The Official TFN Archive Thread: Jan update!

Hmmm, putting a note at the top of the story about the style of the writing does seem to be the easiest way to point out deliberate style choices in a story.

But it really should explicitly state in either the Archive 'Guidelines' or the 'Style Guide', or both, that notes to the reviewers, about the style of the story itself, are OK. When one is submitting something, especially for the first time, then you're fretting over anything in the story that might get it rejected.

In the 'Guidelines' section, there appears to be a dead link. The 'Style Guide' link in the body of the text goes to a 'Page Not Found' message. Not a big deal, since the 'Style Guide' link is there on the left.

But the 'Style Guide' in the Archives does look a bit unfinished. Is that going to be updated?

 

Apparently we don't have direct control over modifying those. You can ask the editors to complain about it if you want

Even if we did, I'm not sure it's something we want utterly advertised. I could just see all the notes now: "I know my characters are OOC. I wanted them that way, kthxbye." It's definitely something that should be used sparingly.

 

True. Putting comments at the top of a story maximizes the freedom for the writer to say things, but that could also inadvertently maximize the word count of the comments that the reviewers get.

But that brings back the advantage of having a comment input on the submission pages. The writer can point of some special characteristics of the stories, but the character count can be limited.

 

Like PA said, the editors don't currently have the ability to modify the pages ourselves. Without getting into specifics, we're pretty much at the mercy of TFN staff for certain elements of tech support.

 

First, let me admit that I really do, as an author, understand the urge to include notes explaining what you were trying to do, especially if it involves unusual stylistic choices that may "break the rules" in some way. (I frequently want to explain myself to my readers even when I haven't done anything especially strange.)

I also realize that sometimes there are important points about a story that need to be established outside the text itself.

I think, however, that it's important for the reviewers to consider the story based on what the reader is going to see if it's accepted. The reader is not, for one thing, going to see a note to the reviewers at the top of the story. The stylistic choices of the author are going to have to stand or fall based on the effect they produce.

If I'm faced with a note about, say, intentional sentence fragments, what I'm most likely to do is try to decide whether I would have been able to figure that out on my own. And I suspect (somewhat uneasily) that since I didn't have the chance to figure it out on my own, and since the author wasn't confident that I'd recognize it on my own, I might be more doubtful than otherwise.

Generally speaking, an unusual stylistic choice probably shouldn't require explanation, or at least not any more explanation than would reasonably appear in the summary. It's true that individual perceptions will sometimes differ. Some of us might miss what an author was trying to do while others might think it worked admirably.... I'm afraid this is a standard hazard. If you really think we missed it, you can resubmit without editing. You'll probably get two different reviewers, and hopefully we won't all be so dense. Similarly, if the story is accepted, it will probably have some variable effects for different readers.

But I think it really ought to be reasonably apparent that a well-executed stylistic oddity is intentional rather than a mistake, and it should produce an effect that the author could plausibly have intended. Sometimes you do get situations where you can tell something was on purpose, but it still doesn't really work. (I've written some of those myself. *wince*)

 

Agreed wholeheartedly with this. I've done reviews for a writers group at uni countless times and I've got a policy of completely ignoring any authors notes. If I can't understand the story without it, or at least appreciate it, then it probably needs a little bit more work to really get its message across. Same ought to go for fanfic. AU's need to establish their premise within the story anyway, so why the need for an extra author note to explain why Luke is a Sith, or Padme is a penguin, or whatever?

Same goes for style. A drastic departure from conventional style is obvious when intentional and obvious when not. I'm not saying that author's notes are wrong, just unneccessary.

 

Ouch. Without that, there's not much room for change. And dead links and obviously dated information always look bad.

Then I think it's even more important to have a comments or "Author's Note" in story submissions. The reviewer can easily maintain the reader's perspective by reading the story first before looking at the Note. And the Note (IF the writer includes one) may clarify some of the reviewer's impressions of the story itself. But with a comment box, the Note can still be limited in length, hopefully forcing the writer to stick to the basic points about the story.

