guys i can’t emphasise enough how important this is
please consider all of these factors facing fanfic writers, who are doing this for fun and no return whatsoever beyond the love of the thing. thank you.
Fixed.
Preach.
This just keeps getting more real. The truth hurts.
okay but has anyone considered
(disclaimer: I have no particular problem with any of the people in the thread above; I’m just nitpicky and easily amused.)
Okay, SO. The main problem is that Venn Diagrams are used to contrast things and to look at the relationships among a list of items.
The “writer’s problems” venn diagram above is really just a list of items, not an examination of their relationships. Wrong format.
Even the original “reader’s problem” diagram, which is looking at the relationships among items is being a bit sneaky, because while it is apparently highlighting the trade offs among three variables (plot, grammar, characterization) there is actually a stealth fourth variable (update frequency) referenced in the middle, which should actually be a fourth circle, or rather sphere, because once you go up to four variables you have to add another axis of variation and project the chart into 3 dimensions.
And there should still be a hypothetical center region that contains all four elements of the ideal fic, although possibly the joke is that it is undiscoverable with the aid of a microscope and the blessing of the fanfic gods.
But, right, that whole thing would turn out super confusing visually, so it’s probably just as well they did not start extrapolating wildly into the nth-dimension.
Okay, returning to the “writer’s problems” venn diagram(s). This is a list, so it doesn’t translate well to the medium being parodied. Extra problem: it doesn’t really work as a rebuttal of the original? This is because most of the points being addressed aren’t actually relevant to the original diagram and therefore don’t have parallels. (Whole aside here about how I find both the reader *and* writer problems diagrams funny, and in no way invalidating of each other. I AM AT THE CENTER OF THE VENN DIAGRAM OVERLAPPING THESE PROBLEM SETS, OK.)
So, yeah.
Option 1: Focus on the original post to allow a more direct satire/rebuttal. You could try to rework the first diagram by addressing each section of the original diagram point-by-point, but… eh. That only really accounts for the education/language points addressing the grammar issues, and a couple of the points addressing the update frequency issue (which is an invisible axis of variation anyway, so really hard to wedge rebuttals to onto the diagram). And there’s no really good parallels for the “plot” or “characterization” issues except maybe…. “inability to create good plot” or “readers don’t agree with my characterization”. Which. Eh. Maybe the rarepairs point? idek. I don’t think this works.
Option 2: keep the points being made, abandon the format. Make a bullet list!
Option 3: abandon the actual points being made, keep the format. For this, you need to narrow down a list of variables that interrelate and focus on the trade-offs writers face among them. Or in other words, create a project triangle (”x, y, z: pick two”)
, which is really what the first diagram is doing anyway.
In fact, let’s just make a triangle:
oooh, elegant.
or, okay, here, AN HONEST-TO-GOD VENN DIAGRAM, just for y’all:
TA DAH
(I made the invisible 4th axis ‘writing obscure topics’, my personal nemesis)
I’ll stop reblogging this when it stops being accurate and getting better.
They find a book written in Latin… one guy doesn’t take Latin and doesn’t want to mess up the pronunciation. The girl is studying Mandarin. Another guy recommends sticking it into Google Translate but that’s likely to land them with gibberish. They leave it alone.
The car won’t start. They call an Uber.
The vampire captures the girl and insists that she wears the gown to dinner. The gown is actually hella cute. Only problem is it’s not in her size. Oh, it only comes in 2’s and 4’s? Sorry, vamp, you want me in that dress you contact the goddamn company and tell them to get their shit together.
“How did you possibly know that? It saved our lives!” “I’ve got two degrees and I spend way too much time on Wikipedia.”
They encounter a spirit that gains power the more people believe in it. One girl makes a vine and uploads with, “fakest ghost ever!!! Right??” Twenty minutes later the spirit is destroyed.
The circus is in town tonight. Except she’s lived her whole life here and the circus has never come before… it’s also in a pretty sketchy part of town, not somewhere you’d want to walk alone at night. She goes to a movie instead.
“You’d need an ARMY to fight this evil!” “Okay. I’ve got 20,000 followers, lets see how many can make it.”
The Evil Whispery Voice of Doom tells the jock that it’s going to kill his pretty blonde girlfriend. The jock gets offended because, excuse me, Cindy and I are just friends. However, Marty over there is my boyfriend and I’m not saying you should kill him, just stop making assumptions yeah?
“This spirit tried to convince me it was Jerry when it texted but its texting style is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT so yeah that didn’t work.”
We could have easily gotten lost and ended up at some creepy cabin in the woods, but luckily we all had functioning GPSs. Beach party, we’ve arrived!
“We have to find a way to destroy it! We—what are you doing?” “Looking up ‘exorcising demons’ on Google. Oh look, first hit.”
The child she bares will be the devil’s spawn. Good thing she doesn’t want kids. Or if she changes her mind she can always adopt.
“How can we possibly outwit this serial killer…” “… There’s gotta be an app for that. Lemme look.”
Only the virgin will survive… Turns out they’re all virgins. One is asexual. One wants to wait until marriage. Two just haven’t found the right person yet. One is meh about sex. So we all survive, yeah?
The girl does not fall. She was on varsity track.
“Quick! We need someplace to hide the artifact. And then decoys to confuse the beast! What have we got?” “… I’ve got a hundred plastic bags stuffed into another plastic bag.” “PERFECT.”
Dean O’ Gorman and Aidan Turner ( Fili and Kili in The Hobbit trilogy ) cosplaying as Miguel and Tullio from the dreamworks animation movie : The Road to El Dorado.
After seeing this all I can say is : WHY IS THERE NOT A LIVE ACTION MOVIE OF THAT AWESOME CARTOON ?
Where has this been hiding that I’ve never seen it before?!
Those moments when you remember that any ‘opinions’ voiced in the Silmarillion are those of ‘Elvish Historians’ or at least Elvish point of view, even if prior events give no foundations for said opinions
Sounds about right. I’m a hunter-gatherer who’s not averse to scavenging. I hunt right to the back of the store-cupboard, I gather from the pantry and I scavenge in the fridge, especially when D has forgotten to use “Mine Not Yours” labels.
There's a Mirror on the Wall 