Confessions of a Madcap Creator (or: Bex Don't Write No Crap, Yo!)

I do not write crap.

I just never have. I refuse. This might be a very large part of why I don't write as regularly as I used to. If something is not up to the standard that I impose upon it, I don't bother even trying to salvage it. I'll start all over again. I want every single word to have a purpose. I want every single scene to advance the story. I want every single quirk and nuance of every single character to be clearly communicated through the text. I want a whole hell of a lot, I guess - but I would not have it any other way.

It drives me mad when I see other people's writing (and I hope no one gets offended, because I'm not directly referencing anyone with this, I promise!) and I see nothing but errors. Typos, 'there' in the place of 'their', inappropriately placed apostrophes - the whole nine yards. It makes my eyeball twitch. It screams to me of amateur editing, and a lesser quality product...and I refuse to release that sort of thing. I want to be taken seriously, and if that is the sort of thing I put out, it's just not going to happen. I have to be perfect.

This is not to say that I'm immune to typos and mixing up words (or even leaving them out altogether!) - I do this all the time. However, when the text is so littered with errors that it becomes unreadable and indecipherable...that's when I largely tune out.

So...I write with purpose, I'm meticulous about editing, I do my best to clearly communicate the world living inside my head and...I'm largely ignored for all of these efforts.

(Yes, it's going to be another one of "those" posts...you're free to leave now, but not before you roll your eyes in disgust!)

I have noticed something about webfiction, from all these years I've danced around in it: it can be incredibly elitist. Friends tend to stick together. You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours. You tell me I'm awesome and I'll do the same. I've seen series with no creative merit, hideous punctuation and crimes against grammar and a fugly site design to boot get praised to the very skies, by people who really ought to know better and quite honestly? It pisses me off.

I'm petty as hell. I admit this. I should not begrudge these people who probably are trying their very best. And who knows...maybe if I could get past all of my complaints, I might find a wonderfully engaging story underneath it all. But really, for thirty different people to all go on about how wonderful something is when you can barely get past the first paragraph because the typos are so bad? Come on now. If you're gonna do a cutesy little Kiss Ass Society, can you at least be a little less blatant about it? Can you at least make the effort to make yourself sound legitimate. Because really, dude...to allege things like "you've changed the course of history with this episode/chapter/installment" when all they really accomplished was proving they did not pay attention in second grade when the teacher introduced the difference between 'there' and 'their' is just...it kills me.

It just freakin' kills me, folks.