Ethics and the Internet

Several studies have come out lately analyzing and examining the effect the Internet is having on our ethics, morality, and willingness to voice opinions. The case is being made that the Internet allows us to say things that we wouldn't normally say in public.

Today I experienced just that -- a random writer, whose work I'd never reviewed , set me a rather snarky PM chastising me (chastising is a soft word -- she reamed me out) for leaving what I thought was a friendly reminder review on someone's fic saying "I'm sorry to be the one to have to tell you this, but this shouldn't be on this site; it's listed in the rules as something you're not supposed to post here and I'm reminding you because I want to be nice instead of just reporting you." (I'm not the only one who noted this, either.)

This writer (who did not review the story in question herself) messaged me saying I was an "uptight asshole" for giving this review, no one gives a shit and I should "shut the hell up about it" because "a third of the fics on ff.net are chat-style stories anyway" and "some of them are really good."

(I have yet to read a chat style story that was any good, but I digress.)

I was going to PM the writer and say that I was sorry she thought that way but I thought I was doing something nice by reminding the author instead of just reporting her (as someone had already done on another story, leaving the review "Terribly OOC and against the rules. Reported for using a text format.") At least I gave the first writer the benefit of explaining which rule she was breaking. And I used a complete sentence to do it, too. Interestingly enough, the second author had disabled private messaging.

So I did the next best thing possible.

I wrote a really nice, really constructive-criticism filled review to her story. Her only story. The one where she nicely asked for constructive criticism and said she'd ignore flames. You tell me if this sounds like an uptight asshole. Because if it does, I have a problem; I've been reviewing like this for YEARS.

I don't know that I've ever read anything where a little voice inside someone's head has a name. I like the concept. I also like the little voice, who has a bit of a down-home personality I feel I could get along very well with. I hope you keep her in the story. I also like that you didn't directly come out and say who the immortal parent of your original character is -- that's a great first step towards not writing a Mary-Sue. Using all your clues (like the hissing hair and actually threatening her hairdo to behave) was a great way to introduce that in a way that shows rather than tells.

I'm not sure how much I like using the underlining as a way to denote when Queen is talking; for me it's a little distracting, but maybe that's just me. Apart from that, there's only a few punctuation errors (omitted commas in some places) and a randomly capitalized word (Jacket, in the last paragraph) keeping this from being a really solid beginning to what I hope will be a great story. My only other comment (and you can take this any way you like) is that I prefer my beginnings to be a little longer to give the reader just a little bit more of an idea where the story might be headed.

For a first try, this is very good, and I really am looking forward to see where you take this. (This is also my attempt at trying to prove that I am not, as you termed it, uptight.) Wherever you do take this, I'm sure it will be a good place. Best of luck, and keep up the high quality!