Subject: Re: Mission guides
Author:
Posted on: 2010-10-08 04:21:00 UTC
Considering that missions in LotR and elsewise have dwindled so that they are not the supermajority any longer, I would wonder where else you have been looking for other missions.
First of all, greetings to Tranum, TheLowtide, Sylibane, Sasparilla Jones, and anyone else who might have introduced themselves lately whom I haven't already said hi to. My newbie-greeting gifts are a Capillary Towel, an egg, a Transdimensaional Pocket Knife and a shiny Sue-slaying spear - and you can decide amongst yourselves who gets what (I warn you, the Transdimensional Pocket Knives seem terribly unpopular. No idea why).
Second, my request. It seems none of you lovely shiny new people have been given The Links. Now, this is hardly mandatory, and you seem to be finding everything fairly easily anyway, but over the past few months it seems to have become a tradition to the point of being expected, yet aside from myself, July, and Neshomeh, I don't think many Boarders actually go around giving out The Links. Please, everyone, don't feel like you can't snitch the list - they're hardly mine, or anyone else's. I can't recall who first started giving helpful links out - was it Sara? Trojie? July? Someone whom I've forgotten and will be quite embarrassed to be reminded of?
Given how useful they are, I'd appreciate it if I didn't feel like I have to be around all the time just to hand them out to newbies - my real life is getting steadily busier. Hence my request: If we want Link-giving to be a standard part of welcoming new community members, will the majority of you please make a habit of doing so yourselves?
Do note the "if" - if most people here think Link-giving is a bad or otherwise uninteresting idea, fine; no worries. I don't mind. Frankly, though, I'd love it if there were a bit of competition about who can give the Links first, the way that there used to be a race for who can give the First Poke.
(I realise there are a lot of urls and html to remember, which is why I, myself, keep a little text file on my desktop with everything ready to be copy-pasted in - I recommend you do the same.)
That said, here are The Links (and the surrounding, rather standardised text) for all you newcomers who haven't seen them before:
The Links, if you don't know, are a collection of articles and other useful URLs that we politely ask every newbie to read, as they really do contain Useful Information. In relative order of sensible-reading-ness, they are:
* The Original PPC Series, which we assume you've already read.
* The List of Killed Badfic, which will direct you to a large number of non-Original PPC Missions.
The Board:
* The Board Constitution
* The FAQ: For the Board
The Wiki:
* We have our very own PPC Wiki
* The very-important-to-read-before-requesting-Permission Permission article
* Our Guide To The PPC
* The Mission Writing Guide
* The Slash-Sporking Guide
* The FAQ: For Newbies.
When you are ready to edit the wiki, make sure to read Neshomeh's excellent editing tutorial.
And finally, but very usefully,
* The List of Everything PPC
And I claim the towel!
Check the URL. The Constitution (not to mention the PPC Main Page, useless though it is) is no longer hosted on Oddlots (mostly because Oddlots no longer exists :(). I stole it and put it up on one of my sites. That means two things:
1/ In direct contradiction of the Wiki article on it (which, why do you link to the Wiki, not the Constitution itself?), the Constitution is now at least theoretically signable again.
2/ And more importantly, if it's agreed to be a good idea, we can add an appendix of Useful Links to it.
Note the 'Useful' there. I should hope it's understood that the PPC isn't a research project; it's a fun thing. You don't actually have to devote several hours to reading up on it before participating. The Original Series is something you should read (although didn't Pads say she never had?), but you've got five links there which are all about writing missions.
I think this is one of those things which has drifted in gradually, but it seems to be assumed that everyone with an interest in the PPC wants to write for it as soon as possible. That isn't the case. Some of the biggest names in PPC history never wrote a single mission (heck, as far as I recall, /none/ of the original three permission givers - Miss Cam, GreyLadyBast and Thalia - did so). We're not just a community of writers - we're a Board of people who enjoy reading a particular set of stories and sympathise with the aims behind it. Yes, many of us do write, but don't let's give the impression (which is the one I'm getting from many welcome posts) that the only reason to join the Board is to hang around a month and get permission to write.
