The "whooshing" sound you just heard... · 3:06am Apr 20th, 2014
...was the sound of a point going by over an EqD's pre-reader's head.
I got Over a Cardboard Sea bounced from there, by somebody who gave me an amusingly detailed critique. Amusingly, because it proved that this person 100% missed the point. I shouldn't use passive voice, for example, because it makes things feel distant and disconnected. Which made me want to reply with "Yes! That's exactly why I used it!"
Over a Cardboard Sea is probably the only thing I've ever written that qualifies as Literature with the capital L. Every thing I did was deliberate. Every word was carefully chosen. (A few of them were chosen by my useful editor, Jordanis, who is good at that kind of thing. But nothing in that story was done without careful thought, is the point.) It took more care and crafting to write those few thousand words than it has for some of my novel-length works.
And it's honestly kind of hilarious to watch somebody flail their way through it, pointing out each of those careful choices as "wrong" because they're not the way a typical shipping or adventure story is written.
I didn't really think EqD would take it, it isn't their kind of story, but I do think it's a shame that one of the best (if not THE best) things that I've ever written gets so little exposure.
This kind of thing, though, is why I think people should avoid proclaiming absolutist rules about writing. You can't say "never use passive voice" or "always show and don't tell" or any other such thing. It all depends on the story you're writing, and the audience you're writing for. I guess there really isn't much of an audience for concept-heavy Literature that also happens to be FiM fanfiction. But I am still glad I wrote it. I just wish I could reach more people who would appreciate it.
I've had an argument with an EqD guy about exactly this. I'm pretty sad they didn't take Cardboard Sea, I really liked that story.
how to get someone interested in reading a story you wrote, Chapter 12: Announcing That the Tale was Rejected by an Accredited Newsletter While Claiming it to be One's Best/ Favorite Work Yet
I do not mean to imply any sarcasm and if I did so, please do acknowledge my apology in this statement. I only mean to say that I now feel compelled to read the tagged tale to see what it is that you want us to see in it that went over the EqD reader's head, if I am able. I had no intention of mocking you.
Signed
One Faceless Reader.
Some just don't understand the concept of style. Sometimes it seems that EDaD knows more about literature than them.
It was funny. Everything that wasn't tiny comma use niggles was complaining about how distant and disconnected it was.
It's a story about Luna's disconnection from the world physically and mentally, and how it goes back to her disconnection from her sister. Every bit of that story is about disconnection. And then, "I don't like how you keep evoking the feelings and sensations that this story is about."
Whooooosh.
From what I witnessed, EqD (and other reviewer institutions) has two group of requirements:
-objective group, which (almost) every fiction should follow, like grammar rules.
-subjective group, that EqD decided to be standard, like what a story should be about, what writing style one should or shouldn't use etc...
Satisfying the first group depends on your proofreaders/editors, satisfying the second group depends on your writing voice/preference. The result of this is that you will see the same author names over and over featured on EqD, the people whose writing voice/preference naturally fits EqD's subjective requirements.
2027073 I really have no problem with them having their preferences, tbh. But it's a bit sad when somebody can't even recognize a writing choice and just sees it as an "error" when it's nothing of the sort.
You do realize that you could just respond to the email with this argument since it is a valid argument and the prereader would go get a second opinion?
Would be way more constructive than blogging.
EQD prereaders do respect the feedback of those who respect their feedback. If this prereader does not understand a thematic choice then a second opinion would be beneficial both for them to advance their notions and for you to get more input for better or worse.
2027272 I'm really not interested in banging my head against that particular wall. I've responded to EqD rejections before, it never got me anywhere.
Yeeah... when 'Flitter' got rejected, one of the stated reasons was that the prereader couldn't imagine the wife to be so understanding about the fact he was a changeling... while the whole point of the story was that despite the reveal, they've been married for 20 years, and know each other through and through. Y'know, the whole classic 'love conquers all' theme
I gave up expecting reasonableness from those people.
2028940 Man, Flitter is pretty much the BEST sympathetic changeling story out there. And I say this as somebody who's made an effort to read a lot of them recently. The fact that they rejected it is further proof that most of their pre-readers wouldn't know a good story if it bit them.
2029012
Heh, thanks
Oh, and on the passive voice thing... can't agree more. I mean, if there was never any reason to use it... it kinda wouldn't exist in the first place
2027272 Not really.
This is a discussion I've had before.
EqD's main problem is that they are incapable of comprehending the fact that there is more than one way to correctly write in English. It's their way or the highway, and they use the Chicago style, which is use primarily for writing essays, not stories.
That and they quite often reject fics just because the particular pre-reader didn't like them.
In short, fuck 'em, you're better off without.
2031595 I think a hate group is going a bit far. Joining that would be spending way too much time and attention on them. They rejected a story, I blogged about it, that's pretty much the extent of my giving a damn, time to move on to bigger and better things.
2031619 I actually agree with you there. The only time I actually go on that group is to troll Alexstrazsa when I've been drinking at 2 am and am too uncoordinated to do anything else.
Literally the exact same thing happened to a story I wrote last year that was rejected for its "unnecessary almost purple-prose verbosity," Wisp (http://www.fimfiction.net/story/99376/wisp). I wrote it because I was wondering why they call it "fan fiction" instead of "fan literature," and as a way to resolve a personal existential crisis. Still, I bet your "too-deep-for-fanfiction" story was much better-written than mine.