#How to Translate Feedback
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How to Translate Feedback
Beta readers are awesome because they see the work strictly from a reader’s perspective. However, this also means that their notes sometimes require a little interpreting to understand how it impacts the craft—translating, one could say.
Every interpretation of a piece is valuable, and often what your readers assume about things, what questions they have, and what they guess comes next is very telling for the messages your piece is delivering and how effective your lines are working together. Let’s get into some common comments you might receive:
“I was confused about this line…”
Even if the line is explained in the next paragraph, or even the next sentence, don’t disregard this feedback. A confusing line is going to stop up readers, interrupting their mental image of the scene and sometimes concentration on the story. Confusion around a line tends to mean there isn’t enough context to make it feel seamless, or like it fits where it is. You shouldn’t have to be playing catch up with your descriptions.
Take for example a story I wrote when I was in fourth grade (yes, literally):
Tracy took off her coat as she entered her cabin. She crept across the floor very silently. If she was too loud, she’d wake the howler monkeys and never be able to get to sleep!
Notice how there’s no context provided for why she’s trying to be quiet, so you kind of get caught up on that line. I would fix it like this:
Tracy took off her coat as she entered her cabin, eyeing the sleeping monkeys out of her window cautiously. She crept across the floor… etc.
Now we have context, it reads a lot more seamlessly.
(If they guess something is coming that isn’t)
This one hurts because I hate feeling like I’m letting down my readers, and an excited “ooh is this foreshadowing??” for something that definitely isn’t coming back up again feels like exactly that. Usually, when a reader guesses at a plot point or character detail that isn’t true or isn’t going to come back up again, it means you drew too much attention to it, making it seem more important than it is.
I tend to take out the description of the thing, or adjust it so it points less heavily towards one thing and points more towards another. While yes, readers can make incorrect guesses all the time, it’s important to pay attention to where their expectations are being raised—both in the correct places and incorrect ones. Too many disappointments, and your story may leave a sour aftertaste.
“This feels out of character/I don’t understand the motivation”
When writers get this note, they tend to want to add a paragraph explaining from the character’s POV why they’re doing what they’re doing. Unfortunately, all the explanation in the world isn’t going to fix something that feels out of character or out of the norm. This might mean that you’re trying to force a scene or plot point that doesn’t fit, or that the circumstances aren’t extreme enough to justify your character acting out of sorts.
Try ramping up the stakes or intensity if a character has to make a tough decision that might seem unlike them—usually a time limit or ticking clock helps here. If you’re only using internal motivation, try adding an external force pushing them towards action (or vice versa).
If all else fails, consider how you can progress the plot in a different way that’s more in-character.
Shoot me some more common notes you get and maybe we'll do a part 2 :-)
#creative writing#writing#writing community#writers#screenwriting#writing inspiration#filmmaking#books#film#writing advice#beta reader#fanfic writing#fic writing#free editing#receiving feedback#feedback#proofreading#How to Translate Feedback
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I dislike takes that Danse would be just as conservative in modernized aus when it's clearly shown his staunch views of things come from his time in the Brotherhood and his deep-rooted desire to belong to something with a greater purpose.
Not to mention lines that show much more open-mindedness that get overlooked for his harsher sentiments when you first meet him. Like the oppurtunity to be a part of something is why Danse fell so far into Brotherhood dogma and it doesn't negate the offense things he does but I feel like it's just lazy to be like "hmmm he'd def be racist" just so it aligns to his BoS beliefs.
