SillySilenia

Don't worry about it. Better that you make sure than that you end up following flawed advice, yes?

So long as the focus of the story lies on the f/f encounters and the m/f encounters are relatively speaking of lesser importance to the story rather than a huge part of it, it is fine in the F/F section. However, it would be fairly important in this case to add an M/F-tag to your summary or first chapter. People who are reading in a Femslash section are expecting, well, female action. Without the appropriate tagging, having M/F scenes could come as a nasty surprise to them.

Goodness, I really don't have any OTPs, whether slash, femslash or het. I mean, there are pairings I'm more fond of or less fond of than others, but true pairings... Give me two characters from any of my fandoms and I can probably write it, so yeah. (Then again, my title should be Queen of the Ultra-rare Pairings, I think, considering I manage to write stuff like Basilisk/Hogwarts' plumbing )

You're welcome, dear. Stupid of me to forget logging out and give you a scare, but at least you didn't get an actual heart-attack.

Oops. Looks like I reviewed from the wrong account. Sorry. XD (-goes to delete and replace it with a message by my actual account-)

I would like to suggest RapeFic be changed to Rape, because RapeFic insinuates that the story is centred around rape, while a good amount of stories include rape but are not centred around it, which makes RapeFic an awkward fit. On the other hand, Rape fits rape-centred stories as well.

((Off-topic, but we all seem to be going a fair bit off the original topic. Was thinking of creating a new thread for the discussion at hands, but wanted to know what you all figured before I went ahead.) Rogue, if what I said came across as "you're telling me to leave destructive reviews", my apology, such was not my intention at all. What I meant to say is that even if you/I/someone else words it contructively, a review that only has negative points to make will be more-or-less automatically seen as either flame or destructive by the person it's intended for. The example I left is not the wording I would use, but the points it boils down to. The points the author will pick up on, whether I word it as "your characters are all flat or Mary-Sues" or "Your protagonist was dynamic, though perhaps a little too flawless, but the remainder of your characters seemed to lack a little depth." Yes, the second is more kind to say and all-across the better way to say something. The points made remain the same for the most part, however. I see a character not being flat, but being a Mary Sue instead, not as something positive, nor as something the author should keep in mind for the development of their remaining characters. I also mentioned a few posts ago that by far the most such stories are stories where I would under different circumstances have backed-out after the first paragraph or two at most. Essentially, they're the exact same category except for the fact that, for one reason or another, circumstances caused me to feel that was not an option, resulting in me reading several more such paragraphs with the increasing urge to click away from it. We seem to be mostly agreeing on such stories, albeit with the difference that you'd rather leave a stock-review notifying them of the joys of using spell-check and a beta, whereas I choose to not leave a review over a stock-review of any kind. Whether it is the "please update" kind, the "nice story, I liked it" kind, the "not my kind of story" kind or the one you mentioned. I have a personal aversion to stock-reviews (or copy-and-paste reviews as I call them) of any kind, though I do realize that for others, they might work. Personal preference, and what works or doesn't work for me may very well not work or do work for you.

What I'm saying is not that I won't leave a negative review, but that I won't leave a review that crosses the line from constructive criticism to destructive criticism. I am willing to say negative things, but I'm not willing to say only negative things without at least a single positive or neutral point. Because, whether intended as constructive or destructive, it'll only come across as destructive then. There is a difference between "The idea behind this story was certainly interesting. However, I did not feel any real connection with the characters and the spelling and grammar mistakes jarred me out of the story at times. Perhaps you would benefit from acquiring a beta-reader? A couple of examples of what I mean are 'a' and 'b'." and "Sadly, the number of spelling and grammar mistakes made it difficult for me to get into the story. The characters seemed flat, with exception of "Character", which seems a bit of a Mary Sue to me. You contradict yourself on the time-line here, here and here, on the settings here and here, on the character background here and here. The basic plot you used has been overdone already and none of your plot-twists were creative or original."

