Okay, I get that in the world of fanfiction you have good writers, okay writers and bad writers. Just like in the real world, with authors; you get good ones, okay ones, and ones where you’re not quite sure how they got published. And with authors, there is always a certain few that we all think “I could write better then that!” about.
I guess the same could be said about fanfiction too, we find a fic we don’t necessarily think is very well written, and we think “I could do better then that!” so we attempt to. That is personally how I got into writing fanfiction, but we all have our different stories of how we “got started”.
But what I don’t get however, is if you’re a fanfic writer - or even if you’re not, what right you have to publicly shame and degrade someone’s fanfic on Tumblr?
Majority of the time, the fanfiction is of a lesser standard, because the writer is of a younger age, is a first time writer, the writer’s first language isn’t English, or they do not have a big enough grasp of the English language to be grammatically correct, or to form sentences that make complete sense, or to know when something they have written reads oddly.
But when the fandom it is being written for is KOREAN, it is obvious that a major part of those writers are NOT going to be native English speakers. As a member of a variety of fandoms, some Western based like CSI, F1, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings etc. You expect most writers to be English native speakers, and of a slightly older age range, so generally fanfiction is written better. Yet Korean fandoms have writers from an array of different countries, and quite frankly, even if it is badly written by an English native’s standard, it is still impressive that they can even write a full fanfiction in English.
Everyone makes mistakes, it’s part of being human. I’m English, I have a top grade A level in English Literature, write essays that are grammatically correct on a weekly basis for University and got a first in my English Literature module at University. Yet I still make mistakes, my grammar, spelling and structure is not perfect, there is always something to criticise in everyone’s work, and whoever does the criticising, will have problems in their own work that someone else will flag up.
This does not give you the right to publicly rip someone’s hard work to pieces with sarcastic comments, pictures/gifs and insults. If the author has requested for constructive criticism, then by all means give them advice on how to improve their work, but that is not constructive, that is hurtful and cruel, and comments/posts like that are what break fandoms down, stop people wanting to write or can even break someone’s confidence in their writing.
I myself, often read fanfiction and get annoyed by the grammar, or the typing errors they didn’t think to look for before posting, because…everyone who reads/writes fanfiction…loves to have a good, well written fanfic to read every once in a while.
But stuff like this only hinders people’s imaginations and creativity, the world of fanfiction is dwindling. When I started writing six years ago there were fanfictions being posted every day, every few hours in a variety of fandoms, now I’m lucky if I find a new post every week. We don’t need issues like this depleting the world of fanfiction even more.
If you don’t like it fine. Even offer to give them help or advice on how to improve, be constructive. But don’t publicly belittle them on Tumblr, especially when you go on to mention their actual username as well.
And to be honest, the fanfiction in question isn’t really bad. I have read far worse in my six years…
There is a wide gap between constructive criticism and down right insulting.
And frankly it does not need to be breached.
Remember that.