I didn’t like this, sorry. And I’m not trying to be petty, I had some very genuine concerns.
I know that I say that too for politeness sake, but you really shouldn’t have to be sorry for not liking something. People have different tastes after all. But I’ll admit (because I believe it will highlight that I have the best of intentions) you got me to sit on this a bit. Because I didn’t write this just to rant my feelings at you.
I hope I can illustrate that this whole things reads more like a bad faith sermon than anything resembling a review. Because all it does is preach to me condescendingly, and the only goal seems to be mocking me without purpose. The many paragraphs you use to nail two specific points, that you tie directly with what you think I think, makes me doubt that you actually understood what I wrote.
It’s also impossible to not see the irony when reading this. So I feel compelled to bluntly critique a response that seems to be the exact thing my story warns about. This whole thing seems like asinine attempt to purposely misinterpret my work. And even if it is an accident, you basically mock the writer and not the art itself through how personally worded you made your ‘critiques.’ While providing no kind words, clear explanation, or even helpful advice to allow me to give you the benefit of doubt.
I’m probably going to be quite harsh, if only because you clearly want in depth critique if the things you mentioned are accurate, and because, if your self-critique is anything to go by, you haven’t taken a very critical view of your own writing, and it’s clearly meant to be a finished product.
This is the part where you can try to tell me I’m wrong. By providing me the answer to “What does this paragraph accomplish?” Is it about my story? Well no, it’s not. So why is it the very first thing I’m reading in a supposed review? It’s a personal attack about me. About how I suck at doing in-depth criticism, and it tries to frame my admittedly sarcastic review as “clearly meant to be a finished product” like I was feigning professionalism when it couldn’t be any more apparent that it wasn’t what it intended to be.
It was meant to be tongue and cheek, but it still provides more useful information and actually does review and negatively criticize the words of the work. Not telling the person who wrote the story about the dangers of censorship that he shouldn’t use and write about what you don’t like.
But more importantly, you mock me for the failure of my in-depth reviewing. But this is absolutely fails to do that. And there’s no excuse for it, because I showed exactly how a review can be done. Here’s everything you’re missing...
- 1. You don’t actually deeply critique any of my writing in a technical aspect.
- 2. You don’t point out typos and grammar mistakes.
- 3. You don’t show or highlight what you didn’t understand. (Which would make me a lot more lenient when replying might I add.)
- 4. You don’t provide an ounce of workable advice.
- 5. You provide no possible corrections to paragraphs.
- 6. You provide no positive or even neutral aspects. Nor do you provide a reason why you don’t.
I feel like you were far to focused on ‘wordplay’ as you call it and trying to sound clever as opposed to actually writing with clarity. A lot of your wording feels clunky, and it did not make for a smooth read. You said a lot of things that didn’t really seem to mean anything beyond you thinking it sounded cool, which then only serve to confuse the reader.
Again this isn’t even focused on calling the story “too difficult to understand”. It’s specifically mocking me calling it “wordplay”. Okay, what would you call it then? Are you going to tell me with a straight face, that the things I called wordplay in all the other stories aren’t? You oddly don’t give this critique to anyone else, or yourself when I granted you the same acknowledgment. And then you’re going to tell me that my wordplay isn’t far better thought out?
The review I made was actually me explaining everything with as much clarification as possible, because I know people don’t often get writing beyond surface level storytelling. And there isn’t anyone who wants actual word for word analysis more than I do. I’d at least be able to discuss the merit of that opinion, if you even provided a single sentence as an example of what you’re speaking about. Or better yet, be in-depth and cover every single thing I did wrong in your eyes and show me how you would make it correct and clearer. I’d actually be able to thank you for something. Maybe even improve, since that’s the intended goal of my reviews. I’m sure there’s a sentence in there somewhere you could make clearer and not butcher and water down my writing. I want writing critique. But instead I got character assassination.
I feel like your story had some rather… unfortunate implications, particularly regarding rape/sexual assault, and mental illness which, I’m going to be honest, really rubbed me the wrong way, something not helped by your self-commentary.
