YABookgate

[Waifuchu]

"Everything you've written here is good!" is the most worthless feedback there is.

 

[Commander X]

It's weird to me when I see what passes for YA fiction these days, especially for girls. Back when I was in school I'd see girls reading copies of books from series published back in the 1980s and 1990s, checking them out from the public and school libraries, and so in the vein of series like The Babysitter's Club and the Sweet Valley High franchise, or series about identical twin sisters who solve mysteries in between living their awkward teen year lives, or the soap-operatic struggles of being a college freshman at a very dramatic university, or being part of the crew at a high school radio show or being cheerleaders and oh my god a male member of the cheer squad has gotten a fancy sports car and he's getting arrogant about it, or one girl's being accused of stealing test answers or something. Or novels from teen romance imprints of publishers like Harlequin or Scholastic. When did it all get to be about dystopias and smut.

 

[Mola Ram]

When did it all get to be about dystopias and smut.

When the biggest audience for YA became wine moms and troons.

 

[Wodanaz]

"Everything you've written here is good!" is the most worthless feedback there is.

he did nothing wrong

people in the server were actually saying the story was all good. nobody criticized it.

 

[Commissar Fuklaw]

I'm a naturally arrogant man who will only accept feedback and criticism from those whose opinions I trust. Strangers on the internet, especially those who give out platitudes and are afraid to hurt feelings in a hugbox are not those people. I want real feedback that I can use to make my work better. I'm my harshest critic so when I ask, you need to get the big guns out because I'll already have a feeling about what I need to fix. That's how when it's all done, I can hand it out with pride and justify my arrogance at knowing what I've written is pretty good and everyone should praise me as a literary genius. Half joking but anyone who says they're not after praise and recognition - even from just friends and family - are lying.

 

[Wodanaz]

I should have mentioned this earlier but the most egregious things he did (aside from skipping the fantasy sun's second rise) was using five semicolons in the first paragraph, randomly using semicolons when commas would suffice, spent 5 sentences describing the wounds from a fantasy bolt gun without anyone actually being shot by it in the current chapter or the next one, and formed a caravan of people mounted on horses which encountered a group of five farmers who "walked to join the caravan", and then skipped to the destination of the ship, 2 hours later, without mentioning how the people on foot kept up with the horses.

 

[Gnillik Yot]

When did it all get to be about dystopias and smut.

This is just not true. Read the previous page for a more in depth explanation, but there is next to zero smut in YA today. The smut is in New Adult. YA is squeaky clean, full of awkward kisses and blushing and that's mostly it. A fade to black sex scene at the most, but even these are rare. Fourth Wing is not YA, it's Adult. ACOTAR stopped being YA after one book, and the book that was YA was clean. All those gross things you see going viral on TikTok about having sex with a werewolf are not YA. They revolve around adults in their twenties and are not even marked YA in bookstores. (Contrary to the meme, adult women who only read YA often are retreating from the sexual nature of NA Romantasy, and tend to police YA of sexual content, making something as sexual as Breaking Dawn problematic today.)

Everything you mentioned girls reading in the 80s (twin sisters solving mysteries, first crushes at high school, etc) can still be found in plenty in any Barnes & Nobles store in the YA aisles. If you want recommendations in this vein I can give you them.

As far as dystopias go, the heyday of dystopian YA was 2011. These days it's mostly fantasy or modern settings. These things go in cycles, and I'm sure there will be a return eventually.

 

[Flexo]

(Contrary to the meme, adult women who only read YA often are retreating from the sexual nature of NA Romantasy, and tend to police YA of sexual content, making something as sexual as Breaking Dawn problematic today.)

I remember a sketch about that.

Some people honestly don't want the horny. Or at least - not all the time in all things.

As far as dystopias go, the heyday of dystopian YA was 2011. These days it's mostly fantasy or modern settings. These things go in cycles, and I'm sure there will be a return eventually.

Maybe soon we'll get dystopia fantasies!

 

[Kari Kamiya]

making something as sexual as Breaking Dawn problematic today

Which is bizarre since every single of the (stated) sexually active adults are married.

 

[TapewormSalesman]

If we changed as a culture to be less sex obsessed you'd see the opposite where the self-insert main character saves herself and the main plot is about who mister right really is. Then they get married and then you have the sex scenes in the later half of the book.

I am sorry for replying again after a week but it just dawned upon me that you literally described Twilight there lmao

 

[Krokodil Overdose]

"Everything you've written here is good!" is the most worthless feedback there is.

