Roach

Sentaku

^{@Bee, @Bluetommy, @Hey Im Jordan}

Suzuhime's breath came in short, quick pants, ripping through her chest like a whirlwind. There was no time to catch it. The other ninja had longer legs than she did, so she had to run thrice as fast just to stay out of his reach. He was older, so she had to be smarter. She broke the branches she was standing on with a spike of too-much chakra as she jumped just to make him find another path up to her, but they were in a forest with no shortage of alternate routes.

'Use the environment to create breathing space.'

She was doing what Samuru-sensei said to do, and it wasn't working. Or it was working, but not well enough to save her. It bought her thirty seconds at best to descend, duck behind a tree and take inventory of the situation. The senbon-launcher attached to her wrist broke in the last flurry of blows before she alighted into the trees. Her wrist ached like it was broken, too, but right now the senbon-launcher was of more tactical importance: she needed it to make sure nothing else broke.

She bit at the smashed mechanism with her teeth, trying to get it to please open up so that she could at least access a few extra senbon, or the vial of poison stored inside. It did not yield. It must have been the spring inside that had snapped, because she couldn't access it through the front, either. Nothing would come out, and no-one could get access to it – least of all Suzuhime.

A manic thought struck her on a wave of panicked laughter. If only she could have fit the scroll inside it. Then they'd be golden. She had a lot of those. If only she hadn't agreed vociferously to take a rest when they hadn't scouted out the area for traps.

If only someone else had responsibility for the scroll. Instead, she kept the scroll in the pouch on her hip. Her supply of kunai was running low. She paused in her assessment to throw one of her last ones at a rustling bush where she thought he might have been coming for her, then forced her legs to keep going.

Help me, she thought. Usagi, Makoto, anyone, please help me. But she had seen Usagi and Makoto dart in opposite directions back in the clearing, a good distraction. The chances of them catching up before she was caught were infinitesimally small – she didn't have to do the kind of calculations required in the written exam to know that.

And a small traitorous voice said that they would have to contend with their own opponents before they could help with hers, and victory wasn't guaranteed for any of them.

The ninja leapt in front of her from above, and she had to skid to a halt before she ran straight into him. His headband said he was from Mist, but she hadn't seen that before. She forced her hands into a series of seals. Ram, boar, ox.

"Hand it over, brat, and we won't do any permanent damage."

Dog.

As he made a grab for her, blade glinting, she twisted into the final one. Snake. The Body Replacement Technique absorbed the blow but left her off-balance and disoriented somewhere to the left of them. The Mist-nin was coming for her, and there was nowhere else to run.

'Use stealth. If the enemy can't see you he can't hit you.'

Samuru-sensei, there's nowhere to hide, either. What else have you got for me?

Suzuhime brought her hands up once more to attempt a last ditch effort of her clan's secret technique. The Mind-Body Switch. It shouldn't have been used when there was no allies around to protect her body if she missed or otherwise failed, but it was all she had left up her sleeve. Her forefingers and thumbs met, and––

And the ninja advanced upon her too quickly for her to summon the necessary chakra. She had to roll out of the way to avoid his first kunai, deflecting the second with the hard metal of the senbon-launcher, even as the force behind it jostled fractured bone. It was enough for her to let out an instinctual yelp loud enough to unsettle the birds above. His hand shot out and grabbed her other wrist, the one that was far more useful at present, and yanked her into the air.

"Your team's scroll. Where is it?"

'Do your best to not die.'

"I don't – have it," she lied. Better to die than live with the shame of losing her team's scroll. They'd never forgive her. She'd never forgive herself.

Avatar - The Fall of Si Wong City

Interested~

The Worst Writing Advice

<Snipped quote by Roach>

I'm just always afraid I'll use a semi-colon at the wrong time, so I end up never using them.

Kind of like an em dash. It's a versatile tool—Some would say too versatile—which is why I seldom use them. Mostly it doesn't serve any real unique purpose that other forms of punctuation can't handle. There's no button for it either, so you have to go Alt + NUM 0151 which I can't remember and then I spend all this time googling stuff and at the end I'm just like why botherrrrrrrr.

@BrokenPromise

Em-dashes are too powerful and must be stopped. I have to delete one set every paragraph when I'm editing my own posts/writings –– gotta give other punctuation marks a fighting chance. They're just too good for a pseudo-conversational style, or for building in authentic and interesting speech patterns in dialogue, I think.