Perhaps an Author's Note is more useful to the author than the reviewer, by allowing some space for a 'cover letter' for the story submission. But that kind of thing is still important.

 

Certainly there are things that we'd like to update in the technical arena, but the hard truth is that the Archive is far from TF.N's first priority. This doesn't mean that people shouldn't point out what needs to be fixed or make suggestions for updating, by any means. It's good to know what needs attention, and should tech support decide to pay us a visit, maybe we'll actually get a few things tweaked. But the unavoidable caveat there is that there simply are no guarantees.

Regarding author's notes: As has been mentioned, if an author really feels the need to explain something about the story, go ahead and include a note at the top of the file. However, Atty, PK and Luton_Plunder have made very good points on this subject. It's usually quite obvious when an author's departed from standard practice on purpose - think ee cummings, for example. A reader may or may not appreciate that style, but I doubt any reader ever really read those poems and believed that cummings just forgot to add punctuation and capitalization. Similarly, I'd venture to say that the vast majority of the time, reviewers realize when an author chose to deliberately disregard certain grammatical rules.

Thus, if the reviewers recognize that the style is deliberate but it just doesn't work for them, artistically speaking, then the note was unnecessary to begin with. If they honestly can't figure out whether or not it was deliberate without being told that it was, then more tweaking probably needs to be done. If you submit such a story and have it rejected, I strongly suggest asking the reviewers for feedback. They can tell you whether their reaction was the former or the latter, which will help you decide whether or not to make changes before resubmitting.


It might be worth pointing out that should the reviewers recognize a deliberate stylistic choice but still reject, the rejection note will probably still say "spelling/grammar errors". This doesn't automatically mean that the reviewers didn't understand what you did. Remember that while the reviewers write notes telling the editors what did or didn't work for them with each story, it's the editors who choose what rejection reasons go in a letter, and we're working with a standard laundry list. We do have the ability to put "other" on the list, and sometimes we do - "other: POV shifts, tense shifts", for example. But since that final decision letter is supposed to lean toward brevity and professionalism, we're a lot more likely to choose the "spelling/grammar errors" option than to write in, "other: reviewers felt grammatical style choices did not adequately achieve artistic goal". "Grammar" in the reviewer notes, for whatever reason, will generally translate into "grammar" on the letter, too. Again, if you wonder whether or not the reviewers understood what you were getting at, ask them. Most of the time we'll be happy to answer.

Edit: Spelling.

 

I do hope you have list somewhere of things in the Archives that need to be fixed, at least a mental one, for whenever the techs smile in the Archives' direction. Dead links and old info tends to accumulate like dust bunnies and pretty soon, before you know it, you've got allergies.

The Archive reviewers have generally been very generous with their time when I ask for clarification on a rejection. And I always ask. But I was surprised when one reviewer told me that maybe one in twenty writers asked for feedback for a rejection.

But again, if that is OK then the Archive guidelines should explicitly say that this is permissible. How does an author, especially a young one, know that putting a note or a cover letter at the beginning of the story is OK? That it won't lead to an automatic rejection for wasting the reviewer's time?

Aaaaaaaaaaah, but how does the author know what the reviewer realizes?

While the note may be unnecessary for the reviewer, it may still be necessary for the writer.

And that's OK????? Sending a message, in which the stated reasons for that rejection aren't true? And the author is left to e-mail to find out what the real reason is?

It really is the Archives' responsibility to be accurate about why they are rejecting a story. Otherwise, the editorial process, the standards for acceptance/rejection, really do look murky and random. Suddenly, the one in twenty requests for feedback on rejections is not surprising at all.

 

Actually, most of the time, if you submit to a professional publishing house, they reject without much of a reason at all. Some guidance, even if it is off-track because of the way the Archive rejection letter is set up, at least gives the author somewhere to start asking questions. Moreover, at least the editors and reviewers will often take the time (unpaid, and often unthanked) to answer questions that authors have when they do ask. Try asking Harcourt Brace Jovanovich or Random House or Bantam to tell you why a story was rejected. If the author's query letter is even read beyond intern/lackey level it would be a miracle.