Not necessarily. Coming from Abrose Bierce it means you're either amazing or completely shit the bed

 

[Wodanaz]

I am sorry for replying again after a week but it just dawned upon me that you literally described Twilight there lmao

Twilight isn't really about who mister right really is, the love triangle shit is contrived because Meyer is a Mormon and a hack. There is never a moment where Bella questions whether or not she loves Edward, she just also (gets sexually assaulted) into admitting she "loves" Jacob too (not enough to give up Edward though, so who cares). If it was written today, dents would be calling it so heckin validating for their polycules.

 

[Cryptojew]

Then I realized that this is probably a big part of the reason for the absolute state of publishing now. Soy reddit-type culture lends itself naturally to the lowest common denominator, and artificially rewards participation over merit. I know this isn't some staggering and insightful revelation or anything, but I was personally shocked at how quickly this aspiring author shut down at the first sign of any serious pushback to his masterful creation. God help him if a real editor ever tells him to tighten up his fucking story, and stop exposition dumping instead of having his characters actually do things in the plot to justify the reader's time.

I think it can go both ways. Some people, like the guy you encountered, really can't deal with any feedback that isn't blind dicksucking. That type of person will never change regardless of how many people tell them they need improvement. But I've also read a few stories by authors who are brand new to writing and have never recieved crit before, and I don't always think it's productive to tell them everything wrong with their story right at the start of things. Everybody begins at zero, and going too hard on somebody's first work can be discouraging to the point where they drop writing as a hobby altogether instead of trying to improve. When dealing with somebody like that I usually ignore their story entirely and focus on smaller things like sentence structure. "Oh this reads a bit awkward, here's how I'd phrase it", that kind of thing. Critique of plot can wait until you've built a rapport with them.

On the other end of things, while recieving toothless reddit-tier "critique" can be infuriating when you're asking for real feedback, a lot of the "serious critics" I've met online are turbospergs in their own right. For example, the story I've been working on the longest is a fantasy adventure/dramedy set in a goofy, Discworld-esque setting, aimed towards kids ages 12-18. Despite specifically labling it as such when asking for feedback, I still occasionally get "brutally honest critics" complaining that the childrens book they just read was "not serious/adult enough" and suggesting that I should rewrite it to be more like either GRRM or Sanderson. I don't know where these people come from, I've run into at least three of them and it's never not a giant waste of my time.

 

[Accept Only Substitutes]

the childrens book they just read was "not serious/adult enough" and suggesting that I should rewrite it to be more like either GRRM or Sanderson

Tell them to read Sanderson's Alcatraz versus the Evil Librarians and get back to you on "not serious enough." That is a very silly, very much for children, series.

 

[World Famous Quasi Payer]

Gen Con Fires Its Entire Staff Of Woke Sci-Fi And Fantasy Writers From Its Writers' Symposium​

Gen Con might be making moves to get away from woke activism, possibly from complaints of science fiction and fantasy fans who want the Writers' Symposium to be about writing.​

Gen Con has been known for its woke activism over the last decade, miring the convention in identity politics when it used to be known as the greatest table gaming convention in existence. Nothing has been worse in this regard than the Gen Con Writers’ Symposium. This writing track was supposed to highlight great writers in science fiction and fantasy but instead devolved into SFWA’s political arm. After several years of failure, Gencon fired every staff member from the symposium to get a clean slate for the following year.

The Gen Con Writers’ Symposium is a veritable who’s who of SFWA clout chasers, mostly comprised of failed authors who use identity politics to get small publishing deals but rarely sell.

Here, one would see the likes of Cat Rambo, former SFWA president, and Monica Valenteinelli, a woman who publicly attacked OdysseyCon and bowed out because she didn’t want to be associated with a “known sexual harasser” which she accused a man of with no evidence. Patrick S. Tomlinson, a failed author and mentally ill Tweeter who infamously sued an online forum because they made fun of him, is also a guest year after year.

Looking at the lineup, woke activism and clout within SFWA are the only qualifiers for being featured guests and getting speaking slots at the convention. This year, Gencon decided to take action as the Writers’ Symposium devolved into worse divisive politics than ever, perhaps a move to get the symposium on a better track for the future.



Emily Bell (E.D.E. Bell) was the one who leaked the news on her Facebook, saying, “The GCWS committee was informed tonight at the very end of the meeting with Gen Con, with no reason given, that while our show went "really well" - no people on the 2024 committee will be invited back next year. I will be requesting a meeting with Mr. Adkison. At a minimum, I would like a reason given for our dismissal, because without a reason I will only have my own documentation to show, regarding how Gen Con addressed issues of both race and disability.”



