Subject: The prompts aren't bad...
Author:
Posted on: 2016-06-29 19:00:00 UTC
The prompts aren't bad in and of themselves... My problem was partly just how I approach writing, and they were a valuable place to start.
If you hadn't stepped in, I would have tried to pass "The agents do laundry" off as a legitimate prompt.
Now that I've written a few missions, I have something to say about the prompts.
I don't think that they need to go away completely, but I do think that using them should be optional.
In my case, I needed a new prompt because they simply clashed with my agents. They weren't designed to have foodfights or chase children, they were designed to be good at missions. Letting me choose an interlude from scratch also would have felt a lot more natural in my writing.
I don't know what problems Data Junky has with prompts, but it makes two people who do.
(Since there was no new on-topic discussion for a while.)
-Bramandin suggested (in the post above) to make the Permission prompts optional. She made no suggestion as to what would be used in their place.
AFAICT there isn't a lot support for this idea.
-Doctorlit suggested a long waiting time before Permission requests are allowed. Reactions were negative.
-Building on that, I've voiced the idea of making the Permission process into a mentoring one. GMA liked the idea.
If anybody else has any idea as to what sort of practical changes should be made to the Permission process, I'm sure the community would like to hear it; I know I certainly would.
Apparently nobody opposes the idea that there are no rules, just guidelines, and it’s demonstrably possible to get Permission not taking the formalities serious.
I don’t know how much the current Permission Givers depend on writing examples being about the prospective agents. "I don’t like writing out-of-context scenes for my agents, I’d rather show you my latest canon-compatible Harry Potter fanfic and a silly adventure in the Dungeon of the Board" may work with some PGs, while "I’d rather show you my very dark twenty-thousand words fanfic set in a fandom you apparently don’t appreciate" certainly wouldn’t.
Getting Permission should be easy for everybody who knows what to do with it, while going through several iterations should be a valuable learning process for everybody who needs and actually wants to improve.
Maybe we should blatantly say that "There is actually only one requirement: Convince the Permission Givers (at least one of them) that you won’t do anything bad with your Permission and that you understand what would be considered bad in the first place. If you got a medium understanding of the PPC, you may already have an idea of how to do this, so just do it, but don’t complain if it doesn’t work because you didn’t do the research. In case you don’t know what to do, here are some guidelines, which may be followed to the letter or in spirit, or may just be taken as hints to what might work, or completely ignored – if you really know what you’re doing."
Or would this confuse Permission seekers even more?
Concerning mentoring, there is already a mentoring system, although none of the Sib Houses specializes in guiding newbies through the Permission process. Is this because there are no volunteers or did just nobody ever think of it?
HG
First of all, let it be known that I oppose the idea that there are no rules, merely guidelines. That is not to say that rules are never to be broken — however, a good reason is needed.
Anyway: for me at least, part of looking at a Permission request is seeing whether the requester knows the PPC's canon (such as it is). Some of the more glaring mistakes can be caught solely on the basis of agent bios, but some less-obvious ones can only be caught when brought up in writing; I think it's rather hard to judge the quality of someone's PPC writing without seeing any sort of PPC writing.
However, I wouldn't be averse to people saying, "I wrote a prompt, but instead of the control prompt I have this super-special-mega-awesome Lord of the Rings" — after all, it's a good way to gauge one's writing.
As to mentoring, well, Sib Houses are, AFAICT, pretty much dead. If we want that sort of thing for Permission — and the more I think about it, the more I like this idea — we should institute something new.
I thought it was obvious, but if someone doesn't want to use the prompt, they should make up one on their own after they write the interlude.
Which to be fair was discussed by basically no one here on the board. It was dismissed out of hand by hS but that's about it.
So, revised edition of Data's suggestion: keep the prompts as optional. Change requirements so instead of two PPC -based works you have one in the PPC and one other of whatever the author chooses. Set the word limit for each between 500-700 words.
Unlike what hS has said, this isn't 'just write anything (but make sure it's the right sort of thing)' it's 'write whatever you like as long as the quality is good.' In fact I would recommend a set of optional prompts for the second piece as well, to help those who have problems coming up with something. Maybe something along the lines of the prompts from the "imagine your ocs" tumblr blogs. Counter to what people seem to believe, I am not out to tear down the whole system, nor am I out to make things harder. On the contrary, I want to make it as easy for new people to get permission as it was for me.
In the five years since I got permission it has only gotten progressively harder, and I think that's wrong. I was able to get it in one try with the first chapter of the second worst fanfic I've ever written, and Nesh even complimented me on the writing. If it was that easy once upon a time, why should it be so hard for everyone else?