 

Yes, thank you, we do. The editors have a thread running on our private board listing things that we'd like to bring to tech's attention, and we're taking note of everything anyone suggests. Again, I can only tell you that we, the editors, do not have the capacity to change many things on the Archive, and TF.N isn't exactly falling over themselves to update the Archive.

That's an accurate proportion. We wish more authors would talk to us, about rejections and other matters. That's a large part of the reason we started this thread.

That's where the "contact reviewers" and "contact editors" link comes in. If someone has a question, ask us. We'll tell you. Even if we were to add such a note in the guidelines, we'd never manage to address every concern. If you have a question and don't see an answer, ask us. We can't help people who don't let us know that help is needed.

They ask. Alternatively, they take their chances. Every author does the same with everything they write. I had a story rejected once in part because, imo, the reviewers didn't quite "get" what I was going for. On the other hand, my readers on the boards loved that particular story. Those are the breaks.

And I did in fact have to ask the reviewers after it was rejected to realize what they did and didn't think worked with that story.

Then put it in the file. As has been mentioned, that's perfectly acceptable.

We're not lying to the authors, Anne. If the grammatical style isn't working, technically or artistically, then yes, it falls under the general heading of "grammar errors". To reuse my earlier example, ee cummings wrote poetry with a very deliberate style, but that style contains standard errors. Either the errors work for the reader, or they don't. If an author sends in a story that contains deliberate grammatical errors and the reviewers say, "Hey, this grammar contains errors - I think the author did it on purpose, but it's really not working", how is untrue for an editor to say, "grammar errors" in the final letter?

I wasn't revealing some deep dark secret failing of the editors there; I was just trying to explain to authors how the process works and how to best interpret the generic rejection letter. My hope is that this understanding will help them to realize that a rejection letter from the Archive isn't the death knell to all hopes for a particular fic, but will rather be less intimidated about coming to us for further information, and about resubmitting fics in general.

 

I do hope you have list somewhere of things in the Archives that need to be fixed, at least a mental one, for whenever the techs smile in the Archives' direction. Dead links and old info tends to accumulate like dust bunnies and pretty soon, before you know it, you've got allergies.

There are a few things we'd like to change, mostly making the UFAQ the OFAQ. But, as far as I know, we don't have any dead links. Whatever problems you're having with the site don't seem to be universal or even wide spread. I think that if they were, we would easily get tech on it.

But again, if that is OK then the Archive guidelines should explicitly say that this is permissible. How does an author, especially a young one, know that putting a note or a cover letter at the beginning of the story is OK? That it won't lead to an automatic rejection for wasting the reviewer's time?

It doesn't explicitly say it is impermissible. The authors can do whatever they want outside of the actual content of the story. We've had submissions go so far as to put their fic text in another color. It didn't affect the decision one way or the other. The reviewers are entitled, however, to use whatever information in notes at their own discretion. Such, if an other gives a reason for OOC in the notes, but the reviewer finds that the OOC isn't supported in the fic actual, it can be rejected just as easily as if it had no note with it.

And that's OK????? Sending a message, in which the stated reasons for that rejection aren't true? And the author is left to e-mail to find out what the real reason is?

While I get what you're saying, I don't think you understand that Gabri was referring to the specific situation of bending grammar. When a stylistic choice fails to have the intended effect, it sort of ... breaks down to the lowest common denominator, if you will. When a fic that is purposely badly written fails in its purpose, it just becomes a badly written fic.

 

But again, if that is OK then the Archive guidelines should explicitly say that this is permissible. How does an author, especially a young one, know that putting a note or a cover letter at the beginning of the story is OK? That it won't lead to an automatic rejection for wasting the reviewer's time?

But we can't change the guidelines, due to no tech support. That's one reason we had to put this thread up.

(Actually, this "no tech support" has galled me for a while. We used to have Mr. P., but how many years has it actually been since we got any tech support from TFN?? Can we stage some kind of virtual demonstration over here?)

But since that final decision letter is supposed to lean toward brevity and professionalism, we're a lot more likely to choose the "spelling/grammar errors" option than to write in, "other: reviewers felt grammatical style choices did not adequately achieve artistic goal". "Grammar" in the reviewer notes, for whatever reason, will generally translate into "grammar" on the letter, too.