Gotta admit that I don't know how the proper rules on using semi-colons myself – I know when they're used wrong, but not enough to verbally explain it, if that makes sense. It's one of those native English speaker rules you kinda pick up along the way by osmosis and you're too afraid to ask if you're doing it right.

^{Nobody saw that post from a ghost account babes. Nope.}

The Worst Writing Advice

@Ammokkx
The circus will keep me going for days I tell you.

The Worst Writing Advice

Probably not, as I'd have the self awareness to know when the fuck to walk away.

@Fabricant451

Glad I dipped out when I did. No ragrets.

Now what's the next writing advice to discuss? People who say semi-colons are bad but don't know how to use them?

The Worst Writing Advice

I'm going to leave before the thread implodes in true Inkarnate fashion. You guys have fun.

@Inkarnate

You didn't even give us any spicy takes D:

The Worst Writing Advice

Hey, look your mind reading again.

@SleepingSilence

I don’t think this is the ‘gotcha’ you think it is. I’m calling a spade a spade – in my subjective opinion, of course.

Pray tell. If no one took a person's critique personally. Why would someone like you feel the need to make ad-hom attacks exactly?

And ironically, this almost proves my point. (In that someone is flat out stating something, that has no example offered, or elaboration on why it's so bad.) But, I digress.

So, before you had to bring it up the second time. When I wanted to be nice and shrug the obvious cheap shot off. I was weighing on questioning precisely what you think critique is meant to do. When you posted right under my review, "Long review is bad. Because it's not friendly."

@SleepingSilence

If you are going to quote me, you should not strawman my argument. I believe what I actually wrote beneath your review was: "I won't be doing an in-depth sentence by sentence breakdown because I don't think those are helpful outside of creative writing workshops and don't fit the vibe of casual, friendly critique on an internet forum".

It was not the length of your critique that was bad, it's that line-by-line, word-by-word critiques are unhelpful – and I stand by this. The writing contest is short form (sub-5000 words) so really anything that could be said about a piece can be done in broad strokes rather than on a minute scale. I'm sure you found this yourself when you ended up repeating yourself in many places by going line-by-line.

I am also confused by what you mean by the following: "If no one took a person's critique personally, why would someone like you feel the need to make ad-hom attacks exactly?" It's not like you've critiqued my work such that I could take it personally. I am an observer to bad writing advice and sought to call it out.

I'm sure it would be a laugh and a half, though.

Well, here's the thing.

Critique isn't friendly. It's not fun to hear. No matter how lighthearted and filled with sorry's one makes it. Because people can utterly freak out regardless. Or act like you, and attack someone's method regarding their own preconceived flaws on what was said. When here's the dirtiest truth of them all, it's only meant to help and offer suggestions for improvement. Nothing more, nothing less.

No, providing every detail of not only what you liked, why you liked it, what you didn't like, why you didn't like it, what was actually wrong, and friendly suggestions to improve, is not, nor will it ever be "bad critique". And because I *do* know what I meant. And many people who appreciate it, knew it wasn't "to feed an ego".

@SleepingSilence

Critique also doesn't have to be presented in the most ruthless, more brutal than honest way. There are well-attested ways to providing nice, measured, and helpful critique: you know, the sandwich method. Attempting to balance negative things and positive things in a way that is impossible with a line-by-line critique, because quite frankly, whenever a section of text is rewritten, that isn't neutrally-charged advice; it's saying 'this would be better'.

Besides, this is a bit of a tangent, isn't it? My complaint was specifically with rewriting sections of text and masquerading it as advice. Criticism isn't to feed an ego. Rewriting someone's work without first being asked is.

Though since you take umbrage with the phrasing of 'feed their own ego', I'll put it this way – in nicer, softer, kid gloves critique:

It reframes the criticism from the writer who's work should be in the spotlight to the reviewer's own personal writing style. People who do this seem to care more about showcasing their own edits than promoting ones which can further the writer's style (in my subjective opinion, looking from the outside in, as someone who has critiqued and been critiqued many times throughout university and on the internet).

Nothing is stopping an author from explaining that themselves then. And better yet, taking one's rewritten words, going "Hmm. Okay, how do I take that advice, and then make it my own?"

@SleepingSilence

That's not the point, and I don't think you understand that. Rewriting is not advice. It is pretending to be advice. When you rewrite, you strip the author's own authentic voice from the sentences and lose sight of what made the piece theirs in the first place. You replace their sentence structure with your own. Their word choice with your own. Their cadence and tone and intentions and replace it with your own.

How is that not focused on the reviewer than the writer?