Des forgot, and asked me to repost it in reply to him.
OK, so. This post is going to be a jumble because there are multiple points to address and I don't have a particular order.
1) I don't like hS' move here. While I understand where he's coming from because people keep dissing his work without suggesting viable alternatives, which frankly is frustrating to face and mildly annoying to see from the sidelines, it isn't his prerogative to say "now we do things differently" (it's the community's).
2) Related to that: it's annoying to see people saying "something's wrong with X! Fix it!" without suggesting anything. At the very least, a direction should be pointed out (for example "we should maybe think of using darker colours" instead of "this is ugly").
3) I think that getting Permission with prompts is easier than the system that was there before (where you had to show... something... as a sample). I agree with July here: she told me that she thinks that if the current system would've been in place back when I requested Permission I'd have gotten Permission in less tries, but it would have also hampered me as a writer (mainly, I think, because I would not have gone through the learning process of actually polishing my turds Permission pieces).
While I don't think the Permission process is set in stone (or that it should be so), I am definitely against making it easier or holding the aspiring PPC writers' hands. Frankly, people with Permission should be able to deal with badfic, develop ideas and write something good based on it without someone else doing it for them.
4) W.r.t doctorlit's proposal: frankly, I don't think that the problem is "people are asking for Permission way too early". In fact, the last 15 denied Permission requests were denied for technical writing reasons (SpaG and the like), creative writing reasons (for example, beige prose), agents not fitting, lack of PPC knowledge and one case of "who are you?". Nor are the PGs flooded with work — 2016 saw seven Permission requests, which is a tad more than once per month. I also disagree with point 2 — for example, if you take me, I didn't improve because I had to wait a lot of time (I didn't), I improved because I actually put something up, it got critiqued, I worked with good betas and put another thing up and so on till I was good enough (which, in hindsight, was pretty meh).
However. I'd like to bring an idea up for discussion: what if, instead of what we have today, Permission would involve an aspirant being mentored for some time? I'm not sure whether I like this or not but I'd like to see what other people think.
It was, specifically, to edit the wording of the Permission article and the prompts document to say that if you couldn't/desperately didn't want to deal with an actual prompt, you should come up with something similar yourself.
Do let me know precisely why this is a bad thing to say.
hS
It's not the content of the action that bothers me. It's its unilateral nature.
You're correct in your implication that I would have undertaken any action unilaterally; I'm incapable of judging whether something is acceptable or not.
hS
Of course, I'm out to paint you as a villain because I hate you, amirite?
But you seem to be championing a strict adherence to... well, what would be 'the letter of the law' if it was actually written down... without regard to the question of whether this was an update that required a detailed discussion.
I admit I was in rather a state when I changed the wording, but I did think about what I was doing. The prompts were never intended to be a way to check if people could respond to prompts - they were an attempt to force people to write something a) relevant, b) featuring both their agents, and c) more interesting than The Usual. The wording of the 'Creative Prompt' section was designed to achieve a) and c) without demanding that people use the prompts; I had it mentally classed as an 'uncontroversial change'. You've implied that you aren't concerned by the actual change, yourself, so it seems that it is actually uncontroversial? Therefore, see paragraph 1.
If you're editing the Prompt Guidelines, then I'd suggest working in language to ensure that Creative Prompts also feature both agents; my emotional state led me to not think of that, but it should be in there.
hS
A good bureaucrat knows when to break the rules — I learned that the hard way. But it's not something to do willy-nilly (not to mention, road to hell etc). I'll fully admit that someone going and changing Da Rules — even if it isn't malicious (and I don't think what you did is malicious, merely possibly out of frustration) — on their own bothers me quite a lot, especially considering it's the sort of thing that's supposed to be decided on by a multitude of people.
And, well, I'm not going to change that doc on my own — I'd be a hypocrite if I did that, wouldn't I? I'd rather much wait and see what comes out of this discussion.
Also, I do apologise if I managed to offend — that was not my intention.
-Des
I think that's a solid idea, but I don't know what it would entail; writing for the PPC is different from a lot of other styles of creative writing in part because it's a running commentary, much like an MST. There's not a single way to "do it right."
That said, I can definitely think of a few things I'd like help with in my own writing, and I'll go as far as to bet that most of us can. Perhaps, if a petition is rejected, the author is paired with someone who's considered good at whatever the problem is as a mentor until the next submission.
I'm talking a relatively long time, like, a full year, before a new member can ask for permission. As seen with Hieronymus above, the amount of activity that a given Boarder can (potentially) show in that time may do a better job of not only showing the PGs their writing prowess and understanding of the community, but also give said newbie a feel for the setting through all the published stories, RPs, and in-character posts they'll see by then.
