Common Complaints on Fiction-Writing Websites

I am a member of various websites dedicated to writing and sharing stories, both original and fan fiction, and no matter how different the site seems, not matter how different the rules are and what's appropriate vs inappropriate, it seems that people continually complain about the same things on every single one of these websites. To put it frankly, I'm pretty tired of it because, usually, it's something that's out of that individual's control so there's literally no use in complaining about it because there is no way one person—or even a group of people—can stop it, but they also have a tone of voice that seems to say that they can change it, or, rather, that it should change. And because whatever they're complaining about can't be controlled, it just seems obvious that instead of trying to change everybody else, maybe they need to change their own approach to websites, their own writing, and to their potential readers and peers.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not telling you to stop complaining—things that can change won't change if you don't complain—but I'm tired of the whole superiority complex that's behind some of these complaints both toward writers and also toward readers. Most of them are just alienating these groups of people and bashing them. There is no reason to bash people for any kind of reason, especially if it's over stories. Besides, some of these battles for change just shouldn't be picked (because it literally won't change no matter how many people complain about it).

Before you jump the gun and start yelling at me for complaining about reviewers, I didn't demand anyone to change how they reviewed every single stories from now on or that I would disregard and ignore any comments that didn't follow my protocol when commenting on my own stuff. I merely provided examples (along with my wit) to show that I do feel frustration and disappointment for lackluster comments that force me to reach for an equally lackluster reply, and I hate feeling like I have to copy and paste replies because I would rather contribute to an actual conversation. Things I Wish I Could Tell Some Reviewers Without Looking Like a Total Jerk was merely my personal complaint about common copy-and-pasted feel of reviews and comments about people's works, and when I say "my personal complaint," I mean my personal complaint. Whatever consequences that were going to come, was all going to happen to me, and no one else.

I didn't ask for people to rally with me and bash or hate on people that do this. No matter what comment I get, I'll still appreciate it, but this was to let my potential readers know that I would appreciate their comments more if they go into more depth. Furthermore, I explained two points on how such depth could be achieved, so it's not like I complained about a problem without also providing a solution, which would have made that piece a complete waste of time and would have made me look like a jerk (well, more of a jerk if I hadn't provided those two points). Lastly, I'm not telling people to stop reviewing altogether, whether it be for my stuff or other people's stuff. This was merely to let people know, "Hey, I don't mind generic reviews, but I would be even happier, and it would really make my day, if you took a little bit more time to personalize it." It's not like I said, "Hey, if your comments aren't going to be in-depth, don't bother reviewing." That would seem quite hateful to me. In fact, that would probably encourage people not to review, which is the opposite of what anybody would want.

Then there's Reasons I Will Not Give Your Story a Chance where I listed all the things some writers tend to do that makes their stories a turn-off for me, which includes using copyrighted images, stereotypical titles or titles that aren't properly capitalized and titles that are symbols or decorative, poor blurbs, and stories that are mis-genred or mis-tagged. I also included first chapters (as well as the rest of the story) that may include character sheets, author notes, lack of (noticeable) paragraphing, incorrect grammar, capitalization, spelling and punctuation, and more. Lots more.

Again, whatever consequence that befalls as a result of publishing that piece is on me and only me, but, again, I'm not demanding that things be changed. In fact, I specifically stated, "It's not as if I force these standards on people and hound them until they change it. That would be ruining other people's experience, and I'm not out to do that." This piece was to let people know that if they were going to recommend stories to me, I have standards, and these are the things that turns me off, so if the story has these things, I probably wouldn't even bother reading it.

I wrote Things I Wish I Could Tell Some Reviewers Without Looking Like a Total Jerk and Reasons I Will Not Give Your Stories a Chance so that people would read them, because it isn't often that stuff like these pieces are published at all, and understand from my point of view why I don't like these certain things in a (hopefully) well-mannered and blunt approach without blaming and demanding any changes from other people. It's mostly supposed to be educational. I also wrote them because I know I'm not the only person that may have similar opinions and experiences, so I wanted to let those people know that it's normal to feel and think this way despite it possibly being an unpopular opinion.

Hopefully, this will also be the same case for this piece.

"Ugh, why are there so many bad writers here?"

OK, here's the thing: I think people need to have reasonable expectations for writing sites. I don't believe that one site is better or worse than other sites unless the administrators of the sites aren't enforcing their own rules and not answering any questions when someone is confused about something. In other words, when the administrators don't have any presence on the writing sites, you should be worried, but not because of "bad" writers. It's more so of people who purposefully break the rules of the site because they're taking advantage of this lack of enforcement.