There's a reason we're trying for brevity as well as professionalism: time. While I haven't served as an editor, I can only imagine the sheer time it must take to do all the things the editors have to do. While I'd love to be an editor, I turned down an editorial position precisely because I *know* I don't have enough time. In addition to all the stuff these folks do for the Archive, they have real lives, too, don't forget.

It seems to me that we have to draw the line somewhere. Say they start taking the time to compose and write in lines like "other: reviewers felt grammatical style choices did not adequately achieve artistic goal." So, then there are those who aren't happy with that much detail. What then? What I'm saying is, the editors just don't have time to write everybody up a page or more of critique. We're trying to give ppl a reasonable idea why they got rejected while also trying to keep the workload reasonable. There ARE fics where detailed reasons for rejection could go on for a page or two. Not many, but we do see 'em.

I'm very sorry to say that I only WISH that such a letter as ours really were "unprofessional." The standard professional rejection in the real world of publishing is a form postcard or email with no reasons listed at all. And I have heard horror stories of editors blasting off at authors in a most unprofessional manner. Such would get us fired off the staff here.

At least here, you can ask us, and most of us WILL answer. And if a polite dialogue is established, we will answer all the questions and give you all the help you want. What I'm trying to say here is that the system you are calling unprofessional is actually treating you much, much, much, much better than any magazine or book publisher, or even an agent, will ever treat you in the real world, as far as feedback.

If you get from a professional editor or publishing house the kind of feedback you get here, especially from a pro who rejected you, it truly is reason to thank God fasting, and you know that person likes your work so much that you are an atom away from being published. Seriously. And this kind of response in the real world of publishing is as rare as hen's teeth, to use a tired metaphor.

 

Writing and art are generally murky and random, which just does not help with any evaluation process.

If the stated reason for a rejection are "grammar and spelling" or some other laundry-list reason, but the real reason is a stylistic one, then that rejection is inaccurate. The good intentions of the editor are completely invisible to the person receiving that e-mail. And an author, seeing the story rejected for some low-level, laundry-list reason when the story was obviously written with a particular style in mind, may ask about it. Or the author may think that it's not worth bothering since the rejection was so wildly off the mark.

That's just bad communication all around. And bad communication--regardless of what anyone intends--actively discourages future participation.


DEAD LINKS (does Tech Support come running for these?)

Archive Front Door / Left side of page, near the bottom / the words "Contact Us" are linked
http://fanfic.theforce.net/

I honestly don't know why "Contact Us" is linked at all; it must be a mistake, but you can click on it and it takes you to:

http://www.theforce.net/main/contact.shtml

"The page cannot be found

The page you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable."


Archives Guidelines Page / Right side, middle of page, in paragraph beginning with "Stories may be submitted as Word documents. . . ." / the words "Style Guide" are linked
http://fanfic.theforce.net/authors/subguide.asp

Clicking on "Style Guide" takes you to:

http://fanfic.theforce.net/style.asp

"The page cannot be found

The page you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable."

 

If the stated reason for a rejection are "grammar and spelling" or some other laundry-list reason, but the real reason is a stylistic one, then that rejection is inaccurate. The good intentions of the editor are completely invisible to the person receiving that e-mail. And an author, seeing the story rejected for some low-level, laundry-list reason when the story was obviously written with a particular style in mind, may ask about it. Or the author may think that it's not worth bothering since the rejection was so wildly off the mark.

That's just bad communication all around. And bad communication--regardless of what anyone intends--actively discourages future participation.

Anne, I suspect that we're going to remain in disagreement on this issue. I can only reiterate what Atty said: "When a stylistic choice fails to have the intended effect, it sort of ... breaks down to the lowest common denominator, if you will. When a fic that is purposely badly written fails in its purpose, it just becomes a badly written fic." The rejection letter uses the lowest common denominator reasons. More detailed reasons can be gained by asking reviewers and editors. And as others have said, the Archive actually far surpasses professional publishing houses in our responses to and communication with authors.