Or they'll realize the community/setting isn't what they thought it was, and drift away, as so many newbies do before a year passes. This should:
1. Weed out at least some percentage of permission requests that were dramatically wide of the mark.
2. Improve the quality of permission requests overall, even if they're less formal, like HG's.
3. Reduce the frequency of permission requests the PGs need to address over time, and make them easier to respond to, since the PG should know the Boarder much better.
Questions/comments/complaints?
—doctorlit
Despite the example I set by eventually getting permission not even trying.
Being around for a long time may have advantages:
If I had to wait four years to get my Permission, I would most likely quit after the second attempt tops. If you ask me, a quarter of a year is long enough.
A year sounds like a long time, and would daunt an otherwise valuable contribution to the community. Besides, it takes several tries, which should shake off anyone who's not too patient.
There. It's changed. When the next person to ask for Permission reverts to 'and here's a scene from my first mission as the second sample', like everyone did before we wrote the prompts (which were requested, by the way)...
hS
The prompts aren't bad in and of themselves... My problem was partly just how I approach writing, and they were a valuable place to start.
If you hadn't stepped in, I would have tried to pass "The agents do laundry" off as a legitimate prompt.
Raise the standards and make everything more difficult and give more hoops.
So we should ask for a fic they've written in the past, possibly any original stories they've done, a lengthy profile for each character, an in-universe sample, and where applicable a CV for their RPing.
-July
The prompts came about when I wasn't here, but if I remember rightly it was because people were finding it difficult to write anything without a prompt. Which possibly should have been an alarm.
To be honest, I wasn't exactly happy when, ages back, the shift started towards people writing short pieces set in the PPC for their permission piece. In my opinion, it was (and still is) cheating, because it's being custom written to the expected audience, and doesn't showcase how they usually write.
I am well aware that my opinion is different from most people's, and doesn't match the majority.
I've ended up with a reputation for tending to deny permission rather than granting it because, to be honest, I think our standards have fallen dramatically in an attempt to continue to gain new writers, despite us becoming more and more isolated from the actual fanfic-writing portions of fandom.
At this point I'm more interested in seeing that the people who do apply for permission (and get refused) show active progress in improvement, and that all of the writers we have in the PPC do the same, even once they have it.
Instead we're just seeing more and more stagnation and in some cases people using the PPC to prop up stories and characters that don't mesh with the universe.
What would those sort of things be, then?
What would be an example of something not meshing, either character or story-wise?
I'm probably the villain in this situation, not having written all that much fanfiction.
Sorry about that!
I don't usually like being the villain (more of a supporting character, myself,) so you can see where I'm coming from.
I think we can all think of a few missions, or even an author or two, which just don't fit the tone of the PPC. Unfortunately those seem to be becoming more common, as the seems to be a shift away from humor and towards drama. Not that drama is bad, or has no place in the PPC, but it is definitely not what we were originally aiming for.
This actually just clicked in my head upon reading your post. Lemme know if this makes sense, folks.
Query: Why might we have more drama?
Answer: Drama sells. That is, drama gets attention gets reviews (or at least comments) gets warm fuzzies for the author.
What stories get the most attention around here? Not the same-as-usual humorous formula. We've established downthread that ninety percent of that is crud, in accordance with Sturgeon's law. No; what gets attention is Legendaries, Emergencies, and other life-changing character drama. So if a go-getting PPC writer is losing interest in the formula and wants to break away and do something different, they turn to drama.
The corollary here is that ninety percent of standard "agents banter" missions are crud because nobody is paying attention to them, reviewing them, and helping them improve like they are with Sturm und Drang missions.
On the other hand, one obvious flaw in this logic is that anyone attempting to break the mold who isn't very good at it should, theoretically, be shouted down for doing it. I'm not sure I've seen this happen recently, though. Anyone else?
~Neshomeh, typing hastily at work.
It's as simple as that.
If you read something written by someone on the Board, review it. Did you like it? Great! Say what you liked. Did you hate it? Say why you hated it. Did you like it but think it could be improved? Best result yet! Say that, say what you thought was good and what you thought needed changing.
People have been stressing the need for concrit and reader response for years - Phobos and PoorCynic come to mind. I try to leave something on everything I read, though sometimes I don't have the energy for more than a simple 'I read this'. But even that is a valuable boost to the writer.
I could go on, talking about what concrit is (both good and bad, and not just spelling errors!), and pointing out that you should tune your review to how big the thing you're reviewing is, but... really, I said it at the top:
If you read it, review it.