There was a time--on different sites, though, I'll readily admit that--where I did bother leaving reviews on such sub-standard works. To the best of my knowledge, not a single one of those reviews was listened to. Indeed, in a few cases I've had authors call "flame!", in another few cases I've had authors send their fluffy fanpoodles after me. That does not bother me as much as it does to some people, and indeed, would not have stopped me if at least one of the authors I left reviews for actually listened. Unfortunately, the people you describe, who will assume that their story, with all it's flaws, is the best thing since sliced bread solely because they see their view count jump up, tend to also be the people who assume that anything less than sugary sweet reviews are flames and that the reviewer, honestly wanting to help them improve, is just jealous of them and their great story. Of course, that is just all my experience. However, what I am speaking of in such cases are not just "bad" fics. They're the borderline-troll fics. Anyone who can upload, say, a whole chapter of sentences like "n den i flied on top f teh coluds, wif mai beatyful prefectly whit wings & my fifthy ft long black-blu-blond hare was rifled bye teh wind. Den my pruple-gren-blu eyes spoted............................................... somting weeeeeeeeeiiiiiird. n den jake flied 2 were i am nd puled his 18 ins long fat rod off manmeet outta him lether pans nd stated makin luv 2 me form behin" (not a quote of any specific work to the best of my knowledge, but yes, some inspiration for this... style was drawn from the infamous 'My Immortal') and actually believes their work is perfectly acceptable for uploading will not be likely to start scratching their head and think, 'hey, I could improve some' because of a review. Or twenty. Like I said, generally speaking, if I come across stories like that, I hit "previous page" before ever reaching the point where I can leave a review. The exceptions is if I'm trying to figure out if someone is a troll or just that bad a writer. Of course, now that I am staff, there'll be more stories I'll have to read for obvious reasons that I normally would have clicked away after a few lines because it's giving me a headache. There are writers who just have no real interest in writing, just in the fluffy fanpoodles. They see writing as a way to get their attention fix, without any love for the written word, for the stories they've read or the stories they're telling and without any wish to improve, because that would take effort. They don't want to do something that takes effort, they just want their daily/weekly/monthly dose of attention. There are people that believe whatever they do cannot be anything less than perfect--whether they're people singing for talent shows that honestly believe they're talented, amazing singers and that everyone who dares say different is just jealous, even though that would mean that 99% of the people around them are jealous, whether they're the people that honestly think they're the next great baseball star, even though they can't run or hit a ball or whether they see themselves as awesome writers. Yes, some of these people do grow a love for writing and a realization that they're not as perfect as they think they are at some point, as well as a wish to improve. However, that requires them to open their eyes. So long as they've gotten their eyes closed, their fingers in their ears and singing loudly "I'm amazing! I can't hear your criticism, because I'm too amazing to improve!", it quite honestly is not worth the effort in my opinion. They might hear what I say, but they will not listen. Especially not if there is not a single point I can mention that is positive. Now, I don't say this goes for all or even most of the writers whose writing is below "outstanding" or even "acceptable". However, when there is quite literally nothing positive to say about their fic, that tends to be a VERY big clue pointing in that direction. Combined with some other factors--like tone of voice in ANs, certain kinds of snark in disclaimers, etc.--there just are cases where I know there is no way they're going to actually listen. However, that does not mean I do not care for the future of the written word, or that I want to see sub-standard become the new standard. It's just that, as BronxWench put it, I have no desire to waste time tilting at windmills. If I figure in a case that there is some chance, even if but a small chance, that the author will listen, if not to all I have to say, then at least one or two points, I will be likely to leave a review anyway. (Though I must admit I have been slacking here at AFF, for a good part because I haven't read as much as I would like. Will be working on that, though.)

Like phoeyay, I tend not to leave a review if I have absolutely nothing to say that's even vaguely positive. That's not because I am afraid of retaliation, but because in most cases, I will have hit the "back" button before even reaching the end of the first chapter. In the cases where that is not the case, I will usually have at least one positive thing to say. Be it that the story has an interesting premise, that I smiled at a witty remark or joke or sarcastic line, that there was some description somewhere that I liked, or a character I liked or (in case of fanfiction rather than original) felt was portrayed well, or even just the title or a chapter title, the use of proper grammar, spelling and punctuation, an interesting piece of dialogue or a neat plot-twist. However, if absolutely none of these apply; if I have even searched for something I like but came up blank, then I will not leave a review unless that person specifically asked me for feedback. Because frankly speaking, at that point, the story isn't worth even more of my time. Especially because the chances of an author honestly welcoming an in-depth concrit review, rather than deleting it or crying "FLAME!", when in their story, the spelling, grammar and punctuation were off, the titles cliché, the plot twists absent or visible from ten miles distance, the characters completely and utterly boring, OOC or Mary Sues, the descriptions not evoking anything, the storyline not interesting and not a single sentence in sight that I liked... yeah, those chances would be practically zero. EDIT: For clarity's sake, with "the spelling, grammar and punctuation were off", I do not mean the occasional typo, homophone-switch, a single missed capital or similar problems. I mean the kind of story where it's very clear that the story has seen neither spell-check nor beta and most likely hasn't even been re-read once by the author before uploading it.

The fact that on the one hand, HP fans will read just about anything, but on the other hand tend to be extremely judgemental about other people's pairing and character preferences. (Speaking about the HP fandom as a collective, not about any specific members of the community)

I think the problem is that while you may work at improving, your replies above do not come across as such. You seem defensive and to be giving excuses for why things are as they are, instead of accepting the advice in the spirit it is meant as: to help you improve. For example, you give reasons for typing out numbers rather than words, but the point stays that it is distracting to the reader. Perhaps it's easier to type out '12' than 'twelve', and in a first draft, that would be okay. The aim is just to get the chapter written out, after all. A first draft is a rough draft. However, it would benefit the reader--and thus you--a lot if either you or a beta went over it after that first draft is done and changed the numbers to words. Same for abbreviations like 'Dr' instead of 'doctor'. Fine to use them in a rough, first, draft--but please do filter them out before uploading. It makes it a lot nicer to read, because my mind can stay focused on the story, instead of 'translating' numerals and abbreviations. Now, I know you say your current beta is (too) busy and that you do not just trust a random person as beta. That's understandable, betas are people too and they also have lives of their own. However, some things you can change on your own before passing it off to a beta, such as looking through it to see if there are any numbers that should be words, or giving the commas and periods a quick look-over. Maybe you miss a few things here and there which still fall on your beta's platter, that's no problem. It's why people have betas, after all--to catch those pesky mistakes, typos, grammatical issues and punctuation problems the writer didn't catch themselves. However, betas--especially busy betas--miss things too. Everything you have already corrected before passing the fic to your beta is something they can't read over while correcting. You say you write to your current best ability. I say you can be even better. By giving your fic another look-over before sending it to your beta and correcting the short-cuts used during writing if and as you come across them.

Last few songs I've listened: Requiem for a Queen in my pants. o_o Dein Fleisch (translation: your meat/your flesh) in my pants. O_o A Caress of Stars in my pants. O_o