Board Thread:Administration/@comment-4832646-20140401205802/@comment-4849011-20140426025923

Xelrog T. Apocalypse wrote: Raidra wrote: IloveValtor4ever wrote: I can follow the guidelines, but the way people talk about how people write is abrasive, everyone has their own unique writing style. You have a point. People should know that this is about establishing a baseline quality of writing for the site (meaning the stories aren't so badly written and riddled with mistakes that people can't understand them) and not about forcing everyone to write in a certain style. On one hand, someone shouldn't submit a mistake-laden, poorly written, barely comprehensible story and make an excuse that it's their style. On the other hand, a well-written story shouldn't be condemned and deleted just because it's written in an unconventional style. While both of these statements are true, it's a negligible point given that a scant 1% of pastas written oddly enough to start any controversy are legitimately misunderstood. The other 99%, most will find, tend to fall back on being "unconventional" as a scapegoat when someone points out how bad they are.

Example: "I typed it really quick and carelessly because that's how a scared person would type." How many of those have we seen?

Not to say misunderstanding a well-written but unorthodox story wouldn't be a problem were it to arise. It just doesn't really arise, so it's a moot point here.

I'd say you're right. I know there are a lot of people - in various fields, not just this site - who blame everyone but themselves when their work is criticized in any way. I'm glad that you saw my point as well.

I also agree that claiming, "Oh, that's how a scared person would write it!" is a poor excuse for writing a sloppy pasta because just look at the works of Edgar Allan Poe, which are classics of the horror genre. Another example (and I've seen this on this site) is the pasta consisting of one very lengthy run-on sentence with no capitals or punctuation (except for the one period at the end).

Incidentally, I just found out that Noothgrush beat me to making the point about unique style versus bad writing, and that post was better than mine. Dang.