And if no-one objects, I'd like to add that to the Board header and Wiki front page as an official challenge for next month.
hS
Unless I forget (or my Internet betray me), I always try to post something when I reaad something.
And as a sort-of-beginner, I'd like seeng more reviews in general. It's a bit hard to improve without knowing people's reaction.
Likely to the surprise of nobody.
Goodness knows I've fallen off the concrit wagon as of late (due to a variety of circumstances). Hopefully this will spur me to get back into leaving reviews. I encourage everyone else to do the same.
First - I'm pretty surprised no one's arguing with anything I said. Nobody found any flaw with any of that stuff I typed out on the spur of the moment without the time to really think it through first? I'm shocked, and maybe a bit appalled if that rather depressing scenario is true. O.o
That said, I've been thinking more about the need to review missions, because I do stand by that. It strikes me that a) reviewing is hard, and b) reviewing humor is harder. Missions are supposed to be funny, but humor is subjective, after all. How do you critique it?
The first step is simply reporting your experience so the author knows how their work is being received. Did you crack a smile? Chuckle? Laugh out loud? If so, when? Do you know why it worked for you? If not, that's okay. If so, that's even better. Say so! If you didn't find any humor anywhere, say that, too. Maybe you were the only one and it's just a matter of taste, but maybe not, and the author needs to work on their ear for comedy. They need to know.
The next step, I think, is pointing out missteps and missed opportunities. Did you see a gag that almost worked, but didn't? How would you improve it? Did you see an opportunity for a gag that the author didn't take? What was it? I've commented on missed opportunities before, most recently in a review of one of Des' missions. You can, too. It's then up to the author to decide whether or not they agree with you and apply the knowledge to their future work.
All of this, of course, requires you to be an active reader—that is, to notice your own thoughts and feelings as you read rather than just sitting back and passively experiencing the story. Not everyone likes to do this, but I'd point out that being an active reader will make you a better writer, too. Certainly a better PPC writer. Noticing your thoughts and feelings about badfic and being able to tell why you're having them will give you substance for your missions, and may lead to fewer missteps and missed opportunities in your own work. It's a good habit to be in. {= )
~Neshomeh
I feel like opportunities are opened, y'know?
Not sure what else to say. I found this useful.
Cheers!
Can I borrow some of this (with proper citations, of course)? I'm finally working on my next workshop, which is going to be all about writing reviews. I feel like you nailed some of the key points I'm trying to drive at.
I worried a little about stepping on your toes when I posted, because it seemed so like the sort of thing you might want to cover in a workshop. I'm glad to hear you're working on one, and happy to help. {= )
~Neshomeh
The thrust of my post was 'I don't get reviews for my missions; you seem to be saying that's either because or why they're rubbish, which I disagree with'. But then I re-parsed your post and couldn't say that any more.
Since I was busy wallowing in self-criticism at the time, I wasn't really in a place to be commenting on your characterisation of everyone else. I'm a bit better now, so I'll say this:
There are loads of PPC missions I don't like, and can't stand to read. But that doesn't make them bad. I heartily dislike Trojie and Pads' stuff, for instance - it's wildly not my thing. Every time I've tried to read something of Skarm's, it's been in some variant of script format and my brain's just shut down. IndeMaat? I've never finished a single one of their missions.
But that's on me, not on them.
One thing I think would help with people reading the normal missions more is more informative subject-lines. "New mission!" tells me nothing, and I won't click unless I'm desperate for something to read. "New Agent Remora mission!" is better, and if I enjoy Remora's missions I may well click. But the best option? "New Inside Out mission!". I read for the canon, not for the agent; tell me what it is!
(And the best part? You can do both! "New mission: Agent Remora takes on Inside Out Angstfic" lets me know exactly what's there!)
hS, me-me-me (sorry, trying to get it out of my system)
Will do so, assuming I won't forget by the time I'll publish my next mission.
The times when I don't are when I've already read it or had an active hand in its creation, whether through betaing or pre-reading in another capacity or just going through it before release and letting my characters leave sarcastic comments in the margins. I don't like to comment on those, because why would someone want to be subjected to my useless bloviating any more than necessary? =]
Still, I should definitely do more to comment and read more of other people's work. It's basic courtesy. I was a fan writer - still am, in fact, though my primary fandom has changed - and I had a lot of ideas buzzing around in my head for fics that I never wrote because, well, nobody commented on it.
I think it's a good idea to put the challenge up, seeing as I (almost?) never leave comments on anything, and it'd serve as a good reminder to do so. I should stop not doing that.