#like i genuinely think he would like not fall into the military if he was in modern times because of all the other things he could do#he clearly has a passion for tech and mods and likely would find himself more useful as like a mechanic like at most hes one of those range#types or something but I feel like people equate his seriousness and him being a military man to closemindedness when its like having to ge#a new view point like we really dont know what he believed in before the BoS if he believed in anything at all outside of selling scrap to#survive before basically having an army recruiter have him join one of the scariest factions like why is the BoS so fucking violent???#like the BoS operates in such a way cause there is no civilian population like everyone is something or training to be so they arent really#fighting for anything but themselves at this point which is just a feedback loop of gaining more power and is not equatable to real#military people due to the fact most of the recruits are really born and bred to be soliders while say irl you have a family and country to#fight for and return to outside the military which is def grounding as Danse wouldn't be in the army 24/7 like in canon#idk its odd to me when a character that is has fantastic racism ergo the trope of bigotry to fake races people try to translate it to real#life especially when those races have not equivalent like tell me what is the irl equal to a fucking ghoul or super mutant like????#racism is not like a funny headcanon like making him a defrosting prude or by the book is whatever but he would not be a bigot just like a#narc or some shit hed tell on me for loitering but I know hed tear apart each voting party and likely the military for being self serving#and like knows all about it and it makes him sound like a politics nut but its more annoyance like I have such strong feelings about#characters who would be marginially better if they were not victums to the military like yes I believe we can fix Danse he just needs to#be around not war/the military for like a week and see people be happy existing like he doesnt know how to do that but this is a weird take#ive seen mostly from white fans that makes me super uncomfy like ur weird#anyway still fuck the brotherhood everyone is so rude like damn i know its the east coast but can we get a little hospitality fuck you#maccready was right brotherhood of squeal more like it dont worry porky we'll get you out (danse is porky btw)#fallout#fallout 4#fo4#paladin danse
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"Hey Michelle, what have you been up to?" ☝️
#Do not want to reveal too much of my work prior portfolio launch. But yeah here's a peek!#I designed and drew everything myself by hand#I hadn't ever created art in Adobe or made any fucking app frame before July. But look at how it pops :)#Arranging and putting together my design system (last image) for this product right now - which means the project is nearly finished#Planned a last feedback loop with the target users for this week. Then translating the research trajectory into a smooth portfolio narrativ#Then it's a wrappp
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Oh I was just haunted by jmah!Dream’s deteriorating mental state
:C my BOYYY
and it's awful, too, because it's not like Dream is in a particularly good state of mind when the prison starts in the first place. and he's in here because he's terrified (and he's in here as punishment) and he's in here because even though Sam hates him--and he's ensured that Sam hates him, and he's planning to do more to make sure of that fact as well (in canon, c!Dream is talking to c!Sam 'all about exile' in those first few days)--Sam will do his job. he trusts him to do his job. he knows Sam, the man that he's worked with for the last month on this project, on making sure this prison is as secure as it can possibly be, one of the final few people to work with him before the events of the green festival, doomsday, staged finale etc. made sure he'd stand alone, just where he was supposed to. this is a Dream that's already been swimming in the lava before Sam travels back in time.
unlike Sam's betrayal in canon, there's nothing slow about what happens in JMAH. there's no ability for him to cope and go yeah, Sam's being kind of serious, but it's no big deal, yeah, this place kind of sucks, but it's survivable, yeah, there's some mistreatment, but I expected that. in an instant, Sam goes from a predictable cog in the machine meant to keep him alive into a stranger hellbent on torturing the fuck out of him, and he has no idea why. Sam is nowhere near as straightforward as Quackity in explaining what the hell he wants out of Dream--he asks for the book, sure, but also for information, also for complete obedience, also for explanations for things he shouldn't know and punishments for things he never did. there is no promise that the revive book will end anything, for this Dream, and no one to give him anything at all but the Warden.
just ,, the lengths to which this Sam is willing to go, the intensity of his obsession, the way he'd be left reeling with no choice other than to endure and wonder why breaks my heart. Dream has no fucking clue to what end this is all for, and i think he struggles a lot with that. worse than just the torture, perhaps, is the familiarity, the sparks of something that is almost fondness, the satisfaction in Sam's voice when he's gotten something and Dream isn't even sure what he's just given away--and maybe it'd be easier to understand if what Sam wanted from him were any more straightforward, if the desire could pan out as something as simple as sadistic pleasure at hurting him or deriving some kind of gratification from making him submit or wanting power or to eliminate a threat or anything, but all that is clear is that Sam wants something from him and will stop at nothing to get it.
c!Dream and identity is already a finicky thing as well as his whole complex about himself and evil--c!Dream thinks he's a person that does evil things to achieve good ends, but he struggles pretty heavily, honestly, with himself-as-evil and being viewed as evil-and-just-evil and actually being the tyrant-villain-monster-snake-that-just-bites, etc, which means that there is a level of vulnerability here when it comes to how he sees himself and builds his identity and the constant, relentless onslaught of . pain and torture combined with Sam justifying it all by Who He Is Innately and monologuing about how he deserves it all, because c!Dream isn't a person that doesn't think that punishment as a concept is wrong and doesn't necessarily disagree that he's evil either. and again. torture self harm box of mental illness. and part of the problem with a Sam that's fresh from Daedalus and then thrust into kind of the worst possible position of reflecting on those conversations by being in a place where he's able to fall hard on old habits to copium his way out of dealing with anything he personally might have done (because obviously he can just Fix It Now) while also having the additional cope of i-am-godsent-to-make-everything-better BY keeping dream in a box, you kind of get a situation where both Dream and Sam are psychologically in pretty vulnerable places and then you're taking a torture machine hammer to those stress points. so it's fun.
i have no clue if that last paragraph made any kind of sense btw.
but ... yeah. even for any character in any kind of state the insane torture contraption of torture efficiency would be. erm. extremely damaging to one's mental health, to say the least. the only good thing for dream i guess is that sam still has his head too far up his own ass to actually git gud at conditioning anyone deliberately and is therefore still largely skating by By Accident, because otherwise his head would've been even more blendered than it already gets.