Because, I don't believe anything is perfect. If I fuck up in writing or critique, the more specific you are, the better it is to me.

@SleepingSilence

Again, you can be specific without rewriting. I have given several examples of how to do this in previous posts that you don't seem to have noticed. You can point out errors, you can give example sentences, you can move around clauses to show what is grammatically correct or not.

'Here's how I would rewrite this' and then rewriting it is not advice.

And the total reverse of you claiming "suggestions to fix sentences are always bad". Isn't useful to me at all. Because it provides me no wiggle room to grow as a critic. Something that everyone should work to improve upon.

@SleepingSilence

I didn't say the first part. Again, to quote myself: "Point out the problem, suggest a fix – or better yet, multiple fixes – but don't write the actual fix out in your own words, dude, jesus christ." The bolded parts are things I did suggest as reasonable alternatives, please check your reading comprehension before putting words in my mouth.

Secondly, I am giving you advice on how to be a better critic: don't rewrite people's work. That's it. That's my subjective advice.

And let's cut to the "bring me down" chase, and say I've had many PM from people I've critiqued/advised in the exact same way, and thank me for how clear I was. So, don't tell me that it can never work. Because I know it can, and does help people. Especially, those who can actually assume one's good faith.

@SleepingSilence

I don't know who you are quoting "bring me down" from or if it's meant to be air-quotes what it's referring to, but, anyway...

Proof? Because here's a thread of people disagreeing with your methods here.

And, cherry on top. If the author is allowed to have a voice that is unquestioned in their method, breaking any rule that suits them.

Well, why can't the critic or the reader be allowed to have their own methods of review, that may even be different from how someone else tells them "the right way to offer help"?

@SleepingSilence

Criticism =/= creating. Also, you're right that there's no rules to criticism. There are, however, guidelines on how to do it in such a way that helps the person being critiqued. Anyone is allowed to call out said critique as flawed if they perceive it that way, just as people can call out writing as flawed, but the actual act of structuring a critique may be a little more objective than creative writing.

---

Hopefully this clears up some misconceptions you may have had about my arguments and views on constructive criticism and why literally rewriting parts of a work would not constitute as that.

The Worst Writing Advice

This sounds like you're playing the role of a mind reader.

@SleepingSilence

I just calls them like I sees them. It is my subjective opinion that people who rewrite swathes of other people's works (without being asked to) in, say, friendly creative writing contests on the internet are people with no awareness of how constructive criticism works in the real world. I stand by my point: they are bad at critique.

As @bluetommy has succinctly put it, this is not the same as the editing process with a professional editor, who is there to provide suggestions on changes that can be made – in a technical sense, and in an overview. The writer can take it or leave it, obviously knowing that if they don't push the edits as far as their editor wants, they may have to hunt around for another publishing company. I don't think any editor would literally rewrite paragraphs in their own style because that defeats the purpose of publishing an author's own authentic creation.

But even if they did, there's a difference between having someone qualified do it - someone who has an understanding of the craft and knows more than how to do superficial analysis - than some schmuck on the internet doing it, you feel me? That's why it's bad writing advice when it comes specifically from the Internet.

(Or when you're writing a fan fiction, because hey guess what, that's rewriting/changing someone's established 'voice/cannon' and making it your own. And that's okay too.)

@SleepingSilence

Fanfiction =/= the original work. This is a false dichotomy. I have seen some young writers copy out scripts of movies in their fanfiction, sure, but by and large it's people writing in their own voice, just in someone else's universe. They aren't trying to 'correct' the actual style and cadence of the author, which is something specific to a single person.

This sentiment could easily boil down to "the author can never be wrong/all writing quality is subjective."

@SleepingSilence

This but unironically. All writing is subjective. Like art.

Because, just perhaps, not everyone that critiques or offers personal advice is thinking "how can I feed my ego today". But does it, in order to help someone get better. (Or at the very least, get them to understand a different perspective.)

And, tell me this...

How can you critique anyone's writing choices whatsoever, when you aren't allow to seek or offer changes?

Because all critique and advice does this. With literally every example you can think of. You are looking, or expecting someone to update something.

@SleepingSilence

No one is saying that you cannot suggest changes. Indeed, I mention in my own post that you can point out technical issues, that you can make comments on plot and structure and anything else you want in a critique. The problem comes from literally rewriting the words an author uses to express themselves and saying it would be better –– because nine times out of ten, the author's authentic voice is a better fit for their own work than a stranger's.