The reason I believe that no one site is better is because, again, I am on various writing sites—Lunaescence, Ghosts of the Vanguard, QuoteV, You-Fic, FanFiction, FictionPress, Wattpad, Figment, Archive of Our Own, AarinFantasy, DeviantArt, and, hell, I was even on Quizilla for years right up until that fateful end, and I would probably still be a member if it was still alive—and with this experience on these sites, I virtually do not see a difference in writing level between them. This is especially true when you keep in mind of the websites themselves along with the target audience. Each site has it's gives and takes, so you may like a site better than others, but it may not be that way for other people, but this has more to do with function rather than actual writing skill.

Quizilla's target audience was tweens and younger teenagers, so most of the members were going to be of the younger variety, obviously, but the thing is, that site was so much fun that it garnered loyal members that stuck around until they became adults, thus, as their experience grew, their stories became better. I had placed more stories in my favorites list from that site than any other site out here, but why is that? It wasn't just because I found the diamonds in the rough, but it was also because I lowered my expectations for that website because of the possible lack of experience without lowering my standards too much as portrayed in Reasons I Will Not Give Your Stories a Chance. I didn't mind the decorative titles so much, nor the summaries that weren't actually summaries and some other small things that weren't completely deal-breakers. In fact, when I heard that Quizilla was closing, the first thing I did was copy-and-paste all of my favorite stories onto word documents so I could reread them in the future because many of them didn't become members on other websites. Sadly.

Quizilla also had an environment where it wasn't so strict like with other sites—as in no one was worried whether or not someone had a "Mary-Sue" or that the story was cliched—so I could just feel that the people were really enjoying their writing instead of being all stiff and second-guessing themselves. Yes, I have read people complaining over there about cliches and Mary-Sues, both of which I'll address here, but they were so far in between the stories and buried, that it didn't ruin that atmosphere that I enjoyed. It was so easy to find stuff that I liked!

Of course Quizilla had its faults—the administrator was alone and was swamped with reports of people continually breaking the "no explicit sex" rule, along with all of the glitches the site kept experiencing, and bots that kept posting advertisements for estate sales, lawyers, and even porn—so of course he, the administrator, decided that it was about time to put Penny the pencil monster to rest for good. RIP, Quizilla. RIP.

Unlike Quizilla, the other sites I frequent's target audience is more of the older teens and young adults—even QuoteV—which basically is between sixteen and twenty, but it's not like they're going to stop people that aren't their target audience from joining. People whom are thirteen or older would still be allowed to join these sites, which means these younger people would still lack the experience the target is mostly aiming for. Does that mean that these younger people shouldn't be on these sites? No, of course not. As long as they follow the website's rules, they have every right to be on these sites, despite their experience, or lack thereof, but because these website's target audience is older than Quizilla's, my standards also raise a bit. When I see a story I don't like, or frequently break my standards, does this mean I should go on a public forum and complain or comment on their story to tell them that it's annoying to see this, this, and that? No, I ignore the story and move on to find stories that I would like, even if it takes hours.

It just seems like it's too much work to post on a public forum to complain about inexperienced writers and their stories when they have every right to be on the website. It's not as if they can drastically improve their writing overnight, or after reading only one writing book. Hashing it out in public, aiming to get other people's attention and purposefully to get a discussion—more just have people complain about it even more—about it isn't solving anything, and is more than likely just going to make newer writers too insecure to actually post their work. Congrats, you didn't make writers better, you just suppressed the ones whom are wanting to learn but are too scared to share their progress.

Now the reason I ignore the stories I don't like is usually only because I don't like the premise of the idea, which is completely subjective; therefore I have no right to just say, "I don't like the story because I don't like the idea." I may personally not like the idea, but that doesn't mean that everyone else also wouldn't like the idea. If the story is below my personal standards (Reasons I Will Not . . .) I may comment if that person specifically asks for me to, has stated in the brief author note that it's OK to point out mistakes, or posts on a thread asking for someone to review them, but, otherwise, I just move on because I would really like to read a story I would like. White knighting, when someone's fans rally and argue against a single commenter that may not have something positive to say about that someone's work, is definitely a fear of mine, but I also tend to not say anything either because the story breaks so many of my standards I don't want to bombard the person with a list (I also think it's plain rude to send them a link with my standards and leave), or it's because I don't want to leave a comment when I haven't actually read the story. I can quickly see when my personal standards are broken before even reading a single sentence of the first chapter, and because I want to find a story that I would like with little to no annoyances, I close the tab and move on to the next tab with the next story.

Besides, the writer will learn for him or herself sooner or later, and I don't want to possibly ruin their happiness with their writing.