#just me and him au#my asks !!#of course his head already sucks ass so#i think re: the prison arc c!Dream had a lot of vulnerabilities that i don't think he or sam or quackity or whatever like. recognized#because in general people's perception of c!dream didn't tend to match up very well with who the guy actually was#for reasons including his own complete lack of self awareness and how deeply delusional people tended to be about him always#but that being said. like. i think it's important to remember that for all that daedalus gives us insight on what c!dream sees#as like. good and evil#he's still very sure of his being evil. and visibly struggles with that later in the finale and snake speech#being sure of his actions and the ends justifying the means by no means translates into confidence in his own identity#c!dream tends to be sure of what he has to do. who he is? not so much#(versus c!sam's DELUSIONAL ASS confidence in Who He Is and Who Dream Is and how that informs EVERYTHINGGGG)#c!dream is who he needs to be and in the right circumstances that means you can make him who you need him to be#i think that sam and dream's issues can be in certain situations much more compatible than people realize sometimes#and it's in those situations where you get the worst kind of feedback loops for both characters.for sure
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was kind of wondering if anyone wanted to beta read Strings Theory? I've pretty much wrapped it up at around 111k words and just need a foreword and an epilogue which I'm planning to do a bit later. As a refresher it's sort of like a hodge podge of retold fairytales and motifs with a hard focus on specifically bengali fairytales mostly. Lgbt cast, anti-monarchal sentiment, and interesting imagery... Message me if ur interested in helping out
#there's also reference to Russian fairytales#I grew up with a bunch of those translated into bengali so idk how recognizable the references are but like it's there#Strings Theory#I'd love to get thoughts and feedback before I send it out to literary agents#Would love some input from some lovely people
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Creator Community Good Faith Practices
Here at the Creator’s Cave, our mission is to create a ‘safe space’ for people to learn how to create new content and mods for The Sims 3, and share their knowledge of how to create new content and mods for the Sims 3.
Frequently, new custom content (CC) is generated by making edits to existing CC. As part of the above mission, we feel it is required of us to encourage ‘Good Faith’ practices, and to discourage ‘Bad Faith’ practices when utilizing content from other creators in your CC or mods.
We've made a list of ‘Good Faith’ and ‘Bad Faith’, and ‘Grey Area’ practices to serve as guidelines for both existing and aspiring creators.
We asked those in the discord to help distill and tweak it, and will continue to make alterations based on feedback from the creator community. These guidelines are primarily enforced by the community itself, and other creators may decline to provide assistance to someone who is using ‘Bad Faith’ practices.
Here’s a link to the doc for any interested: TS3 Creator Good Faith Practices
#ts3 creators cave#creator community best practices#how to get along with your fellow modders#feedback is always welcome#if anyone wants to translate this into another language please feel free#I also don't mind if people copy/paste portions of it for use in other communities
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I have to write a relatively long German paper, and man its just so difficult for me. The pro side is that I can pick any topic I want, so of course I picked Charles VI. But I've literally not written any German in months, and I'm almost 100% sure our prof doesn't actually read them. I should just write and submit boy king fic....
