I need a life, part 495,746

[sholio]

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 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 stargateficrec or 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.)

Comments

[aelfgyfu_mead]

I've worried about the rec question myself. I've done some recs at stargateficrec and agonized over which stories to rec. Partly, I want to rec stories that haven't been recommended before; the rules say not to rec stories rec'd in the same category, but I do check others so that I'm not recommending, say, a hurt/comfort story recommended the month before in a character category. I also want to rec really good stories without too many flaws, because I don't want people to be disappointed--and I figure I do have some small reputation as both a recommender and a writer of recs.

I do try to stay positive, both in community recs and on my own site. If I have criticisms, I generally try to e-mail or post them to the author. In one case, I actually contacted an author and said, "I'm about to recommend your story, and I thought you might want to clean up a problem with the way your punctuation is displaying before I do that." I figure if I have constructive criticisms, I should give them directly to the author; if they're not constructive, I tend to let them slide. I don't want people to think badly of me (to think, for instance, that I didn't notice errors), but if I'm really writing a rec, it's more important to me to be positive. I've seen a few recs of the "it's a good story if you can get past the punctuation" or, worse, "good story for X, terrible characterization of Y." Some of those have bothered me (though they aren't my stories, nor by anyone I know.) If something bothers me so much it would taint my rec, I wouldn't rec the story.

Maybe that's easy for me to say because I don't rec stories regularly. I put in far too many hours the times I did recs for stargateficrec to do that anytime soon again! (I think I made it too difficult for myself; it really is just me, and I don't want to discourage anyone else.) If anyone has recommended one of my stories with a criticism in the rec, I'm unaware of it. How I react would depend on the criticism! If someone said, "This is a good story except for the goof with the MALP," that's a fair cop (I should probably fix the goof with the MALP in that one). If someone writes, "A good story if it doesn't put you to sleep first," I'd be annoyed. :-)

[sholio]

Oh heavens, ficrec is an enormous time-sink for me! I think next month I'm probably not going to sign up for any of the categories -- I've been doing two a month for several months now, and as much fun as it is to sift through fics I liked, it's starting to wear on me a bit. Coming up with new ways to describe stories without using the same adjectives over and over ... it's like being back in English class! Like you, I think I make it too hard on myself.

The idea of emailing crit to the author before reccing their story is very interesting -- it had never occurred to me to do that.

I don't want people to think badly of me (to think, for instance, that I didn't notice errors)

Ha. I have that exact sense of unease when I post a rec, especially if I'm aware of what seem to me to be flaws -- spelling/grammar errors, an ending I didn't like, characterization that seems off to me. On the other hand, I really can't think of a time when *I've* been upset by someone giving a glowing rec to a story that I thought was full of holes -- it happens, and I just chalk it up to different tastes and move on. If I know that a particular person's recs are consistently not my thing, then I just wouldn't read their recs; there are plenty of people out there reccing things, and no shortage of different places to look. I tend to treat recs more as a reading list than as critical reviews, anyway.