81 replies to this topic

[MagusKyros]

There are a lot of good writers out there, but most need a better and COMPLETE outline of their story, and they also need to drop their character bashing. Sasuke, Sakura, and Kakashi are always the blunt end of all bashing, normally just the former two, but a good story goes sour once bashing takes place, and it's just immature.

Harem stories are also getting down right ridiculous; there are too many out there.

Nowadays, I personally prefer stories without any sort of romance in it at all. This way you don't have a split fanbase, and everybody can enjoy a story.

[jim1982]

There are a lot of good writers out there, but most need a better and COMPLETE outline of their story, and they also need to drop their character bashing. Sasuke, Sakura, and Kakashi are always the blunt end of all bashing, normally just the former two, but a good story goes sour once bashing takes place, and it's just immature.

Harem stories are also getting down right ridiculous; there are too many out there.

Nowadays, I personally prefer stories without any sort of romance in it at all. This way you don't have a split fan base, and everybody can enjoy a story.

I think it would also help if we as readers on FF.net maybe try to help as beta's. might help writers plot out their stories out better.

Bashers just do it cause it seems that some readers out there seem to love it. Though a mild WTF comment from one character to another ain't as bad as full blown character hate.

Harems travel one way or another, either absolutely absurd or comedic genius(which is far and few in between) though I don't mind if Naruto dates around some before cementing his bond with Sakura(as in simple dinner dates and such, no full blown citrus fruiting around lol)

[ciardha]

Anyways, I'm gonna keep reading, and of course, writing as well. XD

Me, too. I've seen a few recently that look promising.

As for my writing May-September is anime convention time, I cosplay so a lot of my free time is taken up making new costumes, preparing and going to conventions. Plus for some reason when the weather gets hot here I just don't get in the writing mood as much. Once con season winds down and the weather gets cooler my creative desires shift from costuming to writing. That being said, I do have a Shukuya chapter around three quarters finished.

[Nick Soapdish]

Summaries are often disappointingly vague and I think that they are a good sign of a bad fic so if a person doesn't write a summary, it's one of the methods that I use to weed out the fics that I try.

It doesn't mean that the writer is a bad writer. Summaries can be pretty hard to write. It's having to compress the entire idea for the story into a couple sentences. I just figure that the odds are better that the writer is a good writer if they have an interesting summary.


I don't know that I'd agree with the OP's premise, but I do have two bits of evidence in favor of it. The NaruSaku fic list (and the recommendations list) are both moving pretty slowly in recent weeks (months even). And my Favorites isn't moving all that fast either.

But the first can be explained simply by us readers being lazier about recommending fics to others. I often only check out fics that get recommended because there are just so many NaruSaku fics out there now and I don't have the time to sift through them. And well, there are a lot of completed fics on my list already. So there aren't a whole lot that can still get finished.

[Illjwamh]

Nowadays, I personally prefer stories without any sort of romance in it at all. This way you don't have a split fanbase, and everybody can enjoy a story.

I heard that.



FF.net doesn't allow for long enough summaries. I rewrote the summary for Koorikage the other day and found it to be exceptionally difficult.

[Onionhead Attacks]

FF.net doesn't allow for long enough summaries. I rewrote the summary for Koorikage the other day and found it to be exceptionally difficult.

Yeah, the summaries on ff.net are way too short. I think back then when ff.net was in its first few years summaries were longer. I remember some were a paragraph in length. Either that or my memory is starting to fail me XD

[Deej]

Nowadays, I personally prefer stories without any sort of romance in it at all. This way you don't have a split fanbase, and everybody can enjoy a story.

I've actually found better romance in gen fics than in many romance fics. Sometimes pairing stories try too hard and are heavy handed with the romance. Gen fics usually concentrate on the development of the relationships without worrying about a pairing.

[ebonydreads]

I've actually found better romance in gen fics than in many romance fics. Sometimes pairing stories try too hard and are heavy handed with the romance. Gen fics usually concentrate on the development of the relationships without worrying about a pairing.

I have to agree with you. Many romance fics focus too much on the romance and forget about the other facets of the developing/established relationship.

And, yes, NaruSaku fanfiction has been lagging quite a bit lately. Have no fear though, because there are very good writers out there that do put effort and thought into their stories. Heck, even the authors writing below-average NaruSaku fanfiction at the moment could wake up and work to improve their stories. I think the key element needed to help people improve their writing is a good and very thorough betareader.

[thatreevesgirl]

Some of us tend to sit on our stories too. I made a vow not to post another unfinished Naruto fic (which I have failed at since making that promise to myself). I have an unfinished fic that I've been tossing back and forth with my beta Aubreywitch, and I forgot about it completely until I read this thread...maybe I should go work on it now.

I also know that some people completely overlook authors who write both het and yaoi (I don't care if it isn't your cup of tea, but realize that just because an author likes both doesn't mean they don't write good het).

A lot of the good authors have moved on to new fandoms also. I know that Naruto fandom wank makes me go vacation in other fandoms for a month or two sometimes. Honestly, the NaruSaku and SasuSaku rivalry drives me batty. Though the SasuSaku fantwits are a hundred times worse than the fantwits who like NaruSaku (yes kids, there are fantwits who love NaruSaku, the OP started this thread to rant about them).

[NutMan]

I don't think good fics are dying. It's just that you have more of the less-than-spectacular fics than good ones written by people like thatreevesgirl. Just like anything else in life the crap will outnumber the quality stuff.

[Cloud]

I don't think good fics are dying. It's just that you have more of the less-than-spectacular fics than good ones written by people like thatreevesgirl. Just like anything else in life the crap will outnumber the quality stuff.

I can't really describe it as less-than-spectacular.

