Fanfiction.net is a double-edged sword.

Before all you fanfiction.net (ff.net) exclusive authors start flaming away for me bashing on your posting ground, hear me out.

I think ff.net is a double-edged sword. It's really not that bad if you think about it. It actually serves its purpose perfectly, by giving anybody a place to post their fanfics so that others can read it. It's also a good place for anyone to visit to read new fanfiction without the need to subscribe to a mailing list or usenet newsgroup or forum. That's an excellent aspect of ff.net which is why it's so widely known in the fanfic community.

Unfortunately, because anyone can post on this place, a lot of shitty writers who shouldn't be writing also post their works on there as well. Okay, we all need to start somewhere. I agree with you. I started off much like everyone else, having to stumble my way through different writing styles and genres until I started getting more and more comfortable and better writing. The problem I have is that a good majority of the posts on ff.net are crap. The problem is that I see reviews actually praising said crap which seems to give the author a false sense of confidence in their writing which makes 'em dish out even more crap, believing everyone wants more of what they write.

You know what? No one wants to read your shit. You are the kinda people that write JUST to get praise. And what happens when people bash your crap-fic for what it is? You disappear from the fanfiction world. You know what? GOOD!

There's a reason why you're receiving only praises instead of harsh doses of criticisms toward your fics. That's because most of the people who read your fic and believe it sucks skip over your story and move on, never bothering to read it to the end let alone give you the harsh critique you really need. The problem with the review system on ff.net is that it's much easier for people to just ignore your piece of shit fanfic than to take the effort of making it known that you suck. As to why people are giving you praises, they're probably just as bad as you. They don't realize they're reading a shitty fic much like how you don't realize you're writing a shitty fic.

Another aspect of ff.net is plagiarism. I know there have been countless stories plagiarized on there. To all you people that plagiarize, I ask you one question. WHY?!? Don't give some bullshit excuse that someone used your account to post it up for you. It seems like that's the same tireless excuse everyone gives all the time. Talk about coincidence, huh? EVERYONE that gets caught plagiarizing seems to use the exact same excuse all the time. Do you fuckers have some kinda plagiarizers guild where you decide on what kinda excuse to give if any one of you get caught and came up with that as your universal excuse? Don't you realize that people aren't as stupid as you? You know what would be funny? Instead of instantly sending a message to the admins to have the plagiarized story taken off and the pseudo-author's fanfic removed, you should email the person and ask him/her questions pertaining to the story he or she wrote and see how they answer it. If I found someone that plagiarized my story (again), I'll be sure to open up a fake email account and ask the pseudo-author why he wrote a scene and how he came about with such a story just merely for curiosity's sake.

What ff.net needs is a rating system. Fuck the review system. The reviews are all the same basically. 'Good job. I look forward to seeing more', 'I loved this story', 'This story was great'. I don't know about you, but I think these kinda reviews are more useless than the Top Spin attack in Mega Man 3. All you people that have played that game KNOW that that's one useless attack.

All these reviews do is inflate your false sense of confidence into writing more crap. If we use a rating system, that could really help weed you shitty writers out. Why? Because without a review system, it removes the reasons most shitty authors post in the first place, to JUST get praise. The rating system will also make it be known that your fanfic sucks because it'll be very easy for anyone to give you a poor rating if your story sucks.

Of course, with a rating system, the shit authors could simply give themselves good ratings by constantly accessing their fic and clicking on a 10 (provided the rating is from 1-10, 10 representing the best) to up the rating level so that people would read it more because of the higher rating. That won't work in the long run because ff.net receives shitloads of traffic and your lone click on '10' being averaged in with the hundreds of clicks on '1' will be negligible. You can only up your own rating so much over time. If your fic sucks, the numbers will show. Even though you're asking your friends to constantly click on the 10 to keep the ratings high, it won't stay high. This is because, the higher the rating is, the more likely your story will be read and the more likely people will realize it doesn't deserve such a high rating and will rate it appropriately. There will inevitably be more people giving your shitty fanfic the low rating it deserves than you could click on a '10' to skew said rating. The numbers are stacked against you.