Let’s make something clear I dissect what comes across as borderline concern trolling.
This story is:
- 1. A piece of fiction.
- 2. From the direct written perspective of a madman. (So anything that got the reader’s knickers in a twist is mad at the fictional crazy man.)
- 3. A piece set in medieval times. (Figure the castle/witch-hunting part gave that away.)
- 4. An obviously symbolic story that’s meant to be abstract and not realistic.
- 5. Written by an author with mental illness.
- 6. Written to purposefully criticize the perspectives of the character in the story.
- 7. Written to lambaste dog whistling. “Implications” people make in bad faith. And the people that would want to silence work like this from being made.
Let’s start with the mental illness aspect. So. You made it very clear in our earlier discussion that you were aiming to create a black and white villain. The narrative also makes it fairly clear that your narrator is supposed to be evil toward the end. The main thing driving this villainy however, is what appears to be some form of psychosis (not a psychologist, just somebody bothered by inaccurate and stigmatising portrayals of mental illness in the media.). Based off the incredibly diminutive comments in your self ‘critique’, and the genuinely bizarre symptom presentation, I’m going to assume you’ve done very little research in preparation for this portrayal, which I think really takes a lot away from your story’s quality.
You don’t remotely understand the story or our conversation. But let’s explain what I’m talking about in-depth. My character is one of the only villains of the stories that has the most reasonable explanation and motivation for their bad deeds. Sister attacked by people he goes to war with. Father died from a heart attack at shocking words which makes him censor ‘hate speech’ basically. Losing vision by getting infected blood into his eyes. (One of many examples of this being possible is AIDS, transferred by blood and can cause Cytomegalovirus, which causes blindness.) MC went to war and killed people, potential hidden trauma that also has the potential to f*ck someone up drastically. So it’s really ironic to critique mine for being too obvious in writing, when yours doesn’t explain why your dad did what he did. No one else really explains how their hero made their fall whatsoever. And certainly not in the “show don’t tell” method that I did.
Next, no I’m not trying to portray any kind of real mental illness. This is fiction. It is symbolism meant to portray things in an artful way. It is a fictional story, in a fictional setting. So this attack on me not understanding it or trying to make any kind of statement about mental illness is flat out wrong. It is an obviously and explained symbolic gesture of him getting blinded by blood. Growing his desire for revenge and to kill. It becomes an excuse to dehumanize the ones he wants dead for disagreeing with him. I explain exactly what the phantoms are. They aren’t real. It’s not even supposed to be perceived as real hallucinations. It’s a concept given flesh. Sins. Sins done by man and humans nature to blame it on anything else but themselves. And when you start believing in your own perceived delusions.
I took a little inspiration from Oh,Sleeper’s album, Children Of Fire. (Among other bits of fiction that symbolically aim for similar things.)
Your decision to have your character ‘go mad’ instantly reduces your character’s motivation to one of incredibly inaccurate biology, as opposed to the more complex ideology you seemed to be setting us up for in the beginning. Personally, I’m fascinated by what it is that makes people do bad things. Often the reasoning is complex, built up from years of societal pressures, personality aspects, and upbringing. Even where mental illness is involved (which, in reality, it most often isn’t), other factors most always come into play. By blaming your character’s wrongdoing almost entirely on his psychosis, you miss out on the opportunity to explore the far more interesting ideas at play.
Aside from the poor storytelling, I feel like it should go without saying that equating mental illness with evil is incredibly dubious.
You don’t show, nor prove that it is poor storytelling. Just that you somehow read my story and its long given explanation but still didn’t get the intention of the original work.
This story isn’t meant to be taken at face value. It wasn’t trying to portray real mental illness. I make the fictitious setting pretty clear. It is a story about the dangers of how fast and bad things can escalate when people think it’s a good idea to censor people’s words. You can’t tell me you don’t see the aspect of the obvious parallels of embellished description used for people the character disagrees with. You can also easily argue that the character is not quite all there or is a little disturbed far before the Phantom Vision part is even introduced. You’re just flat wrong that the only thing provided is his psyche. (Or symbolically, a particular political mindset.)
