Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related Some mixed feelings... any thoughts?

I agree with Anna about giving writers a second chance. I don't think I've ever dismissed an author after reading one poorly-written story. Oftentimes I'll check the submission dates and see if there's anything more recent that the person has written.

I had to resubmit one of my stories because the formatting when it landed on the archive was completely bonkers (some miscommunication between my version of Word and my GE's, I think). Upon rereading it, I discovered a couple of typos and word omissions. But I don't want to bother the archive by resubmitting it AGAIN just for those.

My hope is that any time we read any story on the archive, we forgive the occasional typo.

Amen to that. Your post made me chuckle, Mols, because I suddenly found myself remembering how it all used to be in the world of paper zines, waaaaaaaaaay before the internet.

I remember the normal method for many of the zines I submitted to was for the editor/publisher of the zines to manually retype submissions into the proper format for the zine.

Oh, the angst of having to trust someone else to type the thing just as you had. I remember, once, three entire scenes were missed out of my story. And, of course, it was impossible to fix such errors once they were out there and no way even to contact your readers to let them know something was missing. You just had to trust they figured it out for themselves and leave it at that. There was practically no communication between authors and readers back then too.

Just remembering that experience makes me twitchy to this day.

I'd forgotten all about that. LOL. My, but the internet is a wonderful thing. Makes life so much easier.

LabRat ( to the gods of the internet. You guys rock. )

<shameless self-promotion>
In the Original Fiction section, I've posted a story I wrote back in 1989... retyped from the printout, errors and all. For those of you who'd like to know just how bad at this I used to be It's called Mars Weekend .
</shameless self-promotion>

PJ
yes, I know, I'm bad

Given that I've only got the two, I can't speak too much to redoing old stories. I've found minor typos in my two that somehow made it past my own editing runs AND my GE, but that's life. Not worth anyone's extra work to take out that comma or insert that paragraph break.

As to author development, even professional authors are that way. I was reading Holly Lisle's website last night, and she mentions cringing at some of her first books to get published! Katherine Kurtz and Mercedes Lackey are among my favorites -- and there's definite development in their writing abilities. It's not that I enjoy seeing their development for itself -- I'd rather the whole series be well-written, which is why I'll probably buy the new rewritten versions of KK's original trilogy.

But it gives me hope. Hope that my writing might someday improve. And, as I'm dating a lovely lady who aspires to professional writing, it gives me some hope that even my favorite authors who are really successful started out with stilted dialogue and a shaky plot -- though I'm obviously biased, I think Emi's current work is at least as good as some of my favorites' first efforts.

I was thinking of doing this as well, but I'm working on a short science fiction story right now, and probably won't have the time to edit my old stuff for quite a while.