I'm going to restate this: You don't have to read those links. They are not mandatory. Five of them are barely useful unless you plan on writing a mission. It is perfectly acceptable to join the Board, read TOS and the Constitution, and never set foot on the Wiki. A wiki is a tool for looking up information when you need it. 99% of the data on the Wiki can be obtained by reading the missions it comes from. (Yes, with the PPC Wiki there's always a little new stuff floating around - like I said, It's Fun). I'm starting to feel like the PPC treats its old missions like I do the Silmarillion - as a research tool, but not something you read much.
You're quite right - I should've mentioned that no one has to read them, I just think it's good that everyone should be given the opportunity, so we don't have lots and lost of posts from people asking where they can find things.
But no worries; I was feeling pressured and let it get the better of me. Sorry, all, if you felt attacked by this.
For the rest, though, while I see where you're coming from, there's a reason the welcome posts assume that people want to write ASAP: we actually DO get a lot of people who show up wanting to start writing right away, sometimes without having a clear idea of what we're about. There's less of the last now that we've made some changes to how we present ourselves in places like TVTropes, but even so, with the volume of new people we get every month, I think it's helpful to everyone to have something we can point to and say "this is what we are (and aren't) about. Please understand these things before you commit your time." That way we don't have to keep explaining them over and over. It saves trouble.
Also, I've noticed that a lot of people actually find the Board by way of the Wiki, not the other way around. It's sort of taken the place of Oddlots as our front yard, and as such, it does serve the purpose of defining us and pointing people in directions that will be helpful/fun for them. Not setting foot there ever means missing out on the best way we have to find the stories and other, more obscure things like the Handbook. Going there may not be mandatory, but it sure would be silly to avoid it altogether.
Of course, nothing is any substitute for actually reading the the stories and hanging out here. And you're absolutely right that no one HAS to write. If those things aren't coming across, we are definitely doing something wrong.
~Neshomeh, who would love to discuss this stuff further, but will be gone for the weekend. There's always e-mail?
While I had set up the wiki in the first place, it was to collect info that had been hard to find because of the dozens and dozens of places where something that might be handy to know had been mentioned once, and while someone knew what it was, they didn't know where it had first shown up or exactly what it did or the finer details.
From there, it kinda exploded.
I never intended the wiki to overtake the reading of actual missions, or to strip the humorous context out of anything, or be meant as a replacement for actually reading anything in the first place- using the wiki instead of going through and reading for what you want is cheating, pretty much. You're not bothering with the context it was in, and that pretty much ruins part of the point of the PPC (besides the humor); reading about something is never a good replacement for reading that something in the first place, and to be quite honest when people accept it and even encourage it, it rather pisses me off.
Also, it's rather ridiculous that we have all these mission writing guides on the wiki, because the best way to learn how to write PPC missions is to read more than a single one. Maybe even check out missions from multiple people. (This is such a radical idea, isn't it?)
The fact that we think we need several mission writing guides says something rather poorly about the quality of newbies we are getting- or rather, our opinion of them.
Mission-writing guides aren't a substitute; they're a supplement, and they serve a very valuable purpose.
1. Reading missions doesn't always let the reader know all of the work that goes on, as it were, behind the scenes. It doesn't really explain exactly what type of badfic makes a good mission, or how long something should be, or general points of etiquette (like the DBS's "you can't charge for using a kink that disturbs you" rule), or how things like co-writes are organized.
2. Mission-writing guides help to organize and articulate what you've learned. How many of us have ever been in a situation where we can look at something and say "That's right," and look at something else and say "That's wrong," without ever being able to say what really makes the difference? And reading more doesn't always fix that; it can make it easier to tell what's right from what's wrong, but it doesn't mean we learn to articulate the difference. The guides are an enormous help with that. They let us know how to reach our goals.
