I understand where you are coming from, but sometimes it might be necessary to delete reviews. Especially when said reviewer ends up insulting the entire category, instead of just insulting the story they are reviewing on.

Like, reviewing on a story that "every story in this category is utter bull and most of the authors were drunk when they wrote this", should give the author to block this person or delete the review if it was anonymous.

I'm actually very glad I read this. Honestly, the only reason I ever want to delete my reviews is because I'm re-writing my fiction and I want my readers to have a clean review slate, but unfortunately, to do that, I would also have to remove the story, and my current project has my main reviewer as an Anon (they put a name, of course, but they don't have an account). But reading through this, I totally see your point!

I've recently stumbled upon this (by a very pleasant accident I might add), and it took me about a week or so to read it all, due to the inhuman ammount of homeworks I receive from my teachers.
I found it very interesting, since I've dealt with similar situations when reviewing a story, and not only on FictionPress or FanFiction. Writers everywhere use these excuses, much to my annoyance because they always tend to repeat themselves, and when they run out of things to say, they stick to childish insults.

Now I know I may not be the one to critique, since English is not my native language and I only started speaking fluently about a year ago, and I'm still dealing with grammar issues (therefore please excuse any mistakes), thing which also affects my writing, but I'm open to suggestions and take each review or comment on my stories as a chance to improve and to correct any mistake I might make. But some people are just not willing to accept any kind of comment that could help them improve, which bothers me because they say they are dedicated to writing, and yet make no efforts to make the readers enjoy reading.

One thing that's always puzzled me is what about when people play fictionalised versions of themselves (or other real people I guess but I can't think of any examples of that)?

I heard somewhere that FF decided against a J.O.N.A.S. section because they thought people wouldn't respect that fictionalisation and given the deluge of Jo-Bro stories that entered the Hannah Montana, Camp Rock and A Cinderella Story (why?) fandoms around that time they were probably right, but would a truly in character fic that followed its fandom's rules and nuances be OK?

And then there's more minor characters played by themselves. For instance Will Wheaton on The Big Bang Theory. In that case he's playing what largely amounts to a parody of himself.

By sock puppets, you mean she actually posted pictures of them? They're actually cute...

I think that is why the fanfic site updated it to place boxes around anything for pairings

Hm, I am not much of a writer or Bleach fan so I couldn't voice too much. I think that when it is possible that both good and bad faults should be shown in a story.

I've read up to chapter 21 of this essay of yours and, I have to say, I agree with everything you've said, especially since I've experienced similar scenarios with writers on FictionPress and FanFiction.

What I get the most from these writers responding to my critique is a politer way of saying, "Thank you, now goodbye." They disregard my advice repeatedly saying that they will "keep my advice in mind" for later. While a rare few have actually done so, the majority have simply used it as a way to brush me off until I review the next chapter.

A recent reply I received from a writer on FanFiction said that they "had" to make a character act OoC in order for the story to flow right, even though I provided a perfectly usable scenario for them that would have satisfied their personal expectations for their plot as well as cured the canon character of his OoCness.

Anyway, you make very valid points here and I find this essay to be very fascinating so far. I find essays/rants like this to be extremely enjoyable, whether I agree with the opinions presented there or not.

I will definitely be reading more of this whenever possible. It will infinitely help me to improve my own writing and critique.

Carlee Tobin

Versatility is important after all :)

You know Japanese?! :o

So do I!

But what about OC-centric for NextGen? Is there really a rule of fanfiction that says you can't add in new characters/use characters when they aren't needed? The writers should have a freedom, shouldn't they? (But it's another issue entirely when their stories turn out horrible.)

I'm still confused :S; the fact that it is so heavily influenced would kind of make it look like hackneyed or a ripoff or something, right?

My pain! You understand it!

I've seen so many of these excuses over on the sister site it isn't funny. Sure I'm a young writer, but I've grown due to the criticism and essays like yours. These excuses are just... ick.
Why or how people use them is just confusing. I say let people critique stories. It helps; it really does.

It just feels like they're spewing out big words and using flashy wording, but I do not get what they are trying to say. They remind me of Osric, in "Hamlet".