Writing Update
Oct. 7th, 2003 01:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miko2Didn't post one today but I did do some writing Sunday night and Monday afternoon... going very slowly, but I have two and a half rewritten scenes now. I think it's going okay. This is still "Hair of the Throug that Bit Me" that I'm working on.
This is a story from the FFML. I'm pretty much an outsider to everything that's going on and I don't know all of the details, but anyway, it's kind of amusing and kind of sad so I thought I'd try to encapsulate it.
A guy named Kenko published the first new story he's written in quite a while. I like his stuff. He's not a polished writer but can be very funny.
His new story was a Ranma 1/2 alternative universe story... basically he starts at the beginning of Ranma 1/2 and retells the story with one (or several) differences. Sometimes these kind of stories can get repetetive and tedious. It's been done many times, and most of us are VERY familiar with how Ranma 1/2 starts. But Kenko does his best to not go back over too much familiar territory.
However, there are a few logic flaws in his story... places where the characters say or do things that make sense for them to say and do in the original story, but not necessarily in his version. Essentially he's not doing as good a job of being internally consistent as one might like, and is rehashing events from the original plot that probably shouldn't go that way given the changes he's made.
So here's where it gets interesting. There are a lot of people who think Kenko is a comic genius... and a lot of others who think he is not funny and can't write. Personally I think the truth is somewhere in between, but anyway... an argument breaks out on the FFML. Some people are critical of the plot holes and logic flaws in the story... others jump to his defense. One of the big arguments is over a very silly, trival detail... Akane calls Ranma a pervert (as she does in the original story) but in this version she hasn't walked in on him naked in the bath.
Some people jump all over this as a massive logic flaw -- what reason does she have to call him a pervert in this continuity? Others point out that it's a very light-hearted comedy and minor flaws are more forgivable, and anyway there are other reasons why Akane might call Ranma such names, not the least being his curse.
There are some people who are unusually harsh... one guy named Brian Randall (an author I like, but I'm not sure I like him personally) writes a "review" in which, less than halfway through the story, he says "this is as far as I got, I couldn't stand to read any more" and then explains that he's not really interested in these type of stories or this particular author. Now, I agree completely with those who suggest that this was wrong... that Brian did this only to diguise a personal attack as constructive criticism. If he knows he won't like the story then why review even part of it? What good is a partial review? If you're going to review it then please review the whole thing. Who cares if you like the story or not? You can still provide constructive criticism... it's not that hard.
Anyway more verbal hysteria follows. Eventually this leads to another author that I tend to like, Donald Lee Granberry, blasting everyone for their "non-constructive" criticism of the story (he falls into the 'Kenko is a comic genius' camp). Donald suggests that he's had just about enough and is ready to leave the list for good.
I should point out that some of these violent arguments really have little to do with whether Akane has a reason to call Ranma a pervert, and a lot more to do with the fact that some of these people really hate each other and have been arguing for many months. You know, typical fandom stuff.
So anyway, more verbal hysteria follows. It all seems to culminate in a post Mr. Granberry sent this morning, in which he blatantly violates several of the list rules knowing this will result in a permanant ban (he doesn't seem to care at this point). He takes a private post from another author, DB Sommer (who I also like) and posts publicly it with his reply to the list.
Naturally it's against the rules to post things sent to you privately to the list... and he's also publicly attacking Mr. Sommer in his reply. So he's off the list before you can blink. At the same time, another person is temporarily banned for a personal attack, and a third person is warned for replying to what is now a banned thread.
Several people attack the moderator with cries of favoritism... his friends only get warned, other people get banned. Well, after all, his friends weren't openly attacking others on the list. ^_^ The people that got banned were. And since we're naming names, the admin in question is Gary Kleppe. I've met him, at either Project A-Kon or AnimeFest. He's a strange guy but I respect him... he works hard to keep the list running and also spends countless hours providing comments and criticism to other authors. His critiques are always helpful.
His reward for all of this? He is hated and reviled by a vocal minority on the list. Fan hysteria cannot be argued against.
So I spent a good 15 minutes reading through Mr. Granberry's final post to the list. The thing that struck me most is that he and Mr. Sommer are arguing two points that do not necessarily conflict. Mr. Sommer is simply trying to say that stories, even silly comedic ones, should be internally consistent. This is true. I agree completely. Mr. Granberry is simply trying to say that C&C (Comments & Criticism) should be constructive and helpful to the author, and not merely designed to grind them into the ground. This is also true. I also agree with this completely.
