sholio: sun on winter trees (SGA-young McKay pointing)
Sholio ([personal profile] sholio) wrote2008-02-23 02:19 pm

I need a life, part 495,746

Pertaining to the previous SPN post, a couple of links to interesting discussions on race and gender issues in SPN:

Letter to Eric Kripke
On fannish objections to race/gender discussions of SPN

What I should be doing at the moment is working on my graphic novel script, which is soundly kicking my ass today. Obviously, I'm having some trouble maintaining proper focus. Also, I just realized it's already the 23rd and I still owe [livejournal.com profile] stargateficrec two recs each in the Sheppard and Sheppard/McKay friendship categories before the end of the month. Oops.

Hey, a question for everybody: When you rec stories, do you feel compelled to point out the flaws in your rec (making it more like a review, I suppose), or do you try to remain positive?

I find myself taking a different approach when I'm reccing things on my journal vs. at a public rec site like [livejournal.com profile] stargateficrec or [livejournal.com profile] stargategenrec. In my role as "public" reccer, I really do try to do all-positive recs -- which sometimes means finding things to rec that I really don't have any complaints about, or sometimes forcing myself to avoid mentioning the issues that I might have had with something I'm reccing. (Spelling/grammar mistakes, an ending I didn't like, etc.) I suppose that it seems unfair to bias a reader against something beforehand, when the item that bothered me might not bother them at all.

On my journal, though, I'm usually a lot more honest -- I still wouldn't rec something I didn't feel was worthy of it, obviously, but I do tend to mention things that bugged me about the story as well as things I thought were brilliant. The difference ... I guess that it's a matter of my journal being my own private space, and because it *does* make me a little uncomfortable to rec things I'm not 100% positive about without mentioning the flaws, I'd rather preserve my own comfort in my own journal. On public rec sites, I'm less concerned about my own comfort and more interested in pointing readers at a fic without predisposing them to look for the flaws in it.

As a reccer, what about you? Or is it even something you've thought about?

As a reader, do you prefer an honest, "warts and all" review, or would you rather go into a story with a more positive impression in mind? Or do you even read a rec beyond simply finding links to click on? (Which is actually the approach I take, more often than not. I'll skim the summary part of a rec to find out if the story sounds like my cup of tea, but I don't usually read beyond that because I'd rather be unspoiled.)

As a writer, do you object to having recs of your stories that aren't all-positive? Would you prefer not to be recced at all rather than have your story memorialized for all time as "Great characterization, terrible grammar"? (Me, I don't mind a bit, just for the record. Well, I might gripe in private about a review that I thought was really, truly unfair, but mostly I'm just interested to find out what people have to say about my stories.)
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[identity profile] kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com 2008-02-24 12:52 am (UTC)(link)
Well, to me the difference with a recommendation to me from a friend is that presumably they will be reccing it to me, knowing what I like and don't like, whereas a reccer posting in their journal is not reccing directly to me.

I don't really need to know specifics, but I would like to know if someone is reccing something because they think it's a high-quality work of fiction, or because they can't get enough of X and so even badfic is good to them if it contains X.
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[identity profile] friendshipper.livejournal.com 2008-02-24 01:02 am (UTC)(link)
Well, sure, but the person reccing to you is still heavily influenced by what *they* like, right? I mean, there are certain people in RL whose recommendations I don't trust any farther than I can throw them. My mom is one of those -- what she likes/thinks I'll like, and what I actually enjoy, are worlds apart. (And makes gift-giving problematic as well ... my idea of an OMG AWESOME! book or DVD is just as likely to bore, confuse or offend her, even when I'm trying my damnedest to get inside her head and figure out what she might want.)

but I would like to know if someone is reccing something because they think it's a high-quality work of fiction, or because they can't get enough of X and so even badfic is good to them if it contains X.

Yeah, that makes sense. Although you know, even there ... it's damned hard sometimes to figure out if something I think is the most awesome story since forever is actually just hitting a particular kink I didn't know I had. Most of the time, I think I'm capable of distancing myself enough to recognize that a given story is really not that well-written objectively, but is a very effective example of [x] fanfic trope that scratches a particular itch of mine -- but I'm not that self-aware all of the time, and I imagine a lot of reccers aren't either.