I mean, I'll be travelling and packing for travel next month, so I don't know that I'll be around to participate in it myself, but I'm definitely in favor. :)
~DF
Anyone remember Chakkik's original third mission? Or that time I considered turning Valon into a ghost?
...that I'm one of those people who should have been shouted down for doing it, but wasn't.
I didn't develop what I meant with that last point very well. Or, actually, at all. (This is why I should not try to say important things at work.) My thinking there was that—at least according to some people—we're as a community married to the status quo of the mission formula and very anti-change. Therefore, in order to get away with doing something different, you have to prove you know what you're doing first. See hS, July, myself (I guess), Tawaki, etc. Anybody who's ever done anything hugely different and had it stick did a bunch of normal stuff first, and earned the community's trust.
So the theory here is that the people who are writing the ten percent of missions that aren't crud are the only ones writing drama, disproving the idea that we're sliding unchecked into drama wholesale. Either that or that everyone writing drama is good enough to get away with it, disproving the idea that 90 percent of everything is crud.
I really expected someone to challenge the notion that 90 percent of everything written here is crud. I was being sarcastic there. I guess y'all could tell.
ANYWAY, as for you in particular, Ix, I've heard there's some controversy with a thing you've done recently, but since I haven't had the time to keep up with my reading lately, I'm not in a position to comment on that.
As for stuff you've done before, I do recall some serious conversations dealing with concerns about some of it, so there's your shouting down. On the other hand, I also recall a lot of people supporting you, and you still seem to be here doing your thing. There are roughly two possibilities:
1. Your work sucks. All your critics are meanies out to tear you down and make you stop. Everyone who says they like your work is either an idiot or a lying sycophant. You were foolish enough to ignore the former while listening to the latter.
2. Your work doesn't suck. The people who offer critique are doing it because they care and want to see your writing continue to flourish and improve. The people who say they like your work actually do, and are not idiots for thinking so. You have more sense than your average FFN writer and know how to take both critique and praise for what they're worth.
Granted, there are various possibilities within these possibilities, but I reckon one is more true than the other. Which do you think is true?
~Neshomeh
I used to be a lot better as a writer when I had someone willing to rope me in. Now I'm only good when it comes to technical proficiency and output; I write too much drama for the sake of drama and people get blindsided by that.
So I'm gonna have to go with option one.
That while I am a bit of a 'good audience', liar and sycophant weren't part of the description.
The story you wrote for your characters is great, the drama comes from a 'Reality Ensues', not drama for the sake of the drama. Even if I'm thinking you go sometimes in the DeusAngstMachina way with Ave, well you always showed there were clear reasons for this to happen. And for someone who is better 'roped in', you sure mad a great job of the Rose Potter missions, especially since that transformation plot wasn't part of it in the first place.
Yes, humor is the basis here, but if you can also bring up something a bit different, but keep the spirit of the world, and most above do it right, then why the duck couldn't you do what you're doing the best?
So, definitely option two.
And as a 'professional amateur' in the matter of self-hating and denigration, do not let this stop you. If you really 'derseved' this hate, you wouldn't have people here telling you it has no reason to be. And please, do not let this drag you down. You will always be the person judging yourself the most harshly, but if you don't give yourself a pat in the back sometmes, it will end up badly for you.
Let's assume for a moment that you're right, and you used to be good and now you're not as good.
You seem to be aware of the problem.
So... fix it? Consider yourself roped in, stop wallowing in self-hate, and go take the suck out.
Really, stop wallowing in self-hate either way. Either it's fake and you're just seeking attention or else it's real, and we should be very concerned about you. If you need someone to tell you to go get help, I'll do it: if you need help, go get help. Please.
I believe you have my e-mail address, if you'd rather talk privately.
~Neshomeh
I'm either an idiot or a liar, then, and so's anyone else who ever said they liked anything of yours? You wanna rethink that?
Anyway, who was willing to rope you in before that isn't now? Did someone die and not tell us? O.o
~Neshomeh
There was a falling out though, a pretty serious one at that.
That aside, I'm gonna agree with Ix, to an extent. She was better when she was working with the beta she had a falling out with. That doesn't mean, however, that she's worthless on her own. She just needs to learn some balance.
Also, Nesh, did you seriously use Tawaki as a positive example? Isn't he the reason we have that whole "no more emergencies" thing? Wasn't it you who decided to bring back Makes-Things after Tawaki killed him off?
Just what I can think of off the top of my head:
-The Key to Canon arc led to the creation of the Spirit of Imagination.
-The regeneration thing made the Aviator's storyline possible.
-Tawaki created the Agent and the Disentangler.