The disconnect is that Mr. Granberry sees everything that Mr. Sommer writes as completely destructive, hurtful, and unhelpful, while Mr. Sommer sees Mr. Granberry as defending his favorite author at all costs and unwilling to listen to anything a critic might have to say.
I went back and read Mr. Sommer's criticism of the story. Unlike Brian Randall, he'd offered good critique.
Anyway, all this silly arguing over whether Akane can call Ranma a pervert or not. You have to laugh, really.
One other thing that struck me was that Mr. Granberry accused Mr. Sommer of being purposefully cruel and nasty... but although he posted all of Mr. Sommer's private message, there were no nasty attacks contained in that message that I could see. Maybe some comments were a trifle smug or snide, but that was all. But Mr. Granberry's replies were full of attacks and names and nasty comments... almost pure vitrol. Called him a bastard and all sorts of other not-nice things.
One of these people was indeed being a bastard. But I tend to draw my own conclusions based on the facts before me. ^_^
The funniest part? (If you can call any of this sad tale funny -- but I'm strange and I get a lot of humor from watching people make fools of themselves).
Donald Lee Granberry was most furious about the fact that DB Sommer had sent a private message and then "blocked" him from being able to reply. He was practically livid about this. He had, mind you, stated in an earlier post to the list that he could take any attacks sent his way but he would give as good as he got... so when someone apparently tried to thwart his ability to shoot back, he blew his top. And thus he posted everything to the list publicly as a last resort, making sure that he got in as many nasty digs as he could, because he knew he'd be banned thereafter.
However, after the dust settled, someone pointed out that in the bounce message (which he included in his public post), it clearly states "Message rejected because of content".
In other words, his messages were bouncing not because DB Sommer was purposefully blocking him, but because the message contained language which Mr. Sommer's ISP or some SysAdmin found objectionable. Mr. Sommer had nothing to do with it... in point of fact, Mr. Granberry was causing the block himself. His inability to remain civil was the entire source of the problem.
This person also noted that it was likely Mr. Sommer had not even recieved the message after it was sent to the list. ^_^
A phrase like "hoist by his own petard" seems especially appropriate here. Or the old line about "when you assume, you make an ass out of u and me".
In any case, it was a remarkable example of how remaining civil and not assuming the worst in other people is almost always the best choice. ^_^ Well, I mean an example of what can happen if you DON'T follow that course of action...
But after all this is fandom we're talking about. Civility really doesn't enter into the picture.
This is a story from the FFML. I'm pretty much an outsider to everything that's going on and I don't know all of the details, but anyway, it's kind of amusing and kind of sad so I thought I'd try to encapsulate it.
A guy named Kenko published the first new story he's written in quite a while. I like his stuff. He's not a polished writer but can be very funny.
His new story was a Ranma 1/2 alternative universe story... basically he starts at the beginning of Ranma 1/2 and retells the story with one (or several) differences. Sometimes these kind of stories can get repetetive and tedious. It's been done many times, and most of us are VERY familiar with how Ranma 1/2 starts. But Kenko does his best to not go back over too much familiar territory.
However, there are a few logic flaws in his story... places where the characters say or do things that make sense for them to say and do in the original story, but not necessarily in his version. Essentially he's not doing as good a job of being internally consistent as one might like, and is rehashing events from the original plot that probably shouldn't go that way given the changes he's made.
So here's where it gets interesting. There are a lot of people who think Kenko is a comic genius... and a lot of others who think he is not funny and can't write. Personally I think the truth is somewhere in between, but anyway... an argument breaks out on the FFML. Some people are critical of the plot holes and logic flaws in the story... others jump to his defense. One of the big arguments is over a very silly, trival detail... Akane calls Ranma a pervert (as she does in the original story) but in this version she hasn't walked in on him naked in the bath.
Some people jump all over this as a massive logic flaw -- what reason does she have to call him a pervert in this continuity? Others point out that it's a very light-hearted comedy and minor flaws are more forgivable, and anyway there are other reasons why Akane might call Ranma such names, not the least being his curse.
There are some people who are unusually harsh... one guy named Brian Randall (an author I like, but I'm not sure I like him personally) writes a "review" in which, less than halfway through the story, he says "this is as far as I got, I couldn't stand to read any more" and then explains that he's not really interested in these type of stories or this particular author. Now, I agree completely with those who suggest that this was wrong... that Brian did this only to diguise a personal attack as constructive criticism. If he knows he won't like the story then why review even part of it? What good is a partial review? If you're going to review it then please review the whole thing. Who cares if you like the story or not? You can still provide constructive criticism... it's not that hard.