If you want a writing site with stricter standards, at least in grammar, spelling and all that technical writing mumbo jumbo, look for sites with a validation period, like Lunaescence and Ghosts of the Vanguard. Every new writer has to go through the validation process before, eventually and hopefully, becoming a validated author. Both of these sites have people checking every chapter for these errors before denying or accepting the chapter. If the writer consistently produces adequate work, then they become validated authors and don't have to wait every chapter in order to be validated before posting another chapter. That being said, they don't validate or deny chapters based on things like Mary-Sueism, cliches, or out of character canon characters (for fan fiction) because those are subjective viewpoints.

If the site doesn't have this validation process, they usually have rules for correct spelling, grammar, punctuation and the other technical writing rules, but it's up to the members to report if there are too many of them in a given chapter or story, which is why the presence of the administrators are so important.

If the site has no such rules, then they don't. You can send an email to the administrators to see if they can implement such rules, but if they don't want to then they don't want to, and if this bothers you so much, trust me, there are other websites that you can go to. There are hundreds of them out there, so I'm sure you'll find another site that will fit your needs.

Why aren't the good writers noticed/popular?

I swear, every time I see someone post something similar to this on a thread, a journal entry, or a chapter in their rant book, no one recommends a good writer, and when I say they don't recommend a good writer, I mean they don't recommend anyone at all. They just want a space to complain about "bad" writers and why they're the ones getting comments and favorites. Well, guess what? No one person dictates which stories gets put at the top of the list, the readers do, so while you're complaining about the bad writers getting awards and featured space, you're also complaining about the readers liking these stories. News flash! If those readers that like "bad" stories read your complaint, the chances of them reading your stuff will probably not ever happen.

The reason some inexperienced writers make it to the most popular list is mostly because they're not as concerned about "etiquette" and they're not afraid to advertise their stuff and share links, so instead of complaining about "bad" stories, how about you pay it forward and share stories you think is good? For gosh sakes, there is nothing illegal about making a thread specifically for recommending stories you think is good and should get more attention, and if you're afraid these "bad" writers and "bad" readers are going to recommend "bad" stories, make some rules in your thread—adequate use of the written language in the technical sense, and make them write a paragraph or two of why they like the story, aside from following the technical writing rules, and why they would recommend the story.

However, if you're just going to be a dictator and go off on people who recommend stories that you don't like due to something subjective (Mary-Sues, cliches, power-fantasy, etc.), then I'm not sure you would be the best judge of character for an entire website. This is why most sites with a "most popular" feature use reads, favorites, and comments to judge which story gets featured.

Besides, think about it for a second. Haven't there been any books that you read as a child, or read some years before, but now that you've reread it, it doesn't hold that bright of a spark that it used to? These newer members aren't afraid of adding stories to their favorites or commenting, and they'll more than likely give an entire story a chance to see whether or not to add it to their favorites list or comment on each and every chapter as they go along. They're also more likely to comment every chapter instead of waiting for the end of the story to comment. Most new writers aren't afraid of writing with cliches and "Mary-Sues" either, which brings in the next complaint.

So many Mary-Sues and overused story ideas! Cliches! They burn!

If you've read my Mary-Sue guides—all 90,000 words of them—then you'll roughly know where I stand on the subject. First, I don't believe in Mary-Sues, just inexperienced writing, and inexperience isn't supposed to be a bad thing, but if I were to believe in other people's interpretation of Mary-Sues (characters having "desirable" traits, "lack of flaws," too unique, has a traumatic history, etc.) I still wouldn't want them banned from the internet or any sites that I frequent. Maybe you think the story has a Mary-Sue, but that doesn't mean other people wouldn't like the story or even think the character is a Mary-Sue. This kind of complaint doesn't make "Mary-Sues" disappear, it just either suppresses people who've seen the complaint and are too afraid to post stories anymore and learn how to improve their writing, or pisses people off when they've been told they have a Mary-Sue and decides not to listen to anyone at all. Neither of those outcomes are positive, and it just ruins people's experience on writing websites. Speaking of experience, if we go with my definition of Mary-Sues, what better way of curing inexperience than with practice? Tactful and well-worded advice (without using Mary-Sue or any alternative names) can also go a long way in helping those who want help.

In addition, most sites don't have any rules banning Mary-Sues, so why demand people delete their stories if they aren't doing anything to break the site's rules? If you don't want to read about Mary-Sues, and want a 100% Mary-Sue-free zone, find a website that has a rule not allowing Mary-Sues. Good luck with that though. There's a reason why most sites don't bar them.

As for cliches, it is absolutely ridiculous how much this is complained about. People seeing these complaints aren't going to make them think of more original stories, it's just going to make them paranoid that their own ideas are too cliche. Giving out prompts along with your complaint isn't solving the problem or are going to make people write with your ideas either. Or at least I don't. To me, it makes you look like you're trying to make yourself superior, while at the same time making everyone else inferior.