#i wish it was in English#bcs i would be very happy about it#but i have lost so much capacity for any German writing#bcs he sucks so much as a prof and has dropped the ball on actual language learning imo#how am i supposed to suddenly write a 7-8 pg paper after youve spent all our class time just lecturing at us#and giving us no real opportunity to really learn or test our skills#i shall.. probably just cheat.#LIKE i want to learn german so badly#but what the fuck is the point of even trying when i know im not going to get actual feedback on my writing#why should i even try at that point. put that much effort in and know that he doesnt really care at all#it just sucks so much bcs i genuinely love and am so fascinated w the topic#but the idea that id put so much work into translating it only for him not to read it really kills me#again. just submit boy king fic and see if he notices sjfkgllblb#but do you know what i mean? like im sure ill write a good version in english that i think is actual good content#but translating it is such a lost cause bcs all the effort is reallt for nothing#like atp im jusy interested in the history more than making an effort w the language#ugh i wish i wasnt this way but yknow lack of stimulation anf feedback really kills my enjoyment and interest#like see i can convince myself that thr eng version of teh paper is my typical personal research#<- i mean im making a fucking family tree for funsies so this isnt that far off#but the translation part is so difficult bcs my german has been eroding a bit SOB SOB#lol anyways i say this bcs i was plotting a boy king fic in my head as i was goong to bed#and was like oh i shoulf write it out tmr! and then remembered I HAVE AN ESSAY UGH#well yeah. suffering. we'll see how i feel abt i write the original copy and if i have the capacity to germanify it#i just feel so guilty about it. cheating. I dont want to and it feels so low effort and terrible#but why would i force myself thru all that for a guy who barely reads it#catie.rambling.txt
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The qsmp live translation chat bubbles remind me of this everytime I see them
#I mean this in a nice way btw- it's an endearing comparison#qsmp#( I still feel kinda... ehhhh kinda mixed about it- but I'm willing to give it a shot)#( since Q seems to be trying to implement it as an additional tool and not a crutch of sorts )#( at least I hope that's how the server members will end up using it yeah)#( machine translation can be a useful tool but it's no replacement for the real thing at all)#( and we do know Q listens to feedback so if it does end up being an issue I'm sure he'll hear about it and take actions accordingly)
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holy shit i just finished the first draft of my translation for my dissertation that took SO LONG but it was also SO FUN. and i know that when i have to read through, proofread and edit that beast, i am in fact going to be in tears pulling my hair out over it LMAOOOO
#i hate having to reread and edit my translations. it takes so much energy after having just SPENT so much energy asfbrngsnhte#but it is a must#i want to get a really good mark for this translation#all year i have had the SAME. FUCKING MARK. for all my italian translations. which. consistency is better than dropping marks but#i chose a literary translation bc i believe it's my strength and my GOD i need to prove that :'v#the good thing is based on my initial feedback from my supervisor she's very happy with how i'm doing#she said that my translation holds up alone tbh and that she kept forgetting to check the original text bc she couldn't stop reading asfdbg#not to brag but. aha. i'm a writer. i have a knack for this sorta thang ;)#jk#but i reckon that that deserves me a lil break from this project#and i do mean little#it's due in 23 days FUK#helia's ma adventure
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why are jobs always like “expansion of duties without increased depth or adequate compensation” . lol girl ew …. no like seriously EWWW ….
#i did the thing you’re not supposed to do (be honest when a manager asks for feedback about how they can best support you)#told them i’m stressed because i’ve suddenly become one of two (2) senior staff members and everyone else is brand new#and that none of the new people are being trained adequately and i don’t have time to train them and it’s affecting our client relationship#and the manager was like hmmm 🤔 well how about we give you privileges to shift around the day staff schedule so you can train them all?#LIKE HUH ????? HUHHHH ???#in what universe does me saying ‘i’m overworked and stressed the fuck out by (not their fault but) incompetent coworkers’ translate to#‘i want to continue doing the workload of 3 people while Also taking on the additional duty of training between 7-10 new staff’#I DO NOT HAVE THE TIME#OR ENERGY. OR WILL TO LIVE#and the sad part is i’m going to do it#because the alternative is letting our clients down#and i’m … not physically capable of Not doing everything in my power to prevent thaf. like what the fuck#pegasus speaks#i <3 using tumblr as my personal journal
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Chapters: 17/25 Fandom: The 1975 (Band) Rating: Not Rated Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: George Daniel/Matthew Healy Characters: George Daniel, Matthew Healy, Ross MacDonald, Adam Hann, Carly Holt, Jamie Oborne, Charli XCX (Musician) Additional Tags: Equestrian, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Past Drug Addiction Summary:
“Why the hell is Matthew Healy riding Carly Hann’s horse?!” George exclaimed, flinging open the door to storm into Jamie’s office, taking care to make sure the door was shut again behind him. He was surprised Jamie was even out so early, sitting in front of the computer with his reading glasses perched on the end of his nose. “He’s bad fucking news, Matthew Healy?!” George said, shaking his head as he ran his fingers through his close cropped, bleached hair.
#allylikethecat#all the king's horses#equestrian AU#atkh#happy friday!!#happy friday!#matty fic#gatty#fanfic#fanfiction#im going to be the most needy and beg for feedback for this one#because back when i first started this fic#this was one of the chapters i saw the most clearly in my head#and i was so excited that it like translated to the page pretty much almost exactly how i wanted it to#so like im really excited about this one#if you read it / liked it let me know!!#thank you so much!#for reading!#and just following along and being wonderful
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#im still thinking about the article#mostly because i cannot fathom being in a ************ let alone ******* but whatever#more thoughts are : she doesn't like the shootout rule and neither do i lmao#she says she doesn't read everything but she saw the tou.tv instagram story 'feedback' i have to believe#i also have no concept of how second languages are taught in canada#like i started spanish in high school and got stuck at the subjunctive vs the predicate#i will say my foreign language pronunciation is not bad im very good at mimicking the voices on duolingo but the grammar gets me#i will say i've also watched the knoxy and kax podcast episode and#i recommend it but like learning english at 16 via immersion is wild#as is living with people 12-4 years older than you who are your teammates. 4 yrs doesn't seems like a lot but when you're 16 it is#really what i'm saying is i'd like a memoir written in french translated to english and then she does both audiobooks#do i think it's likely ? no. but a girl can dream
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+ of organising all the writing projects in notion: I have an aesthetic todo list!
