism or slavery?
Apparently so, actually, because have you heard academics talk about black authors? If they come across any black author who writes about something other than racism, you're going to hear nothing but complaints. Poor Zora Neale Hurston, how dare she focus on womens' rights instead of black rights!
(ignoring that Their Eyes Were Watching God did touch on the subject of race somewhat, really, it's not like academics actually read what they're critisizing)
But meanwhile white authors are free to write about any damn subject we want, but if you're in a minority then you have strictly defined subjects that you must write about, and if you don't then academia will hate and reject you.
... or so the argument goes.
That's the worst thing I've ever heard and any of you who think that this is a good way to view things needs to just grow the fuck up, honestly, it's immature.
If you're Indian and you want to write about what it's like to be Indian, go ahead! If you want to write about colonialism, post-colonialism, whatever, then do it. However, if you want to write about womens' issues, about love or death or space aliens, then do that. Write what you're compelled to write and nothing else. If you force out something that you really don't care that much about, it's going to be godawful, so just don't bother.

Also, I'd like to touch on the hypocrasy of that argument as well.
Basically there's this whole hate going on toward genres that count as "commercial fiction", because supposedly commercial fiction writers tailor their work to match market trends and become famous and famous = bad, apparently. Okay?
So, then, how is it any better, in the literary fiction genre, to say, "Well, I wanted to write about death, but I'm going to write about identity instead, because it will make me more famous".
It's not any better. Anyone who says that it is is full of shit and you should stop listening to a damn word they say.

End rant.

Moving back into dorm room post

Dear Fanfiction.net users:
I don’t know what part of “ONE-SHOT” you don’t understand.
It’s right there in the summary, for chrissakes! ONE – SHOT. Meaning ONE CHAPTER. A short story. A story that will not be continued. Got it?!
This is way too common. Author writes one-shot, uploads it, makes it very clear that there will be no continuation ever, and yet gets all these people commenting saying “I CAN’T WAIT FOR THE NEXT CHAPTER” and adding it to their alert list.
Fffffff—
WHY
Short stories are still legitimate stories, okay, they have a beginning, a middle and an end and they do not by any means NEED to be continued.

… I know that has nothing to do with writing, but god if it doesn’t drive me up the wall.

This entry is rated S for Stupid

Okay. Two things that are vaguely related.

One:
RANDOM VIOLENCE DOES NOT A STORY MAKE.
Okay?
I’m sick of seeing fanfics uploaded that are dedicated entirely to shoving as much blood and gore as one possibly can into little 300-word chapters. I’m tired of stories that go out of their way to kill characters just because it’s “edgy” and “dark”. I’m fucking sick of seeing mediocre summaries that end with “RATED M FOR BLOOD AND GORE!” as though they really think that’s going to get anyone to read it.
STOP IT GUYS.
What are you, ten?
Well, actually, you probably are ten if you’re doing that.
So if you’re ten and writing pointless gore stories, do us all a favor and never upload them anywhere ever. PLEASE.

Two:
It irks me when I see summaries that say that the rating “may go up”. Look, if you’re doing this right then you should already have an idea of where your story is going to go. Give the story a rating based on what will happen through the entire story and NOT based on the first chapter. If the story becomes more mature or whatever and you hadn’t planned it originally, then change the rating when that’s appropriate. Just please, I don’t see the point in advertising the fact that MAAAAAYBE the rating might change! What, do you think that’s all that interesting? Funfact: it isn’t. The only purpose I can think that this might serve is to attract the attention of the aforementioned violence-craving ten-year-olds, who wouldn’t otherwise read a story with a measly K+ rating.
Who are you kidding? Do you really WANT those sorts of people reading your fics? You KNOW they only leave one-word reviews, if they ever review at all. Don’t try to appease them.
Rate according to your planned story! Change the rating if things don’t go according to plan, because gods know that these things grow a mind of their own. Don’t waste precious space on your summary fretting over the rating when you could be giving me a better idea of what your story is about instead.

Etc, etc, etc...

Okay, okay, listen closely because this really drives me up the wall.

“Ect” does not mean what you think it means.
Go on. Load up Dictionary.com and type in “ECT”.
For convenience, I’ll copypasta it here for you:

ECT
abbr. electroconvulsive therapy

So tell me, what exactly are you trying to say when you say things like “I went to the store and bought lettuce, crackers, ect.”?