Admittedly, Bell says she tried to make “race and disability” a more important issue than writing and science fiction and fantasy. She continued on her blog, “Many people were upset that I spoke publicly and also used the terms ‘race’ and ‘disability’. I spoke publicly, because I’d stayed silent all year, and this was the result. Based on that treatment, I had no confidence anything I said internally would make its way to Mr. Adkison. I used the terms not as a threat, but to convey why this is serious and why I want to talk to him personally.”

One can see the entitlement, as her activism in leftist political virtue signaling is supposed to give her a shield in her mind to maintain her authority positions in places like the Gen Con Writers’ Symposium in perpetuity. With “many people upset” because she tried to make it completely political and not about writing, as the headline stated, it makes sense that she would be removed if this is, in fact, the reason.

This wasn’t the only shocking political activism to happen at Gen Con. Cat Rambo, another serial member of the symposium speaking lineup, was accused of ranting about Jews in New York Publishing by a whistleblower at the convention. While she had the Gen Con Writing Symposium BlueSky account used as a bully pulpit to deny the allegations, many people came forward, recalling she did just as Fandom Pulse reported through the whistleblower.

The Symposium official account on BlueSky and Facebook appear to be controlled by E.D.E. Bell, too, as it’s currently reposting the complaints by Emily Bell to try to rile up the leftist mob to flood the Gen Con organizers with harassment over the firings. Many of the posts from the BlueSky account feature Bell, her badge photos, and so it appears as if she attempted to co-opt the Gen Con Writers’ Symposium as her own personal promotional arm.



Gen Con has a big mess because these people care far more about these clout positions than they do anything else, because it’s the only thing they have. These are failed authors who can’t do anything to get attention for their books, and so they make noise through leftist politics to get them into industry positions where they sound far more important than they are.

It remains to be seen whether Gen Con is starting from scratch because it wants to bolster attendance after a failure or whether the politically charged statements by Emily Bell and Cat Rambo upset far too many attendees and they want to move away from this kind of activism. Regardless, without the influence of the SFWA elites, the Gen Con Writers’ Symposium can only be better.

What do you think of the Gen Con Writers Symposium firing their entire SFWA elite staff? Will they be replaced with better science fiction and fantasy authors? Leave a comment and let us know.

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Comments:

Man of the Atom: So SFWA is working hard to cripple GenCon, which is a wholly-owned arm of Hasbeen/WotC? Now that is a pleasant popcorn-worthy diversion. Two parasite organizations, draining the blood out of one another is a positive thing.

Snowyteller:
Whoever loses, we win? At this point, can they even claw back relevance?

It's certainly been interesting how things shake out with people being more open of their hatred and disgust of the woke. Of course though hate be the sword, and disgust the shield what really has been murderering the woke this year is how freely people are not consuming product, and plainly stating that the product sucks.

Gonna be a lotta bats claiming they were never in favour of the woke.

Forgiveness is for the repentant.

The rest go in the book of grudges.

---

Anything that'll rile up the piggish fucking queer is good in my book.

 

[Flexo]

Critique of plot can wait until you've built a rapport with them.

Interesting perspective. I say critique plot and stuff first. Sentences and all can be refined later (and not every sentence will survive a rewrite) but if the author doesn't have the core to build off of, all the proper language in the world won't help them.

 

[Wodanaz]

I think it can go both ways.

I agree. I would post the logs in full along with the google drive link to the story but I don't want to dox myself. Next time I'll use a throwaway.

 

[Flexo]

Well this is... worth a read.

https://www.thecoddlingmovie.com/p/why-do-you-only-write-about-gay-men

Thoughts began to infect my creative brain; “I must be writing a female character to express my underrepresented female experience. I must represent the life of a young female. This is the story of a female being angry, a female being in love.” Writer’s block.

No longer could my characters just be characters, they instead became Female Characters, Female Protagonists, Female Villains. That’s how The Female Character was born. She’s supposed to “represent women as whole and complete people,” but the reality is that this framework makes her only defining attribute being a woman.

 

[Commissar Fuklaw]

Lotta wrongthink in that piece and comments.

 

[frippery]

Interesting perspective. I say critique plot and stuff first. Sentences and all can be refined later (and not every sentence will survive a rewrite) but if the author doesn't have the core to build off of, all the proper language in the world won't help them.

As a former slush pile reader, I strongly disagree. The amount of poorly written good ideas far, far, far outweighed the well written boring stories. I can really only think of a handful of the latter while the former could wallpaper all the offices in New York City many times over.