Cliches aren't a bad thing either. A story could be riddled with cliches, and I may still like it anyway. Cliches provide a familiar ground to stand on, and it only becomes a bad thing if the cliche is a static copy of the usual or there is no reason as to why this cliche is used, or is only used for conveniences sake. For example, if the villain knows the main character would be a formidable opponent someday, it makes absolute sense that the villain kidnaps or kills him or her. An example of things being too convenient is that the main character's friends kidnap him or her to live out in the middle of the forest and the owner of the house has a satellite aimed at them for the ultimate security camera so the main character is safe from the villain. Friends kidnapping her to keep her safe is fine. Living in the middle of the forest is fine. Hell, a satellite as the security camera is fine. As long as each of these things are separate components for different stories.

Other cliches include scenes such as the marriage bed where the couple consummates their marriage, kissing someone at midnight on New Years, and phrases that are often said such as "back to the drawing board" or "to break a heart." None of these things are inherently bad. Consummating marriages and kissing at New Years are traditions. Granted, not everyone follows them, but plenty of people still do this. As for the phrases, while either changing the phrase up or not using them could be a wise decision, using them on some occasions aren't bad either.

Of course bending cliches would make stories better, but having the idea of the cliche itself shouldn't be bad.

Fan fiction writers are just pre-teeners wanting to get together with the canon characters. It's not real writing!

I dare you to tell that to E. L. James, Neil Gaiman, Orson Scott Card (despite his anti-fan fiction stance) and other successful published authors who still write fan fiction. Some people even published their fan fiction professionally after converting it to original fiction (AKA filing off the serial number) like James did for 50 Shades of Grey. It's almost like you're saying children's books aren't real stories just because the plot and ideas are so simplistic. If the story has characters, a plot, universe and setting, it's a real story. Period. If you want a website that doesn't allow fan fiction at all, find a site that has such a policy, such as FictionPress. Otherwise, deal with it on your own. Quietly. Fan fiction writers aren't breaking any rules if the site openly allows fan fiction, or has no policy against fan fiction, so they shouldn't be told to stop writing or stop posting their stories just because you're getting tired of fan fiction popping up in the search.

RPFers are so creepy! As if a celebrity would actually do any of this stuff in these stories.

OK, I'll be the first to say that I do not like Real Person Fiction, but if the site allows it, or doesn't have a policy on it, or the person hasn't filed a derivative for themselves, then who am I to say that this type of story shouldn't be on the internet or on the website? I know I don't like these kinds of stories, so I stay away and ignore them. It's as simple as that. And before you complain that there's so much of it on these websites, do you honestly think I haven't noticed? That still doesn't give anyone the right to tell people to stop, change, or delete their work. The only person, other than the writer, who has that right is the person the story centers on or mentions, and their manager.

Why aren't there any male OCs/Reader-Inserts? They're always female, and always paired with a male canon character.

Uh, let's see . . . . Maybe it has something to do with females being the plurality of fan fiction writers posting on websites, and maybe most of them like writing romance, pairing canon characters with OCs/Readers? There isn't anything wrong with that, and there's usually nothing in the rules of writing websites that allows fan fiction that doesn't allow this (except FanFiction.net and FictionPress's rules against writing stories in second person, but that's about second person writing and not about the actual pairing).

The bottom line of this entire piece is that people will write what they want to write, and as long as it's not breaking any site rules, whatever it is, it's going to stay. Writer's aren't writing for anyone else's taste in mind (usually). If you don't like it, you have a few options:

1. move on and try to enjoy what you can find that you find decent,
2. talk to the administrator of the site or suggest additions to the rules in the site forum, if the site has a forum,
3. find another website that will better suit your needs, or
4. make your own writing website with your own rules.

Now, after all of this, isn't there something that can be complained about? Yes, but without complaining about the writers, their stories, and readers. If you want to make a website better, at least in a way so you can hopefully avoid stories you don't want to read, and find stories that you do want to read, suggest improvements. I wish fan fiction was categorized more proficiently on Wattpad, QuoteV, and Figment; I wish I didn't have to make cover images in order for my stories to come up in the search or recently added list on QuoteV; I wish center alignment worked on Wattpad; I wish Figment would let us have line-breaks, and I'm sure there are more stuff that I wish would and could happen. Some of these things may happen, and some of them may not, and that's fine because it's the administrator's choice. If you don't like it, scour the internet and find another site that you find perfect (good luck on such an endeavor).

Do you have any thoughts or questions on what you just read?

Send me an email to let me know!