The abbreviation you are looking for is ”etc.” Okay? E-T-C. Not “ect”. It’s an abbreviation, not a word, so that period there is important. I know it’s hard to pronounce on its own but honestly if you’re trying to pronounce just those three letters then you are doing it wrong.
It’s Latin, okay?! It’s short for “et cetera”, which means “and the rest”. You use it when you don’t feel like listing a billion things, so you just say a couple things and end the list with “etc.” Alright?
Can we stop saying “ect” now, please?

There's too many of them besides.

Hey, hey.
Can we all agree to stop writing “novelizations” of games/shows/movies and then posting them on FFN?
Look, it’s just one more of those things that people do when they want to write a fic but have no ideas. It’s even lazier in that, for the most part, you don’t even have to write your own dialogue since it’s all there, written for you!
It just screams “I am a lazy fuck who would rather tell you a story you already know than try to be original”.
So stop it already.

Christmastime ranting, ho ho ho~

Look here, guys, this is called a fourth wall.
It’s invisible! To us, anyway. It’s the wall through which we are able to see into the characters’ world. The characters in a story, by contrast, can see the fourth wall, and therefore cannot see us as we watch them.
Can the fourth wall be broken or removed altogether? Yes. Should it be taken lightly? No.
Fourth-wall breaking is reserved for comedy. Characters in a serious drama probably should not acknowledge the reader unless they are a narrator, and even then they shouldn’t acknowledge the fact that they’re fictional, in a fanfic, what have you.
Also, it’s really not okay to go on for several chapters with no fourth-wall breaking, then suddenly break it only to say “This is what other fanfic writers do in their fics, but I’m doing this other thing because I’m different” or to say something about how you know what’s going to happen next but the reader doesn’t and you’re not telling, hee hee hee.
Seriously, SERIOUSLY?
Not only have you just reminded me that your story is a fanfic and therefore smashed my suspense of disbelief in a spectacular fashion, but you also proved to me that you have NO FAITH in me, the reader, to acknowledge that what you’ve just done is slightly original.
FUCK YOU.
Guys, don’t do this! God, I’m so pissed I am half-tempted to just post a link to the offending fic… ugh… but that’s petty. Just, please, guys, don’t do this.

Also stop posting each chapter as a separate story, it's dumb.

Some tidbits for those of you posting on Fanfiction.net:

- If your story’s summary is misspelled and incoherent, I will not read it. After all, the story proper probably won’t be much better.

- If you threaten not to post any new chapters until you get reviews, I will not review. This is so immature it hurts. Art shouldn’t be about getting attention. Granted, fanfiction isn’t exactly high art (whatever that may be), but in the end you should always be writing for yourself. Attention is nice, but if it’s all you’re thinking about then there is something wrong.

- If, in the summary, you only say “This is my first/second/fiftieth story” and don’t tell me what the story is about, I will not read it. If you can’t be bothered to use the summary feature to actually give me a summary, then what can I really expect from you?

- If your story is a fanfic but your summary mentions all OCs and no canon characters, I will not read it. I’m here to read fanfiction, not original fiction with Goombas in it.

- If your story’s title steals a title or lyric from Evanescence or Linkin Park I will not read it. I don’t really care about using song lyrics as titles otherwise, since I do it too because coming up with titles is hard. But I promise you that if you use anything from those two bands, (a) you probably have the same title as about a hundred other fics and (b) statistically speaking, fics that use lyrics or titles from those two bands are godawful and therefore not worth reading. To date I’ve only found maybe one or two exceptions to this out of hundreds that I’ve seen.

- As a corollary to the previous, you absolutely must NOT title any story “My Immortal”.

- If your story is a fanfic and your summary starts with “A new girl comes to…”, I will not read it. Unless the new girl is a canon character, then I might. But that rarely seems to be the case.

- Saying, over and over, “NO FLAMES PLZ” makes me want to flame you so badly it hurts. Here’s an idea: stop caring so damn much. And like I’ve said in a previous post, a lot of what some kids call “flames” is actually constructive criticism. Get over yourself. If you put your work on the internet, you will attract both good and bad attention. This is normal and should be expected. Live with it.

That will be all.