As far as bad communication, we're doing our best there, too. We're all available to contact via e-mail or PM, and we'll nearly always respond. This thread is the latest manifestation of our efforts, and I think it's been useful. We're very open to discussion, suggestions, and yes, criticism, but while we may make changes on that basis, it's not guaranteed. While we honestly do our absolute best to meet the needs of authors, I'd venture to say the only guarantee in the whole business is that we will never manage to please everyone all of the time.

Re: Technical issues - I clicked on every single link you mentioned. I had no problems at all. I truly don't know why you're getting the results you are or how to get around them, but I have yet to hear anyone else with the same complaints. It really sounds like it's something with your computer, not the Archive.

 

It's impossible to come up with a scenario that covers every single possible reason a story might be rejected. Often it's a combination of things; sometimes it's murkier and harder to identify just what it is about the story that doesn't really tick. But I think you're being overly harsh on the staff at the Archives. I don't know how much more they could try to make themselves accessible and helpful to authors. All the editors and reviewers have little bios and a way for them to be contacted. They have articles to help explain the process of submitting to the Archives and all sorts of tips to help writers, and now they have a thread here in Resource for questions. If, with all this, an author still doesn't have the gumption to realize that s/he can ask questions about his/her story, then said author would probably never ask questions about why his/her story was rejected under any circumstances. It's the author's responsibility to find out how s/he can improve the story. It's not the Archive's responsibility to mollycoddle authors and hold their hands when a story is rejected. Perhaps you can argue that their method of writing a form letter with a laundry list of rejection reasons is bad communication, but to be honest, having been a reviewer in the past, I can tell you that sometimes it is next to impossible to put a finger on why a story just doesn't gel, and a reviewer's workload is high enough without burdening them with the necessity of writing doctoral dissertations about what don't like about a rejected story.

Most of the time when a story is rejected, it's a pretty straight forward reason--something concrete like bad spelling or punctuation. Sometimes, though, it's more subtle--an author who constantly uses bad cliches or mixed metaphors that end up becoming distracting and painful to read; passages of bad characterization interspersed with good characterization. However, more often than not with the examples you brought up of murky rejection reasons, when a story is rejected for a reason tangential to the real reason(s) it's usually because the story is so badly written that the reviewer has a hard time teasing out the most relevant reasons for the rejection, and just tries to make the best choice out of the listed examples. Again, it's NOT the Archive's responsibility to hold the author's hand in this whole thing, although Archive reviewers and editors have been known to give extensive help to authors in revising their stories. But an author who goes off in a huff because s/he finds out the rejection reason given isn't EXACTLY what the reviewer thinks is wrong with the story is missing the boat and has more problems than just a rejection letter from the Archives.

 

Yes, I think the disagreement remains. I suppose I'll just summarize by saying that additional options for submission and rejection of stories could really clarify communication between writers/reviewers/editors.

I appreciate the work that goes into the Archives and this thread is a very good move toward improving communication.

Ugh, on the links. They really did look different from the other problem I've had with links in the Archives. Another trip to Comms for me.....

 

On broken links:

http://www.theforce.net/main/contact.shtml

and

http://fanfic.theforce.net/style.asp

do give me precisely the errors ardavenport is reporting. The first gives me the error message enclosed in regular TheForce.net formatting, with a mailto: link to a TFN email for error-reporting. The second gives me the error unadorned.

I've run into a fair number of errors that look like the first error page while just roaming the regular areas of the TFN site, though, so I don't know that they're really likely to come running.

 

It's not the Archive's responsibility to mollycoddle authors and hold their hands when a story is rejected.

I suppose it would be, and could be, if it were always a slow place. In a perfect world, I'm sure we'd all like to run it this way if we could.

There have been times on here where, I swear, we were BURIED. This is the reason why we can't write you a personalized essay. Or rather, we can't write *everybody* a personalized essay as a matter of course. Most of us will go back and do so if asked. I just completed two betas on 200+ page stories with *exhaustive* notes on reasons for rejection. Each one took me two weeks!