Most of the stories on fanfiction.net are written by dyslexic fanboy/fangirls who have no sense of grammar. I usually have to sift through 10 pages of utter kitten/crap in order to find great stories that make sense.

[psycho666]

I don't think it's just NaruSaku, I mean I am completely reliant upon my email now to send me updates of fics I'm already reading, which is about once every few months. I haven't found a new one since...I don't even remember. I'm sure there are good fics out there somewhere, but it seems the more I search the worse the quality these days. I miss the old times.

Edited by psycho666, 20 October 2008 - 03:37 AM.

[thatreevesgirl]

*pats psycho66 on the back* It's okay, I know how you feel. I honestly don't even know any other NaruSaku authors other than Aubreywitch. I love the pairing to death, but I have such a hard time finding stuff that I just stick to other authors in the fandom that write other pairings. I have a master list of authors that I keep an eye on.

One trick that helps me find new stories is check out your favorite NaruSaku author's favorite story list on ff.net. I know that I raided Aubreywitch's favorites and found a lot of stories that I had never seen before. Give that a try. A good author rarely faves a bad story.

Edited by thatreevesgirl, 20 October 2008 - 04:04 AM.

[Destiny]

I really think it's because a younger crowd got into Naruto because of Toonami and hence the fics that have poor grammar, spelling, plot and character development. There are good ones still out there, you just have to weed 'em out!

[Cloud]

I really think it's because a younger crowd got into Naruto because of Toonami and hence the fics that have poor grammar, spelling, plot and character development. There are good ones still out there, you just have to weed 'em out!

I seem to recall a time where NS fics were ALL quality and damn good reads. That was pre-Toonami era. Now the dub version comes out, we have crap all over the place.

I wish fanfiction.net could have some quality control people deleting idiotic stories.

[Gena kumo]

I seem to recall a time where NS fics were ALL quality and damn good reads. That was pre-Toonami era. Now the dub version comes out, we have crap all over the place.

I wish fanfiction.net could have some quality control people deleting idiotic stories.

That wouldn't be a bad idea, honestly.
(I think that they attempted to do that w/ the new "beta-reader-feature"...which I should be doing for someone right now...)

I just wish people would bother to use SPELL-CHECK for cryin' out loud.
(And that includes proper CAPS and GRAMMAR, for the people who haven’t gotten through GRADE SCHOOL yet. =_=;;;)

We're not in the Microsoft Word-less late eighties anymore, people.

Or do people just write STRAIGHT onto the fanfic document page? O_o I just don't know...

[NutMan]

I think a better idea would be allowing users to rate stories in their reviews. Then you can filter out the crap when you're looking for fics to read.

[harry4e]

I'm not sure if the good NaruSaku fanfics are slowly dying, I personally think there are still some great ones out there, but I do think the number of crappy fics have increased drastically, and i've only been reading NaruSaku for a couple of months and have seen an increase.

To be honest I've usually found the best place to find fanfic for specific pairing is in dedicated sites, like for example, i'm a big fan of Harry/Ginny pairing from Harry Potter books, and have found the best stories are at the fanfic site www.siye.co.uk, same with Buffy TVS, best Buffy/Spike fanfics are on dedicated fanfic sites as they have a screening proces, some like siye require you have a beta reader.

So I think you'd need a dedicated site to post your work and there you can have policies in place that would filter out all the crappy songfics and childish 200 word update fics.

[tcross]

Not to be insulting the decent writers ( i am one myself), but wouldn't mentorship be a good idea? Also wouldn't it be a good idea to inspire the kids to be better writers by giving them pointers and teaching them?

[Nate River]

Not to be insulting the decent writers ( i am one myself), but wouldn't mentorship be a good idea? Also wouldn't it be a good idea to inspire the kids to be better writers by giving them pointers and teaching them?

It would and that's part of the idea behind the review system (and beta system). The idea isn't like a true mentor, but to allow for improvement. There are two primary problems.

(1) Most reviewers write to work reviews saying "great job." For a writer this isn't helpful because it doesn't say why. I understand that this is a partial function of time restraints, but 90% or more of reviews I see do this. It's just doesn't help because it offers nothing specific.

(2) Partially, I think, because so many reviews are like the ones I just described and partially because most authors are young teens with fragile ego's, most criticism, not matter how legitimate or constructive, is treated as a flame. I had a review ignored by one author who claimed because it was long it must be a flame. Such behavior is irritating and discourages me from reviewing. Nothing quite gets on me nerves like an obvious lack of effort to improve.

I seem to recall a time where NS fics were ALL quality and damn good reads. That was pre-Toonami era. Now the dub version comes out, we have crap all over the place.

I wish fanfiction.net could have some quality control people deleting idiotic stories.

There has never been such a time. I got into Naruto just before H&E came around. NS fics were rather rare and, in my opinion, functioned like most rare crack pairings do now. That is, the fics tended to hit both extremes (really good or really bad (and there were some bad ones floating around at that time) without a lot in between. This was the time you'd be thankful no matter how sorry the writing.

Quality control....a good idea, but a herculean task. The Naruto section alone has 160,000 fics. FF.net itself is meant for all writers the good and bad. The bad could never improve if they never posted. It's too bad most members tend to reinforce rather than help correct the problem and too may authors have no interest in the quality of their writing (so long as the pairing the want is making out who cares how the got there) or refuse to think it's anything but gold. That aside, they should be able to at least abide by the terms of service agreement, but an alarming number don't. If the piss you off report them. I can't promise anything will happen, but that method is far easier on ff.net mods than reading 160,000 Naruto fics (let alone she rest of the site) to see if they suck. Oh, and having done quality control for this site in the part there are problems with differentiating between the fics that just aren't very good that should go ahead and be posted and the truly bad that shouldn't be. It's hard to weed out personal taste when doing that.