And even if you could write it better, it's unforgivably rude to say or imply otherwise, and that's what rewriting does. It also doesn't help a person grow?

Point out the problem, suggest a fix – or better yet, multiple fixes – but don't write the actual fix out in your own words, dude, jesus christ.

So for example, why is "your sentences are complicated and vague" more helpful and acceptable to say, than "Your sentences complicated and vague, so if you don't mind, let me provide you potential solutions as to precisely what I'm talking about."

First of all, a crucial difference here in your example from the type of people that I am complaining about: "if you don't mind". If someone has asked beforehand for this specific kind of bad writing advice? Absolutely, that's fine.

But we both know why this particular example of bad writing advice niggles at you so, and I'd be disingenuous to suggest otherwise.

Also once more, providing solutions is not the same as rewriting parts of the piece. Any creative writing workshop could tell you that.

In both cases, the person giving said advice, is asking the author to change their original work. Likely to make the author's sentences more clear and concise. So assuming both people are doing that in good faith. Where one often gives no examples and provides no solutions. And the other does so. Is the first better because...they put less work into their giving their advice? Is it nicer to leave an author clueless on what the former even wanted? Simply because it there's the chance it will hurt one's feelings a little less, from the sheer lack of context for them to dwell on?

@SleepingSilence

My edits to fix up grammar and sentence structure:

"In both cases, the person giving said advice is asking the author to change their original voice. This could be to make the author's sentences more clear and concise, or remove comma splices, or erase unnecessary sentence fragments. So, assuming both people are doing that in good faith – where one often gives no examples and provides no solutions and the other does so – is the first better because they put less work into giving their advice? Is it nicer to leave an author clueless on what the former even wanted, simply because there's the chance it will hurt one's feelings a little less from the sheer lack of context for them to dwell on?"

Unironically, no-one brought hurt feelings into it. People who rewrite bits of text as advice are assholes, yes, but it's not because doing so is hurtful. It's because they generally have no idea what they're talking about in terms of the more 'advanced' techniques of writing – those being nebulous things like style and voice unique to individuals.

The Worst Writing Advice

My own top contender for the worst writing advice is actually more about critique on the web:

Any advice in which a critic takes a piece of writing and rewrites it in their own style just to feed their own ego – prescribing how it "should" be done. Sadly, I've seen this multiple times here. No. Just no.

Technical mistakes, yes – you can demonstrate the correct techniques (if and only if you're sure they're mistakes) in terms of comma splices or typos or basic grammatical errors. However, if you're rewriting because in your mind it would make a piece flow better, or the word choice would be better off simpler/more complex, or because you don't like/understand semi-colons, you're bad at giving advice.

A lot of self-described writing experts on the internet think good writing begins and ends with a mastery of basic grammar, and that any piece can be improved with a line-by-line nitpick of possible typos and vague pseudo-errors like sentence fragments. Alternatively, perhaps they believe that show don't tell trumps all other elements of writing. Knowing what the rules are is a big part of the craft, yes. Knowing that it's okay to bend and even break them is what you learn whenever you take any class analyzing literature outside of high school.

@bluetommy has it right when he says writing is rules-lite and it's all about style.

Some writers never play with the rules, because their voice doesn't require it. Some writers do it all the damn time, and that's their voice. Examples: Joseph Heller's run-on sentences in Catch-22; Vonnegut's conversational, fragmented style; Cormac McCarthy's, like, everything... That's not to say any random hobbyist on the internet is in the same ballpark, but there's no reason why their "mistakes" (often quirks, not errors) should be treated any differently just because they don't have the weight of a lifetime of publication behind them.

Nobody's taking bits of these authors' writing and rewriting them in a different personal style, proclaiming with foolish confidence that it would be better their way.

To tie this in with my original complaint of rewriting masquerading as advice, there's no reason why anyone should say or imply that 'this would be better if you did it my way' when doling out specific advice on the internet. Never stifle an author's voice. It's just unbearably rude, and 90% of the time the suggested rework is shit anyway, coming from internet randoms blinded by Dunning-Kruger.

The Worst Writing Advice

There are more interesting alternatives TBH.

@BrokenPromise

"This is the worst writing advice I've ever seen," the user expostulated, "and it came from within the thread itself!"

Overusing descriptive speech tags is worse than just using said every time. While there are decent alternatives in the list, some of these are pretty ridiculous, like 'crabbed' and 'vociferated' and 'whickered'.

'Said' is fine. 'Said' blends in with the background, like salt on a meal. The brain glosses over it so easily because it's just assumed to be there.