3. As galenfea pointed out, what if the issue didn't come up in something we read? The PPC is sort of... big. It'd be pretty hard to read the entire thing in just a month. This prevents misunderstandings wherein a part of our story contradicts something from a fandom we don't know, or a department we don't like, or an Agent we haven't heard of because their owner dropped off the board three years before we arrived.
4. So, you're a writer. You're fairly new at this, you're nervous, you're scared of doing something wrong, and you are utterly stuck at this one point. You're sure someone else has had this problem, but you haven't seen it yet. Which would you rather do: Spend three weeks frantically combing missions, trying to find one with a similar situation, or check the mission-writing guide and carry on?
5. It calms the nerves. Mission-writing can be daunting; it can be amazingly soothing to have a helpful little list of advice to check whenever that little voice at the back of your head announces "You're doing it wrong!"
Frankly, I think it's pretty unfair to assume that everyone who uses a mission-writing guide is too lazy and stupid to read missions. It's a hurtful and groundless accusation. Yes, you and the other Oldies got by without them, but why make every last PPCer re-invent the wheel?
To rebut:
1) That's what practice is for. You learn through experience, mistakes made. Just because one type of badfic works well for someone else does not mean it will work equally well for you. You write until it is as long or short as is needed, one cannot merely stick with a predefined length for a story. Cowrites happen differently for everyone.
2) Again, practice. Not everything is going to be ace for a first mission and with a mission guide, several of them, it helps lead to the expectation that it will be ace.
3)Then you read more. End of story. The month is not hard defined. It is there as a suggestion, because if you are truly active in the community, then you will be known at that point on the board, people will have developed opinions of you, and have a good idea of if you're a decent fit, whether or not you have read everything. It isn't when you have to ask for permission either, a clear defined time. I took several months before I asked for permission, myself. People counting down the exact month are fooling themselves because it is possible to wait longer if you don't feel you know everything you want to know before you dive in.
Additionally, the PPC is a thing of contradictions with a common tie- the original series.
4) You dive head long in! Try writing! Thinking! Doing that thing that is necessary for fictional writing, using your creativity to come up with new ways and ideas. If you can't find something, come up with your own solution! The execution relies on how well you pull it off, not on some random thing someone else said. If you have to rely on a writing guide continuously to pump something out because you don't want to read the stuff that the guide is based on, you're probably not as interested in being a PPC writer than you think you are.
You are making it sound as though having a writing guide at your disposal is necessary and needed and something one needs to be able to write something so simple.
5) To hell with nerves! That's something everyone goes through! Ask someone who is actually existent, don't check a writing guide, because it's possible to completely get it wrong if you're hewing completely to foolish technicalities instead of using your brain or asking people their opinions. Betas are used for a reason.
And finally, did I say you were too lazy or stupid? I am not aware I did, so don't say I did. Please do not put words in my mouth. If you think otherwise, you are being far too sensitive to simple words that have no ill intent intended.
Reread what I said:
"The fact that we think we need several mission writing guides says something rather poorly about the quality of newbies we are getting- or rather, our opinion of them."
Additionally, I remembered that disclaimer I promised to give from time onwards: These are just my opinions, they are not fact, I mean what I say, do not interpret it as sarcasm or vitriol.
1 & 2. Obviously, practice is important. But why reinvent the wheel? If there's certain basic tenants of Good Mission Writing (and I think we can agree there are), it's flat-out pointless to make everyone figure them out over eight or so missions.
3. And so we might, and many do. I didn't ask for permission until I'd been around a good three months or so, if memory serves. But just because we have read enough to get started, and to handle most missions, doesn't mean we've read enough to cover every situation. Have you actually read every last mission in every last department?
