OK, Memo to Myself, in big red bold letters:
DON'T READ FICS WRITTEN BY KIDS.
And no, I'm not talking about real kids like my kids, I mean people who are old enough to put a sentence together coherently but honestly do not understand life, rites of passage, emotions, et al.
It's pretty easy to spot these people. If you're reading a funeral scene and the parents of the deceased go back to work as soon as the funeral is over? If you're reading about a couple that's been married for ten years who decide to divorce - and do so - because one of them didn't make the coffee hot enough? If there's a conversation between two people who left school five years ago, and the topic is all about how it's nice when you don't have tests and teachers but it's hard sometimes having to be responsible all day long and you might get fired? If a character is twenty years old and has to write to his big brother to ask how do you know if a girl really likes you? And how do you know if you really like her?
Stop Reading. It will not get better. The writer will not grow up between chapters 1 and 4. Just. Stop. Reading.
Life's too short to read bad fics.
ETA: No, I'm not linking. That would be like spreading an STD. No. It would be like spreading Mono. Not devastating or deadly, just saps your energy and will to live, and is highly likely to be transmitted by somebody in high school who frenches badly.
DON'T READ FICS WRITTEN BY KIDS.
And no, I'm not talking about real kids like my kids, I mean people who are old enough to put a sentence together coherently but honestly do not understand life, rites of passage, emotions, et al.
It's pretty easy to spot these people. If you're reading a funeral scene and the parents of the deceased go back to work as soon as the funeral is over? If you're reading about a couple that's been married for ten years who decide to divorce - and do so - because one of them didn't make the coffee hot enough? If there's a conversation between two people who left school five years ago, and the topic is all about how it's nice when you don't have tests and teachers but it's hard sometimes having to be responsible all day long and you might get fired? If a character is twenty years old and has to write to his big brother to ask how do you know if a girl really likes you? And how do you know if you really like her?
Stop Reading. It will not get better. The writer will not grow up between chapters 1 and 4. Just. Stop. Reading.
Life's too short to read bad fics.
ETA: No, I'm not linking. That would be like spreading an STD. No. It would be like spreading Mono. Not devastating or deadly, just saps your energy and will to live, and is highly likely to be transmitted by somebody in high school who frenches badly.