On Wed, 20 Oct 2004 22:55:10 -0700, whimsy <fripon@earthlink.net> wrote:

[]  I find it quite discouraging to spend the time on C&C 
and then see the story abandoned.

This is not a universally valid complaint. Ask yourself, why are you
reviewing in the first place. If you try to participate in the work in
order to get a better product and your vision for the story includes
its completion, I can see grounds for discontent. However, the author is
the god and there's no other. We, the reviewers, do not actually participate
in writing the story, with all the good C&C. Fanfics are not Open Source
Software where all contributors get to have a stake in the project. IMHO.

To say it other way, what is the implicit contract between author and
reviewer? Your contract says that he's beholden to your contributions;
his does not. I suppose you can try to make the contract explicit. But
I do not expect many authors agreeing to any such thing.

Try to readjust your expectations about ficdom and authors and perhaps
you'll feel better about the whole sorry affair.

My personal position was to extract as much as possible from the very
interaction with authors without getting personally attached to works
over which I have no control. I gave feedback for the second edition of
Avatar 1/2, a 100KW-class Ranma SI. Apparently, it's not happening, but
I do not feel robbed from my effort. It was fun to poke the author.

 Similarly, Nerima is a real ward in Tokyo and contains the ultra 
prestigious Waseda University Senior High School.  Yet I don't ever 
recall reading a Ranma fic that used this fact (such as some sort of 
competition between Waseda and Furinkan).

What would be the benefit for the readers, the vast majority of whom
do not care one way or the other? Moreover, what makes you think that
Ranma's Nerima has anything to do with actual Nerima?

[...]  The fics seem more about Stockholm Syndrome than love.
Even if Kagome is not raped, how can a serious relationship 
develop based on lies and deception?

If we consider this question as not a rhetorical one for a second, then
you just answered it once sentence ahead. It's a version of PTS and
not implausible. Granted, authors do not know or care, they just want
their sublimations to get her reamed. I suspect you realize that, too.

I reckon that not much can be accomplished by venting disappointment
in general direction of dumb, uneducated, malicious, or perverted
writers. Well... You still can leave a review (on FF.net). "The author
engaged in typical raping of Kagome which we saw in a 1000 fics before,
and so I was bored out of my skull." That will get to them, rest assured.
Some would even take the whole fic down just because they cannot remove
signed reviews.

Another way out for reviewers drowning in crapfics is an application of a
positive network of trust, a-la Advogato. But discussing this requires
a lot of thought, more than I'm ready to do right now...

If a story consists entirely of dialogue, how would I indicate and 
distinguish between a pause in one person's speech, a pause on the part 
of both parties, a pause between the different parties speech, and a 
dialogue occurring sometime later such as several hours later?  I am 
attempting to write a story that is almost entirely dialogue.

I always fall back onto the "Big Paper Literature" technique, that is,
write it out carefuly. "After a moment of reflection, Ranma-chan replied:".
OK, this wasn't too careful, but you get the idea. No funny conventions
with angular brackets and multiply dots. And hey, if it worked for
Oscar Wild...

-- Pete

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