4. I'm not sure you got what I was trying to say. Allow me to try to rephrase. Of course I want to read the missions - for enjoyment, for research, for experience. But I do not want to frantically look through, say, the entire DBS to check one little detail, because we want to keep everything tied together as best we can and acknowledge the standards others have set. I value the universe that others have built here, and I want my works to merge with as much of that as possible, not just the original series.
5. What Sedri said. I'm very glad you had such confidence. Some of us don't.
6a. Okay, so you didn't outright call us lazy. But you flat-out said that it's insulting to imply someone could find a writing guide useful. If that's insulting, that means it's bad to find a writing guide useful, doesn't it? And if that's the case, then people who use them are doing something wrong, right? That's the implication here, and all of your indignation just makes it sting more.
6b. " ...you're probably not as interested in being a PPC writer than you think you are." No possible way that could be construed as hurtful, of course.
7. This is basically my entire argument for this post:
I never said they were necessary. I said they were useful.
Or Respetable. I'm neither, incidentally.
1/2: No, it is not flat out pointless. The best learned lessons are learned first hand when it is possible, and that goes for writing as well. Skipping steps does not serve you well.
3: Yes, I had read every single mission in every single department that had been readable at the time that I had asked for permission.
4: Okay.
5. I'm rather lost as to why you would lack such confidence. Your writing is good.
6a: It is rather odd then, that until rather recently, there had been no mission writing guide, nor had there been such vehemence in standardizing everyone.
6b: There is a reason I said that I did not say anything to be taken as hurtful. I am well aware that it could be taken as hurtful, which is why I said that I did not intend it as such. That doesn't mean that it automatically is not hurtful, but I would hope it makes it clear that I did not say it in malice.
Additionally, at one point, very few people who got permission made it past even one mission; fewer still past three. In a majority of the cases, I would say that it is due to an actual lack of interest, so I would not say that it is especially untruthful, my statement.
And I apologize for the missing "c"; my keyboard sticks, but I should have spotted it.
1&2: By that argument, nobody should offer teachings or advice at all.
3. Well, that's certainly admirable. Can I ask when this was?
5. Thank you for the compliment, but I'm not always convinced. And it isn't just me, either.
6a. I'm not quite sure what you're getting at here. Some of us find them useful, even if they are new; you're acting like there's something wrong with us.
6b. "I wasn't trying to be hurtful, therefore it is totally fine if people are hurt by what I say." Insofar as I can tell, this is the argument.
And that could be interest; it could be time; it could be inspiration. I, for example, have every intention of getting to more missions, but when I've had time to write I usually haven't felt capable of that kind of lighthearted yet serious writing. There are more factors than just "they didn't want to write more missions."
1/2: Writing, in and of itself, is an experience. There are many ways to get there, and it all depends on you. The same does not apply to learning your colors or how to do a math problem.
3. August to December of when I first joined.
5. If you have permission, a permission giver thought you wrote well. Therefore, if you have permission, there is at least one person here who thinks you are a good writer.
6a: The PPC has been around for quite awhile. I would like to say late 2001, or 2002. I can't quite pin it down at the moment. Up until rather recently, the only writing guides, as it were, were other people. People are, by and large, far better than a prewritten screen on a page outlining every single step for you and anyone else who might go and read it.
I likely should have elaborated on this in my first reply.
If you have to rely on a writing guide, you are doing it wrong because you are relying on something that is static. You are ignoring the community. There is a community here. Or at least, I thought there was.
If we rather foist newbies at a writing guide instead of getting to know them better through chatting or answering their questions directly we are doing it wrong, and there must be something wrong with one side of the equation; either the new people or our opinion of them.
I disagree with the idea of a writing guide for the PPC because it does several things:
It enforces a static formula, no matter how nice and open the writer tried to make it.
It eliminates what I think is an important step- I'd rather see what you want to try, personally, than what you think the PPC would like (or dislike intensely) because of what you saw in a guide.