He not only has several reasons given to you in the story, but it does one better by directly showing you his involvement with them.
Fuck you for having the nerve to insinuate I was trying to say people with mental illnesses are evil. Especially when I gave you the precise tools needed to know my intention for the story was about the evils of censorship. And its advocates for it are the ones that are insane, and there tactics are to demonize those they want to imprison and far worse than that.
Now… the… err, the rape subplot -_-
I’ll try my best to vocalize my bluntness with the typed words here.
>clears throatThere. Is. No. Rape. That. Takes. Place. In. This. Fucking. Story.I was unimpressed, to say the least. In all honesty, I don’t even want to discuss this aspect of your work, because quite frankly it made my stomach turn.
That doesn’t tell me anything but how you “felt”. And you’re offended and disgusted at me for the non-rape in my story. The attempted attacker is called the devil. The woman doesn’t take it lying down and tries to stab him. A vile act where the person who even tried it got his fucking head chopped off. You felt exactly what you’re supposed to feel. My character felt how he was supposed to feel, if not for the right reasons.
Rape (or a failed attempt at such) can and should be portrayed in dark fiction. And you can’t stop it from doing so. And as I will make clear later. This was not simply included for shock value and without symbolic purpose. But it’s transparently clear you missed the sentence “she informed me I made it in time.” And completely missed the point of the guy saying the phantoms did it. Quite literally no, they and he did not.
The damage done by rape is not to a woman’s reputation. It is not to her intrinsic value. It is not to her ‘honour’ or other such medieval nonsense.
You’re either attacking the story set in medieval times, from the clear perspective of a guy from that era that it is “medieval nonsense”.
No shit.OR.
This thing is personal and you’re calling me a rape sympathizer. Through me making some kind of actual judgement of real victims. And if that’s the case.
Again, fuck you for making another judgement about me as a person.Because I really tried to comprehend which angle you were coming from here. And I don’t think I ever once mention “honour, intrinsic value, or reputation” in my story or my review in regards to the FAILED attack.
It is the utter horror of having someone violently rip away that most intimate part of yourself, of having any sense of bodily autonomy, of choice, of strength, stripped away in the barest instant.
Again, what does this have to do with the “In-Depth review” I was promised? Are you my pastor? Am I your therapist? Does my story not clearly portray this as a vile action done by a vile person?
Any modern work using a rape subplot in order to further the development of a character other than the victim? Just… best not. If you don’t have time to treat the subject with the proper care and attention it needs, you’re much better off just not including it. And if you feel the need to fall back on lazy cliches such as ‘white flowers being symbolic of purity’, then really this isn’t a topic you should be touching with a barge pole.
If you want to call my worked cliched? You’re right. It is a very cliche story. But that isn’t really the intent of all this moralizing is it? You’re asking me to censor my work. Not cover this topic because you feel uncomfortable for it even being mentioned. Even if its intentions are beyond the FAILED act itself. And its plot critical to the story about the danger of censorship. You can’t tell me I was lazy how I wrote my sentences. It’s not just white flowers. But lilies which have been symbolically used for virginity in more than my fiction let me tell you. And aside from the flower bed. This isn’t my even direct view. It’s written from the character’s perspective. You can’t tell me that it has no meaning. I gave it as much depth as hundreds of word would allow.
And it’s the fucking impetus for driving the character to his downfall.The implication that a woman who was been raped is no longer ‘pure’... just… no. That’s incredibly offensive to survivors, who frequently struggle with the idea of having been ‘ruined’ or being ‘dirty’ because of their experience. Virginity and rape have nothing to do with each other. Rape is just as traumatic to someone who has had fifty sexual partners as it is to someone who’s had none. Rape is deeply traumatising, and something that at least some of your readers doubtless have personal experience with, yet here you are, using it as a cheap sub plot which is a) quickly forgotten about, and b) seems to serve little narrative purpose.