This is why we try to do a polite laundry list, and sort of hope people will ask. Can I do this for every story I review?? OMG, no.

 

Whenever I've asked about a story's rejection, I've always gotten a complete, polite, and timely response. And I've been surprised at the number of times a reviewer has offered to specifically help me get the story archived with pertinent advice. I think it's better to put the onus on the author to ASK, rather than on the reviewers to write out a complete, detailed analysis of why. Because really, some authors don't really care about WHY. Me? I want to know why. Sometimes, it's something that can be corrected and sometimes it's just the nature of the story to remain the way it is. In that case, the author must decided to either A) remain true to the story or B) change whatever necessary in order to get it archived.

I'd prefer staying true to the story and have made that choice every time. But the reviewers have always been incredibly helpful.

 

Hmmmmmmmmm, if at all possible, perhaps a link to this thread should be included in the Archives FAQ?

I am optimistically assuming that the Archives will get tech support some day.

And an author's note, of a limited number of characters set by the Archives, is neither an essay nor is it hand-holding the authors. Nor have I ever suggested that the reviewer don't work really hard. I know they do. They have been very helpful on my submissions.

Again, I am optimistically assuming that tech support will happen someday. Obviously all kinds of things can't happen until then.

I am even more of the opinion that the submission and rejection processes at the Archives are so brief and rigid that they invite miscommunication. Experienced writers know to ask. Less experienced ones don't.

Edit: for comments.

 

I sent the broken links to the tech guy to see if he'll be able to work on them. If anyone sees any more let me know.

As far as author notes, they can always put ahead of the story as has been suggested. It's not against the rules, but I would rather not encourage it. We want the reviewing process to be as unbiased as possible, so to insert author notes seems a bit counter to that end.

Regarding whether authors ask for more info or not, that will always be up to the author to do. Everyone is told in school and beyond in the workforce to ask questions when they don't understand or need help. We are trying to help alleviate any questions with this thread.

 

I have to agree on that point. Specifically saying in the guidelines that it's OK to put author comments in with the story really would invite essays. I don't plan on doing it. I prefer that the story file contain only the story. But not having some space for a comment to the editors and/or reviewers feels sterile. Perhaps that is a reflex from my print-fanzine days, when all of my submissions were sent (snail-mail) with a letter.

But without tech support for now, there's no way to introduce any change in the submission process anyway.

But for rejections.....if the stated reason in the e-mail is not the real reason for the rejection, then that just isn't good. It would be better to add a some really generic, "The story style is not suitable for the Archives," messages to the standard laundry list to cover those cases.

 

As I and others have explained, the reasons stated in the final letter are accurate. If grammatical errors were a reason a reviewer stated when rejection, then "grammar errors" is what's going to show up on the letter - because deliberate or not, errors are still errors. (And I might add that if there was any confusion as to whether or not it was a deliberate choice from the author, saying "the story style is not suitable for the Archives" would only mislead an author who'd simply made technical errors. Since we can't read the authors' minds, sticking to brief, laundry list facts on the rejection letter is by far the safest course.) The only question here is in what sub-aspect of craftsmanship the error was a failing: technical or artistic. Regardless, the editors are only re-stating what the reviewers have already said. If an author wishes further explanation, ask.


I respect your opinion here, Anne, but I do wish you'd drop the "untruthful" aspect, because that's not what we're doing at all. And I'm really getting the feeling that right now, we're doing little more than going around in circles. Perhaps we could move on to another topic of discussion, at least for a while.

 

Well, first I need to deliberately and explicitly drop the "untrue" aspect. I don't think there is any deliberate intention to deceive. But a story that has a intentionally non-standard grammar (and the reviewer can see this) and a story that just has mistakes in it are not the same. And it's counterproductive to tack on the same reason for rejection on them just because the laundry list isn't long enough.

The rejection e-mail invites the author to contact the reviewers right away, which is very helpful, but I think it's really important to be more accurate in the first place. And no, I don't think we're going to agree on that topic.


New topic:
When sending a request for beta readers to the Archives beta readers mailing list, how long should one wait for a reply before sending another request, or trying something else?