The following contains my opinions and my opinions only.
Ookla the Mok wrote:
On Thursday, February 7, 2002, at 09:11 PM, C. Jones wrote:
<SNIP>
I very much hope that all of you who were prereading before won't be
mad at me for cutting you out of the process like that. With newRanma,
I've found that I just have more fun when I'm playing a solo.
Your decision is a sound one if it makes writing enjoyable for you.
Though it would have been even more sound if he had decided to actually try
to learn how to sift through what C+C is useful and what won't be useful to
him. This is something most people learn how to do on their own. That CJ has
not doesn't affect me in the slightest, however I think it sets a poor
example for others. My recommendation, folks, is that if you find yourself
in a similar situation to what CJ was in, don't do what he did. You'll be
far better served by persevering and thinking ahead to what recommendations
will work for the story you want to write and which ones won't, rather than
ignoring them altogether. You are under no obligation to do what everyone
recommends to you, but the odds are someone out there will give you some
advice that is helpful. When you find these diamonds in the rough (which are
usually more plentiful than you think), use them. You might be pleased with
the results. Yes, it takes some effort and work at times, but I know that
from a personal standpoint I've never been disappointed at using good advice
others have given me.
However, as a favor to members of the FFML,
Or anyone reading any of his works, for that matter.
it would be nice if you
would state at the beginning of your chapters that you positively do not
want any C&C beyond catching spelling and grammar errors, if you even
want that.
Actually it *should* have been there from the beginning that he was going to
refuse to listen to what anyone else has to say. It's a common courtasy, to
say the least.
I'm sure you noticed that several people took time to write
out detailed responses to chapters.
And I'm sure they're grateful for having completely wasted their time, too.
I know there is no quicker way to get me to not C+C an author than by
totally ignoring comments I send to them. In the case of spamfics and
shorter works, it's a bit understandable, but if someone does a line by line
on any 50K+ work that takes over an hour for them to do and there isn't even
a 'thank you' sent in reply, there really isn't much point in doing it
again. No one likes wasting their time, especially when there are many, many
others who would not regard an attempt to help in some small way as being
useless
If you had generally let people know
ahead of time that you weren't going to pay attention to suggestions,
they could have avoided wasting their time and instead lent suggestions
to those who would more appreciate it.
<SNIP>
Most people on the list do just lurk and read, and I'm sure more people
have enjoyed your story than have taken the time to mention so. Simply
reading the chapters you put out is much less of an investment of time
than providing C&C, but those who are willing to write C&C should be
warned to find other targets.
Indeed. There's little enough C+C going around now that what small amount
does get out there should never end up wasted before even a word was typed
out. Personally I find CJ's lack of foresight in mentioning his predecision
to ignore everyones' comments... distasteful, to say the least. There are
dozens of authors on the list that would be delighted to receive one third
of the C+C that was given for nR, which ended up in oblivion.
I would also like to disagree with something CJ contends:
When I do make those changes, I will be using the same publishing
model I used with newRanma. I'm not going to accept any kind of story
input. Even if it makes The Clan a worse story, it will still be *my*
story,
Folks, accepting C+C does NOT make a story any less *yours*. C+C helps you
sort out your own thoughts regarding your story and might make you look at
things from a different angle or viewpoint. It might even inspire you to go
on a different tangent from what you originally had planned, but it's still
your story, even if others might help you in its creation with their own
insights. That merely makes your story better, not someone elses.
I really ought to at least start on that C+C article I wanted to do for a
while now. It would have addressed some of my opinions on this already. As I
said, these are only my opinions, but I think most of them are closer to
being useful rather than useless. :)
D.B. Sommer (who is glad he didn't waste his time trying to C+C any of
newRanma, which felt neither particularly new nor Ranmalike. But that
doesn't really matter since CJ wouldn't have listened to me anyway ^_^)
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