It is the perspective of the character alone. And that’s precisely why that I included is in there. Because I recognize that it makes those people feel stained or dirty. Virginity and rape being connected is very much a perspective had back in medieval times. The character is the one that makes the connection to the flowers relating it to her attack. My review explaining what it meant, is not to validate my perspective on the topic, its to make you understand what the character meant “by the thoughts of crushed flowers.”
You’re simply wrong.
A. (and B.) The FAILED act itself drives the entire story forward. This is the reason he goes to war. His desire to get his sister to smile and speak to him again. He believes the father died because of the man’s spoken lie. Somebody essentially dies because of a false accusation of a rape that never actually occurred. It doesn’t matter that at worst she was shoved down at worst. The father had a heart attack, destroyed at the thought, someone did that to his daughter. The brother goes to war for her. (And subsequently the father as well for dying because of this action.) It’s so deeply traumatising, that apparently it’s not a realistic reason for my character to be pissed off…?
And let me additionally call out this double standard. Why is portraying attempted sexual acts in a strictly negative light worse than the character decapitating people exactly? Surely people have had family members that have died. Maybe even murdered, what gives me or anyone the right to write fiction about that? How about war?
Why do you have the right to write a story about alcoholism and imply that all drunk people are man-children and villains that compare to people that go on murder sprees?!?! That’s pretty dubious if you ask me.Sound absurd? Sound like I’m just putting words in your mouth? Sound like complete nonsense to attribute what you feel about drunk people as a whole because of fictional character in a short fiction novel? Well now you know an ounce of what I went through when reading this for the first time.
Also, how do you know what I or other people have gone through in life? You don’t. So maybe stick to pointing out the sentences you thought could use improvements and don’t make judgement about me as a person through a short story. And don’t tell me what I should or shouldn’t be about to write about…
You could’ve shown me the same respect I did in your review, by sticking to the substance and not make character attacks, but you didn’t do that...so here we are.
And I don’t exactly expect to be kindly received, but I’ll have you know I edited this down quite a bit for language and the sarcasm that wasn’t used to illustrate a point. Put yourself in my shoes and tell me you wouldn’t say the same after several accusations were just spewed at you.
I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you were genuinely unaware of these implications. But still, I feel like your work would greatly benefit from even the barest amount of research if you are going to be touching upon such delicate subjects as these. If you are putting your work up to be seen, you need to be wary of the fact that your readers will have had different life experiences to you, and may find portrayals such as these to be quite upsetting, and not in a good way.
I honestly can’t wait for the white knight defense for this one. Because if you seriously were trying to do anything but piss me off. You’ll have to inform me what was else offered in this. Seriously, why exactly was your ‘in-depth’ review any better than mine?
You indirectly called me all of this in the most preachy and condescending manner possible.
- 1. A lazy writer
- 2. A bad reviewer
- 3. Stupid (Because clearly I’m too dumb to grasp wordplay and what that is. Or you somehow sincerely think I don’t know people live different lives?)
- 4. That I think people with mental illnesses are evil. (So I think I’m the worst.)
- 5. A rape sympathizer (Or just believe I somehow don’t care about victims of rape.)
So yes. Please, call this assessment unfair. I want to hear how bad I am some more, and how this isn’t a justified reaction and response. About how I got bitched at by a stranger whose never spoke to me in person before for portraying my medieval perspectives in medieval fiction. And why my fiction/symbolic disease isn’t realistic enough. And to be so reckless to claim my clearly stated intentions were to vilify the mentally ill and not just a critique on censorship and how its implemented by mankind. And also tell a writer how he shouldn’t write what he wrote. I bet everyone here would love to hear that said to them.
I finished writing and editing this without any residue anger or grudge held against you personally. I’m not trying to make you feel bad. I’m correcting the record that you’re concerned anger and various statements about me personally are entirely misplaced and unwarranted. I’d say this to anyone who so badly misrepresented my feelings and my writing that I have a passion for. And I’ll gladly apologize for your undeserved attack, when I get the same kindness extended to me in return. Hopefully you’ll have the respect to read the exact same harshness that I spent time trying to articulately counter...
3x Thank
And I'm feeling equally nervous about posting it, but it is done and I'll read it through a final time before posting it.