-TARDISes in HQ come from the Macrovirus epidemic. That's a second way the Aviator was made possible by Tawaki.
-The treatment of New Caledonia as an integral part of HQ comes from the epidemic, too.
-Morgan III exists because I regenerated a character I no longer used - in order to use her in the Mary Sue Invasion.
-The Continuity Council was created because I need them for something in Morgan's future; they've grown vastly beyond that, to the point where they inform the character of every Time Lord in HQ.
-I would argue that the idea of HQ as somewhere your agents can and will run into other people's stems in large part from Tawaki's work - both his large cast of agents always crossing each other's paths, and the Emergencies he sparked off.
-OFU-Squared may not amount to much yet, but there's a big story nearly completed, and that was Tawaki's brainchild.
-Outside the fictional realm, he was instrumental in getting the PPC noticed on TVTropes, and that's where vast numbers of our new members come from.
Was Tawaki a sparklingly brilliant writer? No. But he tried his absolute best to write stories that would entertain people. Along the way, he made the PPC into a far richer and more complex place, and I for one am glad he did.
hS
I can write at least a little bit. Reading Tawaki's spinoff, and Trojie's, and hell, even TOS, it made me think "I can do this. I can write to this standard, and I can write frequently and I can be as funny as these guys." And so I tried to be funny and witty, and I also tried to insert a long-form arc for my agents, because I wanted it to not just be jokes. How well I've succeeded is entirely up to you guys, but I'm pretty bloody certain we wouldn't have had Doktor Trollenfisch without Tawaki's spinoff showing me that I could write comedy like that, and Frohliche Weihnachten! was a damned fine mission in a Department that got very little attention otherwise.
In my opinion, anyway. Not that I'm biased at all. =]
We're a shared universe community. Everyone and everything adds to it in some way, and regardless of your taste in individual spinoffs (there's this one twerp called wobblestheclown or something whose output is just atrocious) the whole is much greater than the sum of its parts. Hell, I'm in the process of hammering together an entirely new division mostly for an office-politics comedy thing, complete with irritating Flower and a main character who's a talking toilet brush from an '80s sci-fi TV show. I don't expect there to be many stories set in that division, I don't expect people to care very much about it, but it's something a bit different and, most importantly of all, it's fun. That's what ought to matter most.
Also I invented the pov, a small, snuffly beanbag thingy that goes snrf, so that's something else we wouldn't have got without other users. =]
I am not stupid, I'd appreciate not being treated like I am.
I apologize. I am not certain who else was supposed to be roping you in that is no longer willing, but as both Nesh and I have said, now that you're aware of the problem you can learn to do better.
Of someone who wrote normal missions for a while and established a foundation from which to launch other sorts of stories, and wasn't called down for it—at least not at the time. Up until the 2008 emergencies, everybody was perfectly fine with Tawaki. It was only afterward, when a bunch of other people started trying to do the same sort of thing, that we went "hey wait, maybe we shouldn't just accept anything anybody wants to do. And on that note, maybe it wasn't such a good idea in the first place."
However, it's still accepted as a thing that happened. It stuck, even if we ended up not wanting anything similar to happen again.
As for the rest, I'd prefer to have a conversation about it with Iximaz herself rather than talk around her.
~Neshomeh
Sycophancy has never suited me - the sugary sweetness makes my teeth ache.
Actually, reconsidering, I'd rather be truthful. But if liar/sycophant is all I'm offered... ^_~
hS
I like this view a lot, as someone who has a ton of difficulty coming up with something new without a prompt. On the flip side, that makes PPC mission writing "easy;" there's a fairly strict formula, and the prompt would be the badfic in question.
As a result, one mission reads *exactly* like another. What is the point of writing fiction if it follows such a precise format? Missions may as well be academic papers for this reason. The only thing keeping the PPC going, as far as I can see, is the fact that the works the PPC kills are so incredibly bad that the bland mission is forgiven.
That is a really rude dismissal of everyone who works really hard to make their missions original and different.
hS
I admit, I'm the second-newest person here. I haven't had the time to read tons of missions, and I do not mean to insult people or say that their writing is bad. I'm sorry my post was as angry as it was; I should have waited a few minutes and re-read it.
I also really appreciate all that you've done for the PPC.
However, I'd still like to see (in my ideal world) that the PPC's reputation on the TV Tropes doesn't read like this:
"Agents enter bad fanfic, agents bitch about bad fanfic, agents exchange smart-aleck banter, agents kill Sue and/or exorcise victims in variety of interesting ways. That it's still working like a charm is a testament to how terrible most of the target material is."