It takes the community out of the equation. The Board, as of late, has been filled to the gills with introduction posts, people saying they're leaving for awhile (that no one especially cares about because you haven't posted all that much lately anyways and we thought you were already gone), people saying that they've come back (that no one else especially cares about because we've been so busy greeting newbies that we didn't even notice you had disappeared in the first place), or going oh noes at badfic.
We haven't had a game of Fill The Plotholes for ages, nor any actual interesting discussions about things not related to bad fanfic or the PPC since who knows when.
With a writing guide, we are streamlining the process of getting to know each other out of the way because it eliminates a large aspect of getting to know each other. A bunch of questions that might have been asked to a member who has been around longer (or just think they have an answer to the question) are now not asked. There's no need to any longer.
A writing guide streamlines the creative process. I like reading missions that are bumpy and lumpy and haven't smoothed all the internal edges out yet. They are different, the writer is doing something different, because while they might have read missions (in some number between one and a thousand), there wasn't some thing telling them the exact steps, or they had some wild and crazy idea that they decided they wanted to use.
6b: No. That is not the argument. What I'm trying to say is that I am not trying to be hurtful. It is not fine if people are hurt by what I say. But I'm not going to go out of my way to soften what I have to say just so someone's ego is not bruised or rattled a bit because I go in with the expectation that people prefer honesty to disingenuous words. Lying and telling people only what they like to hear is the worst and cruelest thing you can do in an environment which is intended to espouse the idea of creativity and quality. Or would you rather I accompany everything I say with a pat on the back?
I said interest. Not not wanting to write. Many of those people who wrote the single missions posted them immediately after they got permission, and then never returned to the board in general. You have not written anything new for quite some time, but you are still here. I have not written anything for months, yet I am still here. Vixenmage has been here for years and years, and she has permission, and is a permission giver, in fact, but has never produced a spinoff.
Producing but one (or three or two) missions right after getting permission and then disappearing soon after speaks for a lack of interest.
I don't think that they eliminate or replace the community (although they do mean the same person isn't asked the same question 80 times by 80 different newbies). I think they work in tandem with and support the community, enhance the process and make things easier without worsening the process. You, clearly, do not and will not see it that way. If you really think that the useful guides should go away, then let's put it up for a vote. I'll make sure to copy-paste them to Word for personal use.
As to the nerves issue - nerves and low confidence aren't really rational. "This person thinks you write well, therefore it's all fine" doesn't work at all; there's still that dispiriting voice saying "you're doing it wrong, you're doing it wrong, just stop". Furthermore, the same person can write great things and dreadful things - Cassandra Claire, for example. As Sedri said, you can't just magically feel fine about your writing.
I said that I can't just feel fine about my writing and that it's very likely some other people are the same way, not that pretty much everyone is that way. You probably didn't mean that, but I don't want to be the cause of another misunderstanding.
That said, I doubt July is actually suggesting that the guides be deleted, but if so, I do protest - they were quite eagerly accepted when I wrote them.
Also... does this issue have to be driven into the ground? I think it's clear that there's not going to be mutual agreement, and... well, I hate arguments, particularly when I've managed to fumble my way into starting one without even realising. It's why I'm more or less avoiding the Board right now.
I'd say July started it and I continued it, although I suppose you could argue that the other way round, as I was the first to take exception. I'm very sorry to have made you feel uncomfortable on the board.
And no, I wasn't meaning that everyone feels that way about their writing. But I'd bet a fair few of us do.
I got the impression that, if July wasn't suggesting the guides be removed, she was at least suggesting that we stop linking the newbies to them. If neither of these were the case, then I apologize for pursuing the issue at all.
I don't really care if anyone 'started' or 'continued' it, and it really doesn't matter. You, personally, did not make me feel uncomfortable - neither did anyone else. It was the situation in general.
In any case, VM is right - let's all just let it lie, mmkay?
Some people like them and use them, some people don't. What more needs to be said?