Anyway more verbal hysteria follows. Eventually this leads to another author that I tend to like, Donald Lee Granberry, blasting everyone for their "non-constructive" criticism of the story (he falls into the 'Kenko is a comic genius' camp). Donald suggests that he's had just about enough and is ready to leave the list for good.
I should point out that some of these violent arguments really have little to do with whether Akane has a reason to call Ranma a pervert, and a lot more to do with the fact that some of these people really hate each other and have been arguing for many months. You know, typical fandom stuff.
So anyway, more verbal hysteria follows. It all seems to culminate in a post Mr. Granberry sent this morning, in which he blatantly violates several of the list rules knowing this will result in a permanant ban (he doesn't seem to care at this point). He takes a private post from another author, DB Sommer (who I also like) and posts publicly it with his reply to the list.
Naturally it's against the rules to post things sent to you privately to the list... and he's also publicly attacking Mr. Sommer in his reply. So he's off the list before you can blink. At the same time, another person is temporarily banned for a personal attack, and a third person is warned for replying to what is now a banned thread.
Several people attack the moderator with cries of favoritism... his friends only get warned, other people get banned. Well, after all, his friends weren't openly attacking others on the list. ^_^ The people that got banned were. And since we're naming names, the admin in question is Gary Kleppe. I've met him, at either Project A-Kon or AnimeFest. He's a strange guy but I respect him... he works hard to keep the list running and also spends countless hours providing comments and criticism to other authors. His critiques are always helpful.
His reward for all of this? He is hated and reviled by a vocal minority on the list. Fan hysteria cannot be argued against.
So I spent a good 15 minutes reading through Mr. Granberry's final post to the list. The thing that struck me most is that he and Mr. Sommer are arguing two points that do not necessarily conflict. Mr. Sommer is simply trying to say that stories, even silly comedic ones, should be internally consistent. This is true. I agree completely. Mr. Granberry is simply trying to say that C&C (Comments & Criticism) should be constructive and helpful to the author, and not merely designed to grind them into the ground. This is also true. I also agree with this completely.
The disconnect is that Mr. Granberry sees everything that Mr. Sommer writes as completely destructive, hurtful, and unhelpful, while Mr. Sommer sees Mr. Granberry as defending his favorite author at all costs and unwilling to listen to anything a critic might have to say.
I went back and read Mr. Sommer's criticism of the story. Unlike Brian Randall, he'd offered good critique.
Anyway, all this silly arguing over whether Akane can call Ranma a pervert or not. You have to laugh, really.
One other thing that struck me was that Mr. Granberry accused Mr. Sommer of being purposefully cruel and nasty... but although he posted all of Mr. Sommer's private message, there were no nasty attacks contained in that message that I could see. Maybe some comments were a trifle smug or snide, but that was all. But Mr. Granberry's replies were full of attacks and names and nasty comments... almost pure vitrol. Called him a bastard and all sorts of other not-nice things.
One of these people was indeed being a bastard. But I tend to draw my own conclusions based on the facts before me. ^_^
The funniest part? (If you can call any of this sad tale funny -- but I'm strange and I get a lot of humor from watching people make fools of themselves).
Donald Lee Granberry was most furious about the fact that DB Sommer had sent a private message and then "blocked" him from being able to reply. He was practically livid about this. He had, mind you, stated in an earlier post to the list that he could take any attacks sent his way but he would give as good as he got... so when someone apparently tried to thwart his ability to shoot back, he blew his top. And thus he posted everything to the list publicly as a last resort, making sure that he got in as many nasty digs as he could, because he knew he'd be banned thereafter.
However, after the dust settled, someone pointed out that in the bounce message (which he included in his public post), it clearly states "Message rejected because of content".
In other words, his messages were bouncing not because DB Sommer was purposefully blocking him, but because the message contained language which Mr. Sommer's ISP or some SysAdmin found objectionable. Mr. Sommer had nothing to do with it... in point of fact, Mr. Granberry was causing the block himself. His inability to remain civil was the entire source of the problem.
This person also noted that it was likely Mr. Sommer had not even recieved the message after it was sent to the list. ^_^
A phrase like "hoist by his own petard" seems especially appropriate here. Or the old line about "when you assume, you make an ass out of u and me".
In any case, it was a remarkable example of how remaining civil and not assuming the worst in other people is almost always the best choice. ^_^ Well, I mean an example of what can happen if you DON'T follow that course of action...
But after all this is fandom we're talking about. Civility really doesn't enter into the picture.