"Detectives are informed of corpse, detectives investigate corpse, detectives follow up clues, detectives exchange witty banter, detectives reveal and arrest villain."
You must positively hate, uh, every murder mystery of any description ever.
hS
To be fair it is widely agreed that the majority of procedural dramas suck.
Tend to work on the strength of the writing and the characters. Y'know, those things the permission process is supposed to show us?
Anyway, according to Sturgeon's law, 90 percent of everything is crud. His point was that you can find a ton of examples of substandard quality in EVERY genre, so that's no basis for deriding one over all the others. 90 percent of sitcoms suck, 90 percent of reality TV sucks, 90 percent of costume dramas suck, etc.
That's not to say the creators of the 90 percent shouldn't strive to be better, but not everyone can be the pinnacle of creativity and originality. That doesn't mean they shouldn't be allowed to create in a genre they enjoy, whether it's TV or the PPC or fanfic in general.
(I'm all for the right of fanficcers to write all the horrible fic they want, for the record. I'm also all for the right of critics to critique it, and to laugh if it's funny.)
~Neshomeh
TvTropes is excruciatingly terrible at actually describing or showing things accurately.
Anything with a plot boils down to
1) there is a problem
2) main characters learn about the problem
3) main characters solve the problem
This goes from PPC missions to political thriller stories to nearly any video game with a plot to the average superhero movie.
Everything has been gradually changed to make it easier and easier for people to get permission, in theory, but we still have so many people who don't get the point of the PPC, or think certain items don't apply to them or struggle repeatedly with just meeting the bare minimum requirements.
Huinesoron, I'm very sorry that this post and several of the replies here- no doubt mine in particular- are probably making you feel frustrated and possibly unappreciated (because you did a good deal of the work on the prompts and set up for this latest permission scheme, I believe?), and I don't mean for mine to have done so.
I am aware of how difficult it is to come up with an idea or thing that as many people can agree with and fits as many possible standards as possible without upsetting people, and I know you always try your hardest, especially where the PPC is concerned, because you consider it your home on the internet.
I have no good answer or idea that will satisfy people because mine would probably be to raise the standards higher and increase the wait period for people wanting to pursue Permission so we can get a better idea of them as people and possibly as collaborators, not just on how well they can string sentences together.
I have ideas on how to get more people here again from the fanfic writing corner of fandom, but that takes time- to write, to post, and to be present, and right now I'm lacking in time to meet even the basic necessities of doing things that take longer than tidying and preparing for the next day on my work days, unless I cut back on sleep.
-July
A couple things:
-Back when we discouraged people from using PPC writing as their sample, we kept running into variations on the same problem: "Here's my super dark fic", or "I don't really write fic, so here's a poem!", or "Here's this story I wrote ten years ago, I don't think it's any good these days", or simply, "I don't write fanfic, what should I do?". Anyone designing a new Permission system (version 5, I think?) should consider ways to deal with that.
-Getting more fanfic-writing people in... yeah, I tried that myself. One mission a week for about a month, then slowed down slightly. I managed... one review per chapter on average, and I recall maybe one person saying that's how they found us.
hS
There's a lot of things I want to say but i'm trying to be civil, so I'll restrain myself to just this. One of the ideasupposed that has come up before, and was actually considered a good idea when brought up on the Discord channel, is to sort of do a combination. We already require two samples, yes? Why not rule that one has to be PPC-related and the other can be whatever the applicant wants, to a maximum of somewhere between 500-700 words, so it's not too long? Personally I would drop the prompts altogether but I could see keeping them for the PPC related portion.
The prompts have already been made optional. If you mean they should be deleted just to spite anyone who needs a hand, then, uh, I hope you don't mean that.
Also, the reason there's two prompts is because people demanded to be able to write the 'ordinary things' (agents meet, usually); I wanted just the random prompts.
Also, haven't you previously explicitly stated that you want to tear down the whole Permission system?
hS
I missed them being made optional. M6 suggestion still stands as a compromise between you and July. (That feels weird to say.) One PPC, one not. And no, I said I was dissatisfied with the current system, and with a lot of the attitudes in the PPC and would like to change things. I want change not anarchy.
That, according to you, a Permission Request should include:
- A short bio of your agents (200-400 words)
- A link to the badfic you wish to mission
- Thanks to your betas
But what about your actual writing skills? Frankly, mate, any sap can write a bio; that's the least difficult part. Bios don't tell people enough about how well you can interpret the established PPC canon. Take me as an example, if I was admitted only on the basis on my bios, I would to this day think that DIA is a secret PPC police that has the power to detain and "remove" agents (which I had to idea it's been a case before, lore-wise, when I first wrote that). I've completely misunderstood prompt 2x5: "One agent is mistaken for a Sue, and has to prove otherwise" and had Will undergo interrogation, completely missing the point.