You're asking too much, July. You can't just say "to hell with nerves!" and expect everyone to dive headlong into something. You could do that - and I envy you for it. I couldn't, and it sounds like Wide Eyed Idealist has the same trouble. I know I said this in my other reply, but it's worth repeating. Yes, reading a lot is important and I'll never deny that, but I still come across situations when writing that I need to look up details on, and it's very hard to know where to look - not to mention that there are contradictions in exisiting material. It has nothing to do with not being able to think, unless you'd like to accuse me personally of that failing.
Also, if I were a newbie and someone handed me all these things, I wouldn't feel insulted by their supposed opinion - I'd be very grateful. I need those things. You can't make sweeping judgements based entirely on how you would react. And yes, of course, there will be people who come along that ARE like you and who WOULD be insulted - and that's why hS is right and we need to make it clear that newbies don't have to read every single Link to be allowed entry. They're there so that if people get confused they will know where to look for answers before posting a question on the Board.
And I'll give the same disclaimer as you - these are my opinions, based on how I reacted to what I read in your post. There's no sarcasm or vitriol; I just want to make my point of view understood.
I can't speak for everyone and I hope I'm not misinterpreting what you mean, but I personally found the Mission Writing Guide page on the wiki really useful as a quick FAQ page, especially when I was first creating my agents. I've read a lot of missions by many different people, but they've almost all been in the Tolkien fandoms (one or two in Harry Potter and Narnia) and I like to know whether I've not seen something because there's a rule (spoken or unspoken) against it, or just because no-one's done it, or because I missed the mission that featured it, whether because it's not in one of my fandoms or because I just missed it.
Maybe the 'Mission outline' section is unnecessary, but I'm not certain it's fair to imply that anyone who needs that page is just too lazy to read more than one mission before writing their own.
That's exactly what the Mission Writing Guide was meant to be for - I'm glad it was helpful. The mission outline bit really just grew out of what was already there, because I, when I first started writing missions, really needed that kind of outline just to know I wasn't doing anything 'wrong'. July, I see what you meant, but there are lots of different kinds of people with different approaches to writing, and though I'm sure most can do what you do - that is, just read a lot of missions before making something in a similar vein - I couldn't. I'm sure I'm in the minority, but I had to nag Trojie and Pads for very specific "do"s and "don't"s before I felt ready to write. I wrote the mission guide - particularly the outline - in order to help anyone else like me.
Considering that missions in LotR and elsewise have dwindled so that they are not the supermajority any longer, I would wonder where else you have been looking for other missions.
I've read all the LotR and Silmarillion missions I could find - they aren't coming in thick and fast, but there are a fair number of them still.
Hell yes. If I knew how, I'd put my name down straight away. :D
Also, word on all your points, hS.
I, too, have been less than fully present lately, and it's probably gonna be like that for a little while longer, what with things and stuff, the best of which is that I may be starting new job soon.
Anyway, point being, I agree that it would be really awesome if you did like Sedri requests and step up if you think things like the Links, or anything else you don't see happening, are important. We are a government of Random People Who Do Helpful Stuff Because They Feel Like It. I don't know if there's a fancy word for it or not, but it only works if people who feel like it do stuff, and it works best when LOTS of people do stuff, so that no one person is doing too much stuff. So... do something! {= D
~Neshomeh, who is not sure what stuff overdose causes, but would be interested to hear your theories.
Could you maybe make that text file available? I'll certainly provide the links whenever I can.
Ooh! Ooh! I want the egg! What sort of egg is it?
Thanks for the links. I've seen some of them already, but they might come in handy later.
I'm sorry, I'm terrible about greeting newbies, but I'll try to remember the Links in the future. I remember how helpful they were when I got them!
Thank you for the big greeting Sedri, I'm happy to be here. Again, I must tank you for the links, as while I had most of them already you gave me a good excuse to save them in a doc for easy reference.
Also, I claim dibs on the awesome-sounding pocketknife! I've got little to no clue what it does, but eh, whatever.