Okay, so what should happen to the review system? I don't know. It should be removed most likely. Not only do we have people accidentally giving off spoilers to stories and such, but most of those reviews don't really help out that much to the authors. I dunno about you guys, but I think a 'good' review is one that has constructive criticism and those kinds of reviews should be sent via private email anyway. Afterall, if you're not posting JUST for praise, then it doesn't matter that much if the review system is removed.

Now, I'm sure many of you ff.net authors are itching to flame me because you think I'm ranting about you. Well, I'm not ranting about the good authors on ff.net. There are shitloads of amazing authors that post on ff.net, some exclusively. You're the authors that started out writing much like everyone else but have gotten better with experience, have tried and failed and learned from such experiences. You're the ones that make fanfiction a treat to read. You're the ones that make the new fanfic readers get hooked on fanfiction because you're opening up a new world to them they never knew existed. You're the ones that write because you love to write and don't care what others think because you know that so long as you love what you do, that is what matters. I just feel very bad that you guys are not being read by people like myself because weeding through tons of shitty fics to find that gem that is your story has made me lose interest in the site. It's not your fault that I'm not reading you. Heck, it's not all the shitty authors' fault for turning me off to ff.net. It's actually my fault for not being more tenacious about finding those gems. It's just unfortunate that our paths will never cross due to the combination of circumstances. Then again, I'm only one person. I'm no on special. Heck, with my views of ff.net, perhaps I don't deserve to be reading your fics. Perhaps I'm not the kinda reader YOU want reading YOUR fics anyway.

Since I'm not ranting about the good authors in ff.net, what kind of author am I ranting about? I'm ranting about the ones that post to ff.net specifically for praise, that don't know the difference between they're, there, and their, or your and you're, that really believe the shallow reviews like 'Your fic is awesome' means you're a good author. You're the kinda people that write around a dozen lines and call it a chapter. You're the people that don't see the difference between a flame and constructive criticism.

Oddly enough, if you love to write, but are a shitty author, all I can say is to continue on practicing. Afterall, there's a good chance you don't need praise anyway since you'll continue to write regardless of praise or flame. Of course, praise does help since it would make you want to write more which will lead to you improving on your writing. Unfortunately, what you need is constructive criticism. I just there are better places than ff.net for constructive criticism but that's just my opinion. If you love writing, you will continue to write and will improve over time. Some people might take longer to get better than others though. Everyone learns at a different pace.

To everyone who thinks the review system being removed is stupid because it doesn't allow others to see what others think of it, well, that's what the rating for the story will be. You should never let someone's opinions sway you on what's good or bad. Sure, the rating system is similar to a review but is only a number, but what you need to know is that the rating system would be more accurate. This is because the 'review' of the fanfic you're about to read isn't skewed by the lack of 'bad review' because people found the story to be crap and just skipped it and never gave their input on said story.

There's such a slew of bad fanfics out there and the stinking reviews that seem to praise them which makes the authors develop an inflated sense of confidence. If you remove the false sense of confidence those reviews give to crap authors, there's a good chance they were only posting on there JUST for the praise anyway, not because they really want to improve and really contribute to the fanfiction community. If ff.net eliminated the review system for a rating system, I'll most likely come back and start reading fanfics on that site. But until then, I'll steer clear of that site.

Remember, I have nothing against ff.net or all those great authors that post there. I simply have gripes against their review system that gives crappy authors more reasons to continue on writing and never bothering to improve. It's because of this that the truly good fanfics seem nothing more that true gems in a pile of crap that everyone must wade through to reach.

Maybe there's something wrong with me because I don't see ff.net in the same light most people do...

Anyway, fanfiction.net I believe is a double-edged sword.

Home