- of organising all the writing projects in notion: a have a fucking todo list and all my 12 unfinished project are staring in my soul
#ok most of those are translations#some of them are in the editing stage even#but 5 of those 12 are maxi fics in various stages of wip?#ehhhhhhh#and I want to update formatting on all the old fics because I finally googled how to css the indented 1st line of a paragraph#but I dont' want to apply it to all p tags in the workskin because it messes up fucking A/N#so I need to add new class to tags and it's annoying in case of multichapters#weeeeell to be finished in 10 years I guess?#and like logically i know i don't HAVE to finish all and every project in span of a few month hopefully I have my whole life to write fics#but then I see ppl screaming crying throwing up because the fic they're reading had no updates for 6 month and they declare the author dead#and here I am in the corner trying to complete something while the hobby focus circulated to the right spot#I know I vent too much about my fics but I moved websites and lack of feedback is driving me nuts but I'm not going back to ficbook N O P E
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the way im literally a beomkai ult and have 0 fics of my other man..
#kai oh kai#i feel like in terms of what people read on here#a long hueningkai fic (or just like 4k max) is just not in market??#like does that make sense#the effort it takes to write something meaningful with dialogue and an AU#just does not translate well through notes#like it sucks even more with kai because its this lowk realization that ITLL NEVERR translate well through notes#and you just have to suck it up as a writer and write not in the mindset of 'how many people will actually read this'#so hard to do tbh#because the biggest thing i look forward to when posting things i write is what people thought of it#and the less notes#the less likely chance therell be ANY feedback T-T#lol me ranting in tags#but dont fear ningdungies i WILL write things for kai (duh) and hopefully this blog becomes a space#where you can easily find a list of written works that center him ^^
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update on my thesis: i STILL haven't written a single word for it, i'm STILL missing 4k words
buttttttt!!!!!!
i've gone through my literature and analyzed almost all my examples and done almost all the research i still needed and taken notes sooooooo
that means all that's left to do is to turn my notes into actual proper sentences
#i'm actually still missing two scenes bc i haven't transcribed them yet#a scene from atots and a scene from double savage#i came across them only recently and so i haven't transcribed them yet#i'm gonna go change my location and then i'm gonna do the transcribing thing and check#which translation strategies are being used#(now that i've analyzed a few examples it should be a little quicker)#it's only 6pm and i'm not likely to go to sleep before 2am sooooo#let's see how many words i'll manage to write before bedtime#i might have to get up early tomorrow to finish before all hell breaks lose#worse case-scenario i'll have to do it on the weekend#not ideal bc i was gonna go home but... what can you do 🤷♀️#i wanna send it to my prof by june 15th so i can get some extra feedback before i hand it in for a grade#airenyah plappert#airenyah vs her BA thesis
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girl i'm screaming rn bc i turned in my final story last night, today i'm turning in more assignments and i notice the final story has a comment from prof like '0/200 idk wtf is goin on contact me sis, u sure this ur final draft????' and i was basically like 'i was doin house of leaves' and then she was like 'OH actually i understand perfectly, that technique is above you tho so kudos for trying'
#lmfaooooooo#that was all me giving the snarky translation of a big email exchange#but basically she said 'i get it and how to make it work for this class is change xyz imo -- u agree?' and i was cheesing at her edits like#YES I AGREE PROFESSOR ...#what a whirlwind of emotion that was ... and it wasn't about me not being able to take criticism but it's bc#exhaustion+disability flare up + deadline + me being over 5 revisions deep into a beginner creative writing class story is making me#v punchy but thank god i took a deep breath didn't cry and calmly responded to my prof's questions#cuz she has been good to me all term! i've learned a lot and every story can't be an insta-hit . we use feedback to see how other ppl#are perceiving shit#and she wasn't able to pick up what i put down until i clarified i was purposefully going against trad storytelling conventions#anyway all that to say ... i need a break for a few hours i can't look at that story again rn i'll resubmit to the lady l8r
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