You also said this: "In my case, I needed a new prompt because they simply clashed with my agents. They weren't designed to have foodfights or chase children, they were designed to be good at missions." But how does one contradict the other? Nobody forces you to write those scenarios in your spin-offs, or make your agents comedic and goofy (although that's the original PPC way). If you want to make them brooding serious badasses, go ahead - you have other prompts that support this (4x2.1; 4x3.1; 3x5.1 to name the few). And let's be honest for a second, I am sure there are people who cheated a little bit and picked themselves another prompt because the first choice didn't appeal to them.
Besides your own problems with the prompts, I haven't seen a single person complaining or having issues with them. I don't believe I was around when Data stated his problem, so I cannot really judge there, but I do have another question: What is your proposal then? How else can the PGs verify your PPC canon knowledge and the ability to portray it in writing?
tl;dr I am in favour of keeping the prompts, because of their importance.
...But I'd like to just say one more time that the writing should change a little. I don't know what the answer is, but I don't see a lot of variety in the writing that I see around here. "Good writing" doesn't mean writing that's almost identical to something else.
Sure, we're writers, and we're fanfiction writers here. A large amount of similarity is inevitable as we try to emulate a style of writing that we enjoy. Seeking variety within those parameters should be our goal.
...hardly important or vital.
The PPC existed and gave permission without them for far longer than we've been using a prompt system.
Once upon a time it was a simple rep check "you seem cool, sure". Then it became "hey your fic you linked is alright, you have permission", then "your fic and agent ideas look good, you have permission" to "your short story set in the PPC looks good and your agent bios look sharp and you have a fic set out for missioning, you have permission" to "you followed the prompt well, your agent bios are long and we can see everything about them and you picked a suitably bad story".
The prompt system is a crutch and does not us a good idea of a person's ability to write.
Your own personal failures to understand PPC canon isn't something that intersects perfect with what you're trying to argue. If you wrote a different prompt, we would have found out you didn't know basic PPC canon some way or another, and you probably would have been more embarrassed had it happened when you revealed it post-permission. Getting basic facts right is not part of proving you know how to string sentences together into a cohesive role, getting them right means showing you are willing to do the research and double-check things instead of going with simple assumptions.
Also, while I don't entirely agree with Bram on the fact of creating agents to be primarily mission-focused, not all characters are suited to actually be interesting or even good as PPC agents. People who have agents who are SI-types of themselves have tweaked them a bit, for the most part, to be able to work on missions. Agents July and JF are not, oddly enough, not exactly like me, something which, for example, Neshomeh and Phobos are probably very relieved about.
You are giving very short shift to every single other method we had in place prior to a couple years ago based on a lack of knowledge. I'm not saying people need to know every random tidbit of PPC knowledge, but if you are going to base your argument on stating that something must be done this way because it is important and we have done it thusly, you at least need to know how long it's been the case instead of presenting it as an 'always' sort of situation.
-July, who is apparently bad at hiatuses
Do excuse the military metaphor.
I think we've had our talk about that on Discord (btw. shameless plug, we've got a Discord channel, people! It's still active. Scroll down to find it!)
But I will make a rebuttal on two cases:
" you at least need to know how long it's been the case instead of presenting it as an 'always' sort of situation."
I've never stated the current permission system was 'always' present. I do admit not knowing that there were other methods before.
"You are giving very short shift to every single other method we had in place prior to a couple years ago based on a lack of knowledge."
I actually do not. Nowhere have I mentioned any previous permission methods, and that's exactly because of my lack of knowledge.
Designing agents specifically to be good at missions is a mark of bad writing. It shows they're flat, two-dimensional characters with no depth other than "good at assassinations/exorcisms/detangling/what-have-you". That's another reason why the prompts are there: to show who the agents are when not on missions. To show who they are when dragged outside their—and your—comfort zone.
Most of these prompts are written so you can explore what your agents are like when they're not on missions - the prompts are interlude-style. Trust me, I thought that interludes would be boring, and then one day I found out that I wanted to write about my agents in a way that wasn't a mission, and the interlude was there.
I agree with Ixi - writing them for missions only is not going to develop your characters that much. Knowing how someone acts at home is as important as knowing how they act at work.
And like Matt said, no one is forcing you to stick with the prompts you got the first time round, as long as you write two prompts as is required. I'll admit that I changed one of my prompts because it didn't seem to fit with my characters at their early stage of creation.
I vote we keep the prompts as they are.